Life Among The Dead (23 page)

“
Do you see them?” Oz asks impatiently.

“
I don’t see much of anything to tell you the truth. Even if my eyes weren’t blurry, it’s hard to make out colors in the dark.” The man stands up and starts collecting the bottles and jars from the shelves. He brings armfuls of the containers to the windows. “Something to do with the light spectrum I would imagine.”

Oz lights his lighter and starts opening the childproof lids. Pills are dumped out onto the counter and he examines the pharmaceuticals, sorting them by color.

“
Take what you need. That’s all of it. I hope it helps your friend.” Bill tells him as he dumps the last armload.

Oz drops an assortment of medications into empty pill bottles. He has dozens of different shapes and hues, all variations of blue, green and yellow.

“
It has to help. Thank you.” Oz sprints back to the bathroom.

Bill watches him go before collapsing into his chair again. His body has gone numb. The pain he has been suffering through has abated to a dull ache; even his insides are feeling better.

“
Wait.” He calls weakly to the man he had just met. He wants to tell him to get his friend to labor and delivery. His thought is,
they can join what’s his name and his girl when they go to that place.
He crawls out through the small window, falling into the hall with a thud. It doesn’t hurt.

Bill’s body rolls onto the zombie with a broken neck. The corpses head lolls up against Bill’s shoulder. The dying, disorientated man watches the moving head of the zombie.
It isn’t trying to bite me. It could very easily take a bite,
Bill thinks. Its mouth is resting against the living man’s flesh.

A puzzled Bill looks into the vacant eyes of the deceased.
It doesn’t view me as food anymore.

“
That can’t be good.”

36

Heather opens her eyes and the hand that gently strokes her hair pauses. She loves when he does that. She finds it relaxing, and comforting.

“
Hey, why did you stop?” She asks the familiar face in a tired whisper. Her husband sits in the candlelight. He looks beat. His skin shines with grime and dried sweat, he smells awful. It’s even worse than when he comes home from the factory.

“
So I can do this.” He leans in and kisses her, his lips taste salty.

“
You made it.” She smiles.

“
I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“
You got to miss all the gross parts, and the pain.” She is trying to sit up; the bed is immobile due to the lack of electricity. Her husband places pillows behind her for support.

“
I wouldn’t say that.” He says with a slight laugh.

“
I heard about what’s going on outside. The nurses say we are safe here.”

“
This ward is safe since security is usually high. They like to prevent baby stealing and all. The hospital is full of them though. I want to get us out of here. I want to go to New Castle. The three of us…” Dan looks around. “Where is he?”

“
I knew you wanted a boy.” His wife points at him and laughs. “He is in the nursery. They took him so I could rest.”

“
My boy,” Dan smiles widely, but the smile is fleeting. “Born into a world gone completely mad.”

“
We’ll be fine, as long as we’re together.” She caresses the top of his head, an action that relaxes him as well. “So, you want to go to the ranch?”

“
Yeah. It’s secure, secluded, and it’ll have power from the dam. The dam will run…”

“
Indefinitely.” She finishes. “You’ve told me about the dam. Can everyone go?”

“
Who’s everyone?”

“
The nurses, the other parents, and their kids. I’m not the only one, you know?”

“
I’m sure there’s plenty of room at Bruce’s place.” He says after a brief pause. “I’ve already sent a group that way.”

“
You’re a hero.” She touches his face.

“
I don’t know about that. I couldn’t save everybody.” His mood falters as he thinks of that family of four he watched get torn apart as they left west 8th. He thinks of all the people who must be hiding out, waiting for someone to help them.

“
You’re my hero.” Heather assures him.

“
That’s all that matters.” He says.

37

Oz enters the bathroom. Toby is sitting very still in his chair.

“
Ok, Toby. I have an assortment for you to choose from here.” He says loudly in hopes of rousing the boy.

Toby lifts his head slowly.
He looks so weak,
Oz thinks.
He’s clinging to life as hard as he can. He’s a fighter.
The janitor drops the plastic containers to the floor and starts opening them, pressing down while turning the white caps. Pills are spilled into his palm as he moves towards the sickly looking youth. Oz ignites his lighter.

Toby lunges at Oz. The restraining belt keeps him at bay and out of reach. His arms flail trying to grab the man in front of him. A low moan escapes his lips. Oz can see the boy’s eyes in the flickering light; there is no life in them anymore. They stare at the man who had cared enough to carry him up all those flights of stairs, as if he is nothing more than a pile of meat. The boy is hungry, and Oz is feeling like today’s special.

“
I’m sorry, Toby.” The man says solemnly. The pills fall to the floor, scattering in every direction as Oz rises to his feet. Toby desperately tries to get at him; the boy’s own chair holds him back by the waist. The wasting disease of which he was afflicted had finally taken him. Oz doesn’t want to leave him this way. He walks deeper into the shadows of the restroom.

Most of the lavatories in the hospital have a small maintenance closet for storing supplies. The janitor locates the steel door without the aid of light. He inserts a key into the lock and opens the door. He uses his lighter to search the contents for something useful.

Cans of cleansers, plungers, and small wrenches. Rolls of toilet tissue, each individually wrapped in white paper. He finds a stiff pair of leather work gloves and slips them on. His fingers flex inside the rough, water damaged hide, breaking them in.

Toby is craning his neck to see where his old friend had gone. He tracks the man’s movement as he comes back into view. Oz is passing a row of sinks affixed to the tiled wall. The boy still performs his futile attempts of grabbing the man who now holds onto the sides of a porcelain sink. He watches as his meal tears the fixture from the wall.

