Dead, but Not for Long (21 page)

~*~

“We’ve lost another patient,” Dr. Sharma told Dr.
Doune as she sat down at a table to eat breakfast with him.

“Pediatric?” Doune asked, knowing that it was the woman’s specialty.

“Fortunately, no. I was helping out in ICU,” she
explained. “It was because of a power outage.”

“I thought that the generator was supposed to come
on when the power goes off,” Doune said. “Isn’t that the point of having it?”

“Yes, but from what Jack says, it’s old and needs
a lot of work. He said that the maintenance men used to complain about it but
the board of directors didn’t want to spend the money on a new one.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Doune said taking
a bite of scrambled eggs. “So they just gambled on the hope that the generator
would be good enough to get them through a short-term power outage and hoped
that a long term solution would never be necessary. That’s two deaths so far,
but there will be more.”

Dr. Sharma looked at him in question.

Doune continued. “We have patients that were
scheduled to transfer to other hospitals for specialized surgery that can’t be
done here. Obviously we will not be able to move them.”

“Can’t you or Dr. Chan perform the surgery?”

“No,” he said. “One of them was scheduled for a
heart transplant and the new heart is not here. The others, perhaps, but keep
in mind we don’t have an anesthesiologist and we also don’t have much blood on
hand for transfusions. On top of all that, with our electricity going out
sporadically, I’ll be surprised if we don’t lose more patients.”

“I wonder if the other hospitals are still open,”
Dr. Sharma mentioned as she stirred her coffee. “At least two were overrun
completely yesterday. We haven’t heard from any of them yet today.”

Doune hadn’t heard this. “This could end up being
much worse than we thought it would be,” he said. “I assumed that the military would
move in and contain it quickly but we may be past that point.”

“I am afraid you may be right,” Dr. Sharma said.
She had finally gotten through to her family in India. So far the plague hadn’t
reached them but were worried about her. From what they had told her, the only reports of
outbreaks were coming from the Americas. Other countries were scrambling to try
to prevent a similar epidemic within their own borders.

~*~

Dr. Sharma checked on the only baby that was still
in the nursery. The others had all been moved into rooms with their mothers.
Some of the women were already up and able to care for their infants while a
few of them needed assistance. The nursing staff was spread thin but several of
the new mothers had family or friends with them to help out. These visitors
had been in the hospital when disaster had struck and most of them had been put
to work, either helping the mothers or doing other jobs that needed to be done.
The nursery’s sole occupant was a premature baby that had been born addicted to
crack. The child had been there for almost a month. The mother had been hooked
on drugs when she had given birth and had quit coming to see the child after
only one visit. CPS had already gotten involved, considering the child
abandoned. If the infant survived, she would end up in foster care, but Dr.
Sharma wasn’t even sure the child would make it. She had gained some weight and
her health had improved but she wasn’t thriving.

There was a knock and Dr. Sharma turned to see two
older women standing outside the large glass window of the nursery. She
recognized them at once as the spouses of the two male patients that had died
during the power outages. One seemed to be an emotional wreck while the other,
Joan, seemed to be more under control. Dr. Sharma stepped out of the room to speak to them.

“Dr. Sharma, Lillian and I would like to volunteer
our services,” Joan said. “We both need something to keep us busy and to keep
our minds off of everything.”

“That would be wonderful,” Dr. Sharma said,
thinking quickly. “You know, we have about a dozen babies here, and I’m sure
that some of the mothers would like some help, even just rocking them now and
then so the mothers can sleep. And this one in here,” she nodded toward the large
window of the nursery where a lone bassinet could be seen on the other side. The
infant was wearing a pink cap and had several tubes and wires attached to her
body. “I have to warn you, she may not survive, but she needs all the care we
can give her. Sometimes just having someone hold her seems to help.”

Lillian managed a slight smile and Joan agreed at
once. It would be perfect, she thought. What better way to try to dull the pain
of death than to embrace new life?

“If you’d like to come with me, I’ll show you
where to scrub up so you can hold the baby. She’s about ready for her morning bottle.”

