“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Jack said, eyes on the doors.
~*^*~
~05~
Keith flinched when he heard the bell chime, announcing their arrival on the second floor. He waited with his gun ready as the door opened, but he was relieved to find the area clear. While Jack took a few moments to temporarily disable the elevator, Keith stood guard outside the door, not sure what to expect. He only hoped that they could secure the building before the hospital was completely overrun, otherwise they could end up trapped inside with hundreds of the flesh-eating monsters.
Reaching over the counter at the second floor nurses’ station, Keith grabbed the phone, pushing the buttons that would send his message to the whole hospital. He announced that they were in a state of emergency and that anyone acting strangely, besides Eric Wapowski, should be avoided at all costs. He added that people infected with an unknown disease were attacking others and that their bites appeared to be extremely contagious.
When he was done with the message, he dialed emergency, hoping to reiterate the need for some help. He called three times without luck and he finally hung up the phone, frustrated.
“I just checked the west wing and it seems to be clear,” Jack said. “Maybe we got lucky. I’m going to check the other hall.”
He took about four steps before saying, “Or maybe not.”
The hallway was filling with the infected and Jack was almost out of ammo.
“Back into the elevator,” he told the others.
They quickly complied, waiting tensely as Jack used his key again to enable the controls. The elevator car lurched and for one horrible moment it felt as though it were dropping, then it began to lift, quickly transporting them to the third floor. When they got out, everything looked normal.
~*~
Eric stuffed the candy bar into his mouth and ran as fast as he could toward the open exit. He wasn’t the fastest runner, but fortunately the infected were slower. He smiled as he opened the door to freedom, but his smile disappeared as he saw a blood-soaked delivery man just outside, blocking his escape. The guy had to be a good four inches taller than Eric and he looked like he had been in pretty decent shape at one time.
Panicking, Eric grabbed his soda, shook it, and released the tab directly into the face of the approaching ghoul. The burst of soda into the face of the ex-delivery man seemed to confuse him or blind him just long enough for Eric to slip through his reaching arms.
Once outside, he surveyed the parking lot as he sipped the foam that had pooled on the can. He could see several people milling about but they were all covered in gore and blood. Spying a Harley Davidson about six spaces down, he ran to the bike and quickly mounted it, but became frustrated when he couldn’t find the gas pedal. Realizing that he was starting to draw some unwanted attention, he quickly dismounted and ran, no destination in mind other than to put distance between himself and the growing mob that was coming his way. He stopped when he came across a police car, lights on and still idling.
“Help!” he yelled, searching for the officer. “Anyone there?”
He ran to the other side of the vehicle and tripped over the cop, or what was left of him. The body had been torn apart at the torso, leaving only two arms and the head intact. Eric jumped as the partially uniformed body did a bizarre crab walk on its hands, dragging its severed spine behind it while snapping its jaws at Eric’s feet.
He quickly rounded the car to the driver’s side, the shambling figures slowly closing in on him. As he jumped into the car and locked the doors, he was completely unaware of the presence rising in the back seat. He sped away, bouncing several creatures off the hood in the process, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Eric released his bladder for the second time when the woman in the back seat lunged at him, smashing her snarling face against the glass barrier used to isolate arrested passengers. Eric slammed the vehicle to a stop and rolled out of the front seat, running a couple feet before stopping. The woman’s gnashing teeth moved to the side window as she followed his every move. Slowly, Eric walked back to the car. He peered into the back and saw that she was handcuffed. Then, he saw her face.
“Ch-Cheri?” he stuttered. He wasn’t sure if it was Cheri, as he hadn’t seen her for years, but aside from the whole zombie thing, there was an uncanny resemblance. As more of the infected began to draw near, Eric reentered the vehicle, figuring his passenger would be less of a threat behind the glass than those approaching him. He grabbed his radio and keyed it.
“Jack, you there?”
“Eric?” Jack sounded surprised. “You still alive?”
“Yep,” Eric replied. “I’m on the outside.”
Keith cursed quietly in the background.
“These freaks are everywhere!” Eric exclaimed. “I’m going to check on my mom.”
“Go ahead,” Jack answered, relieved that he no longer had to deal with Eric’s incompetence. “If you see a cop along the way, let him know what’s going on at the hospital. We’re going to hole up in here. Keep your radio on.”
“10-4,” Eric replied, professionally.
~*~
Keith shook his head in disbelief. “The hospital is filled with lunatics tearing people apart and Wapowski managed to get out safely?”
“If it’s as bad as he says out there,” Jack said with as much empathy as he could muster, “he won’t last much longer.”
Jack and Keith quickly checked the third floor and didn’t find anything unusual. When they returned to the nurses’ station, Jack told Marla to stay at the desk while he and Keith checked the other floors.
“I already took care of one on the fifth floor earlier,” Jack told Keith after clearing the fourth floor. “I talked to the staff at the time, so I’ll be surprised if we have any problems there.”
As expected, the fifth floor was clear as were the stairwells. The employees on floors three through five were instructed to do a quick examination of each patient and to notify Jack at once if they found any bites. When they returned to the third floor, Marla was asked to check the patients on that floor.
