Nancy had to put down her juice to keep from dropping it. Greg made a strangled kind of noise. “How-” he choked out. “What-?”
“They think they’re protecting themselves,” Ken groaned. He flopped back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. For the first time since they’d arrived here, Nancy noticed how very tired he looked. “Despite the efforts of some of the other survivors here, the gun-wielding crew have decided amongst themselves that bitten means infected, case closed, so they won’t tolerate anyone who managed to survive a bite being allowed to live. I’ve tried several times now to convince them to chain a survivor up and observe so that we’d have proof, but they refuse to take the chance.”
“How many?” Greg asked. His voice sounded weak.
There was a long moment of silence as Ken seemed reluctant to answer. “Well, let’s just say that there were a
lot
more patients and doctors here not so long ago.” He turned his eyes away so he wouldn’t have to see their reaction. “I was returning from a call when shit really started to hit the fan, and by the time I managed to get back Aria and Jake had already taken control and eliminated many ‘threats’. I’ve only seen two other people make it through that door, and they were a couple of brutes with guns who immediately accepted Aria’s rule in return for shelter.”
Nancy felt nauseous. Executing people before even proving that they were dangerous? Was there not enough death going on without survivors murdering survivors?
“I’ve been wanting to leave,” Ken continued through clenched teeth. “I came because I saw the fences and thought that this place must be pretty secure, but I’d rather take my chances out there than stay here and watch them continue the way they have been. But they don’t want me to go now, you see? I’m something they unintentionally lost in their killing spree - someone with medical training. If I were anyone else they’d confiscate any useful gear I had and let me march out to my death, but because I’m useful-”
“So maybe you should just stop being so useful,” Greg suggested with a huff.
Ken gave him a pained look. “For one thing,” he replied, “how do I live with myself if I deny someone medical attention just to get back at my ‘captors’?”
Greg’s gaze shifted uncomfortably.
“For another thing,” Ken continued. “If I don’t help with what they want me to they simply threaten me.” He smiled without humor. “And they’re so god-damned insane that I’d rather not test whether my usefulness outweighs their twitchy trigger fingers.”
Greg deflated, but Nancy balked. “Well, we’re going to all leave together, and that’s that,” she announced. She felt insane saying it - they’d just gotten here after all, and it seemed relatively safe, all things considered - but the desperation in Ken’s eyes spurned her on. “We’ll march out together and take our chances,” she insisted.
Ken tossed her an exasperated smile. “I wish it were that simple, but they’ve got all the exits guarded, and even if we got past one of them we’d never make it out on foot. The hospital has a wide berth around it in every direction before there are any other buildings or structures. We’d be out in the open and all it would take is for
one
of these idiots to notice us making a run for it and shoot us right in the back.”
“When we were coming in I noticed some cars in the side parking lot,” Nancy suggested, unwilling to give up. “We could hot wire one.”
“Does anyone know how?” Ken asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m sure I could figure it out,” Greg insisted. He looked scared, but his jaw was set.
Ken looked surprised, but his face slowly changed to one of excitement. Nancy could tell from the look that living with these people had been taking its toll on him.
They must be as terrible as he says,
she thought,
if the idea of running back out into the fray makes him happy.
“We’ll have to plan,” Ken told them, “and we should give your arm time to heal.”
Nancy nodded, and was a little relieved. “Fine,” she agreed, “but let’s start planning right now.”
Life at the hospital proved to be as stressful as Ken had made it out to be. There were about sixty survivors milling around, in total, and twenty of them were Aria’s dogs. They wandered the halls day and night with loaded weapons (
Did they raid a munitions shop before they came here?
Nancy often wondered) and often bullied the other survivors into taking smaller rations and doing the dirtier jobs that needed doing. The only ones who were ignored were Nancy, since she was all but useless at the moment, and a handful of seniors who didn’t look long for this world. Ken managed to claim Greg as an assistant to keep the dogs off his back, so Nancy often followed them around as they distributed rations and meds to those who needed them.
One day, for a change, Nancy decided to wander off on her own and explore some of the furthest corners of the hospital. It was during this little jaunt that she came across the hospital’s chapel.
It was a small, quiet room with a high ceiling and the traditional stained-glass windows. There were five rows of pews to either side of the central aisle, which lead up to a modest alter with a stone sink beside it for holy water. On the wall behind the altar was the giant wooden cross with a likeness of the Lord nailed upon it. Nancy stared at this for a few moments before lowering her eyes. She’d always thought of such displays as a strange way to honor a religious savior - by visually depicting the moment of his greatest suffering.
