The smell of death grew stronger as they climbed the stairwell. At the top of the stairs, the first thing they saw was an elevator to their right. From inside, they heard a faint banging.
"Is anyone there?" Gregg hissed at the elevator door. His question was answered immediately by the tell-tale groan of the dead and more banging.
Masterson rolled his eyes, "Shit. What'd you go and do that for, Gregg?"
"What?" Gregg asked, throwing his arms apart as if he hadn't done anything wrong.
"Now we're going to have to shut that thing up," Masterson said, exasperated. Masterson gave Gregg another rueful shake of his head, but Gregg didn't seem to mind. "Rudy, get your hatchet in that crack."
Gregg snickered a little bit. "That's what she said."
"Yeah, laugh it up, buddy. You ain't gonna be laughing when you pull those doors apart," Masterson said.
Gregg's laughing stopped.
Masterson muttered under his breath, "…fucking take shit seriously. Like I'm the only adult around here."
Rudy wedged the blade of his hatchet into the elevator and wiggled it back and forth until he was able to get his fingers inside. Gregg stepped up beside him, and together they drew the doors apart. On the other side of the doors, they found another set of elevator doors, the ones that would allow them inside the elevator car. The banging from inside was louder now with the exterior set of doors out of the way.
Rudy looked back at Masterson, at his tired face. It was blank, and he nodded at Rudy. Rudy crammed the blade of the hatchet between the doors and repeated the process of wedging and twisting it until he could get his fingers inside. He gagged as the smell of rot clouded his face. Gregg threw up next to him, turning to expel liquid onto the side of the wall. The smell of Gregg's vomit somehow made the odor more bearable. When Gregg was done puking, he grasped the edge of the elevator door and started pulling.
"Watch them fingers," Masterson said.
The door slid open slowly, and Masterson's flashlight bobbed on the interior. The only warning that Rudy had was a rush of foul air, and then he heard the clack of skull against the metal door. He pulled his hands back in time to avoid getting bit. Instinctively, he shoved Gregg out of the way.
Masterson sighed, the tip of his rifle dipping towards the ground. "Alright, step back. We're gonna have to go live on this one. Can't have one of you guys losing your diddling fingers."
Rudy was only too happy to step away from the stench coming out of the elevator.
"Tap on that door, Gregg."
Gregg spared a pained look in Masterson's direction, but he stepped back up to the door and rapped on the metal doors with his fist.
The Annie inside banged its head against the door, and Masterson took the shot. The muffled blast from his rifle echoed loudly in the interior. They all stood in silence, waiting to hear if the Annie inside still moved. But what they heard instead was thumping coming from all around them.
"What the fuck is that?" Masterson asked.
"Annies," Gregg said.
"They must be in all these rooms," Rudy said.
The noise built to a deafening thumping, and they could hear the sound of splintering wood. Rudy and Gregg moved to stand next to Masterson. They looked down the doorway-filled hall. They watched a fist pop through one of the doors, black and rotten, then another, then a head. Straggly white hair caught on the splintered wood of the door, ripping away a chunk of rotten scalp.
"Oh, Lord," Masterson said.
"We gotta get 'em," Rudy said. "They're making too much noise."
Rudy hefted his hatchet in his hand, and he ran towards the woman with her head poking through the door. Her dead eyes followed him as he thundered down the hall. He raised the hatchet up over his head and buried it in the back of the old woman's head. All around them, they could hear the pounding, so loud. It was bound to bring more of the dead to investigate from outside if they didn't act fast.
Rudy threw open the next door and stepped back. The smell hit him like a brick in the face, and he spied an Annie in a wheelchair before his eyes watered up, and his mouth filled with bile. It rocked in the wheelchair, hungry for Rudy's flesh. Then it tipped over on its side. Still buckled to the wheelchair, the Annie pulled itself after Rudy, crawling across the gray carpet. Rudy shook with something, fear, outrage, he didn't know what. But he waited until the Annie had dragged itself within inches of his foot before he planted his hatchet in its brain. He had to brace his boot against its back to remove the hatchet, and when he did, something inside of him died. He didn't know what part it was. He didn't know if it was important, an integral part of his being, but he knew that something had changed within him.
They moved quickly then, Masterson holding his hatchet, while Rudy threw open the doors. Gregg moved behind the Annie drawn to Masterson directly ahead. Once it cleared the doorway, Rudy would put his leg out in front of the Annie, while Gregg would push it from behind. In this way, like a group of schoolyard bullies, they were able to clear their hallway, one by one. When they were done, there was only one sound left, that of a lone Annie banging against the interior of the elevator.
"Looks like you missed," Gregg crowed to Masterson.
Masterson rolled his eyes. Covered in sweat and the blood of the dead,
