by Sam Sisavath
“I wouldn’t say that,” Keo said.
“Why not?”
“We’re still alive. Most of the town isn’t.”
She nodded. Jake put his arm around her and pulled her against him. She leaned her head against his shoulder and stared off at nothing in particular.
“Fort Damper is our best shot to find out what’s happening out there,” Norris said. “If the United States government has gone dark, the base will know what happened, and more importantly, what to do next.”
“You think Damper’s a good idea, too?” Jake asked Keo.
He shrugged. “I can’t say. But I’m not sure staying here is a good idea, either. If we have to go somewhere, I guess a military base is as good a place as any.”
“Well, we’re going wherever you guys are,” Rachel said. “I’m definitely not staying here with Christine.”
Christine gave Keo and Norris a hearty salute.
“What about you guys?” Norris asked the three newcomers.
They exchanged a brief look before Jake said, “Sounds like a plan, I guess.” He nodded at Norris’s shotgun. “You got any more of those weapons? We only managed to grab Henry’s shotgun before we left the farm.”
“There’s one more in the back,” Norris said. “Though I don’t know how useful it’ll be, to be honest with you. I shot two of those things with this shotgun at point-blank range this morning and they just kept coming. And Rachel ran one over last night with her car when we were entering town.”
“It didn’t stay down,” Rachel said. “It got back up and chased us.” She shivered a bit. “I ran it over twice. Once with the front tire, then again with the back. But it just got up like nothing happened.”
“It looks like sunlight’s our only weapon against these things,” Norris said. “We need to take advantage of that.” He glanced at his watch. “Sunset is at five, so that gives us seven hours of sunlight to get to Fort Damper. That’s plenty of time.”
“How far is it from here?” Rachel asked.
“About 150 miles. It’s three hours on the road if we haul ass, slightly longer if we take it slow and easy. The worst thing you can do during times of crisis is rush on the highways. The resulting accidents usually kill more people than the thing they’re running from.”
“Didn’t you get into a car accident last night?” Keo asked.
“Don’t rub it in.”
Keo chuckled, then nodded at Aaron. “What about him?”
“Aaron,” Norris said. “You have a say in this, too. You coming with us?”
“I guess,” Aaron said. He didn’t take his eyes from the streets outside. “Can’t stay here. Everyone’s dead. Everyone’s dead…”
They were all looking at Aaron, perhaps thinking the same thing that Keo was (The kid’s not going to last), when something squawked in the background and they all heard a voice.
“Can anyone hear me out there? If you can hear me, please respond.”
The voice was female, and it was coming from the Motorola radio Keo had brought out from the armory with Norris.
“Is anyone monitoring this channel? Hello?”
Keo snatched up the radio and pressed the transmit lever. “We can hear you. Over.”
“Oh, thank God,” the woman said. “I thought we were alone out here. Who am I speaking to?”
“My name’s Keo. What’s yours?”
“Gillian. My name’s Gillian. Where are you, Keo?”
“Since we’re talking on a two-way, I’m guessing I’m close by,” Keo said. “I’m in Bentley, Louisiana.”
“Bentley! I’m in Bentley, too.”
“Where are you, exactly?”
“We’re at the hospital,” Gillian said. “We could really use some help over here, Keo. I have a dozen people with me, including one in a wheelchair.”
Keo looked over at the others. They were watching him anxiously. Even Aaron seemed attentive, though Keo could just be misreading his hollowed, tired eyes.
He turned back to the radio. “Gillian?”
“I’m still here,” Gillian said anxiously.
“Sit tight. We’re coming to get you.”
“Thank you, thank you.”
Keo looked over at Norris. “Seven hours?”
“Are you kidding me?” Norris said.
“We can’t just leave her,” Rachel said. “Norris, you heard what she said. She’s not alone at the hospital.”
“Rachel’s right,” Jake said. “We probably know some of those people. We can’t just abandon them.”
Norris sighed, then fixed Keo with a hard look. “Two hours. If you’re not back in two, we’re leaving without you. You’ll have to follow in your truck.”
Keo nodded. “Fair enough.”
*
It was just past ten in the morning when Keo stepped outside the police station with Jake. The younger man had armed himself with the last Remington, which looked comically too big for his small hands. Jake was tall and lanky, but he hadn’t filled out in his twenty-two years.
“You sure you don’t want to stay with Tori and your father-in-law?” Keo asked.
“We’re not married yet,” Jake said.
“Close enough.”
“Anyway, Tori and me talked, and we agreed I should go with you.”
Keo smiled. “You both ‘agreed’?”
He grinned. “Okay, I agreed and she used some choice words describing what an idiot I am. Either way, I can’t ignore a bunch of people trapped in a hospital in town, can I? Doesn’t seem right.”
“It’s the end of the world, kid. Right and wrong don’t mean much anymore.”
“Look who’s talking. You’re running off to help people you don’t even know. You don’t even live in this town. And I’m supposed to sit back and stay safe when you’re willing to do that?”
