Chapter 1: Escape to Mercy Hospital
"Hurry, get inside!" Zoey screeched, ponytail bouncing as she ran from the flesh-hungry horde. She could hear her group close behind, unloading magazine after magazine of ammo into the creatures. Some fell dead to the ground, while others tripped over rotting bodies but continued the chase. They made their way into the small hardware store, and the young girl spotted the saferoom almost immediately. They were about to enter when she waved a hand in the air, signalling that she wanted them to stop.
"What gives, Zoey? We've got a horde on our asses!" Francis snapped impatiently, guesturing to the large amounts of undead banging on the locked double doors and scratching at the windows. Just then, a zombie began crawling on the saferoom floor. It let out a low and throaty warning growl as it looked in their direction.
"We've got a hunter!" Before the creature had the opportunity to pounce, the whole group opened fire on it. The hooded creature let out a pained screech as it suddenly went limp, the gunshot wounds bleeding heavily and staining the concrete ground.
"Lets get this thing out of here before it stinks up the place." Francis suggested, grabbing the corpse by the arms. Bill placed his gun on the ground and grabbed hold of the legs, and together they carried the body out of the safehouse and tossed it away from the door. Walked back inside the room and Bill shut the door behind him, exhaling in relief, but more in exhaustion.
"So, what's the plan exactly?" Zoey asked the older man, sitting down in a small foldable chair.
"You heard that helicopter pilot, we go to Mercy Hospital and get evactuated!" Francis interjected.
"What if we get there too late?" Louis asked, stretching his sore muscles. Bill put a hand up and the group fell silent, waiting for his take on the situation.
"That's just a chance we're going to have to take. We get to Mercy Hospital and hope to God it's safe." Bill was the unofficial leader of the group because of his experience in surviving war, not to mention the years of tactical strategies experience he held over others.
"Well what the hell are we going to do if it's not safe, Bill?" Francis argued, but the older man stayed silent. He wasn't about to lie and say that he had another idea, but he didn't want to worry them too much.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now," He started before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. "get ready and patch up if needed. We leave for the hospital in exactly five minutes."
~xxx~
The older male was the first one out, pushing the large metal door open and stepping carefully out into the dark alleyway. He led the small group of survivors through the alley, stopping when they got to an open back door. "Looks like this leads into the Burger Tank." Louis commented. He remembered coming to that same diner just a few days ago. It baffled him that everything had changed so quickly, without anyone even realizing.
"I hate diners." Francis huffed, taking the lead and walking slowly through the kitchen area. Zoey and Bill rolled their eyes at his comment but neither of them uttered a word. Louis was deep in thought and hadn't noticed the zombie that was running toward him until Zoey pulled the trigger of her pistol. He yelped and turn around, seeing the blood soaking the diner's white and red tile.
"Thanks." he said, a bit embarassed. They walked through the door of the silent diner and into a steady rainstorm. All was quiet aside from the few infected that had noticed the survivors, though they were taken out with a few quick gunshots. "Well where do we go now?" Zoey inquired, seeing nowhere else they could go.
"How about that?" Louis asked, pointing at a construction lift that was sitting at the far corner of the parking lot.
"That'll work, come on!" Bill took the lead again. The four survivors ran across the large parking lot and past the rotting corpses that laid there. The old war veteran was the first to climb onto the lift. Once everyone was on the lift he clicked the button on the control panel, silently praying that it hadn't been ruined during the rain. The whole thing shook slightly, before slowly ascending into the air.
They had climbed onto the roof when they heard it: the collective moans and screams of infected. The horrid sound was drawing closer and closer with each passing minute. "Shit, the sound of the lift must have drawn some attention." Louis cursed, grabbing the AK47 that was strapped to his back. Zoey looked down and saw a crowd of the infected standing right below them, some even climbing up the lift to the roof they were standing on. They immediately opened fire on the undead, the sound of gunshots filling the night air.
The screams had drowned out the coughing and weezing of a smoker, letting it go undetected by the small group. The special infected took advantage of the survivors' vulnerability, wrapping his long tongue around Zoey's throat, pulling her slowly toward him while attempting to choke the life from her.
"Smoker's got Zoey!" Francis' voice boomed, following the long pink tongue until he found the owner. He took a few good shots before seeing the large explosion of smoke, and watched the creature's corpse fall from the roof. The young woman coughed and choked and she strained to catch her breath, climbing to her feet. "You good?" Louis asked her, and she just nodded. Once the horde was taken care of they immediately got moving again, making their way toward the open window of a second story building.
~xxx~
The survivors took turns climbing down the ladder of the open manhole and into the depths of the town's sewer system. "Yuck." Zoey commented, pulling the collar of her her white undershirt over her nose in a futile attempt to spare herself from the smell.
"I hate sewers." Francis mumbled. He wasn't paying attention to where he was walking, and stepped off the side path and ankle deep in sewage. "Shit. Oh this stinks!" He cursed loudly, which got the attention of a few infected lurking around.
"Francis quit your whining." Bill shot at the three or four zombies that had come running. Blood oozed out of the open wound and mixed into the sewer water as their bodies dropped. They started to make their way through the sewer system, all holding their breath and hoping to get back to the surface as soon as possible.
They wandered around the tunnels of the sewer for what seemed like hours, using only their small flashlight beams to see where they were going. "It's like a freaking maze down here." Louis complained, reloading his pistol for the third time. He had only had enough ammo for one more reload, and it looked like the others weren't doing any better. They needed to get to Mercy Hospital, and soon.
"I think that's our way out." Zoey stated, pointing her flashlight to a red ladder they hadn't seen before. The light coming from the open manhole gave the group of survivors some hope. "The hospital should be right above us." Louis announced to the group. He was about to ascend to the surface, but a spray of thick green vomit shot from around the corner and coated him and Francis.
"I can't see!" the African-American man cried, trying furiously to rub the bile from his eyes. He heard a loud 'Pop!' and through the bile saw an explosion of blood, bile and guts. The explosion and smell of boomer vomit had attracted a huge horde of infected. The walking corpses screeched as they came around every corner, closing in fast.
"There's no way we can fight them all!" The burly biker man bellowed as he finally regained his vision.
"Bill, what are we going to do?!" Zoey asked in a panic, pulling out her uzi and looking to the war veteran for an answer that would save them from certain death.
"Up the ladder, quickly!" he commanded, quickly making his way up the metal ladder. The others followed swiftly, their legs and arms carrying them up the ladder as fast as possible.
A zombie had grabbed a hold of Zoey's ankle, trying to pull the woman back down into a crowd of hungry flesh-eating mosters. She clung to the last rung of the ladder with one hand and with the other one shot it right between the eyes. Her leg was immediately freed from it's grasp and she pulled herself up onto the street. They had all hoped to find the hospital well fortified and safe, but what they found was horrifying.
~xxx~
The area was an absolutely bloody mess. The ground was stained with blood and bloodstained newspapers, bodies piled knee-high. Cars were flipped over and crashed into buildings, like utter chaos had broken out. There were no sign of any people, undead or otherwise. "Damnit.." Bill muttered under his breath, walking through blood puddles and toward the open doors of the hospital.
There was an ambulance parked near the doors of Mercy Hospital's emergency entrance, a bloody gourney tipped over near the lobby counter. "Looks like they were just bringing someone in when things went to shit. Things were thrown around, dried blood coating the white walls and tiled floors.
"Come on, into the saferoom." Francis said gruffly, making his way around the lobby desk and into the ER lobby's small breakroom. The others followed in defeat, piling into the safe room and and barracading the door behind them. Their survival plan had failed, meaning they needed to come up with another one as quick as possible.