Chapter Eight

 

 

 

 

 

The ghouls were everywhere. Punch’s eyes darted from side-to-side, just like mine.

The creatures fought the wind but they were ill-equipped for such tactics, their body weight too low and their coordination and brainpower too long gone to figure out how to lean into a strong wind like the one that dominated them.

The wind buffeted the Land Cruiser and large drops of rain began to fall then, pelting the vehicle. I turned on the windshield wipers, but even at full speed the rain was winning the battle.

“Flex, you need to go right, but fuck if I can tell if it’s clear. Damned rain!”

He was right. I could see maybe five feet out of the passenger side window, and not much more through the windshield.

“This shit is exactly why we’ve tried to avoid big cities,” I said.

“Hell yes,” he said. “More people, more of them.”

“It’s always been my philosophy,” I said. “No choice this time. Damn, I’m glad we fixed the window.”

“I’m glad we got rid of the gas cans,” said Punch. “Now I can breathe.”

I backed up and saw what looked like an opening between a fire hydrant and a motorcycle lying on its side.

“Should be enough room to skirt through,” I said, and turned the steering wheel left. I drove slowly and tried to run over the curb, but the damned cowcatcher was too low to the ground. “Shit,” I said.

“Try more of an angle, Flex,” said Punch.

“Right,” I said. I backed up, hit something that I was pretty sure was an unlucky rotter that had been blown to the wrong place at the exact wrong time, and threw it back into drive. I cranked the wheel hard, increasing the angle of my tires to the curb. This time, the pointed front of the pilot moved alongside the curb, allowing my front left tire to roll up. Once I achieved that, I was able to squeeze through the two fixed objects.

“I’m tryin’ to avoid having to get out and winch,” I said. “We’ll be soaked to the bone.”

Fifteen to twenty of the staggering dead had obviously seen the movement of our vehicle and were now doing their best to work their way toward the big Toyota, but I plowed right through the most industrious of them. I was moving slowly enough that the cow catcher worked as intended. The roar of the storm outside spared us the squishy impact sounds as the angled, steel appendage snapped their brittle ankles, threw their knees into the grid, then easily flipped their battered bodies to the side and out of our path.

We’d likely have to remove some arms and legs from the angled grid work before we headed back. Yeah, it was the optimist in me; I planned to get back home and I didn’t want to arrive there with rancid body parts dangling off the front of the SUV.

“Thing works like a charm, Flex,” said Punch. “Your buddy Hemp’s idea?”

I smiled, mostly because the thing did work great, and the truth was, I’d forgotten who thought of it.

“Let’s just assume it was Hemp, ‘cause I don’t really recall,” I said. “But it sure works like somethin’ he came up with.”

We drove slowly out of necessity, making our way up Kenilworth Avenue. The wind slammed us again and the rain sheeted sideways, rendering the wipers pointless for a few, brief seconds.

I hit the brakes hard and stopped the truck. It was better to wait than to run headlong into something bigger than us. A tank, maybe. We hadn’t seen any signs of military since this shit started, but we hadn’t been in the most likely places they would focus.

I looked at Punch. “We wait, I guess,” I said. “Until we can see somethin’.”

We waited, staring at the sheeting water. The wind shifted suddenly and then it seemed to be blowing the rain forward, away from our windshield.

We could see again. What we saw wasn’t encouraging.

The roadway heading left was a mess of crashed cars that looked like someone had set them aflame. Doors hung open and the paint was burned away on six or seven vehicles. No way through.

“Can’t go straight, either,” said Punch, pointing. “Wow. That must’ve happened a while ago.”

In the middle of Kenilworth, just past Harding Place, the fuselage of a Medevac helicopter lay in chunks and pieces, all as burned as the car. Around it, several destroyed cars, including a police cruiser, sat forever idle as though in a graveyard of devastation.

Weeds had begun to spring up from cracks in the street, and it just felt to me like we were both starring in some end of the world flick where a director would scream, “Cut!” and praise the special effects team’s talents.

I stared, frustrated, then remembered something. I was tense. I was tired. I flipped down the sun visor and a pack of Marlboro reds dropped into my lap. “Right the fuck now I can use one of these,” I said.

