The hospital was dark. Really dark. We’d worn the headlamps I’d gotten from the hardware store, and with fresh batteries, they were kickass. Plenty of light.
But the smell was putrid. I could practically see the ooze flowing out of the broken skulls of the decomposing bodies on the floor everywhere our eyes fell. I wasn’t sure how it was done, but their brains, in every case, were absent from their skulls, cracked open like raw eggs. I wondered how they accessed this part of the human body, and then I knew.
It was clear. They did not use tools; I’d not seen any level of awareness or intelligence that would suggest they had this ability. It was a primal, instinctive action. They clearly slammed the heads of their victims into the floor until they cracked and shattered and provided access to the meat that these beings craved.
Gray matter. Brains.
I had no idea what this part of the human body provided them or what drew them to it. But based on what we saw, it was what they wanted. Had to have.
It was what they craved.
But Gem and I didn’t want to see any more. We watched for movement as we made our way through the lobby and followed the signs to neurosurgery.
Gem walked slowly, moving her head from side to side, her light illuminating the hallway intersections we came to. So far nobody else appeared. And nothing else.
“You see why I did this now?” Gem asked.
“You mean put a headlamp on Suzi the Uzi?”
“Yep. I’ll tell you why.”
I hadn’t asked, but I was up for some conversation.
“I did it because I might be shooting at some zombie or other, and hear something off to the other side. I don’t necessarily want to have to find the fucker again if I look away and look back, so I want a light where I’m shooting, and one on my head, too.”
“I never questioned your motives, Gem. I had no doubt that there was a logical reason.”
I said this, all the while thinking it was actually a damned good idea, and I should’ve done the same thing. It would make her happy when I outfitted my K-7 with one.
My radio crackled, and I looked at Gem. “What the fuck?”
“Flex, you read me?”
It was Hemp’s voice. I grabbed the radio from my belt and pushed the talk button.
“Hemp! Where the hell are you?”
“I’m at your place,” he said, the voice crackly, but clear enough. “I got the antenna put together and up.”
“Dude, that’s eleven miles away! I thought for a minute you were out front or something. Beautiful!”
Gem almost clapped, but she didn’t want to take her hands off Suzi.
“We’re okay, Hemp. We’re in the hospital, and it smells like a morgue that went out of business and abandoned about a thousand corpses, but so far no movers.”
“Okay, good. I just wanted to test this, so get back to it. Have you found the EEG yet?”
“No, still heading to the right department.”
“Alright. Trina’s out here with me. The sunshine feels good, the gate’s locked, and I’m well armed. We’re fine here, but hurry your rear ends up and get back here safely, okay?”
“You got it, Hemp. Out.”
“Out,” came Hemp’s voice.
I looked at Gem. “That guy kills me. Damned smart!”
“Why do you think I kissed him before we left?” she said.
We walked past a row of gurneys lined up in the hallway. All empty except one. That one had a body in it with something sticking out of its head. It didn’t move.
Gem approached it and saw it was one of them, an infected. But it wasn’t going anywhere now. The thing protruding from its head was an arrow. Gem looked at it in disbelief, then touched the arrow as though making sure it was real. Physical.
“Crossbow?” I asked.
“That, or fucking Robin Hood is roaming the building. Either way, someone took this one out. See how the arrow goes in at an angle?”
I leaned over to look, my light shining on the entry point, right through the eye socket.
“Yeah. It came from that way.” I pointed down the hallway in our direction of travel.
Gem and I continued our slow progress down the corridor, stepping over puddles of muck and blood, watching for moving zombie heads or anything else that might either scare the shit out of us or pose actual danger.
Then we heard a door close up ahead. Not loud. A light click.
“I am so sick of hearing shit when we’re in scary places!” Gem said, frustrated. “I’d like, just once, for you and me to be able to roam around a building filled with dead bodies and not be worried about bad shit happening.”
“I feel your frustration, but I’m still compelled to find out what that was, aren’t you?”
She nodded, but didn’t take another step. “Yeah, exactly. That’s my point. I can’t resist it, but I can’t help thinking that you and I don’t get much quality time. Ugh.”
“Ugh?”
“Yes.”
“Are you ready to start walking?”
“I’m ready to start cursing in Spanish.”
“Let’s walk instead.”
She took off, walking tentatively, and I followed. We weren’t sure which door had closed, but we figured sounds didn’t do much for the creatures, so we started calling out.
“Is anyone there? We’re uninfected, and just trying to survive, like you,” I began. “We can share information or help if you need it.”
