Afterbirth (22 page)

A sharp pain appeared in Frank’s chest and he pressed his palm into it, struggling to breathe.

He took a small, glass bottle from inside his shirt pocket and shook the last nitroglycerine tablet into his palm. He put the tiny, white pill under his tongue and swallowed the burning, acidic taste he was more than used to. The pain subsided and his heartbeat steadied, but things were getting worse and he’d need more pills sooner than later.

He took a deep breath and stifled a cough with his sleeve, afraid of alerting anyone or anything of his presence. Losing his gun made him vulnerable and he couldn’t open the supply closet door fast enough. He picked up the single key which he used to get his pistol out of the locked supply cabinet. Holding it provided some small relief, but this was no place to be alone. He was sorry for sending John away and sorrier for how he had treated him.

A visitor’s map hung on the wall. He studied it, looking for someplace to replenish his prescription. There wasn’t a listing for pharmacy, but the I.C.U. on the third floor would likely have what he needed. He climbed the nearest stairs, his legs weak and his breathing tight, and took a puff of his inhaler midway. He doubled over and held the railing until the worst of the spell passed and wondered what he was fighting for. His old body begged him to stop moving as he staggered onto the third floor. A loud crash, the pounding of something against a door, echoed down the hall. He swallowed the knot of fear lodged in his throat and moved with his back pressed against the wall.

“Help!”

Someone was trapped.

Frank walked toward the muffled cries and stopped at a set of double-doors reinforced with a chain and padlock. He pulled the lock and found it secure.

“Back away from the door.” He fired a single, shattering round. The lock blew apart and the chain split. The door flew open and Max Reid rushed out of the I.C.U. covered in blood and dripping with sweat. A pile of dispatched undead piled up on the floor at his feet. Skull and hair dangled from the hammer in his hand.

“Help me close this!”

Frank could barely speak. The exertion and excitement sent him into a fit of vertigo that landed him on his knees.

Reid fought for traction, his boots slick with gore, and let out a primal scream as he slammed the doors shut. He rewrapped the chain and tied the loose end for good measure.

Frank held his hands to his head, willing the spinning to stop. Several deep breaths and a pull off his inhaler steadied him enough to think clearly. He leaned against the wall and struggled to his feet, asking the obvious question as soon as the words would come. “Are you bit?” He looked Reid over for bite marks or scratches.

Reid, apparently unsure, checked himself. “No.” He shook his head and wiped the blood from his face, smearing it from forehead to chin.

The door vibrated from bodies pressing against it. The chain rattled and threatened to let go.

“We have to get out of here,” Frank said after a long pause, during which Reid attempted to straighten himself. “Where is the best place to find medication? What hasn’t been picked over?”

Reid hesitated.

“I saved your life, asshole. Pointing me in a direction is the least you can do.”

Reid’s nostrils flared as he breathed. “First floor, past the chapel. Pharmacy is at the end of that hall”

“And you’re sure there are supplies there?”

“I guarantee it.”

Frank nodded and turned to walk away, despite the dull ache in his chest.

“Wait a minute.” Reid shook the mess from his hammer. “I’ll show you.”

Frank, though immediately suspicious, was in no position to refuse help.

The two of them headed downstairs in silence. Reid kept looking over his shoulder and stopping to listen.

“Something you’re not telling me?” Frank tried to get a good look at Reid’s eyes, but was unable to. He opened the door to the first floor and a voice shouted for them to stop.

Frank and Reid turned around, shoulder-to-shoulder, and faced the man.

Frank kept his pistol tucked behind his back.

A beam of red light flickered from wall to wall and a dot danced across Reid’s forehead.

Frank gestured and when Reid turned his head toward one of the stay room’s windows, he could tell he saw it.

“Friend of yours?” he asked.

The large, dark-haired man shook as he approached them with his face blood-spattered and his eyes wide. If it weren’t for the fact that he was moving, Frank would have guessed he was in shock.

“Give me your gun,” Reid whispered. “He’s with Nixon. Give me your gun.”

“You have a hammer.” Frank held onto his pistol, terrified of being at the other end of it.

“Brett, behind you!” Reid shouted.

Brett turned around and Reid snatched Frank’s gun from him. Afraid using the hammer would kill him, he drove the pistol grip into the Brett’s skull and rendered him unconscious. The laser-sighted pistol skittered across the floor and Reid handed Frank back his gun before retrieving it.

