Psych Ward Zombies (11 page)

“The ladder
might go to the roof!” Janet joined in, completing Dave’s thought. She leaned inside the elevator shaft alongside Dave while he held the light. She reached for the ladder and swung herself fully into the void. She climbed upward, and within a few seconds she had reached the top of the ladder. Her hands searched the ceiling for some sort of door or hatch, and found a large hasp mechanism. Janet swung the hasp open with a metallic clank and pushed on the door. A heavy metal hatch swung open above her, revealing the open sky. Beams of moonlight washed down through the opening onto her face. Her thankful smile gleamed in the soft light.

“Send the kids up!” she shouted down to Dave. “I’ll help them on this end.” She climbed out through the hatch and stood triumphantly in the humid night air. She was technically still within the boundaries of the building, but she had never felt more free
.

Dave climbed onto the lower part of the ladder after gathering the children by the elevator. Chester picked up each of the kids and handed them across the gap to Dave, who positioned them on the ladder and instructed them to climb. It was a painfully slow process
.

Dave decided that children can be reasonably expected to have problems climbing rusty ladders. Especially when sleep-deprived. In the darkness. With monstrous zombies closing in on them
.

By now, Luther had reached the top of the stairs and was now shoving the wall of furniture aside without much trouble. The last child was sent up the ladder just as Luther toppled the furniture barricade
.

Dave yelled to Chester, “Come on! Let’s go!” He ascended the ladder as quickly as possible behind the remaining children. When he looked back, Chester had not followed
.

“Chester!” he screamed. His cry echoed through the elevator shaft. There was no response.

Luther stepped into the reception area and scanned the room. In the dim light he saw the open elevator doors, and heard shouting from within the elevator shaft. He also observed the door to Devlin’s office standing ajar. The room was filled with shadows and stagnant air. There had been thirteen people in the room just moments earlier, and Luther could still smell the aroma of fear within the room.

He swiveled slowly to face the opening to the elevator shaft. The massive zombie approached the shaft with a purposeful and unhurried movement. His neck craned into the darkness and he peered upward. He could hear the children’s anxious chatter through the open hatch. It was drawing him like a magnet
.

Reaching into the shaft, Luther
placed one hand on the ladder. He was incapable of full analytical thought, but in his primal brain he knew that this task would be similar to the act of climbing stairs. The small pulses of conceptualization were already organizing themselves in his head.

“Hey, ass
hole!” came a shout from behind.

Luther released his grip on the ladder and twisted around stiffly. The movement brought him face to face with Chester, who had stepped from the shadows to confront the zombie. Luther stood in front of the open elevator shaft, almost nose to nose with Chester. He roared and raised his arms above his head in a threatening posture. Chester stood his ground, staring into Luther’s milky eyes without blinking. The zombie’s eyebrows rose in an expression that suggested apprehension, and then settled back to form a scowl.

Suddenly, Chester screamed, “This is Sparta!” He simultaneously planted his foot on Luther’s torso and gave a forceful heave. Luther flew backward as if hit by a semi truck, disappearing into the blackness of the elevator shaft.

There was a moment of prolonged silence as Chester stood motionless. His posture relaxed and a broad smile came over his face. “I always wanted to do that,” he cheered to himself. He performed a few air punches and spun around a couple times in celebration. He twirled back around to face the elevator doors, expecting to climb to freedom. He was greeted with a sight that made his blood run cold. Luther was standing before him, sneering. Chester had forgotten that the Administration Tower was only two stories tall, and the elevator car was on the first floor. Luther had merely fallen about five feet, landing atop the elevator car
.

Chester yelled upward to Dave, as loudly as he could, “Shut the hatch! Now!”

Dave peered down the opening into the elevator shaft, but all he saw was the empty void. “Chester, are you sure?!”

“Do it now!” Chester screamed. Dave pondered the big man’s fate for a moment before slamming the hatch shut. He knew Chester would probably be turning into a zombie soon anyway. Part of him was relieved that he would not have to face the otherwise inevitable decision on what to do about a zombified Chester.