Within a few minutes, both women were fawning over
the child and Dr. Sharma knew that they would be kept quite busy. She left with
a smile.

~*~

Snake watched from the second floor as one of his men threw a flare into the pile of bodies.
The ghouls seemed to ignore the growing flames as they continued to scale the
heap of burning dead in an attempt to reach the living above
them. Snake wondered if they could feel the pain of the fire on their skin.
Maybe the desire for living flesh was so powerful that they were able to tune
out their other senses, if they had other senses. The crackling of the blaze
did much to drown out the moans of the living corpses and the fire almost
seemed relaxing. Had there not been a breeze to carry away the smoke, the smell
of burning flesh would have been unpleasant, to say the least. Scanning the
surrounding area, Snake could see that the zombies were now everywhere and many
seemed to be drawn toward the inferno. Even with the double row of cars acting
as a temporary wall, the dead managed to climb over and come into the parking lot.

“Are they doing what I think they’re doing?” Jack asked, standing next to Snake.

“I think they’re trying to get at us by climbing on the dead ones,” the biker replied. “Lucky
for us, they don’t know they’re on fire.”

They watched as zombie after zombie scaled the burning pile and burst into flames.

“This could work for us,” Jack smiled. “If they keep this up, we could rid this whole area of
zombies without wasting a single bullet.”

“That’d be nice,” Snake said. “Maybe once the wall is done, we can find a better place to
burn them that isn’t so close.”

“How long will it take them to finish the wall?” Jack asked.

“A few days,” Snake said. They had several people that were going to be working on it, but
it was going to be a big job. He squinted at something in the distance. “Is that a car?”

He squinted at something in the distance. “Is that a car?”

Jack looked down the road where movement could be seen. “I’ll be damned,” he replied as it moved
closer. “It’s a fire truck.”

They watched as the truck sped down the road, plowing over scores of hapless zombies along the
way. Barely slowing down, it slammed through the line of cars and screeched
into the parking lot, swerving violently from side to side. Yelling could be
heard from the observation room a few stories up as the fire truck rolled
through the new concrete on the way in, taking out several pieces of rebar at the same time.

“Moose isn’t going to be happy about this,” Snake said with a sigh.

Jack could make out at least two figures in the front seat of the fire truck.
He was trying to get a better look at them when his radio suddenly keyed up.

“Boss? You still there?”

Jack heard the voice and groaned.

“Eric? Please don’t tell me that you’re still alive.

“Looks like I’m just in time too, Boss.”

He pulled up to the burning pile. After fumbling with some levers, he jumped from
the truck and pulled out a two inch hose. He flipped a lever at the outlet and
proceeded to douse the fire while pushing back the undead that got too close
with the powerful streams of water. He smiled as he heard what he thought was
cheering from the open windows on the second and fifth floor. Had the sound of
the gushing water not drowned out the cries, he would have heard words like “idiot” and “moron.”

Yep, he thought, time for everyone to meet the new and improved Eric Wapowski.

Eric dropped the hose when the fire was out then returned to the cab. He drove to the front door, knowing it wouldn’t take long
for the zombies to make their way over to the fire truck.

“I’ve got two children and a woman in need of medical attention,” he radioed.

“My guys are on it,” Snake said to Jack, already speaking to his men on the bottom floor via telephone.

Jack cocked his head and looked as Snake.

“You don’t suppose he brought his zombie girlfriend here, do you?”

“Zombie girlfriend?” Snake asked, not sure he wanted to know.

Jack explained what Eric had told them in his earlier calls on the radio.

Snake’s eyes widened and he grabbed the phone again.

“Watch the woman,” he said. “If she acts infected, shoot her.”

“I guess we’d better get down there,” Jack said with a sigh.

The bikers opened the door and Eric herded Cheri
and the children out of the cab towards the entrance. Several bikers pointed
their rifles at the approaching dead, ready to fire if they got too close.

“Lower your firearms, men,” Eric ordered. “I’ve
got a cleaner way to control these things.”

