Lakewood Memorial (5 page)

People behind her screamed and clawed at
each other.

Freeda frowned. “Shit. The Wilson
triplets.”

Angie nodded and wiped sweat from her
face.

Freeda looked at Jimmy, then back at her.
“He's fucking eating him.”

“
I know,” said Angie. “Try
not to look.”

The crowd behind them broke through the jam
and they poured out of the room.

Freeda sighed. “You're crazy.”

“
Someone has to do
something.”

Jimmy groaned and looked at Freeda. He
dropped the intestines and crawled toward her.

“
Oh shit,” said Freeda.
“This is crazy.” She backed away, hiding behind Angie.

Jimmy slowly climbed to his feet. He stared
at Angie and Freeda through clouded eyes. Blood ran from his
mouth.

“
Okay,” said Angie,
stepping back. “Jimmy? Try to calm down. I think you're on
something very bad. Just try to rest, okay?”

Jimmy gurgled through the blood in his mouth
and reached for them. Freeda screamed and jumped back. Angie
stepped the other way. Jimmy followed Freeda.

“
Anj...” said Freeda,
sounding very nervous.

“
Jimmy?” said Angie.
“You've been in a very bad accident. I really think you should lie
down.”

Jimmy grabbed at Freeda. Freeda ducked out
of the way but he caught hold of her smock.

“
Hey!” said Angie, shoving
Jimmy.

He stumbled away from Freeda and let go.
Freeda ran off to one side. Jimmy blinked his fogged eyes and
gargled in blood.

Finally his attention fell on Angie.

He groaned and came at her.

“
Jimmy, stop it,” said
Angie, backing away, toward the ambulance.

Jimmy kept coming.

“
Stop it, Jimmy!” Angie
said, trying to sound forceful.

Her back met the ambulance. Jimmy drew
close.

Freeda yelled and smacked Jimmy across the
back of the head with something heavy. As Jimmy fell, Angie saw it
was a fire extinguisher.

“
Shit,” said Freeda,
looking at the extinguisher and then at Angie.

“
Thanks,” said Angie. “Now
let's call the cops.”

Jimmy grunted and started climbing to his
feet.

“
Wow,” said Freeda,
looking down.

Angie stepped over to Freeda. “Give me
that,” she said, taking the fire extinguisher.

“
Jimmy?” she said. “Please
stay down. We don't want to hurt you any more.”

Jimmy finished standing.

“
How hard did you hit
him?” asked Angie.

“
Hard,” said
Freeda.

“
Shit,” said Angie. Jimmy
groaned and reached for her, teeth gnashing.

Angie screamed and swung the extinguisher at
his head. His head snapped back and he fell over backward.

“
Damn it, Jimmy,” said
Angie, shaking a little. “Don't make me hurt you any
more.”

Jimmy stirred and started to stand.

“
Oh shit,” said
Freeda.

“
Jimmy, please,” said
Angie. “You have to stop.” She thought about what she'd heard about
Old Timmins. How he hadn't stopped until a cop shot him.

Jimmy got to his feet and grabbed Angie. He
pulled her toward himself, his mouth strained open to bite.

“
Anj!” yelled
Freeda.

Angie pulled free and swung the fire
extinguisher at the side of Jimmy's head. Fear and adrenaline
fueled the blow. She almost strained her back from the force.

Jimmy's head snapped to one side. A thin
line appeared on the opposite side of his neck. Dark blood seeped
out.

“
Oh shit,” said Angie.
“I'm sorry. You're hurt bad, Jimmy. Please stop.”

Jimmy moaned and reached for Angie again.
His head hung limply to one side. His mouth chewed at the air.

“
Goddammit, Jimmy!” yelled
Angie and swung the extinguisher the other way. Jimmy's head
whipped to the other side. The skin on his neck split and with a
sloppy cracking noise his head came free.

Both Angie and Freeda screamed as Jimmy's
head fell to the floor and bounced. Jimmy's body slumped, blood
seeping from its open neck.

