Zombie Theorem (Book 2): The Siege, page 21
I cranked the wheel to my right, coming to an abrupt decision on the spot. I drove over the sidewalk and over the grassy lawn bordering the hospital parking lot. I made for the front doors and stopped in front of them. I sat there with the engine running and stared hard up into the lobby of the building. I knew more answers had to be in that building somewhere. I shut down the Humvee and opened my door. I stepped out and placed my MP5 inside the Humvee onto my vacated seat. I checked the loadout on my shotgun and left my Zomgo pack where it was. I looked back to Kuppers and Vic. They disembarked their Humvees and followed suit with their weapons.
Hase appeared behind my left shoulder and tapped it. I turned to look up at him with a grim look plastered on my face. “We need to go in there, Hase. We need answers if we are going to try and live in this area. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt having additional medical supplies.”
He looked away from me and up to the daunting size of the hospital. “That place could be filled with death and zombies. You know that, right?”
“Brian and I have already survived that one, got the shirt and bumper sticker. Now I really want the mug. I don’t want to take everyone. We need a small team. The rest stay out here protecting the vehicles.”
Vic’s voice butted into our conversation and planning, “I agree with the assessment and plan. I am coming with. I want Apache to come along, also. She has the most medical training out of all of us.”
“I agree. I want Brian, and I know Julie will come no matter what I say.”
I was interrupted before I could say more, “See, I knew you’d learn sooner or later. Told you I wasn’t letting you out of my sight.” Julie and Brian climbed out of the Humvee and went through gear finding what they wanted and needed.
“I want Heaven in there with us. Having someone like him in a place like this makes a lot of sense,” Hase added.
“Ok, we need one more person to make even teams. Brian, who do you want to take in with you?” I asked the big man.
“I’ll take Doc.” He looked back and motioned for Doc to move up.
They chatted for a minute and made their way over to the front doors. They stopped when the front doors opened automatically. ‘I guess they have power’ was a thought running through my head.
“Ok, let’s split this up. Vic, you and Apache take Brian and Doc and head to the Emergency Room to gather your supplies. Move them outside and wait by the elevator doors in case we need back up. Hase and Heaven will accompany Julie and me to the Chief Doctor’s office, which I imagine is on the top floor. Does that sound like a good plan?” Vic and Hase agreed with my spur of the moment plan. “Kuppers, you and the rest of team set up down here, and be prepared to move out if we call in screaming and crying.”
Kuppers raised his right eyebrow at the last part I said. “No heroics, got it,” he said dryly and went back to set up a guard.
I looked into the Humvee and saw Angel. She looked back at me and blew a kiss. I caught it and blew one back. She didn’t seem agitated or scared at all. So, maybe this whole thing will be ok, I told myself.
I checked my shotgun again and patted the messenger bag I donned, which was full of extra rounds. I allowed Brian and Doc to make entrance first, with Vic and Apache close on her heels. Julie and I followed with Hase and Heaven, backing us up. We split off at the first hallway, as Brian and his group headed to the emergency room. My group continued to the admitting desk.
I came around the desk and sat in the chair. I found the computer screen glowing bright when I bumped the mouse. No password? Are you kidding me? I would fire people for that at my old job. I looked around on the desktop until I identified a directory and clicked on it.
I typed in “administrator” and was taken to a screen covered in numbers and directions to the Administration’s office. I pulled out my handy dandy flip notebook and made notations of the directions to those offices. I then clicked back on a search field and typed in Chief Surgeon. I noted in my notebook that information and then clicked on the email icon. I read through the last four emails’ subject lines. None gave a clue into what I was looking for.
“The Chief’s office is on the seventh floor, Room 719. Let’s take the elevators, not just because I am soft and would be needing mouth to mouth if I was forced to climb, but it will allow us to bypass floors that could be full of patients that are looking for a hot meal.” Julie had to cover her mouth to stifle a giggle at my words.