He walked to the back of the truck and grabbed the
nozzle of the hose and pointed it at a group of the infected, now uncomfortably close.

“Eat water,” he yelled as he twisted the nozzle to
release a small stream of water, which quickly dropped to a trickle. Lowering
his eyes, he watched in horror as the hose went flat just past the tire he had
parked on top of it. As he lifted his eyes back up, one creature was so close
he could see the pus dripping from its eyeball.

“Shoot it!” Eric yelled, backing up as quickly as possible.

“It’s too close!” one of the bikers yelled. Eric
swung the hose in desperation, hoping to land a lucky shot to the head. He was
slightly off target and the hose wrapped around the neck of the dead man. Unfortunately,
it swung back at Eric and the metal nozzle smashed against his temple.

When Eric regained consciousness, he found himself on a cot in the ER, several bikers
looking down at him. Jack stood nearby.

“You’re lucky Moose is a good shot,” one biker told Eric.

“But I missed,” Moose said. “I hit the zombie instead.”

“You need to work on that aim, buddy,” said Wombat, the Australian biker. He slapped Moose on the shoulder. “Should’ve
aimed for the head.”

“I will next time,” Moose growled, looking down at
Eric. “You know how many hours we spent on that concrete?”

One of the bikers lifted his rifle and pointed it
toward Cheri. “She ain’t quite right. I think she’s turning or something.”

Eric jumped up and ran toward Cheri.

“Don’t shoot!” he shouted, positioning himself
between Cheri and the gun. “She’s having some sort of breakdown. I’ve been
trained to recognize the psychological effects of stress, and she’s definitely
suffering from paranoia; probably from some past relationship that she never quite got over.”

“She’s catatonic,” Snake corrected him. “Dude, you
make my guys look like a bunch of Harvard scholars.”

Snake approached Cheri. “Can you speak?”

She stood motionless, completely unaware of her environment.

“How long’s she been like this?” Snake asked.

“Oh, since last night,” Eric replied.

“Any trauma?” Snake asked, rubbing his beard as he watched her standing motionless.

“Nope,” Eric said. “I had to take out a zombie
before it could get her or the kids.”

“He’s a big fat liar!” Jon said, pointing at Eric.
“He didn’t kill the crazy man. Mommy did.”

Snake knelt down eye level to the child. “Did the crazy dude hurt Mommy?”

“I don’t know,” Jon replied. “He was trying to get
us in the room, but Mommy shot him before he got in.” Tears welled up in his
eyes. “He looked like Daddy, but he really wasn’t.”

Snake motioned for Moose.

“Why don’t you take these kids to the cafeteria and get ‘em some food.”

When the children had gone, Snake turned to Eric. His smile had become a scowl that made Eric take a step back.

“I’ve terminated several hundred of these mindless
pieces of crap in the past few days. One more won’t bother me a bit. You lie to
me again, I’ll put you outside and laugh while you get torn to pieces. Now, tell me what happened.”

Eric explained everything from the beginning, with a great deal of new-found humility.

“So, she had to blow her husband’s brains out
before he ate her kids,” Snake summarized. “Dude. That’s trauma.”

Snake approached Cheri and grabbed her arm. He
lifted it above her head and let go. The arm stayed in its new position.

“Catatonic Schizophrenia,” Snake said. “Happened
to one of my buddies in ‘Nam. You could put a gun to his head and he wouldn’t
move. Something just clicks off in the brain.”

“So you can just do anything you want to her and
she’ll just go along with it?” Eric replied, trying to hide what he was thinking.

“Yep,” Snake replied. “But she’ll probably remember
everything that happened during her stupor once she snaps out of it; especially
you trying to take credit for her saving your sorry rear end.”

Eric gulped, hoping she wouldn’t return too soon.

Snake watched as the bead of sweat dribbled down
Eric’s forehead. He knew there were promising treatments for Cheri’s condition
and he was anxious to see the confrontation that was sure to ensue.

“Let’s find this lady a doctor,” Snake said. Then
they were in darkness.

~*^*~

“Somebody forget to pay the light bill . . . again?” Snake joked nervously.