K. T. Swartz (2 page)

Without moving, she looked around. No movement down any of the streets, no shuffle of dragging feet. She rose, wiped the crowbar on the back of her coat, and stuck the weapon in the carpenter’s belt around her waist. Shoulders hunched, arms swinging loosely, she shuffled forward two steps to the hospital. Stopped. Her eyes moved across the abandoned facility. Still no movement. The hospital’s shadow fell over her as she moved forward. Against the heat, its touch chilled her skin. The shade from this useless monolith was a welcome relief.

Standing in the ‘Patient Pick-Up’ area, she looked through the sliding doors. Shards of glass lay scattered around them. Dried, black blood stained the metal doorframes. Her eyes followed smeared footprints to the doors. Inside the dark building, overturned gurneys and wheelchairs created minor obstacles down the hall. She closed her eyes and sucked air through her nose until her rib cage pushed her lungs back into place.

No hint of rot, only an empty hall. She stepped over the broken glass and paused in the doorway to listen. Her nose flared, pulling in another deep breath. Only dust and mold filtered through the air. Silence reigned in halls that once called it ‘stranger’. For a moment she stood beside the gift shop. The door was gone off its hinges; broken glass created a patchwork of glimmering puddles over the black and white marbled tiles.

‘As I stood in front of the gift shop, with its broken windows – and the door gone – I felt this overwhelming sense of sadness. Brightly colored wind chimes no longer sang and would never share this music because there was no one left to hear it. Lonely teddy bears held empty picture frames and smiling clowns presented me with ‘Get Well Soon’ signs. I wanted to take them with me, to give them purpose, but I couldn’t. Even the clowns I wanted, and I hate clowns. I wanted everything in that room, from the stained glass panels with Bible verses on them, to those fuzzy teddy bears. But the problem with surviving hasn’t just been the zombies; it’s having to ignore myself.’

With no movement in the hall, she stepped into the gift shop. Her heel ground tiny fragments of glass into dust. She flinched but kept going, heading for the vending machine. Bottles of water sat untouched inside. Their expiration date still had three months left. She shrugged off her army-issued backpack and lined the bottom with the bottles.

She glanced over the counter. The register lay on its side, coins scattered across the floor. All the dollar bills were gone. She shook her head. To take the cash and leave perfectly good water behind was just plain stupid. The empty register was yet another example of the undeniable level of stupidity in humans this Out-Break had revealed.

She slid her pack on her shoulders. Stood. And listened to the sound of shuffling feet. Muffled, distant. The gift shop wasn’t the best place for a fight. Too much glass, too many loose items on the shelves. Not a spot on the floor was clear of obstacles. She could trip over the shelves or knock over one of the display tables. All the wind chimes needed was a slight breeze to draw all the zombies on this floor to her. The fake stained glass was just as bad. She had to leave.

In the hall outside the gift shop, nothing moved. Her eyes went to the curved staircase to the basement level. She backed up, drew her willow bow and a metal-tipped arrow from its quiver, and knelt down in the corner between the gift shop and the patient exit. She drew the arrow back to her ear and held it as dragging feet stumbled over the lip of one of the steps. A rotted head, lacking hair, stopped in the middle of the staircase. A neatly removed portion of his skull over the right eye showed his brain.

She suppressed a shudder. A patient’s robe hung from his shoulders, stained black instead of sterilized white. The poor man probably never had a chance when the Out-Break spread through the hospital. Maybe under anesthesia, he wouldn’t have felt teeth sinking into his flesh, or sharp nails tearing chunks of muscle from his bones. In those last seconds of life, maybe the pain roused him from sleep, only to show him the horror of monsters consuming him alive. While their previous meals’ blood still glistened scarlet and shining on the white tile, they would keep eating, keep ripping chunks from this man until his ribs showed.

