Movement drew his eyes beyond the elderly zombie crawling towards the open door of room 217. Out of it stumbled another zombie. This one was considerably younger, not to mention much bigger than the first. It had to have at least seventy pounds on Justin and it stank of marijuana. Blood dripped from the fresh neck wound soaking its scrubs. The blood covered name badge that was still clipped on its shirt read: GERALD.
Its dead eyes locked onto him and Beula. Justin suddenly snapped out of his stupor as the younger zombie burst forward towards him at a dead sprint.
“Get him, Wilbur!” Beula screeched as she tightened her grip around his throat.
Justin gagged as terror filled him. As death came barreling towards him, he yanked on Beula’s arm and instinct overrode his kinder sensibilities. His elbow snapped back and caught Beula square in the face. Beula’s grip went slack and he gasped for air.
“Get off of me you crazy bitch!” he cried.
His words weren’t even out before Gerald body-slammed into him. The two of them crashed into the stretcher, toppling it to the ground and landing on it in a tangled heap.
Air exploded out of Justin’s lungs as he fell to the ground with Gerald still on top of him and the other zombie crawling closer. The bigger zombie’s attention didn’t waver even fractionally from its baser need to feed. It lunged for Justin, jaws snapping. The zombie was much bigger and stronger, and had him pinned, but the young man desperately tried to push him off.
Justin caught movement in his periphery, and briefly wondered if another zombie was coming.
“What the fuck!”
Justin was never gladder to hear profanity in all his life. Suddenly a black steel-toed boot emerged from behind his head and smashed up into Gerald’s chin. The larger zombie’s neck snapped as he was punted backwards off of Justin. A pair of rough hands grabbed the student by his shoulders and Justin screamed as he tried to fight them off.
“Easy, kid! It’s me, Sam!”
Justin let himself be pulled to his feet. “Look!” he pointed. The elderly zombie had crawled up to where the groggy Beula dangled from the flipped stretcher. It was about to take a bite out of her exposed calf.
Drifts strode forward, smoothly pulling his titanium flashlight free. “Hey, asshole! Leave my girlfriend alone!” The elderly zombie looked up at him a moment before Drifts rapped him across the face with the flashlight.
The blow made the zombie pirouette through the air and face plant into the carpet. It tried to push itself up, but Drifts was already there. The EMT stomped down on its back, pinning it to the floor. He raised his flashlight overhead and bashed it into the base of the zombie’s skull with two crunching strikes. Drifts hit him a third time for good measure. The back of his skull made a sickening squelch.
The zombie beneath his feet went still. Drifts looked up from the corpse as its bigger counterpart pushed itself off the floor. Gerald’s fractured jaw hung askew as it chomped on the air.
A mad gleam shined in Drifts’s eyes. “Come on, motherfucker! I’ve got some of this for you, too!”
The zombie started to lunge forward, but another pair of hands grabbed it by the shoulders and flung it into the nearby wall. It tried to flail around, but Ramirez delivered a boarding hockey check to the small of the zombie’s back, pinning it in place. The Gerald-zombie didn’t have the foresight to push against the offending wall. It just thrashed as it tried to grab at Ramirez behind it.
“I’ve got you, Leo,” Drifts started forward with flashlight in hand.
“No need,” Ramirez responded with a certain finality. He pulled free the knife from his belt and flicked it open. With one quick motion, he jabbed it into the base of Gerald’s skull. There was a sickening crack and Gerald went limp.
Ramirez smoothly pulled the knife free. He stepped back letting the body collapse to the ground. He knelt down and wiped the blade clean on a relatively clean part of Gerald’s scrubs.
He nodded to Beula. “Let’s get her off of the ground, shall we?”
He heard a noise behind him and whirled, knife ready. It was Regina. She stood at the end of the hallway, staring at the scene with mounting horror. Her breaths were coming in rapid pants.
Ramirez fastened onto her with his gaze. “Don’t scream.” She looked at him stunned. “Don’t scream,” he repeated. “There could be more around, and I don’t want to draw them towards us needlessly.” She nodded as she seemed to grasp what he meant. Ramirez turned his attention to the members of his crew. “Were either of you bitten?”
They both shook their heads. He looked them up and down. “Are you sure? It’s been known to happen without the victim’s knowledge.
Justin shook his head again. “No.”
“Hell no, Leo! I’m good.”
“What about her?” He indicated Beula. “Why is she bleeding like that?”
Justin cast his eyes down. “That was my fault. When those zombies were attacking me . . . and I . . .”
Ramirez held up his hand. “We’ll deal with that later.” He looked back at the frightened nurse. “Do you have an established outbreak protocol here?” Regina’s eyes went wide, but then she nodded. “Okay. We’re going to initiate it.”
“Okay,” she said in a small voice. She started down the hallway.
“Wait.” Ramirez stopped her, “We’ll do that together. Right now, I want you to wait right here with Justin and Mrs. Carter while Sam and I clear this open room. If we run into trouble, make for the closest exit.”
“What about Mrs. Carter?” Justin asked.
“You will have to leave her,” Ramirez told him matter-of-factly.
“Oh.”
“Come on, Sam.” The two of them entered room 217.
Chapter Seven
The Man with Two Assholes
They watched as the last of the police’s Special Response Squad began to pack up and leave the scene.
They hadn’t found any more zombies in room 217, so Ramirez urged them back to the floor’s nurses’ station, where he initiated the outbreak alarm. Open Arms Nursing Residence was built like any other facility that had a high likelihood of encountering the recently-risen dead. Once they activated the alarm, every room and floor went into lockdown. This effectively prevented a system-wide massacre and ensuing infection.
There were of course fail-safes in almost every room, excluding the outside doors. Live people could open doors from ceiling level latches, which the dead could not accidentally bump into.
