Life Among The Dead (25 page)

Mortie searches the room for a tool of some kind. All he has turned up are some very old and worn magazines, some arts and crafts projects, and a television.

The set isn’t bolted down he ascertains by pushing it backwards slightly. He positions himself in front of it. His legs straddle the set so he can slide his forearms underneath. Lifting with his legs he huffs and puffs the set into the air. The escape artist prepares for his next trick. He is going to run and throw it through the window, hoping the device will have enough mass to destroy both panes of glass.

A grunt leaves Mortie’s throat as he charges the window. His movement is cut short as the set is pulled away from him. The man is jolted backwards, falling to the ground. His shoulder is sandwiched painfully between the heavy electronic and the hard floor.

“
I forgot to unplug it.” He realizes. He sits up and yanks the cord from the wall. He has to lift the thing again and it is more difficult from its new position. He has to exert himself even more to get it off the ground.

Another grunt and Mortie charges the window like a battering ram. The set connects only to rebound off of the surface and fly back into his chest. Once more Mortie is on the floor in even more pain. He is struggling for breath, stunned as to what exactly went wrong this time.

He can see the glass is cracked down the middle, the fracture runs from the top to the bottom of the pane.
Is it some sort of safety glass?
He asks himself.
Of course it is, this is a psych ward. What am I nuts?

44

All his degrees, his PhD, all of the diplomas on the wall of his office are worthless. Doctor Reese, dermatologist, had used them to feel superior to others, so he could act like an expert, and pick up woman. They are now just pieces of paper, superfluous titles, as he must now try to find a place to hide.

He breathes heavily, crouching in a stairwell. He had evaded the elderly zombie, only after it had bitten him. The doctor had shrieked, and ran away. All of the janitor’s talk of zombies has him scared now as to what will come next. If the man in the coveralls is correct, he will soon be among the walking dead.

He cradles the arm that the old corpse had wrapped his lips around. He is wishing for the first time in his life that he was more like that janitor. That man is big and strong. He probably has good survival skills, and can take care of himself in situations like this.

“
I would trade it all.” He whispers as he peers at the wound. He had been too afraid to look at it until now. He has to laugh at that.
What kind of doctor is afraid to look at a wound?
He removes the hand that has been clamped over it since he took his arm out of the zombie’s mouth. He had just retreated, holding pressure to his forearm.

“
No marks.” He says puzzled by what he sees. There is no wound. All he can see is two long half-moon indentations in his flesh. “The old man had no teeth.”

He is so relieved he laughs hysterically. Just moments before he had been contemplating using his belt as a tourniquet in hopes of prolonging the inevitable. He had gone so far as to remove it from the loops of his pants. Dr. Reese wipes tears from his eyes. He doesn’t hear the door to the stairwell open. He didn’t know that someone had stuck a Band-Aid over the latch long ago. All it takes to open is a little push. A figure enters.

A moan halts the doctor’s fit of laughter. He looks up and sees the walking corpse. His eyes go wide with terror as he takes off trying to get up the stairs as fast as he can. His pants fall down without a belt to support them. The doctor of skin falls on his face, and the zombie falls upon him.

45

The screams are terrible. Bill can’t shut them out, he has no choice but to listen and watch. He is witnessing a first person view of himself eating a man in a white coat. His body moves with a mind of its own as it tears away the morsels of flesh.

Bill’s teeth sink into the doctor’s throat puncturing the arteries. Blood sprays across the white walls of the stairwell. The screaming stops and Bill continues to feed, crying inside his head. He pleads with himself to stop. The taste is the worst of it, like old pennies and raw beef.

46

Dan is holding his son. They are looking into each other’s eyes. The light is too low to tell for sure, but he knows they are beautiful. His wife has gorgeous green eyes, and his have always received complements. They are a soothing sky blue.

The thin reddish hair covering Vincent’s head is soft under Dan’s gentle caress. Heather watches them with a smile,
they look so at peace.
Dan is definitely feeling serene. He welcomes the feeling, never guessing it possible to be so at ease, considering the hell that he has faced today, and the hell he must soon face again. Going back out there is the furthest thing from his mind.

The door opens and the thin nurse enters. “All the parents are in.” She whispers.

“’
Kay.” Dan replies.

“
Do we have a plan yet?”

“
No.”

“
Do we know where we are going?”

“
New Castle.”

“
Do we have a car?”

“
Nope.”

“
Nurse Robinson says there’s a senior shuttle that is usually parked by the ER. It will fit all of us.” The thin nurse suggests.

“
Cool.” Dan says simply. He never takes his eyes off of his son as he gently rocks the boy.

“
Well… Whenever you are ready.” The young nurse can see he has no plans on moving just yet and gives up. She leaves the room. Out in the hall multiple voices can be heard clamoring for answers.

The three are alone again. Heather looks at her husband. He looks so relaxed she can’t imagine disturbing him.

“
Babe.” She finally says after a brief deliberation.

“
I know.” He says. The soldier slowly stands up and gently passes their son to Heather. Vincent has fallen asleep again. “I just wanted a few more seconds before the inevitable.”

He kisses his wife and heads for the door. In his mind he can’t help but think it unfair that the best day of his life has fallen upon the worst day of his life.

47

The twenty-pound sledge splits the white helmet of the site foreman in half as it is brought down upon his head. The zombie collapses to the floor in front of a large window. Oz lifts the dead man’s body and throws him through the pane of glass. This is the window he needs.

Fresh air rushes into the skeletal space. Plastic sheets hanging from naked rafters start to blow in the breeze. The man in the coveralls and duct tape welcomes the bracing air as he climbs out the shattered window and onto the awning. His breath is a visible specter.