Water pours from the pipes in the wall as Oz carries the heavy white object to the boy’s chair. The floor floods over; water carries the useless pills away in its current. The janitor places one foot on the seat of the wheel chair, between the boy’s knees. Toby grabs his ankle. He lowers his head trying to bring his mouth to the food, his attempts at bringing the food to his mouth proved impossible, the man is too strong.

Oz kicks out sending the chair into the wall. He swings the hefty sink crushing the boy’s head between it and the hard tiles. The wall is cracked where Toby’s head makes contact. The grip the boy has on his ankle remains tight. Oz swings again and again until the boy falls limp and the porcelain falls to pieces.

Oz is alone again. He hasn’t felt like this since his wife had run off taking his son with her. She had left him for a surgeon.
I wouldn’t feel this empty if it weren’t for these fucking zombies,
Oz considers.
If not for them, I would have never met the boy.
He drops the pieces of sink to the growing puddle on the floor.

“
These fucking zombies.” He says removing the roll of duct tape from his belt. “I’m going to kill all you fucks.”

Starting at the cuff of the glove on his left hand he sticks the end of the roll, wrapping a thick layer of gray tape around his forearm all the way to his elbow. He tears the adhesive strip in two with his teeth. He repeats the procedure on the other arm. He flexes against his makeshift armor.

“
1,001 uses. There’s no biting through this.” He gives his handiwork a considering nod. The large angry man kicks open the door and storms out on a mission.

38

Bill is staggering down the corridor looking for the man who needed the medicine. His mind is clouded and he is losing focus. He no longer remembers why he is in such a hurry.

“
What was I doing?” He asks himself. The corridor dead ends, there are doors along the walls. Each one is labeled, telling him exactly what’s on the other side. He just can’t read them, between the darkness of the halls and his vision being blurred. He starts trying the knobs until he locates a door that is unlocked.

“
C’mon! No whammy. No whammy. No whammy.” He opens the door and a zombie stands before him swaying back and forth. “Whammy.” He states disappointedly.

The dead man in a white lab coat just walks past him since Bill isn’t on their diet anymore.

“
Excuse me.” He addresses the dead doctor. “I’m looking for a janitor.”

The corpse rudely continues to walk down the hall. Bill limps to catch up and throws his arm around the zombie for support. They walk the hall together like buddies.

A slamming sound echoes along the walls of the passageway. The deceased man doubles his pace towards the noise. Bill loses his hold and falls to the floor. He watches as his new friend shambles away, not bothering to get up.

“
This is a nice enough place to die.”

39

The mortician looks down at the girl he had assaulted. She stares up at him as well. Though the suicidal man was feeling guilty for his actions, he was compelled to push her away when she came at him. He had hopped onto the medication cart and jump onto the rack of patient effects; seeing the ceiling above them was paneled he pushed one up and climbed into the tight space. He prayed it would hold his weight.

The tiles do hold his lightweight physique, if he evenly distributes it through his hands and knees. The white squares bow slightly under him and even more severely when he shifts even a little bit. He is stuck, straddling the missing tile looking down at the girl who seems bent on revenge. He can’t blame her.
She deserves some retribution for what I have done.
That doesn’t mean he has to make it easy for her.

The man is puzzled. He knew she was dead. No pulse. No breath. Her body had cooled. There is no way she could have been resuscitated after all that time. He recalls the others, all of the people in the ward.
Maybe they are all dead.
He saw a man get his throat torn out by one of the new admissions. He is now up and walking.

“
Zombies?” He poses himself the question. He can’t believe it. Its fiction, but it explains everything. The behavior. Dawn’s resurrection. He doesn’t have the answers. All he knows is that he wants out of here. Mortie scans the space he is in. It is pitch black and he has no idea which way to crawl.

The man looks down into the med room. Dawn remains there, staring up at him. He tries to ignore her gaze so he can get his bearings.

“
If the door is to my left.” He pictures the ward. He can see the Nurse’s station, a large desk that wraps around the center of the milieu. He is in that center, behind the desk. He had followed Dawn there when the place went crazy.

“
The recreation room is there.” He points straight ahead. The room contains exercise equipment and a ping pong table. The orderly had shown him that on his tour.

“
Beyond the desk should be the TV room.” His arm waves left causing the tiles to bow beneath him. Mortie replaces his hand and redistributes his weight, deciding that pointing is unnecessary.

“
The front door should be that way.” His head gestures to the right. The man slowly turns his body trying to be as light as possible. When facing in his desired direction Mortie starts to crawl taking deliberate strides, he wants to keep his hands as close to the supporting frame that the tiles rest upon as possible. It should be the strongest spot of the structure.

His arm bleeds from the wound Dawn had delivered. It flows down his forearm and hurts like hell. He knows he deserves it, and probably more. He has decided to turn himself in to the authorities as soon as he is out of here. It will be his first stop after he elopes.

That’s what Dawn called it, eloping. It is a term specific to psychiatric wards. She told him it’s an old joke where orderlies and nurses would say patients escaped together to get married. Mortie wonders if that ever really happened.

A force stops his forward movement. His head has struck a wall. Mortie crawls along it feeling the barrier with his right side. His mind pictures the ward. He thinks he must be above the milieu near the rec room. The barrier doesn’t wrap around the nurse’s station, it extends across the unit. There is no way for him to get to the front door.

The mortician is starting to panic,
alone in the dark with alleged zombies under me.
He can hear them moan through the fragile squares that threaten to break away beneath him.

“
Calm down.” He tells himself. “On the tour the guy showed you the television room. There is a door there that leads out to the smoke deck. A smoke would be great right about now.” He had left the pack in the room with Dawn.