Chapter 16
Looking through the glass of the door, I searched for future unforeseen events that I was sure would happen on this new floor.
Probably the people who were here during the outbreak and couldn't escape were still here, but zombified. And there's no telling how many zombies are still around. Probably resting, waiting for their food.
This floor was darker than the previous one because there were no windows nearby. This made visibility difficult. Even for me. I could turn on a flashlight, but that would surely draw the zombies' attention to us.
I have an idea, but I'm going to need some help. I look at Maggie and see that she is still a little shaken. She wasn't as shaken as before, but she still wasn't the tough woman she usually was.
"How long are you going to stay like this?" I asked, and after a moment she looked at me. If looks could kill...
"What do you want me to do, huh?!" She asks as she stands up and walks towards me, but I don't even move. Not even when she starts pounding on her chest. I let her vent her anger. "Everything that my family and I believed in was wrong! It was all just a lie we told ourselves to escape reality and have a glimmer of hope that everything would go back to normal! But it won't! We're all doomed!" She stops talking as she begins to cry, her head resting on my shoulder. I wrap an arm around her waist and stroke her hair with my free hand.
"Hey. We're not doomed. We're breathing, right? Despite this whole fucked-up situation, death is still death. That hasn't changed. So what if we have to fight for the rest of our lives? So what if there's no hope? Hope doesn't die, it just changes shape. Now, are you going to stand there and mope, or are you going to stand up and be the strong girl I know?" I gave my little motivational speech, but I honestly didn't know if it was any good or not. I didn't even know what I was going to say. Maggie squirmed in my hug, and when I looked down, I saw that she was wiping away tears. I pulled away a little so she could compose herself. She took a few deep breaths and made a serious face. Good.
"What do we do now?"
"Let's look at the map." Maggie takes the map and spreads it out on the floor. I started to analyze the rest of the map because I hadn't paid attention to it before. I tried to find something that would fit into my plan. And soon I found it.
"Here." I point to the indicated spot, and she looks at me in confusion.
"There's nothing there." She points, making me smile slightly.
"At first glance. But once you know my plan, you'll understand." I say as I stand up and walk back down to the first floor. Maggie closes the map and follows me.
"It would be very good to know this plan." She says as we approach the severed head of the zombie. She gets uncomfortable and I, noticing this, finish the job with a knife to the head and then kick her down the stairs.
"We don't know how many zombies are upstairs. Besides, it's too dark to get in there with a flashlight. So let's get the zombies out of there and lock them up somewhere else." I said as we walked through the door to the first floor. I took the opportunity to leave the door open. I looked at Maggie and saw that her eyes were wide open.
"How are you going to do that? The place you showed me only has one way in and one way out." She asked as she stepped in front of me, trying to stop me. I tilt my head, wondering if it was a good idea to say this or not.
"It's better that you don't know." I dodge the question and keep walking.
"But of course it's better for me to know! How can I go along with a plan without knowing everything?" She asks. I sigh and rub the bridge of my nose.
"Okay. Okay. Look, zombies are like some animals that follow the herd instinct. Or herd behavior. They follow what the majority is doing. If there's a zombie running around, it makes noise, which attracts another zombie, and so on. This is how zombie hordes are created. My plan is to lead this horde." I explain. She nods, showing that she understands part of the plan. We both arrive at the place marked on the map.
"So you take they to this place and I'll close the door."
I nod. "That's right."
"Trap them with the zombies."
I nod again. "Right again."
"You're crazy." She shouts, tired and scared.
"Right again." I smile in amusement, both at the funny situation and to convey that it is no big deal.
"Don't you have a better plan? One that doesn't involve you getting stuck with them?" She asks, and I shrug.
"I've got three plans. They're all dangerous in their own way. But don't worry, I'm not going to die." I smile at her and brush a strand of hair from her face.
"You suck at making plans." She jokes, looking down. I laugh easily at her joke.
"Bad situations call for bad plans." She nods and we sit in silence for a while. I see her take a deep breath and finally look me in the eye.
"Let's do this." She sighs, and we begin to detail the plan, step by step. I go up to the second floor, yelling or making a lot of noise to get the attention of the zombies there.
I go downstairs and lead them to the place I had already checked to make sure there were no zombies and to find my way out.
When the last zombie has gone through the door, Maggie, who is hiding in a nearby room, closes it and locks it with bolts and a chain we found nearby.
After I leave, I find Maggie again, we pick up the necessary items and head back to the farm.
Easy, isn't it?
Who was I trying to fool? Any mistake and I'd find out if I'm immune to the zombie virus or not. Something I didn't want to find out. Never.
Right now, I was at the door to the second floor, having left Maggie safe and with instructions on how to proceed. Time for the lunch bell.
I open the door to the stairwell, leaving it wide open so it won't close again. Even with the little light in the stairwell, the place was still very dark. I took the flashlight I had with me and turned it on. The light spread through the dark and frightening hallways. I can finally see properly.
The place was certainly messier than the floor below. There were stretchers, wheelchairs, bullet holes, blood, and a few bodies on the floor.
I can't tell if they're human or zombie made. I look around and finally see a zombie. Half a zombie, but something. It's showtime.
I use the knife to knock on the door with great force, letting the loud sound echo through my ears. Not a second later, several growls echo through the corridors, which are lit only by torchlight.
