Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (24 page)

I wiped them on the dangling piece of towel that sealed up the wound on my leg, and tucked two of them back into my quiver.  The other I mounted back in the crossbow.

Then I ran as fast as I could toward the hospital.  No more of this.  Not now.  I didn’t have it in me, and I never wanted to be inside a car or a building more than at that moment.

Or under a bed.

Or in a closet.

As I ran, I saw the hospital building.  The main crossroad upon which it sat was wide open.  When I got a car, it’s where I would make my escape from this haunted town.

****

Chapter 8

My lungs ached.  I was thirty feet from the hospital door when I realized the affected humans were closing in on me from all sides.

There must have been twenty of them:

A woman to my right, stumbling toward me, her right shoulder jerking spasmodically, her neck bent at an odd angle, and her arms reaching out to me.

Two men were cutting off my
intended
route
– probably unintentionally – on the left side, one from the hospital entrance, and the other from along the sidewalk.  The one coming from the front of the hospital was bald and stout, his short legs moving him toward me slowly but surely.   His mouth did the old gnashing thing we’ve come to know so well these days, but which, at the time, only served to toss more chills my way. 

The other one was taller, and moving toward me at a good clip.  He wore a pinstriped suit that looked as though it were covered in barf, but if the truth had actually been known, what that lumpy stuff
really
was might have disgusted me far more than a few blown chunks.

I angled to the right, using high-aim steering.  Looking far ahead of me so that I could begin changing my trajectory – something my arrows couldn’t do mid-flight. 

I begged my legs to move faster, despite their tremendous muscle fatigue.  They obliged.  I picked up speed before another three appeared from behind a pillar, and these creeps were in my direct path. 

I pulled up sharply and stopped moving for a moment, taking quick glances in all directions.  It was as though I were a magnet, and them
the
tiny bits of steel.  They were coming to me as though I called to them in a language they knew very well.

Because I
was
calling – with the very scent of my blood that poured from the soaked bandage tied around my leg to the pavement – and they understood it, no translation required.

I quickly dropped to my knees.  The nearest was fifteen feet away and closing.  I loaded a bolt into the bow, cocked it and raised it to my eye. 

I fired.  It was a direct hit, angling up from below the nose, exiting through the back of the skull.

Pinstripes dropped.

I had reloaded before he hit the ground.  Raised it, fired again.  Baldy was down with an arrow in his eye and beyond, undoubtedly.

Open path.  I loaded another bolt and ran.  When I reached them
,
I yanked one arrow, then the other, and forged on.  On the move I fired at one of the three that had moved directly in front of the door.

The closed door.

The arrow struck that one in the neck, and it fell against the door and slid to the ground, only to crawl to its knees and get back on its feet.

Quickly, I dropped down to my good knee and loaded another bolt.  It was one I’d pulled from the other zombie’s head, and it was slick with slime.  I was having difficulty mounting it in the bow.

Putting it all on the ground, I wiped my hands on my pants, but the blood from my leg made it wetter.

I wiped my hands on my ass.  Still dry enough there to get me some finger grip.  I picked up the bolt, wiped it on my ass too, then put it in the bow and cocked it.

This time I got very close.  I wore steel-toed boots, as any tough bitch that dated Tommy would do.  Sure, I wore sandals when I was kickin’ it on
Main Street
, but when I really had to do some kicking, I wore my steel-toed boots. 

And it just so happened I was glad to have them on.  I couldn’t take the chance of another slippery arrow.  I needed to get into that hospital fast, because I wasn’t going to stop bleeding anytime soon.

I ran up and fired into number two, point blank.  Head shot.  I swung the bow hard at the legs of number three, and he toppled backwards.  One eye on number one with the arrow in his neck, I pulled back my leg and slammed that steel toe into the skull of number three and heard a crunch.  Easy as one, two, three.

Only I had to finish off number one.  His right arm had somehow hooked awkwardly over the arrow protruding from his neck, and looking at his situation, I realized the arm had to be broken for that to happen.  Still, that neck shot, in any other creature would have been a direct kill, so no matter the condition of his arm, he was dangerous as hell.

I threw my right arm over my shoulder and my fingers curled around another bolt.  It was dry.  I cocked it and dropped it into the bow.  I was one inch from him when I reached forward with my right arm, yanked the arrow out, and raised and fired.

“Trade you,” I said.

Then I reneged on my promise.  After he was down, I reached down and pulled the kill shot out, tucking it back into my quiver.

So far, I think I was only down one or two arrows.  I was proud of myself.  I’d known I’d need to keep as many as I could, and I had.

I went to the doors, but they didn’t open.   I was surprised, then wondered how fucking stupid I actually am, because I was aware there was no power.  Nevertheless, when you walk up to automatic doors, you just expect what you expect.  It’s like the power going out in your house and you still walk into every room and hit the light switch.

Old habits die so fucking hard.  Just like these fuckers.

I tried pulling them apart with the palms of my hands on the glass.  They wouldn’t budge. 

I looked behind me.  There must have been ten more within twenty feet of being a problem for me.  I pulled out an arrow and stuck it between the doors.  Pried hard.

Nothing.  Not even an inch.

