Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel (3 page)

A deep smell of linen wafts
through Scarlet’s car as Greg enters. The dashboard gleams an illustrious
black, shining like glass in the evening sun, offsetting the instrument panel
and a clean, tan steering wheel.

Scarlet flips the sun visor
down, revealing a mirror. “I look like hell,” she says.

“You look better than anyone
else would under the circumstances,” Greg says offhandedly.

“Is that a compliment?” she
asks, raising her brow. 

He nods and smiles. “You bet it
is,” he replies. “I was wondering if you would like to maybe … get something to
eat, you know. And maybe we could talk for a while before you have to leave.”

She smirks and glances over at
him. “Why, are you trying to flirt with me?”

Greg awkwardly glances to the
floor. “No, well … um …”

“Because it would be okay if you
were,” she says.

“In that case, yes I am,” he
admits and quickly turns back toward her with a smile.

“Do you know a good place?” she asks.
“I’m starving.”

“Yeah,” he replies, pointing.
“If you keep going straight, there’s a place up ahead that serves the best
slice of pizza around.”

As she drives, Scarlet notices
how empty the streets look. “Is it usually this quiet around here?”

“No, actually it isn’t,” Greg
says.

He hadn’t noticed before, being
that he was distracted with Scarlet, but she was right, it looked like a ghost
town. As they pass businesses, ‘closed’ signs read clearly in their windows.
The inactivity took him back, making him strain his eyes to find signs of life
beneath the dim glow of street lights.

“Because, if it is, I wouldn’t
mind living here,” she says.

“No, really, there’s something
going on. Normally, this part of town would be full at this time of the day,”
he replies. “You, know, people hitting the restaurants and the movie theater
down the block. This is really weird.”

“Maybe we should …” Scarlet
begins to reply, but out of the corner of her eye, she can see a man shuffling
across the street. She swerves, banking the wheel hard and hits the brakes as
he nears.

She screams as the man glances
off the front of the car and flies through the air. His body is limp as he
arches and finally drops to the asphalt before skidding a few feet into an
unmoving pile.

“Shit. Shit. Shit!” she yells as
she grips the steering wheel.

“Wait here,” Greg says, flinging
the door open, “and call an ambulance!”

“But I don’t have a cell phone,”
she says, but he is already out of earshot.

Greg runs to the body as it
twitches in the middle of the road. One of the man’s legs is bent at an
unnatural angle underneath his body, angling out from behind his back as he
stares upward toward the sky.

He leans down to inspect the
man. “It’s going to be all right, don’t move,” he says, placing his hand on the
man’s chest.

The man jerks his head at the
sound of Greg’s voice and his eyes settle on his neck. With a quick snap, the
man lurches forward, narrowly missing Greg’s throat.

“What the fuck?” Greg says as he
jerks back and stumbles. He falls backward as the man reaches out. Popping
sounds crackle from the man’s hip as he drags himself forward.

Greg pushes himself away and
gets to his feet. He stares at the man gnashing and snapping at the air that
separates them. With a deep, throaty moan the man inches along, dragging his
leg behind as it unravels loosely and straightens out.

“Go, go!” Greg shouts, slamming
the car door.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”
Scarlet asks.

“Drive!” he yells.

She hits the gas pedal and
steers around the body in the road as it reaches out. Shocked, she stares at
the man as she negotiates around him. She recoils from the look of hatred on
his face and presses her back firmly into the driver’s seat.

“What … what’s wrong with him?”
she asks as her voice stammers over the words.

“He tried to fucking bite me!”
he says through a crackle in his throat.

“Like at the dock?” she asks.

“Like at the dock,” he confirms,
staring back in shock.

·3

Bill
deposits the newest arrival in refrigeration, checks off the body on the list
that hangs on the wall, and heads into the examination room. The handle to the
door doesn't quite catch, and only stays in position with the friction of the
mechanism keeping it in place.

 An
eerie silence fills the examination room. Bill looks about, realizing that the
body from the slab is missing. On the floor, red marks scrape along the
otherwise pristine tile as if something had been pulled along like a sack of
garbage. Dr. Pratt's glasses lay broken, bent at the center and with one lens
dislodged, thrown several feet from the frames.

“Dr.
Pratt?” Bill cautiously calls out.

Wet
suction noises emit from the janitor’s closet like meat being dragged across a
butcher’s block. The sound startles Bill, causing him to turn abruptly toward
the noise. His eyes squint as if he were trying to look through the wall rather
than face the fear that slowly builds in his chest. Taking a step, his shoe
squeaks against the smooth tile, echoing throughout the room, breaking the
silence. Suddenly, the sound stops and all that is left is Bill's frantically
pumping heart, knocking out an erratic rhythm against his ribs. He grits his
teeth as he tries to muster up his courage to move forward.

“Dr.
Pratt?” Bill calls out reluctantly.

“…haaaa,”
a gentle hiss comes in response; brittle and wet like fall leaves blown across
a mud puddle.

The
hairs on the back of Bill's neck stand at attention, making him freeze as his
heart skips a beat. A hand emerges from inside the doorway, pulling itself
along the floor, sliding on the blood that drips from the tips of its skinless
fingers. An elbow grazes a mop that is leaned against the wall, pushing it over
with a clack. The wood handle cracks against the floor and bounces a few times
before finally laying prone.

Bill
jumps backward as a deformed face leers in. The cadaver snarls, emitting
ghastly trails of thick, red goo that drips from the edges of its torn mouth
and splashes gently against the floor. The creature’s eyes flash wide once it
notices Bill, and it rasps and reaches out as if it were trying to devour the
man with its gruesome stare. It pulls itself forward, gaining only inches as it
claws at the grout along the tile. Waste smears in its wake like the residue
from a trash bag, dragged along by careless hands.

