American Revenant (Book 3): The Monster In Man (11 page)

Chapter 18

Following the path of
least resistance, the men followed Highway 61 to Paris Gravel Road, the
up-armored GMC General leading the way.  The roads were relatively clear,
though there were a few times when they had to slow down to navigate around a
wrecked car or snarl of vehicles.

Occasionally they would
see shufflers turn to follow the sound of the passing vehicles, though they
outpaced them with ease. 

From Paris Gravel to
Veterans Highway, turning left onto Highway MM a mile and a half later; from
that turn the men drove just over a mile, making a right on Shinn Lane, at the
recently constructed community college.  A left turn soon after put them on
Forrest Drive, which they would follow to reach the shipping and receiving dock
on the south side of the main hospital building.

This route took them in
the back way, avoiding the more direct approach, which several of the group
felt would be inviting trouble from the start.

“Is that a pack in the
middle of the road?” Jimmy asked.

Alex leaned forward over
the steering wheel, squinting his eyes.  “Looks like it.”

Alex lifted his foot from
the accelerator, as Jimmy asked Rick if he wanted to gun them, go past them, or
run them down.

“Want to try out your
blade attachment on this bunch, Alex?”

“Hell yes I do,” Alex
said, grinning.  He eased down on the accelerator pedal, the truck picking up
speed.  Thirty yards from the truck five heads snapped around, looking up from
a bloody mess that Jimmy thought might have been a deer.

“How the hell would these
freaks bring down a deer?” Jimmy asked aloud.

“What?”

“Nothing, just smash
their asses.”

The zombies stood up
slowly as the roar of the truck came closer, bits of brown and white hair
clinging to their faces.  One of the creatures took several steps forward, its
right arm dangling oddly, bone showing through the shoulder.  The other four
began to move toward the truck, walking into the oncoming traffic.

“Brace for impact!” Jimmy
shouted, moments before the heavy steel blade struck the legs of the first
zombie, shattering bone, tearing off the lower leg from the knee down.  The
zombie crunched face first into the reinforced grill, smashing bone back
through brain tissue. 

Alex caught most of them
with the blade, twisting the wheel to reach them all, though one zombie on the
far right was only clipped by the edge of the blade, spinning it to the
ground.  The big GMC bumped over the mass of bodies, grinding them beneath fast
moving heavy tires, trailing a long smear behind it as pieces of bodies clung
to the underside of the vehicle, shedding gore as they were pulled along.

Calvin, driving the De
Soto, jerked the wheel to the left then back to the right, avoiding the worst
of the pile of viscera the truck left behind.  “Holy shit!  What did they hit?”

“Slow down, slow down a
little,” Mike said from the passenger seat.  He pushed the suppressed DPMS out
the window, sighting on the zombie the truck had spun away, snapping several
shots into its torso and neck before landing one in the skull, shredding brain
tissue. 

“Must have been some in
the road,” Dean said from the back seat.

“I don’t see any more,”
Calvin said, applying the brakes as the truck in front stopped at an
intersection.  To the left was the Physicians Surgery Center, a right turn lead
past a building housing several different specialty clinics like dermatology
and osteopathy, among others.  They would continue down this road and past the
children’s center, to reach the turn for the receiving dock.

Alex shut the truck off,
he and Jimmy climbing down from the cab.  Jimmy opened one of the rear doors
for Rick while Alex walked back to the De Soto. 

“You guys see that shit?”
Alex asked, laughing.

Before anyone could ask,
Jimmy offered an explanation, telling the men in the car about the pack in the
road.

Rick hopped down from the
trailer, joining the rest of the crew as they got out of the car.  As a group
the men walked to the front of the truck, looking for damage to the grill or
blade.

At the front of the truck
they found half of a zombie still clinging to the topmost bar of the heavy
brush guard.  Its left arm was gone, entrails trailing down from its torn body
to drape over the front of the blade.  Thick black gore coated the front of the
truck, with large hunks of flesh embedded in the grill and hanging from the
blade and guard.