She almost turned to leave, but something about the quietness of the chapel drew her in. She had never been a fan of churches, but just at this moment it felt like something
normal
, a place to forget what had happened in the world outside. So she sat in one of the middle pews and leaned her head against the back of the one in front of her, and just listened to the quiet.
She didn’t realize how long she’d been sitting there until she heard the door open and shut. She raised her head as the flat shoes of one of the older ladies clicked against the marble floor. The octogenarian was wearing a bathrobe over hospital garb and a head wrap over her white hair. “May I join you, sweetie?” she asked. Nancy nodded and slid over.
The older lady took great pains to kneel before clasping her hands in prayer. A rosary appeared in her fingers and her lips moved silently as she spoke to her God. Nancy couldn’t help but wonder if she was expecting an answer.
Before she could stop herself, Nancy found she was turning to the old woman with a frown on her face. “Pardon,” she said. “But I just have to ask: how can you believe in God when the whole world has turned inside out?”
The old lady leaned her head forward for a moment, and when she brought it back up there was a sadness in her eyes. With a deal of effort she pulled herself back up into the pew to sit next to Nancy and gave the younger girl a good, hard stare. “It’s times like this when having a little faith is most important,” she offered.
This just made Nancy frown more. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to seem rude, but religious faith seems pretty useless to me in this particular situation.” She knew she sounded horrible and intolerant, but she just couldn’t understand it and found that it frustrated her somehow. Maybe she just needed to let off some steam and had chosen the most unlikely of people to take it out on.
But the old woman simply smiled a quiet smile. “We all deal with things in our own way, love,” she told Nancy. “The way for me to get through this terrible situation is to pray and hope that I find my way to heaven soon. That we all find our way to heaven.”
Nancy thought about that for a moment and her mind wandered back to Marshall. She found herself asking, “Do you think this is the apocalypse?”
“I don’t know, my dear,” the old woman replied. She turned to look up at the crucified Lord on the wall in front of them. “It certainly feels like it. The rapture, perhaps.” Her gaze returned to Nancy and she placed a hand on the younger woman’s knee. “But don’t worry, sweetie. I can tell that you have a good soul. God will save you.”
Nancy opened her mouth, but closed it again before any words came out. There were a hundred ways she wanted to respond, but instead she sat with the old woman in silence for several long minutes before giving her a quick one-armed squeeze and leaving the little chapel behind her.
Chapter Eight
While Nancy continued to heal, the trio did a great deal of detective work on the hospial. It proved more difficult than Nancy had imagined to find opportunities to escape the building. Aria and Jake weren’t the most likable people, but in a time of fear and uncertainty they had proved themselves effective leaders. The others gathered around them like baby ducklings, completely obedient. More than once Nancy had overheard them referring to themselves as the “defense force” and they all took turns wandering the building, guarding any and all exits. They had confiscated Nancy and Greg’s pistol, though they seemed unconcerned about letting Nancy keep her sword; they were cocky enough to be confident that bullets would win against blades.
Ken took every opportunity he could to speak with some of the quieter survivors, the ones who had originally come here looking for safety and protection. Without giving away their intentions, he tried to work out who, if anyone, would be willing to leave the hospital with them. Several expressed distaste with the things that Aria and Jake were doing, but none seemed willing to risk their lives for their morals. Nancy found herself increasingly disgusted with people as Ken brought his report back to her each night.
For her part, Nancy
was
finding herself a little reluctant to leave as well. Though she did not doubt Ken’s description of the horrors he had witnessed, she hadn’t actually witnessed anything of the like herself. Whatever crimes the “defense force” had committed here, they had done a pretty good job of cleaning up after themselves. Nancy soon found herself lulling into a false sense of security, content to eat decent food saved by a gas-powered backup generator, and happy to sleep in a warm - if not incredibly comfortable - bed. By the time three weeks had passed and Ken had expertly removed the cast on her healed arm the young woman felt a lot better than she had in a long time.
Then another woman came to the hospital, and her arrival was what spurned Nancy back into action.
She arrived in the middle of the night, pounding on the doors of the front entrance. Aria and Jake’s troops surrounded the door in a semi-circle, guns raised. When the door was opened, she tumbled in; her knees hit the hard tile floor as she scrambled to get into the building. Nancy couldn’t tell what color her short hair had been because it was drenched in blood. She was all skin and bones, and what was left of her was wrapped in a dozen or more large bandages that had soaked through with red. In her arms she clutched what looked like a bundle bundle of rags.
Ken stepped forward, intent to help her if he could, but Aria turned her hunting knife on him. “Stay where you are, medic,” she growled. Ken’s jaw clenched and his fists shook, but he stayed.
Aria turned her attention back to the woman and demanded answers. “Where have you come from?”