When Chester heard the rooftop hatch close, he knew his fate was sealed. He would not be leaving the hospital alive. He now had a choice - he could either be eaten by Luther or he could turn into a zombie himself and roam the hallways. Neither option sounded particularly appealing. There was no longer anything to fight for, except the taste of revenge.

Revenge, however, can be a strong motivator
.

Luther stood before him, having climbed from the elevator shaft. Chester knew that even with one hand mangled, Luther would be a dangerous opponent. Chester’s time in the wresting ring had taught him how to size up an opponent and tailor the fight to the opponent’s weaknesses. Luther probably had an advantage in strength, even in his state of partial decay. However, Chester still had the advantages of speed and relatively quick thinking. As the zombie lurched forward, Chester moved toward the stairs. He knew Luther would not be able to navigate the stairs well, and he hoped to exploit this weakness. Luther seemed to recognize the strategy, and rotated himself to block Chester’s path. Since the stairs and elevator shaft were close together, the zombie was able to keep Chester from accessing either one by positioning himself halfway between them
.

“All right, you ugly son of a
bitch. I’m going to stomp a puddle in your ass,” Chester warned, although Luther showed no sign of fear. The zombie held his ground, waiting for Chester to make the next move. Chester ducked to the side as if he were going to try to run around his foe, but then he turned suddenly and bolted toward Devlin’s office. As he entered the office, he slammed the door behind him.

Luther stood passively for a moment, waiting for the neurons to fire so he could decide what to do. A couple small parts of his brain we
re screaming, “Attack! Attack!” The other parts of his brain were too foggy and disorganized to be heard over the battle cry. The undead giant stepped forward and motivated himself toward the door. He grabbed the doorknob and paused. It took a second for muscle memory in his primitive brain to take over before he was able to turn the knob. The door swung open and Luther scanned the room. He did not see Chester, but he heard a thump from the closet where Horton had hid earlier. He stalked closer to the door, driven by sounds of muffled movement within. His cadaverous hand reached for the knob and pulled the closet door open, hesitating briefly to recall again how door knobs work.

Inside the closet, the source of the noise became apparent. A large rug sat rolled up and propped in the corner of the closet. From within the rug, something was writhing around and bumping into the wall. Luther reached out and grabbed the rug, pulling it toward him. The rug toppled over and onto the floor of the office. The contents of the rug, one dazed zombie named Horton, spilled out as the carpet unfurled
.

Luther was briefly confused. This was not the fat bearded man he had chased into the room. However, his prey suddenly darted into view, as Chester sprang from behind the desk and dashed out the door. Chester had placed the mummy-wrapped Horton in the closet to create a diversion. He was now using the diversion to slip past Luther and escape. His path to the stairs was clear
.

Chester descended the stairs while running at full speed. As he reached the landing halfway to the ground floor, he realized that he was stumbling a little bit. His legs felt wooden and were beginning to cramp slightly. He kept running to the bottom of the stairs, where the previous crowd of zombies had now dispersed. Their decayed brains could not maintain an attention span for more than five minutes, so they had wandered off
.

Chester stopped at the base of the steps and tried to think. He hoped to find a weapon and a defensible position before Luther figured out how to descend the stairs. Unfortunately, going down stairs is much easier for zombies than going up. Gravity plays a major role. Chester glanced behind him to see Luther and Horton tumbling down the first set of stairs to the landing like a pair of undead Slinkys
.

Off the main corridor lay a doorway marked “Utilities”. It was normally locked to keep the patients out. However, like all the other internal doors that relied on electromagnets, it was now accessible. Chester sprinted across the corridor, dodging a couple of random zombies who flailed their arms at him. He reached the Utility door and pulled it open. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He could hear the shuffling of feet outside the door, so he slumped down with his back propped against the door. A zombie began to tug at the outside handle, but Chester was heavy enough to prevent the door from being opened. He knew that Luther had been close behind him, but hoped the giant ghoul had not seen him enter this area
.