“Don’t start worshipping at the altar of Keo yet, kid,” Norris said behind them. Keo glanced up at the ex-cop, standing on the rooftop looking down at them. “He’s just going for the medical supplies, isn’t that right?”
“You can never have too many bandages,” Keo said. “Trust me on this. I learned that the hard way last night. If we’re making a road trip, we’re going to need to stock up.”
“For emergencies?” Jake said.
“That, too,” Keo said.
“Good luck,” Norris said. “You got two hours to get there and back.”
Keo nodded. “We’ll either see you back here or on the road.”
He climbed into the Lancer while Jake slid into the front passenger seat and spent some time adjusting the shotgun. Keo hoped the kid didn’t accidentally blow a hole through himself. Hell, he hoped the kid didn’t accidentally blow a hole through him.
“Last chance to change your mind,” Keo said, firing up the engine.
For a moment, Jake looked as if he was thinking about it. But then he shook his head. “Nah, let’s go.”
“Keep that shotgun on the floor with the barrel pointed up at the ceiling, okay?”
“Oh, okay,” Jake said, and arranged the shotgun to do just that.
“I thought all you country boys know guns.”
“I was never comfortable around them. You seem pretty used to them, though.”
“I’ve just been around, that’s all.”
“What are you, thirty?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Sorry, no offense meant.”
Keo chuckled. “I don’t have a vagina, Jake. I’m not going to tear your guts out over two extra years.”
Jake gave him a slightly embarrassed look. “Good to know, I guess.”
Keo pointed the Lancer out of the parking lot. “You ever left Bentley before?”
“I was gonna go to the state school, but things didn’t work out. Never got the chance.”
“It’s a big world out there, worth exploring.” He unclipped the radio from his hip and keyed it. “Gillian, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you, Keo,” Gillian answered t
hrough the radio.
“I didn’t ask before, but how are you for weapons?”
“What weapons? I only managed to grab this radio from a deputy who was in the lobby when those creatures attacked.”
“No gun?”
“I think he lost it after he, you know, died. I’m just glad he had the radio already set to the same frequency as yours, or else I’d be talking to air at the moment.”
“Okay. We’re on our way now. Stay put.”
“Well, I had a hot date, but whatever,” Gillian said.
Keo smiled to himself. He decided that he liked the sound of her voice.
*
“How big is the hospital?” Keo asked.
“Not too big,” Jake said. “One floor, and a couple of wings and the lobby.”
“You’ve been there before?”
“Once or twice. They expanded it a year ago. I don’t know how big it’s gotten since the last time I was there, though.”
Jake wasn’t entirely wrong. Bentley Hospital was a one-story building much like the police station they had left twenty minutes ago, except about three times as wide. There were about two dozen vehicles in the parking lot, including an ambulance parked near the entrance with its doors, including the double doors at the back, left open. Unlike the buildings he had driven past in the last few hours, the hospital’s front glass curtain walls were uncovered and sunlight spilled inside, lighting up large portions of the lobby. Portions, but not all of it.
Keo parked next to the ambulance and climbed out. He keyed the radio. “Gillian, I’m at the front entrance now.”
“You actually came,” Gillian said through the radio. “You must be crazier than I thought.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Like what?”
“I’ll let you know when I see you.”
“An optimist, too, I see.” Then, with surprising seriousness, “Be careful, Keo. We can hear them outside. I think…I think they know you’re here. They sound more active than they’ve been all morning.”
“Where are you, exactly?”
“The last room in the back of Hallway C.”
“What’s back there?”
“The morgue,” Gillian said. “It’s the only room in the place with a steel door. I think that’s what spared us. The only thing.”
Keo glanced over at Jake, the younger man’s face plastered with uncertainty. “You good?” Keo asked.
Jake gave him a less than convincing nod. “Yeah. You?”
“Stay behind me, keep your weapon down, and only shoot when you see the black of their eyes.”
“The black of their eyes,” Jake repeated. “Got it.”
Keo wasn’t entirely sure if Jake really had “gotten it,” but he didn’t have much of a choice at the moment.
He swiveled the Remington into position. The hospital was going to have a lot of tight spots, and a shotgun with its spreading power would be ideal for that kind of situation. Of course, shooting and expecting them to go down was another story.
Jake must have come to the same conclusion. “What’s the point of the shotguns?” he asked. “It’s not going to kill them anyway, right?”
“No, but it might slow them down.”
“Slow them down for what?”
“To run the hell out of there,” Keo said.
“Oh,” Jake said.
Keo looked through the glass wall into the lobby as they neared the entrance. Bright sunlight filtered inside, illuminating large swaths of the room. A good sixty, maybe sixty-five percent of the building was visible to him. Keo glimpsed fallen chairs and dried blood splatters on the walls and floor and over toppled furniture. It was like looking into a butcher shop.
Behind him, Jake swallowed audibly.
“Stick behind me,” Keo said. “And don’t shoot at anything in front of me, understand? Only behind me.”
“Only behind you,” Jake repeated.
Daebak. The kid is definitely going to end up shooting me in the back.