“Shit,” said Punch. “I don’t think I’ve had a smoke in six months. Pony up.”

I gave him one. “There’s a lighter in the glove box,” I said.

Punch opened the glove box, shifted around several boxes of 9mm rounds and found the Bic. He struck it and lit his, then gave the lighter to me. I lit mine, stared out at the melee through the downpour and inhaled deeply.

“We needed to turn left here, on Harding Place” said Punch, wiping again at the condensation collecting on the inside of the window.

“Any other way around?” I asked.

Punch held the map up, and ran his finger along it. “Yeah, yeah. Just turn right here. Up a block and we can try to get around this mess.”

Out of nowhere a bolt of lightning struck so close to us we both covered our heads and ducked. Seconds later, a crack sounded, loud enough to be heard over the downpour. We both looked over to see a huge oak tree aflame, twenty feet to our right, on the corner of Harding Place and Kenilworth. The leaping flames fought the rain even as they were fueled by wind, and I saw the ancient tree was almost split clear down the middle.

The weight of the upper boughs strained the intact trunk of the tree, and it remained upright for the moment, even as we smelled the sharp odor of ozone leak in through the Land Cruiser’s air vents.

As we watched, the massive tree trunk began to split in two as the behemoth oak started its slow fall in two directions.

“Flex, go!” shouted Punch. “That tree’s gonna block Harding. Now!”

I could still see well enough to follow his instructions, and I laid my foot on the gas, simultaneously spinning the steering wheel hard to the right. The tires lost traction, then gripped, jettisoning us onto Harding and directly into another wasted biter, who rolled up the cowcatcher and onto the hood before being thrown off to the side as the Land Cruiser fishtailed. We were still beside the falling tree and needed a few more crucial feet before we’d be in the clear.

“Stop fuckin’ slidin’!” I shouted, letting off the gas for a moment, even as the tree angled more sharply toward us, the accompanying cracking of wood announcing our coming, crushing demise. The tires caught again and I cranked the wheel around an abandoned taxi that appeared right in front of us. More forward momentum and two more sharp turns and I felt the vibration of the tree’s final impact behind us. With the shuddering earth came the ear-piercing sounds of crinkling metal and exploding glass as the taxi we’d just passed became an unrecognizable mass of crumpled, yellow steel wreckage beneath the weight of the old oak.

What a difference a split-second makes. Had we been just a tad unluckier, that would’ve been us.

The road ahead was clear. I stopped the SUV and looked at Punch. I dragged off the smoke again and smiled at him. “Thanks, pal,” I said. “If I’d have waited another second before making that turn, we’d have been blocked or crushed.”

“Thank me when we’re on the way back, man,” he said. “But to be honest with you, this is the most fun I’ve had in a year … you know, without being naked.”

I laughed, rolled down my window, and flicked the cigarette butt out. Punch did the same.

I wondered what surprises lay ahead for us.

I didn’t have to wonder for very long.

 

*****

 

Hemp stood at the window, peering out between the boards. Charlie stood beside him, her left arm around his waist and her right hand touching her stomach.

“Is she kicking?” I asked, walking to stand beside them.

“Oh, yeah,” said Charlie. “Why do you say she?”

“Just a feeling,” I said. “Isis might know.”

“She might, huh?” said Charlie. “Strange. She’s so damned cute, but talking to her is still freaky.” She kept her voice low, despite the fact that Bug and Isis were still in the guest bedroom.

“What are you thinking, Hemp?” I asked. “That’s a thousand mile stare if I’ve ever seen one.”

He pointed out the window. “Not actually,” he said. “It’s only about forty yards.”

I moved forward and looked. “Where?”

“There,” he said. “To the right of our trail to the burning pit. A red-eye.”

I looked out and saw her. She stood, bracing herself against the mailbox post, staring at the house as though nothing could pry her attention away from the draw of our little resident siren.

The wind, which must have been a steady sixty miles per hour at that point, blew her hair over her face, but when it whipped it away periodically, her red eyes became brief pinpoints, staring directly at us.

“That shit is eerie,” I said, shuddering.

