Zombie Rush

by Joseph Hansen

  Surprised, she marveled about how differently this change was compared to how Norman turned. Again, it was her who pulled the trigger of the Rhino, angling the barrel toward the floor for the .40-caliber hollow point’s exit.

  They left the room and checked the others that opened into the lobby and found three more living and no one bitten. One was a PA and the other two were just citizens who had brought their loved ones in only to find that the hospital had become the entrance to hell and their loved one was part of the problem.

  The lobby had two smaller doorless hallways to each side of the desk that led back into the main part of the building. There were signs reading x-ray, radiology, lab, and various other outpatient services. An occasional zombie made it around the corner and headed for the group, but they were quickly dispatched. Those strangers she had called upon for help had succumbed to a transition. While facing the dead eyes of their friends and neighbors, wives, and even children, they chose to survive.

  Lisa posted a guard at each entrance and set the two groups in front of each hall with the intent of sweeping and securing the main level before moving to the next floors. Technically, this floor should be the worst, especially since their noise pulled zombies in from all over, but they couldn’t afford to take any chances. A glance in the stairway showed a pile of writhing zombie bodies that had fallen down the stairs in their haste. The SCA role players stepped in and dispatched them with spears and halberds.

  Loud vibrations suddenly filled the lobby and multiple beams of bright lights filled the helipad out the backside of the hospital through the doors that they now stood in front of. This was the emergency area and needed to be secured for the trauma that was already happening. She knew that zombies rarely arrived in helicopters and it was too soon for marauders to have that kind of organization so she simply held her hand up to have the group hold and wait.

  Soldiers entered the main entrance, quickly putting their firearms in a safe ready position once they saw that it was the living in the lobby with a uniformed police officer. The soldiers lined up on either side of the doorway, still scanning the room and any possible entrance. Lisa noticed that these were not fresh recruits. Most had blood stains splattered across their uniforms, especially their boots, and their faces were coated with a layer of grime as if they had just come out of the bush. All in all, they looked pretty much the same as Lisa did. An older man entered and walked right up to the group of civilians.

  “Are you Lieutenant Reynolds?” he asked. Lisa nodded, still in more than a little shock. “I am Major Lindy with the National Guard; we heard your broadcast and are here to help.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Major; I find it hard to believe that you were assigned here,” she said, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth but feeling the need to say it.

  “To be honest ma’am, this thing came on so fast that any and all maneuvers were just an exercise in futility, or as some would call it, a clusterfuck. After losing half of our guys, we finally got the word from brass to assist any and all civilians until safe zones could be established. We heard you on the radio and I’m sorry to say that you, Lieutenant Reynolds, are that safe zone, and we’re here to assist.”

  “Perfect, I could use the help. How many are you?”

  “Thirty for now. More will be showing up now that you have been located,” the major said, his face without emotion, but she could see behind the mask that there was much more to be said.

  “Why don’t you have your people team up with mine and clear this hospital? We need it safe and secure.”

  “I agree that is a priority, Lieutenant. I will put Sergeant Olson in charge. I think that you and I should have some dialogue,” he said and immediately signaled to his people, who instantly took over the situation and started directing soldiers and civilians alike. He then calmly directed Lisa out of the building with a gentle but firm hand on her elbow.

  “What’s wrong, Major? Have I broken some protocol or something?”

  “Quite the contrary, Lieutenant Reynolds; in fact, as far as we can see, you’re the only ones who have had the presence of mind to band together. I have a feeling that many more will be trying to join your band here, and with them will come all sorts of unsavory types… not to mention zombies. What is your munitions situation?”

  “We have salvaged all that we could from a couple stores in town, the police department, and we can hit the sporting goods store but that is about it. Hopefully you can help us out with that.”

  “Negative, we are a guard unit and only have access to a small amount. We have had some contact with regular army that were deployed to Minnesota yesterday; others have been positioned around strategic locations, and still others have yet to be accounted for, or are overseas. I have no doubt that we will locate armaments, but it will be up to us to survive until that happens. I saw some tables being set up over here; let’s take a few minutes and discuss some things so you know what is going to be required of you.”

  “Required of me?” she said, wondering who he thought he was but he kept a firm lip until they reached one of the tables that he had mentioned.

  She gave a nod to Buck and Skit who were in the process of setting up screened-in porches and tents that must have come from the sporting goods store. She saw Benson coming out of that same store carrying boxes of rounds, and she waved him over when she caught his eye. Her jaw dropped open in shock when she saw who was behind him and her eyes instantly sought out Ernie. Ernie had said that Tommy had been killed on the bridge and that made her think that maybe she wasn’t getting the whole story from the little weasel. She spotted him, but he seemed to be making every effort possible to avoid her eyes, while at the same time also not looking at Tommy or Benson. She would let it go for now, but she would get to the bottom of things.

