Reid contemplated stepping in, thinning the herd for his benefit and not the girl’s, but there were too many of them.
You’re on your own.
He ducked into an inpatient room and watched through a small gap in the door as the horde descended.
“Help, help!” The girl scrambled out from under the counter and ran. “Help me.” The infected female grabbed a fistful of the girl’s hair. “Help!” The girl twisted and yanked until the strands pulled free, tearing from her scalp.
Reid watched with pleasure and the fear that if the girl opened the fire door, an act the infected no longer had the dexterity for, the horde could take over the center.
An elderly male tripped and grabbed the girl’s ankle, anchoring her in place.
Bite her. Finish this.
But the man didn’t have the strength. The girl kicked him, hard, with the heel of her sneaker and reached for the door. Her hand closed around the knob and Reid stifled a scream.
No!
He aimed his pistol, but common sense warned him not to take the shot.
The girl pushed, hard, and the door caught on the stop, staying open.
Worst case scenario.
The horde ran her down, trampled and grabbed at her. They tore at her flesh, her screams loud at first, but fading as her life drained away. The dead devoured her before fanning out into the hospital.
* * * * *
Penny was almost to the first floor when the pain in her stomach crippled her. “I have to stop.” She squeezed Foster’s hand. The stairs had been too much. Every time she took a step, another jolt shot up from her groin. “I need to get to a bathroom.” A building pressure in her abdomen threatened to force its way out both ends.
A loud crash echoed down the stairwell and a single, shrill scream followed. A bloody catheter fell from above and landed at Zach’s feet.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “Hurry.”
Foster reached out his hand. “Somehow the infection is spreading. Dammit, Zach, this is what I was afraid of. We have to get out of here.”
God, please help me.
Penny shifted her weight onto Foster, needing to sit down. A cacophony erupted above them; the moans and groans of a hungry, infected mob. She willed her defeated body to move.
“Just three more steps, come on.” Foster pulled the door open and Penny’s knees buckled. Pain blurred her vision and something warm and gelatinous seeped out from between her legs. She lowered her head and tried not to cry. Crimson droplets dotted the floor. Another wave hit and she let out a wounded moan. She doubled over and Foster grabbed her arm.
“Help me get her into a room,” he said.
Zach cradled her like an oversized baby and she squirmed uncomfortably. He pushed his way through the first door they came to and immediately turned around. “Whoa, not this one.”
“Wait, put me down.” Penny breathed in the familiar, sweet smell of myrrh incense.
The kind they burned in her church.
She settled her gaze on the near-life sized crucifix at the front of the chapel and prayed.
Our Father, who art in heaven.
The pain in her abdomen subsided.
The world was falling apart around her and this was her peace. Thick clots slipped from inside of her, the cramps like a terrible period. She was miscarrying Nixon’s abomination.
Guilt overshadowed her relief as her mind turned to Miranda and Carlene who were both still pregnant.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
She continued praying, but this time the prayers weren’t for her.
51
.
Frank couldn’t believe it when they reached the van. Amy took her first slow steps out of the wheelchair, her feet coming down hard as if to go through the pavement. Her rigid, spastic gait made it clear she couldn’t run, not even if her life depended on it. Frank was glad it hadn’t come to that, for all of their sakes. He guided her toward the open side door and tried to shield her from the storm. The rain came down hard and at such an angle it hissed against the tarp covering Holly’s body.
Amy held her stomach and limped a few steps closer to the door. John helped her in to the van and Carlene eased her into the passenger’s seat.
Billy coughed and wheezed, soaking wet and curled up in the back corner, shivering.
Frank sighed, the heat on full blast unable to draw the chill from his bones.
This was going to end badly.
They never should have taken Billy with them. He wished he had been thinking straight enough to argue.
Carlene bowed her head, her dripping wet hair shielding her face.
Frank didn’t need to see to know she was crying.