Hase never said a word. He moved down the hall toward the elevators and punched the up key. Heaven stepped back and aimed his rifle at the doors. Julie and I stood a safe distance back while we covered the hall in both directions. The elevator dinged with a yellow up arrow illuminating over the doors. They opened and Heaven rushed forward and cleared it. I guess it doesn’t take long to clear a space eight feet by five feet. He whistled softly, and Julie and I fell back and boarded the elevator. Hase entered last, covering us. The doors slid closed and, using a knuckle, I stabbed the seventh floor’s button.
An instrumental version of U2’s “With or Without You” played softly over the speakers in the ceiling. I hummed along with the music until I noticed three sets of eyes watching me in irritation. I stopped and looked down at my boots. They were dirty and encrusted in all kinds of stains and detritus. I am going to need to clean them at some point. Maybe Brian will teach me how to shine them bright like in the movies. My mind was really wandering around in all kinds of places today. I raised my head as the doors dinged and opened to an embossed red number 7 on the wall in front of us. Hase stepped forward as I leaned on the open door button. Julie and Heaven followed him after a minute of silence. I let go of the button and followed them out into the wide tiled floor. We stood there listening to the silence emanating from the floor. I checked the small numbers on the wall with arrows pointing in separate directions.
I raised my shotgun and advanced down in the direction the little red arrow directed me. Heaven appeared next to me with his rifle up against his shoulder. We made it down the hallway with no incidents. I stood in front of the proper office with the plaque stating Chief Surgeon Jon Spielman. I reached out and turned the knob with a slightly shaking hand. I hated this part back at the tower. It scared the shit out of me every single time. I met Heaven’s gaze, and he nodded once slightly. I pushed the door carefully, and Heaven stepped through the door to quickly clear the room.
The room consisted of a large mahogany desk sitting in front of the windows overlooking the parking lot. A credenza sat against the far wall of the office. I moved to the desk, as Julie came in looking through the credenza. Hase and Heaven stayed in the hallway watching for any movement. I flipped through files and patient charts. I pushed them aside and went through the drawers, pulling out more patient files and folders. I turned on his laptop on the desk and was confronted with a password prompt. “Finally, I find a computer that may be useful, and the bastard has a password on it.”
Hase came in and pushed me out of the way. He flipped over the laptop revealing a sticker on the bottom with a username and password written on it. I peeled it off, and he put the laptop in front of me. “Never met a doctor who could remember important things like usernames and passwords.” He turned and joined with Heaven in the hallway again.
I opened the doctor’s email and perused through it. One email jumped out to me. It was titled CDC Biological Emergency. I skimmed through it and found that I didn’t understand half of it. It used a bunch of fifty dollar words and acronyms I had no idea of what they meant. I hit the print function and was rewarded with the printer whirring on the credenza. Julie looked over at me when it came to life.
“I kind of found something and want to print it out to share.”
“You could’ve warned me. I almost shot the damn thing. You should take the laptop while you’re at it.”
That was a great idea. I looked around the floor and found a laptop case. When the printer finished, I shutdown the laptop and shoved it and its power cord into the case. Julie handed me the print outs, and I included them inside, also. I now had what I wanted, and we made our way into the hallway and back to the elevators.
I kept having a feeling we were being followed. I would stop and look behind us often. Heaven stopped and looked where I was looking and then over at me. He spoke quietly, “What do you see?”
“Not really what I see, but what I feel. I feel like someone is following us, or at least watching us.” It finally hit me when I looked at the corner of the hallway and up to the black camera dome. “Cameras. Let’s find the security room and see if we can look back at the video of what went down.”
“Good idea, my friend.” He spoke to Hase over my findings, as I stood there with the shotgun in hands and the laptop bag slung over my shoulder. Julie hit the down button and stepped back, waiting for the doors to open. They didn’t, they never moved.
“I think our mysterious watcher just shut down the elevators. Stairs, quickly, let’s go.” Hase kicked the door to the stairway open and stormed onto the landing. I stood covering the landing and stepped aside to let Heaven storm pass. Julie and I followed, with Hase taking up the rear. They switched off positions at each landing all the way to the first floor. We stepped out and came face-to-face with Brian and his group.
