American Revenant (Book 3): The Monster In Man (13 page)

Chapter 21

Calvin and Jimmy shoved
the roll-up guard to its stopping point, scrambling over the counter.  Mike
struggled to cross the barrier, his back continuing to fire bolts of pain into
the base of his spine and down his leg.

“What the hell did you
do, Mike?”  Rick asked, offering his hand to the big man.

“Screwed my back all to
hell flipping a fucking refrigerator over to block the damn doors.”  Mike wore
a pinched grimace, his face tight against the pain.

“You good to go or what?”

“I’ll live; can we just
get this done?”

Together the group of six
moved slowly back down the hall toward the laundry area.  Once inside the
laundry room Alex and Mike each took a side, watching for zombies as the other
men took the many deep laundry carts, flipped them over and began oiling the
wheels.  There were several full carts they left untouched, bloody, vomit
coated sheets and clothing staining the cloth sided carts. 

“I still want to swing
through the offices, then we move on toward the dispensary,” Rick told the
men.  “After the dispensary we go upstairs, surgery and labs are up there
according to the fire escape map.”

“I know why the
dispensary, for all the meds, but why the labs and surgery areas?”  Alex asked.

“Surgical tools, items we
can make an autoclave with, microscopes, centrifuges, all the stuff Jan asked
for,” Rick explained.

Jimmy took point, with
Mike taking the rear, suppressed weapons handling guard duties.  The other men
each took a cart, pushing it in front of them.

“The autoclave,
centrifuge, maybe the microscopes will all be electronic, we can’t use any of
it.”

“I’m almost certain we
can repurpose the centrifuge, find a way to power it, Cal.  As for the
autoclave, I don’t know, but not all microscopes require electricity.  We’ll
find a way to make it work,” Alex said.

“We can worry about that
shit later, guys.  We grab it all and go,” Jimmy told the men behind him.

Moving slowly through the
maze of corridors, the men came to the hall of administrative offices.  Jimmy
crept around corners, using a maneuver colloquially known as
slicing-the-pie
,
ensuring nothing waited around a blind corner.  “Hallway’s clear,” he said
softly.

Jimmy stopped at the
first door, the plaque beside it stating the room belonged to the deputy
director of hospital operations.  The door hung open, allowing a wide view of a
room devoid of life or undead.  Rick followed him as he walked into the room,
checking every corner, the small coat closet, even behind the large oak desk.

The next room was much
the same as the first, though larger, belonging to the director of the
hospital.  Inspecting the room, they found several dried smears of blood on the
desk, floor, and inside door handle.

“Something went down in
here.  No bodies though,” Rick said after checking the closet.

Jimmy admired an
impressive collection of weaponry adorning the walls, all medieval in style. 
“This guy sure liked his old-school weapons.”

“Most of it looks like
replicas, not good for anything than what they’re doing now, hanging on a
wall.  This one is pretty cool, though.”  Rick pulled a long hafted hammer with
spike down from the wall.

“You know Mike loves that
kind of thing right?”

Back in the hallway, Rick
walked to the end of the line where Mike was facing away from the group,
watching down the hall.  “Hey buddy, found something for you.” 

Mike turned, wincing at
jab of pain in his back.  A smile crept across his broad face when Rick lifted
the weapon.  “Hell yes! You find this in there?” He asked, indicating the
office Rick and Jimmy had just come from.  Rick nodded.  “It’s a well-made
replica of a foot soldier’s war hammer.  Pointed tips on the head, two inch
spike on the back side, steel langets, solid hickory handle, damn man this
thing is nice.”  Mike admired the war hammer, turning the haft in his hand.

“Well, you’ve got a new
toy, glad you like it.”  Rick smiled and returned to the front of the line.

Mike turned the hammer
over several more times before slipping it through his belt and moving down the
hall, trailing the search convoy.

There were three more
rooms along the hall, each clear of any undead.  “I doubt there was much going
on in the way of administration toward the end of things,” Calvin remarked as
they cleared another empty office.

“Yeah, I didn’t think
there would be,” Rick said, “but thought it wouldn’t hurt to make the easiest
part of the trip first.”

The men made their way
through the maze of corridors, checking rooms as they went.  They were slowly
making their way toward the dispensary, which was near the emergency room. 
Most of the general areas, open to the public were free of the undead, with the
exception of the occasional wandering walker.

“I’m surprised there are
so few gut-suckers around here, being a hospital and all.” 

“I don’t think the common
areas would have been too full, especially since things happened so fast,
Dean,” Mike said.  “I’m just glad we don’t have go to
into
the ER for
anything.”

