The team headed into the hospital campus at a steady pace, the tactic of diversions appeared to have worked, even if it wasn’t as smooth as they had hoped. Still, being able to get all the zombies in a large area to congregate was extremely effective, given the relatively poor senses the creatures seemed to have.
They still moved cautiously, with Carl scouting in his pickup truck accompanied by Sarah. As he pulled past the entrance to the A&E department, he put his hazard lights on. Seeing the signal the drivers of the larger vehicles moved up.
A minute later the two largest Vehicles were parked on the loop in front of A&E pulled just past the entrance while the Smaller vehicles continued to move toward their goal. Camila, Mark, Charlie and David quickly got down from their vehicles and checked the area. With the engines turned off David could clearly hear the swishing murmur of zombie activity with the agitation he associated with a death cry coming from the direction of their diversion. He could also faintly hear other machine noises.
Looking round he could see the others saw it too and were highly excited. Camila nodded as the group looked around and after a few seconds convinced themselves that no zombies were about to attack. Checking everyone had their improvised weapons and tools the group moved forward towards the entrance following the signs for out of hours entry. When they got to the automatic doors they held their breath as the doors opened.
As soon as they advanced into the lobby the group stopped. The stench of death and decay as well as a weird cloying sweetness that teased at his nostrils was unmistakable as soon as they got past the second set of automatic doors.
Oddly David thought there had been rather less of that smell than he expected when they had met the zombies before. Grim faced they fanned out checking for threats. They saw no signs of anyone moving and as David moved towards the waiting area for urgent care he froze, the place looked like there had been a major fight and there was little mistaking the sprawled forms which lay crushed in a pool of blood, mucus and other less identifiable fluids.
Two twisted elongated things with blade like arms and a wet, unfinished appearance lay sprawled on the floor surrounded by bloodless body parts speaking to a fight. Gagging David saw another broken form missing a chunk of its head though the lack of blood again suggested a zombie.
Speaking softly David called to the others “Over here, it looks like the monsters and zombies don’t get on, at all.”
As the others converged David advanced cautiously, reasonably sure the things on the ground weren’t faking it.
“Charlie, cover me. I need to get closer to be sure…”
David trailed off as Charlie nodded hands raised to cast if needed. David approached listening intently trying to separate the sounds he was hearing that meant magic from the surprising amount of background hum that he was no longer accustomed to.
Failing David finally cautiously reached down and touched the wet, broken things listening intently.
Move, move, move he heard it, the mad chant in no language he had ever heard yet could understand. These things were in the process of becoming zombies.
David recoiled and hissed “they are turning, becoming zombies. So it happens to monsters as well.”
Looking back and seeing not even a twitch of movement David spoke again “I think they have a way to go yet. It should be safe.”
As they started to fan out again David continued with the grisly business of checking the bodies, finding nothing when he reached the fallen figure missing most of their head. He then continued towards the back of the seating area seeing several huddled forms that had avoided the chaos.
As he approached the fallen figures Camila called out, excited “I’ve got wifi! The hospital is up and running give me a second…”
As the others crowded around her David called out “Download maps!”
Then he continued towards the huddled forms at the back noting with horror several crushed chrysalises surrounded by large pools of dried, unidentifiable fluid.
He had found the source of the stench. Whoever had won the fight had taken the time to crush the unhatched creatures rather than risk more emerging and unlike the dead combatants which were turning these seemed to be decaying fast.
Before David could reach the final cluster of slumped forms at the back of the waiting area having already noted that these were either survivors or more of the dead on their way towards becoming zombies he heard Camila again, sounding frustrated.
“Maps isn’t working, it just gives me an error.”
A few seconds later Charlie spoke “I’m online too, I just opened my app. Yes! Got it – it’s working.”
There was a bust of conversation between the two in low voices as David resisted the urge to stop what he was doing and pull out his own phone.
Reaching the last few people David quickly checked his heart sinking with each he touched only to hear the alien chant of whatever made zombies. Finally, his efforts were rewarded as he called out.
“Yes! Survivors! Three of them. The rest are zombies but I don’t think they will move soon.”
