Zompoc Survivor: Inferno (6 page)

“We need to get those infected away from that door,” Kaplan whispered as I shined my light on my prize. The map showed the triage area to our left, a narrow section of exam rooms, and a nurses station taking up the central part of the building. Further north and south though, it looked like admin country.

“Anyone have an MP3 player?” I asked.

“Mine got confiscated back in Nevada,” Amy groused. Hernandez and Kaplan both pulled one out. I held my hand out to Kaplan.

“What are you going to do, make them fight over the earphones?” he asked as he handed his over.

“Not exactly. Plan A: We need to find an office with a computer. Preferably one with speakers.”

“What’s Plan B?” Amy asked.

“Xanatos Speedchess,” I answered.

“What the hell is that?” Hernandez said.

“It’s a geek thing,” Amy said. “It means he makes shit up like crazy.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Kaplan muttered.

“Got a better idea?” Amy challenged. He shook his head.

“Stay quiet, move slow, and stay low,” Kaplan said. “Their own noise should keep them from hearing us.” He nodded to me, and I pushed the doors open slowly. Hernandez moved into the hall first, with Amy right behind her. Kaplan tapped my shoulder and gestured for me to go, so I drew the SOCOM and went out into the hallway, fighting the urge to put my finger on the trigger every step of the way. The incessant moaning covered most of the noise we made, and distance seemed to absorb the rest. Ahead of me, Hernandez had ducked into the cover of the large nurse’s station that took up the bulk of the middle section. Exam rooms were on the far side from us, with another set on the west wall. I followed her, but Kaplan gestured for her to keep going. She nodded and crept forward, out of the station and into the hallway. Ahead of us was a set of double doors that would normally have been closed, but a bloody torso blocked it open.

Hernandez pushed it open slowly, then stepped over the body. Behind her, Amy tried to avoid looking at it while she gingerly stepped around it. I slipped past it, and let Kaplan catch the door. He let it come to rest against the corpse with a slightly squishy sound, then stepped past me. The sound of moaning dropped off. Overhead, a sign pointed to the chief of surgery’s office, Human Resources, and the Business Offices straight ahead, with the Oncology unit to the right. The two Marines took the lead, guns up, fingers still outside the trigger guards. They paused at the hallway that led to oncology, and Kaplan poked his head around the corner. He turned back to us and gave the all clear, and we started forward again. As I came even with the opening, I stuck my head around the corner just like Kaplan had, almost out of habit.

I yelled in surprise and jumped back as something smashed into the wall inches from my face. Instinctively, my hand went out and shoved Amy back as a metal cart flew past us. Kaplan and Hernandez turned back to us and I could see both of them go wide eyed. The sound of heavy footsteps pounded my ears, and then all other sounds were drowned out in a roar that shook the walls. Something huge thundered out of the hallway and slid across the floor before smashing into the wall. All I could make out was a tangle of limbs sprawled on the tile between us, and then fear took over.

“Go!” I yelled at the still shaken Marines. Hernandez recovered first and grabbed the lieutenant. I turned, grabbed Amy’s hand, and went the other way.

Chapter 3

The Labyrinth & The Minotaur

~ The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."  ~ Thucydides

We ran. Whatever it was that we’d left on the floor behind us roared again, and my vision danced from the vibration that set up in my skull. We hit the door at a run and found ourselves face to face with a mob of infected, all wandering our way. Except some didn’t wander. Half of them broke into a sprint as soon as they saw us. I didn’t even think about shooting at them. We skidded to stop by the first opening we could find and bolted that way. Behind us, we heard the sound of wood splintering as the thing chasing us broke through the door.
Finally,
I thought,
one of the bastards figured out how to deal with doorknobs.
We hit the far end and I found myself with three choices. Would I find myself in a dead end if I went right or left? Forward?

A scream ripped through the air before I could make a decision and drew my attention back behind us. A ghoul in scrubs was crouched in front of the big monstrosity that had chased us, arms spread, fists balled, its head thrust forward as it screamed at the bigger infected. Every zombie and ghoul behind it faced the towering mega-ghoul. Even from across the room, that thing was ugly all over. Enormous tumors covered its body, including one huge mass that dangled from its right leg. As if the growths themselves weren’t deformities enough, I could see extra body parts protruding from rips in the thing’s flesh. Hands, ears, noses, an eye, even a skeletal arm that hung from one of the burst tumors on its right biceps. The thing rose up to its full height and let out a roar that brought down ceiling tiles as it lowered its deformed head. The screamer ghoul answered it with another ear-splitting howl of its own.

Amy’s frightened whimper got my attention, and I decided zombie anthropology could wait until she was safe. The tumor ghoul bellowed another challenge, and we used the wall of noise to cover our escape through the door.

“What were they doing?” Amy asked as we jogged down the corridor. To our right, I could see supply rooms, linen closets, and equipment rooms.