Coming around a corner,
the men entered a short hall leading directly to the ER through large steel
double doors.  On the left side of the hallway, just before those doors was the
dispensary. 

The gray painted doors
each had one long window, about two feet long and eight inches wide set in the
latch side.  Through those windows the men glimpsed an area packed with shuffling
bodies.  Zombies passed by the windows, often obscuring their limited view for
several minutes before moving on. 

“If those things see us
we’re in trouble.  I’m guessing there are hundreds packed in that ER, and if
they all hit those doors, there’s no stopping them,” Dean said.

“Take the carts slowly
down the left side.  Once inside we clear everything out.  Don’t worry about
what you’re shoving into the carts, just get it all.  Jan can sort through it
later.”  Rick looked at Mike and Jimmy, “You guys stay down here, keep a look
out.  Would suck ass if something happened and we all got trapped in there.”

Mike and Jimmy posted to
opposite sides of the hallway, watching around the corner as their group made
the agonizingly long walk down the short hallway.  Mike caught himself
whispering “Come on, come on” willing them to get into the room quickly without
being seen.

Several times zombies
passed near the windows, though their luck seemed to hold, making it into the
room without incident.  Several of the men released deeply held breaths, not
realizing that they had been holding them nearly the entire time.

“Spread out, start
loading these carts up, grab everything,” Rick told his crew.

The large room held
everything from medicine to crutches, bandages, to more serious narcotics.  The
men quickly realized that most of the medicines were locked in cabinets, some
with glass fronts, others solid wood.  The group as a whole felt a moment of
despair, fearing they would be stymied at the last minute by locks they
couldn’t pick, nor could they break them open because of the noise.

Reaching out, Dean pulled
on one of the wooden cabinet doors, checking to see how heavy the wood was, or
how tight the lock.  He was pleasantly surprised when the door swung open in
his hand.  “Too busy to pay attention to protocols, I bet.”

After checking all other
doors and cabinets, they found about half of them to be unlocked.  They would
still have to contend with the locked doors, but they now felt a bit more
hopeful.  They spent the next ten minutes cleaning out the unlocked cabinets,
quietly passing items from cabinet to cart.

Alex stood in front of a
locked glass-fronted cabinet, pondering the options they had for breaching the
door when Rick stepped up, taking out a Leatherman pocket tool and flipping out
a broad flat tip screwdriver.  Slipping the tip between the door and the body
of the steel cabinet close to the latch he began to turn the tool, as if
tightening a particularly difficult screw.  He succeeded in creating a slightly
wider gap, but failed to pop the latch.

“Had to try,” He said
with a shrug.

“Hang on,” Alex told the
group, reaching into his daypack and removing a hard plastic water bottle.  His
fellow scavengers watched as he picked at something with a dirty thumbnail for
a moment before he unwrapped a portion of camouflage duct tape from the
bottle.  “Never leave home without this stuff.”  Alex tore off a length about
ten inches long, clamping an end between his teeth while stowing his bottle.

In front of the cabinet
Rick had tried to force open, Alex tore the strip in half, placing one strip on
the glass next to the latch, rubbing it forcefully to ensure it adhered to the
glass.  Sticking the second strip next to the first, overlapping them about
one-fourth of an inch, he rubbed them both vigorously for a moment. 

“Ok, this should work.” 
He borrowed Rick’s folding pocket tool, placing the end on the tape, right up
against the frame and began pushing.  As he leaned into the push everyone in
the room could hear the glass start to crack under the pressure.  Alex nearly
fell face first into the cabinet as the glass gave way, punching a small ragged
hole next to the lock.  The tape held all of the fractured pieces together,
eliminating the noise from falling shards.

“Very nice, man.” 

“Thanks, Cal.  Now we
widen that hole enough to get in there at the latch and we should be able to
pop it pretty easily.”

“Good job, Alex.  You
want to do the same to the other two locked glass fronts, while a couple of us
figure out a way to break open that last wood cabinet?”

Alex nodded, reaching for
the tape-wrapped water bottle in his kit and setting to work.

Chapter 22

Jimmy checked his watch,
tapping the face several times.  “Crap, I think my watch stopped.  How long
have they been down there?”  Jimmy asked, turning the stem on the old
wristwatch.

“Almost half an hour. 
Give ‘em time man, they’ll be done soon.”

Jimmy leaned against the
wall, occasionally glancing around the corner and down the corridor, watching
for the men inside the dispensary.  “You think this is as crazy as I do?”