“Oh damn, what a fucking
mess!” Calvin said, turning away, the smell forcing its way into his sinuses
far worse than the sight of the gore itself. 

Dean stepped up to the
clinging zombie and buried his blade into the back of its skull.  The zombie
slid down the guard, hanging up on the back of the blade.  Dean shoved it off
the side with his foot, and wiped his boot in the thick, waist-high grass
beside the road.

“Gotta admit, that was
kind of fun,” Alex said with a grin.

“Damn right it was, man,”
Jimmy added.

“Anyone know a carwash
close by?” Rick asked, chuckling.

“Oh hell, I’m not picking
that shit out of there,” Dean told the others.  “Hey Calvin, you wanna clean
this up?” Dean called back to his brother, who now leaned against the car,
spitting out the bile that had risen up the back of his throat. 

Calvin tried to spit a
curse at his smart-ass younger brother, only managing a weak croak.  He shot up
his middle finger instead, waving it at Dean.

“This is good a place as
any to do a little recon,” Rick told the assembled crew. 

Spreading out, but
staying close to the vehicles, they used scoped rifles or binoculars to view
the distant buildings and parking areas of the hospital and surrounding
structures.

“I don’t see much in the
lots, a few wandering, with maybe a small cluster in the farthest lot that I
can see from here,” Dean said from the top of the trailer.  Several others
affirmed Dean’s assessment. 

“The cancer center is
blocking the view of the clinic’s west lot.  Every other parking lot looks to
be full of cars.”

“Let’s assume that there
are a bunch of them behind cars that we can’t see,” Rick said, speaking to
everyone.  “We go straight to the back door, which I’m sure has a coded lock on
it.”

“If it’s an electronic
lock, would it have released when its circuits were fried?” Mike asked.

“Couldn’t say, but we can
hope.  If not we’ll have to break it open somehow, pry-bars to pull the door
away from the frame or something.  Everyone think on it, just in case.”  Rick
moved back to the truck, climbing into the cab, “Not going into the back when
we’ll be there in a minute.”

Minutes from the
intersection Alex was backing the truck into the only remaining empty dock
left.  One was taken up by a large roll-off dumpster, the other a dropped
trailer, no big truck in sight. 

Calvin, his face still
bearing a faint green cast from being sick, pulled up in front of the truckless
trailer, next to the cab of the GMC General. 

Carrying one of the
suppressed rifles, Mike and Jimmy posted up to stand guard while the others
checked the door.

The long dock was served
by a single large bay door, and double-door entry with a keypad.   As the men
stepped onto the dock they could hear movement behind the bay door.

“Damn, not going to waste
any time getting to the thick of it, are we,” Jimmy said.

Rick walked quickly to
the entry doors, hoping for a small piece of luck.  He peered through the
narrow windows, seeing nothing in the hallway beyond he gripped one of the door
handles, depressing the thumb release.  The mechanism made a clicking noise inside
the door, one that Rick felt certain was much louder inside the building, but
it did not give.  The door was locked tight.

Calvin brought two
crowbars from the trunk of the De Soto, passing one to Rick.  “One at the top,
one near the bottom, we may be able to break the lock,” he said quietly.

“It’ll be loud as hell,
too,” Rick said.  “Not sure we have another choice though.”

“Guys, wait.”  Mike stood
near the bay door, ear cocked, listening.  Rick and Calvin paused, a silent
question on each man’s face.  “Look,” Mike said, pointing toward the base of
the door, which was lifted about an inch above the pocked and stained cement of
the dock.

Alex and Rick met at the
bay door, while Calvin stood at the entry doors, waiting, watching.

Listening intently they
could hear shuffling feet inside the room behind the bay door, though they were
unable to discern how many dead waited for them.  “Bang on it, get their
attention, or just throw it open and deal with what comes out?” Alex asked in a
whisper.

