Dead Living (3 page)

A six-year-old son looked up at his father.
“Daddy, Brandy bit me on the swings today. Am I going to die?”

“No, no, of course not,” he said. “That's
ridiculous.”

“It
is
ridiculous,” Doctor Blair said.
He'd just finished trying to revive Cowboy, but that wasn't
possible. Cowboy was dead. He gestured for one of the nurses to get
a gurney, then pointed at the television. “Turn that off. There's
no need to make people panic. I've been listening to that all
morning. What they're saying is impossible.”

There was a loud crash outside. Denise's
heart thumped in her chest. Most everyone in the waiting room ran
outside to see what was going on. Denise wanted to join them, but
her professionalism kept her behind her desk, and well as her fear.
She was terrified. She could feel something terrible was going
on.

Doctor Blair and the rest of the crowd saw
the ambulance buried in the front entrance of the hospital. The
tires kept spinning, but it couldn't get any deeper into the lobby.
Blair thought he saw flame under the hood.

People ran all over the parking lot. The
accident was drawing a crowd on the sidewalk.

Denise just stared at the sliding glass doors
from behind her desk. She could hear the television, but she wasn't
focused on it. She looked at the few people still in the waiting
room, including the father and son.

“It's going to be okay,” she said, not
believing her own words. “We'll get you fixed up and out of
here.”

The little boy couldn't look at anything
except the dead body, still on the floor. His father tried to keep
him facing the wall, but the boy would turn his head just slightly
and take peeks.

Cowboy twitched.

The boy didn't scream. His jaw just hung open
and he pointed. Denise followed the boy's finger.

She
did
scream. “Doctor Blair! Get in
here!”

Cowboy was slowly pulling himself to his
feet. Doctor Blair and two others stood at the emergency room
entrance while people ran around in the parking lot. Everyone just
stared in amazement.

Cowboy lunged for the closest person, Doctor
Blair. He sunk his teeth into the flesh just under Blair's eye and
they both fell to the ground. The father and son screamed and
cowered in the corner near the television. Blair tried to push
Cowboy away, but that only sent more shocks of pain through his
face.

A gunshot rang out.

Denise looked to the exit doors. She
recognized one of the men that had been patiently waiting in the
emergency room. So many names and faces passed through her mind
each day, she didn't remember his name. He had shot Cowboy in the
leg.

“Sir, release that man
now. Or I
will
fire again.”

Denise guessed he was a cop. She prayed he
was.

Off duty police officer Frank Kinkade watched
for a few more seconds as Cowboy continued to chew on Blair's face.
He expected Cowboy to cry out in pain, roll over and hold his leg.
He did no such thing.

“Get him off me!” Blair shouted.

Frank felt silly for only a moment, then he
pistol whipped Cowboy seven times in the head. He still didn't make
a sound, but he did let go of Blair. Frank grabbed the doctor by
the shoulders and hauled him to his feet. Blair kept a hand pressed
to his face, blood squirting everywhere.

Cowboy looked up at both of them and let out
an angry moan. Blood dripped from his teeth and tongue to the
floor.

Frank didn't hesitate a second time. He
raised his gun directly at Cowboy's head and pulled the trigger.
Brain matter exploded from his skull and sprayed on the floor
behind him. He fell to the floor, dead a second time.

The father and son were openly crying now.
Denise couldn't find any words. No one spoke at all. The only
sounds were the chaos in the parking lot and the television.

Blair was the first one to speak. “You . . .
you killed him.”

Frank shot him a look. “Haven't you been
listening to the news? Hell, you checked him yourself. He was
already dead.”

“That isn't possible.”

They didn't get a chance to continue the
debate. Two women walked into the emergency room. One was very
pregnant, and waddled slowly. The other had her hand on her
friend's shoulders, just slowly walking with her.

“What is going on outside?” Sarah Thompson
asked.

Both women stopped and cried out when they
saw what was left of Cowboy sprawled on the floor. Doctor Blair was
treating himself. He rubbed his face with alcohol and pressed gauze
to the wound Cowboy had left behind.