“What about her?” asked Charlie.

“I haven’t had one to work with in a while,” said Hemp. “But now that we have Isis, I have to figure out what this connection is and what they want with her.”

Charlie looked at Hemp, then at me. “Do you think there’s something they want, or is it just instinctual?”

“Nothing in nature is drawn to anything else without a purpose,” said Hemp. “The clown fish is drawn to a sea anemone because the anemone provides protection and food for the clown fish from its meal scraps.”

“Sounds like a one-way deal to me,” I said. “What does the anemone get out of it?”

“The sea anemone picks up nutrients from the excrement of the fish,” said Hemp. “Not only that, the nitrogen excreted from the clown fish increases the algae incorporated into the tissue of their host. That aids the anemone in tissue growth and regeneration.”

“So now you’re a fucking marine biologist?” asked Charlie.

Hemp laughed. “Just found it interesting,” he said. “So I studied it.”

“So which is Isis?” I asked. “The anemone or the clown fish?”

“If it’s a symbiotic relationship, I’m not certain it matters,” said Hemp. “There is a chance – and it’s not necessarily a good thing – that they can both gain from the interaction.” Hemp looked at the red-eye again and shook his head. “There’s some connection between them and I need to investigate it further.”

“Have you talked to Bug about it?”

“About what?” asked Bug from behind us. We turned to see him carrying Isis in from the bedroom.

“Did you sleep alright?” I said. “Nothing could’ve kept me awake. I was zoned out.”

“Isis kept wanting me to take her to the window,” said Bug. “I can sleep through anything, but she was persistent.”

Hemp looked at her. “What did she do when you took her?”

“Pointed. Kept saying ‘mother’ over and over.”

Hemp stared at him. “Was she pointing over to the right? Where our trail begins?”

“I couldn’t see anything out there. The wind was crankin’ and I just indulged her as long as I could, then tried to get her to settle down.”

“Did she?” asked Charlie.

“Not much,” said Bug. “I’m still wiped, but I guess I don’t have any plans today anyway. At least until this thing blows through.”

Hemp’s stare told me he was onto something.

“Bug, have you ever checked her night vision?” he asked.

Bug looked confused. Isis tugged on his beard and smiled, then turned to us as she gave it another tug. Her big teeth appeared and she laughed. “Fuzzy!” she said.

We all smiled. Except Hemp, who walked up to Isis and stroked her hair. “Hi, Hemp,” she said.

“Hello, little one,” he said. “Isis, can you see in the dark?”

“What is dark?” she asked, with perfect annunciation.

“Nighttime,” said Hemp. “When the sun is gone.”

She put her hands out and gave us a very cute shrug. “I don’t know!”

“Well, let’s go into an interior room and see, shall we?” asked Hemp. “May I?” He held out his arms.

Bug gave Isis over to him. “Sure,” he said. “She likes you.”

“Don’t make him feel special,” I said. “Isis likes everyone.”

“But I’m her favorite,” said Hemp, bouncing her in his arms. “Okay, Bug. What of hers did you bring with you from your California bunker?”

“What, like toys and books and stuff?” asked Bug.

“Exactly,” said Hemp.

“She loves Dr. Seuss,” said Bug. “I brought some of those for her.”

“Good,” said Hemp. “Go and get two or three of the books and come to the walk-in pantry. There are no windows in there.”

Hemp carried Isis toward the kitchen and Bug went to his bag, reached in and pulled out a handful of books.

“Keep them behind your back for now,” said Hemp.

“I’m coming,” I said. “I love this shit. I should’ve married you, Hemp.”

“We can always have a duel,” said Charlie. “I choose the weapons.”

I smiled over my shoulder and went into the pantry behind Hemp. Bug came in last and closed the door behind him.

It was pitch black in there. All that was visible were Isis’ red eyes, pinpoints in the darkness.

“Okay, Isis, are you okay?”

“I’m okay!” said Isis.

“God, she’s cute,” I said.

“Okay, Bug,” said Hemp. “Just randomly hold up a book.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m holding one up.”

“What book is that, Isis?” asked Hemp.

