Life Among The Dead (20 page)

The doctor flails on the floor, trying to get away from the gray haired zombie. The arthritic man is grabbing onto him by his white coat trying to get his mouth close enough to take a bite.

He shakes the geriatric ghoul off of him and tries to open the door. A massive hand is holding it closed. The doctor can see the janitor looking at him through the glass without expression. There is no glee, or sorrow on his face. His eyes watch the scene totally detached.

The doctor’s eyes on the other hand are wide open as he tries to force his way through the door. The old zombie is wrapping its arms around the young MD’s ankles as its head nears. The janitor tears off a piece of tape with his teeth and covers the window.

“
Where’s the doc?” Toby asks the janitor when he re-joins him on the first floor landing.

“
He had a different plan.”

“
What now?”

“
We’ll try to get to the 4th floor. Your room is up there right? In Pediatrics?”

“
Yeah, I wasn’t old enough for a grown up room. What was the Doc’s plan?”

“
He decided to go to the morgue after all. Alone.” The janitor lies, hefting the boy up the stairs, chair and all.

“
You got a wife and kids?”

“
A boy, about your age. And, a wife.” The janitor carries Toby up to the second floor and continues on to the next set of risers. The sounds of a struggle can be heard faintly through the heavy steel door.

“
Where is your family now?” Toby asks.

“
I’m sure they’re around.”

“
Aren’t you worried?”

“
I’m sure they’re fine.”

24

It isn’t out of the ordinary to receive admissions during the dead of night on the psychiatric ward. 1-west gets belligerent, combative people transferred from the ER at all hours. During a full moon they may see 4 or 5 before the day shift takes over.

Last night was different. Last night they had triaged sixteen, taking the mental health unit to its maximum capacity of thirty, and the Emergency room continued to call report on more that they wished to turf. The duty Doctor had to refuse a dozen patients because there just weren’t enough beds for them.

Typically, the night shift ran on a skeleton crew of five; four technicians and a nurse. What made things worse was the fact that some of the staff required medical attention themselves on top of all the chaos. Human bites are always especially nasty.

All of the new admissions exhibited similar psychological problems. Each was unresponsive to verbal redirection, they were aggressive, and they were all biters. All of them but one: Mortie.

Mortie is a quiet man; he was admitted for a simple suicide attempt around midnight. His suicidal ideation stemmed from his occupational stress. He is losing business as well as respect in his field. That happens when you are caught having sex with a client. It doesn’t help matters that Mortie is a mortician. He would often introduce himself in just that manner. “Mortie the Mortician” Nobody found the humor in it that he did.

There are no real laws pertaining to necrophilia, it is more a matter of common decency as long as you didn’t kill the person first. Once people hear you have such a peculiar predilection they don’t want their loved ones being laid to rest by you. Nobody wants to take Grandma to a man like Mortie. He was once the most respected man in his field, now he is the town joke.

The police had found him. Without any customers, the patrols were used to seeing all the lights out in the creepy white funeral home. Last night, all the lights were on from the basement to the attic. The cops thought it a bit odd since even before the accusations you would never see it lit up like that. They called it in, and proceeded to investigate. They found Mortie in the embalming room.

Mortie put himself on a steel flood table, thick needles jammed into his arteries, planning to preserve himself forever doing what he loved. The doctor at the ER thought it was a cry for help.
Why else turn on all the lights unless you wanted someone to come poking around?

Now Mortie cowers in a small room behind the nurse’s station. He is trying to stay below the large windows, metal wire crisscrosses inside the glass like a chain-linked fence. They are out there, all of the patients, and staff. Even the duty Doctor is out there. They are all looking for him and his companion, a schizophrenic girl who can’t be any older than twenty-two.

The room they are in is the medication room. It is small, hardly enough floor space for both of them to stretch their legs out. Mortie is searching through a rack of shelves where patients’ belongings are stored. He wants a cigarette. He had asked for one when he was admitted last night, but the technician told him he would have to wait until 6 AM. They had scheduled smoke breaks. The tech gave him the tour, showed him the break schedule on a dry erase board, all the while smelling as if he had just smoked half a pack.

The girl just lies on the floor against a beige cart that holds the day’s medicine dosages for all the patients. She has been here before. She had told Mortie about how she has been in and out of places just like this for most of her adult life. Her disorder gives her delusions of persecution. She feels everyone is out to get her. It doesn’t help her condition having over thirty people outside that tiny room with that exact goal, to get her.

“
I found some.” Mortie triumphantly holds a pack up as he searches for a lighter.
The cigarettes would be rather useless without one,
he thinks. Upon discovering a book of matches he scurries back to his companion, a smoke already hanging from his lips. He has a cigarette popping out of the soft pack for her, but she doesn’t reach for it.

“
Hey, I found some.” He would say her name had he learned it. His hand gently shakes her shoulder. Her body slumps limply to the floor. He checks for a pulse on her neck, there isn’t one. She’s dead and he is alone, his only company now are the crazies outside.

He lights his cigarette. Smoke fills the small space since it has no place to go. Mortie touches the girl’s wrist. He turns over the plastic ID band they slap on you at the ER so he can read her name, pills fall from her palm. Her name was Dawn.

Mortie holds her wrist feeling for a pulse again. He may have made a mistake, but doubts it. There is no pulse to be found. He stands up, no longer worried about being seen by the berserkers beyond the glass.

He is in this place because he wanted to die. The mortician decides he should just kill himself.
I am a monster for what I do,
he thinks.
People trusted me, and I desecrated their loved ones. And, now I have nothing.