Mike shrugged, confusion
showing on his broad face. 

“Everyone off the dock,
stand at the edge between the trailers, if too many come out we draw them off
and use the suppressed rifles to take them out.”  Everyone moved off the dock
at Rick’s suggestion, except Alex and Rick, standing back while Jimmy and Mike
posted near the edge of the dock, silenced weapons shouldered.

Rick and Alex watched the
base of the door for a moment before slipping fingers beneath.  Both took a
deep breath, nodded and pushed up with their legs while lifting with their
arms, throwing the door up in one swift move.

Both men jumped back from
the gaping maw of the door, stepped to the edge of the dock and dropped down to
the ground, turning to watch as moans erupted behind them.

Daylight lightened the
darkness only a few feet into the large space of the receiving area, leaving
the rest pitch black.  Tense, sweat beading on their foreheads, the men watched
as two zombies, one dressed in a janitor’s uniform and another in medical
scrubs shuffled into the light, their hunger vocalized as the saw their prey
standing beyond the dock.

Mike and Jimmy placed
their sights on the faces of the two, breathed and fired, the popping noise
echoing around the covered dock.  They glanced at each other, smiling at the
shots they had made, and placed a hand on the edge of the cement, preparing to
hop back up onto the dock and clear the room. 

Into the light shuffled
two more, then another, then three.  First a doctor, sleeve of his lab-coat
torn away, a gaping bite wound in his shoulder showing bone.  Two nurses, the
left side of one’s face missing, the eye hanging loosely from the optic nerve,
bouncing on her cheek with each shambling step, the other with thick red hair,
now matted and coarse with dried gore, looking as if she had buried her entire
head inside someone.  Another janitor and two dressed in the classic ass-open
hospital johnny, all in various mangled states of deterioration and decay, all
covered in dried blood and bits of human remains.

“Shit,” Mike said,
stepping back.  Once again, he and Jimmy took aim, firing slow successive
shots, taking the doctor first, then one of the nurses.  A minute later all six
were dead on the dock, the last close to the edge, sightless eyes staring into
Jimmy’s, causing him to shudder.

“Well, that went smooth,”
Calvin said, following Rick and Alex up the steps on the far right side of the
dock area. 

The group gathered at the
door, weapons ready as they stared into the waiting darkness.  Alex took a
small flashlight from his pocket, flicking the little plastic nub to turn on a
weak yellowish light, the other men following suit, bringing lights to bear.

“We can stand here all
day, or we can clear this room and get started with this thing,” Mike said as
he stepped into the dark room.

The large receiving area
had little stock in it, most of it taken to its respective departments soon
after being received, leaving a mostly open floor for the men to scan.  After a
quick tour of the room proved there was nothing hiding in the shadows waiting
to take a bite out of someone, the men congregated at a pair of double doors,
one of which hung open, leading into hallway dimly lit by a window at the
furthest end from them.

“Nothing in the hall,”
Dean said, drawing his head back through the open door. 

“I say we close this up
for a minute, work out where we start from here,” Mike offered to the group.

“We need to get those
bodies off the dock,” Rick said, closing the door to the hall and turning the
lock.

The men stood looking at
each other, waiting for someone else to volunteer for the nasty job.  “Fine,
you fucking pansies, I’ll do it,” Dean said.  He pulled a pair of leather work
gloves from a pocket, tugging them on as he walked out through the bay door. 
Wordlessly, Jimmy joined Dean, pulling on a pair of thin brown jersey gloves.

Mike stood outside the
big door, keeping watch as the two men dragged the bodies to the far end of the
dock, rolling them off onto the ground, away from the trailers.

Inside, Calvin stood
watch at the double doors while Alex and Rick looked through the sparse
supplies in the room.  Several boxes stacked on a two-wheel dolly turned out to
be cases of blue nitrile gloves, while two large crates were electronic
diagnostic instruments, useless to them.