“What’s up, guys?” Brian asked, surprised at our arrival.
Hase rounded up Apache, Doc, Vic, and Brian and explained to them what we found and that we needed to find the security room. Vic took the laptop bag from me and hurried to the front doors. He spoke to Kuppers and left the bag with him. He came back and nodded that he was ready.
I checked the signs on the wall and noted the security room was in the basement. “We need to get to the basement. I have a feeling we might be up against someone or something. Wait, did you guys come across any bodies or trouble?”
Apache answered, “The Emergency Room beds were all occupied with bodies showing bullet holes to their heads. Not one was spared, children, elderly, woman, or man. We stocked up on plenty of supplies and even some medicines I got out of the pharmacy. I could perform a full-blown surgery with what I have.”
“Good. Hase, how do you want to handle this?” I inquired, giving him the tactical planning that was beyond me.
“Heaven and I will take point. You and Julie behind us, with Vic and Apache next, and Brian and Doc taking rear. We will decide our next moves when we reach our destination. If anyone has their NVGs, put them on,” Hase ordered.
I looked at him blandly for a minute. Brian reached into my bag and pulled out my night vision gear and attached it to my helmet. “Oh, NVG, Night Vision Googles. Got it.”
Julie punched me in the shoulder. “Are you really that daft? Didn’t you watch action movies?”
Brian answered for me, “No, he pretty much lived in the office, consuming data and writing reports.” He sighed audibly, “We need to spoon feed him sometimes.”
They all had a good laugh at my discomfort. Hase then held up a hand and moved to the stairway. He opened the door, and he and Heaven slipped through. We followed in our assigned positions and were soon in the basement. Heaven used my little trick and read the office numbers on the wall. He pointed down the hallway, and he and Hase moved off. We hadn’t gone more than two steps when the lights above turned off. The Delta guys didn’t miss a step. They turned on their NVGs and kept moving. I brought mine down, covering my eyes, and was taken back at the green image in front of me. It was amazing what I could see wearing them. I did feel a little off, though. It was hard gauging distances. I kept moving, following behind Heaven. We turned at the end of the hallway and came to a set of metal doors. Hase and Heaven spoke through hand signals. Heaven took my arm and moved me to a new spot further away, along with Julie. He mimed aiming a gun at the doors, then threw a thumbs up. Julie and I returned his thumbs up, and we raised our guns directing them at the door. Behind us, the rest of the team took up positions covering down the hallway.
Heaven removed something long from Hase’s pack and put the pointy end against the doors. Hase counted three down on his fingers, and Heaven yanked back hard, popping the doors open. Hase rolled a small canister in, and they turned their heads. A very bright light exploded from the room, instantly blinding me for a moment. The sound is what almost killed me, though. After all that silence, to have intense light and sound roll through me knocked me off my game. I shook my head until I could see clearly again. I looked over and saw Julie doing the same thing. We both took two steps forward, keeping our barrels on the door.
Hase came out and held up a hand, “The lights will be coming on in a second. Raise your NVG. We found a subject inside. She seems a little wild. Vic, you want to deal with this, since you’re a cop?”
I raised my NVGs, and they powered down. The lights flicked on, shining bright off the white walls. I felt slightly blind and frazzled. Vic walked past and made his way into the room. I came to the door and snuck a peak in. Heaven waved me over to a monitor station and a wall full of screens. I sat down next to him and, after a bit, found the DVR program. I called up the date for after Fairchild had been evacuated.
The recording showed a group of military guys escorting the hospital personnel out of the hospital. Then they came back in and went from room to room, department to department, and shot everyone that was ill in the head. Then they left. I fast forwarded a bit and found a door open and a woman coming out. She looked around and paced quietly. She checked the nurse stations and then went from room to room, only to come out shaking and what appeared to be screaming. She pulled at her hair and started running through the hallways and floors. I turned off the video at that point. Using the program, I recorded the video onto a USB drive Heaven had produced. I gave it back to him when it was done.
