Green Fields (Book 3): Escalation (14 page)

The plan was to approach the city coming from the south, and after traversing I-29 and making it across the green of a golf course, we were to split up into small groups, cross the Big Sioux river at any of the many parks, and head downtown. There were several hospitals in the city and countless stores that were prime targets. Considering that we had absolutely no idea how far we could get between the buildings and what we would find, the plan pretty much fell apart right there. After how our trip into Douglas had ended, I really wasn’t happy about this grab-and-dash policy.

It was getting close to midday as we hit the highway, where—after minimal hushed discussion—we decided to split up ahead of time, underlining just how half-assed that approach was already. Pia, Andrej, and a few of the others would head north instead, while Nate, Bates, Burns, Cho, Santos, and I would take the original route.

I felt tense rather than afraid as I made my way across the highway, finding enough cover between the endless stretch of abandoned and half-trashed cars. There were a few shamblers sifting through the trash, but this stretch had been hit during the big exodus, leaving little of interest for anyone behind. They weren’t even worth the bother of sneaking up behind them to put them to eternal rest, so I just waited until the closest had moved a little further down the road before I crossed the many lanes and angled toward the golf course on the other side. The others followed in a drawn-out line that left a good mile between me and where Santos was bringing up the rear.

By the time we hit the golf course, Santos and Cho had slinked off, as did Burns and Bates at the park that followed the meandering bed of the river. That left just me and Nate, and a world of angry silence stretching between us. Since trying to be as stealthy about our approach as possible, that wasn’t exactly a bad thing, and ranting at him inside my head kept me occupied—a strategy that wasn’t exactly new, and grated all the more for it. I wondered if that had been his intention in pissing me off in the first place, but that sounded a little too childish even for us. Besides, I hoped that he considered me more capable of taking care of myself than needing that kind of help.

South of the river, the city was mostly suburban sprawl. North of it, that didn’t really change. Lots of small houses, sitting on previously tidy lawns, everything now overgrown and somewhat the worse for wear after being untended for almost a year, including a rather harsh winter where no one had bothered shoveling snow. Zombies were everywhere—going through car wrecks, tearing apart store fronts to get inside, and incidentally freeing those that had been unfortunate to die in there. Months out and about in the wilderness had made me forget just how nerve wracking it could be to sneak through heavily infested territories, but the rigorous training Nate had put me through proved to be rather helpful now. Afraid I still might be, but walking—with the odd sprint and lots of sneaking—didn’t wear me down anymore, and the odd neck I had to snap or head that needed getting bashed in weren’t that much of an issue. It was thankfully still early enough in the season that the temperatures made carrying full gear, including long-sleeved jackets zipped up to the neck, not too bad.
 

After passing the umpteenth gas station and third electronics store without getting anywhere near the buildings, I finally rounded on Nate, after making sure that our position at the side of a white-painted house was mostly secure.

“Why exactly aren’t we looting on our looting run?”

The expression on his face was too calm, not even a smile appearing for the exasperation ringing in my hushed voice.

“Because we’re not even close to our destination.”

“So we do have an actual destination?” He inclined his head. “When were you intending to share that with me?”

“When it becomes important.”

“And that’s now?” I wanted to know.

“No,” he said. Before I could protest, he stepped out of cover and ran across the yard to the next house, continuing further downtown. So much for that.

Part of me wanted to put up a fuss, but I already knew that it wasn’t worth it. When he got like that—all leader, expecting to be followed—there was no sense in demanding explanations. This was still giving me the creeps, but if I’d learned one thing over the past months, it was to shut up and do what I was expected to. So I followed, trying to remain alert even with my ire making me want to focus solely on killing Nate with my glares.

Three hours later, I saw a tall, red brick building—or what looked like that through the uneven canopy of the trees lining the streets—ahead of us, and two streets over I realized that it was a hospital. Hospital complex, more like it, as it seemed to span several city blocks. As we got closer, I noticed the burned-out ruin of a helicopter lying in the house it had crashed into, making me guess that all help had been too late for these patients. Or maybe the chopper crew had tried to flee from the hospital once they’d realized that the shit had hit the fan.

Just outside the hospital, the road was littered with human remains and trashed ambulances, showing a scattered trajectory where the zombies must have exited the emergency room. A few overturned police cars and barricades made me guess that the city had tried to build a safe zone around the hospital, not expecting that the true danger would come from inside rather than the streets. To the left I saw what remained of the beginning of a group of tents, bearing the FEMA logo. That made me wonder if the aid workers could possibly have known what was coming for them, or if they’d been as surprised by the uprising of the zombies as the rest of the world. Considering that I didn’t see a single hazmat suit or even face mask anywhere, I doubted it. Not that either would have helped them much.

It was obvious that the hospital was our destination, so I ignored whatever else there was outside in favor of getting to the trashed glass doors of the entrance. A few of the remains still had weapons on or near them, but after months out in the open, I doubted that they were still working—and until we ran out of other options, I preferred to continue to just use my own gear.

There were surprisingly few zombies around the entrance area, but the destruction inside didn’t bode well for finding whatever had led us here. Hospital beds and wheelchairs had been rent asunder, the metal bent beyond what any human should be capable of. Stains covered any available surface, and while outside the heaps of remains still loosely resembled bones in rags, in here, nothing was as whole as that. Add to that months for rodents and other small critters making a new home of what remained of the building, and it was hard to even find places to step through the trash, let alone remain vigilant.