He straightened the tarp around Holly and a bit of blood spilled out from one of the folds, pooling on the metal floor. He reached in his bag for a pair of latex gloves and mopped up the spill with the reverence owed to his only daughter. The fresh blood on the wound, where bone and skin erupted, glistened in the dome light. He hated Scott for what he’d done.
He had no right.
“I’m so sorry.” He smoothed a tangle of matted hair over the hole and folded the blue plastic so that it came up to Holly’s chin like a blanket.
Carlene sniffled and rested her hand on his shoulder. “She’s with God now, in peace.”
God, in his estimation, had taken more than his due
.
His respect for her beliefs kept him from saying so.
John closed the side door and scrunched up his face. “What’s that smell?”
Carlene pinched her nose.
Frank lifted Billy’s eyelids and examined them by penlight. “It’s death. Can you follow the beam with your eyes?” He traced a square in front of Billy’s face and he moved his head to see it. “Eyes only,” Frank said, but Billy couldn’t do it. His right pupil was blown, his left unresponsive to light. A thin, cataract-like veil formed over both of them. “How many shots have you taken?”
“Including the ones in the bathroom?”
“After leaving it,” Frank said.
Billy counted the remaining syringes. “Three.”
Frank couldn’t remember how many went into Holly before she stopped breathing, but he guessed Billy was close. “I don’t think it’s safe to take more than that right now.” Frank tried to ease the syringes away.
Billy bristled. “Over my dead body.”
Amy peeled off her wet shirt and hissed as she moved. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath.
Carlene cringed. “Frank, you need to take a look at this. The smell isn’t coming from Billy”
“We have to get out of here.”
Carlene folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not kidding. She needs to be looked at.”
Billy groaned and spat on the floor.
“There isn’t time,” Frank said.
Carlene blocked the driver’s seat.
Frank tried to gently move her. “You don’t understand what’s happening. I have to drive.”
Amy shivered and her eyes rolled back.
Carlene held her hand. “Not until you help her.”
* * * * *
Jim didn’t argue when Nixon ordered the lockdown to contain the infection. He owed him that for the ten years he’d taken care of Maura, his late wife. Now that he was a widower, he didn’t mind if he died fulfilling his purpose, which was almost certain. He was having or about to have a major heart attack.
The gore-filled elevator descended to the basement. Jim took a deep breath and leaned against the only clean wall, dreading what he might walk into. He’d rather die any other way. He’d seen the infection’s effects time and again.
It was a living Hell.
The door opened and his chest tightened, whether from anxiety or his failing heart he wasn’t sure. He grunted as the sensation radiated pain to his right arm.
“I’m stronger than this,” he said, refusing to succumb.
The bloody slaughter was worse than he could have imagined, but he was thankful to find only dead and not undead. He pushed off the invisible hand squeezing his heart and stumbled past the carnage as though wearing blinders. He set his sweaty palm on the scanner and the red light changed to green.
Almost there.
He limped to the master panel and nearly crashed into it. His right leg weakened and an electric feeling lit up the nerves down the side of his body. He eased himself into a chair and pulled out the keyboard tray. His arm tightened as he typed his password in a hunt-and-peck fashion.
The walls closed in like a tomb and his breathing grew shallow. He drifted for a moment, thinking of Maura,
the love of his life
.
“Honey, I’m coming home.”
He opened his eyes, typed the command prompt, and hit ‘Enter’.
52
.
“The file has to be here somewhere,” Scott shouted.
Reams of green bar and copy paper covered Nixon’s office, the carpet only visible at the edges. Scott knocked the cabinet over and tossed the desk drawers into a pile in the corner. Miranda’s chest tightened and sadness came over her as she watched him fighting her battle, red-faced and on the verge of tears. Months, almost a year of pushing him away after losing their baby had been undone in a single day.
“We have to go.” Miranda wiped a stream of tears from her cheek with her shaking left hand.
“We need that file, Miranda. I get that you can’t stand to lose another child, but we have to know what we’re dealing with.”