Mike eyed his friend,
“What, the fact that we’re inside a hospital full of zombies?  Or the fact that
I can even say “hospital full of zombies” without becoming a gibbering idiot?”

“You know what I mean. 
Why are we out here?  I get that having serious medical supplies is a good
thing, but is it so damn important that we have to risk our asses to get them?”

Mike glanced down the
hall, pulling his head back as a zombie moved past the far window to the ER. 
“It’s important that we have this stuff, yes.  Do I like the situation?  Not a
single damn bit.”

Jimmy stared at the white
tiled wall across from him, a broad stripe of green tile bisecting the white
two-thirds of the way down.  “I’m ready to get the hell out of here, and we
still have to go upstairs to the damn labs and surgery.”

“I know, brother.  This
place makes my skin crawl.  We’re doing ok so far, keep your fingers crossed
and your panties clean.”

“You wish I wore panties,
make it more fun for you when you stare at my ass.” 

“Well, someone’s gotta do
it.”

“Ouch, man, that hurts,”
Jimmy said, looking over his shoulder, “besides, I have a nice ass.”

“Yep, an ass a zombie
would love.”

The two old friends
looked at each other for a moment before breaking out into quiet laughter. 

Casting another glance
down the hall Mike saw a dark-haired head poke through the door for a second
and duck back in.  “Eyes up, here they come.”

Dean came out first,
followed by Rick, Calvin then Alex.  They moved quickly, wasting no time moving
the filled carts down the corridor where the two men stood guard.  Wordlessly
they moved past, Mike taking the lead position moving out in front of Dean just
as he rounded the corner. 

Jimmy kept his rifle up,
watching the ER doors for movement at the windows.  He turned away as Alex
closed the distance to the hallway intersection and did not see the two pairs
of glazed eyes come close to the window, watching he and Alex disappear around
the corner.  The men did not hear the two zombies at the windows take up their
low moan, alerting the densely packed ER to food that was moving away.

Mike went quickly down
hallways they had already cleared, weaving in and out of the maze-like
corridors.  The wheels of the carts made hollow clacking noises on the tile
seams the faster they were pushed. 

“Slow down a little, damn
it,” Dean hissed.  He did not want to fall too far behind Mike, but he feared
the wheels would draw attention.

Mike nodded in response,
slowing his walk, allowing the little convoy of carts to close the gap he had
created. 

In the lead position,
Mike opened both doors to the receiving room, waiting for the men to trundle
through.  Calvin was already lifting the large bay door as Jimmy and Mike
closed the doors behind them.

“Shove the carts on the
truck as is,” Rick told the men.  “Upstairs is next for the labs and surgery,
then we can be gone from this place.”

The carts were rushed
onto the truck and pushed back to the support pillars, still leaving the space
in back.  The bay door was closed and the group gathered at the door again,
watching briefly before stepping into the hallway.

****

The group of scavengers
stood looking at a pile of bodies on the turn landing of the second floor
stairs.  The thick stench of rotted human remains filled the stairwell, forcing
the men to gather shirts in front of their faces. 

The tangled mass of
bodies had decayed to the point where they were beginning to liquefy,
greenish-black fluids running down the stairs in tacky trails that stuck to the
bottoms of boots as the men stood on the stairs. 

“First, how the hell did
they all get here?  Second, how are we getting around them?”

“Damn good questions,
Cal.  I can only guess, but I think someone threw them down here.  As for the
second,” Rick looked around the stairwell, “through them, or climb the rails
and go around them.”

The thought of wading
through the rotting carcasses caused stomachs to flip, bile rising into the
throats of several of the men.  “We climb.” Alex said, choking back the bitter
taste in his mouth.

Not often would any of
these men take the risk of climbing the rails, risking serious injury or worse,
especially considering they were in this place to acquire items to help with
injuries.  Climbing up, each man would sit astride the topmost rail and lean
forward, pulling themselves along until he rose up and past the bodies.

Only once was there a
moment of genuine fear.  As Mike braced his foot to climb up his back shot a
fiery bullet of pain down his leg.  His foot slipped, and he tilted sideways,
nearly falling not to his death, but into a pile of dead.  He would have
preferred to fall to his death.

“We need to see if
there’s a better way to go back down.  Especially if we’re going to be bringing
arm-loads of stuff with us,” Dean said to the group.

Bunching up behind the
door leading onto the second floor, the men waited while Rick watched through
the slit window.  “I can’t see shit from this angle.  According to the map the
labs are off the second hall to the right.  Surgery is down one hall from
that.”

“We doing two groups or
one, Rick?”  Alex asked.