“So, it looks like the second floor is our big problem now,” Jack said. “We could just leave it as-is since we’ve shut down the elevator, but I kind of wouldn’t mind a buffer between us and the first floor.”
“Well, with Wapowski gone, I guess you’re in charge of security now, so whatever you think is best,” Keith teased, relaxing a little now that they were in no immediate danger.
Jack welcomed the levity amongst all the mayhem.
“If I get confused, I’ll just call him on this.” He lifted his radio for Keith to see it. “Honestly, I think I keep him around for entertainment. Of course, I’m starting to rethink that, now.”
“It might actually be good that he got out,” Keith said. “He can let someone outside know what’s happening here, as long as he doesn’t lose his radio or get himself killed.”
~*~
By the time Eric pulled up to his mother’s house, the glass partition in the car was covered in a thin film of mucus as the barrier had done nothing to discourage his prisoner from trying to consume him. He had been watching her in the mirror with conflicting feelings of horror and infatuation, contemplating her fate.
What if it really was Cheri? He knew that the chances were slim but he was drawn to the possibility. As he left the car, he watched her follow him with her eyes. The eeriness of it made him nervous but he was flattered by the attention. He knew that he couldn’t leave her in the car, but he couldn’t let her go, either. As he pondered his predicament, a solution came to mind. He grabbed the keys and walked around to the back of the car. After digging around for a moment, he lifted a body bag from the trunk in triumph.
“Yes!” he said aloud.
He unfolded it and walked to the back door, his prisoner’s eyes still following him. He looked at her wrists and was glad to see that she was still cuffed.
“Okay, Eric,” he said to himself, “b
e careful.” He opened the door.
The woman’s eyes widened as she lunged toward him, only to fall flat on the ground.
Eric quickly pulled the bag over her head and slipped it down her body, zipping it as he went. He stood up, watching the wiggling package in front of him. The ominous forms stumbling toward him gave him a new expediency and he dragged the body along the driveway to the front porch. He was looking for his keys when the door opened.
“Eric, what on earth have you done now?”
“Let me in, Mom, I’ll explain later!” he said with a sense of urgency.
Eric dragged the squirming package into the house and locked the door behind him.
Mrs. Wapowski examined the moving bag with apprehension.
“Mind telling me what that is?”
“Mom,” he started, “listen to me carefully. What I’m going to tell you may shock you.”
“Eric,” she interrupted, “you’d better not be telling me one of your little fibs!”
“Mom, the dead are coming to life and eating the living. I have one right here.”
She scowled and pointed her finger an inch from his nose.
“I brought you into this world, mister, and I can take you out! I’m sick and tired of your little stories! Now what in the world is going on?”
He rethought his blunt approach, looking at the bag.
“It’s a dog, Mom.”
“A dog?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he ad-libbed. “A Saint Bernard. You know, the kind they use up in the mountains to save people who are stranded.”
“Why is it in the bag?” She had a skeptical tone in her voice.
Eric thought fast.
“It got bit by a badger while rescuing some skiers so it has to be quarantined for a while in case it has rabies.”
“You brought a dog into our home that may have rabies?”
“Mom,” he argued, “it had its shots. It’s just a precaution.”
As he started dragging the bag to the stairway it emitted a low, guttural moan. Eric looked up at his mother.
“Got bit in the throat. Vet says he may never regain his bark.”
“Poor thing,” she said, shaking her head in pity.
She changed the subject and walked toward the window. “There are some strange people wandering around outside.”
“Gang members, Mom. Don’t mess with them or let them in. And close the blinds! See, Mom, that’s why you should watch TV. You’d know these things. There’s a gang war going on. That’s why I have the police car. They made me a deputy.”
Mrs. Wapowski looked out the window towards the driveway.
“Well, I’ll be darned,” she mused. “They must be pretty desperate to make you a deputy.”
Eric mumbled something under his breath, which his mother fortunately didn’t hear.
“I remember when this neighborhood was so nice,” she sighed as she watched the shadowy figures wander the street.
~*~
“What about the stairwells?” Keith asked Jack. “From what I’ve seen so far, the ones that have changed don’t seem coordinated enough to open a door, but they could get lucky.”
“I have keys, so we can lock them, just in case,” Jack said.
Keith said, “If we have to, we can always pile furniture behind them, too.”
“Good thinking,” Jack replied. “Are you sure you don’t want a job in security? I’m hoping to have an opening soon.”
Keith laughed and shook his head. “Somehow, I don’t think I could ever fill Wapowski’s shoes.”
“I don’t think anything but fungus could fill Wapowski’s shoes,” Jack said.
“Any thoughts on how we can clear the second floor?” Keith asked. Without more ammo, it was going to be difficult.
“Maybe we should check around for weapons,” Jack said. “Sometimes employees will stash things they’re not supposed to have. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I’ve found.”
“I can imagine,” Keith said, thinking about Marla’s gun.
“I’ll take one hall if you want to take the other,” Jack said, heading right.
Keith went the other way to see what he could find.
