American Revenant (Book 3): The Monster In Man (14 page)

Chapter 23

Mike, Rick and Dean
backpedaled, slipping into the nearest door.  Rick poked his head out slowly,
peering around the doorjamb.  The large pack of zombies was knotted up around
the stairs, scratching at the door that now hid their prize.  

“Did Jimmy just leave us
behind?”

Mike shot Dean a burning
glare.  “What, was he supposed to stand there and wait?  Or stay up here just
to get trapped with us?”

“No, I guess not,” Dean
said.  “So how the hell are we going to get off this floor?”

“Should be a service
elevator and stairs somewhere,” Rick said, slipping the folded campus map from
a pocket.  “Yeah, right here.”  He tapped the paper, pointing out the location
of the service units. 

“Let me see that.”  Rick
held out the map to Mike, who took it, orienting the map to match the floor
plan.  “Shit, that little hall is just for the service crap; there’s no
connecting hallway.”

“So it’s a dead end?” 
Dean asked with a smirk.

“Yeah, look,” Mike said,
holding out the map for the others to see, not responding to Dean’s comment. 
“We would have to go all the way down this hall, or we could backtrack, go
around to this one, either way we’ll be exposed to that pack.  If we take that
second route the exposure will be shorter, but we still have to pass that area
to get down the short service hall.”

“Damn it.  Jimmy said he
would find a way to get us out.  You guys want to wait a bit or try going
now?”  Rick was uncomfortable with either choice.

“I say we go now, while
they’re distracted,” Mike said.  Dean and Rick agreed.

Rick watched around the
door for a second, ensuring that the zombies were still facing away from his
group.  Silently he beckoned them to follow.  They stayed low and took careful
steps, taking the second route that would lead around to another long hallway
that also connected to the front area where the undead now clustered, only twenty-five
feet further down. 

The trip back and around
took only minutes.  Watching from around the corner, Dean gave a sign to move
and the men moved to the right and down the short corridor leading to the
service stairs and elevator. 

They had gone unseen by
the horde and proceeded rapidly down the hall, wanting nothing more than to get
off this floor and away from the gut-suckers banging at the stairs door.

Rick grabbed the door
lever, shoving it down and yanking.  The door latch clacked loudly inside the
striker plate, not releasing when the handle was turned.  Rick tried again,
desperation now flooding his system with adrenaline.  “Fuck me,” he swore.  He
glanced at his friends, “It won’t open.  There’s no lock on the service doors,
I don’t know what the deal is.”

From around the corner of
the short hall the crowd of zombies increased their moaning.  “I think they may
have heard us,” Dean said.

Rick and Mike
simultaneously turned to the elevator, hoping for some way to put themselves
out of arm and tooth reach of the pack of zombies.  They began to pull on the
doors, both straining, beads of oily sweat popping out on their faces. 

The doors shifted,
sliding apart several inches.  They kept pulling, the doors spreading open to a
gap of nearly a foot.  A hand partially peeled of flesh shot through the gap,
followed by a gruesome face, teeth snapping.  The grasping hand ran cold
fingers across the back of Mike’s hand, sending chills up his arm, even as both
men jumped back from elevator.

The elevator had stopped
between floors, with the bottom of the car hanging about 2 feet from the top of
the doors.  Several pairs of legs could be seen through the narrow gap, each
zombie dropping to the floor to reach for and grab at the men that had cracked
the door.

“Damn it!  Fuck this
place!”  Tension showed in the bright red shading high on Mike’s cheeks. 

“They must have been
caught in there when the EMP killed everything,” Rick said. 

“Doesn’t matter now,
we’re about to be killed right friggin’ here,” Dean said.  His companions
turned to see the horde coming around the corner, separated by thirty feet of
hallway they knew it was only a matter of seconds before the undead descended
on them.

Rick ran back to the
door, yanking hard, nearly pulling his shoulder from the socket.  “Open you
bitch!”  He shoved a hand into a pocket on his camo pants, grabbed the
multi-tool and pulled out the long blade folded inside.  “Give me second!”