“My friend is having a baby,” Margie
said.

Doctor Blair took a deep breath. This was
turning into a crisis, if it wasn't already.

“I'll take them back,” he told Denise. “Get
some help up here.”

Doctor Blair grabbed a wheelchair and helped
Sarah sit down. Denise knew this was against procedure, but she
couldn't remember procedure at that moment. They didn't know the
woman's name. She wasn't logged into the system. No insurance
information. Nothing at all.

Sarah tried to turn her head to Denise as
Blair pushed her down the hall. “My husband is coming!” she
called.

Denise barely heard her.

Frank took a quick peek outside. The parking
lot was empty, but he could hear the violence off in the distance.
Screams, gunshots, people running, those awful moans.

He walked around Cowboy and up to Denise at
the desk.

“Ma'am, I've been here for two hours now. I
came here with my sister, Brandy Kinkade. They took her back a
while ago. Can you tell me where she is?”

Denise was quiet a moment, just looking at
Frank's face with her mouth open. He had to shake her shoulder to
snap her out of it. She was embarrassed. She was a medical
professional. She was supposed to have better control over
herself.

“Yes, I'm sorry. Brandy Kinkade.” She sat
down at the computer. “Let me see.”

She didn't get the chance to look.

A mob of people burst into the waiting room.
Some came from the outside, while others came from the stairwell in
the corner. They ran right to the father and son near the
television.

The mob didn't show any mercy.

Frank raised his gun, but he held off from
firing. He was afraid to draw attention his way.

He fought off the guilt and the sounds of a
boy and his father dying. He quickly opened the door to the office
that Denise was in. She was shutting the glass window that
separated her desk from the waiting room. Frank locked the door
behind him. They both climbed under the desk and just listened.

Denise kept a hand clamped over her mouth
while tears streamed down her face. She heard the father and son
screaming in agony, then they were quiet. She heard the sounds of
the mob feasting. Disgusting, horrifying noises. She saw shadows on
the back wall that hinted at the Hell that was happening. The
office itself was locked, but the glass window didn't lock at all.
They weren't safe.

They're just twenty feet away. We're
next.

Over the sounds of the creatures eating, they
could still hear the television.

“. . . we have here footage in Brazil of an
attack at a funeral. I know it's hard to believe, but it looks like
the body actually climbed out of the coffin. The deceased died from
a broken neck at a construction site, but it didn't seem to slow
him here. Only physical brain trauma seems to put them down,
whatever they are . . .”

Frank and Denise stayed under the desk for
ten minutes. There was nothing they could do. The creatures grew
bored of the cold flesh they shoved in their mouths. They rose up
and wandered away, searching for their next hot meal. Some went
outside, while others went deeper into the hospital.

Denise almost let out a cry when she saw a
small shadow rise up on the back wall. There was a moan that was a
higher pitch than the others. The mob had left just enough of the
boy to rise among the dead.

The waiting room grew
quiet, but that didn't make Denise feel better. An hour ago, she
was doing her job. Now, the world was tearing itself apart.
Reporters on television were interviewing different witnesses to
different attacks. One interview was cut short when a mob of people
attacked the camera team. Frank lowered his head as their screams
turned into a
technical
difficulties
message.

Frank thought desperately about his next
move. His sister was somewhere in the hospital. She was all he had
left, after their parents died in a car crash four years ago. He
had to find her, then get someplace safe. It was that simple.
Whatever was going on in the world, they could figure that out
later.

There was a voice in the waiting room.

“Oh my God! Hello? Is anyone here?”

Denise poked her head above the desk. A lean
man with no shirt looked at the corpses on the floor. He had some
blood on his hands, but didn't look injured.

She waved wildly and finally got his
attention. She pointed to the door behind her. “There's a door on
the side here! Hurry!”