Camila and Charlie remained over by the reception desk where they were working on their phones.
After a second Mark emerged from behind the desk and confirmed “I’ve got one too, a nurse.”
Looking round David saw that Mark was dragging a woman in a nurses uniform out from behind the desk. Seeing the other two were still distracted he called out sharply.
“Hey guys, survivors! If you have maps get it downloading but get a move on and help us get these people ready to go. We don’t know how much time we have.”
A couple of minutes later they had the four figures lined up near the doors ready to move and David asked “Do you want to do them the old-fashioned way or wait for Carl?”
Camila replied quickly “Let’s load them now.”
Even as Charlie said “let’s wait, we can download more stuff.”
There was an embarrassed pause as Charlie and Camila looked at each other before Charlie face flaming said, “I’ll just put my phone on the desk and help.”
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It only took them a couple of minutes to ferry the survivors out of the Hospital and load them into one of the moving trucks.
When they were going back inside David spoke “we screwed up, nobody checked it was clear we were all carrying someone. That’s why we are here, to put ourselves in a position to help more people, not to get ambushed by zombies or whatever.”
Everyone was looking at David and Camila was about to say something when he interrupted her.
“That’s exactly what we need to get over – we just walked into a space which could be safe, or not, without checking!”
As the others whirled in embarrassment scanning the space to see nothing he continued “We can’t assume anything is safe, always verify.”
The next few minutes were filled with observing the death throes of the internet. Taking things in turns with one person on lookout the group took advantage of the Wi-Fi checking site after site.
Most were down and a pattern soon emerged; Google was still running but an awful lot of other things were gone. Search worked but the links were broken. By the time Carl and his team reached them they had all downloaded maps of the local area and a smattering of other things that could be useful. Quiet calls of dismay announcing that one sight or another was down broken up with exclamations when something worked.
Carl and his team arrived wheeling four ambulance stretchers in to find them all scanning things on their phones. Sarah was the first to speak.
“What? I didn’t even check do we have reception?”
Before the whole group could get lost in their phones David spoke.
“Look we planned to have the whole group search the nearby areas of the hospital, given what we found in here and not knowing how long we have we need to be quick I want to change things up.” Everyone looked at him as he continued.
“Everyone has their phone on the wifi? Switch your phone to wifi calling. I want one team of four to stay here, two outside watching for the zombies to come back, we are already at the end of the time we guessed we would get… Two in here keeping in contact with the other four and keeping the line of retreat open.”
When everyone looked at him nodding, he finished “we take two stretchers in and work as a group, always have one on watch. The people here can swap and keep using the internet to download useful information. Maps, Survival guides or whatever you can get.”
With everyone agreed on the plan and Carl’s group eager to get access to the Wi-Fi despite, or perhaps because, the warning the internet was dying the search started.
Heading into the Emergency ward things immediately got complicated. There were a lot more signs of chaos and conflict. While some beds were obscured by curtains others were exposed and there were signs of smashed equipment and clear violence as well as evidence of interrupted metamorphosis and bodies lying with signs of violence in some of the visible beds.
Being on a battlefield, tension immediately increased. Camila tossed her phone, set on speaker, on one end of the stretcher she was pushing to free her hands. She and David started a running commentary for the benefit of the others on the call.
While they took one side of the room Mark and Charlie took the other. Both groups started parting the curtains looking for survivors using their weapons to lead the way and checking bodies.
As this was happening David focused on his hearing, aware that he could perhaps give the group early warning, but not so confident that he would rely on it alone he started to focus on the murmuring, hearing a strong background from around and above them. As he started to check the bodies the grim pattern that was now becoming familiar emerged – the bodies with minimal damage, especially around the head and spine were turning, the heavily damaged bodies, especially those smashed during metamorphosis were silent meat.
“Crap, I don’t think our plan worked, I can still hear them, not just the ones here but around.” The others looked at David’s hissed comment. This was one of the reasons he was with the group clearing rooms after all, early warning.
“What do you mean?” Camila sounded tense and worried as she left another room with signs of conflict and no occupant.