Rick stared out through
the window slit, thinking.  “Ok, we can do two.  Jimmy, Alex, and Cal, you guys
handle the labs.  The rest of us will head for surgery.  You guys know what
we’re here for, let’s be quick.  Meet back here.”

The first thing they
noticed on opening the door was the rank, fetid air.  It felt thick and heavy,
instantly making it difficult to draw a deep breath without feeling as if they
were choking.  The second thing they noticed was the complete emptiness of the
area, a blank stillness that inexplicably frightened the scavengers.

Putting their uneasy
feelings aside the two groups headed for their destinations, moving as fast as
they could while still staying quiet. 

Ducking into the first
lab room they came to, Jimmy’s crew quickly went to work grabbing everything
they could fit into pillowcases taken from the laundry room.  They spent little
time examining items, looking at them only long enough to wonder whether an
item was useful or not.

“Next lab guys,” Jimmy
said, moving to the door.  Alex and Calvin stayed close, gripping their sacks
of loot tightly.  The next room was a storage room, which they skipped. 

“We clean this lab out
and we’re done.  We can go find the other guys and help them, or we ca…” He bit
the words off as soon as they rounded the corner leading to the next lab.  At
the far end of the corridor, facing away from the group stood a mass of undead,
shuffling in place as if anxious to move but having nowhere to go.

All three men saw the
zombies, fifty or more, at the same time and stopped in their tracks.  As they
began to back away, something inside the bag of lab supplies Jimmy carried
shifted, making a faint
clink
as it came to rest.

One of the creatures in
back of the huge pack turned, moaning loudly as it laid eyes on fresh meat. 
The rest of the pack began to turn, shuffling away from the wall, exposing the
stripped body of what had to have been a nurse at one time, though only
tattered white pieces of cloth and sensible nurse’s shoes remained scattered
around a pile of bones.

The underfed horde of
undead surged forward, the moans becoming a collective sound that seemed to
vibrate the very floor they stood on.

Jimmy turned on his heel,
“Run… just fucking run!”

Gripping their bags of
lab loot the three men charged toward the end of the hall, heading for the
stairwell. 

The zombie mass rounded
the corner, the concussive group moan growing ever louder as their dinner
pulled away. 

“Pack! Pack!” Jimmy
shouted as he neared the door to the stairwell, alerting the other group to the
small horde now pursuing them.  Reaching the door, he looked back to see the
horde closing rapidly on his group.  “Into the stairwell, go!” Jimmy yelled
even as Calvin and Alex went around him.  “Mike, Dean, Rick!” He was nearly
screaming, his voice cracking with effort. 

The other team came into
sight far down a connecting hall, bulging white pillowcases clutched in their
hands, wearing puzzled looks.  “What the hell, Jimbo?” Mike called as the group
started jogging toward the stairs door.  They stopped, nearly tumbling over
each other as the horde came into sight, shuffling rapidly toward Jimmy who
stood with the door open.

Jimmy looked from the
horde to his friends and back.  He knew they would never make the door before
the mass of gnashing teeth and reeking death reached him.  “Hide, we’ll go back
down, figure a way out!” He shouted, ducking behind the door into the
stairwell.  The door closed slowly, thumping shut just as the huge pack reached
it.  Unable to lock the door, the men hoped that the crush of zombies would
keep it closed.

Jimmy stared at the slit
window, at the peeling, rotting faces now pressing against the glass.  “They’re
trapped up here with that.  We have to go back down and find a way to get them
out.”

“What do mean trapped?” 
Calvin’s voice rose, fear squeezing his throat.  “My brother’s in there, we
can’t just leave him!”

Jimmy turned, glaring at
Calvin.  “Don’t flake out now, damn it!  All our brothers are in there.  We can
stand here and talk about it or we can do something to get them out.” 

Calvin stared back for a
moment before taking a deep breath.  “Yeah, yeah, ok.”

Jimmy glanced up the
stairs leading to the third floor, quickly discarding the idea of going up. 

Alex led the way down,
quickly making his way over the rail and around the putrid mound of liquefying
bodies.  Alex reached the door out to the main floor and stopped, his hand on
the lever handle. 

Calvin and Jimmy stood
behind him, waiting for Alex to throw the door open.  “What the hell, Alex? 
Let’s go, man!”

Alex turned to his
friends, “Look.”  He stepped back from the door so they could see through the
slit window.

“Oh hell no.”  An instant
feeling of crushing defeat seemed to push down on Jimmy’s shoulders, causing
them to sag.

Zombies shambled past the
window, one after another.  A gap revealed to the men that the entire lobby
area of the hospital was now teeming with undead.