Wheels and Zombies (Book 1): Ash Page 5

  We reached the red door at the end of the hall, and we saw it sat at a crack. There wasn’t any sign of Jonesy or Chuck inside the small space that looked like a janitor’s closet. They must have moved on. A door connected to the room on the other side, and Angie stepped forward to grab the door handle. She glanced over her shoulder.

  “Let’s move slowly. I don’t have any more weapons, but we should be fine if we take it slowly.” She opened the door at a crack to peer out, and then motioned me to follow. We ventured into another hallway. This one wasn’t as pristine as the other ones we had come across. It didn’t look as if patients or visitors used it—more like an access area for maintenance crews or something. The floor was an unpolished gray, and there weren’t any windows. White fluorescent lights guided us to a green door at the end.

  I looked up at Angie and knew I had to somehow convince her not to hand me over. My life was short as it was, but I couldn’t let it end in a hospital where doctors poked and prodded me for research purposes. I couldn’t let that happen, not after my sister had given her life so I could have a notion of a normal one. Alison killed herself so they wouldn’t need to poke me anymore. I would need a compelling argument, but I had no idea how to do that. I looked up at Angie, and she diverted her gaze.

  “Does Jonesy know about your cancer?” I asked tentatively. When she didn’t react I added, “I mean, he must have noticed something.”

  Her eyes fell on me, but she remained silent, as if she were thinking it over.

  “If he knows he hasn’t told,” she said absently. I sensed she hadn’t thought about it that much, but she’d now realized that he must have known. For one, Jonesy had seen her exit the balcony without a problem while moments later Burke had found his end past those frosted-glass doors that apparently sat loaded with crazies. Given their jobs, I wouldn't be surprised if there had been other such incidents.

  “He must be a good friend if he didn’t give you away.” She stopped suddenly and turned to me.

  “I know what you’re doing, kid, and you can stop.”

  I peered up at her eyes blinking and giving her my most pathetic facial expression—including my infamous pout.

  “All right, you win.” She stomped off, and I rushed after her.

  “What do you mean?” I asked as if I were clueless.

  “I mean, we will find your way out, nick a car, and then think of something else, okay?”

  I looked at her in disbelief. “You promise?”

  She turned to face me. “I promise.” It was probably the fluorescent lighting above us, but it seemed as if the darkness had disappeared from her hazel eyes. The sight produced a wide grin on my face.

  “Okay then,” I said, “but don’t call me kid.”

  Angie’s face twitched, but remained straight. She turned to the door and walked away, shaking her head. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. There wasn’t much of a plan, but she wouldn’t turn me in. Nothing else mattered at that point.

  Angie went ahead to open the door before returning her gaze with a puzzled look. I bit the inside of my cheek and smirked. It wasn’t a surprise to me when widening the opening revealed a set of stairs.

  “I thought you used this way to sneak out with your sister,” she said, pointing at the stairs.

  “Those were the walking years,” I said with a shrug. She let out an exaggerated breath.

  “All right then. Let’s go,” she said and bent to pick me up. I wasn’t afraid of my weight, and I was short for my age, but Angie, although tough, was on the petite side. We would have made an odd picture, I thought, when a cold rush of air made me shiver, and I remembered my flimsy hospital gown.

  “Angie,” I said, my voice lined with doubt.

  “Yeah?” she said with a groan as she took the first steps down the stairs.

  “Does my naked butt stick out?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  | 7

  The steps ended at a steel fire exit. The exit opened into a narrow alley that smelled of decaying garbage, which wasn't a surprise considering the row of dumpsters we had to pass before we cleared it. The sunlight that struck my body was a warm welcome on my cold skin. I glanced over the small grassy area and spotted the two trees that had provided my sister and me some shade the last time I’d been here. Memories flooded my mind.

  “Your hair is as white as snow,” Alison had said when we’d sat under that tree where she had braided my hair.

  “Yeah, after a dog has peed in it,” I’d said. She had tugged on my hair, and I’d yelped.