He had an emerging awareness that his breathing was starting to sound wheezy. He held his breath, praying the zombies outside would not hear him. An urge to cough surfaced, but he suppressed the need until the tickle in his chest had passed. As Chester lay sprawled in front of the door, he could sense his body becoming increasingly stiff. His limbs seemed slow to respond to his brain’s commands. A feeling of lethargy sank into his muscles.

His brain was not faring much better. He retained conscious awareness of his situation, but his thoughts seemed mired in molasses. Chester felt the kind of sudden panic one feels when drowning. However, instead of water filling his lungs, an icy wave of death was flooding his entire body. He clenched his eyes shut, triggering small streams of tears to roll down both cheeks. Within moments, his eyes jerked opened again and then rolled back in their sockets. Chester tensed abruptly and collapsed to the side. Droplets of blood trickled from his mouth and nose, pooling on the floor by his face.

Janet directed all the children to sit in a circle in the center of the roof. The roof of the tower was not particularly spacious, and she was afraid one of the kids might accidentally fall off the edge. Once everyone seemed safe, she focused her attention on Dave. He was sitting by the hatch, staring off into the night. She sat down beside him.

“What do you think happened to Chester?” she asked.

Dave was slow to respond, appearing lost in thought. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to listen through the hatch, but I haven’t heard anything.”

“Do you think we should check on him?”

“Umm, we could do that,” he responded. He was not keen on the idea of going back into the zombie den. Still, he knew it would mean a lot to Janet to know how Chester had fared. “Aren’t you worried that Chester has, uh, you know?”

Janet seemed irritated by the question. “I am worried, but I’m
mostly worried that he’s hurt or needing help. If you don’t want to check on him, I’ll do it.”

Dave was now on the hook. He liked Chester and did not want to appear uncaring. But he did not want to be eaten like an oversized cheese puff either
.

“No, I’ll go,” he said. He tried hard to make his voice sound pleasant, like he was looking forward to the task. However, he was filled with anxiety inside.

He stood up and grasped the outside handle on the roof hatch. The hatch was heavy, but the massive feeling of dread felt even heavier. He tugged the hatch open and stared down into the darkness.

“I’ll go, if you want,” Janet offered again.

“No, I said I’d do it. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Keep your ears open for any sign of trouble, and don’t go anywhere.”

Janet squinted at Dave. “Doc, we’re stranded on a rooftop. Just where the hell are we going to go?”

Dave smirked in response and proceeded down the ladder. He descended slowly, trying to be silent. As far as he knew, there were two giant zombies waiting at the bottom of the ladder. When he reached Devlin’s reception area, he stepped out of the elevator shaft and peered around. The room was quiet. He had been in this same place a half hour earlier, yet it seemed a lot scarier now that he was alone. He tiptoed to Devlin’s office door and peeked inside. The rolled-up carpet that had been used to confine Horton now lay outstretched on the floor. Horton was nowhere to be found.

“Great. Now there are three zombies hiding in the shadows,” he thought to himself.

He took a few minutes to explore Devlin’s office, looking for any clues to his boss’s evil plan. He did not discover any useful information, but did find a small wooden box tucked away in the back corner of a desk drawer. He opened it carefully, wary that Devlin may have booby-trapped the office. Inside the box were a stack of magazine articles. The articles had been clipped from various celebrity gossip rags, and they were all about Luther. Several of the articles contained shirtless photos of Luther on the beach or by the pool. Hearts were drawn on the photos with a purple glitter pen. Beneath the magazine clippings lay a folded document on formal-looking stationery. Dave unfolded the letter and examined it. It was a note from Luther’s attorney addressed to Devlin. It was a cease and desist letter, stating that any further correspondence from Devlin would be considered harassment. The letter was written in vague legal terms, but from the limited information Dave surmised that Devlin had been badgering Luther with a barrage of love letters. Dave shut the box and dropped it on the table. “Ewww,” he groaned, suddenly feeling the need to wash his hands.