Several moans from just beyond the double
doors leading into the hospital got Joe moving. As he sprinted to
the door Frank was moving to unlock it. Part of Frank, even the law
enforcement part, told him that Joe was on his own. But he fought
those feelings and let Joe in. He couldn't help the father and son
against the huge mob that attacked, but he could help Joe.

Joe nearly fell in the office as Frank locked
the door again. They quietly scurried under the desk as five more
of the creatures burst into the waiting room.

The creatures sniffed the air. They knew more
warm flesh was nearby. They didn't know it was just six feet away
on the other side of an office wall. They didn't even know what an
office wall was anymore. After a few minutes, they stumbled to the
parking lot, where the scent of flesh was much stronger in the open
air.

Joe looked at Denise and Frank. He saw Frank
had a gun in his hand and a holster under his coat. Denise was
probably a few years younger than him, obviously a nurse. She would
know where Sarah was.

Denise moved her lips slowly enough for the
men to read. She still didn't dare make a sound.

What are they?

Joe shrugged, but he knew they couldn't be
human, at least not anymore. He knew humans could be absolutely
terrible creatures. But cannibalism, feeling no pain, that was
something else entirely.

He leaned toward Denise and spoke in a
whisper. “Sarah Thompson, I need to find her.”

“And Brandy Kinkade.”

Denise closed her eyes and held her hands up.
She tried to think rationally, but the fear knocked those rational
thoughts aside.

“Listen
,” she said. “The news says these things are walking dead
bodies. And we're in a hospital, the worst place to be. Now, I want
to help people, but I also don't want to die. We should
leave
right now
.
Sarah and Brandy, they're probably already dead.”

Frank barely heard a word she said. He
carefully reached up and grabbed the keyboard from her desk. “Look
her up. What room is she in?”

Denise sighed and ran a quick search on
Frank's sister. She skimmed through the doctor's notes as fast as
she could.

Her voice fell. “She's in ICU.”

“ICU?”

“Yeah. She was bitten, wasn't she?”

He nodded. “Yes. Out jogging this morning in
the park.”

“Her condition got worse, so they transferred
her to ICU. Listen, Frank, she's probably-”

“Where is ICU?”

“Second floor.”

Frank checked the magazine in his gun as
quietly as he could.

“I, uh, suppose you don't have another one of
those?” Joe asked, pointing to the nine millimeter weapon.

“Afraid not.”

“Didn't think so.” He looked at Denise.
“Sarah Thompson.”

Denise ran the search. “Nothing.”

“What? I know she's here.”

“She's not in the system. I'm really sorry,
but as you can see, this place is falling apart.”

“Come on. Beautiful, blond pregnant woman. A
pretty brunette would have been with her, her best friend.”

Denise's eyes lit up. “Ah! Yeah, Doctor Blair
took her back. But she's not in the system yet. And that . . . that
can't be good. I don't know what room she's in.”

“Where the hell do they deliver babies
here?”

“Third floor.”

Joe looked at Frank. He wished they were
going together, since Frank had the gun. But he knew that wouldn't
happen. They both had different people they needed to get to.

“Good luck, man,” Joe said.

“You too. Listen, whatever it is people are
becoming, you have to nail the brain to take them down. I shot that
guy out there in the leg. He didn't even flinch.”

“Thanks.”

He looked around the office for a weapon.
There was nothing at all that caught his eye that he could wield.
His eyes fell on a spare computer keyboard in the corner. With
nothing else to use, he grabbed it and took a few practice
swings.

Despite everything around them, Frank smirked
and shook his head.

“Okay, hold on,” Denise said. “Just hold on a
second.”

She grabbed the computer monitor and
stretched the cables enough so she could put it on the floor. She
logged into the network-based security camera system. She shouldn't
have known the passwords, but Gary, the IT tech who always tried to
impress her, showed her once how to logon.

They didn't like what they saw.

Denise slowly cycled through the camera
feeds. Joe and Frank crouched and watched over her shoulder. Her
eyes burned as she wiped tears from her eyes. The cameras showed
them what she had already guessed.