  “Wait here for just one moment please, Major. I want to grab something out of my truck,” she said when she saw her pick up that Buck had driven down to get the people on the beach. She noticed that there was a lot of blood spayed across the bed and spent brass on the inside of the box, along with scattered with 12-gauge casings on top of more blood. She glanced at Benson, who was approaching, and he shook his head while shrugging.

  “Justin, a guy named Michael, and I had a tough time of things coming off of the beach. Michael didn’t make it but he put up a helluva fight.”

  “I would like to hear about it when we have time,” Lisa said, wondering why she was so curious about another death when she had seen a lot of them today; one more shouldn’t make a difference. Maybe it was the way Benson said it, the concern or respect in his eye, the deep cast of regret upon his lips. Or it could be that it happened in her beloved truck; she didn’t know. Either way, she would make sure to ask him about it later.

  Benson nodded. “You will.” Just the manner of how he said that seemed to carry a burdensome weight. What this man had gone through in the past few hours, some of that time right by Lisa’s side. She had killed his wife after finding her infected and rescued his daughter as well as him. They were to be doing this as equals but he knew that was a lie. Things might be for the better this way but he had his doubts.

  He eyed the major suspiciously and though he had never been in the National Guard, he noticed some discrepancies that didn’t seem to be proper protocol. He had the major insignia and combat boots, but he also still wore captain’s bars and the soles of his boots looked as if they belong upon a ship’s deck. Air National Guard might explain it, but he was missing certain things to signify that status. If it wasn’t for the additional soldiers and the helicopters, he would have mentioned it but for now, he would simply wait and watch.

  “So ya called in the cavalry, huh?” Benson said as he nodded at the major.

  “Nope, we had just cleared the main lobby and they showed up. They heard me on the radio. He is going to fill me in on some things, and I want you here; our agreement is binding, you know,” she said as she reached behind her seat for her laptop.

 
“Agreement? I guess I don’t remember our agreement.”

  “We said that we would let the situation determine who was in charge; there are going to be a lot of situations coming up, Art,” Lisa said in a tone that implied she wasn’t going to let him out of the deal.

  Arthur Benson surveyed the entire camp and could not even begin to understand how she had put this all together in the five hours that they were separated and he was awed. He shook his head back and forth.

  “No way, dude, a deal is a deal. There is no way in hell I am letting you out of it now. Come on, I’ll bring you up to speed when we talk to the major.”

  The major proved himself to be old school when he pulled out the patio chair for her to sit and Benson smiled. He didn’t even think of the courtesy yet to the major it was second nature. Was that due to the major being more of a gentleman or simply not working with females as equals on a regular basis? It could also be part of a charm that was meant to… what?

  Lisa opened the case from her car, pulled out a laptop, and powered it up. Two men with Skit and Buck moved and lifted a floorless screen porch over them and around the table before they started staking it down. “Hey Buck, is there a generator or something so we can get some power out here?” she asked as she saw the major also opening up his laptop. She did introductions and then waited for the major to speak. He smiled genuinely before he started.

  “I have to say, Lieutenant Reynolds, what you have done here in such a short time is beyond believability; it looks like you have been setting up for days.”

  “Yeah, I agree. It is pretty amazing… but I didn’t do it. I met a group of men in the basement of the police department looking for weapons. We hit it off so I told them what Skitter, Buck, and I were planning on doing and when I got here this was already in full swing.

  “I literally got here less than an hour ago and talked to an old man before I started clearing the hospital.”

  “You lead from the front; I like that. The best always do. Who were the men that you met?”

  “Hey Brett! Brett!” she shouted and then waved for him to come over, which he did at a jog.

  “That’s Brett Haley. His dad is the founder of Haley Construction,” Buck said from behind them as he messed with a small generator.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “His dad has built federal buildings all over the world.” Buck tried to keep his voice down but the major, who was trying to listen, heard.

  “It is a pleasure meeting you, Mister Haley,” the major said.

  “I wish I could say the same, Major, simply because if you’re here, then it probably sucks to be here.”

  “Very well said; would you mind laying out your setup here so we can work with you on this? You have done an incredible job so far and we would hate to screw it up.”

  “I think you mean my father. I’ll try to explain all that he has planned but there are some things that I don’t quite get yet.”

  “Well, did you want to bring him over here?” Lisa asked.

  “No, no he is at a point where he really shouldn’t be distracted. You see he has been suffering from dementia related to Alzheimer’s for the last couple of years and is really only going to be good if we let him stay focused. You get him on a puzzle of any sort and he is on it and finishes in record time. Take that away and he stares at the wall, barely remembering his name.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” they all uttered in their own way.

  “It sucks but it’s a part of life. He is going to tire very soon though, and we’ll need a place for him to lie down.”

  “We’ll figure that out,” Lisa said as she motioned toward a chair for him to sit. “Well, either way, the amount that you have accomplished in such a short time is astounding.”

  “When I told Dad what was happening he asked what we should do. I told him what you said and he was instantly on the phone, calling in favors from people, who, in turn, got a hold of people they knew. I myself was only able to talk to three of over forty people that I called. Two of those three are here and the others probably never will be.”