“Cat in the hat!” shouted Isis. “Read it to me!”

“In a little bit baby, just hang on a bit,” he said. He cracked the pantry door open, letting the ambient light filter in. He held it up. It was Cat In The Hat.

“Okay,” said Hemp. “Close it again and show another book.”

When the door closed, it was impossible to see my hand directly in front of my face. Pure dark.

“One fish, two fish!” shouted Isis, unprompted.

“Holy shit,” said Bug. “She has night vision?”

“Which likely means the red-eyes have it as well,” said Hemp. “I’d suspected, but never confirmed it.”

“We need to teach this one how to shoot,” I said. “She’ll be the ultimate hunter.”

“Okay,” said Hemp. “I’ve seen enough. Now, storm or not, we need to capture a red-eye.”

As if in direct response, a huge gust of wind pummeled the house. Something slammed against the front wall and we heard another thud immediately afterward.

We all rushed out of the pantry and Charlie was already at the front door, looking out the peephole.

She turned toward us. “One of the diggers. Blew right into the door. Wind is picking up big time out there.”

“We’re not in the thick of it yet, I don’t believe,” said Hemp.

“You’re going to have to wait, Hemp,” said Bug. “You can’t go out there, man.”

“It goes against my grain to wait, Bug,” he said. “But you’re right.” He went back to the window and peered out. “She’s gone anyway. Damn.”

“There will be others,” I said. “Let this storm pass and let Flex get back home. We’ll have plenty of time after that.”

Hemp nodded. “Is the radio on?”

Charlie said, “The Ham?”

“It’s on,” I said. “I was up until around 1:00 this morning, sitting there beside it.”

Rachel came in carrying Flexy, who was rubbing his eyes. She had taken him that morning and offered to give him a bath, which was awesome of her.

When he saw me, his eyes went wide and he babbled and cooed. My smile was automatic and I went to him and lifted him from her arms.

“The moment I diapered him, he let loose,” Rachel said, smiling. “I got that taken care of but now I think he wants to refill.”

I touched my tender breasts and winced. “Of course he does,” I said. “Like father, like son. Thanks, Rachel.”

“No problem at all,” the petite, freckled woman said. “The smell of a clean little baby is like air freshener in this rotten world of ours.”

“I know, right?” I said. “If I could dangle this little booger from the rear view mirror of my Crown Vic, in this stinking world I’d start a craze.”

“You’re weird,” said Charlie. “Which is exactly why I love you so much.”

 

*****

 

The scattered debris from the medevac chopper, along with all the burned and wrecked cars in the roadway had screwed us up good. We ended up on Berkley, taking that residential street to Belgrave, and working our way to Romany, where we took a left. Luckily, by the time we got back to Kenilworth, we were past the wreckage.

Punch looked up from the map again. “Turn right on Scott and make a quick left on Blythe,” he said, and in two quick turns we were there. The buildings all around us blocked much of the wind, but when it gusted, it whipped through the buildings like a wind tunnel. The rain continued to pour down in a deluge.

“All these buildings look like they’re connected?” I asked, Punch.

He looked around, craning his neck. “Looks like it, Flex. We got walkers in front and by the doors, though.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’re on the WAT-5 and I have more. We’ll need to take more in two hours at best. You got a digital watch?”

“I do,” he said. “I’ll set the alarm for 9:00 AM.” It was just past 7:00 in the morning, and much of our time had been whittled away as we figured out how to get through the storm and the age-old congestion of cars and drivers long stalled and most likely, long dead.

“Okay,” I said. “Checklist. Let’s take WAT-5, more urushiol, lots of rounds and your gun of choice.”

“That’s gonna be this baby,” said Punch, raising his Saiga.

“It is a can’t miss tool,” I said. “Ready?”

“As ready as I’m gonna get,” said Punch.

“You understand I have no idea where the hell to find this antitoxin, right?”

Punch nodded. “We’ll conduct a logical search. You got another of those headlights?”

“Yeah, in that same glove box under those same boxes of ammo. You probably pushed it aside to find the Bic earlier.”

Punch found it and pulled it out. “Okay,” he said, strapping it over his cap. “Let’s do it.”