“We don’t have a second,”
Mike said, shouldering his rifle.  Dean drew his pistol, and the two men began
to fire slow controlled shots into one zombie head after another. 

Zombies fell to the
floor, causing some behind them to stumble and fall, hardly slowing the
ravening pack.

Rick slipped the blade
between the door and the jamb, grabbing the latch with the tip of the blade and
angling it back, attempting to jimmy the lock.  He glanced up to his friends,
then to the slit window in the door.

Rick nearly dropped the
multi-tool at the sight of a leering, bloated face glaring back at him through
the window.  His shock could not have been greater when the head swiveled on
its fat-wattled neck.  Behind the glass was a living person, and they were
refusing to open the door.

“Open this door you fat
fuck!  NOW!”

“Who the hell are you
screaming at, Rick?”  

Rick dug back into the
door latch with the tool, ignoring Mike’s question. 

“If you’re gonna do
something, Rick, you might want to hurry!”  Dean called over his shoulder.  The
horde had progressed beyond the halfway point of the hall, closing quickly on
the door.  The moaning of the pack consolidated into one teeth-vibrating roar.

Rick worked the latch,
using the tip of the blade to push it backward, then pulling the door tight to
hold it in place, performing the same action several times.  Finally the latch
slid free of the strike plate and he yanked but the door stopped abruptly. 
“What the hell!”  Looking inside the gap rick saw a piece of wire tied to the
inner lever, its opposite end tied around a handrail.

The obese man turned,
making a short squawking noise as he waddled away up the stairs to the third
floor.  Rick reached into the gap and sliced through the wire easily. 

Dean and Mike had
continued to back up as they fired on the large pack.  They now stood just in
front of the door, the first of the hungry creatures less than an arm's-length
away. 

“In, in, it’s open!”  The
men jumped away from the grasping hands and through the door.  Rick hopped
through, pulling the door behind him, forcing the door closer to hiss softly as
he put pressure on it.

Standing in the
stairwell, watching zombies push against the glass, the men sucked air, trying
to calm hammering hearts.

“Who the hell were you
yelling at, Rick?” Dean asked, using a red handkerchief to wipe sweat from his
eyes.

“There’s someone up there. 
Big fat guy.  He was standing behind the door shaking his head.”

“Shaking his head?  As
in, he wasn’t going to open the door?”

“Yeah Mike, I popped the
lock, it wasn’t him.”

“Son of a bitch,” Mike
growled.

“Up or down?” Dean asked.

“Down.  As soon as we
find the other guys I want to come back up here and find out who this jackass
is.”

Mike and Dean followed
Rick down the stairs to the first floor landing.  They discovered the same
thing their fellow scavengers had.  The first floor was now swarming with
undead.

“This shit just gets
better at every fucking turn,” Mike said, his face shadowed and grim.

“Back upstairs, I guess,”
Rick said.  “The other guys are either out there in that mess, or they went up
to the third floor.”

All three men felt a deep
sickness in their guts, the fear that their friends had been caught out in the
horde now inhabiting the first floor.

Dean led the way back up,
Mike bringing up the rear of the group, stinging pains occasionally firing
through his back and down his leg.  He took each step gingerly, fearing the jab
of pain.

At the top of the stairs
they found the door blocked, only able to open a few inches.  Together they
pushed, shoving the door open, something on the other side grating loudly
across the floor.

Once through they found
an old metal desk had been pushed in front of the door.  “Seems fat-boy didn’t
want visitors,” Rick said with bitter sarcasm.

They stood near the open
door, waiting for zombies they were certain would be drawn to their loud
entrance.  After several minutes of disturbing silence they could wait no
longer.

“Well, if that asshat
lives up here then it’s possible the floor has been cleared out,” Dean said. 

“It’s clear; we’ve
searched the entire floor.”

Rick’s group turned to
find Jimmy and Calvin leaning on the counter at the vacant nurse’s station. 
Rushing over they greeted their friends warmly, unabashed joy spreading through
the group. 

