Fracked (10 page)

“Fucking bastards,” he muttered under his breath as he stood back up with the bag of phones, shaking his head.

Attracted by the ringing, frantic footsteps approached from the distance…

John dropped the bag and started running towards the cafeteria.

A group of two snarling patients and a naked ghoul from the morgue turned around the corner and sprinted after John, dribbling black gore from their mouths as their heads twitched.

John ran inside the cafeteria and nearly tripped over the pale corpses of the hospital staff that littered the floor.

With a dreadful heart, he glanced around, but didn’t see her among the dead.

He bounded over the serving line and crouched against the floor, hiding as he gripped his weapon tightly with both hands.

The group of infected burst through the cafeteria doors and froze as they scanned the room, listening.

A barrage of gunfire echoed down the hall.

The infected turned and ran out of the cafeteria with the exception of the ghoul from the morgue.

The ghoul collapsed onto his hands and knees and opened his mouth as he regurgitated every last ounce of the vile black substance from his body.

It splattered onto the floor and slithered amongst the corpses of the hospital staff.

With a final exasperated gasp, the ghoul spat out the last drop and collapsed on the floor, motionless.

As the black substance entered through the nose, mouth, eyes, and ears of the deceased hospital staff, the corpses started convulsing as they reanimated.

In less than a few seconds, one became many.

The doctors and nurses slowly got onto their feet and stood in the middle of the cafeteria, twitching.

There was more gunfire in the distance.

The newly reanimated staff members sprinted out of the cafeteria towards the noise, screaming.

Alone with the naked ghoul, John stood up in the cafeteria.

He took a hard swallow and tried to mentally reassure himself.

Becky is a fighter.

There’s no way she’d go down easy.

She’d fight.

She’d win.

She’d survive.

John repeated the mantras over and over in his head as he stood behind the serving line and contemplated his next move.

He tried to remain optimistic, despite the overwhelming evidence all around him, but his heart ached at the mere possibility…

He knew she had to be nearby, and he wouldn’t rest until he found her…

Living or dead.

Not knowing where else to turn, John cautiously made his way through the kitchen doorway, weapon ready.

The kitchen was dim and the sinks were overflowing with brown water. Pots and pans were lying everywhere amongst broken dishes and split trays of silverware. Overhead, the lights were dim and cold air churned weakly out of the vents.

“Becky?” John called out quietly as he sloshed through the kitchen, surveying the area with his weapon. His leg brushed against a stack of stainless-steel pans, making them chatter as they tumbled against the floor.

“Shit,” he whispered as he spun towards the door with his weapon, expecting the corpses to chase after the sound.

He waited, but nobody came.

Eventually he turned his attention back towards the dismal kitchen.

He was alone.

Something warm ran down his cheek...

His throat burned and his breathing became erratic.

Before he even knew what was happening, he let the slung weapon fall down to his side and collapsed on the edge of a silver table, sobbing. He buried his face into the crook of his arm and tried to mask the noises his body was making, but it was no use.

Against the far wall, the large, industrial refrigerator door slowly opened and bathed the dark room with light.

Rebecca struck her head outside and looked at John with disbelief, shivering.

“J-J-John?” she stammered.

“John?!” she repeated as she stumbled out of the refrigerator, pale and shaking.

John blinked and looked towards her voice.

His gloomy expression immediately brightened as he quickly got back on his feet.

“Becky?!” he exclaimed, wiping his face with his sleeve.

The two ran towards each other and embraced tightly.

Rebecca buried her face into the crook of his neck and started sobbing as she squeezed her eyes shut.

“I-I-It was awful, t-they just started shooting us and t-t-then I– I just didn’t know where to go, what to do… I wanted to help, John, I wanted to, but I hid… I just…”

John held her freezing body closer and repeatedly kissed the top of her head.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here, baby, I’m here,” he whispered as he cradled her gently in his arms. “We’re going to get out of this, okay? I promise you. We’re going to get out…”

Rebecca pulled back and looked up into his eyes; her blue eyes were red and watery.

“John… what’s going on?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “It’s some sort of sickness, but it’s turning them into lunatics.” He paused. “It’s some kind of black stuff... The way it moves and slithers around, it looks alive, like a parasite or something.”

Rebecca studied his face and nodded, looking down.

“They told us it was hemorrhagic fever…” she said. “I’ve seen some of the sick people when they came into the cafeteria… Whatever it is, it isn’t what they claim. I’ve… never seen anything like it before.”

John paused, confused.

“Who said it was hemorrhagic fever?”