~*~
Eric dragged the bag to the landing at the head of the stairs and started plotting a descent. It was too dangerous to grab his captive by the head, since he didn’t know if she could bite through the bag, so he positioned her at the top of the stairs and started to lower her by her feet. Fortunately, there was a railing that he could hang on to while making his way down the stairs. Slowly, with one arm holding her feet and one holding the railing, he started his descent. His foot slipped on the second step and, instinctively, he let go of the bag and grabbed the railing with both hands. He watched as his prize bounced down the stairwell, hitting the lower landing wall with a resounding thud. A low moan followed.
“You’re not hurting that dog, are you?” his mother called out.
“No, Mom, it’s okay,” Eric replied, shutting and locking the door at the top of the stairs. He ran down the stairs to check on his guest. Fortunately, she was still moving. He pulled her to the middle of the room and plotted his next move. After some thought, he went back upstairs, returning with a full roll of duct tape. Carefully unzipping the bag from the bottom, he exposed his captive’s thrashing legs. He wrapped the tape around her ankles and knees a couple times. As a final precaution, he taped her handcuffed wrists to her waist by wrapping the tape around her body.
“This should make you a little more manageable,” he said out loud.
As he unzipped the bag the rest of the way, ‘Cheri’ flopped on the floor like a live guppy on a hot griddle. The stench permeated the air and the blood on her matted hair had turned a thick brownish red. Froth seeped from her lips as she continued to snap in vain at her captor. Ignoring her obvious defects, Eric stared at her for a moment.
“Are you Cheri?” He had to know and there was only one way to be sure.
A while after the breakup, Cheri, unlike Eric, had moved on with her life and had started dating. Her new boyfriend had talked her into getting matching tattoos above their right hips, which Cheri had shown Eric in the hopes that he would realize that the relationship was over. Unfortunately, neither that nor the restraining order had discouraged him.
He peeled the blood soaked waistband, now stuck to her hips, away from her skin, revealing the spot where the tattoo should be. No tattoo.
“You aren’t Cheri,” he groaned.
He watched as she stared intently at him, still biting at the air.
“That’s all right. Cheri doesn’t want me. You do. You can be anyone I want you to be. I’ll still call you Cheri. Is that okay?”
She responded with a moan and a snap of her jaw.
Eric sat up and grabbed his radio.
“Jack? You copy?”
A couple seconds later Jack’s voice rang through. “Go ahead, Eric.”
“I’ve acquired a subject for study in my apartment. I’ll let you know what makes these things tick.”
“You captured one?” Jack sounded astonished.
“10-4. She’s in pretty good shape. I have her restrained and I’m going to run some tests.”
“Her?” Jack asked. “Eric, don’t even think about doing what I think you’re going to do, you sick bas . . .”
Eric clicked off the radio and looked down at her again.
“They don’t understand. I finally have someone.”
He stroked her blood crusted hair, avoiding her gnashing teeth.
“You’re not a monster,” he said, looking into her cloudy eyes. “You’re a gift.”
A knock at the stairwell door startled him.
“Eric? I can smell that thing from here. You’d better give it a bath!”
“I’m going to, Mom,” Eric called out, liking the idea.
“We’re going to get you all cleaned up, Baby,” he said, smiling at his ghoulish companion. He grabbed a pair of scissors from his
desk drawer and turned her on her back. Carefully, he cut away her clothes and peeled them off. He couldn’t help but be aroused by the sight of her pale, leathery skin. He dragged her writhing body to the bathroom and started filling the tub.
“You always liked bubble baths, huh, Cheri?” he reminisced as he squirted some soap into the water. Grabbing her under the arms, he hoisted her into the tub in a sitting position.
“You relax and I’ll be right back, my dear.”
Eric found a trash bag, which he stuffed her clothes into, before running upstairs. His mother was still peering out the window.
“Mom!” he warned. “Get away from the window!”
Eric cautiously looked out the back door. Seeing nothing, he opened the slider and threw the bag outside, quickly locking the door again. He grabbed some disinfectant spray from under the kitchen counter. Seeing that his mother was still at the window, he slipped into her bedroom and came out with a nightgown, which he hid under his shirt.
“Eric,” his mother said, sounding worried, “there are a lot more of those people than before. When are the real police going to come?”
“Soon, Mom,” Eric answered, not wanting to be bothered. “I’m on the radio. Just stay away from the window.”
He returned to his apartment in the basement and held up the nightgown.
“What do you think about this?”
She was gone.
~*^*~
~06~
Keith returned about half an hour later with an armful of possible weapons.
Jack was just finishing his conversation with Eric. Putting his radio down, he said, “The crazy SOB brought one of those things to his house and it’s female!”
For a moment, Keith could only stare at Jack, but then he burst out laughing.
“What do you think he has in mind? No, wait. Don’t tell me. I’m not sure my stomach can take it.”
“What did you find?” Jack asked, looking over the pile of items Keith had placed on the counter.
“I’m not sure how good this stuff will be but I’ll bet we can improvise.”
He had found a couple of decent knives as well as a heavy wrench and several scalpels.
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