to be a glitch, but something told him to check anyway. He opened the channel and smiled as static crackled on the airwaves. He reached again for his coffee, laughing at himself for being so foolish.
“You are ours,” said a voice on the radio, a single voice that sounded like a billion souls speaking at once. “We are coming.”
Daniel spilt his stale coffee on his lap and cursed. He had to be imagining this. The radio wasn’t working—
“We are coming,” the voice said again. “Your flesh is ours.”
Static crackled loudly as the channel closed itself.
Daniel leaned into his chair, wide-eyed and shaking, wondering if he had gone mad.
Three
Laura stood by the window as Vince and Martin watched her. “Something is certainly going on down there. I’ve never seen the dead just stop like this.”
“Really?” Vince asked sarcastically.
“I don’t understand it,” Laura said. “It goes against everything we know about their behavior.”
“What the hell do we do about it?” Vince asked. “And I swear to God, if you say some shit like ‘let’s just enjoy the silence,’ I’m going to throw you out that window.”
“It’s got to have something to do with the virus. It’s changed, mutated somehow.”
“How could it do that?” Martin wondered.
“Oh my lord,” Laura blurted. “It’s you. You and your helicopter.”
Vince stepped away from Martin, aiming his .38 at the man.
“I did nothing,” Martin said, completely unafraid of Vince and the weapon pointed at him.
“You didn’t have to. You brought the airborne strain of the virus with you. It does exist, and you’re not only a carrier of it, you’ve spread it all over the city when you flew in. The airborne strain must have altered when it encountered the original, altered itself in some way where it affects the dead rather than the living, changing them into something completely new.”
Martin nodded. “Please understand there is no way I could have known my presence here would cause this. I am sorry.”
“Laura?” Vince asked, keeping his gun trained on Martin.
“Put the gun down, Vince. What’s done is done. The only question is what’s happening to the dead. They’re changing, that’s clear, but into what?”
“We’ve got to get out of here, Laura. Staying around to find out is just asking to get our butts gnawed off.”
“Agreed, but Martin’s helicopter is the only way out. It’s not going to carry everyone.”
“I know that, damn it! Let’s just grab who and what we can and go. Right now.”
“I’m not leaving,” Martin informed them. “Your Daniel is also a pilot, I believe. Have him fly you out of here. There’s a map to the base inside the helicopter. My purpose is to save as many as I can, and I will make sure the hospital doesn’t fall until Daniel can come back for a second group of your people.”
Laura tried to argue, but Martin cut her off. “We must prepare. There is a storm coming, and even I cannot fight so many alone.”
Jack paced back and forth in the waiting room. Most of his crew slept on the couches, but Mitchell was still awake and staring out the window.
“What are you looking at?” Jack asked.
“The dead. They’re bringing ladders and rope into the building. Fucking ladders and rope.”
Jack laughed. “You’re shitting me.”
Mitchell was pale as he looked up at Jack. “I wish I were.”
The door to the waiting room opened. Martin stood in the doorway. “You may kill me now, or you can help save all those who may be saved. The choice is yours.” He tossed a shotgun into Jack’s hands and raised his arms to the sides, presenting his chest.
Jack stared at him, gritting his teeth. “You brought this, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Martin answered painfully.
“Fuck you.” Jack pumped a round into the shotgun’s chamber. “Let’s go kick some dead ass.”
Martin grinned, and twin auto-pistols like something out of science fiction appeared in his hands.
The door to the stairwell opened as the first stream of the undead poured into the halls. Martin, Jack, and Jack’s men stood in the hallway like old-fashioned minutemen. They hadn’t had time to build any sort of barricade.
As the dead raced towards them, Jack screamed the order to fire. The hallway echoed with gunshots and howls as the men tore the first wave of the dead to shreds. The hospital’s defenders held their ground for a few seconds until they were forced to reload. Martin, in an effort to buy time, charged into the ranks of the dead. His guns blazed, each shot perfect, splattering rotting brain matter everywhere.
Jack and the others held their fire as Martin tossed aside his empty weapons and dove deeper into the midst of the enemy. He bent his hands downward at the wrists, and blades shot out from beneath the sleeves of his uniform. He sliced the closest creature’s skull open with a single swipe and plunged the other blade into another monster’s face. He yanked the blade free as the thing leaked blood from between its eyes and collapsed.
Martin gave Jack the signal and dropped to the floor, rolling away from the mob. Jack’s shotgun thundered, and Mitchell opened with his AK-47 on full auto; the other men hit the dead with everything they had. The bodies piled up throughout the hallway as Martin rejoined them, but more of the dead raced to take the place of the creatures who had fallen.
“We can’t hold them forever like this!” Jack shouted. “Our ammo isn’t going to last forever.
“Fall back,” Martin ordered. “Fall back and reload.”
Not all of the dead followed them as they retreated. Many chose the easier route and headed off down the hall in the other direction.
Daniel locked himself in the communications room when the gunshots started. He frantically searched around in his pockets. “Oh God, where is it?”
He finally grasped the butt of the cigarette buried in his coat pocket and pulled it out. It was his last one, the last one he was aware of in the whole hospital. He’d been saving it for a special time, for when he really needed it. He ran it under his nose, inhaling the scent of unlit tobacco, the scent of heaven.
He dug out his lighter and flicked it, but it didn’t ignite. He flicked it again and again, pausing only to bang it against the wall desperately.
Disgusted, he threw it down along with the cigarette and slumped against the wall. Tears slid down his cheeks. His sobs were quiet at first, but soon he wept openly, alone in the darkness as he listened to the howls of the dead and the gunfire on the floor below.
Vince held tightly to Laura’s hand, almost dragging her with him as she tried to keep pace. He had already sent someone to find Daniel and get him up on the roof, but Laura insisted they find Chris and Natalie before they headed up to the helicopter. Vince had no choice but to go along with her; she wouldn’t leave without the child, and wherever they managed to escape to, they would need Laura’s skills for as long as she could fight off the cancer. Besides, given time and the proper tools Laura might one day put an end to the dead virus once and for all.
Vince wondered if she’d be able to make it the rest of the way to Chris’s quarters, but ever the fighter, Laura gasped for air and pushed on. Her strength amazed him and gave him hope.
They found Chris’s door barred. Laura struggled vainly with the knob.
“Move!” Vince screamed, and she stepped aside as he kicked open the entrance.
Chris glanced up at them as they made their way inside. He sat rocking Natalie, hugging her tightly to his
