Father Jon continued to back away from the door and paid no attention to Nick. Tina did not know what to do, she didn’t know if she should turn and run or try and help Nick. Terror gripped her, and all she could do was watch in horror as each time there was a pound on the door it was pried open more and more. Tina nearly fainted as the dead faces pushed their way into the crack of the door. Their demonic smiles haunting her, almost laughing at her as they pressed their faces further into the opening. Blood and saliva dripping down the door forming a disgusting puddle near Nicks’ feet.
***
Eric headed down the shadowy stairwell, his footsteps echoing loudly against the walls. The silence was unnerving. If there was a zombie outbreak Eric would expect chaotic screams, and other odd noises to be filling the stairwell, yet the silence could mean that everyone was already dead. As he placed his hand on the doorknob he was not sure what he would find on the other side. The fourth floor lay just beyond the closed door. He opened the door only to find an empty hallway. The white linoleum floor glimmered in the light, a yellow wet floor sign in the middle of the hallway told him that the janitor recently mopped the floors.
“Hello!” Eric shouted out.
A man poked his head out from behind the nurse’s station. “Can I help you?” The man shouted back.
A huge sense of overwhelming relief rushed over Eric. Thank God the hospital wasn’t overrun. “I got a man on the roof. He needs a doctor, he’s been shot!”
“Shot!” The nurse was shocked. People hardly ever got shot in Corner Brook.
“Get help! Now!” Eric barked the command. The nurse picked up the telephone at his desk. Eric turned on the walkie talkie and pressed the button. “Kenny, come in.”
“Yeah,” Kenny’s voice responded almost instantly.
“Alright, we can get him some help. We’re coming up to get him.”
“Roger that.”
The nurse hung up the receiver and bolted over to secure the stretcher. “Let’s go. The doctors will meet us in the operating room.”
They headed over to the elevator and got on board. The nurse used his key card to activate the button for the roof. Without the key card the elevator would not go to the roof for obvious safety concerns. As the door opened on top the warm air flooded out and was replaced by the much colder night air as the helicopter’s light illuminated the rooftop. They pushed the stretcher over to the helicopter in a mad scramble.
“About time, Jones!” Gary tried to crack a joke. Maybe the prospect of making it through this now raised his spirits.
“Sorry man, didn’t realize you were such a pussy!” Eric cracked back.
“Haha! You guys are fucked in the head!” Kenny had a chuckle at the two cops giving each other a hard time.
The vital fluid that once flowed out of Gary’s belly like a waterfall had finally slowed to a trickle. Jason’s face was battered and bruised, dried blood crusted near his nostrils and lips.
“What the hell happened to you guys?” The nurse was shocked by the bloody sight that was in front of him.
“Long story,” Eric said as he helped Gary onto the stretcher. “Jason you stay here, when we get to the cabin we’ll use Dana’s makeup to fix you up.”
“Funny, prick.” Jason slumped into the seat. “Too bad we couldn’t get you something for that ugly mug.”
“Maybe they’ll have something, there’s always hope man.” For the first time since he had found that letter on Frank’s desk, Eric actually felt like there was some hope for them. Jason may have been battered and broken, but he was still that same funny bastard Eric knew since they met. “Kenny, you okay to wait here with Jason?”
“Sure thing man. I got my tunes.” Kenny put his helmet back on and began to rock out to whatever shit he was listening too. Eric could only imagine he was listening to some heavy metal band as Kenny played air guitar. Kenny pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. He offered one to Jason, who waved the smoke out of his face in disgust.
They rushed back to the elevator and headed down to the second floor. “I’ll take it from here officer. You should head on down to non-emergency on the first floor.” The nurse pushed the stretcher out of the elevator and was greeted by two nurses and a doctor. Finally Gary was in good hands. “Apparently they are having some trouble down there.”
“Alright, you get him fixed up.” Eric pressed the button for the ground floor and the elevator started its descent with a hard bump.