Footsteps echoed in the distance and the fear of being recaptured made it hard for Miranda to breathe. “Someone’s coming.” She hoped he’d respond to common sense and reason. “I’m sure it’s somewhere else. You’ve been through everything at least twice. Why would Nixon keep those kinds of files here, where a secretary or anyone else, for that matter, could find them?”
Another door slammed and pulled Scott back from his determined search. His head snapped around at the noise.
“Please,” Miranda said, already in the doorway. “Let’s go.”
“I’m not giving up. This is too important. Do you see anyone coming?”
She looked down the empty hall, but the plastic sheeting and construction left too many blind spots. “No,” she said and listened for footsteps.
“One more and we’ll leave.” Scott opened the last drawer of the formerly locked file cabinet and let out a long, relieved breath. “Holy shit. Here it is!” He put Miranda’s thick file under his arm.
She held her hand over her mouth, unable to believe he found it.
It was going to be all right
.
“Come on.” He tucked her behind him and led her into the hall, drawing his pistol as they went into the stairwell.
Shhh.
A moan came from below.
“What is that?” Another groan and her breath caught in her throat. “It sounds like someone’s hurt.”
“Penny.” Scott’s heavy boots tapped on the stairs as he descended in quick succession.
“Scott, wait.” Miranda chased him to just above the third floor and bit her tongue to keep from screaming. A horde of infected patients poured through the open door and scattered like cockroaches.
A young girl’s body covered the width of the landing and held the door open. Blood masked the faint, pink stripes on her uniform. The horde clawed and clamored to devour what was left of her ivory flesh, but two males covered her almost completely.
An elderly female, bleeding from a burst IV site, tore at the larger one’s hospital gown and painted his back with her dripping blood. His ties came undone and the thin smock fell away, leaving him naked and unfazed. A Foley catheter dangled from his flaccid penis, spilling the last of the urine from his human life. He gnawed the young woman’s neck, chewing through the muscle and tendon until her spinal column was exposed.
Miranda shuddered and held her hand over her mouth to hold back the vomit.
Scott drew down on the horde and the sound of him pulling back the slide drew their attention.
The man looked up from his feast, his faced smeared with blood and sinew dangling from between his misaligned teeth. He snarled and snorted, stumbling in an attempt at climbing the stairs after Scott.
“We have to get to the lobby,” Miranda said.
Scott fired several rounds, two of the bullets landing squarely between the man’s eyes. He fired again, repeatedly, and dropped at least three others, but the noise was drawing more of them than he could clear. “I can’t kill them all.”
Unable to walk, the infected crawled, each using the one before it as a stepping stone.
“You have to stop shooting.” Miranda backed up a few steps and handed Scott the ax, her chest pounding as the pack drew closer.
A middle-aged, female with a contracted left hand climbed to the top of the pile. A cast covered her right arm and three of her five fingers had been gnawed to nubs.
Scott checked over his shoulder to make sure he was clear and swung the ax as hard as the narrow stairwell allowed. The blade entered the woman’s skull with a crack and Scott pulled it free, dragging her forward. The gash disfigured the right side of her face. Brain swelled from the near-fatal wound and Miranda turned away to avoid seeing the woman as she half-heartedly kept coming.
Scott took a step back, found firm footing and embedded the blade into her head a second time, splitting her like kindling. Blood collected beneath her, slicking the stairs and making it harder for the already struggling horde to climb.
It slowed them down, but it didn’t stop them.
Scott turned, put his hand on Miranda’s back, and pushed her up. “We’re going to have to get off at the fourth floor. We’ll take another set of stairs.”
Reid appeared in the fourth floor doorway and smiled. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said, holding them both at gunpoint.
* * * * *
The humidity in the van intensified the stench of decay and infection, but it was raining too hard to open the windows.
Billy’s foot tapped and he twitched like an addict craving a fix. His mouth twisted as he injected another dose of viricide.