Unfed (4 page)

“What, you’re going to be sleeping here again?” I counter. “I need the sheet to make a rope.”

“Great, Rapunzel.” Alice clears her throat theatrically. “Are you expecting me to shimmy up it?”

“Rapunzel was hair, not rope. And she was climbing down, not up. So —”

“Bobby, like anyone cares!” She tosses her head and clambers up onto the cabinet with me. “Give me that!” She snatches at the sheet. “Like you’re even going to be able to —”

“Hands off!” I snatch it back, and we tussle with it pathetically, wobbling together on top of the cabinet.

Clunk
.

Our heads whip round to the direction of the door. It’s the lock. It’s unlocked itself.

“Thank god.” Alice drops her end of the sheet rope and makes to jump off the cabinet.

“Wait!” I grab her arm.

She scowls at me. “What? The door’s unlocked. Let’s go for it while we can!”

She’s probably right, but there’s something stopping me. “It’s just …” I can’t take my eyes off the door. “It’s been a long time since they locked the doors. Nobody’s around, you’ve seen that. We don’t know who could be out there.”

Alice rolls her eyes at me. “You’ve been asleep too long. Come on! We didn’t survive before by wasting time thinking about anything too much.”

That’s true enough …

“Go on, then,” I tell her. “Go take a peek.”

“What, me?” She sighs. “That was never my job. You’re the She–
Man versus Wild
in all of this.”

I take a breath and am about to tell her exactly how wrong what she just said is on Oh-So-Many levels, when —

Thud. Thud. Thud
.

We look at the door.

Thud. Thud. Thud
.

The handle jiggles. The bed is in the way, but the door moves slightly with each pounding.

Alice clings to me. “Oh my god, they’re here,” she whimpers.

“The bed should hold them,” I say, and I’m convinced it will, right up to the point when it doesn’t.

Thud
.

The last one was the hardest, and the door opens, juddering against the bed, which skids forward on its wheels.
Frickin’ brakes. They picked a great time to unlock
. The bed hits our cabinet, and we are thrown like Angry Birds, launched into the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Alice land back on the cabinet on all fours with the skill of a baby monkey, but I’m not in such great shape. I land heavily on the floor with a crunch of arm and ribs, the wind knocked clean out of me.

My view obstructed by cabinet and bed, I hear the things entering the room, footsteps scrambling. How many? Can we dodge, outrun? Must get on my feet, must pull myself up … But I’m stuck — arm dead, legs doing their own thing, but it’s not helping any. This is no time to cut some slammin’ break-dancing moves. And then Alice is there, above me — offering a hand, incredibly — and I reach up to take it and she pulls and I pull and I’m almost on my feet when her head turns toward the door and her face blanches with shock and she lets go of my hand —

I hit the floor again. But this time my body has remembered how to move, and I use the cabinet to tug myself up. Alice is stock-still and in shock beside me. Why isn’t she moving?

I follow her gaze to the door. Two figures stand there. The first a boy, tall and broad, holding a fire extinguisher like a battering ram.

Beside him is another boy, with white-blond hair and the palest skin you ever saw. He steps forward and grins at us.

“Come with me if you want to live,” says Pete.

Pete’s been wanting to say that line, like,
forevah
. He’s standing there like he’s expecting us to applaud, and I check out his new look. The bleach-blond hair has been styled into a Mohawk, and he’s wearing a tailcoat and some kind of
goggles
. The idea that Pete has gone all steampunk on our asses … well, that takes the biscuit.

And the fact that the hunk flanking him isn’t currently cracking up at any of this may be even more disturbing than our predicament. The dude is tall and built like a tank, with buzz-cut fair hair, olive skin, and a pretty damn cute dimple. He smiles at Alice and me like he’s sizing us up for smoochies at the prom. I wonder how Pete convinced him to join the ranks.

“What are you waiting for?” Pete shouts at us. “Move!”

Alice shoots me a look as if to say
What, we’re taking orders from him now?
And I get her confusion, but this is no time to ask questions. I clamber down off the cabinet and reach up to help her, but the tall boy is way ahead of me. He smiles up at her and offers a hand. She may have doubts about Pete, but this guy’s a different prospect altogether.

“Hi,” he says to her. “I’m Russ.” He turns to me. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Hi,” I croak at him, and wiggle my fingers lamely.
Nice to meet you. Is this your first zombie apocalypse? Do you possibly have a large weapon I could borrow?

“No time for small talk, grab anything you need,” barks Pete. “We’re not coming back.” And then he turns tailcoat and heads out of the door, followed by his new acolyte and Alice, toting her bag. I check that the phone is safe in my boot and follow them into the bright, long corridor. The sirens may have stopped, but there are amber and red lights flashing rapidly from the ceiling, like a deadly disco. The corridor is deserted. No one has come to dance with us … not yet.

Pete & Co have set off down the corridor toward a large desk, and they’re not dawdling. Pete is on point; Russ, his wingman, carrying that fire extinguisher like it’s nothing; Alice scuttling anxiously behind, checking out each doorway as we approach it.

“Where are we headed?” I shout-but-don’t after Pete.