“Hold on, bud,” I said. I whipped the steering wheel hard right and punched it over the curb and onto the grass. A sidewalk led to a glass door, and I rolled to within five feet of the door and parked the Toyota.

“Now if we can find this door again when we leave,” I said, “We should be able to make a quick exit.”

“The best laid plans,” said Punch.

“Hold on,” I said. “I don’t want to fuck around too much when we get inside.” I ran back to the Land Cruiser and keyed open the rear door. I pulled out two baseball bats and a crowbar.

I held it up. “Can you manage this, too?” I asked. He held out his hand and I tossed it the ten feet to him. He caught it and hefted it.

“I’m all about saving ammo,” he said.

“Good,” I said, returning to the door beside him. I pulled on the handle. Locked.

“Pretty much what I figured,” I said, jamming the chisel edge of the crowbar into the jamb. The aluminum door frame bent, but not enough to pop the lock. I turned the bar around and put the other side in, with the sharp bend.

This time, with a strong push, the door popped open and an shrill alarm sounded.

We both jumped. “What the hell?” shouted Punch. He looked up at the gray box mounted over the door. “Battery powered?”

“Must be,” I said. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”

The door had swung closed, but would no longer latch because of the damage. We switched on our headlights and moved down the hall. Punch had his Saiga at ready, and my Daewoo was leading the way. I had also strapped a headlight around it, and I turned that on, too.

“Let’s find a reception desk,” said Punch. “They might have directory information behind the counter.”

“Good idea,” I said, and we moved through some double glass doors that were once likely automatic, but that now took some effort to push open. That hallway led into a wider one, and we eventually saw a sign that said “LOBBY.”

I nodded to punch, and went through the door.

“Watch out, Flex!” shouted Punch, and I saw his bat swing in the corner of my eye. I pushed forward and heard the splat of hardwood meeting skull and brains. I turned to see the creature down in a sticky pool of black liquid.

“Thanks, buddy,” I said, spinning around to find another one – this one a former nurse, complete with her sensible, white shoes still on her black, vein-riddled feet, staggering through the opposite doors, which someone had shattered at some point.

I fired my Daewoo, now in single-shot mode, into her face, sending her back against a heavy, glass wall. She slid down, and her pink eyes went black.

“Let’s clear first,” I said. “You check those halls.”

He pushed through another pair of glass doors and moved away from me. I walked about twenty feet down another hallway and saw nobody. As I came back, and office door was closed on my right. I looked behind me again and put my ear to it.

Yes, there were sounds coming from somewhere beyond the door. If they were human, they would have yelled something or come out. They didn’t know how to come out. That was the fact.

And it was just fine with me. I left them there and returned to the reception rotunda.

I lifted the counter hatch and went behind it. There was a skeleton on the floor with the same kind of shoes on as the former nurse who had come at me moments ago, only this had clearly been one of the unlucky uninfecteds, her pain long over.

I heard a booming shot, and recognized the power of the Saiga shotgun. I imagined some wall or other was just redecorated with some new biological décor.

Very green, indeed. Wholly natural. Nelson would be proud.

Punch came back in and leaned against the counter, his eyes still searching the perimeter. “They can be anywhere,” he said.

“The red-eyes sit sometimes, too,” I said. “That can really surprise you, so look for it. No urushiol, either. Bullet in the brain.”

“Got it,” said Punch. “Find anything?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. Here. You go through this.” I tossed a blue book on the counter and Punch flipped it around. I took out another one that was next to the multi-line reception phone.

“This one has departments on it,” said Punch.

“Pharmacy, I guess, right?” I said.

“Can you call your buddy?”

“Let’s check it out first,” I said. “It’s spotty with the Ham radio, especially in this weather.”

“Says it’s on the first floor,” said Punch. “But it’s in Building 2. Where are we?”

I looked around, then went out the door directly across from the desk. The doors here were unlocked but still required my crowbar, as they were automatic, sliding doors. I pried them open, and when they spread an inch, they slid easily. I left them open and ran outside, nearly getting blown over by a strong gust of wind that had to be clocking almost sixty miles per hour.

