His left foot had gone numb within just the last five minutes. The volume in his right ear had also adjusted itself down to slightly above a whisper as the freezing wind pelted the exposed skin along half of his body. Griffin’s lower back tightened as he dragged the second body away from the low-hanging blue spruce and laid it alongside the others.
They’d gotten to Cora, only seconds before he did, although without completely disrobing her, he couldn’t be certain she hadn’t been infected. Coagulated blood dried in dense patches along her face and then disappeared into the collar of her jacket. And as he pulled the black nylon away from her neck, four scratch marks traced a line from her clavicle into her armpit.
Dropping his hands into the snow, Griffin pressed a fistful of frozen flakes into Cora’s wound. And as it melted into the warmth of her skin, he scanned the treeline for any additional pursuers.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said under his breath.
Wiping away the cracked trails of red that covered the scratches brought him no closer to an answer. The unprotected skin near her bra strap had grown bright red from the extreme temperature change and seemed to antagonize the ambiguous scores backlit in red.
At his back, and judging from what he remembered of the topography, probably no more than twenty seconds off, something disturbed the rhythmic cadence of the storm. Without time to check his weapon, he recounted in his head the shots he’d taken since leaving the roadway.
Sliding the Glock into his waistband, he reached for Cora’s left arm as she involuntarily lurched forward. Her eyes shot open as she screamed and reached for Griffin’s face. Clutching her wrist and leaning forward, he used his free hand to push her leg up under her, and then tossed her onto his back. “Just keep quiet and hold on.”
Cora continued to struggle against his tensed arms, as he stood from a squatting position and turned in the direction of the commotion not quite twenty yards back. “Will you just let me save your ass?”
Twisting back to center, Griffin fought the urge to run as he started downhill. Planning each step as he moved along the ice slicked hillside, he grew more confident with each new outcropping. As he settled into a rhythm, Cora had also realized their situation or had given into whatever was happening to her. Either way, she was now quiet and had stopped resisting.
As the sloshing footsteps at his back intensified, Griffin was unable to decipher his from theirs, and wouldn’t be able to estimate their distance without stopping and turning. Left with no other options, he continued through the maze-like terrain and barked into the storm. “Cora.”
She didn’t initially respond, although he could feel her warm breath against the back of his bare neck, and that pushed him to increase his speed. She bounced lightly off his shoulders with each passing step and as he cut sharply to the left and pushed off the thick base of the frosted spruce, the centrifugal force pulled Cora’s body in the opposite direction.
“Hey,” she said. “What’s going—”
“Hold on tight,” Griffin shouted through labored breaths. “And tell me how close they are.”
As he pushed his way through a dense patch of frozen juniper, the next glade, more than fifty yards from end to end, came into view. Stepping down into a bed of knee deep powder, Griffin’s right foot shifted as it contacted a belt of ice covered shale, sending both he and Cora onto their backs.
Rolling over and onto his hands and knees, he reached for Cora and pulled her into his chest. The low branches in the gap between the dusted shrubs began to flit back and forth. Others were coming, although if they stayed hidden below the white deck, he and Cora may just have a chance. He only needed five minutes without the searing pain that blistered both his hands and his feet, just a few minutes to catch his breath.
Sliding down into the powdery refuge, he felt his internal temperature drop with each second that fell away. Whispering to Cora, they laid back against a compacted mound of snow as their bodies sat shoulder to shoulder. “Stay down. Let’s give them a few minutes to scatter. I think I found our way out.”
Now fully alert, Cora wrapped her hands around his and pulled them into her tattered jacket. “We’re gonna die out here. Aren’t we.”
“No,” Griffin said. “We’re not.”
Sliding closer, Cora pulled her right hand away momentarily and brushed the melting snow out of his hair. “I’m not even sure that we aren’t already dead. Because I can’t imagine hell being much worse than this.”
Griffin laughed, but made sure to keep his volume contained to the three-foot cavern they presently occupied. “How’s your side?”
“Numb.”
“Your hands and feet?”
“Same,” Cora said. “You?”
“I’ll be fine. I guess it’s a good thing I can’t feel anything below my calves, because we’re gonna need to run. You up for that?”
“I don’t know,” Cora said. “I guess.”