He found some hand sanitizer on a shelf and doused his hands liberally. Near the hand sanitizer were some latex examination gloves. He picked one up and inserted his hand. Donning latex gloves always brought reminders of practicing prostate checks in medical school. He shuddered, remembering why he went into psychiatry instead of family medicine. With the glove, he picked up the remaining toxic doughnut from the box. He pulled the cuff of the glove down over his hand and stretched it inside-out over the doughnut. He tied the end of the glove into a knot, sealing the doughnut inside. The tidy package was stuffed into his front pocket. Dave figured the doughnut would be a valuable piece of evidence if he managed to survive this ordeal, but he did not want the poison coming in contact with his skin
.

He stalked back to the reception area, peering around the doorway before exiting the office. The only ways out of this area were the ladder leading up and the stairwell leading down. Dave crept down the stairs but stopped when he reached the bottom. He peeked out into the main hospital corridor and saw that the
hordes of zombies were still roaming about. There was no sign of Luther or Chester. Dave had no idea where Chester had gone and was not interested in fighting a dozen zombies to look for him. He quietly jogged back up the stairs and then scrambled up the ladder to the roof.

When he arrived at the hatch, Janet greeted him expectantly. She read the expression on Dave’s face before he said anything.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked somberly.

“I didn’t find him. Or Luther. They’re both gone. They must have gone back to the main part of the hospital.” Dave was sincerely apologetic. He wished he had found Chester, or what was left of him. “Sorry,” he said.

“Yeah, well, thanks for looking.” Janet grabbed Dave’s hand and helped him climb from the hatch.

Dave changed the subject. “I searched Devlin’s office and you’ll never guess what I found.”

Janet was in no mood for riddles. “Oh, I don’t know. How about a bunch of stupid zombies?”

“No, but that’s a good guess,” Dave countered, ignoring her sarcastic tone. “I learned that Devlin must have had some kind of perverted fascination with Luther. I think he was sending Luther a bunch of love letters. Luther got ticked off and told him to stop.”

“You’re kidding. That’s creepy,” Janet said, wrinkling up her nose. “Was this before or after Luther became a serial killer?”

Dave pondered the question and replied, “The cease and desist letter was dated about a year ago, so I think it was before Luther started murdering people.”

“This is all just too weird,” Janet muttered.

Dave broke off the conversation and walked to the edge of the roof. In the light of the moon he could see the parking lot located about a hundred yards away. He longed to be standing in the parking lot rather than perched on this roof. He felt relatively
safe up here on the roof. Then again, he had also felt safe on E Ward and in Devlin’s reception area. He would never be truly safe until he was away from this place.

He was standing atop the second floor, so it was roughly a twelve foot drop down to the roof of the first floor. From there it would be another twelve foot drop to the ground. Dave roamed the rooftop, looking for a ladder or fire escape. Unfortunately, the building was not designed to allow easy access to the roof. The ladder inside the elevator shaft was bolted to the wall in a dozen places and it would take half a day and a full set of tools to remove it. Dave imagined sliding down a zip line, like in a movie. Unfortunately, most modern mental hospitals are not being built with zip lines on the roof
.

Dave thought about jumping down from the roof and going to get help. Twelve feet is a pretty good fall, and he risked seriously injuring himself. He would become easy prey for the zombies with an injured leg.
Dave also knew such a fall could be fatal for a child. A vision flashed in his head of the ten children stranded on the roof while he lay crippled on the ground. He needed a better plan.

He remembered the leather rope from the reception area, but realized the children would not be able to rappel down a crude leather rope. However, this thought gave him an idea
.

He once again descended the ladder into the reception area, where he retrieved the makeshift rope and carried it to Devlin’s office. He took out Chester’s small knife and cut a quarter-sized hole in the rug that had once held Horton. He tied the leather rope to the rug, rolled the rug up compactly, and dragged the rug to the elevator shaft with the rope
.

Most of us only experience rugs when they are lying flat on the floor, so we do not get to experience how heavy and cumbersome a large rug can be. Dragging a rolled-up rug across the floor is difficult enough, but getting it up a ladder and through a hatchway is almost impossible. Still, this was a desperate situation, so “almost impossible” still meant “technically possible”
.