Keo grabbed the first glass door and pulled it open without resistance. He gave himself a few seconds to breathe in the strong, lingering stench of day-old blood—behind him, Jake might have fought back a choking noise—before slipping inside and stepping over a bloodied white shoe.
If he thought the lobby smelled bad when he first got a whiff of it from outside, it was worse once he settled into the room. The air was suffocating and he started sweating, the combination gag-inducing. The entire building had been baking in the heat since sunrise this morning. That, combined with the bloodied evidence from last night, had badly tainted the air with a thick odor that was tangible against his skin.
Keo started alternating between breathing through his nostrils and mouth.
“You still good back there?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said, with all the conviction of a condemned man being led to the gas chamber.
Keeping the shotgun in front of him, Keo moved across the lobby and toward the hallways on the other side. There were three, clearly marked as Hallways A, B, and C, spaced out from left to right, with a nurses’ station behind a sliding glass window in the center.
As he and Jake moved toward Hallway C, Keo saw them out of the corner of his eyes. At first there were just the occasional flickering movements, but as he neared, they came fully alive.
Silhouetted figures, dozens (hundreds?) of them jammed into the hallways, were impossible to miss even if he couldn’t actually see them. He could feel and smell them just fine, though. If he thought confronting one of them at a time last night was daunting, so many of them squeezed into one place—one narrow, oh so narrow passageway—was paralyzing.
I should have kept driving yesterday…
CHAPTER 8
Jake started breathing hard as soon as they entered the lobby, but he really picked it up when they noticed movements from the hallways in front of them. He was practically hyperventilating by the time they saw the amassed horde inside Hallway C.
Keo took out the flashlight and ran the beam across the mouth of the hallway. Creatures, black eyes like seas of tar, glared back at him. They looked rabid and annoyed by the sudden brightness but remained where they were, just beyond the reach of the sunlight that splashed across the lobby floor.
He raised the flashlight over his head in order to see past the massive blob of hunched over forms. He couldn’t. They were everywhere. Simply everywhere. There wasn’t a single window in the entire hallway, and without the lights along the ceiling, the whole length of the passageway was blacked out. The figures inside grew more agitated the longer Keo shined the flashlight at them.
Impossible. It’s impossible.
“Daebak,” Keo said under his breath.
“What?” Jake said behind him.
“Hmm?”
“You said day-bat?”
“It’s nothing,” Keo said. “Just something my mom used to say to me.”
“Oh.”
“Remember what I told you, Jake. Keep your shotgun pointed at the floor and only shoot away from me.”
“Okay…”
He turned off the flashlight and put it away, then unclipped the radio. He didn’t press the transmit lever right away because he didn’t know what to tell her.
“Sorry, babe, but you’re on your own. See ya!”
Not quite.
He keyed the radio. “Gillian.”
He hadn’t bothered to keep his voice down. There was no point because they knew he was here. They could see him, and it looked as if some of them were sniffing him, getting as close to the mouth of the hallway as possible without entering the stream of sunlight.
“Keo,” Gillian said through the radio.
She sounded relieved. Maybe she had expected him to turn and run as soon as he saw what awaited him inside the lobby. She wasn’t far from the truth. Keo desperately wanted the medical supplies in the rooms along the hallways, but he didn’t intend to die here in this place, at this moment.
But he didn’t say any of that. Instead, Keo said, “You were expecting someone else?”
“You’re still here. I’m surprised, that’s all.”
“How many rooms are in Hallway C?”
She didn’t answer right away. “One of the nurses said ten,” she said finally. “We’re in the last room at the back, after a slight right turn.”
“What about a side door into the morgue? They don’t bring bodies in through the lobby, do they?”
“No. There’s a back door at the end of the hallway that they use, and the morgue is right next to it. But I don’t think you’re going to be able to use that one, either. Sorry.”
Of course not. Why should it be that easy?
“Keo, be careful,” Gillian said. “I don’t think they can be killed. I stabbed one of them in the head with a scalpel last night. Where the brain should be. It just…kept coming, like nothing happened.”
Tell me something I don’t know, he thought, but said, “Understood. Stay put.”
Keo clipped the radio back on his hip.
What now?
“How are we going to get to them?” Jake asked. “Through…that.”
Keo shook his head. He had no answers for Jake. A part of him wanted to leave. Head back to the police station. Get on the road with Norris and the others and head to Fort Damper. Yes, he wanted those medical supplies, but he wasn’t going to get them. Not with all three hallways teeming with those undead things. And he wanted to help Gillian and the others trapped in the morgue. He liked the sound of her voice, her sense of humor. But that was another pipe dream filled with black-eyed creatures that refused to die.
“See the world. Kill some people. Make some money.”
Remember?
Keo sighed.
“Keo? Should we just go back?” Jake said, watching him closely.
“Not yet.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I want to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?”
Keo didn’t answer. Instead, he took three quick steps toward the mouth of Hallway C, lifted the shotgun, and fired from a meter away. Fire stabbed forth from the barrel of the Remington, lighting up the interior of the passageway for a brief second.