The broken man collects pills of various shapes and sizes. He drops them all into a Dixie cup until they crest the brim. He draws some water from the small sink behind him.

The man stares at the two cups, trying to psych himself into swallowing the contents of both. His eyes slowly drift away and find young Dawn’s lifeless body. Mortie crouches and holds her wrist one last time. He doesn’t feel a pulse this time either, he isn’t expecting to. He is checking for algor mortis, to see if her body has cooled to room temperature, figuring one last fling before he takes his life can’t hurt.

25

The backs of the trucks were open as they rested against the building. The vehicles were parked against rectangular holes to make their deliveries. Dan located gauze and silk tape in one of them so he could redress Bill’s rudimentary bandages. Blood poured from the wounds when exposed, soaking straight through the fresh white cotton fabric that was liberally applied.

Bill feels like a mummy as they slowly tread further down the loading dock. It opens up again to the outside, overlooking the back alley of the hospital. They pass through another door, searching for a staircase in a dark hall. The corridor branches off to the left, but they continue straight trying to be as quiet as possible in their quest.

A set of double doors ends the hall. A sign tells them that beyond it they will find; MRI, the morgue, elevators, and the stairs. Moaning tells them that there is danger to be found as well.

Bill reaches for the door and motions to his partner to get back. He cracks it and cranes his neck to see what lurks on the other side. Bill holds up three fingers.

“
They see you?” Dan asks in a whisper when Bill closes the door.

“
I don’t think so.”

“
Did you see the stairs?”

“
I just saw the MRI.”

The moans change slightly, from a general malaise to that of pleading. Dan has been mentally cataloging the different tones of the dead. They may not have seen Bill, but the men know they can smell him.

“
It’s me isn’t it?” Bill asks. Dan just nods apologetically. “Probably my aftershave?”

The soldier places the ammo box on the floor and draws his 9mm. Each man takes a door.

“
Let’s do it.” Dan says. They kick open the doors and greet the approaching zombies. Two of the deceased wear light blue scrubs, the third is in street clothes.

Bill takes aim, but his vision is blurring. His bullet is off slightly, it tears into the man in street clothe’s throat. Thankfully, the large caliber projectile is enough to remove its head completely. It rolls in the air before thudding to the ground. Dan fires at the technicians. He takes it slow so he only needs one shot per aggressor. The bodies fall limply to the floor.

Dan advances in as Bill reloads in the doorway. The soldier fears the reports may summon more, but he doesn’t see too many points of entry since all the doors are closed. The only way to reach them is via a small hallway in the waiting area, or from behind, the way they had come.

Thumping comes from the hallway before Dan. A sign above the passage reads that no metallic objects are allowed beyond that point. Windows line the right-hand side of the short hall, revealing a large room containing a big white box.

Dan has seen these on TV before. He can see a patient in this one now. The subject is on the table, partially sticking out of the tunnel in the machine’s center. This is where they insert people for diagnosis.

The feet of the patient, who is beyond help, flail wildly. Its legs have been reduced to red stumps. The thumping is the zombie’s hands banging around inside, trying to get out. Dan wonders if the creatures are claustrophobic.
Perhaps tight spaces remind them of the grave.

Movement inside the room startles Dan. A woman in a white lab coat paces around the machine. She sees him watching her and lunges at the glass. Her dive is clumsy and slow, her head rebounds off the pane, causing it to make a wobbling sound as it vibrates. Back on her feet, her hands reach for the soldier. Red streaks are smeared onto the window. Her mouth is stained with blood from her meal.

Dan won’t waste a shot on these two. They are presumably locked inside the room. He rejoins Bill in the waiting area. The old dog isn’t looking too good; sweat beads on his forehead, his eyes are ringed with dark circles.

“
How are you feeling?” Dan asks him as he picks up the ammo box.

“
Like a million bucks.” The man responds. He hobbles to the door leading out into a new hall. He coughs leaving the back of his hand wet with red tinged sputum. Bill checks to see if it’s safe before they head onward.

The hall branches in three directions, each labeled with arrows. To the right is the morgue. To the left is a gift shop and the cafeteria. Straight ahead is where they will locate the elevators.

Four banks of elevators sit idle and useless. Staircases are found on either wall behind heavy steel doors. Bill reads a sign aloud.

“
In case of emergency please take stairs.” He looks to his partner. “I guess this qualifies.”

The dying man chooses one stairwell and walks over to it. The door has a small rectangle of glass to look through. He doesn’t see any motion on the other side. His hand goes to the knob, he hesitates. “How long do I have?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
Bullshit.” He knows Dan just wants to spare him the information.

“
Hector said his boss turned after about an hour and a half. It may have been longer. And, you know everybody is different. Mr. Derosso was…”

“
I can feel it. I’m tired and I can barely hold my gun. My guts feel like they’re on fire.”

“
Do you want me to…?”

“
No, as long as I can breathe, I can help.” He forces a brave smile.

The two men head up the stairs slowly. Their speed is not just out of caution. Bill’s joints feel very stiff. It takes him more effort to bend them than usual. His boots feel like they are made out of concrete, and just get heavier with every step.

They make it to the first floor from the basement level and Bill needs to rest. He leans against the railing as Dan peeks out into the hall through the little window on the door. The hall is packed with the dead, he can’t see much space between corpses.
Living dead sardines,
Dan thinks. He moves to Bill’s side helping him to his feet. The soldier places the old man’s arm around his neck to aide him up the next flight.

“
The ER must be busy. They’re lined up out the door.” Dan whispers to his friend.

“
We’ll have to take a number I guess.” Bill laughs through his nose.