His left arm below the elbow was missing; most of the shredded skin across his stomach and legs showed deep bite marks clear through his muscles. The gluttons that were the walking dead knew no satiation. He moved sluggishly, two shuffling steps to turn himself toward the upper floor. Again he paused, as if exhausted; his shoulders slumped. She adjusted the angle of her shot. Let it loose. The zombie’s head kicked back; rotted bone snapped, spraying black liquid across the white stone behind him. Arms flailed. And the zombie hit the floor with a heavy thud and a dying gurgle. She drew another arrow but held it as shuffling feet disturbed the silence. Two pair. Unlike this patient, their steps came quickly.

Shuffle, step. Shuffle, step.
She rose, went to the railing overlooking the staircase. Pointed the arrow straight down. Two female zombies appeared, two nurses returning from their break. She aimed, let the arrow fly. With a wet sucking sound, it sank into the zombie’s shoulder. The dead nurse stumbled. Her deep, shuddering moan filled the staircase and only encouraged her friend to drag her bloated body up the steps.

No time for a second shot, she dropped the bow and pulled her 9mm and silencer from its holster. Her swift movements had both zombies looking up, their eyes not quite rotten enough to make them blind. In chorus, rasping moans escaped their throats. She squeezed the trigger twice. With two bullets in her brain, one zombie tripped over the patient’s body, flopped down across the stairs, and lay still. She put a bullet in the remaining undead. Blood and brain matter burst from the back of the zombie’s skull, painted the floor and wall behind it.

She glanced down the hall. Shadows slid from around the corner. Unable to go forward, she snatched up her bow and ran for the door. Looked both ways. The building’s smooth sides offered no traction; neither did the overhang provide a place to perch out of reach. Leafy green bushes rustled, betraying shuffling footsteps of another zombie. Its moan was so loud, barely ten feet and closing.

‘I had no time to think, only react. Hand-to-hand combat would be impossible, so I ran around the corner. I knew this hospital, knew about the garden on its north side – and the lattice-like brick wall around it. The moans of those zombies behind me drowned out the sound of my running footsteps.

I’d taken a chance sneaking into the hospital without scouting out the surrounding area first, but the sun was only hours away from setting, and I hadn’t even found a place to camp for the night. I was desperate, so I acted rashly.

Ahead of me, yet another zombie stood in the garden entrance. My footsteps, of course, attracted his attention. I veered to the left and looked over my shoulder. I had attracted a small crowd. Including the one ahead of me, there were six. And I’d run out of time.

I grabbed the brick wall, stuck my toes in the holes, and started climbing. The zombie in the entrance was a tall one, easily a head above the others. His long arms and long legs closed the gap between us. Fingers closed around the sole of my shoe. I jerked my foot hard. Flinched when I smacked my toes into the brick. The zombie’s decaying muscles were the only reason I survived, and I climbed higher, to the top of the wall. Barely six or seven inches across, the bricks were uncomfortable to straddle.

My bow would take too long, so I set a spare magazine on the bricks and aimed my gun at the taller zombie. His eyes were clear; he still clung to life, still breathed, because the Out-Break hadn’t killed him yet. But he was too far gone to save. His hand-eye coordination still worked though, which encouraged him to lace his fingers through the brick. He started to climb. I shot him through the forehead.

He got stuck in the brick, his head lolling forward as the five from the hospital finally shuffled into view. Their moans punctuated the air. I held still, counted the bullets I’d used and the ones I had left – four and nine. Nine against five. Four chances to miss. I’d already used two on one zombie – one too many, so I had to be careful. I couldn’t begin to guess at how many zombies still roamed the hospital’s floors.

So, I waited until their hands reached up for me like so many adoring fans.’

Only two feet of distance separated her from their grasping fingers. They clawed at the wall, fingers catching on the brick. And held. She stared. The female that pulled herself up brushed her fingers along the bottom of her shoe. She dug her toes into the lattice holes and aimed. One bullet for one zombie. No misses, and she had to do this quickly. She squeezed the trigger. The bullet from her gun tore the female zombie from the wall. Bone snapped as they reached up. Decaying muscles stretched and tore from tendons. She aimed again and fired. One zombie fell.