“Not sure,” I said as another exchange rattled the ceiling. “Trying to establish dominance? Gossiping? Hell, I have no clue. I just know we need to get ourselves scarce before they figure out we left.” Ahead of us, the wooden door to admin country loomed, and we wasted no time getting ourselves behind it. The sight that waited for us on the other side made me reconsider that decision, and the coppery smell made me seriously debate again how attached I was to the meatloaf I’d eaten a few hours ago. The walls were covered liberally in someone, probably more than one someone if the different kinds of fabric stuck to the wall and floor were any clue. Whoever it had been, it looked like they had tried to make a good fight of it. A length of pipe longer than I was tall lay on the floor with a pair of bent scalpels duct taped to one end. Like everything in that section of the hall, it was covered in dried blood. I bent down and picked it up, then grabbed the thick bone beside it. Turning it, I could make out tooth marks on the sides, and clean breaks among the splintered ends. The door to one of the supply rooms was open, and I saw a roll of duct tape laying on a shelf. Grabbing it, I tossed the pole to Amy and gestured for her to follow me. She looked a little green around the gills, but she kept from hurling.

“Do you think that…” she almost asked, looking behind her.

“Probably,” I said. “There are certain parts of my ignorance that I cherish, though.”

“Yeah, me too,” she said. I grabbed her and pulled her into an open office door as I heard wood crack behind us. A scream echoed down the hallway as I pulled the door shut. Amy backed away from the door, and I had to grab her hand to get her to follow me to the north wall. A quick jab with the pipe knocked a ceiling tile loose.

“Up ya go,” I said as I cupped my hands together. To her credit, she got the idea in a heartbeat, and put her foot in my hands. I boosted her up and she grabbed ahold of something, then pulled herself up into the empty space above the dropped ceiling. As the sound of feet came closer I set the pipe upright, reached up as high as I could and pulled up at the same time I jumped. My hands caught on the edge of the ceiling and I let the pipe fall against the wall as I pulled myself up into the dusty ceiling. Amy had already popped the ceiling tile on the other side and was waiting for me with her legs on the far side of the wall. I turned myself so my feet were dangling down into the other office, then reached down and grabbed the length of pipe. The door shuddered as the first ghouls reached it, and we pulled on the length of metal as fast as we dared to get it into the ceiling space with us. Just as we got it in, the door splintered and a horde of ghouls and the tumored ghoul spilled into the room.

I froze. As far as I’d seen, they didn’t seem to get thinking in three dimensions, but I didn’t want to alert them with any kind of movement. Beside me Amy’s eyes went wide, but she stayed still. The big one wandered into the room while the screaming ghoul lurked at the door. From above, I got a much closer look at it than I ever wanted to. Unlike every ghoul or zombie I’d seen, this one had no hair at all. It dragged its overburdened right leg as it made its way across the room. Its left arm was longer than the right, and from above, I could see one of the tumors on its left shoulder start to split open, revealing a tongue and upper teeth. Something else moved inside the opened mass, hidden by blood and tissue. Plates of bone were visible in a couple of the other opened masses, and I could see wounds in its chest that looked like it had already been shot several times. The tumor ghoul turned around in a circle, giving me more of a view than I ever wanted through the remnants of its hospital gown, then grunted at the ghoul at the door as it headed that way. The screaming ghoul edged in and looked around. This one looked like a mix of living and dead. Its skin was gray and pulled tight against its bones, which made it look almost skeletal. If it wasn’t for the tracery of black veins across the skin of its face, I would have thought I was looking at its skull. It uttered a low growl before it turned and wandered back into the hallway. Once it was out of sight, I waited for a full minute before I moved again.

Together, we got the pole down and slid down the wall into the next office. Without saying a word, Amy went to the desk and went to work on the computer. The office smelled of dead things and mold. The smashed aquarium on the far wall told me why. Beneath, a man in a suit was lying on his left side, with a blood trail arcing part way down the side of the cabinet behind him. From the front, he didn’t look so bad, with a neat little hole beneath his chin the only clue to how his life had ended. I crossed the room to him and picked up the pistol that was lying next to his right hand. On his right side were a nearly empty Crown Royal bottle and a gun case. On his left side was the empty glass, and I could see a bandage wrapped around his left hand. Black veins were just visible on the wounded hand, and I could see the first dark lines crawling up his neck. It was easy to imagine him sitting there, drinking the last of his liquor as he felt the virus slowly changing him. And then, knowing what was going to happen, deciding to end it before he became one of the monsters that bit him. With an unexpected feeling of reverence, I tucked the pistol back in the case and lowered the lid. Whether he knew it or not, this man was going to help save our asses.

“I’ve got bad news and I’ve got shitty news. Which do you want first?” Amy said softly when I laid the case on the desk.

“The bad news,” I said. “At least that way my day can just keep getting worse.”

“He’s got great speakers and he recorded his patient notes on his computer, so the second we hit play, the walking, skipping, and running dead people are going to come busting through that door to eat us.”

“What’s the shitty news?”

“The second we hit play, the walking, skipping and running dead people are going to come busting through that door to eat us. There’s no delay or timer.”

