Savannah's Only Zombie (Book 2): A New Darkness Page 12

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lexx had been to Statesboro before. After returning home from the Gulf and breaking it off with his fiancé, he came to the college town to stay with a friend. He ended up hooking up with a co-ed and spending most of the time in her dorm. A small grin crossed his face as he remembered how flexible the girl was. She was a gymnast.

  Tori shifted, pushing herself more into Lexx’s lap. She turned her head and gave him a coy smile as she pushed her hips into his lap.

  “Stop it,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Stop what? I’m uncomfortable,” she replied.

  He rolled his eyes and she turned back to face forward.

  As good as the gymnast was, he would not trade what he had with Tori for anything. There was something real, something tangible about their relationship. He hated to be cliché, but it was them against the world. Isn’t that how every relationship should be? No matter what you face, you will face it together? But what happens? Life? The day-to-day activities and duties? You forget who your partner is. You forget that you’re a team. He had that with Tori.

  Then again, they were fighting off walking corpses who were trying to eat them.

  Not your average day to day.

  But there was something about it, again, that made things seem more real.

  It made him think about the Gulf. Over there, his senses were always on high alert. The smallest noise and he was reaching for his weapon. A wrong feeling in his gut meant something. He was always on, always ready to go. It was how he lived now. Yeah, being at the cabin made him relax a little bit, but not too much. Always a part of him waited for something to happen.

  And not much had yet. Which to Lexx, meant they were due.

  ***

  They took the 301 Bypass around the city as much as possible. Of course, downtown Statesboro wasn’t really much. If it were not for the school, it would be no different from the other small, rinky-dink towns nearby. There was an iconic Main Street, many of the buildings straight from an Americana postcard. These streets were quiet, eerie. An occasional zombie shambled out of an alleyway, but movement was scare.

  “So, what do you guys think? Should we hit the hospital or the medical school first?” Josh asked.

  “I vote hospital,” Lexx said.

  “Yeah, the medical school might not have everything we need, so if we can knock it out in one shot, that would be better,” Tori added.

  “Hospital may be more populated,” Josh reasoned.

  “That’s true, but I think we can handle it,” she said with a smile.

  Josh returned the smile.

  “Okay then. Hospital it is then.”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, they sat in the parking lot in front of the hospital. It looked like a warzone, or a hospital in a third-world country. The multi-leveled building towered over everything else in the area. It had to have been the tallest building in the city. Windows were broken out; smoke still smoldering from several of them. Cars were piled up in front of the main entrance. They would have to find another way inside.

  But the number of zombies wandering around were surprisingly low. A silver lining of the possible shit-storm waiting for them inside.

  “Well,” Josh said, leaning forward in his seat to get a better look at the building. “Y’all ready for this?”

  “Let’s do it,” Tori said as she cocked her sidearm.

  “That was cool; can you say it like that again?” Lexx asked.

  “Shut up and let me out of this sardine can,” she said.

  They piled out of the cab and retrieved their other weapons from the back of the truck. Once they were loaded out, Josh looked at the building and then back at the group.

  “Looks like we’ll have to find another way in. Any suggestions?

  “How about that big ass hole in the side of the building?” Lexx said.

  It was no understatement. To their left, a major piece of wall was missing from the hospital exposing most of the first floor and the bottom of the second. Scorch marks around the edges suggested an explosion of some sorts.

  “Looks good to me,” Josh said.

  They entered into what appeared to be the remnants of a gift shop. Fake flowers and burned teddy bears with “Get Well Soon” stitched on their chests were scattered across the floor. A corpse was slumped over the counter. The room smelled of burnt flesh.

  “Geez, what died in here?” Lexx said, followed by a chuckle.

  “Wow, that was bad,” Jeremy said.

  Lexx shrugged.

  They exited the gift shop into the main foyer. Bodies covered in white sheets lined the walkways. Other bodies were not as fortunate. They were uncovered and well decomposed. The smell in the store was pleasant compared the assault on the nostrils out here.