I looked up. On the side of the building was CMC, BLDG ONE. I ran back inside and pulled the doors closed behind me. As I went to run through the interior doors, I saw a sign that hadn’t been visible to us before, on the wall by the door. It said BLDG 2, and had an arrow pointing to the left.

I ran through and pulled the second set of doors closed behind me, too. “Punch, c’mon. Follow me.”

“Bringin’ up the rear, buddy.”

We moved down the connecting hallway and reached another closed door. I pulled it open and the stench that hit us was too sharp and pungent to be over a year old. I stopped in my tracks and fought to keep from gagging. “Massive decay,” I choked.

“Shit,” said Punch, wincing. I clearly didn’t need to announce it. Punch pulled a bandana out of one of his cargo pockets and rested his gun against his leg as he tied it over his nose and mouth.

I didn’t have one, so I just scrunched my face up in disgust as we moved further into the mysterious bowels of the dilapidated hospital.

 

*****

 

“Punch, be on the alert,” I said. “If you see glowing red eyes in the distance, just fire at ‘em on full auto.”

I walked ahead of Punch, the crowbar dangling from my belt loop where I’d slid it through. I walked the baseball bat like a cane in my left hand, and my Daewoo was in fire position in my right. Last, a super soaker water gun dangled from a thin bungee cord, attached directly to my belt. That was filled with urushiol.

Punch’s setup was similar.

“The red-eyes are that serious, huh?” he asked, his voice a low whisper, following my lead.

“Dead serious,” I said, turning so he could hear me.

I came to several vinyl nameplates on the wall, and one said PHARMACY. The sign specified the pharmacy was in room 2100 and that it was down the next hallway.

We reached it, and I motioned to Punch to stop. I leaned around and saw something strange.

The hallway was solid with zombies, but not for about twenty feet. I stared, and Punch looked from behind me.

“What’s the deal?” he asked.

“Not sure why they’re not coming,” I said. “They’re just standing there.”

Punch reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He put it to his eye and looked past me.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Monocular,” he said. “Smaller, and it fits in my pockets easier. There’s a glass door down there, Flex.”

I held out my hand and he put the device in it. I held it up to my eye and saw what he was talking about.

The creatures were trapped behind a single glass door midway down the hall, set into a glass wall that closed off a hallway beyond. We could get closer to them, but they apparently couldn’t advance on us.

“Good,” I said. “At least we can study the situation before we try to thread that needle.”

“Thread the needle?” asked Punch.

I didn’t want to scare him off, so said nothing.

He tucked the tool away and we scanned in all directions as we moved down the hallway. The walls on both sides were a light color of some kind, and most doors were glass, except those leading into what I assumed were offices, because this was clearly more of an administrative section of the hospital.

We were now within five feet of the wall of zombies. I turned to Punch. “Turn off your headlight, Punch.”

He didn’t ask why; he just did it. I flipped mine off as well and said, “Look for red eyes. Ignore the pink. Crimson is all you’re looking for.”

Together, we scanned the group. Before turning off the light, I’d noticed the long hallway between the doors where they were trapped was about fifty feet long and about six feet wide. The rotting walkers were packed inside, with some, but not much room to mill around.

“Nothin’ so far,” he said.

After another three minutes of searching and seeing no red-eyes, I turned my light back on. Punch followed suit.

“What are the fuckin’ odds of that?” I asked.

“Of what?” asked Punch.

I thought for a moment before answering. Hemp had figured out that all of the red-eyes were women who were pregnant when they turned. That didn’t necessarily mean that all of the pregnant females became red-eyes. This fucked with my brain for a moment or two, and I came up with a possibility, but could have been full of shit.

I suppose I could’ve been stalling our inevitable trip through the zombie gauntlet, but either way, I filled Punch in.

‘The red-eyes were all pregnant women when they turned, according to Hemp,” I said. “With pregnancy comes massive production of estrogen. The very purpose of the increased estrogen is to assist the neurotransmitters in their brains so they can still function. So, when zombiefied, the unexpected consequence of all that estrogen was a huge increase in mental capacity.”

