Alan and Maggie rushed out of the stairwell landing into the second floor, roars and screeches of the crazed killers bellowing out of the stairwell from above. They were in the stairs on the third level and had no choice but to exit. They ran down the corridor to get to another stairwell, but were cutoff suddenly as several undead shuffled and trotted into the corridor ahead of them. As soon as they were seen, the fastest ones charged. Alan fired his shotgun, but his aim was poor and they kept coming. Maggie fired her pistol, killing two, but it wasn’t enough and she had no time to re-aim as more appeared behind them.
“God!” Maggie cried out as she fled to the closest door.
Alan tried to follow her, but a mental patient blocked his path. He bashed the mad thing in the face with the stock of his shotgun and ran down another hallway, a mix of a dozen undead and cannibal patients following him. To Alan’s horror, the hallway ended in one door. He rushed in and locked the door behind him just as the creatures bounced against it. The room was lit, not by electricity, but by the sun—this long room had a large window at the end of it. He ran to the end, but his hopes of finding another door were dashed. There was only one door in and out of this conference room.
“Fuck! Goddamnit to Hell!” he cursed.
The banging on the outside of the door increased and he flinched at the hard impacts. He didn’t have very long and he didn’t know what to do. Alan dug into his pockets for shotgun shells and loaded his weapon to capacity, plus one in the chamber. This was it; this was where he would make his stand as a man and die. He wasn’t ready for this, but what else could he do?
The window!
Alan looked out the window and saw he was above the back parking lot and the boat. No one, including the undead, was out there, yet. He put his shotgun on the large conference table and picked up one of the heavy chairs, straining to hold it over his head. He ran at the window and threw the chair with all his might, but it simply bounced off without leaving so much as a scratch.
“Shit!”
Alan grabbed his shotgun, took aim at the window and fired—
“Ahhh!” he wailed in pain.
The window was thick Plexiglas; some of the buckshot ricocheted off and hit him in the chest and arms. Luckily, the projectiles lost most of their kinetic energy from bouncing off the Plexiglas before hitting him or the damage might have been fatal—something that might appeal to him soon. He realized this was one of the rooms that were reinforced so patients couldn’t make an escape attempt from the second floor. Now it trapped him.
He was done.
The door behind him splintered from the brute force of the ramming dead—he only had moments before they burst in. With slow despair, Alan accepted his fate and racked his shotgun’s pump to chamber a fresh round.
He was ready.
“Come on,” he said to them. His fear became frustration because the anticipation was worse than the death that was coming. “Come on, you dumb bastards!” he shouted.
He gripped his shotgun tighter and more sweat rolled down his face.
“Come on!” he repeated and fired a round at the door, the buckshot peppered it and one of the stenches on the other side squealed out from a headshot.
He racked and loaded another shell, then leaned against the windowsill and waited.
The first large piece of the door broke off and a decayed arms shot in, reaching everywhere for something to claw into.
Alan took out a pack of cigarettes—there was only one left. After putting it in his lips, he chucked the empty pack and fished a lighter from his pocket but, when he flicked the lighter, it wouldn’t catch. After a few more times, he shook the disposable lighter and realized it was empty. “Typical,” he said to himself.
Another piece of the door splintered off. Now they could see Alan at the back of the room.
He chuckled at the irony of not being able to light his last cigarette and then spit the tobacco out. “Shut up, you stinking bastards!” he barked at the noisy corpses and began to rock his body back and forth to distract himself.
It didn’t work—his nerves began to shatter—remembering something, he produced his iPod from a jacket pocket. After turning on the device, he carefully put the ear buds on and looked for a suitable selection to accompany the end of his life.
The top half of the door snapped off.
Only seconds now…
Alan found the track he wanted to hear, raised the volume, and pressed
PLAY
—
His tension immediately lowered to a state almost as calm as the Greek woman’s beautiful voice that filled his ears, mind, and soul—“O Mio Babbino Caro” by Maria Callas—her beautiful operatic perfection raising Alan’s spirits, and his shotgun…
John and Lauren were still in the stairwell. They just passed the fourth floor, but quickly stopped when they heard undead above, on the fifth or sixth floor landing. “How in the hell did they beat us up there?” Lauren stated.
“Shh!” John hissed so he could listen.
He stepped back from the stairs and cautiously opened the door to the fourth floor. It looked clear, so he signaled Lauren to follow.
Inside, John closed the door and braced it under the knob with a chair. They cautiously ran down the corridor. Tom and Anthony came around a corner ahead and startled them.
“Hey, it’s us!” Anthony said, and was speechless when he saw the horde in the courtyard pouring in through the defeated wall.
“What the hell is going on?” Tom asked.
“They’re inside. Get to the roof! Run! RUN!” John yelled.
“What?” Tom said.
Growls echoed behind John and Lauren, and then a dozen of the putrid corpses appeared from a side hallway, about thirty feet from them.
“Holy shit!” Anthony yelled.
“Run, goddmanit! Run!” John shouted.
A fast mover came through a dark doorway right in between them. It was feet from Anthony and he just barely shot it in the face when it attacked him.
“The roof! Get to the roof!” Lauren shouted.