***
Nicks’ heart pounded in his chest as the door jolted open and nearly knocked him over. A hand reached out from behind the door and when Nick tried to slam the door shut, it brought up the flailing arm. The sickening sound of the fractured bone in the dead man’s arm mixed with the horrible moaning on the other side of the door.
It was a terrifying symphony of death.
The bone protruded through the skin and sent blackish red blood dripping onto the floor, creating a nauseating dripping sound. A steady stream of ooze puddled on the hospital floor. The arm was not affected at all by the trauma it just suffered, it just kept reaching for Nick, the hand dangling at an awkward angle from the forearm.
The chilling moaning was growing louder as the other zombies stopped devouring their prey and joined in the unearthly duet of the dead.
Nick watched in horror as Father Jon ran down the hallway and Tina froze in terror. He was going to need help holding this door closed once the other zombies joined the two gathered at the door.
“Tina, you have to run and get help!”
THUD! THUDDD!
“Now!”
Nick was not going to be able to hold out much longer. Another arm found its way into the door frame and pried the door open a little further. Tina turned and ran down the hallway in search of help.
“Hurry!”
Nicks’ pulse was reaching its limit as his heart began to thrash around in his chest. The strain against the door was becoming too much for him, Nick felt the door press harder into his backside as more weight was added on the other side.
As if the smell of their prey gave the demons a new found strength, Nick felt a surge of power as the door burst open and knocked him backwards into the chairs. Nick’s feet got entangled in one of the chairs, and sent him crashing to the floor. Three corpses stumbled out of the morgue and immediately began to shuffle directly towards him.
Nick managed to roll onto his back just in time to see the first zombie trip in the chair in front of him, and watched it as it smashed into the floor. It seemed to have no control over its motor controls, it never even tried to brace itself against the impact. Its chin collided with the floor and made a horrible cracking sound as its jaw became unhinged. Blood spewed from its mouth, along with a few of the teeth that got knocked loose. The other two zombies closed the gap surprisingly quick and had managed to stumble past the chair and were lunging towards Nick, grasping to get a hold of him.
A pair of hands grabbed Nick by the shoulder and before he could react they wrenched him to his feet .
“Come on,” A burly voice roared.
Alcohol heavy on his breath, the hand on his shoulder jerked him backwards towards safety. Nick turned to see the bearded face of the undertaker that worked at the local graveyard.
“Run!” His deep voice commanding Nick to move his legs.
They ran down the hallway and Nick saw Tina standing near the stairwell, holding the door open. The creatures behind them were slowly pursuing them, their monstrous moans signalling their disappointment at losing out on another meal. Their faces covered in the fresh blood of their latest victims, their clothes soaked in the thick substances of their victim’s insides.
“Hurry!” Tina called out from the doorframe, she was eager to leave that dreadful basement.
The two men quickly reached the stairwell, and as they entered they could see as Father Jon burst through the first floor door.
“They’re everywhere in the lobby!” Father Jon’s voice was aghast.
Those harrowing, moaning creatures were just outside the stairwell door now. They couldn’t just stand here and wait, they needed to do something fast.
Nick edged the door to the first floor open and looked in horror as those creatures fed on the fallen victims. They tore away at the flesh in all of the vital areas. Nick’s stomach nearly spewed vomit as he watched the nearest zombie rip away at the neck of a female nurse. Strands of neck tissue dangled from its mouth and blood cascaded from the wound, and puddled all around her.
“If we can make it to the ambulance bay we can get out of here.” Nick looked down the stairs as the doors swung open and the zombies staggered through. “It’s just around the corner. All we have to do is make it past that one zombie, and I can lock the door behind us.”
“Do we have another choice!” Tina cried as she saw the undead creatures feasting on the living.
“Not really!” Nick nudged the door open and looked at the zombie as it occupied itself with its food. “I don’t want to get trapped in this building.”
They pushed through the door and darted towards the ambulance bay.
***
As the elevator came to a stop on the first floor the doors slid open with a whooshing noise, which drew the attention of the officers in the room.