“Okay, another sixty seconds and we go. We need to get way out in front of them so they lose our trail, so once we stand, we’re not gonna look back. We’re not gonna slow down and we’re definitely not gonna stop, no matter what. Does that work for you?”
“Sure,” Cora said. “I just hope my body agrees.”
Turning to face her, Griffin said, “I know I said I didn’t want to know anything about your past, but I have to ask one question.”
Cora furrowed her brow and pulled in the corner of her mouth. “Okay?”
“I don’t pretend to know much about where you and the others came from, but I’d always heard that the guards weren’t allowed to carry weapons.”
“They weren’t. A few of them maybe had some pepper spray, but that was all.”
“Got it… so why we’re
those
guards carrying weapons?”
“I’m not sure, maybe they knew something we didn’t.”
“Maybe?”
Out of the alcove and into the hall, their massive childhood friend now rested comfortably in a heap, blood collecting around his oversized frame. Quickly moving around the body, Ethan was careful to avoid stepping directly into what remained of Franklin’s obliterated head. Pausing, he nodded further into the hall, where three additional cots had begun to stir. “This is just getting ridiculous.”
“Only fire your weapon if it’s absolutely necessary,” David said. “We may need to fight our way back out of here.”
“Okay, so we’re starting now, after you just sprayed Franklin’s head all over the back half of the hospital?”
“You’d rather we fought him hand to hand?”
Ethan didn’t respond. Taking the lead, he moved with a purpose and in a straight line through the two rows of cots. Pulling the sixteen-inch, expandable steel baton from his belt, he swung hard on whatever was attempting to rise from the third cot on the left. Adrenaline pushed him forward.
Not looking back to check his handiwork, he stepped to the opposite row, twisted right, and brought the tempered steel down again. As the second shrouded body dropped back into place, Ethan increased his speed and cleared the transitory gauntlet in time to see his friend eliminate the third and final threat.
Reaching the corner, Ethan motioned to another set of double doors thirty feet ahead. “Through there, or you want to take the long way?”
“How’s your shoulder.”
“What?”
“Your shoulder,” David said. “How’s it holding up?”
“I think we have a decision to make here, and it has nothing to do with how you or I feel. I really don’t think we have the time for this small talk.”
“If we’re going through that door, we’ll need to fight. And if I have to do it alone, we’re both dead. So, how’s your shoulder?”
“You didn’t just see me swing on those two back there? I’d say the only thing you need to worry about is yourself.”
“We’ll see about that, just try to keep up.”
Ethan jumped first and was in a dead sprint before David had time to react. Reaching the set of doors, the pair moved to opposite sides of the corridor and leaned into the wall. Ethan rested his elbow against the panic bar and slowly pushed it in.
With the door opposite him parting only an inch, David bent forward and peered into the next hall. He nodded, looked back to Ethan, and held up both hands, five fingers from one and three on the other.
His back now against the door, Ethan gripped the baton. He waited as David slid to the right and mirrored his position. Pushing through the threshold first, Ethan stayed along the wall and side-stepped the first attacker.
Drawing his right arm back, he came around with the baton at full extension, striking the second walking corpse just below the temple. As he followed through and the metal rod skipped off the wall, Ethan lost his balance and fell forward into his next target.
Only a step behind, David continued his slow jog and used the blunt end of his weapon to push back the beast clawing at his friend. Reaching in before the situation escalated any further, he pulled Ethan back and stepping forward, kicked the feet out from under the man with half an arm.
Onto his feet, Ethan looked past David and quickly assessed the remaining twenty feet to the open cafeteria area. “Five more.”
“Stay close,” David said. “Were almost there.”
Shoulder to shoulder, they slowed to a walk as the infected tourists moved to within fifteen feet. Ethan turned to his friend and spoke quietly. “How you wanna do this?”
“Two for you and three for—”
“Wait,” Ethan said. Over his right shoulder, a single sliver of light filtered out into the hall from the cracked door to the hospital’s main laundry room. He turned and before David could answer, disappeared behind the door.
As the crowd continued to close the gap, David let out a long whisper-shout. “EEEETTHHAANN!” Unfortunately, his voice carried through the extended hallway and into the cafeteria, gaining the attention of a second group of would-be aggressors.