Some zombies come out of the rooms, while others come from the adjacent corridors. In less than 10 seconds, a large number of zombies approached me. They were fast even for zombies. Well, it hasn't been that long since the apocalypse began, so it makes sense. I guess.
"Good, very good. Hey! Fucking brain eaters! Follow me!" I yelled at them as I started to run backwards, keeping one eye on them and the other on their backs. You never know.
As I led the zombies to the trap, I started singing a song I really liked: "On My Own" by Ashes Remain. I would also bang my knife on the floor or walls to the rhythm of the song. Just to make sure they didn't change direction. Besides, why not?
🎶I get caught in the lies of the enemy
I lay my troubles down
I'm ready for you now.🎶
🎶Bring me out
Come and find me in the dark now
Every day by myself I'm breaking down
I don't wanna fight alone anymore🎶
🎶Bring me out
From the prison of my own pride
My God
I need a hope I can't deny
In the end I'm realizing I was never meant to fight on my own🎶
Now that I was not in such an enclosed and dark room, I could see the number of zombies I was controlling. There were well over 100.
By the time I reached the end of the song's chorus, I was already in the room where Maggie was waiting. I looked over and saw her staring discreetly through the glass. I winked at her and then turned my attention back to the horde.
"All right, rotten brains! Follow me! I'm tasty!" I yelled as I walked through the soon-to-be-closed doors. There's no turning back now.
The horde of at least a hundred zombies follows me without a problem, and those further behind follow the zombies themselves. It's herd behavior in action.
The ward I'm in is a large "T". The entrance is at the base of the letter, and there are two side corridors. One of them, the one on the right, leads to a dead end. Literally.
On the left, there's an exit. It's a small exit, but it's something. There's a window at the top of the wall. It was a little high and small. Normally, no one would be able to get through a place like this. But this isn't a normal situation. And I'm not a normal person.
I stood in the middle, between the right and left path, waiting for the zombies to come closer. It was also a way to see if the whole horde had gone through the door. Luckily, when I looked, one last zombie, slower than the others, was about to go through.
I had to see if Maggie had managed to close the door before I went ahead with the plan, because if she talked, well... All the zombies might shift their focus from me to her, and I'd have to kill all the zombies alone.
Luckily, I saw Maggie go to the door and wave at me before she started to close the entrance. Some zombies from the end of the horde heard the sound of the door closing, but before they could get there, the door was already closed.
"Good work, Maggie. Now it's time to get out of here." A zombie approached me, but I shoved him aside. "Good morning, zombie ladies and gentlemen! If you'd like to join me, that would be great!" I shouted as I made my way to the path on the left.
Unlike the first corridor, this one wasn't that long, so it didn't take me long to reach the window that would serve as my exit. I jumped up and reached it easily.
The next step in the plan was to rip it out of the wall.
After I stopped making noise to attract them, I could hear how loud a horde of this size could be. Their angry, hungry growls were like being at a big party. You couldn't tell where the sound was coming from.
I stopped paying attention to unnecessary things and started smashing the window. It wasn't hard, and soon I was out of that hellish hallway. I was also outside the hospital, which meant I had to turn around and go back inside to find Maggie.
But first I went to the car to get the bag we had left behind. We were more out of harm's way now, so there was no problem carrying the extra weight. But suddenly the sound of gunfire echoed throughout the place.
Instinctively, I ducked my head and looked around. "That shot came from... Maggie!"
I grabbed my bag and ran quickly to the main entrance, which was as deserted as the last time I saw it. As I approached the lobby, the same one where I had killed the first zombie doctor, I heard the sound of flesh being struck.
The same sound you hear when a zombie's skull is crushed repeatedly.
I ran faster to the source of the sound and in a few seconds I reached the place, to my shock to see Maggie drenched in blood, surrounded by two dead zombies, dropping the baseball bat on the third zombie's head without stopping.
She seemed to be in a trance, with a few tears streaming down her forlorn face and blood staining her cheeks. From the look of it, it wasn't her.
Cautiously, I began to approach so as not to frighten her. As I got closer, I saw that the zombie's left leg was broken.
"Maggie... I took off my mask and called out to her in the lowest, calmest, gentlest tone of voice I could manage. She stopped beating the zombie and turned to me as if to attack me as well. Maybe she thought I was a zombie too.
But when she saw that it was me, she lowered her stick and relaxed deeply. I was afraid she was going to pass out.
"Dean." She sighed my name and took a deep breath, only to grimace at the smell of the corpse and the blood. She looked down and noticed the blood on herself and on the zombie whose brain had been smashed into the floor.
I see her turn pale, stumble backwards and drop the stick. She didn't even wait a second and put her hand over her mouth, turned away from the zombies, leaned against the wall and started to vomit.
The smell of vomit and blood reached me and made me wrinkle my nose in disgust. Sometimes I hate my enhanced senses. I ignore this and approach Maggie, gently rubbing her back as she continues to vomit.
After two minutes she gets used to the situation and stops vomiting, but that doesn't mean she's better. Her skin is still pale and her shoulders are shaking slightly.
"I'm sorry." She whispers, her voice hoarse.
"Shhh... It's okay. The same thing happened to me. Don't worry." I pulled Maggie in for a hug, and she hugged me back. I led her away from the bodies and we sat on the floor, still hugging. We stayed like that for about 15 minutes, saying nothing.
This world has a strange and brutal way of tearing people apart.