“The men in the protective suits,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she shook her head with disgust. “The men who shot at us… They claim that they’re from the CDC, but I think that’s a lie too.”

“Yeah… I doubt they’re telling the truth, considering what they’re carrying,” John said as he held up the MP5 slung around his shoulder. “Hell, I don’t reckon government doctors would be carrying around weapons in the first place.”

“Who are they then?” she asked.

“Military would be my guess,” John said. “Either way, it doesn’t really matter. From what I’ve seen, they’re not doing much better than we are. It’s bad out there, Becky…”

Rebecca looked up at him expectantly.

“Can’t we call someone…? Call for help?” she asked.

“Who would come? More people to shoot at us?” he asked with a frown. “Besides, the landlines are down and the cellphone stopped working.”

Rebecca sighed and shook her head.

She looked up at him expectantly once more.

“When you were out there, did you come across any other survivors…?” she asked.

John shook his head.

“So all of them are…?” she asked.

John nodded somberly.

Rebecca looked down again with a blank expression.

John placed his hands on her shoulders and peered down her.

“I… know that this is a lot to take in, but I need you to stay with me,” he implored.

Rebecca looked up at him as tears ran down her cheeks.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I know that we need to get out of here,” John said. “They’ve already cut us off from the outside world, so I can only imagine what’s next. We need to stay focused if we’re going to get out of here and survive.”

Rebecca nodded and wiped away her tears with her palms.

“Walking through the hallway is out of the question… Those things are everywhere. Do you know any other way?” John asked.

“I do,” Rebecca said. She pointed towards a nondescript door in the corner of the room. “That’s the service corridor. It’ll take us through the back way of radiology. If we go through the department, we should come out at the end of the hallway where the elevators are.”

“Sounds good, let’s go,” John said, holding the weapon close to his chest.

The two snuck through the door and entered the dank service corridor.

The corridor was long, dark, and made of concrete. Exposed conduit lines and water pipes ran along the ceiling while plastic-draped crates of supplies and cleaning materials lined the wall.

A man wearing a hospital gown stood at the far end of the hall with his back facing John and Rebecca. His head was lowered and he was twitching.

Overturned jugs of industrial window cleaning liquid were lying on the floor. The methyl alcohol solution was pooling around the man’s feet.

The front of the man’s gown was torn open and a long, black tentacle-like appendage dangled from his belly button. The tip was sloshing through the alcohol solution, greedily sucking it up.

As the man drank, pustules grew all over his body…

The couple looked at him with horrified disgust.

John turned towards Rebecca and put his index finger against his lips, shaking his head.

Rebecca nodded.

John and Rebecca quietly made their way down the corridor away from the twitching man and stopped at a door marked ‘RADIOLOGY WING ACCESS’.

Rebecca gently lowered the door’s lever and pushed the door open.

John kept a watchful eye over his shoulder, but the man at the far end of the corridor didn’t seem to notice.

As soon as the door was open, the couple rushed inside.

John slowly closed the door and let out a long sigh of relief. He looked over at Rebecca and froze when he saw her expression.

She was staring wide-eyed into the room with her mouth slightly agape, trembling.

Bullet-riddled corpses of hospital security guards and nursing staff members were strewn along the side of the blood-slathered wall. Stacks of old imaging equipment sat in the corner of the room and sparking wires hung from the ceiling. Spent brass shell casings littered the entire floor. A male nurse and a man wearing a tattered CDC white-suit stood in the middle of the room with their eyes focused on the ground, convulsing as the black substance foamed out of their mouths.

The two twitching corpses were standing in front of the room’s only exit.

A depleted MP5 lay on the floor next to the white-suit’s feet.

John put his finger against his lips and looked over at his wife. He pointed towards the door leading out into the main radiology department.

Rebecca nodded, hands shaking.

John took a single step towards the door.

His boot sent a brass shell casing skittering across the floor.

Both of the infected looked up and glared at him with their onyx eyes. They started sprinting towards John, screaming.

John fired at the white-suit first.

The automatic gunfire tore up the center of the white-suit’s chest and along the front of his face. His head shattered and he tumbled onto the ground.

Gun still smoking, John fired wildly at the male nurse who was only a few feet away.

The blast of gunfire shattered the man’s left thigh and eviscerated his abdomen. He collapsed to his hands and knees as his innards fell out in clumps onto the floor.

John stepped back and squeezed the trigger again.

‘CLICK’

‘CLICK’

‘CLICK’

Aggravated, he threw the depleted weapon aside and put an arm in front of Rebecca as they stepped back against the service corridor door.