Dozens more undead appeared and a few separated John and Lauren from Tom and his brother. The siblings ran back down the way they came as John and Lauren ran down another side hallway. The dead were taking over every floor, one by one…
Joe was still climbing up the pitch-black elevator shaft. By now he was exhausted and could barely hold on to the cable as he ascended at an ever-slowing pace. He glanced at the closed doors of the floor he was on,
3
RD
FLOOR
was stenciled on the doorway. He was too tired and couldn’t conceive reaching across to pry the doors open, knowing he would fall. Light from above caught his eye and Joe was relieved to see that the fourth floor doors were open, maybe only a couple of feet, but just enough for him to climb through. He mustered all his remaining strength and pulled himself up. His unprotected hands were bleeding, but he had to make it. After several agonizing pulls, he made it to the fourth, but only at face-level with the floor. He couldn’t pull any higher; his arms were rubber. Joe heard soft echoes of the undead on this floor, but they sounded far away. Besides, he had no other options.
He used his body to gain some momentum and swung himself closer to the floor opening. First try—he didn’t reach it. Second—still couldn’t reach it. The cables complained as Joe tried to stretch them farther, but it was useless and they snapped him back at the same point every try. Joe gave up and intended to make himself climb a little higher so he could jump down and grab onto the edge. He gathered strength via some long breaths and was about to climb—when someone in the corridor walked up to the elevator door opening—a pair of small legs stood before Joe’s face and he looked up with anxiety—
It was his daughter.
Corina.
His dead daughter.
The infected thing stood over him with a high-pitched
hissing
noise that its short, quick breaths produced. It was spewing blood-infused saliva and its greenish eyes with dark red centers were wide and focused completely on him. He was meat hanging on a cable.
Joe’s lips trembled. “Corina? Swee…tie?”
The thing shrilled with intent—
And then jumped at him—
Joe screamed as her shadow enveloped his face…
The roof of the hospital’s main building was quiet, except for the overwhelming crowd of the dead that roared below. Suddenly, one of the roof access doors burst open. Ardent and Bear rushed out, and Bear looked back to see if they had any pursuers. “Anything?” Ardent asked.
“No, we’re clear.”
“Set that door with a grenade,” Ardent said.
“Got it,” Bear answered as he slung his weapon over his shoulder and went to work.
After retrieving a hand grenade, Bear used duct tape and fastened the explosive to the doorframe next to the doorknob; next, he wired the grenade’s pin to the doorknob. If something opened that door it would go boom. Bear used a length of wire that left the door open about seven inches, then tore a long piece from his shirt and tied it in the wire’s center, so if a living person approached the door from the inside they would be warned.
“Done.”
“Get the other one,” Ardent said.
Bear headed to the door at the other side, while Ardent checked the climbing gear John had set up. The ropes that led down to the back parking lot and the boat were secure. Ardent looked down and saw the area was still empty; the dead hadn’t broken through yet since they were hunting for them inside the building. Bear was a few feet from reaching the other door when it suddenly swung open and Maggie came out, almost giving Bear a heart attack with his finger on his weapon’s trigger. “It’s me! It’s me!” Maggie proclaimed.
Bear stopped himself from accidentally shooting her.
“Anybody with you?” Ardent asked.
“No, I got separated from Joe and Alan.”
“Okay,” Ardent said as he picked up a climbing harness. “Rig the door, Bear.”
Bear went to work on the door and then—
The first door he set banged open—
Fast movers rushed out and saw their meal—
The grenade’s pin was pulled and its safety spoon flipped into the air—
The ignition sequence burned…
Alan watched as the remainder of the door burst into kindling, the dead and patient alike rumbling into the room straight for him. He jumped on the table where they couldn’t reach him right away. Dozens surrounded him and many arms snapped at him. He returned their love with fire—the first blast completely blew apart the head of a patient that climbed on the table—with the opera singer’s voice guiding his aim. He didn’t hear them or his shotgun blasts that much, but felt his grip around the pump as he racked it, and the hard
jolts
with each trigger pull.
The rotting horde surrounded Alan, reaching for him like adoring fans. Many clawed at his feet and calves, but his PVC armor protected him from scratches. He fired until his shotgun emptied. He reloaded quickly as some of them crawled onto the table. Alan kicked them off. He worked the weapon’s pump action and continued to deal out thunderous blasts that took away heads. The tremendous pressure from the hundred or so stenches that were crowded in the room snapped the conference table in two. Alan stood on the crack and almost lost his balance, but recovered and hopped to the center of the now smaller table. He couldn’t move a step in any direction. Instead of shooting heads, he was now blasting the arms that had a hold of his legs.
“Come on, you stubby motherfuckers!” he yelled and fired. “You want some more of this good shit! Come on!”
Blown off arms and blood flew all over…
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
KA-BOOM!
The grenade exploded and tore through a handful of the monsters that came through the access door. Ardent, Bear and Maggie reacted and readied themselves to fight. The blast cleared and revealed the damage—one creature’s side was completely blown apart, ribs and heart gone—and its upper body collapsed to the floor like a bending hinge. The thing was forced to crawl on all fours like some sort of sideways crab, but not for long as Ardent blasted its head off. “Let’s go!” he shouted to Bear and Maggie.
They fired continuously and made their way to the roof’s edge. Three of the undead, with their legs blown off by the grenade, were fast crawler spiders and hard to hit, and one got close to Maggie. Her pistol went empty and she panicked trying to reload with the thing crawling up to her fast. She stepped back and tripped. “Oh God!” she cried as the spider-like stench crawled on her legs. It clamped down to bite her calf, but was intercepted by Bear as he kicked the thing under the chin and knocked it off her. Her grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Come on!”
More of the living dead trickled through the fire and smoke of the destroyed door as Ardent covered Bear and Maggie. “Get her in a rig and send her down!” he shouted to Bear. He set his weapon to single fire and took a sharpshooter’s firing stance, he calmed himself, and slowed his breathing.
He took aim…
Pulled the trigger once and a single round was let loose—
Headshot!