A Zombie Hides My Face
Chapter 1:
The Sun Shines On
When Jane Rizzoli wakes, she wishes she hadn't.
She feels sick, her body a mass of nausea and throbbing pain. Her mouth is so dry that it takes her a moment to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth, and when she turns her head, the world tilts in all kinds of ungodly directions.
She tries to make a sound, to alert someone, but she can't. All that comes out is air. She tries again, louder this time, and the force seems to clear the sand from her vocal cords and she coughs, moans.
"He-elp," she manages, voice creaking. She gets no response and so she takes in her surroundings, tries to remember exactly what the motherfuck is going on.
She realizes she is in the familiar but unwanted surroundings of a hospital room, but something is wrong. It's quiet here-deathly quiet. The machines beside her bed make no noise, their lights dead. There's an I.V. stuck in her arm, but the tube has become discolored from lack of use, the skin around the medical tape red and agitated.
When she decides that no one is going to answer her cries for help, she heaves herself into a sitting position and almost immediately regrets it. Pain jack knifes through her abdomen, and for a moment her world goes blindingly white. She gags, and the pain momentarily worsens, then dulls to a throb. She heaves, and all that comes up is red-tinged bile.
"Shit," she moans, an arm tucked into the crease in her middle. She swings her legs over the edge of the bed, one at a time. She remembers now.
"Shoot him! Just shoot him!"
There had been a hostage situation. She'd been shot.
Or rather, she'd shot herself to shoot the killer….
She is in too much pain to try and work it all out now.
She nearly cries in relief when she looks to the bedside table and finds a glass of water there. It's warm, and tastes a bit like iron, but Jane couldn't give less of a shit if she tried.
However, she can't help but notice the wilting flowers also on the bedside table.
Jane's inner detective has begun to process what is occurring. How long has she been asleep? Why is she alone, and why has no one come to check on her? Why aren't the machines working?
Why does the room show evidence of being abandoned?
Fear twists her gut, and she knows she has to get to the bottom of this. She rips the tape from her arm and nearly vomits – the tube has been in far too long, and it looks infected. She grits her teeth and tugs the tube out, suppressing a sob.
Her legs quake beneath when she tries to stand. She drops heavily back onto the bed, then tries again. She has to go through the process several times before her weakened legs seem able to maintain her weight.
She is intent on getting the hell out of this disgustingly sterile room – she hates hospitals on a normal day – but when she pushes on the door, it doesn't open.
"Tha fuck-" she grunts, and shoves. The effort sends pain through her whole body, and it isn't with as much strength as she normally has, but something outside the door creaks loudly. The door moves a little.
Eventually, the door opens, and she finds that it had been blocked by a medical supply cart.
"Why…?" she wonders out loud, then stops herself, because talking to herself isn't going to solve anything.
As Jane travels through the halls towards the exit (she's been here enough times to know the layout) she notices that the rest of the hospital looks about as abandoned as her own room did, albeit a bit more disaster-struck. Gurneys are tipped over and shoved against walls, charts strewn, vases of flowers shattered.
And blood.
Blood everywhere.
Jane is really scared now, and she wishes she had her gun. She wishes it even harder when she hears the moans coming from a padlocked set of double doors nearby. The words do not open are smeared across the doors in deep red.
Her insides chill at the sound – inhuman, breathy and grating, the moans make all of the hair on her body stand up. She decides to heed the warning, and the terror creeping up her spine has her running for the exit.
When she makes it outside, she has to shield her eyes. If she thought it was bright in the hospital, it was nothing compared to the light assaulting her retinas now.
And then her eyes adjust.
"Ohhhhh shit," she moans, low and grievous, as she takes in the hundreds of dead bodies strewn about the hospital's front lawn.
As the stench of death carries on the breeze, the sun shines on overhead.