“
Oh shit, you killed him!”
said Freeda, sounding near crying.

“
I know!” said Angie,
dropping the extinguisher. “But he wouldn't stop! He wouldn't
fucking stop!”

Then she noticed something.

Jimmy's head lay on its cheek against the
emergency room floor. But Jimmy's mouth was still moving. His
cloudy eyes looked around and his teeth continued to gnash at
nothing. His eyes found Angie and he ground his teeth at her.

“
Okay,” said Angie. “Now I
think we should go.”

Angie and Freeda ran for the doors to the
waiting room, just as a crowd of people rushed in. It was the
patients and aides who'd run out before. They were screaming.

They ran blindly past Angie and Freeda. Two
men burst in after them. Angie recognized them as the jackass and
his hurt buddy.

“
We got problems,” said
the jackass.

Seven

Fifteen Minutes Earlier

“
Dammit,” said Park as he
paced the waiting room. “How in the fuck could it possibly take
this long?”

Moe was still grasping his arm. “It's only
been a few minutes.”

“
Few minutes of pissing me
off.” Park looked back to the emergency room doors and scowled. The
fat old bitty at the reception desk glanced at him, then looked
down. Park snorted and turned to pace the other way.

He took one step.

An enormous crash came from the emergency
room.

Park whipped back around. “Shit! What the
fuck was that?”

The fat old bitty rushed to the doors. “I'll
check. Stay here.” She pushed her way into the emergency room and
the doors swung shut behind her.

Park watched her go, then turned to pace
some more. He heard Moe stand and he turned back.

Moe frowned at the doors. “What do you
think's going on, Park?”

Park shrugged. “Fuck if I know. Hopefully it
clears a spot in there.” He looked at the doors for a second, then
sighed. “I guess let's see.”

He walked to the doors and Moe followed. He
pushed the doors open a crack and peered inside. Moe looked over
his shoulder.

The emergency room was in shambles. An
ambulance sat in the middle of the room. A large hole was ripped in
one wall. Angie, the aide Park had talked to, was running to the
ambulance.

“
Damn,” said Moe. “Maybe
we should help.”

“
Fuck that shit,” said
Park. “We need to get you to another hospital.” He stepped back
from the door and turned to Moe.

Moe frowned. “But the nearest hospital is
hours away.”

Park nodded back toward the emergency room.
“I think here will take longer.”

Moe winced and looked pale. “Okay, but let's
hurry. I don't feel so good.”

“
Sure thing,” said Park.
They both went toward the exit doors.

And stopped when they reached them.

Outside in the parking lot, two girls in
cheerleader uniforms were ripping a grown man apart.

The man stood screaming as the girls tugged
at him from either side. One ripped a chunk of his chest free and
stuck the bloody meat into her mouth and chewed. Blood ran down her
chin and she looked toward the hospital. And at Park.

Behind the cheerleaders, a crowd of people
slowly drew near.

“
Shit,” said
Park.

A screaming mob of people burst from the
emergency room. Park had less than a second to look back before the
mob swept him and Moe outside.

“
What the fuck?” yelled
Park. He grabbed Moe and yanked him to one side of the parking lot,
out of the way of the rushing mob.

The front of the mob ran into the crowd that
was slowly coming the other way.

The mob started screaming.

Park stared as he watched
one group of people
eat
the other.

“
Park...” said
Moe.

“
Yeah,” said Park, still
staring.

An old man missing one eye bit into a young
girl's cheek. He pulled away a long strip of flesh and chewed. The
young girl shrieked.

“
They're eating them,”
finished Park.

“
I think we should go back
inside,” said Moe.

“
Yeah.”

They turned and tried to push their way back
into the hospital. The back end of the mob was still trying to push
its way out. They were screaming about whatever had sent them
running from the emergency room. The front of the mob was screaming
as the approaching crowd bit and ripped at them. The whole world
was full of screams.

Moe stopped in the middle of the mob. He
swayed back and forth. “Park...”