  One of the bodies began to move.

  A woman dressed in a half-open hospital gown got to her feet. Her skin was black with rot. She opened her mouth and forced a dry, hoarse moan from her vocal cords. Others began stirring.

  Out of the many corpses that littered the ground, only five were able to get to their feet. Two others only made it up onto their bellies, pulling themselves towards a fresh meal. Their entrails dragged behind them.

  “Well,” Lexx said. “Guess we better say hi.”

  ***

  Jeremy sunk his machete into the skull of the last dragger. The bone and tissue were so putrefied, that the blade slid in like a warm spoon into a tub of ice cream.

  There goes ice cream for me, Jeremy thought.

  He pulled the machete back and slung off what gunk he could. It made a wet ‘thwack’ against the floor. He grimaced and looked at Josh.

  “What’s first on that list?” He asked.

  “I’ve been thinking, it might be a good idea for us to split up. Half of what we’ll need will be in the maternity ward and the other half will be in the pharmacy. If we split up into two groups, we can cover more ground and maybe get out of here sooner,” Josh said.

  “Yeah, why not?” Jeremy said. “We’re all white here. We should be safe.”

  Lexx and Tori both laughed, but Josh looked confused.

  “What?” He asked.

  Jeremy chuckled.

  “Sorry man. Inside joke.”

  Josh stared at him for a minute.

  “So… are you going to tell me the inside joke or not?” He asked.

  This caused Jeremy and the other two to burst into more giggles. Josh looked slightly annoyed, so Jeremy did his best to pull himself together.

  “Yeah, yeah, my bad,” he started. “Remember when we told you about the SCAD shop? Well- Who was it? It was you Tori, right? Tori suggests we split up, to cover more ground and Ben is all like, no. His reasoning? The black guy always dies in the movies when everybody splits up and he didn’t want that to happen to him. Funny, right?”

  Josh slowly nodded his head. Jeremy could see that he was itching to get out of there and back to the cabin, so he let it slide that Josh didn’t find the story hilarious.

  “Okay, serious time. Me and you can go to the maternity ward. Lexx, Tori, y’all go check out the pharmacy,” Jeremy said, reaching his hand out for Josh’s list.

  He tore the list in half and handed the medicine half to Tori. She took it and gave a nod to Lexx. The two of them jogged off towards the directory on the far wall. Lexx scanned the list, sliding his finger down the plaque until he hit the word, “Pharmacy”. He gave a wave back to Jeremy and Josh, and then the two of them took off down the hallway.

  Jeremy turned back to Josh and gave him a smile.

  “You ready to get out of here, huh?”

  Josh nodded.

  “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “Just worried about being gone from the cabin. Can’t really explain why. Just a feeling I can’t shake.”

  “It’s cool man,” Jeremy said, putting his hand on Josh’s shoulder. “Let’s go find your baby some stuff to be born with.”

  ***

  The pharmacy was on th
e second floor. There was a whole bunch of zombies on the second floor.

  Tori cracked open the door from the stairway. She peeked out and then quickly closed the door. The stairway was dark, the only light from the two of the handful of glow sticks they brought with them.

  “There’s an ass of zombies out there, Lexington,” she said.

  “How much is an ‘ass’ exactly, Victoria?”

  “A lot.”

  He raised his eyebrow at her and pushed her aside. Lexx then looked out the crack of the door and just as quickly closed it.

  “Yep. An ‘ass’ sounds about right,” he said.

  “Told ya.”

  Tori pulled the AR-15 from around her back where the gun hung. Lexx placed his hand on the barrel and shook his head.

  “Easy there, Machine Gun Barbie,” he said. “We don’t want to let the whole hospital know we’re here. Besides, Jeremy and Josh have to make it to the sixth floor. We don’t want to cause them to not get there.”