“Sp-Springherst...” the woman sputtered. Tiny droplets of blood flew from her mouth. “We barricaded ourselves in the h-house, but we ran out of food, so we had to leave, and...my h-husband and my s-son...” Tears welled in her eyes as she clutched her little bundle closer to her chest. She was a woman broken. Nancy longed to run to her, but she spied several twitchy trigger fingers amongst those congregated.
“How did you receive those wounds?” Aria demanded.
The woman lifted her eyes to Aria and there was no doubt what the answer would be.
“Don’t-!” Ken exclaimed, but the man beside him drove the butt of his rifle into Ken’s stomach. Greg and Nancy cried out in protest. The woman, preoccupied, took no notice of the scuffle. “I was swarmed,” she whispered. “They tried to, to rip me apart! My h-h-husband beat them back and I ran, but...but...” She wailed. It was a miserable, nightmarish noise.
Aria had heard enough. She nodded to Jake, who grinned a savage grin that chilled Nancy to the core of her being. She opened her mouth to cry, scream, protest, but no sound left her throat. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The bleeding, broken woman’s eyes went wide with shock as Jake strode up to her, pressed his gun against her head, and pulled the trigger. The shot echoed through the foyer. Nancy screamed, threw her arms up over her head and sunk to the ground. They’d actually done it.
How could they? How
could
they?
Greg’s hand on her shoulder made her open her eyes. When she did, she saw that the woman’s face was staring directly at her, eyes wide open in accusation. A pool of blood expanded around her. The small bundle of rags had fallen from her arms as her body toppled. Aria was issuing orders to clean up the mess when a shrill cry came from the bundle and every gun in the room swung toward it in alarm.
Nancy reacted instantly. “Wait!” she shrieked. Tears were pouring down her face, she realized. “Please wait!” Any fear she may have had of the gathered artillery vanished as she scrambled forward to the woman’s fallen body. Hands shaking, she pulled one of the rags aside. Face screwed up in fear, wearing nothing but the blankets, a little baby girl looked back up at her.
The click of a gun’s hammer drew Nancy’s attention up to where Jake was hovering over her with his pistol in hand. Her heart jumped into her throat. “No!” she screamed. Moving as fast as she could she scooped the wailing baby up into her arms. “I won’t let you!”
Jake’s face twisted in a horrifying way. He hauled his free hand back with the clear intention of punching Nancy square in the face, but Aria caught his arm. He looked at her with disdain, as though his favorite toy had just been taken away.
“Let me see her,” Aria commanded.
For a few moments Nancy crouched there, shaking her head. Greg and Ken had appeared on either side of her. Jake was cracking his knuckles.
“
Let me see her
,” Aria said again. There was a clear note of anger in her voice.
With the men at her sides, Nancy gingerly revealed the child so that Aria could examine her. The defense force stood by quietly while their leader poked and prodded the child, checking her from every angle. Finally she took a step back and announced, “Not even a scrape. She’s good.”
Nancy breathed a sigh of relief. Jake’s face turned as red as the blood pooling on the floor. “And who’s going to take care of the little beast?” he roared without mercy.
“I will, damn it!” Nancy shrieked. Greg and Ken had to grab her arms as she began to move forward. Every ounce of her wanted to beat Jake’s face in, but she fell back again when the baby squirmed and let out another cry.
“Come on,” Ken whispered into her ear. “You’ve won. Let’s go find the baby something to drink.”
Nancy was still shaking with rage, but she nodded and hugged the fitful child closer to her body. With a last glare at Jake she turned and huffed off with her men in tow.
“Let her go,” she heard Aria tell her hound.
“What do you think her name was?” Nancy asked.
They’d returned to Nancy’s room after hunting down some baby formula from the hospital’s maternity ward. They didn’t have a bottle, so Nancy had painstakingly fed the baby using an eyedropper Greg had scrounged up. Nancy worried that the baby wouldn’t take it, but she must have been very hungry because she greedily gulped every drop. After a while she’d drifted off to sleep in Nancy’s arms. Nancy gently diapered and clothed her from some other supplies the hospital had kept. She was grateful that the little one-piece jumper fit. It was bubblegum pink.
Ken had been examining the child to the best of his ability when Nancy posed the question. He lowered his stethoscope, satisfied that there were no obvious problems. “I don’t know,” he replied simply.
“How old do you think she is?” Greg inquired from the armchair.
Ken looked at the child sideways. “It’s difficult to tell since all babies are different and we don’t know how well this one has been eating. My best guess would be anywhere between three and six months.”
“We’ll decide on an official birthday for her later,” Nancy said. She stroked a finger along the sleeping girl’s face and couldn’t help but smile. “For now, what should we name her?”