Dave pushed the rug into the shaft, where it fell on top of the elevator car. He stood it up on end next to the ladder, with the rope attached to the top of the rug. He climbed the ladder and gave the end of the rope to Janet. She would be pulling, while Dave pushed from below. It was a tremendous effort and required a great deal of grunting, heaving, and cursing. In the end, the rug lay on the roof next to the exhausted pair of adults
.

“Awesome. We have a rug. Now all we need is a genie in a lamp, and we’ll fly this sucker right out of here.” Janet’s sarcasm never got tired.

Dave was undeterred. He dragged the rug over to the edge of the roof and untied the rope. He used the small knife to cut the rope in half and then tied each half to a corner of the rug. The ropes were subsequently attached to a pipe that led along the edge of the roof. Dave looked back at Janet with an expression that said, “Watch this!” He tossed the free end of the rug over the side. It draped down and almost touched the rooftop of the first floor.

Janet seemed unimpressed. “Wow. A flag. I think I’d rather have a flying carpet.”

Dave sat and hung his legs over the edge of the roof. Without saying a word, he gripped the side of the rug and pushed off. As he disappeared from view, Janet ran to the edge and peered over. She found Dave hanging by his hands from the side of the rug. His feet were six feet above the first floor rooftop. He tried to lower himself down slowly but his hands slipped off the rug. He fell, screaming, and hit the rooftop feet first. Luckily, he had the foresight to roll onto his back upon impact, so he was not injured. Janet looked down from the edge to make sure he was all right. “Real smooth, Doc.”

Dave stood up and dusted himself off. “Send the kids down,” he said, looking up to Janet.

“Are you crazy? That fall will kill them,” she replied.

Dave walked over to the rug and grasped it at the bottom. Pulling the bottom edge a few feet away from the wall, the rug now made a soft ramp for the kids to slide down. Getting the children off the roof would be relatively easy this way.

“Oh, okay,” Janet said, not wanting to admit that it was actually a pretty good idea.

Some of the children were eager to jump down the slide, but others required some convincing. Eventually, all the kids were safely standing next to Dave and only Janet remained on the second floor rooftop
.

“Now, untie the ropes and let the rug fall. We’ll need to do the same thing to get to the ground level.”

Janet protested, “What about me?”

“I’ll catch you. No problem.”

She stared at him incredulously before releasing the ropes and dropping the rug. She then paused to look down at Dave again.

“I said I’ll catch you,” he reassured.

Janet swung her legs over the edge of the roof and held on to the ledge with her fingers.

“I’ve got you. Now let go,” Dave instructed.

Somehow Janet felt safer clinging to the rooftop than trusting a dwarf to catch her. Dave watched in amazement as Janet walked her hands along the ledge until she dangled in front of one of the Administration Tower’s large windows. Using her fingertips and toes, she found various tiny ledges along the window to support herself. She carefully climbed down the wall. Once at the first floor rooftop, she wiped her hands on her pants and turned to face Dave.

“That was incredible. You were like a ninja! Did you learn that growing up in Japan?”
he asked.

Janet scowled harshly at Dave. “Okay, listen up, you racist
pig. Just because I look Asian, you assume I’m from Japan? The name Foo comes from China, and I’m very proud of my heritage.”

Dave was truly embarrassed. “Uh, sorry. I jus
—”

Janet interrupted, slapping him on the back playfully. “Just yanking your chain, Doc. I grew up in West Virginia. My family is just as likely to drink moonshine as green tea.”

Dave exhaled in relief. “So where did you learn to climb like that?”

“My gym has a really nice climbing wall. It’s great for upper body strength,” she said, striking a bodybuilder pose. “Anyway, let’s get these kids out of here.”

The process with the rug was repeated for the descent from the first floor rooftop to the ground. This second effort proceeded smoothly and without injury. Within a few minutes, the entire group was standing in the grass by the building. They were now outside and the zombies were inside. They were finally safe.