“Now we both have guns.” Reid patted the man down and smirked when he found a pair of handcuffs. He slapped them on the man’s wrists and dragged him down the ash-covered hallway. “You coming?” he asked.

Frank nodded, afraid of what he signed on for.

Scott sat up in bed, startled by the deep and peaceful quiet. Amelie hadn’t cried for hours. He leapt out of bed to check on her, startling Miranda in the process.

Dark circles surrounded Miranda’s eyes and she looked immediately at the empty portable crib. “Where’s Amelie?” She pulled the covers aside, revealing a dark pool of crimson around her and struggled to sit up.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Scott said in an attempt at calming her. He wasn’t a doctor, but he knew trauma and the pool of blood was too large for a normal delivery. “Penny probably took her downstairs so we could get some sleep.”

Miranda shook her head. “Penny wouldn’t touch her.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Thick trails of blood spilled down her legs and pooled on the floor at her feet. She teetered and stumbled backward.

“Miranda!” Scott caught her before she fell. She was dead weight in his arms as he lifted her back onto the bed. “You need help.”

“I have to find Amelie.”

Scott knew if she wasn’t nearly bled out she’d be tearing through the house like a maniac.

“I’ll bring her to you. Please, just lay back down.” He adjusted her pillows so that her feet were higher than her head. “Wait here while I get Michael.”

He closed the bedroom door and rushed downstairs, nearly falling in the process. 

John stoked the living room fireplace.

“Have you seen Michael?”

John raised his eyebrow. “You mean Doc?”

“Yeah, the doctor.”

“Not since last night.”

Scott ran to the study. “Michael?” He called out and no one answered. “Michael, where are you?” He pushed open the study door and found the desk cleared of everything except for one scrap of paper he recognized from Miranda’s file. “Michael, come on.” Scott headed up the stairs, opening the bathroom door and closing it when the stench of feces hit him. “Michael?” A low growl came from one of the bedrooms, stopping Scott in his tracks. He listened at the door and reached for the knife he’d slept with, sheathed to his leg. He wondered if somehow the boy in the trunk had gotten loose. “Michael, are you in there?”

He turned the knob and found the door locked.

“What’s going on?” John asked.

“Nothing, go back downstairs.”

John didn’t move. “What’s behind the door, Scott?”

“No clue.” He examined the tiny hole in the door handle.

Feral scratching came from the other side.

Scott went for the set of tiny screwdrivers he’d seen in the kitchen junk drawer and came back with the smallest of them.

“Look out.” He brushed John aside, put the flathead in the keyhole, and moved it around until he felt the metal settle into a groove in the lock. With Miranda just down the hall, he refused to make a single careless mistake.

The lock clicked. Scott turned the door knob and pushed the door, meeting with some resistance. “Hello?” He put his shoulder to the door and shoved, knocking something over that had been propped against the other side.  A thin, blood-spattered hand reached for him and he slammed the door shut.

“Shit!”

John took a step forward and the color drained from his face. “What was that?”

Scott shook his head, unable to answer. It wasn’t Michael or his son. It was Penny and somehow, she’d become infected. “Whatever happens, don’t let Miranda out of that room, you hear me?”

John nodded.

Scott pocketed the screwdriver and put his sweaty hand on the doorknob. His heart pounded and his mind raced with the repercussions of what he was about to do. He counted to three and shoved the door hard. Penny crashed into a pile of toys and an electronic spaceman toy called out, briefly distracting her. Foster scrambled to his feet and limped toward Scott with his back hunched and blood stains on his mouth. He had turned Penny, from the looks of things, and Scott dispatched him with a single stab through the forehead. His body dropped and Penny turned around. Her white eyes locked on Scott and she lurched forward. The wound in her leg ripped open and the stitches appeared like braided thorns tangled at her side. Silvery stretch marks covered her pale skin and blood spattered her pink bra and panties. She opened her mouth, preparing to bite, and Scott thrust the blade of his knife through her palate and into her brain. The long blade kept just enough distance between them that her teeth never touched his skin, but it was close. Too close. He pulled the knife free and shook the blood from his hand.

He dragged Foster next to her and covered them both with a comforter.

Miranda screamed and Scott rushed into the master bedroom door, careful not to step in the blood.

“Miranda, what happened?”

She kept her back to him and stared out the window. Two, bloody hand prints painted the glass. “He’s gone,” she said softly.

“Who’s gone?”

“Michael,” she said. “His truck is gone and he took Amelie with him.”

Brett’s dead weight pulled on Reid’s shoulder which hadn’t been right since Scott shot him seven months ago.