Not more than a five feet away, David pulled his weapon and took two steps back. As the small horde continued forward, Ethan exploded through the swinging door, pushing a large laundry cart. “Let’s go.”
Out into the hall, Ethan plowed sideways into the small group of Feeders, instantly taking the first four to the ground. And as the momentum carried him into the opposite wall, the oversized plastic bin struck the last one just below the waist and flipped her into the bin. Struggling to stay upright himself, Ethan turned and headed for the cafeteria. “David, let’s go.”
The stout female, now flailing at the bottom of the cart, clawed at the slick plastic as Ethan continued pushing through the narrow hallway. Attempting to free herself, she managed to flip onto her back and was now face up, as David fell in alongside his friend.
The badly disfigured woman tore at the air and flailed against the momentum of the cart as the men looked down on her. “Do it,” Ethan said.
David left one hand on the cart and with the other he reached into his belt and withdrew a six-inch folding knife. He quickly leaned in, drove the blade into the right side of her head, and pulled it back, her body motionless before he looked back at Ethan. “She was already gone.”
Ethan stopped pushing and upon reaching the perimeter of the cafeteria, turned to his friend. “Was it hard?”
“No, it’s them or us.”
“I know you’re right, but it still couldn’t be easy to—”
“No,” David said. “It was easy. It was easy because my fiancée is on the other side of that cafeteria and I’m not letting anyone or anything stop me from getting to her. These things, whatever they’ve become, drew the short stick today. For whatever reason, they’re gone and from what I saw in those videos, they aren’t coming after us to ask for help. It’s too late for them, but not for us. Keep that in mind.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
Pushing into the cafeteria, Ethan gripped the rounded handles and guided the sky blue cart toward the left wall. Scanning the room, he looked for the path of least resistance through the maze of upturned tables, discarded bodies, and the massive traffic jam of square-backed, stackable chairs. This is where the battle was lost.
From beyond the cash registers and alongside the destroyed breakfast buffet, another six Feeders stood and turned their way. Moving more quickly than the others they’d encountered thus far, the first pair to step out into the open were nearly running. Their unnatural, almost animalistic gait sent an icy tremor down the middle of Ethan’s back.
Motioning toward the darkened hall at the opposite end of the room, and across twenty feet of stained white linoleum, Ethan looked back at David. “Is that where we’re going, in there, through that mess?”
Again on the move, David turned and walked quickly backward as Ethan drove. “No other choice. But keep this bin between us and anything that comes our way.”
Exiting the hall and converging with the group from the cafeteria, the growing horde of Feeders now numbered just over a dozen. As they turned their attention to Ethan and David, the pair bolted for the tangled web of tables at the center of the room.
Ethan stayed with the cart as David flanked right, attempting a shortcut. Keeping his friend in his periphery, he leapt a downed trash bin, dug in, and sprinted toward the opposite hall. Sidestepping an overturned display case and avoiding the bottles of water that had jumped from their home, he planted his left foot and leapt onto the first table.
His attention laser focused on the three offices just beyond the room, David’s right foot came down atop a wayward serving tray, plastic on plastic. Sliding off the opposite end of the table, he found himself on his back, between a refrigerated soda machine and a decorative potted sago palm.
Pushing into a seated position, David flinched as he attempted to free himself. His right ankle had dropped between the table’s legs and its vertical braces. And the awkward forward slant of the table made extracting himself impossible without help. His hand on his hip, he withdrew his weapon and pushed up under the table as far as the restricted space would allow.
With his friend rolling toward the scene, a small pack of Feeders had broken off from the main horde and started for him. They crossed the open space and had begun climbing the mountain of tables before Ethan slowed the bin and came in from the opposite end.
They would reach him well before Ethan; this was obvious. David could empty what was left in his weapon in an attempt to give himself a few extra seconds, although the next, much larger crowd would arrive just as Ethan did. He couldn’t see any other way out of this. He and his best friend would end up dead, less than twenty feet from the woman he hoped to marry.
This new reality altered the game plan, but Carly was still his priority, no matter the cost. He wasn’t willing to die at the hands and mouths of those things. He would fix this. “Ethan, go. Get the hell out of here. Find Carly and tell her I loved her.”
David closed his eyes and placed the weapon to his head.