“Where’s the microphone?” I asked as I pulled my multi-tool from my belt again. She held up a small bud attached to the computer by a thin wire. I reached out and snipped the wire near the base. “Hit record.” Amy shook her head, then grabbed the mouse and hit the record button.

“How long?” she asked. I shrugged and went over to the mini fridge under one of the bookshelves. It took some work to move it quietly, but it slid out smoothly enough. When I had the back exposed, I yanked the power cord free of the wall and cut it off near the base. Then I stripped the insulation from the copper wire and pulled two of my ZT Spikes. The Spikes had a hole in the base of the handle and the handle itself had a cut out that ran most of its length, so it was fairly easy to run the copper wire through the openings a few times and twist it tight to hold the blades in place on the end of the pipe I’d scavenged. A lab coat hanging by the door provided enough strips to wrap the whole thing a few times to help secure it further, with a triple layer of duct tape for good measure. Now I had a two pronged spear. I signaled for Amy to come over to me and held my creation up.

“If that big fucker charges at you,” I said quietly, “or any of them for that matter, you step on the end of this and point it at their chest.” I demonstrated, placing my foot on the end of the pipe and lowering it to just below my shoulders. Crouched like I was, that put it chest high on the average person. “Once they spit themselves, you either run, or if it’s just one, put one of those Spikes through its skull. You got it?” She nodded and I handed the spear to her. At my gesture, she stuck the butt end on the floor and leaned the point forward in a decent imitation of the way I’d shown her. I gave her a smile and a thumbs up.

The smile she gave me hit me like a million watt bulb, even though it was wan and shaky. Right then I understood just a little bit of why Karl had sacrificed himself. He hadn’t been trying to save a whole helicopter full of strangers. He was saving Amy, no one else. And I couldn’t blame him. He’d probably had a hundred moments like this, a hundred hopeful, proud smiles that had turned him into mush. And while billions of men before me had taught their daughters to drive, dreaded their first dates, and wondered at their taste in music, I was having to teach Amy how to kill zombies. A week ago I might have made a crappy father, but today I was the best guy to take over the job. I needed to get myself a coffee cup: “World’s Deadliest Dad.”

I reached out and pulled her to me in a one armed hug, suddenly feeling completely inadequate to the task of filling Karl’s shoes.

“Um, Dave? Your chest is talking.” She pulled away and I looked down at the small pocket near my right shoulder. Inside was a personal radio with ear buds. Bewildered I pulled the little plastic buds out and put one to my right ear.

“Stewart! Do you hear me? This is Kaplan, calling Stewart…no, I didn’t tell him about it, but it beats hoping he just stumbles on to us. Kaplan, calling Stewart. Come in!” I heard over the tiny speaker.

“Regs state no uncoded communications over an open line,” I said when he paused, keeping my voice low. “I hear you, lieutenant.”

“Thank God. You just cost Hernandez a thousand dollars. Where the hell are you?”

“In the detention level rescuing the princess,” I shot back. “Truth is, I’m not sure which office we’re in, but we’re on the west side. What about you?”

“Holed up in an office on the north side of the building. There are infected all over the goddamn place.”

“I know. We’re about to fix that. Give us a few minutes. When you hear them move this way, you should have a few minutes while they’re distracted. We’ll meet you at the elevators.”

“Roger that. I sure hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”

“Me, too. Stewart out.” I tucked the wire for the earphone behind my ear and turned to Amy.

“Eighteen minutes,” she said from the desk. “Star Trek
and
Star Wars in the same conversation. Nerd much?”

“I geek out when I’m under pressure,” I said. “I doubt he got the Wrath of Khan reference though. Too obscure.” I grabbed the gun case and tucked it in her backpack then went to the wall on the north side, avoiding the dead doctor. I popped the ceiling tile and moved it out of the way, then turned back to Amy and gave her a nod. She clicked the mouse then came my way on the double. I boosted her up and then repeated the assisted jump with the pipe. This time, Amy pulled the spear up while I climbed into the ceiling, and we kicked the tile down into the next room. This one had a bigger desk and two doors, one on the east wall and a set of double doors on the north wall. We hustled to the double doors and opened one about an inch. A receptionist’s office was on the other side, blessedly empty of living or dead. We slipped into the waiting area as quietly as we could and went to the door on the east side. Slowly, I turned the handle until I felt the bolt slide free and then opened the door a fraction of an inch at a time. A few zombies were shuffling around in the hallway, and I could see the hall leading east. We were close to the north end of the building. With less confidence than I was feeling, I turned to Amy and nodded. She gripped the spear and took a deep breath. For long minutes, we waited for our plan to start working. Finally, we heard a baritone voice start booming from down the hallway.

Immediately, the infected started moving toward the sound. I waited a ten count after the last of them had stumbled past before I opened the door and looked out. Sure enough, they were packed around the door two down from us. My heart was in my throat as I opened the door and gestured for Amy to go. She darted past me and I followed her. The click of the door closing never reached my ears over the low moan of the dead and the doctor’s voice. I hit the transmit key on the radio.