I’m not big, but I do generate some adrenaline, and I had a shitload of it going right about then.  I grabbed the steel trashcan from beside the door, got as far away from the largest pane of plate glass window I could without rushing into the arms of the pursuing zombies, and ran as fast as I could toward it.  When I was three feet away I pushed my arms forward, and let the trash can fly.

In my mind there was no way in Hell that door wasn’t going to shatter into a million crystalline pieces.  I was so sure I followed the can.

To my surprise, the can bounced cleanly off the heavy pane of glass, causing it to shudder briefly with a low modulating hum, then fall still and silent once more as the trash flipped harmlessly off to the side.  The new problem in my world was that I was still under the influence of forward momentum.  My body slammed into the glass that I was so sure would not be there by the time I reached it.

I hit it hard and fell to my back on the hard concrete, momentarily stunned.

And when I saw the shadows of the walking dead begin to fall over me, I scrambled to my feet and ran, zigzagging as best my bum leg would allow, and I used pure athleticism that I didn’t even know I had to circle that hospital until I found a door.

A service entry door had been propped open.  I went in and pulled the broomstick away, letting it close behind me.

It was damned dark.  I was suddenly even more frightened in here.

The glow saved my life.  It was all that allowed me to see them at a distance.

The pink glow.  What we now know is one of the weapons in their arsenal, also prevents them from hiding in the dark, and that’s just fine and dandy by me.

My eyes had adjusted a bit, but it took nearly a full minute.  The pretty, oh-so-feminine, pink luminescence allowed me to see them when I was almost dead sure they could only
smell
me.

I stayed perfectly still as the first one approached.  I let her come to within eight feet before I fired, aiming right between the two almond-shaped beacons.

When she went down, I retrieved my arrow.

My leg was throbbing then.  I worked my way down the dark hallway, looking for a supply closet or a small room with a table or something.  There had to be some emergency flashlights around somewhere, too, I just knew it.

But I knew a lot of shit that didn’t really pan out, didn’t I?

As I passed a gurney, I saw a body on it, face down.  I moved away from it and kept walking.  More pink ahead.  This time I was faced with two of them.  As I was focused on them, I slipped in something that was thick and pungent.  I went down on my ass, hard, my hands becoming slick with the sticky goo.

I could smell the coppery tinge of blood.  I tried so hard to keep what little I had in my stomach down, but I failed.  As the pink dots drew closer to me, I threw up, adding to the mess.

Then behind me
,
the thing on the gurney moved.

Sat up.

The glow.  I was maybe twenty feet beyond it.  I turned and took aim.  I fired and made a direct hit.

No time to get that arrow.  Not now.  I had two more right in front of me.

I had reloaded my bow many times in poor light.  This wasn’t the challenge.  The challenge was doing it while covered in someone else’s blood.

But I sidestepped my way out of the muck on the floor and slid my feet along the corridor until my boots were gripping again.  I wiped my hands, one by one, on my ass again, this time less effective.

Another bolt mounted.

I turned and walked back toward them.

They seemed to startle at this.  I didn’t think it was possible, but I thought I saw hesitation at my advance.

Five feet and I fired.  Dead hit.

Did I really just type that?

I backed up, reaching for an arrow, and in another three seconds it was cocked and loaded.

I moved toward this one, toward the glow.

And fired.

It went down in a pile of dirty ass zombie clothes and gore.

I got my arrows and heard voices.

I turned.  Whispers.  Down the hallway.

Flashes of light?  Why was I frightened?  Zombies didn’t carry flashlights, nor did they whisper.

It didn’t matter if they were friendly or not – I didn’t have a light of any kind, and if they saw me moving, they might just shoot.  I had no idea what knowledge of these things they had, and even saying something might not be adequate to prevent a bullet from being fired in my direction.

As quietly as I could, I slid along the wall another fifteen feet.  They were busy behind me, talking in low voices, and I couldn’t make out what they were saying.  At least their low conversation helped to mask any noise I was making.

Then they resumed their forward movement.

Avoiding dead bodies I found myself nearly stepping into along the way, my hand finally fell on a doorknob that turned.

A
sma
ll storage closet.  I pulled open
the door. 
It was hard to make out at first, but then I could see it was filled with t
owels.  Clean towels.  I ducked into the closet and closed the door as quietly as I could.
  Sitting there in the dark, I untied the filthy, blood-soaked towel from my leg and pressed a clean one against it.  I tried to slow my breathing.

Apparently I didn’t close the door quietly enough.

Flex and Gem, to my great relief, found me there.  And from that moment forward, it’s been
privilege and
pleasure to know them and to have grown to love them like family. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I
’m tough.  I’m just not as tough as I let on.

Together, we’re far tougher.

Now back to
our
story.

Chapter 9

Lucky we’d seen
Hemp setting up the still in
Alabama
, because while these were much larger, once we figured out which container was what, it was all set and waiting for the boys
and the piles of poison ivy to arrive
. 

I had no idea how long we could go without telling
Taylor
that something had happened to her mom.  She was almost eight years old, and she already seemed to have matured so much in the short time that zombies walked the earth.  I couldn’t imagine how this would affect her.