“Where’s Alex?” Mike
asked, fearing the worst.  Just then they heard a plaintive cry from far down a
hall of patient rooms. 

“I live here; you people
need to leave!”

“Uh, he’s tending to our
host,” Jimmy told the others.

Chapter 24

Jimmy led the others to
the farthest room down the west corridor.  Inside they found Alex sitting in a
hospital reclining chair, the kind that visitors often slept in when staying
with sick loved ones.  Sitting on a bed covered in filthy sheets was a grossly
obese man, who could have been thirty or fifty; it was hard to tell from the
grime on his face and in his hair.

Rick took two long
strides to the bed and slapped the man with an open hand.  “You left my people
to die down there you fat fucking piece of shit!”  Rick’s hand stung from the
blow, but he took a grim satisfaction from the man’s tears.

“I…I couldn’t take a
ch-chance.”  

“Fuck you!”  The tension
that had been building in Rick through the day came out in spittle-flecked
curses.  Close calls and thoughts of his friends devoured by a horde of undead
had drawn his emotions tight.  The blubbering coward on the bed was the catalyst
that Rick’s explosive anger needed to release its violent payload.  Rick drew
his hand back again, this time in a tightly closed fist.

“Easy Rick,” Mike said,
gently placing a hand on Rick’s shoulder.  “I want to hear how this guy has
survived here this long.”  Mike looked into the man’s eyes when he said, “Then
you can beat the shit out of him.”

“Please, Please, I’m
sorry, Please…”  The man began to sob, his corpulent body shuddering obscenely
with each hitching breath.

“Just stop, damn it,”
Alex said, disgusted by the display of weakness in someone who had survived so
long.

Dean, though appalled
that the man would leave them to die, was stunned by the violence and vitriol
from his friends.  “Guys, ease up.  He’s survived this long by doing what he had
to do.  Shit, just leave the guy alone for a second.”  Turning to the big man
he asked,  “What’s your name?”

The obese man cast
shimmering eyes at Dean, hesitating.  “Uh, Andy, Andy Marsh.”

“Andy, we’re all going to
take a second here and catch our breath, right guys?” Dean looked at each one
of his companions, silently compelling them to back off.  “It’s been one hell
of a morning for all of us.”

“We need to figure a way
out of this place,” Jimmy stated, leaning against the narrow wall mounted air
conditioner. 

Rick backed away from the
bed, casting another disgusted glance before leaning against the wall, sliding
down to sit on the floor.  Exhaustion made his eyes feel heavy and gritty.  He
thought he might take a moment to close them, rest them.

Mike and Calvin followed
Rick’s lead, sitting on the floor, backs to the wall, though Mike found it
painful to squat so low.  Once he was sitting, Mike shifted every so often,
repositioning his back to alleviate the constant discomfort.

Dean watched Andy for a
moment, taking in his sallow skin, the sores around his mouth, and the constant
twitch that made his thick left eyebrow look like a woolly-worm attempting to
escape his forehead.  “We’re all pretty curious how you survived alone out here
for so long, Andy.”

Andy cast red watery eyes
around the newcomers to his room, silently debating whether or not he should
tell them.  When he caught Rick’s eye Andy visibly flinched, immediately
turning back to Dean.   “There were fourteen of us to start with,” Andy began. 
“We were able to raid the kitchen early on, when everything went crazy.  Also
the vending machines, except for the ones in the ER lobby.  We couldn’t go in
there at all.”

“If there were fourteen
people, what happened to everyone?  How are you the only one left out here? 
And why stay here, in the hospital?  Why not try to get away to someplace
safer, less infested with gut-suckers?”

Andy scowled at Alex, his
questions causing both anger and discomfort.  “Can I just tell it without the
fourth degree?”

“Third,” Jimmy said
quietly.

“What?”

“Nothing, Andy, tell your
story,” Dean said.

Jimmy eyed Dean
quizzically; as if to ask why he was handling the man with kid gloves.  With a
slight tilt of his head, Dean spread his hands open, asking for patience. 