  “So what do you suggest then? We just go in there and take on thirty-something zombies with just your crowbar and my hunting knife?” she asked.

  “Well, it is a big knife…”

  She smiled at him.

  “Ugh. Fine. But if they get too close, I’m gonna start shootin’,” she said, slinging the rifle back over her shoulder.

  Lexx couldn’t help but let his eyes fall to where the strap fell in between her cleavage.

  “Can you just focus for one minute?” She asked.

  “My bad.”

  He gave her a nod and she burst through the door. The closest zombie turned slowly at the shape that just came through the doorway. As he faced the quickly approaching woman, she dove her knife deep into its forehead, sinking into the putrid remains of grey matter. Its black eyes rolled back into its head as she pulled the blade back.

  Moans and grunts filled the hallway.

  Tori moved to the next zombie and repeated the procedure. The knife went in and the zombie went down. As she pulled the knife back, a dead hand reached out for her wrist, but was struck down by Lexx’s crowbar. It looked at him with an apathetic rage. Lexx responded by sinking the claw end into its face.

  Tori did a quick head count. She was exaggerating when she said thirty earlier, but now that she had a good look, she realized she might not have been that far off. To take down that many without the guns would be an extreme task. If she could just shoot something, this would be over so much quicker.

  “Stop thinking about it!” Lexx yelled as he sunk the tip of his crowbar into another cranium.

  “Stop thinking about what?” She yelled back.

  “About shooting that gun! I can see it all over your face!”

  “Ugh! You’re no fun!” she said, slashing at a hand that got too close.

  Several fingers fell to the floor. Their owner didn’t seem to notice the missing phalanges. Its slack jaw dripped black bile onto its chin, its eyes hungry. Tori jabbed the knife into its eye socket. Dark juices burst from the ruptured eyeball as the blade sunk into its head.

  Another crowbar swing.

  Another stabbing of the knife.

  Again.

  And again, until finally it was all over.

  The two of them stood there, breathing heavily, surrounded by dozens of fallen zombies. Tori looked at Lexx. His shirt was covered in blood.

  “You got something on your shirt,” she said in between breathes.

  He looked down at himself and shrugged. He unstrapped the backpack from his back and set the shotgun and crowbar down on the ground. He stripped the shirt off and threw it to the side.

  Tori couldn’t help but giggle. Lexx had lost the small beer gut he had when they first met. Who would have known that underneath he had a great set of abs? She eyed him up and down, taking in the tone of his muscular build. The hair on his chest was starting to fill back in.

  “Hey, can you just focus for one minute?” He said, as he picked up the bag and gun.

  “My bad,” she said.

  She began walking down the hallway, but stopped when he grabbed her by the arm.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey what?”

  “You have some blood on you too.”

  She looked down and he was right. A smile began to curl in around her lips. She reached around, grabbed the rifle, and set it down.

  Lexx watched as she started unbuttoning her shirt.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Six floors up, Jeremy and Josh walked through the dark maternity ward halls. They had encountered several zombies in the stairwell, but their current floor had been eerily quiet. While the rest of the hospital looked like a warzone, the maternity ward looked as it did the day the dead started coming back to life.

  Jeremy tried not to think about what happened in this particular part of the hospital on that day. A small shudder ran down his spine.

  “Do you know what we’re looking for?” He asked.

  “Kinda. I know what everything’s called, but what they all look like? Not so much,” Josh answered.

  Jeremy followed Josh into one of the rooms. It looked untouched. The bed still made; the blinds shut.

  Josh stopped in the middle of the room. He looked at all the equipment next to the bed. How was he going to get this stuff to the truck? Most of it had wheels, but since there were no elevators, they would have to take the stairs again. He rubbed a hand over his head.

  What am I going to do? I can’t mess this up, he thought.

  “This stuff looks kinda bulky,” Jeremy said.