Vic had taken the woman to a different room while we were watching the video. I heard a woman scream and then a man yell “No!” Heaven and I made it to the door at the same time, and I relented to let him go out first. I pulled my shotgun to my shoulder, and we entered the room Vic had occupied for his interrogation. He had his hand pressed to his arm and the woman was lying on the ground, bleeding heavily from a puncture wound in her neck. A scalpel was held tightly in her left hand. Her eyes glazed over, and she smiled as her life force left her quickly. I turned to check on Vic and found Apache already tending to his wound.
Vic looked up at me, “I was asking her for her name when she said I was not going to kill her like I did the rest. She then pulled this scalpel out and sliced my arm. Before I could do anything more, she shoved it into her neck and screamed.”
“Brian and Julie, why don’t you come with me to find the room she came out of? The rest of you meet us in the lobby. Heaven, can you unlock the elevators?”
“Of course, Dan. I’ll watch you guys from the video feed, just in case.”
“Perfect, thank you.” Julie and Brian followed me out to the elevator banks, and we boarded one.
“What floor, Dan?”
“She came out of a room by the nursing desk on the third floor. Julie punched the button to that floor. We rode in silence and got off when the doors slid open. I moved quickly to the room opposite the nursing station. We entered and were almost knocked on our asses with what we found.
On the bed lay a small little boy. He had no hair but had a bullet hole between his eyes. Around him were easily thirty stuffed animals. I walked over to the side and found a bed made of blankets on the floor next to his bed. I figured she must’ve been asleep when the soldiers came in and shot her son. I read his medical bracelet. His name was Chris Williams, and his mother’s name Lisa Williams. I leaned heavily on the wall and closed my eyes momentarily. Tears unabashedly broke through my closed eyelids and poured down my cheeks onto my armored chest. I heard Julie gasp, then she was in my arms crying.
In a minute, Brian wrapped his mighty arms around us and guided us from the room. He held onto us in the hallway until our tears dried up. He let go and made his way over to the nursing station. He came back with a box of Kleenex and handed them to us. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he was holding back tears of his own. I grabbed a sheet off of a cart near the nurse’s station and went back into Chris’ room. I said a little prayer I recalled from when I was a kid and covered his little form under the sheet. I apologized to him for what happened and left the room.
We left the floor without another word and entered the elevator. An instrumental came over the speakers. The song almost brought back the tears. It was Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven.” I looked up at the ceiling and just had to smile. The doors slid open, and we disembarked. Heaven was standing in the hallway. “Everything ok?” I motioned for Julie and Brian to go ahead. I stayed back with Heaven and emptied my soul of what I found upstairs.
He listened without interrupting. He then reached out and took my hands. “That child is in God’s good graces and has a place behind the heavenly gates. Don’t worry about him anymore. God wants his warriors to keep fighting his fight here on Earth. Be strong, my friend.” He gave me a hug and said something under his breath. All I could make out was the last word, “Amen”
Chapter 7
Heaven let me go, and we proceeded outside and back to our Humvees. Kuppers had gotten the story from Vic and Brian and had already had the convoy ready to go. I got in behind the wheel and followed Delta’s Humvee as they navigated through the parking lot. We rode back out onto North Division Road and continued as its name changed to Highway 2 and then headed northeast. The lead Humvee pulled off into a McDonalds parking lot near the town of Colbert. Hase climbed out and walked back toward our Humvee. I opened the door and pulled myself out, “What’s up?”
“Got a message from Harry. Let’s wait for Kuppers, Vic, and Apache. Then I’ll lay it out.”
I jumped up onto the warm hood and looked around the area we parked. There were a couple of trucks in the small grocery store behind us. I motioned for Brian to join us. Julie opened her door, and I could hear her talking to Angel. Brian came around the hood and gave me the ‘what’s up’ look. “Do you mind grabbing Doc and Senshi and checking out the area?”