This had gone on long enough, to the point where their moans had completely blown her hopes for a silent entry, but she couldn’t chance looking up to check if their moans had attracted others. The trip shouldn’t have gone so badly. But it did. She fired three times, in rapid succession. And they fell. Nine bullets used; four left. If this continued, she’d run out of ammo before she made it to the blood bank.

She lifted her knees higher, giving herself more distance now that she didn’t need to compensate for the gun’s kick. She shook so badly the 9mm shivered in its holster. Both hands pressed against the warm brick, her eyes roamed the street, to yet another hospital parking lot full of vehicles. Inside one of the SUVs, something moved. But the window tint made it impossible to determine what.

‘I remember the first vehicle I saw with a zombie trapped inside. It was also an SUV, with its driver still belted into the front seat. I’d watched its hands drag across the glass, and they smeared the window tint. Only then did I realize that what I thought was tint was actually the fluid from its own body coating the window. The zombie had tried to claw its way through the glass and only managed to wear its fingers down to the bone.’

Other than the zombie trapped in the SUV, nothing else moved. She didn’t wait for her good luck to end. With the gun magazine in her pack, she climbed down the wall. Instead of staying in the street, she knelt behind the foliage, slunk along the wall back to the patient’s entrance. No more rushing, even if she was running out of time. She popped the magazine out and refilled it.

Her binoculars zoomed in on the hall. No movement. She darted forward, slowed only at the entrance. Stopped, closed her eyes to listen. No shuffling footsteps. No moans. Maybe those five were the only ones in her immediate vicinity. In any case, she needed a directory. The gift shop hadn’t had one, so she started walking toe-to-heel, stepping over sections of glass and a fallen gurney and a wheelchair. At the end of the hall, she knelt by the wall and took out her mirror.

The empty hall reflected oddly in the glass. Disjointed and broken angles ran together. Metal blended with white walls, white floor, and white ceiling. She adjusted the angle to start from the floor – and spotted a table on its side, a large shelf lying perpendicular to the wall. Halfway up was a sign for the restrooms, and higher up were room numbers: 201, 203, and 205. No zombies. Blood smears streaked the far wall, showing a T-junction. She flipped the mirror around to look down the other hall. More rooms: 199, 197, 195. A janitor’s closet. An elevator. No zombies.

She stood, stuck her mirror in her pack. Crowbar in hand, she stopped in front of the janitor’s closet. Tried the handle. Locked, of course. But this was too good an opportunity to pass up. Chemicals were high on her list of things to get, and a locked door meant it hadn’t been pilfered yet. She looked again down the hall before slipping the crowbar’s teeth through the gap between door and frame. The metal left scratch marks in the white paint. She put a foot on the doorframe, tightened her grip on cold metal. And pushed.

The door protested, groaned loudly, and buckled. She jerked the crowbar down, splintering wood. The door popped open. A shadow behind it surged forward. The zombie grabbed her shoulders, buried its face in the thick leather of her collar. Teeth bit down on her shoulder, sending a jolt of panic through her. Fear clawed at her as much as the fingers on her shoulders. She gasped as the janitor slammed her into the wall. Her crowbar’s metal teeth caught the zombie in his left eye. The rotten organ burst like a squeezed grape. But his teeth jerked off her shoulder as she pulled his face away.

The zombie stumbled, only to rush at her again. She swung the crowbar with both hands and caught him across the jaw, sending him colliding into the wall. She slammed cold metal into his skull. Kept pounding until fetid blood sprayed the walls and floor. The zombie janitor, his head a ruined mess, toppled backwards.

She didn’t move, kept the crowbar tight in her grip. Her lungs demanded air, and she stared at the dead zombie as if somehow afraid he would stand. Logic told her that once a zombie’s brains painted the floor, or whatever object happened to be close by, it was dead. But fear whispered that maybe this time would be different, that maybe there was no real way to kill a zombie, and those that she’d killed would only rise to their feet again.