“Man,” said Punch, looking at the crowd beyond the glass. “Sounds like you’ve heard your scientist friend tell that story plenty of times.”

“That is true,” I said, impressed with my own ability to automatically spew the information. “And it’s not like they’re just smart, Punch. They’re fucking psychic. You saw that bitch on the way here, right? She seemed to know what I was about to do and countered every move before I made it.”

His light swung from side to side as he shook his head. “I know you explained some of this on the way here, but buddy … I had no idea.”

“It’s good shit to know,” I said. “Give me a sec. I gotta count.”

Using an unreliable method of trying to remember rotted faces, shredded clothes and even particular shoes, I quickly figured there were around 285 infecteds shuffling around inside the area. At their feet was a good amount of what appeared to be sticky, blackish goo, and stuck in the muck, I could see the clothing fragments and bones of at least three people who no longer existed.

There was what looked like a piece of curved aluminum on the floor, too, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

“So,” I said, “assuming my numbers are right – and I’d guess I’m close – there should be around five pregnant females in there, if it’s a 50/50 split between men and women.”

“They’ve been in there a long time,” said Punch. “No food. Does that make a difference?”

“It does with the regular vapor. The pink stuff,” I said. “But I have another idea that just hit me, so because Hemp didn’t come up with it, you can’t take to the bank.”

“What’s that?”

I sighed, knowing for sure that I was stalling now. I should have been through that door and talking while we walked. I still didn’t move.

“In every red-eye case that Hemp knows about ,there was a little zombie fetus inside, too. Turned, just like mom.”

“Fuck,” said Punch. “Sad.”

“I know,” I said. “Sad and gross. I’ve seen one, so I’ll add fucking haunting to that. Anyway, maybe if the baby didn’t turn, they didn’t become red-eyes. Maybe only if the baby also changed.”

“Is that possible?”

I shrugged. “No clue, and it doesn’t matter anyway. We’ve dicked around long enough, so just have your gun or your bat ready, just in case.”

I reached for the door, but saw that it had no handle. There were two holes where a handle had likely been, but it was missing. Someone had removed it.

Punch put a hand on my arm. His grip was firm. “Wait, Flex. How’d they all get in there?”

I looked the group over again, even as their blank eyes, stared back. “They’re not patients,” I said. “They’re all either in suits, scrubs or lab coats, save for a couple of ‘em,” I said. “And those are probably salesmen or something.”

“But how did they all get into this one hallway? And was it before or after they turned?”

“No way to know. Why?” I asked.

“I’m wondering if someone put them in there on purpose. Like a moat filled with alligators or something.”

“Protecting something?” I asked.

Punch shrugged. “Maybe a buffer for something,” he said.

My eyes fell to the curved metal on the floor, and it hit me what it was. It was aluminum tubing and it was U-shaped. It was a damned door handle.

“The handles were removed on purpose,” I said, pointing at the floor and shining my light on the aluminum piece that lay in the black goo.

“Someone could be beyond that far door, then,” said Punch. “We need to be quiet.”

I looked at the door to my right. It was number 2040. I shone my light to a door within the hallway. It read 2044. The numbers were going up, and we needed the pharmacy, which was 2100. The pack of rotters definitely lay between where we were and where we needed to be.

“Maybe someone was tryin’ to keep folks on this side or the other,” I said. “No way to know, but anyone not wanting to die would avoid this path.”

“They must’ve baited them in here, then closed the door,” said Punch.

I looked at them again. They were pushing against the glass door and it wasn’t budging. “It’s a pull,” I said. “Zombies have a bitch of a time with pull doors. They’re prone to push.”

“So,” said Punch, his voice tentative. “Are we goin’ around?”

I looked at him, smiled and shook my head. “Not a chance, partner,” I said.

“WAT-5?” asked Punch.

“WAT-5, exactly,” I answered.

I tried the door. As I suspected, for us it was a push, and it was unlocked. I was validated once more in front of my new friend. I smiled at him. “I’m guessin’ the other door is a pull from the inside, too.”

Punch turned around suddenly. “You hear something?”

I listened. “No. Maybe you’re getting spooked. Sooner we get this over with, the better. Believe me, the anticipation’s worse than the journey when you’re on the magic wafers.”

