Stage 3: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (12 page)

He closed the door without a whisper of sound and crouched to the girl's ear, "Mack, there's a lot. You're going to have to stay right on my tail and follow me, but if I say we have to go back, then that's it, okay?"

"Fair enough, Mace," the girl answered staunchly.

She put her hand in the small of Mason's back and took hold of the top of his jeans. Come what may, she and Mason were now equally committed. There would be no more hiding in a corner while Mason fought the monsters. From here on, Mackenzie would be right there, stepping into the fray right along with him. Whatever he did, wherever he went, whatever frantic movements he made, she would keep hold of him as if their very lives depended on it. And, as Mason explained to her at length and in no uncertain terms, they most assuredly did.

Once they were both ready, Mason eased the door open, and he and his shadow took the first tenuous steps into the corridor.

Immediately, Mason had to lead them around a body. It was that of an older man, nattily clad in cotton pants and a pinstriped shirt. Most of the man's head was sprayed on the wall, so Mason disregarded the corpse. Other bodies lay in huddled heaps against the wall or splayed out across the floor, all showing varying degrees of trauma. Some had been partially consumed, others had been quite literally torn apart, and more than a few looked to Mason as if they'd suffered the manner of injury that could only have come from a bullet through the head. This latter phenomenon became clearer when he spotted a blue uniform some twenty feet away. The sleeve patch read 'SFPD', but the rest of the body was unidentifiable. Mason squatted over the corpse and reached for the exposed duty belt, but the holster was empty. He scanned the immediate area for the missing gun, but it was nowhere to be seen.

He couldn't waste more time looking. The hallway was closed off with doors at either end, but just beyond those doors was the swarm. On one end was the hospital cafeteria, through a set of double doors. They were the type that opened with a push bar, and the push bar was on the other side. Not good. Mason put an eye to a vertical slit window and saw a dozen or more creatures within. If any of those monsters heard a single peep from this hallway, a rush of bodies would depress the push bar and they'd be through in a flood.

Mason spotted a cane lying buried halfway under the corpse with the pinstriped shirt, and he quickly snatched it up. The cane was sticky with blood, but it was aluminum and should hold, at least for a while. He gingerly slipped the cane through the double handles so that the curved end held it firmly in place, then he and Mackenzie tip-toed away from the door.

At the other end of the hallway was another set of doors with too many shadows beyond to count. This swarm wouldn't even need a push bar to get through. These were swinging doors, and the hinges went both ways, so one awkward stumble from someone on the other side would send it through. A sign on the wall showed that the ER was through those doors, so if Aunt Sarah was there, she was done. Either way, if they were to continue this ridiculous search, Mason had to block those doors somehow. Thinking quickly, he returned to the corpse with the striped shirt and removed its shoes. They were rubber-soled to provide good traction for a man with a cane. They would have to do. He squeezed the cheap plastic toes into a wedge and gently eased one under each swinging door. Like the cane, they would hold, but they wouldn't for long.

As quiet as mice, he and Mackenzie backed away from the swinging doors and took the only other route available. There was a doorway near the cafeteria with a dark sign above showing a cartoon stick figure climbing stairs.
Great
….. , Mason sighed.
Another stairwell.…..
Still, it was the only way, so Mason gently eased the thumb paddle down, pulled the door open without a sound and listened for any change in the swarm. He heard nothing, so he stepped into the stairwell and held a hand against the inner push bar of the door as it closed behind him, shutting it silently. There was the subtlest of clicks as he released the push bar, and he froze again, listening. There was a general background din, but inside the stairwell was only silence.

He crouched down and put his lips to Mackenzie's ear.

"If Sarah stayed on the first floor, she's dead," he told her with brutal honesty and in the barest breath of a whisper, "Her only chance is if she went up."

Mackenzie nodded once and said nothing, but Mason could see her worried expression in the ambient light provided by a small grated window high above.

Slowly then, one cautious step at a time, Mason started up to the next floor. Mackenzie held onto his waistband as tightly as she could, hugging against him so as not to hinder his movements, and ten steps later, they were on the first landing. Atop the next flight of stairs was a door marked '2nd Floor'. Mason turned the corner and climbed slowly, and was soon at the very door. As gently as he could, moving hairbreadths at a time, he put his weight against the push bar. There was the barest of squeaks, then the bolt released with a faint
shnick!
  He eased the door open a fraction of inch and put an eye to it. He could see and hear nothing beyond, so he pushed it open another inch. Then another. Then another still. At last, he stepped into a dark hallway and brought out his phone to illuminate the scene.

Suddenly, there was bedlam. Out of the shadows, a body fell hard against Mason, and he instinctively shoved back. Another body fell against the door, pushing it open wider, and enough light finally streamed in from the stairwell that Mason could finally see.

The place was crawling!  He gave an inadvertent yelp and swung his weapon at the closest creature. There was little room to maneuver, but the blow was hard enough to knock the creature back into two others, and they all collapsed in a heap. Mason swung again and took the legs out from another, then he leapt back into the stairwell and grabbed for the door. He managed to pull it closed most of the way, but it suddenly stopped short, leaving a foot-wide gap. He put all of his weight into the door, but it wouldn't budge. Something was blocking it. A bloody claw reached through and groped within inches of his face, and he instinctively grabbed hold of the arm and slammed it against the door jamb. There was a horrible
snap!
as the elbow joint exploded, but the arm continued to flail, dangling the forearm at the end of the elbow like a dead fish on a line.

