Before he could take a bite out of Joan, Clara was there,smashing the creature in the face. It fell on its back, its nose shattered, andblood oozing out of the split skin. Clara reached down and grabbed Joan,pulling her up to her feet and shoving her forward while the old man drippedblood down a faded green, cardigan sweater.
They were halfway through the hallway. Joan looked behindher to see every creature that they had passed marching towards them,undeterred. They could ill afford any more hold-ups. Joan ran ahead, whileClara limped along behind her, her walking boot bearing some of the shock thather injured ankle felt, but it was still on fire, and her breathing was heavy.Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead as they ducked and dodged their waypast the staggered handful of infected that ruled the hallway.
Then they were at the door to the stairwell. Joan pulledthe door open and held it open for her. They ducked inside, and Clara did aquick scan of the landing to see if there was any way to block off the doorthey had just entered. There was nothing, just the stale emptiness of theconcrete stairwell, the walls painted white and orange, the plain concretesteps oozing a coolness that Clara welcomed. She began her descent down thestairs, wincing as the movement sent pain from her ankle straight into herbrain.
They weren't out of the woods yet. Joan ran ahead of her,looking back up at her and yelling, "Hurry up!" Clara was going asfast as she could, hopping down the stairs on her one good leg, using the buttof the rifle as a makeshift crutch. She had reached the first landing by thetime she heard the door above her pop open and the first of the infectedshamble through. She saw the shadow of others, the fluorescent lights abovethem transforming the shadows into absurd shadow puppets against the wall.
Clara doubled her efforts. When she reached the bottom ofthe next set of stairs, she heard a large clatter above her. When she looked,she saw them tumbling down the stairs, their arms outstretched before them. Theold man in the cardigan was there, as was the naked gray woman, her hospitalgown lost in her pursuit of fresh flesh. Clara was moving as quick as shecould, but it wasn't fast enough. Behind her, she could hear them, gettingcloser, tumbling over each other as if they were waves in the ocean. Theydidn't care about stairs. They didn't care about falling. Clara couldn'tcompete with that. At the third landing, she felt and heard them close behindher, so close that she was afraid to look over her shoulder.
Clara did the only thing that she could. She rested herbottom on the railing with the intent of sliding down it. She lost a handful ofhair as one of the infected reached out to her just as she began her descent.The force threw her off balance, and she slipped off the railing, rolling downthe flight of stairs to another landing. When she stood up, they were tumblingafter her, broken limbs and gore flying everywhere. She had lost her rifle inthe fall, and the wave of infected crashed over her, their hands grasping,squeezing, clawing at her, and threatening to pull her under. She was dead.This was how it was going to end, knee deep in a pile of cannibals.
Then Joan was there, sweat covering her body, swingingher scavenged rifle at the infected. Clara broke away from the mass, theirclammy hands clawing at her jeans, and slid down the next handrail. Joanfollowed after her, bounding down the stairs, two and three at a time.
"C'mon, girl. It isn't time to die yet," Joansaid. It was a stupid thing to say. It was an action movie thing to say, but itinfused Clara with energy, forcing her to push herself. She hobbled and sliddown another railing, and she was about to continue to the next when Joan puther hand on her chest. "Listen," she said.
In addition to the moaning and groaning from above, belowthem was a buzzing sound, like the sound of a mass of people talking. Claraleaned over the railing and looked down below. The bottom of the stairwell wasfull of the infected, milling about, groaning and bumping into each other,spinning off in a new direction only to bump, spin, and continue the process.There would be no escape at the bottom of the stairwell.
They hurried down the next flight of stairs, careful notto alert the horde below to their presence. Joan reached the door to the secondfloor and pulled it open. The entire hospital was dead. They had yet to see aliving person, and now their way out was blocked by a mass of infected that wastoo thick to walk through.
Clara hobbled through the door that Joan held open forher. The door closed behind them, and they were off through the second floor ofthe hospital, looking out the windows to see if there was any way down.
The second floor was different from the rest of thehospital. It contained the cafeteria, a chapel, and numerous waiting roomsfilled with threadbare couches and chairs that had seen better days. It wasalso populated with the infected, and Clara and Joan moved quickly, stickingclose to the windows.
"Where are we going?" Clara asked.
"We need to get to the backside of the hospital.There's a small parking garage for the staff there. It's connected to thehospital by a covered walkway. If we cut through the cafeteria, we can getthere, get in my car and get the hell out of here."
They made it through the waiting rooms just fine, onlyhaving to dodge a few lazy hands and bash a couple of heads, but they skiddedto a halt at the entrance of the cafeteria. The mass that milled around in thecafeteria was far too dense for them to make