We made it through the worst of it until we reached a stairwell. Taking point, Nate led up to the first floor, and after briefly checking the area around the stairs, two more. Up here, chaos still reigned, but there seemed to have been fewer patients—or not that many zombies had made it inside. The oddly rhythmic bumping sound coming from further down the corridor made me guess that we were indeed not alone in here, but otherwise it was eerily quiet on this floor. The presence of the locked-in shambler seemed to have kept animals away, at least judging from the lack of excrement and fur tufts around.

Checking rooms left and right as we went down the floor in the opposite direction of the zombie, we soon encountered what used to be the nurses’ station. I went straight to the freezer and cabinet in the back, checking for all kinds of medicine that might still be useful. Someone seemed to have ransacked the stash before they’d abandoned the hospital, but there were still boxes of light painkillers and antibiotics there—solid gold, and much more valuable than anything else we’d likely find around here. I got busy redistributing the packs inside my bag to keep the ammo on top for easy reach, until it occurred to me to question why Nate wasn’t doing the same.

“If that’s not what we came here for, why did we?”

He critically surveyed the room one last time before turning back to the door, making me grab another handful of hormonal contraceptives before I had to dash after him.

“It’s more what I’m not finding than what I’m actually looking for,” he replied, cryptically as ever. I was itching to bite his head off for still not telling me, but instead fell in line checking the next few rooms.

“You know, I could help you look if I just knew what I was looking for,” I offered, not bothering with pushing my voice into a sweeter register.

“Don’t worry. I got this,” he replied, turning away just a tad too slow for me not to catch the grin on his face. Oh, he knew just how annoyed I was, and it seemed as if he was having a great time adding to that.

We found two more rooms with zombies inside, but rather than letting me kill them, Nate pushed me right out into the corridor and closed the door, locking them with what I realized was a key that he must have filched while I’d been stocking up on meds.

“Care to explain what’s up with that?” I asked, keeping my voice low but still causing the zombies to increase their effort to tear down the door.

“You’ll see soon enough,” he replied—and continued on, ignoring my glare. I was starting to see a pattern there, and it wasn’t one that I cared for.

About half an hour after we’d stepped out of the stairwell, we’d cleared the entire floor, leaving three doors locked and all the others open. Then we did the same on the next floor, and once more on the final, top level, too. I gave up on asking Nate what was going on and instead stocked up on other useful things that we came across—sterilized, pre-packaged hypodermic needles, scalpels, two tasers that must have belonged to hospital security, and bottled water from the smashed soda vending machine in the lobby of the top floor. All in all, there were now fourteen doors locked, with a total number of twenty zombies behind them. Three we had to kill because they’d been too quick, and the fact that Nate seemed annoyed about that was not lost on me. On the top floor we also found several maintenance rooms full of equipment, and while Nate was busy sifting through that, I used the bathroom in one of the cleared rooms. Just because there was no one around to rant at me for public indecency didn’t have to mean that I had to crap on the side of the road every time—not if I could help it, at least.

A crash coming from down the corridor made me whip around, but it was only Burns who came jogging up the stairs, his light brown jacket stained with zombie goo. At the noise, Nate looked up from his work, but the utter lack of surprise at seeing more members of our crew let me know that I really was the only one not in the know. That grated. Bates joined us soon after that, wiping sweat and grime from his forehead.

“Floor two is cleared, but one and the entrance are hopeless,” he reported.

Nate accepted that with a curt nod. “Any sign of the others yet?”

“Nope,” Burns replied. “But it’s still early.”

“Early for what?” I asked, inserting myself into their little status report session. Three times shrewd looks was all I got for a reply. “You do realize just how utterly ridiculous you’re acting?” I went on—still getting the same result.

Gnashing my teeth, I stepped back out into the corridor, and started checking the rooms again—this time less for what the former patients had maybe turned into, but what other stuff they’d left behind. Clothes, electronics, books—all useless now, but it was worth going over them, if only for the painful twist of nostalgia it caused deep in my chest. By the time I returned to Nate, Burns and Bates were gone again, doing whatever else they’d come here for. With still no further news supplied, I went into the cafeteria next, starting to sift through cartons of dried noodles and cans, trying hard not to breathe in what lingered of the stench of rotten food. Someone had been looting here before, making me wonder if they’d tried to make a stand up here when they’d had to abandon the lower floors.

That guess got confirmed when I opened the door to the chapel, finding what looked like the torn-apart remains of more than thirty bodies, and two very much alive zombies. I was frustrated enough that I didn’t even consider locking them in, but instead went to town on them with the butt of my shotgun. The fact that once they lay still at my feet I felt somewhat more relaxed was both disconcerting and strangely satisfying.

Then there was nothing left to do for me, so I picked up a novel I found on one of the nightstands, planted my ass on a wonderfully fluffy hospital bed mattress, and waited. It was already late afternoon when I heard the telltale sounds of boots on linoleum outside that made me guess that the others had arrived.

Before I could bother anyone, Martinez signaled me over, handing me two empty backpacks after telling me to dump my own. Grabbing enough magazines and loose ammo to get out of a hairy situation and storing it in my pants and jacket pockets, I accepted the backpacks from him, hating how elated I felt that finally I got something useful to do.

“What do we do?”

“Check for medical supplies,” he told me, already turning toward the staircase.

As I’d suspected, he didn’t mean on the floors that we’d already cleared, but rather the operating rooms in the ER downstairs. Pia and Bailey joined us at the ground floor, helping dispose of anything that came for us on our way to what used to be the sterile environments of the hospital.
 

One look at what Martinez started stowing away, and I felt like I could finally make an educated guess of what we were up to.

“This is not a supply run,” I observed, handing him an empty pack as he held out the first full one to me.