I pushed through the door and gently elbowed the rotters to either side of me. Two were persistent, their rotted faces getting too close to me. I reached slowly down for my super soaker and raised it up, giving each of them a little shot of the zombie juice, right in their skanky, lipless kissers.

Sizzle, pop, hiss, and down.

“Jesus,” said Punch. “Works like a charm, huh?”

“Close that door fast,” I said.

“Fuck it stinks,” said Punch. “I’ve been around some rotted shit – whole buildings full of drone-struck jihadists – this is like a hundred morgues.”

Like logs floating down a river, the abnormals moved toward us as I edged my way deeper inside to allow Punch room behind me.

Punch pushed the creatures away from the opening and struggled to inch the door closed a bit farther as each walking corpse cleared the gap.

He finally got it, and once again, they pressed against it.

“Wait, Punch,” I said, an idea striking me. “Why don’t we just let ‘em out? It’ll be easier to come back through.”

“I learned somethin’ a long time ago,” said Punch. “Don’t tear down a fence until you know why it was built. We don’t know what this particular fence is for yet.”

“Good call,” I said.

We pushed through, agonizingly slow. We were about one third through, and moving like molasses in winter.

“If you need to take any out,” I said, “Use the urushiol super soaker or your bat. If there are any red-eyes around, they’re startin’ to hear better, too.”

“But we gave ourselves away in the lobby,” he said.

“Yeah, I tend to reach for my gun first, but that’s just because I’m reactionary,” I said. “Even if they heard us earlier, they might not know where we are now.”

As the words left my lips, a flash from behind us reflected off the glass walls all around.

I turned to see distant flashlights bobbing near the rear hallway behind us.

The ravenous creatures that surrounded us became immediately agitated. Their mouths gnashed and chewed, and black saliva dripped from their destroyed lips as they pushed forward, threatening to crush Punch and me.

I knew why. While we were on WAT-5, the new visitors weren’t.

I dropped immediately, snatching Punch’s arm and yanking him to the floor with me.

“Move to the other door!” I whispered with urgency, and Punch was down on his hands and knees with me, pushing past the shuffling legs of the rotters. We worked our way through the putrid coating of muck on the floor, scrambling for every inch as we attempted to reach the opposite door.

Suddenly gunfire erupted. The glass door behind us exploded, and the bodies around us began to erupt in showers of black-red rain, with hail-sized chunks of brain and skull mixed in.

Many of the walking dead men and women fell; some scrambled back to their feet, advancing on our uninvited guests.

Punch and I were now ten feet from the opposite door, practically spider crawling, trying to stay low. These attackers were using automatic weapons and their actions were splattering zombie guts, brains and body parts on every surface, including us, and making our forward advancement agonizingly slow.

Because of the sheer number of shuffling bodies between them and the opposite glass door, it had not yet shattered, the bullets finding plenty of rotted flesh in which to embed themselves.

I didn’t shout or scream except in my own mind, my worry for my wife, son and my family so heavy on my mind as I scrambled toward safety. I wasn’t certain that whoever was firing toward us had determined there were living beings among the horde. It was thinning out toward the other door now. We were running out of time.

I felt Punch right behind me as I hit the opposite door, now completely free from zombies, as they were all pushing toward the people behind us. I got to the door, tucked my fingers beneath it, and pulled it open. I slithered on my belly through the opening, and made sure Punch got out, too.

We both instinctively looked behind us. We still could not see the people who had fired into the crowd, but that meant they wouldn’t be able to see us, either.

The door behind us had been splattered with the blood and muck of a hundred zombies, which offered camouflage, but at the moment we got back on our feet, the glass blew into a thousand fragments, pelting us as we ran down the hallway toward our destination.

I hoped their lights weren’t trained on us at that moment.

We kept low, crouching below the height of the rotters behind us and reached the door marked 2100 with the plate in the center that said PHARMACY.

I snatched the nameplate off the door and threw it down the hall. Then I grabbed the handle and turned it.

Thankfully, this one was not locked. We pushed inside and looked for a way to barricade the door.

 

*****