Ken and Greg exchanged a look. Nancy knew that they were completely on board with her saving the child, especially after the brutal murder of her mother, but she could tell that they were concerned about how quickly she was getting attached. She couldn’t help it though. Her heart went out to the little child, the little orphan. This wasn’t her child; she was just...what? Babysitting?
Adopting
? She didn’t know, but she
did
know that she wanted to look after this little girl who had lost her family. She
had
to.
“You decide,” Greg eventually said.
Nancy nodded and thought for a long time. Eventually a sad smile crept over her face. “I’ll call her Sarah.”
Delicately, Nancy lay the sleeping child on her bed. She snuggled up beside her and lovingly stroked a tuft of soft brown hair. Ken and Greg exchanged a look before bidding them goodnight and heading off to their respective rooms on either side of Nancy’s.
Nancy watched Sarah sleep for a long time. Though she tried desperately, she could not banish the image of the poor child’s mother being slaughtered by the people she’d hoped would protect her. Something had snapped inside her as she witnessed the murder, and she wasn’t sure yet whether it was a good snap or a bad one. All she knew was that something was different. Up until now she’d been struggling to keep herself alive, but now she had this huge responsibility. Suddenly she was an unprepared mother who needed to protect her child, not only from the monsters outside, but from the ones inside as well.
The baby woke several times throughout the night, whimpering, but she drifted back to sleep whenever Nancy held her close and rocked her. She had worried that, now that the child was fed, she might notice that this strange woman with her was not her mother and freak out, but she didn’t seem to realize. Nancy tried to picture the woman who had crawled into the hospital covered in blood; perhaps she and Nancy actually looked a bit alike, but she’d been too beaten up for Nancy to get a good idea of her normal appearance. Instead of worrying about it, Nancy thanked her lucky stars that the baby seemed to be accepting her as caretaker, rather than being scared to death of this stranger who held her close.
That evening, after feeding Sarah twice more and cleaning her up as best she could, Nancy called the men to her room and they had a long discussion. The circumstances under which they’d found themselves with an infant to care for had garnered a new level of respect for just what kind of insanity they were dealing with if they remained in the hospital. Aria, it was true, couldn’t be trusted to make rational, well-thought-out decisions, and Jake seemed to get a grotesque enjoyment out of killing off anything Aria saw as a threat. The combination was a dangerous one, and the longer they stayed the more chance they might find themselves being the next thing to be disposed of.
“We’ve got to go soon,” Nancy insisted. “I’ve been trying to avoid him, but Jake seems to be keeping an eye out for me, and every time he sees me he looks like he’s just aching for a reason, you know? And he looks at the baby like she’s a dog that needs to be put down.”
Greg shook his head in disgust. “Who the hell is that guy anyway?” he spat. “Did Aria haul him out of the local jail or something? No one can be that fucking crazy.”
“Unfortunately, lots of people are that crazy,” Ken pointed out gently. “And this zombie situation isn’t exactly bringing out the best in people.”
Sarah woke up and began to fuss. The little girl’s voice was weak, Nancy had noticed, as though her throat had been damaged. Nancy had wondered - heart aching as she thought it - if the poor thing hadn’t torn her larynx from constant screaming as her birth mother ran from the horrors that fought to destroy them both.
Ken grabbed some bottled water from the nightstand, quickly shook up a batch of formula, and handed it to Nancy. She offered him a warm smile before turning back to the baby.
“How about this,” Ken suggested. “We’ll gather some stuff together tonight. Greg and I will pack up the rest of the baby supplies that are in the maternity ward, as much as we can carry. We’ll hide it all in here, in the bathroom, and tomorrow we’ll take a hard look at how we can get outside undetected. If we’ve found a way that we think we can get away without anyone noticing, we’ll sneak out at nightfall and try to jack one of those cars in the lot.”
It wasn’t much of a plan, truthfully, but they were getting desperate. Greg and Nancy nodded their agreement to Ken and, almost as if she was also showing her support, Sarah gurgled and reached up to grab Nancy’s lip.
Nancy’s eyes shot open. At first she had no idea what had woken her, but the truth came to her at once: it was pitch black in her room. Nancy hadn’t slept with all the lights off since they arrived at the hospital. Ken had told her that the curtains were thick enough to hide the light from her lamp from the outside, so she chose to keep it on. The lamp had been turned off.
Before she could reach over to test the lamp, a hand pressed over her mouth. For a moment she thought it was Ken or Greg fooling around, but then the hand pushed
hard
. A knee landed on her stomach, knocking all the air out of her lungs. As little lights began to swim around in front of her eyes, the lamp turned back on and Jake’s face was looking down at her. He looked, and smelled, as if he’d drunk half of the hospital’s rubbing alcohol.