The awning is made of concrete, it covers the entrance to the emergency room. Ambulances can park underneath it when dropping patients off without the fear of rain or snow. Oz walks to the edge and considers his options.

He deduces that he can either; drop off the side and try to stay below the hedges that line the asphalt, or he can get on the top of the Psychiatric smoking area. The smoker’s cage is covered by tightly pulled mesh like a trampoline. It angles downward making it lower than the platform on which he is standing. The material doesn’t look that strong, the mesh is fraying and weathered. Oz doesn’t like it.
It’s too bad,
he thinks.
All I would have to do it step onto it.

He decides to drop the further distance rather than chance falling into the ward’s jail like patio. He drops the sledge before following it down the 15-foot fall off. Oz lands in a crouch, staying below the hedge line. Peeking over the side he can look into the ER’s window. The emergency room is packed with zombies.

He searches for his next move. His eyes scan the immediate area and land on a groundskeeper’s truck that is parked outside of a neighboring convalescence home. He knows he will find something useful in that pick-up.

The large man gets to his feet using a blue bus as cover. He doesn’t want to be spotted by the dead in the ER. He thinks he can hear them pounding on the glass already. Carrying the sledgehammer he darts over to the gardener’s truck.

48

Mortie has been pounding against the safety glass for what feels like an eternity. The television had long ago broken apart into useless pieces. He now strikes the pane with a wooden chair. His skinny arms throb from the work out, but he has pledged not to quit until he is on the other side.

The only break he has taken from his attack on the window occurred when he saw a man drop from the sky. A large brutish person dressed in blue, dropped himself from an elevated slab of concrete.

Mortie had dropped his chair and began to slap his palms against the glass. He screamed and called for the man. He was either ignored, or couldn’t be heard. He watched as the guy crept along the hedges. The man had stayed low; the mortician could only see the top of his head. The figure disappeared behind a blue bus that read: Senior shuttle, on its side in white, parked a little bit before the awning.

The man now runs across a stretch of lawn that separates the hospital from the next building while holding a long object that Mortie believes to be an axe, or some sort of hammer. He gives up hope that the man will rescue him, and gets back to his task.

His hands are sore from the vibration in the wooden chair. Every time the seat connects his arms reverberate. The safety glass makes a brief wobbling sound after each blow, as if laughing at his attempt.

His last strike had knocked one side of the window out. The right side of the fractured window now leans loosely in the space between the double panes. Mortie uses his bare hands to slide it to the left. His palm is sliced open as he pushes the hefty sheet aside. He doesn’t care. He is halfway done at least.

The second pane turns out to be regular glass. He is surprised when it breaks outward on his first assault. The man shivers against the cold air that enters the television room. He is standing in only his briefs and his hospital issued slippers.
I can’t let the cold deter me,
he tells himself and carefully climbs through the sill.

Out on the patio he sees three round tables each is surrounded by large lounge chairs. The skinny, nearly naked man searches for a way out of this cage. Above him he can see some sort of mesh. It looks like it was once white, but through all the years and the weather, not to mention the cigarette smoke passing through it, it is a disgusting brownish yellow. His eyes fall upon something he really needs. On one of the tables is an ashtray that is brimming over with cigarette butts. Among the pile is one that still has half of it to go. The thought makes him laugh.

“
Even through all this, Mortie. You are an optimist.” He takes the butt and tucks it into the corner of his mouth. It has lipstick on the end but he doesn’t care. He really needs a smoke. He pats his hips forgetting he isn’t wearing clothes, thus has no pockets. He searches around to find a means of lighting his acquired cigarette.

On the wall he sees a black square. The box has a red button on the side and a small hole in the middle. He inspects the device, pressing the button. Inside the hole he sees a brief flash. He presses his face to it, inserting his stubby smoke into the hole. He puffs while hitting the button repeatedly until he works up a satisfactory cherry. Mortie smokes his recycled cigarette and digs around in the ashtray for more, laying a handful of viable cigarettes on the table.

He already knows how he will try to get out. He figures he can smoke while he works on it. The man walks over to the shards of broken glass he had made and picks one up.

He wields the transparent triangle in his bare hand while he climbs the bars of the cage. Mortie disregards the pain and starts to saw the mesh above his head. He has to close his eyes as the smoke irritates them. His pale flesh is covered in goose pimples. All he wants is to find a way home right now.

He makes quick work of the mesh and climbs up the cold white bars, squeezing his body through the tight slit. The man has to stop when he reaches his waist because the rough edges threaten to remove his underwear.

The surface is springy like a child’s moon bounce; each step Mortie takes is exaggerated. He could almost enjoy the sensation if he wasn’t almost naked. He also fears falling through the tattered material. He can see people approaching from the street; they walk like the folks on the ward. He knows they are just like them from their single mindedness.
Why else would over a dozen strangers all start to walk in the same direction?
They have spotted Mortie.

The mortician steps onto the concrete surface that the large man had fallen from. He knows he will have to find a way out by going back in since the creepy people are almost to the cage and he doesn’t dare go over the side. Avoiding the body of a man with a crushed skull he enters the window. Mortie’s feet crunch on broken glass.

The area he enters is unfinished. He had read about the renovations in the paper. Some local mogul had donated a ton of money to the hospital; the wing is going to be named after him. He walks cautiously through the exposed beams and pipes. He has no idea where to go from here.

His body is shivering from the cold. He pulls a piece of plastic sheeting from where it hangs on the walls. He wraps himself in the transparent material and progresses through the dim halls.