BANG! BANG! BANG!!BANG!!
“Eric, what the fuck is going on here!” Officer Pike screamed as he backed down the hallway, the shambling corpses in pursuit. Bullets ripping into their torso, sending chunks of flesh and sprays of blood in all directions.
“They won’t stop!!!”
There were only three officers here, Eric wished the whole force had arrived.
“Where’s everyone else!” Eric shouted out as he ran forward to join the other officers.
“This is all that’s left man!” Officer Pike was on the verge of tears. “We have to get the fuck out of here!”
BANG! BANG!!BANG!!! BANG!
The horde of zombies were getting dangerously close now. “You have to shoot them in the head!” Eric remembered what Frank told him. That was the only way to stop them.
“Are you fucking kidding me!”
Eric lined up the barrel of the gun with one of the zombies’ heads, pulled back the hammer of the gun and pressed his finger firmly on the trigger.
BANG!
A female zombie in pajamas dropped like a heap onto the floor as a bullet buried itself deep into her skull. A red mist sprayed over the zombie behind her.
“I’m serious!” Eric watched as the other officers started to take their time. They were lining up their shots now.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Zombies started dropping to the ground in grooves now. The undead crowd poured down the hallway in what seemed like a never ending parade of death. There must have been a hundred of them
BANG! BANG! CLICK! CLICK!CLICK!CLICK!
“Fuck, I’m out of bullets!” Officer Penny yelled. Terrified, he turned and tried to run down the hallway towards the exit. Five zombies broke loose from the pack to give chase. There was a loud curse from the end of the hallway, followed shortly by breaking glass.
AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Officer Penny screamed in anguish.
“Should we help him?” Officer Brake was concerned.
“He’s a dead man!” Officer Pike turned to Officer Brake and shook him. “There’s nothing we can do for him now. We have to save ourselves.”
“How do we do that?” Officer Brake started to back-peddle. The demonic creatures were getting too close for comfort.
“Shit!”
BANG!
Eric fired his last shot into the skull of the closest zombie. Eric fumbled to load more bullets into the chamber as he backed up to join his fellow officers. He managed to load the chamber, but realized that he did not have enough bullets. There were too many of them.
“Get to the stairwell, I have a helicopter waiting on the roof!”
A nurse stumbled out of one of the rooms. She wasn’t looking, and ran right into the arms of a flesh hungry monster. The horde jumped her and piled on top of her.
“Here’s our chance! They are distracted!” Officer Pike was right.
The zombies were attracted to the smell of the fresh blood. The three men darted for the stairwell door. Eric turned one last time to look at the unfortunate soul. Blood was seeping down her face, her innards were being torn out of her torso and the monsters were feasting on them. Pulling out the bloody entrails, sinking their teeth and ripping off shards of meat while she was still alive. Her screams rattled through the hallway of the hospital, she was suffering tremendously.
Officer Pike was already headed up the stairs, he was not waiting for anybody.
Eric turned to see another man rising from the dead. At first the man’s movements were sluggish and erratic. The man’s legs seemed shaky, and his arms were erratically reaching for imaginary objects. His pale white skin was no longer drenched in sweat, its bloodshot eyes darted in all directions as if it could not decide on what victim to chase after. That poor nurse did not deserve to suffer the same fate. Eric fired the gun and the bullet sank into the neck muscle causing flesh and blood to spew out of the wound. The zombies feeding on her just kept feasting, unfazed by the gaping hole the bullet made as it ripped through her neck.
“Help me!” Officer Brake was scared stiff.
His base instincts froze, and his legs seized moving as the zombie grasped a hold of him. Eric fired another shot and this time the bullet tore into the cheek of the zombie. Its jaw continued to snap at its prey.
“NOOOO!!!” Officer Brake painfully screamed as the zombie tore a hunk out of his chest.