“I can still hear them, up above mostly but also around us, until they start moving they usually aren’t loud enough for me to hear unless I’m really close... I don’t think they all left. Given how dumb they are I’m hoping the ones still here are stuck.”
They were interrupted by a cry from Mark “I’ve got a survivor.”
Followed moments later by Charlie calling “me too.”
Moving quickly Camila went to help them load the people onto the stretchers.
David continued to slowly move through the room sweeping back curtains as his heart hammered in his chest and his ears strained to try and determine direction and proximity of the zombie drone, yes that was what it was, the zombies had this drone to them and he could hear it, even divine what they were doing if he listened closely enough.
The sound was getting stronger in front of him, almost louder than the sound from above, as he moved deeper into the urgent care space towards the nurse station and the doors opposite leading deeper into the hospital.
There were small windows in those doors reinforced with wire in the glass for some reason and before he could approach he saw movement through the glass causing his heartrate to spike and adrenaline to flood his body.
“Guys. Guys!” David hissed trying to attract his teams attention without getting whatever was beyond the doors riled up.
Camila called back loudly.
“Yes David? Have you found someone else? Charlie and Mark will be back with fresh stretchers in a moment.”
David hadn’t even realized they were not here right now. Then he froze, the sound he was hearing had changed, a moment later there was a bump from the doors, then a thump, then another as David felt the alien murmur resolve into words, words that seemed almost angry. Here, here, here.
“What was that?”
Camila sounded more irritated than anything “did you just drop a survivor?”
She was coming closer as the doors rocked with a thump, thump, thump and David stood tense seeing the door flex against whatever mechanism held it shut.
“David, talk to me?” Camila was sounding alarmed now, the sounds too loud and repetitive to be caused by one person.
“Camila, I think we need to go, now.”
Just as he said this she arrived next to him, joining him in staring at the rocking flexing door that led deeper into the hospital mesmerized by the flashes of movement through small viewing windows in the door.
“I think you might be right. Quickly, clear the other beds, we can’t leave anyone to that.” Camila pointed to flexing door then lifted her phone and spoke quickly.
“We’ve got movement from deeper in the hospital. The Puta’s can’t get through the door, yet. Where are Charlie and Mark?”
There was a moment then a response came through “they just got new stretchers do you need them to come back in?”
Before Camila could reply she heard David cursing “Shit, survivors, I think.”
There was a pause then “Yeah, I got three survivors.”
Then he paused before speaking again, bluntly “two of them are kinda big, and fat, I doubt I can lift them.”
Camila reacted immediately “get them back in here, with stretchers.”
With that she came over to help him “let’s get them ready to move”
They started working on the family; the resemblance between the woman lying in the bed and the younger slimmer one slumped in one of the chairs was clear, mother and daughter. The older man sprawled in the chair on the other side of the bed looked enough like the daughter to make his relationship clear too.
Unlike the other cubicles there was far less sign of chaos and damage, no smashed monitoring equipment, indeed there didn’t seem to be any monitoring equipment turned on or attached to the woman. Now David thought he realized it was weird how quiet the ward was, there should have been alarms and things going off without the doctors and nurses to check on patients. Instead the place was trashed.
“Hey where are you, coming it with stretchers!”
They both heard Charlie calling and quickly pulled back out of the cubicle opening the curtains and saw him, Mark and Carl approaching with three stretchers. As they did there was a pause, then Charlie asked
“why is it so quiet?” Camila responded “what do you mean, they are still hitting the door, haven’t got it to move yet.”
“No that’s not it, there was a kind of high pitches whine and the sound of the AC before, its gone now.”
They all froze, David realizing in a horrified instant that with all his focus on hearing the zombie drone he had missed the steady reduction in background noises. If that was happening…
Before he could finish the thought the open call Camila had going dropped. Then the lights flickered. Suddenly a high-pitched alarm started and the lights died completely. A few moments later dimmer emergency lighting came on and the pounding stopped.
David felt adrenaline surge through his system as he desperately lunged past the others towards to now open doors to the bowels of the hospital. Rushing to meet the lurching tide of zombies.