The man tried to crawl across the floor, but stopped after a few inches. He lowered his head and expunged the tarry substance from his body.

After the last ounce was gone, the man’s shriveled corpse fell motionless.

The substance spread out across the floor and started to crawl onto the corpses of the security guards and hospital staff. The corpses started to convulse as the substance forced its way into their orifices.

John and Rebecca jumped as the man from the service corridor started banging against the other side of the door.

“We have to go now!” John said as the security guards and the slain staff members started to reanimate.

The couple ran through the door on the opposite side of the room into the radiology imaging room just as the reanimated corpses started to get on their feet.

The imaging room consisted of rows of broken x-ray machines, dressing tables, toppled room dividers, and desks stacked with computer equipment. Mangled corpses lay strewn amongst the rubble.

At the far end of the room there stood a door that led out into the waiting area.

As John and Rebecca sprinted around the wreckage towards the door, the door behind them swung open and the infected horde entered the room.

The infected sprinted after them. Black tentacle-like appendages erupted from their belly buttons and flailed wildly through the air, spritzing the mangled corpses with the toxic, infectious substance.

The mangled corpses on the floor immediately started convulsing and reanimating.

One of the patients, an elderly woman, broke ahead of the pack and darted towards John.

Rebecca grabbed one of the imaging carts and pushed in front of the old woman.

The old woman tripped and tumbled over the cart, snarling and screaming as the rest of the horde carelessly trampled over her and kicked the cart aside.

John slammed against the doors, but they wouldn’t open. Panicked, he started slamming his shoulder against the double-doors.

Rebecca ran beside him and placed the ID card attached to the lanyard around her neck against the door’s proximity reader.

The doors swung open.

Safely on the other side, the couple slammed the doors shut and stepped back.

The doors locked back in place.

Infected began striking the double-doors from the other side.

The doors started to bend and the drywall around the started to crack as the group relentlessly pounded…             

John looked at the door and shook his head.

“That won’t hold them off forever,” John said as he looked around the room. “We have to get out of here.”

The radiology waiting area was a small room with rows of plastic chairs bolted to the floor along the center. A flickering electric sign above the double-doors read ‘X-RAYS in Use’. Numerous Triburton posters were hung on the walls and old gossip magazines were scattered across the floor. An abandoned receptionist’s desk sat against the wall.

A single door led out into the hallway.

“That way,” Rebecca said as she pointed towards the door, struggling to catch her breath.

They quietly walked out of the room and entered the hall.

Every patient room door had been kicked open and the concrete walls were chipped away by gunfire. Patients and hospital staff were strewn across the floor, shot until they were unrecognizable.

The nurse’s station next to the elevator had its window shattered. Inside the station, a heavyset nurse was slouched back in her office chair with a single gunshot through her forehead. Her lifeless eyes were staring up at the ceiling while blood ran from the corners of her mouth. Her phone was hanging off of the hook and her computer monitor had an error message on it that read ‘CANNOT ACQUIRE NETWORK – CHECK INTERNET CONNECTION’.

Rebecca covered her mouth as they walked past.

“Dear God…” she muttered. “Those sick patients didn’t do this… This is their way of helping? I’m glad you couldn’t call anybody…”

John spotted something.

Curious, he picked up a cellphone that was lying next to one of the corpses in the hall.

Just as he expected, the phone didn’t have a signal.

He sighed and dropped the phone into the corpse’s lap.

“I imagine that they either took out the few towers we have around here or they have some sort of jammer in place,” John said as they neared the elevator. “We won’t be able to call anybody until we get closer to an active tower. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Just as he was about to push the elevator’s call button, the electricity switched off. The hallway was immediately bathed in darkness and the air stopped flowing from the vents overhead.

Rebecca blindly stepped towards John, terrified.

“No, goddammit!” John muttered in frustration as he repeatedly mashed the powerless call button.

After a few seconds, the emergency lights switched on and bathed the hallway in dim yellow light.

“There!” Rebecca said as she pointed at the stairwell door a little ways down the hall.

They hurried towards the door and stepped inside.

The stairwell was dark and the air was stale.

As soon as they started to descend down the steps, the first floor door opened up and bathed the stairwell in light.

John and Rebecca froze as six masked soldiers wearing black uniforms and night vision goggles entered the stairwell toting M-16s. The soldier’s uniforms had no names or numbers, just an American flag emblem on the left shoulder.

Rebecca stared at the flag and looked relieved to see somebody other than the white-suits… Perhaps real help had finally arrived.