As the zombie ripped its head back the sinewy fibres of the chest muscles were being plucked out like guitar strings. They appeared threadlike in its mouth. Another zombie began to shamble towards the sound of the screaming officer, salivating as it neared its meal.
“Eric!!!!!” Officer Pike screamed as a pair of hands burrowed its fingers into his shoulders. He managed to flatten the zombie with a substantial jolt to the nose. Officer Pike’s shoulder suffered a profound gash that instantly began to discharge an abundance of blood.
“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”
At last, Drew finally unloaded his firearm into the zombie’s skull. As Eric ran up to him the zombie’s head was nothing but a bloody pulp.
“Hey!” Eric looked on as Officer Pike continued to pull the trigger even as the only noise the gun made was empty clicking. “Come on, let’s get out of here NOW!” Eric grabbed his empty hand and tried to pull him away.
Officer Pike spun and shoved the gun into Eric’s face and continued to pull the trigger. Eric stared into the empty barrel of the gun.
“It’s empty man, reload.” Eric placed his hand on the warm barrel and lowered it.
“Shit man, I don’t know what came over me.” Officer Pike suddenly snapped out of a state of shock. “Sorry.”
As chaos erupted all around them, time was quickly running out. They needed to escape now.
“What do we do?” Officer Pike asked as Eric placed pressure on his wound. They had reached the second floor and jogged down the empty hallway towards the elevator.
“You head to the roof and get on that helicopter.” Eric did not think Officer Pike would be much help to anyone in his state.
“What about you?”
“I’m going to try and get Gary! Now get on that elevator and get out of here. I’ll meet you at the cabin.”
“We can wait for you on the roof man.”
“No way! If those things reach the roof none of us get out of here, and you’re in no shape to deal with this.” Eric pushed Officer Pike into the elevator. “Just get out of here man.” Eric watched as the door slid closed, then he turned to face the chaos that had erupted around him.
Chapter 25
Blind Luck
Nick’s beating heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest. As they ran past the zom
bies the only reason they managed to sneak past, was the distraction of their meal. The zombies were like deer grazing on grass. They were gorging on innards, and the sickening sounds they made as they devoured their victims made Nick sick to the very pit of his stomach. Nick looked in horror as one zombie chomped into the stomach lining of a man and the contents of his lunch spilt out onto the floor in a spew of blackened chyme and half chewed food.
What made it worse was the cries of anguish from the innocent prey that were being devoured alive. Nick wanted to help as the moans of misery cried out as they passed by. Each victim was a horrific sight that he would not be able to forget. Things had turned vicious in an instant and in a frantic, maniacal moment Nick could only suppress the uncontrollable urge to try and save them. Their suffering allowed Nick and the others to pass by undetected as the victims of the bloodthirsty freaks were barbarously torn apart.
“You have a key to this door?” Tina had tried to open the door to the ambulance bay only to find it locked. Frantic now, she was making a lot of noise.
“Calm down, you’re drawing attention to us.” Calvin placed his hands on Tina’s shoulder.
Nick took a look over his shoulder to see one of the ghouls awkwardly strain his neck as the noise caught his attention.
“Shit!” Nick fumbled in his pocket and retrieved the key card to open the door. He rushed over to the card reader and swiped his card. Normally the light would flicker green and the door would unlock, but this time the light remained red. In a frenzied motion Nick swiped the key card again and again.
“FUCK!!”
“Hurry up, they’re coming!” Tina was crazed as she watched more and more zombies begin to take notice of them. Just ten feet away, two zombies were shuffling towards the commotion.
“Oh God have mercy on us!” Father Jon was distraught.
“Just calm down and swipe your card slowly.” Calvin tried to calm Nick.
Sweat began to roll down Nick’s face and it stung his eyes. He stepped back for a brief moment to collect himself. He took a deep breath, and ran his key card once more down the card reader. A flicker of green light illuminated from the card reader, and the locking mechanism made a loud click as it unlocked. Father Jon shoved his way past Tina and bolted into the room.
Outbreak Page 20