"The quality of Mercy is not strain'd, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him who gives and him who takes"
William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice
Mercy
Author's Notes: Hey all, this is going to be MUCH better than my crappy fan fiction No Zone like a Safe Zone. I'm adding longer chapters and constant action to keep my audience going "ooooo" and "aaaaaaa". Enjoy!
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Setting: Mercy Hospital, one and a half weeks after the infection.
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Enter Lawrence Brown, a Doctor. A brother. A son. A man who was slowly losing his mind to the infection that was eating away at the world around him. The Army had pulled up to Mercy Hospital in Fairfield and proposed safety if the building could be held as an evacuation point. "It won't hold, we're a hospital not a fortress!" He had argued, but to no avail. The other staff of the Hospital had found the prospect of shelter too great. Lawrence strayed the halls of the upper hospital with a 9mm Colt handgun at his side. It wouldn't do him any good, as he knew. Doctors weren't the kind to use guns.
He descended to the ground level, seeing two corporals with assault rifles guarding the boarded-up front door. Behind them was the hospital's ex-secretary and Lawrence's Fiancé, Hannah Paulic. "Three days, Lawrence." She told him as he entered the room. "Three days until it's our turn for staff evacuation, we'll finally be out of here." She continued. Lawrence sighed and turned towards the two men guarding the door. "Where's the sergeant?" He asked to one of the men at the front door. He lifted his night vision goggles from his eyes and responded with a question of his own; "Only important people can see the boss. Who're you?" He asked.
This sent Lawrence into a state of immeasurable anger. He was probably the most important medical official in the entire county, and being talked down to from a man who's only skill was "shoot anything that moves" was enough to make him shout. Only being able to keep back his words with the thought of possible safety, "Three days, no more." He thought as he began regaining his cool. The guard raised an eyebrow in confusion due to a lack of response "Lawrence Brown, I was Chief Surgeon before the infection." He said, the guard pointing to a closed door along the left wall.
Lawrence entered the Sergeant's office, seeing a man in his mid thirties chewing tobacco. Golden stitches on his jacket spelled out the name "G. Dunstan". He looked through some files on his desk and looked back up at Lawrence, asking two words; "Brown, Lawrence?" Lawrence nodded his head as the officer held out a block of tobacco to the Doctor. "No thanks." Lawrence said. "I don't do tobacco. But I do have a concern." Sgt. Dunstan leaned back in his uncomfortable chair, spitting in a pot near the corner. "Alright Doctor Brown, if I hear you whining about the security like all your other employees, I'll be THIS much closer to throwing you out their with those monsters." He said, tipping his chair back down and holding his thumb and index finger about an inch apart. "But that's just it!" Lawrence exclaimed, ripping the tobacco from the sergeant and slamming it down on the table. "This place is a deathtrap, monkeys who looted our defibrillators could do better than your troop is doing now!"
Sgt. Dunstan stood up and shouted; "Don't you understand how many men we have?! We can't afford to lock down this hospital like an ordinary objective, so keep your trap shut med nerd, or I'll make sure you wake up feeling a bit more sickly." He finished, sitting back down and spitting in the pot.
Lawrence stormed out of the room filled to the brim with fury. "This hospital's going to go down in flames." He muttered as he began to walk away. Suddenly a strange phenomenon caught his eye from the right side. "The manhole, across the street…It's moving!" He thought as something burst out of the cover. It was a hulking behemoth, bare-chested but with slimmer legs, still in blue jeans. It's tongue hung out and a blanket of tattered hair adorned his head.
He had no time to think, this was obviously one of them and two guards and a sergeant with a temper weren't going to stop the creature. One of the soldiers exclaimed the word "Tank!" And began fumbling to get a clear shot at it. Lawrence peered towards the desk. Hannah wasn't there. He made a break for it running into the coffee room behind the front desk, where the door had been replaced with an army-issued red steel safe room door.
"To heck with weapons authorization, the lives of every man and woman in this hospital are on the line." Lawrence thought, grabbing an M16A3 Assault Rifle on the table. "Help me!" Was the cry from the steel door on the other side, leading to the main part of the hospital. Lawrence opened the door to see one of his Co-Workers. "Mike, there's this huge behemoth out front, the guards aren't going to be able too--" Lawrence was cut off. "Lawrence, the survivors the military brought in, they're infected! They're taking over the hosp--" Mike was interrupted as well, as a gray figure in a hospital gown sunk his teeth into Mike's shoulder, and then had it's head busted open by an assault rifle round immediately after.
"It's all gone. I knew it'd happen like this!" Our hero shouted, but his cry fell on deaf ears. There wasn't anyone to answer anymore. There wasn't a single drop of mercy left to be squeezed out of this God-abandoned Hospital. "I've got to escape Mercy." Lawrence thought. "My best shot's got to be the roof." He reasoned, charging off towards the main stairwell.
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Exeunt.