Frank followed closely behind him.

“I have to tell you something,” Reid said.

Frank took a puff of his inhaler. “What is it?”

“I quarantined the pharmacy. There were a couple dozen infected, maybe more. It’s possible they’ve starved, but…”

“It’s possible they haven’t.”

Reid nodded. A viral surge warmed him from the inside out. A haze clouded his vision and then cleared. “You ready?”

Frank shrugged. “As I’ll ever be.”

Brett twitched and was starting to come around.

Reid opened the door as quietly as he could and pushed it so Frank could reach it. “Here, hold this.”

“Got it.”

Reid dragged Brett inside.

A large window separated the dispensary from the waiting area. Two doors on either side of the room provided the only access to the pharmacy and adjoining stock room. A common area connected the hospital’s service departments: equipment maintenance, the employee mail room, and laundry.

Several wheelchairs, tagged for repair, lined the hallway.

Reid grabbed a pile of bed sheets from a laundry cart. “Help me get him into one of those chairs.”

Frank grabbed the first in line. The wheels screeched and one of them nearly fell off as he pushed it. Reid cringed and hoisted Brett into the chair. Finding the thin, worn sheets hard to tie, he tore them into large strips. He restrained Brett’s torso to the back of the chair, his legs to the foot rests, and his arms to the arm rest, and when he was finished, Brett’s eyes fluttered open.

“Close the other doors,” Reid said to Frank.

Frank sealed off access from the other departments, isolating the pharmacy and common area.

Reid checked the dispensary doors, and finding them locked, smashed the windows out with the hammer.

Shattered glass fell to the tile and moans came through the opening.

By this time, Brett had come fully around. He rocked the chair and tried to work himself free, but the pulling only made the knots tighter. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Setting up bait.” Reid reached inside the left door and undid the lock. He pointed at the other one and Frank followed suit. “Get ready to run.” Reid swung the door wide open and made as much noise as he could, drawing the infected out. “Hello,” he shouted. “Anyone hungry?” Brett fell silent and a look of panic washed over him. “Come on, Brett. Call for help or something.” A loud crash came from inside and an emaciated intern staggered toward the door. His bloodstained, blue lab coat hung half off his shoulder, and his leg dragged when he walked. A tear in his pants showed a festering bite wound and yellow-green pus bubbled from his skin with each slow step.

Brett worked to get his arms free and his muscles flexed from strain. He hooked his hands over the ends of the arm rests and pulled as though that would help loosen the knots.

“I don’t think so.” Reid shook his head, grinned, and hurried across the room. He lifted the hammer and brought it down on Brett’s knuckles. Blood gushed from the wound and Brett screamed. “There you go. Good. Do that.”

More infected appeared in the hallway leading away from the stockroom.

Frank kept watch on the other door. “It’s working,” he whispered. “They’re going that way.”

Sweat poured down Brett’s face, which twisted with pain.

“Scream,” Reid ordered and when Brett refused, he bashed in his other hand. Brett howled and Reid gave Frank the sign. “Now.”

Frank pushed open the other door. Reid followed him quickly inside.

The horde descended on Brett with furious hunger. They tore at his clothes and chewed at his exposed flesh, starting with his face. He screamed as they ate out his eyes, and had grown silent by the time another tore off his ear. Blood dripped from the seat of the wheelchair and his head fell to one side. The ravenous infected picked at him like carrion.

Reid pushed a tall, gray filing cabinet in front of each of the pharmacy doors to cover the voids from the broken out windows.

Frank bent over, coughing and wheezing.

Reid ignored the thick smell of decomposition and checked the back room for stragglers. “Oh shit.” His already nauseous stomach turned at the sight of the bodies too picked-clean to reanimate. The infected had their way with those poor souls and from the teeth marks etched in the bones, had gone back because they were starving. He wiped the sweat from his face and doubled-over with stomach cramps.

Frank stood in the store room doorway. “You all right?”

Reid looked up and saw a spark of recognition in Frank’s expression. “I’m fine.” He lowered his eyes and sorted through the large white bottles on the shelves.

Frank rummaged through the pharmacist’s desk and found a pair of promotional bags, the kind left behind by the drug reps, in the bottom drawer.

“Here.” He handed one of them to Reid, added a variety of pills and inhalers to the other, and suddenly became very quiet.

“Take it you found what you were looking for?” Reid asked.

Frank nodded and held up a clear plastic box full of pre-loaded syringes. “Think I found what you’re looking for, too.”