Again,
Bill jerks backward. His foot crashes down on the remnants of Dr. Pratt's
glasses and he slips. Trying to regain his balance, he throws his arms out
awkwardly, but he over corrects and falls flat on his back. With a putrid
snarl, the body leers at him, wrenching itself forward on its remaining arm.

Bill
tries to scream, but all that escapes is a whimper. A tingling sensation arises
from his face and moves slowly through his body, swelling his tongue. He flails
backward again and scampers across the floor to get as far away from the corpse
as he can.

Above
him, he can hear scampering from upstairs, coming through the ceiling as if a
riot had broken out in the hospital. A muted scream from the first floor shakes
him back into reality and he pushes himself up to his feet.

“Rwahhhhaaa…”
the sound comes from behind him, wet and deflated.

Bill
cocks his head, slowly turning until he can see the corpse from the
refrigeration room standing only a few yards behind him. It almost looks human
with only a single wound distinguishing its otherwise gray skin, contrasting
with brown and red of clotted blood that has formed around exposed tissue. The
creature’s mouth hangs slack as it steps forward like a child on unsure legs.
Slop drips from its chin, dangling precariously, waiting to drop with the
slightest movement. Lurching forward, the dead thing raises its arms as if
beckoning Bill closer.

Frantically,
Bill gazes around the room for something to defend himself with. His gaze
settles on a bone saw next to the examination table, glimmering from the
florescent light that shines down from above. With precision and speed, he
launches himself toward the table and snatches up the tool. The stainless steel
tray crashes to the floor, sending the other instruments it contained in all
directions.

The
instrument feels heavy in his hand, weighted at the handle for balance. He
holds the device up, wielding it like a cleaver above his head, trying to
threaten the creature that slowly shambles toward him.

“Alright,
motherfucker,” he warns, “I'll do it. Don't think I won't,”

“Ahhhh,”
the creature replies gaseous and continues to move forward.

Bill
angles the weapon back as far as his arm will reach and launches himself at the
body. With a popping slurp, the blade sinks deeply into the corpse’s forehead,
wedging itself into bone and brain. A spray of fluid erupts from the ghoul’s
head, sending pulp and gore out at an angle to the awaiting wall. In an arch,
the slaughter hits, instantly coursing its way to the floor in long, thin
streams, gathering at the crevices of the tile and pooling along the grout. As
if a light switch has been turned off, the creature’s eyes go blank and it
falls to its knees before collapsing to the floor with a wet slap.

Heart
racing from fear and determination, Bill turns his attention to the other
cadaver. Barely out of the janitor’s closet, it continues to struggle forward,
only gaining a few feet since the last time Bill looked at it. He almost feels
sorry for the crawling thing at his feet as it tries to pull itself forward.
Its movements are like misery, like torment, like the torture of an unknowing
soul.

“What
the fuck are
you
?” he asks as the creature wiggles forward like a worm,
bending its neck back to see the man above it.

Bloodshot
eyes stare at Bill, wide and intent as it reaches out, seemingly pained by its
lack of motion. A rasp of air escapes its lungs like a leaky valve, hissing as
it claws itself forward and pivoting its jaw to take a bite out of thin air.

Pulling
with all his might, Bill finally removes the bone saw from the fallen corpse’s
head, placing his foot on its shoulder, and tugging the device from the
splintered skull. With a look of disgust, he turns back toward the wretched
body, slowly walks forward, and wields the weapon above his head once again.

He sends
the weapon down with a loud crack and lets it fall to the floor beside him.

Dr.
Pratt lays sprawled out on the floor in the janitor’s closet, his abdomen
thrown open, intestines dangling across his legs like lengths of bloody rope.
Bill holds back the urge to puke, covering his mouth with his hand, and closes
the door to the closet. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself when
he hears the sound of shuffling in the next room. Suddenly, he remembers the
bodies in refrigeration and runs into the other room of the morgue, slipping on
the blood congealing on the floor. He quickly regains his balance as he turns
the corner and continues in a sprint. Three of the six bodies in cold storage
have animated, leisurely bumping into one another as he throws himself at the
door to gain leverage in an attempt to close the bodies in.

The
shambling, aimless dead surge toward the door, moaning as they realize there is
something living at the threshold. With jerking movements, the bodies encroach
on stiffened limbs, mouths slack like the hungry pleading for nourishment.

With all
his weight, Bill pushes at the door again, launching one of the cadavers into
the other two. Like bowling pins, the bodies topple over one another until they
are struggling on the floor, hissing like rabid dogs. He slams the door,
fastens the handle and slides the locking pin into place.

Shaking
from fear, Bill leans against the door, panting. As the tingling in his body
subsides, he gains the courage to move. His legs are heavy from the exertion,
weighed down by the adrenalin that slowly dissipates through his veins.

His
moment of peace is interrupted by the muted sound of gunfire. Cries, pleas for
help, and trampling sounds from above bombard his ears. It's as if a war has
erupted. He holds his breath in anticipation of every sound, hoping for some
type of sign to make sense of it all.

He
returns to the other room and retrieves the bone saw from the floor and holds
it at his side, trying to gain enough courage to wander out beyond the morgue.
He wants nothing more than to get away from whatever is happening in the
hallways and patient rooms above him. Thinking quickly, he decides to make a
break for the emergency exit when static erupts from the intercom on the desk.

War-torn
noises thunder from the speakers, brining the hell from above closer to home.
He can hear a woman scream, pleading for her life as a deep, soul-wrenching
moan moves closer to the intercom. There is a popping sound and a cry of pain.
More gunfire erupts, louder than before, projected over the phone, making the
speaker crack and hiss with the volume. He can hear a thud, followed by a
moment of silence.