Unfortunately, they were also blocking off the exit. Shelooked down the other direction and saw nothing of promise, just more roomswith doors. Courtney was behind one of those doors, but she suspected that hewas lost to her forever. Of course, if she didn't figure a way out of here, shemight be lost forever as well.
At her feet, Joan groaned as she sat up. She wobbled toher feet and then fell over. Clara did not lend her a hand. "Do you knowof any other way out of here?"
Joan stood up groaning and stumbled to the doorway. Shelooked out into the hallway where the men in the biohazard suits were busytrying to fend off at least fifteen patients who seemed to want nothing more thanto kill them. Clara cringed as she saw one of them go down under the weight ofthree patients. His suit was shredded and ripped in no time. It was great atkeeping out bacteria and viruses, but a human hand intent on destruction was nomatch for the thin material.
The other men in suits backed up slowly. Apparently,there wasn't much camaraderie among the security detail. There were only threeof them left, and one of them was out of ammunition.
Clara moved silently as Joan grabbed her arm and pulledher down the hallway. "Follow me," she whispered.
Clara's first instinct was to put her fist through Joan'sface. The last time she had followed Joan was the reason she was stuck in thehospital with a bunch of murderous freaks in the first place. She didn't followthrough on her urge. There were larger concerns to worry about. Joan usheredher into an office and then closed the door behind her. There was the sound ofair hissing and Clara's ears suddenly filled with pressure. The light on thedoor's locking mechanism turned from red to green, and Joan collapsed in awheeled office chair.
"Would you like to tell me just what the hell isgoing on?" Clara asked. Gunshots rang through the halls outside, stillpainfully loud despite the walls around them. Joan ignored Clara and beganfiddling with a remote control. A bank of monitors sprung to life, and Clara'smouth dropped open as she watched the carnage on the screens.
"I'm saving your goddamn life. That's what's goingon," Joan spat at her.
Clara plopped down on the cot in the corner of the room,her mouth open and incapable of making any sort of sound. She heard the screamsin stereo, through the speakers on the monitors and through the walls. Thepatients in the hallway tore through the three remaining men in biohazardsuits. The last one died just outside the office that they were hiding in. Hebeat upon the door as the patients ripped his suit into shreds and then did thesame to his body.
Clara and Joan sat in silence. The patients meanderedaround the quarantine wing, looking for something, but there was nothing to beseen. Soon the crowd thinned out as the patients continued on to greenerpastures.
"Joan, what is going on?"
Joan put her hand up to silence her and then she pointedat the monitor. "Look."
The last man to die began to move around. Though he wasmissing half his face, an eye, and the lower part of his left arm, he began torise. Clara couldn't believe what she was seeing. When he began pounding on thedoor with his stump of an arm, she finally acknowledged that she just mighthave lost her mind. When the other security guards rose up and joined him, shebecame positive of the fact.
Chapter 35: The Long Way Home
Old Han cackled in his beat-up, gold Daewoo Espero. Itwas the first car that he had managed to buy in America, and it was the onlycar. It wasn't Chinese, but Korean was the next best thing. The last thing hewanted to do was give the lazy Americans any more of his hard-earned money. Hedidn't mind that the car barely ran and that replacement parts for the defunctcar manufacturer were hard to find, especially when one was using brokenEnglish to describe what one needed.
He reached for the car stereo, and turned up the sound onthe tape deck. Black Panther's delightfully glammy metal jams blared on theradio, a message from the early '90s Chinese rock band still struggling on in aKorean car driven by a Chinese man in America. Old Han laughed at how wonderfulthe world was.
As he moved through the city, away from his burning bar,he came to a stop at an intersection. He was frightened out of his daydreamingby a blood-soaked woman's hand pounding on his window. Blood poured from herforearm, and Han could see figures chasing after her.
He stepped on the gas, his car sputtering down the street,the muffler jangling around, ready to fall off at the next speed bump. Hanswore in Mandarin. He swore more when he saw that she had left a bloodyhandprint on his driver's side window. He was half tempted to turn right aroundand run the lady over. They were probably on some drug-fueled binge, her andher multiple boyfriends. Americans were like that. Gross, immoral, and riddledwith addictions.
When Han had to stop at the next intersection, it wasbecause it was clogged with traffic. People were honking and shouting as threemen struggled amid some car wreckage. Han waved his hand in dismissal andbacked the Daewoo up. He knew another route. It was a dark alley, filled withpotholes, but it would take him around the clogged intersection. He sucked in abreath of air as his muffler scraped the ground after a vicious pothole.
Somehow, the Daewoo made it through the forgotten andunkempt alley, only to be confronted by a crowd of people advancing down the next street. It was at this point in time that Old Han finally