  “Don’t say that! You have beautiful hair.” When I had turned to look at her, a colorful scarf hiding her near-bald head, I’d felt the tears sting my eyes. Even with the dark circles under her eyes and sunken cheeks, she had looked so beautiful. She’d just smiled at me and stroked my hair without a hint of envy.

  Angie shifted me in her arms, and I tightened my grip around her neck.

  “Now what?” I asked, swallowing the lump in my throat. One of the crazies stumbled around a corner, lumbering around as if he were a lost drunk in disguise. He tripped and fell flat on his face with a bone-chilling moan.

  “Now, we try to find a car without disturbing the locals,” she replied.

  Angie carried me across the grass and onto a brick path. The buildings that made up the hospital loomed at our side. The road parallel to the hospital felt eerily deprived of the sounds of car engines and honking motorists. I could see groups of people milling around beyond another grassy lawn and a low wall, but they were too far off for us to see their eyes. Their behavior, though, suggested crazies.

  “What if your people find us?” I asked.

  “Then we’ll have to come up with a different plan, but I’m hopeful they’re still on the other side of the hospital.”

  “How come?” Angie again shifted me to get a better grip. Her breathing became heavier with every step.

  “The plan was to exit with all the cancer patients from the closest access point, which means the underground parking garage on the other side of the building.”

  Angie moved closer to a fence and kneeled to put me down. Rocks dug into my butt, which I chose to ignore. I didn’t feel very comfortable in my flimsy hospital gown out in the open.

  “Stay here for a minute,” she said and sprinted away from the fence. My mouth hung open in shock as I watched her run across the lawn and hop over the low wall.

  “Sure, I’ll stay right here,” I muttered under my breath. Then I hurled a rock after her and bit out, “Where else would I go?”

  In my mind, I collected a decent amount of curse words I would throw at Angie while my head whipped from side to side to watch for bad things coming. I felt as helpless as a newborn baby, naked butt and all. From my position, I couldn’t see much except for the grass ahead and the wall beyond. To my right stood the building we had just come from; a couple of benches with a dried-up fountain obscured my view to the left. I didn’t hear anything of the sounds of the city I knew, except for the chilling moans of the crazies. A few of them hovered at the fountain, and another lumbered on the lawn, but they had no interest in me. I rubbed a hand over my head. The sun started to burn my scalp. My stomach twisted and turned—I felt sick. I didn’t want to be alone out here.

  “Please come back, Angie. Please come back.” I didn’t even realize I was softly chanting the words. Then I heard the sound of boots. A moment later Angie’s head popped up over the wall, and I sighed in relief.

  “You okay?” she asked when she sat down next to me. “You look a little pale.”

  I nodded, not sure if I could trust my voice. Angie’s presence boosted my confidence.

  “There are a couple of cars on the road we can try. The doors are open,” she said pointing in the direction she had come from.

  “Can’t you hot-wire one?” I said, glad to have found my voice.

  “Do I look like a common car thief, kid?”

  “I thought they’d teach you that stuff in th
e army, and don’t call me kid,” I said and punched her in the shoulder. Unfazed she lifted an eyebrow at that.

  “I’m not with the army, kid,” she replied, emphasizing the word kid, but that’s not what my eyes perked up at.

  “Then what?” I asked, curious, but as if she realized she had said too much, her cheeks flushed, and she diverted her gaze.

  “We have to go,” she said and scooped me up from the ground.

  We cornered another wall, and Angie stepped onto the road that led to the hospital’s main entry. The road circled around the dried-up fountain and then back to the gates that separated the hospital grounds from the street. Motorists used the area for patient drop-offs.

  Angie shifted me up in her arms and smirked at me. I smiled. We were almost out and in the clear. Her boot had taken one step off the curb when a loud voice made her freeze.

  “Sergeant Meadow, we have been looking for you. Are you all right?” the voice said. A couple of the crazies by the fountain stirred, but two soldiers were quick to react and took them out with bullets to the head. They must have had silencers on their rifles because the sounds of their shots were mere pop, pops to the powerful sound of the automatics I had gotten used to. “Sergeant,” the voice repeated, “are you all right?”