  “Yeah, I was just thinking about that,” Josh responded. “We can probably get something around the house to hang the IV bags on, so we won’t need the stand. It’s just this other stuff, I’m worried about.”

  He held his hand out towards the medical equipment surrounding the bed. Getting the wheeled carts down the stairs would be challenging. And noisy.

  “Okay, you know what we need to get, but do you know what any of this stuff is?” Jeremy asked.

  “Kinda. My mother-in-law showed me a few pictures in the books she’d been reading. They were a little dated, but I think I know what everything is here.”

  Josh pointed towards one machine on a cart.

  “That’s the heartbeat monitor. It monitors both the mother’s and the baby’s heartbeat. We’ll somehow need to get that downstairs.”

  “Oh, jeez,” Jeremy said.

  “Yeah. Tell me about it,” Josh muttered.

  “What else do we need here?”

  “Well, we need oxygen, but it’s all piped into the room. We’ll have to find some spare tanks. Preferably on wheels. We can grab this breathing mask though.”

  He walks over to the wall by the bed and releases the mask from its connector on the wall. There is a loud hiss of air as the remaining oxygen in the hose leaks out. Both men look at each other with eyebrows raised, then at the door. After several beats of silence pass, both release the air from their own lungs.

  “Let’s not do that again,” Jeremy said, chuckling to hide his anxiety.

  Josh nodded.

  There was a moan from the hallway.

  “Shit,” Jeremy said under his breath.

  “Poop,” Josh whispered back.

  In the doorway, a silhouette appeared in the darkness of the hospital. Josh moved towards the window and opened the blinds. Light flooded into the room for the first time in weeks. The figure in the doorway stumbled back, shielding its eyes from the sun.

  It at one time was a nurse. Still dressed in its scrubs, the woman’s black, lifeless eyes fell on the men.

  “Don’t you do it! Don’t you moan,” Josh said, pointing his finger at the zombie.

  She moaned.

  “Typical zombie…” he muttered.

  She stumbled towards them, with her hands up in an iconic zombie pose.

  “Really? Hands all reached out? Could you be any more cliché?” Jeremy asked. “I bet you want to eat us too?”

  Both m
en shook their heads and swung their weapons. Josh planted his hatchet square between the last few wisps of eyebrows, while Jeremy slashed at the neck. This resulted in the head being removed from the torso… and hanging from the end of Josh’s hatchet. The nurse’s body slumped over to the floor, the congealed blood gunk of her head dripping into pools on her scrubs.

  “Nice,” Josh said, as he did his best to shake the head of his hatchet.

  Jeremy nodded and used the end of his machete to give the head a little extra push. It fell and rolled out into the hallway.

  “Alright, enough goofin’ around,” he said.

  He slid the machete back into the sheath attached on his belt.

  “Let’s get this stuff down to the truck before we get any more visitors.”

  ***

  After making a quick stop at a nurses’ station and gathering up the last few odds and ends, they pushed the cart carrying the heart beat monitor and duffle bag full goodies. Josh explained to Jeremy that they had everything they needed, except for the oxygen tanks and the resuscitation equipment. The oxygen, as well as a defibrillator, could probably be found on a lower level, so they would not have to come all the way back for that.

  The special defib unit for the baby on the other hand, for that, they would have to return. Josh saw it on their way towards the stairs and made a mental note of its location. Again, it was another machine on a cart.

  I guess I should be thankful it at least has wheels, he thought.

  “How are we gonna get this thing down the stairs?”

  Jeremy’s question brought Josh back into the moment.

  “I suggest quietly,” Josh replied.

  “Well, yeah… but how are we gonna do that?” Jeremy said, as he held open the door to the stairs.

  Josh scratched his head. He lifted up one side of the pushcart. It was heavy, most likely the reason the machine was on wheels in the first place.

  “We can try and carry it down. When it gets too heavy, I guess we can roll it down, step by step,” he finally proposed.

  Jeremy let out a deep breath.