“Outside!” he stage-whispers dramatically.

“We’re going out there?” Alice shrieks, stopping dead in her tracks. “With those things again?”

“That’s right.” Pete leads on determinedly.

“It’s safer,” Russ calls back to Alice. “Indoors is teeming with them. It’s only a matter of time before they have us cornered.” Alice dithers for a second, and I’m close behind. Pete has already scuttled down to the end of the corridor and is crouching by the big desk, beckoning us to join him. We scrabble after and squat in a line along the bottom of the desk, like bowling pins waiting to be scattered. The corridor stretches in front of us, heading away from the courtyard, deeper into the hospital, to territory unknown.

“Which way’s out?” I whisper.

“Shh!” Pete holds up a finger and showers us with spittle. “Listen!”

We all strain our ears as the lights flicker above us. I’d love him to be wrong, to be over-egging it or giving way to Pete-adelic imaginings, but the sound hits me like a huge dollop of dread in my stomach. A keening noise. Barely there, but getting stronger.

“Kids!” I whisper. “Younger than us. I saw them; they came into my room.”

“Were you bitten?” Pete snaps at me.

“Take a guess.” I roll my eyes at him. Everyone eyes me suspiciously. “No, I wasn’t bitten.” Why, when you say these things, does it always sound like a lie? “You can check me if you like.”

Bang on cue, the zombinos arrive, stumbling around the corner at the bottom of the corridor. “Martha’s room?” Russ looks at Pete.

“It’s lockable.” Pete nods, and before I can question what we’re doing, they’re running down the corridor toward the mini-zoms.

The kids approve of this; they stretch out their little beaten-up arms and moan all the louder. Alice and I share a look.
Why are they running toward them?
But then I get it. Halfway down the corridor, the boys duck into a room on the right.
OK, time to follow
. By the time we get there, the zoms are approaching fast. We dive in, and door is slammed behind me by Russ, who slides a bolt and clicks some kind of lock.

“Thick.” He pats it and shoots me a smile. “Safe as houses.”

Yeah
, I think.
You so don’t know what you’re dealing with. If you did, you’d lose the grin fast enough. Even though it is kind of pretty
.

“Nice one, people!” Pete shouts. “We made it.”

“We did?” I look around. “Where’s the exit?”

We’re in a small room that is part office, part suburban living room.
At the far end of the room there are two armchairs with mismatched and faded flower patterns in muted hues, a trolley with teapot and sugar bowl, and a bookshelf, all illuminated by a standard lamp with a tasseled shade. Closer to us are filing cabinets and a large modern desk with a padded swivel chair. The main source of light is coming from a desktop screen, which Pete is bent over like he’s on the bridge of Starship St. Gertrude’s. He clicks the mouse.

“There’s an app with surveillance cameras on here — I saw it last time I had one of my little counseling sessions with Martha.” He sits down in a chair with wheels on the bottom and makes a few clicks. The screen splits into six gray images of empty hospital rooms. “Got it! Now we can keep an eye on them on this floor, at least.” He spins around to face me with a self-satisfied expression on his face.

“Let me see.” I walk up to the desk. The screen changes and another six images appear, but these ones are moving. The Undead are walking the halls. “So we can use this to see which way to get out?”

“That’s the idea.” Russ looks over my shoulder. “We see where they are, plan a route.”

“And hope they don’t just surround the door and never let us out in the first place,” I say. “Great.”

“Any better ideas?” Pete snaps at me. “This will work. As soon as they gave me some freedom around the ward, I scoped out possible exits.” He smiles, satisfied. “And if all else fails, we can wait it out here until the authorities regain control. I knew if something went down, this would be the place to head, and I was right.” He leans back in the chair and cracks his knuckles, then smoothes the sides of his Mohawk.

“You hope so,” Alice says from an armchair. “Next time you might want to
mullet
over.”

Pete glares at her.

“So, care to share your thoughts on the exit, friend?” I lean forward onto Pete’s chair, staring down into his pale green eyes. “Because if you get chomped, I want to know where I’m going.”

He tries to suppress a gulp. “Well, there are several possibilities.” He looks uneasy. “For example, in the direction where the zoms were coming from there’s a door into the courtyard. There’s bound to be a way out there.”

“So why didn’t we go that way to start off with?” Alice shouts at him.

“Er, the clue was in the bit where I said ‘in the direction where the zoms were coming from,’” says Pete.

“Other options?” I say.

“Um. Well, a couple. But they involve the stairwell, which is down the other end of the ward.”

“Where the zoms were coming from,” I drone.

Pete nods, tight-lipped.

“We’re trapped?” Alice yells, dragging herself from the comfy chair and stomping up toward us. She moves toward the door and points at it as if this is all its fault. “I’m sick of trapped! We’ve
done
trapped! Trapped was so six weeks ago!” She slaps both hands against the wall, as if trying to break her way out. Suddenly the dark-colored wall disappears and the monster children are standing there, inches away from us, dribbling and clawing at the air.

As one, we scream and leap backward into the room, Pete falling out of his chair on wheels and scrabbling under the control panel.