  My heart hammered in my chest while I watched Angie frozen in place. I gripped the back of her neck and squeezed it tight. My eyes locked on hers, trying to get a reaction, but Angie just stood there, unmoving, my limp body in her hands, my naked butt still sticking out. Oh God, soldiers were about to surround me, ready to send me off to God knows where while my butt stuck out.

  Angie came back to life, and for the briefest moments, she glanced at me. Her eyes were wide and glassy, which made them almost sparkle in the bright sunlight. Then they closed, and she made a half turn to the men approaching us from the hospital.

  “No,” I tried to say, but it came out more like a whimper. “But you promised.” My voice was firmer with that.

  “What’s this?” one of two soldiers who now stood in front of us said.

  “Captain Decker, sir,” Angie said. “This is one of the patients who tried to evade us, sir.” Her voice was stone cold. She was a robot—she had to be. How could she promise me and now hand me over like that?

  “And she has to be carried,” Decker said.

  “She’s paralyzed, sir. Took off in her wheelchair, but we had to ditch it.” The man frowned at me for a moment and then shook his head.

  “Never mind, any word from Private Jones?” he asked. For the first time in a while, Angie moved her head.

  “He isn’t back yet?”

  “No,” the other man said. I recognized the tall, dark lieutenant from when he’d stepped out of the elevator before everything had turned to shit. That bright smile had turned into a frown, but his jade eyes still stood out, and looked worried.

  I zoned out from the conversation. I was glad the soldiers hadn’t found Chuck, but it could also mean he was dead already, eaten by one of the crazies. I couldn’t help Chuck. I couldn’t even help myself. Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t want to cry, and I bit the inside of my cheek until the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. Anything to distract me from all this—this conversation, these men, and the darkness that had reclaimed Angie’s eyes.

  Someone tried to take me out of Angie’s arms, and as much as I wanted to get away from her darkened gaze, I wanted her to see me. I wanted her to see what would happen to me. My hand tightened on her collar, and I gripped her vest.

  “You promised,” I said when I felt hands tug at my waist. “You promised.”

  Angie didn’t move; she just watched, her body as limp as my legs.

  “You promised,” I shouted over the soldier’s shoulder as he dragged me off and she watched. Before the soldier carrying me went down a set of steps, I caught one more glance of Angie. That tall lieutenant I had seen before stood by her side, a hand on her shoulder, but she ignored him, her eyes still on me. It was what I wanted, but I guess I hadn’t expected to see the amount of pain on her face as I did.

  | 8

  I woke with at start. A hazy blur masked my vision, and for a second I worried the infection had clouded my eyes with that funky mist, making me one of the crazies. It turned out the tantrum I had thrown coming down the steps had given them a reason to sedate me. My body lay strapped to a gurney within the darkened bowels of the hospital’s underground parking garage. Those idiots had even strapped my legs. It took me a minute to get a grip on my surroundings. My vision was blurred, my eyelids heavy, and my head even heavier.

  The gurney I lay on stood in a cleared section of the parking garage. Five medium-sized buses stood in line at the entry. Gaunt-looking faces with worried expressions stared out the windows of the buses. Among them, I recognized the old gossip lady named Maggie. She seemed in a vivid, almost hysterical discussion with a young man in a uniform. I guessed they had informed her about her husband turning into one of the crazies. The soldier’s helmet bobbed on his head while he nodded and held his hands up in a defensive manner as if to calm the old woman down.

  To make room for the buses, cars had been maneuvered to the exit side of the lot. Heavy-duty spotlights stood along the exit ramp that led out of the underground parking garage—guarded by soldiers to prevent unwanted guests from entering. Night had fallen on the city. I must have been out for a couple of hours. Several patients, all stuck in beds, stood in my little corner. Most of them looked too sick to travel by bus. To my right I could see the door to the hospital and the elevators that would lead up to the main entry.