“
Not now!” said Park,
grabbing Moe's collar and pulling him toward the doors.

“
I don't feel so good,”
said Moe.

“
Turn around you dumb
motherfuckers!” yelled Park as he forced his way through the
mob.

“
Park!” Moe
screamed.

Park turned back. One of the crazy cannibals
- a fat woman in a rotting dress - had hold of Moe and was pulling
him down to the asphalt. Her mouth was open and she was straining
to bite.

“
Shit!” yelled Park. Moe
fell out of sight, lost in the dark of the parking lot and the
shadows of the surrounding mob. “Moe!”

People pressed around Park. Moe's hand
slipped from his grasp. Into darkness.

“
Damn it,” said Park,
fishing out his lighter. He shoved people aside and flicked the
lighter on, bending down to where he had last seen Moe.

Moe was struggling with the fat woman, who
was doing her best to bite but hadn't succeeded. The woman pulled
away from Park's lighter, hissing at the flame and letting go of
Moe.

Park grabbed Moe's hand and pulled him up.
“Come on!” He snapped the lighter off and dropped it back in his
pocket.

The woman grabbed for Moe again.

“
Fuck off!” yelled Park,
punching the woman in the face. Her head snapped back, then slowly
righted as if nothing had happened. She groaned at them.

Park looked around. The crazies were closer.
They were working their way through the mob, drawing nearer to the
doors. Blood was everywhere. The thick smell of it stung Park's
nose.

Finally, the remaining mob behind Park
realized what was happening. They screamed and changed direction,
running back into the hospital. Park almost fell backward at the
sudden shift.

“
Hurry!” he yelled,
pulling Moe toward the hospital. The crazy woman grabbed at them
but missed.

Park and Moe spilled back into the waiting
room.

“
Shit fuck hell,” Park
muttered, looking around. The mob was rushing back into the
emergency room. Park saw nowhere else to go, so he followed,
pulling Moe with him.

As they entered, he almost collided with
Angie and some other aide.

“
We got problems,” he
said.

Eight

Brooke sighed as she clicked the TV remote.
Why couldn't she just find something mindless the three of them
could watch, just to pass the time?

The doorbell rang.

Dalton sat up on the couch. “Pizza!”

“
Stay put,” said Brooke,
standing and setting the remote down. “I'll get it.”

She walked to the front
door and opened it. A teenage boy stood there, holding a pizza box.
His hat said
Pizza
Plaza
.

“
Hey,” said Brooke,
unzipping her purse.

“
Hi,” said the boy,
looking up and down the street. “There something going on around
here tonight?”

“
Hmmm?” said Brooke,
half-listening as she rooted around for cash.

“
Got a lot of weirdos
wandering around tonight,” said the boy, looking back at
her.

“
Who knows,” said Brooke,
finding a twenty and looking back up at the boy. “Got too much on
my mind tonight, watching these two.”

“
Yeah.” The boy tried a
little laugh. “Anyway, $18.50.”

And an old woman came up and bit the boy's
neck. He gasped in surprise. Blood shot out of his throat and onto
Brooke's shirt. Huge drops of it fell on the pizza box.

Brooke screamed and slammed the door.

Shock gave way to guilt and she opened the
door to help.

“
What's going on?” said
Dalton behind her.

The boy was now being dragged down the
street by two old ladies. The first one chewed on his neck as he
struggled weakly. The second old lady grabbed one of his arms and
brought his hand to her mouth. She bit into the top and tore off a
huge flap of skin, exposing bone and muscle. The boy tried to
scream and gargled in his own blood.

“
Oh shit,” said Brooke,
staring.

“
Oooh,” said Maylee from
across the room. “Big girl gets to cuss.”

“
Shut the fuck up,
Maylee,” said Brooke, shutting the door and locking it. She stepped
away from the door, fishing into her purse for her cell phone. She
had to call the cops.

“
Nice,” said Maylee,
getting up and stomping to the door. “Don't tell me what to do,
bitch.”