“Is gut-sucker what you
call them?”

“It’s a pet name,” Mike
offered along with his grin.

“Pets, you keep them as
pets?”  Andy’s eyes grew large inside the swells of his face.

Dean got the impression
that the fat man sitting on the bed was playing up an act, pretending the
dumbass.  While Andy was looking at Mike, Dean glanced to Jimmy and bared his
teeth, nodding at the fat man.  Puzzlement crossed his features for a second
before he realized that Dean was asking him to scare the man.

Jimmy slammed his foot
into the air-conditioning unit; the loud, hollow
thunk
startled everyone
in the room and drew a mewling squeak from Andy. 

Dean, fed up with playing
nice said, “Hey dipshit, we’re all tired, hungry and pissed off.  How about you
tell your story and quit acting like a fucking moron, because none of us have
time for it.”

Andy stared at the
scarred face, shuddering.  “Fine, asshole.  As I said, there were about
fourteen of us to start with.  Some got sick, a couple took off.  We were able
to clear out the kitchen storage of everything edible.  Several people even got
to the gas station over there and cleaned out everything there as well.” 

“How’d you get water
without power?”

Andy glanced at Dean,
opening his mouth for a snarky retort, before closing it and pointing to the
window overlooking the second floor roof.

Several of the men looked
out and down, seeing large plastic boxes lined up beneath drain spouts. 

“Nice cisterns.”

“Danny thought of that. 
We were out of water for almost two days when it started to rain.  After that
we didn’t run out of water anymore.  During the winter we just collected snow
and boiled it.” 

Alex saw something dark
flicker through Andy’s eyes when he mentioned Danny.  “What happened to him, to
Danny?”

Several of the men
noticed Andy’s hesitation before he answered.  “He died, like all the others. 
They all died.  I’m the only one left.”  Andy went silent after that, leaving
the men with more questions than answers.

Dean stepped out into the
corridor, motioning the others to follow.  “I don’t know about this guy, but
I’ll be honest, I just want to get the hell out of here and be done with him
and this whole place.”

“I agree with Dean, we
take what we have and get gone,” Calvin said.

“Both of the lower floors
are thick with zombies, so how are we leaving without someone getting their ass
chewed up?”

“The second floor roof
doesn’t extend out over the dock area does it?” Rick asked

“We can send a couple of
people to check that out.  The rest of us can wait here; maybe check the rooms
on this floor for anything useful.”

“Sounds good to me,
Mike.  Who wants to go check the roof, see if we can somehow get from here to
the truck without going back through the hospital?” Rick asked.

Calvin and Alex both
volunteered for the job.  “Hey, Andy, how do you get out to the second floor
roof?” Alex called into the room.

“Second hallway on the
right, door lets out to roof access.”

“That guy does not want
us here,” Rick said.

“And we don’t want to be
here, so everyone will be happy very soon,” Jimmy told Rick.

“Dude is just weird, and
what’s with the sores around his mouth.  Rick, you might want to use some hand
sanitizer after slapping him.”

“Don’t be hateful, Cal,”
Rick said sardonically, reaching into his day-kit for the small bottle of
sanitizer kept there as part of his basic first aid.

“I want someone to tell
me how, after nearly two years of this shit, that guy is still fat as hell,”
Jimmy said to the group.  “Every one of us has lost weight, even Mike, who’s
still big as a house.”

Without comment Mike
flipped up his middle finger, waving it in Jimmy’s face.  Jimmy pushed the hand
away, grinning.

“That
is
an
interesting question, but I don’t care if I ever know,” Rick said.

Alex and Cal walked away,
heading for the roof access. 

“While they’re doing that
let’s search these rooms up here.  No idea what we might find, but it’s worth a
shot.”

“I think I’m going to
stay with our friend here, Rick,” Dean said.  “I don’t want to leave this guy
at our backs until we’re heading out the door.”

“Ok, we’ll be back in a
few,” Rick said, turning to the nearest room to begin the search.