  The door to the hospital swung open, and Captain Decker strolled out, followed by his minions, including the tall, dark lieutenant and Sergeant Meadow. I balled my fists and tugged at my restraints until they bit into my wrists, ready to shout the first curse words that popped into my head. I wouldn’t let them take me without a fight, even if it would only be a verbal one. My mouth opened, but then I closed it shut. There was something off-putting in their demeanor.

  Captain Decker waved his arms and shouted at one of his soldiers. “Get your men out there and hold them off. We need time to get the buses out of here.”

  The soldier turned on his heels, shouted to gather some men, and then paced up the ramp.

  “This is getting out of hand too fast. The first two floors are overrun. The evacuation crews will never be able to get to the rest of the patients,” the tall, dark lieutenant said. “And getting them out by helicopters will take too long.”

  “That is not our problem, Lieutenant,” Captain Decker said. “It is our job to get these buses to the airport safely, and that’s what we’ll do. As soon as our access route clears, we move out—get them ready.”

  With a nod, the lieutenant jogged off in the direction of the buses.

  “Any word on Jones?” Decker asked. Angie shook her head.

  “None, sir.” Her head eased to the area where I lay on my stretcher. Our eyes met, but Angie’s dark gaze seemed to pass straight through me. “What about them?”

  Decker followed her gaze.

  “See if you can fit as many of them on the buses. We can’t wait for new ones to arrive. Use the aisles,” he said. “The rest …”

  He fell silent after that. Angie’s face hardened. She nodded and started to make her way to us. I glanced at the faces that surrounded me in the other beds. Jarrod and Gary were among them. Jarrod gazed at the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing he had ever seen. His eyes were glassy, and he didn’t even seem to blink. I guessed Gary to be the luckiest of all of us—he had already checked out, at least, his brain had.

  Angie drew closer, and I ground my teeth. I wanted to rationalize what she had done, or more to the point—hadn’t done—but I couldn’t subside the anger.

  “Come to gloat?” I said in a venomous tone. She gave me a hard look but didn’t answer. Instead, she pushed my gurney to the back of the pack into a dark corner. She glanced over her shoulder
and then at me.

  “Just shut up and play dead,” she said in a hushed tone. My eyes widened when she undid my straps. I wanted to hug her at that point but did as she had said and lay unmoving. Without another word, she moved to the front and gestured to a group of men. The soldiers came running. After Angie waved her hand in the air and barked some orders, they started carting the beds to the buses. One bed after another, soldiers transported my fellow patients from our little corner, but the process was slow. As the captain had mentioned, there wasn’t enough room.

  There were about five of us left, including Jarrod and Gary, when a scream echoed from the parking garage’s walls. A chill ran through my bones. A man’s voice filled with an indescribable agony filled the open space. Then there was silence. It lasted for mere seconds before gunshots replaced it. They sounded louder than anything I’d heard before. The booms bounced off the parking garage’s wall and repeated themselves over and over again. Soldiers, sounding their battle cries, firing their weapons, tried to hold the ramp, but the mass of lumbering bodies forced them back.

  I clamped my hands over my head in a vain attempt to protect my ears. My head whipped around in search of some way to get myself out of this, but what was I supposed to do? The hospital entry and the elevators looked to be, what, about fifty paces away from me. It could just as well be the other side of the world. I would never reach them crawling around on my arms. My fist slammed into my upper leg. Stupid, stupid, echoed in my head.

  The engines of buses revved and the smell of diesel wafted around me. Soldiers dispersed at the foot of the ramp. A Hummer parked next to one of the buses took off, building speed before it hit the ramp. Crazies slammed into the front grill and bounced to the sides. Combined with the heavy machine gun mounted on the roof, shooting at anything in its path, the Hummer plowed a way forward. The buses followed in their wake. Soldiers from all sides came running for the vehicles. Shots fired and crazies fell, but the soldiers were not without casualties. Men caught by the hungry teeth-snapping creatures fell to the ground where a wall of bodies swallowed them up. Screaming, they disappeared in the midst of horror. The ones able to cling to the buses forced their bodies inside, cramping in one after another until nothing else would fit.