  “Can you explain these three corridors?” the major asked as he pointed at lanes that had been created with semi-trailers.

  “There are five of them, and as far as I can tell, they are draw points where we will gather the zombies, kill as many as we can, and slowly collapse them until we need to distract them to another draw point with loud music, lights, and gunfire.”

  “It’s going to be hard to hear gunfire over all of the other fighting though, won’t it?” Benson stated.

  “Once we’re closed up, you see, that will be a critical issue… no noise. In order to control them we are going to have to stay silent so we can move them where we want. You can’t stand on top of the trailers without collapsing them anyway so we have stationed telescoping forklifts with man-buckets and man-lifts at strategic points where some snipers can protect our drivers, but otherwise there will not be any shooting other than to draw the Zs, not today if we can help it.”

  “Makes sense, if we can control them by showing them food, we should be able to pretty much keep them where we want them,” the major said, satisfied with what he was hearing.

  “You said drivers. Why are there going to be drivers down in the zombie horde, Brett?” Lisa asked suspiciously. “Did Larry find you?”

  “He didn’t have to, we heard it on the radio, and some of us showed up in front-end loaders, Skiddy tractors and we have acquired more.”

  “Skiddy, tractor… loaders? I don’t get it,” the major said quizzically, not having heard the battle play by play after her interview.

  “I saw Larry in his little Bobcat skid loader clear out over two hundred zombies on the way up from the radio station,” Lisa said. “It seems that they are perfect Z killing machines. They can spin like a top and have a sharp edge bucket that weighs a couple hundred pounds. It really was amazing.”

  “So where are the zombies now? I saw them coming in droves from the beach, I don’t know if we can stand against so many,” Benson said, having only gotten a brief explanation from the old man.

  “We blocked the roads between the buildings with abandoned cars, dumpsters, and basically anything that was big and heavy. We couldn’t get to all of the streets but it should be enough to only allow a trickle through for now. The larger masses are being led away with loud music and vans filled with shooters. So far, the only things they have had issues with have been the runners. Sadly, we’ve lost a couple but some others have been helping out by running interference. A couple snipers would be a good addition to the plan out in the city, but we’ll take what we can get on such short notice. We have been communicating with some farmers on CB radios and cell phones who are on their way into town. They will make a mess of some of the horde once they are led out into the open. Most of their equipment is too big to risk bringing right into downtown.”

  “Why are they coming here? I mean I think it would be safer out on their farms,” Lisa said, truly surprised by this revelation.

  “Yeah, so did they; that is, until they heard your broadcast. Now they want to be a part of what works; seems nobody here wants to be the last men on earth. So tell me, Major, when do the troops arrive?” Brett asked, straight to the point.

  “Well, that is why I asked Lieutenant Reynolds to sit with me. We have done a fly-by on several bases and the prognosis isn’t good. Little Rock Air Base was in an uproar even though most of their planes were gone. This is expected since they are troop transport and the deployment up north yesterday. Basically, in a nutshell, all that we have found is a mess. The only place within a couple hundred miles that is showing any continuity at all is right here.”

  “Here, you mean us?” Benson stated the obvious.

  “Yes, you have a functioning hospital, food, and an organization that might actually have a chance at surviving this mess but you are going to need a lot more room than just the Sam’s Club.”

  “Sorry, but it’s all that we could come
up with on short notice,” Lisa said with more than a little sarcasm, not really knowing what the major expected of them.

  “As National Guardsmen, it’s up to us to rescue civilians, Lieutenant. If I am going to rescue people, I need to have a place to bring them and this is the only place available for right now.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Major. This is all that we have managed to set up and we aren’t even sure we can weather the next twenty-four hours.”

  “It is the next twelve hours that I am worried about; if you can survive those, you will be in good standing,” the major said confidently.

  “I can see that you are working your way to a point, Major.” It was Brett who spoke. He was used to dealing with customers and could see the underlying stress on this man’s brow. “Why don’t you get right to the point and tell us what you are expecting us to do.”

  “I have no expectations from you, Brett. You are civilians and have the right to do whatever you want to do. But if you want to save as many people as you can and have the best chance of long term survival, then you’re going to have to secure this entire city—not just the Sam’s Club. You have a couple thousand people in here working like gangbusters and operating efficiently… why?”

  “What do you mean why? We want to survive is why. Nobody wants to be eaten by their neighbor or cousin, that’s why.”

  “You missed my point; I should have said how. How did all these people come together so quickly? They came together for only one reason, Brett; a leader stepped forward with the inkling of a plan. Lieutenant Lisa Reynolds. Her straight to the point, no bullshit, don’t-fuck-with-me attitude has inspired people to come together and fight. You have laid claim on everything in the city that can be utilized as now belonging to your cause and people are buying into it. That broadcast went out on the web, AM, FM, Facebook, and Twitter—people are flocking to your banner. You are the figurehead in which they have chosen to follow because you told them to.” The major finished and looked back at three confused faces.