He kicked furiously through the gap and felt his foot connect with something soft, and at last the arm disappeared. He tried again to pull the door the rest of the way closed, but it barely moved another inch before it stopped dead again. He caught movement from below and looked down to see that a body was wedged firmly between door and frame, keeping the door from closing. It had been a boy, perhaps in his early teens, and it was growling and clawing and trying to rise even now. Mason leaned his weight against the door to pin the creature to the spot and gave it a vicious kick to the head, but the creature absorbed the impact with a snarl and continued to snap its teeth and claw the ground inches from Mason's legs. Mason lined up another kick and hit the creature between the eyes with a horrible
crunch!
, and though there was a new oval-shaped dent in the boy's forehead, it continued to struggle.

In desperation, Mason raised the rebar high and brought the end of it down on the back of the boy's head, and at last the creature lay still. But that wasn't an end to it. The boy's corpse was still blocking the door, and two other creatures on the far side were even now trying to squeeze their bulk through. They clawed the air mere inches from Mason's face, snarling and growling like wild animals. Mason pulled his weapon free from the boy's skull and stabbed one of the creature's through the heart, but the even as the thing fell away, another appeared to take its place.

The boy's body formed a formidable wedge against the door, and even with all of his weight pulling at it, Mason was fighting a losing battle. The creatures on the other side were slowly but surely squeezing through, one inch at a time, and it wouldn't be long before they were in. The body had to be cleared, but it was all Mason could do now just to maintain a grip on the door. If he eased up long enough to deal with the body, he would lose the fight, and the monsters would be through. After that, he'd have had to turn his attention away from the door, and the rest would pour through in a flood.

"Mack!" he shouted, "I need you!"

Mackenzie let go of his waistband and came to his side. "Tell me!"

"There's a body blocking the door, and I can't let go! You'll have to pull it clear!"

"Got it, Mace!" She said, dropping to a crouch and feeling along the floor.

"To your left! Left a bit more….…a bit more…There!"

Mackenzie found one of the boy's hands, and despite the fact that she was holding onto a dead body, she hesitated not a second. She leaned her tiny body back and began to haul at the hand as if she were in a tug-of-war. Mason eased up on the door the tiniest bit to take some of the pressure off of the boy's body, but doing so allowed the snarling creatures to squeeze through even further. More creatures appeared behind the two already fighting for purchase, and now a flurry of arms groped through the opening, clawing the air and leaving bloody streaks on the door .

"C'mon Mack,
pull!"
  Mason howled. He was playing a game of inches against the swarm on the other side, and he knew it.

"I
am
pulling!" The girl hollered back, both hands gripping the dead boy's hand and all of her meagre weight pulling.

Yet another face appeared in the gap. It was the horribly disfigured face of a man in a white coat. And then another appeared behind it. And then another, and another.

"Christ!" Mason cursed, "Okay Mack, I'm going to let up on the count of three, and you pull as hard as you can! Ready? One….…Two…..…
Three!"

He released a bit of pressure and let the door fall open several inches. He saw the body on the floor move, but just barely.

"C'mon Mack!
Pull!"

The girl pulled. She pulled for all she was worth, but the boy's narrow hips were too wide for the gap. Mason let the door open another inch, and the man with the white coat eased a shoulder through, pawing at Mason's face. One inch more and the man would have his shoulders through. And like a newborn baby, once his shoulders were through, the rest of him would follow, and there would be nothing Mason could do to stop him. At that point, the battle would be lost.

And then, all at once, the boy's body popped free like a cork and skidded across the floor. As soon as the impediment was gone, Mason pulled at the door, but one of the creatures chose that particular moment to try to crawl through, and its head became pinned between the door and the frame, keeping it from closing. The horrible thing snarled and gnashed its teeth and tried to push itself through, but Mason put all of his weight into the door to keep the head pinned.

Having pulled the boy's body free, Mackenzie was on her backside on the floor, all but tangled up with the corpse. But her job wasn't over yet.

"On your feet, Mack!" Mason shouted to her, "I still need you!"

Grunting and huffing, the girl disentangled herself from the corpse and returned to Mason's side, panting heavily.

"Take my lance! Here! Right here!" Mason pressed the rebar into the girl's hand. "You need to stab, got it? Don't hit,
stab!
Hold it sideways, point it to where I tell you, and stab it like a spear as hard as you can!"

The girl offered a breathy, "Okay…." and held the weapon as Mason instructed.

"A little higher! A little more! Just a bit higher and an inch to your right!" Mason called out until the thing was aimed directly between the intruder's eyes. "Okay…..…as hard as you can when I tell you! ….Ready? …..
Now!"

In truth, there wasn't much strength behind the blow. It would never have been enough to crack open a skull, but the tip of the rebar dropped an inch or two when the thrust was made and happened to catch the creature directly through the right eye. Even with such a small girl behind the weapon, it managed to pass cleanly through the eye, crush through the superior orbital fissure, and cleave directly into the creature's brain.

The head dropped away, and Mason heaved his all of his weight back to close the door with an audible
thunk! 
Mackenzie fell back as Mason collapsed to his knees, then he lowered himself to a seat on the floor just as Mackenzie crawled over to him and climbed into his lap. She put a hand on his leg, and he wrapped an arm around her slender waist, and there they sat, gasping for air.

"That was close?" Mackenzie asked, barely able to catch her breath.

"That was close," Mason panted, and gave her a hearty squeeze. "But you saved us. Good work, Mack."

She tossed her head from side to side and uttered a noncommittal, "Meh…."

Once his breathing returned to something approaching normal, Mason spoke plainly. "Okay, Mack, the second floor is overrun. If Aunt Sarah's here…."…"

"Then she's dead," Mackenzie finished the thought as if they were discussing the weather. "I know, Mace."

It still astounded Mason that the girl could speak with such cold dispatch of such dire things, but he had to reason that she'd suffered through so much tragedy already that maybe she simply had no more fucks to give.