Gem tried next. “Look, dickweed, whoever you are. If you’re a zombie, then get your ass out here where I can blow your head off. If you’re not a zombie, we’re not going to hurt you, ‘cause that’s not what we do.”
“More good cop, bad cop?”
Gem shrugged.
A voice came from behind the door we stood directly in front of.
“What if I hurt you?”
Gem and I stared at one another. “A girl?” I whispered.
Gem nodded. “I think so,” she whispered back.
“My name’s Gem and the guy I’m with is Flex. We’re staying at his place in Lula, about 11 miles from here. Are you okay?”
Nothing. Then, after about fifteen seconds: “I’m alright. I took a few of those fucks down, but I’m alright myself.”
“Do you need help?” I asked.
“What have you got?” the voice said.
“Guns, food, power, shelter, picking up more every day.”
“And a nice mobile lab, if that impresses you,” added Gem.
The doorknob turned. Gem and I stepped back, our headlamps directed to the door, our guns at ready, but angled toward the floor. It opened fully and an arrow poked through.
“Would you drop that damned thing?” I asked.
“I will if you’ll move your damned lights out of my eyes and lower those guns some more!”
We realized we were blinding the dirty blonde girl, so we directed the bright beams of light down at the floor by pivoting the mini lights on their hinges.
She lowered her weapon.
“So you’re the crossbow girl,” I said.
“We saw some of your handiwork,” Gem said. “Good aim. How close were you when you took out the one down there?” She pointed at the gurney 25 yards back.
“I was right about here,” she said. “Name’s Charlene Sanders, but they call me Charlie.”
“Who calls you that?” Gem asked.
The girl shrugged. Her AC/DC tee shirt was too small for her, but it looked clean. She looked a bit harried, but was clearly tough as nails and pretty hot, actually.
“I guess that’s right,” she said. “Nobody calls me that anymore. Unless you do.”
“Flex Sheridan, Charlie. Nice to meet you.” I held out my hand and she held her crossbow in one hand and shook mine.
“I’m Gem. Charlie, we’d like to help you if you’ll trust us. We’ve got a very small group, but we’re working on a lo
t of things to stay safe. You trying to get anywhere in particular?”
The girl shook her head. She looked about twenty-two years old, but this situation tended to make peoples’ faces appear older. She might be as young as nineteen.
Charlie seemed to relax. “Making plans isn’t working so well for me. I’m more about reacting right now than taking action. So yeah. I guess I could see if what you’re doing is something I’d like to be doing.”
“Where does your family live?” Gem asked.
“About ten miles from here,” Charlie said. “Only child, my dad left when I was fifteen. My mom wasn’t one of the infecteds as you seem to be calling them, but she’s gone. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“My sister is infected,” I said. “I love her. I can’t bring myself to just casually start calling them zombies, but I can’t kid myself – they’re very zombie-like, so sometimes we slip. But I prefer to call them abnormals, infecteds, you know.”
“I get it,” Charlie said. “You’re a good brother.”
“I guess so. Okay,” I said. “First things first. We need an EEG machine for our buddy.”
“Who’s your buddy?” she asked.
“His name’s Hemp. British guy, good lookin’, shitloads of brains.”
She laughed, and it was genuine and more relaxed than I would’ve expected.
“Well, he should keep them under wraps, then. These things have a taste for them.”
“I think we’re going to get along just fine,” said Gem, smiling. “Let’s get our shit done and get out of this stink hole.”
The three of us moved down the hallway and came to the door marked Neurosurgery. We pushed the door open slowly and shone our lights down the vacant hallway.
“Why did you come here, to the hospital?” I asked the newcomer.
“Shine your light down here,” Charlie said, motioning to her thigh.
We both did, and it revealed a good tear in her pants that was soaked around the edges with blood. She pulled the tear apart, and we saw a deep gash that was still pumping blood.
“I’m like a fucking scented candle to these freaks,” she said. “Like walking chum.”
“Shit,” said Gem. “We’ll need to bandage that up fast. You feel okay?”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah. I was searching wrecked cars for supplies and when I left an old Volkswagen Thing, the damned tin body was split open and I caught an edge.”
I laughed. “A Thing? I had no idea any of them were still on the road.”
“I’m pretty sure it was the last one,” Charlie said. “I’d never seen one before. Even after I got cut I had to look on the back to see what the hell it was.”
“It was the fucking 70’s, that’s what it was. Everybody was so stoned they’d buy anything,” Gem laughed.
It felt good to hear her laugh. I looked forward to a lifetime of it.
“Okay, let’s find that machine and get the hell out of here.”