As the metal gates lowered around the nursing station, Ramirez immediately got onto his radio to relay the situation to dispatch. Justin sat in the corner and stared at the gates while Drifts comforted a sobbing Regina. Beula reawakened from her stupor and screamed for Wilbur.
They all ignored her, watching out the window as the fire department was the first to arrive. Several engines surrounded the building with firefighters manning primed hoses and axes. The police arrived soon afterwards with drawn pistols and shotguns. On the radio, they heard Unit Three-Fifty-Two go on medical standby for their scene. Ramirez inwardly cringed. It was Pete Harrison’s unit. Harrison was a medic younger than Justin and cockier than Drifts, but not nearly as smart as the latter or compassionate as the former. Then Sutter, the shift supervisor, arrived on scene and assumed medical command which made Ramirez feel much better. Sutter might have been overly strict about regulations, but at least he was competent.
Sutter, the fire chief, and the police lieutenant spoke to Ramirez at length about the details of their situation. When the police department’s ZRS (Zombie Response Squad) arrived, they systematically stormed the building. They checked the second floor first as the area of the primary threat. A team of heavily-armored men cleared the EMS crew. Regina, and Beula, then escorted them out. For the second time that night, Ramirez found himself being strip-searched and he again insisted his exam be given more privacy with his supervisor present. As usual his examiners were surprised at what they found, but Sutter provided the paper they needed, and Ramirez was on his way.
In retrospect he had to give the ZRS squaddies their due respect. It only took them an hour to clear all the nooks and crannies of Open Arms Nursing Residence’s three floors. They might have thoroughly scared the hell out of over a hundred elderly people in the process, but they didn’t find any other zombies or victims.
Harrison and his partner took Beula back to the hospital to be seem for the injuries sustained in her “fall.” Justin was still taking the matter to heart.
“I can’t believe I elbowed her in the face like that.”
“You only did what you had to do. In the end, you actually saved her life.”
At the moment, Justin didn’t feel very consoled by Ramirez’s sage counsel. “She’s the same age as my Nana. What kind of person strikes someone’s Nana in the face?”
“I’d imagine the same kind of person who wouldn’t want his own Nana’s face chewed off because she’s having a senior moment with a zombie,” Drifts remarked candidly through puffs of his cigarette. Ramirez nodded. He didn’t always agree with his partner’s way with words, but he certainly cut to the heart of the matter in a hurry.
Ramirez rested a hand on his shoulder. “You did what you had to do.” He reminded him again. “If you hadn’t acted you and Mrs. Carter would be dead. Just don’t make striking patients a habit. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Justin. He smiled. “That was intense.”
“It sure was.”
“Yeah it was!” Drifts chimed in. “Hey, kid, did you see the way I fucking punted that deadhead?”
“Your foot went over my head. It was kind of hard to miss.” said Justin, “Thank you.”
Drifts waved the gratitude away. “Don’t mention it. I came around the corner and saw that thing on top of you like a motherfucking porn star. Then I was like, ‘Oh shit! That’s a zombie!’ I never kicked one in the head before. That was a fucking rush! God, I could use a blowjob right now!”
Justin held up his hands. “Don’t look at me! I don’t think I’m that grateful!”
“That’s the problem with you fucking kids today. You don’t have any sense of gratitude.”
“Huh?”
“What I want to know, Sam,” Ramirez turned his gaze on his partner, “is where were you when this whole thing went down?”
“Leo, I just went to take a leak. I saw a bathroom at the end of the hall and we haven’t seen the inside of a post all night!. I swear I thought he would be fine. I didn’t know it would turn into fucking Night of the Living Dead outside. Honest!”
“You know how I feel about that,” said Ramirez.
Drifts nodded. “I do. It won’t happen again.” He looked at the student. “Sorry Justin.”
Justin looked at him and shrugged. “It’s okay. Shit happens.”
Drifts smiled. “You know what, I think he’s going to work out just fine.”
Minutes later, they loaded up into the rig and Drifts keyed the mic. “Triple-Three cleared from Open Arms Nursing Residence.”
Dispatch called back, “Triple-Three! Just in time, set out for Forty-Second and Clines on code two!”
“Motherfuck!” shouted Drifts as he punched the roof several times. He then keyed the mic again returning to his radio DJ voice. “Triple-Three responding to Forty-Second and Clines.” He let go of the mic’s trigger. “Fuckers!”
Dispatch came back. “Triple-Three, be advised that the call you are responding to has been upgraded to a code one on a shooting. Police are on scene.”
“A shooting?” Drifts’s sour expression melted away. “Oh cool!” Now happy as a lark, he even forgot his smooth radio voice. “Triple-Three code one on a shooting!” He released the mic and did a little jig in his seat. He pressed the gas and the ambulance jammed forward. “Now that’s what I’m fucking talking about!” Ramirez automatically sunk into his seat against the momentum. A thump behind them told them that Justin hadn’t quite braced himself in time. Drifts called back, “Hold on!”
After several wild turns that took them deeper into the inner city, the light wash of their sirens mixed with that of four police cruisers and a fire engine parked in a row on a residential street. Despite the late hour the area was filled with onlookers wearing everything from bathrobes and night gowns to their best bar-hopping attire. A few police officers moved in and out of the crowd talking with the residents.
Drifts parked the ambulance behind one of the cruisers and picked up the mic. “Triple-Three on scene.” The crew grabbed a stretcher and their medical bag.
A female officer broke off from a small crowd of onlookers and approached them with a wave. “Hey, gentlemen. Sam.”
Ramirez nodded. “Officer Stromberg.”
“Hey, Leo,” she said.
Drifts grinned at her. “Hey, Rachel.”