“Where’s your friends?”
Andy asked when Dean came back in alone.

“Trying to find a way out
of this place.”

“Good.”  The steel frame
of the hospital bed groaned as Andy shifted his considerable bulk. 

Dean walked over to the
window, looking down at the water setup.  “Where do you store the water, for
when it’s not raining?”  Andy did nothing more than grunt in reply, the bed
frame protesting as Andy moved around.  “I’m just curious,” Dean said, turning
around to address the big man.

A searing pain tore
through his left side as the thin blade of a scalpel slid into his flesh.  He
looked down to see the blade protruding from his abdomen, the handle nearly
lost in Andy’s meaty hand. 

The fat hand yanked the
blade free, stabbing it in again, just below the first puncture.  Dean’s eyes
opened wide, stunned that this fat beast of a man was suddenly stabbing him. 
In seconds, though, shock was replaced with adrenaline fired anger.

This time when the blade
was torn free, Dean’s hand shot out, grasping the greasy wrist.  Andy wheezed
in Dean’s scarred face “I’m hungry, I’m so hungry,” which turned into a screech
as Dean twisted the hand, locking the wrist.

Dean stepped into the big
man, knowing he didn’t have the leverage to throw him, unsure that he could
even if there was room.  He drove his fist up hard into the solar plexus, one,
twice, a third time, fetid breath like rotten meat and sewage exploding from
Andy.

“You stabbed me you fat
BITCH
!” 
Dean’s voice became a roar, straining his vocal chords.  “We were leaving! 
We
were leaving, you fucking prick bastard
!”

Andy, now on his knees,
still trying to get a full breath said, “Hungry,” his voice quiet, weak.

“We would have given you
food!”  Dean held his hand against his shirt, bundling it up beneath his hand,
pressing firmly against the wounds.  “What the fuck were you thinking, stabbing
me, you
FUCK
!  You think you were going to eat
me
?” 

Dean knew instantly from
the look on Andy’s face, that was exactly what the man had planned.  He drew
back a step, horrified.  “You think your fat-shit ass would have gotten all of
us? Huh?  Not a chance in hell.” 

The scalpel lay inches
from the hand Andy had on the floor, holding himself up.  The shaft gleamed
brightly, sunlight coming through the window to catch the textured handle. 
Dean’s blood darkened the razor sharp blade.  It tinkled musically across the
tile when Dean kicked it away.  “Was it clean?”  He asked through clenched
teeth.  Andy continued to look at the floor, sobbing quietly, saying nothing.

Dean could hear footsteps
coming down the corridor at a run.  He wanted an answer before they reached the
room.  Taking a handful of greasy brown hair in hand, Dean yanked the fat man’s
head back, hard.  “Was that blade clean?  Or did it have zombie shit on it when
you stuck it in me?”  Andy looked through him, eyes glazed.  Dean drew back,
ready to land a solid punch in the center of the disgusting face.  He faked the
punch, making Andy flinch. 

“Clean, it was clean,”
Andy said hurriedly.

Dean’s next punch was not
fake, landing squarely on the wide nose just as Rick came through the door. 
Blood splattered around Dean’s fist as the nose flattened.

“What the hell!”

“Fat fuck stabbed me,
Rick,” Dean said calmly. 

“Holy shit!  You ok, let
me see it.” 

“Hell no, you’ll just
want to stick your damn finger in it anyway,” Dean said with a pained grin.

“I came to get you
because the door’s been breached.  Somehow those slow ass bastards got through
and are coming up the stairs.”

“They can’t climb steps,
at least not that damn well,” Dean said, grabbing his pack and the bags of loot
he had carried in.

“Looks like they are or
the whole pack is pushing the others up, I don’t know.  All I know is
they’re…”  Rick was cut off by the sound of gunfire from down the hall.

“Time to go.  What do you
want to do with him?”  Rick asked, grabbing several pillowcases of looted
medical supplies.

“Leave him,” Dean said. 
He walked from the room and did not look back.