But the zombinos don’t move toward us. It takes me a moment to see why they can’t.

“Glass,” I whisper.

The “wall” is now see-through. Russ moves slowly toward the little monsters and puts a careful hand out. His fingertips find something solid, and immediately the wall turns dark again. Once again we all jump and yell, but he keeps his cool. He reaches out and touches the wall again. The kids are back.

“Smart glass.” Pete emerges from somewhere underneath the desk.

“A mirror on the outside?” Russ steps toward the monsters. “Look. They can see themselves, not us.”

He lifts his hand up to where one small girl has her face squished against the glass in a terrible gurning of mushed-up cheek and dribbling blood.

I watch as a boy-zom reaches toward the girl’s reflection in the mirror, then turns to her and repeats the gesture to her face. Then he runs a clawed hand up through his spiky thatch of hair, watching himself in the mirror. He grabs a clump, wrenches it from his skull, then looks at the tangle of hair and skin in his hand.

“Check it,” I murmur. “He knows it’s a reflection.”

“So what?” Alice says. “Think he’s pissed off he’s forgotten his hair gel?”

“That’s some clever thinking right there. The zoms of old wouldn’t have stretched to that.” I shake my head.

“Eh?” Alice says. “We’re talking upgrades?”

“I’m sure of it,” I say. “They’re different from before, better movers, and they can think.”

“Gosh.” Pete stands up, his head on one side, studying the group before us. “I think Bobby’s onto something. That doesn’t bode well. Mindless, stumbling monsters are bad enough, but improve those motor skills and give them basic logic and we are talking a whole different level of hell.”

“Turn it off,” says Alice, and for once I agree.

Russ taps the wall at the girl’s forehead, and they’re gone.

“Fancy setup here,” I remark. “Great views.”

“We hang tight!” Pete says, plonking himself down on his chair again. “And we hang tough!”

Oh lordy. Can he get any worse?

“Where is the army?” Alice addresses me, like I would know. “They said this was an army hospital. Where’re the soldiers?”

“Yes, well, we haven’t seen too much of a military presence.” Pete clears his throat. “The army have pretty much got their hands full with what’s going on outside. I’d imagine that what we have here is just a skeleton crew.”

“A skeleton crew versus zombies?” I give a low chuckle. “Horror-tastic.” I look around me. “So, Martha’s room. There’s got to be something helpful here; we should search it.”

“What for?” Alice sulks.

I shrug. “Clues to the way out. Weapons. The usual.” I open a couple of drawers at the desk. “Pete? Have a look through those files, see if there’s anything interesting on the computer.”

He raises a bleached eyebrow at me. “What do you think I’m doing?”

There’s a pinboard on the wall near me, and I scan it for a map, something about emergency drills, any information — but most of the things pinned there are meaningless. Memos about shift scheduling, a cafeteria menu, telephone extension numbers. In the bottom right-hand corner is a postcard with a lighthouse on it. I notice it because it’s the only splash of color among all the gray scale. Something about it makes me pick it off the board and turn it over in my hands. The reverse is blank, except for the words
ELVENMOUTH LIGHT
printed in small letters at the bottom. I
frown. Why does this bother me? I turn the postcard over again; the lighthouse is thin and white, with a band of yellow at the top and a black roof. I stick the pin in it and return it to the board. Something from Martha’s vacay; no reason why it should be anything more.

“Hey, guys.” I look at Russ and Alice. “Help out here. Look for food and water — or even information. Stuff about who runs this hospital, our medical files, who else they have here. The more we know, the better.”

Russ leans against the door protectively. “Doesn’t make sense to spend precious energy on a goose chase.”

“Yeah,” Alice agrees. “Someone will come and get us.”

“You’re right, Alice,” I say. “Because that worked last time we were surrounded by the Undead.” No one says anything. “So we just wait it out?” I raise my arms in a
Huh?
When no one replies, I slap them down by my sides, my palms striking my bare thighs with a smack that I instantly regret. “I guess that’s a yes. Unless we want to try fighting our way out with a fire extinguisher and Alice’s barbed comments.”

Nobody chuckles at this. Nobody even gets it.
God, I miss Smitty
.

“Sure, look. And when the coast is clear, we will be out of here. But in the meantime, get comfortable.” Russ opens the fridge door. “Blueberry yogurt, anyone?” he says. “No Veggie Juice, though.”

“You heard about that,” Alice says.

“A few times.” Russ smiles into the fridge. “Can’t help hoping I get to see the Carrot Man.”

“No, you really don’t.” I slam one of the drawers of the filing cabinet. I’m too angry to focus properly on any of the things in them.

“These files are encrypted,” Pete says from the swivel chair. “Same with e-mail. It’s going to take a minor miracle.”

“Pray to St. Gertrude.” I open the only other door to reveal a small bathroom. Thank heavens for small blessings. At least we have somewhere to pee. I take a deep breath, close the door again, and turn back to face the group, who are now all searching the room, if a little halfheartedly. Looks like we have Catching Up time. “So what’s the skinny?” I say, overly brightly. “What have you all been up to while I was doing the coma thing?”