A/N: Here's the second chapter. As always read and review. This chapter should have a little more action in it. I know the first chapter was kind of slow to get going. Also I do not own the movie Dawn of the dead or any of its characters however Tessa, Kyra and McCree are mine.
After the incident down in emerge I couldn't help but feel uneasy for the rest of my shift. I walked down the halls looking into the patient's rooms that I was assigned. Ahead of me down the hall was a large window that faced the city. It was nearly 0530 in the morning and it was still quite dark out. All things considered the rest of the night had been very peaceful with the exception of the attack on Carrie. I wondered if the man who had attacked her was suffering from a psychotic episode or was there something more to his violent attack. It just didn't seem to add up. I dreaded having to go into the room to try and sedate him. A job that had before only required maybe two people now needed four. I walked over to the door and looked in. The man was to be sleeping and a sense of relief washed over me. As I stared at the man my thoughts suddenly drifted to Carrie. Had anyone called her family or fiancé? Had they been able to repair the severe damage done to her arm? I looked away from the man and decided that I would again try and call the surgical unit to see how she was doing. I had one last room to check before I returned to the nurses' station.
I made my way to the final door to look in. I shuddered at the thought of dealing with this final patient. I looked into to see that my patient was up already. He was doing pushups and didn't seem to notice me watching him. Suddenly his head shot up and he stood up quickly. He padded towards the door. As always he gave me his usual thousand yard stare. I felt the tension building in my stomach. I had to deal with prison inmates before, but this one had truly frightened me. He had arrived as a detox patient three weeks earlier. It had been a violent three weeks of hallucinations, screaming and pain. Almost every day had been a fight to keep him calm. It was only this week they had gone down to one guard instead of two. He walked over to the window and leaned on the door so I could see the good side of his face. I could feel his eyes burning into me. I studied his face for a moment. The hidden part of his face had a large burn scar, but by some miracle his eye had remained intact. The undamaged side of his face showed that he was still young. I remember his file saying he was 29, but his eyes carried the look of somebody that had lived two lifetimes. I felt like he was pulling me in, daring me to imagine the horrors he had caused. The realization that this man had been in prison for murder was always in the back of my mind. My hand shakily moved toward the intercom so I could speak with him.
"How are we this morning ?" I asked trying to hide my nervous tone.
"I'm fine no hallucinations or shakes this morning, if that's what you're wondering." His eyes stayed focused on me. I suddenly felt the urge to look anyway.
"Good, I'm glad to hear that. If you need anything let us know." I began to walk away when suddenly I heard the intercom go.
"Hey wait" he said. His voice was gentler now then it was before. He seemed to be wanting to say something but struggled. Finally he spoke again. His demeanor more relaxed. "What's for breakfast?"
"The hospital's version of scrambled eggs, may god help you if you eat them. You're a braver soul then me." I said trying to be respectful but desperately needing something to cut the tension. I let the intercom button go and began to walk away, when suddenly I heard him call out my name this time. I started to feel irritated. I knew inmates liked to play games with nurses, but today was not the day to pull that business with me. I turned back preparing to deal with McCree .
"Hey, where's the fat fuck who was supposed to be watching me. He left at three and hasn't come back." He shot out angrily but with some satisfaction. I looked around realizing for the first time that the guard hadn't been around in quite awhile. I turned back to McCree.
"I'll check to see what's going on." I said trying not to hide the exhaustion in my face and voice. I began to walk away when I heard the intercom go again.
"Tessa," I heard McCree's voice softly say. "Sorry about the language, my apologies." I was surprised at the sincerity in his voice. Normally when he swore at me the guards were present. He seemed to take great pleasure in saying the dirtiest things possible to all the nurses and making them feel on edge. It was almost shocking that he could carry on a conversation without saying something dirty or just plain evil. I walked back over to his door. I gave him a respectful quick nod which he returned and I walked away.
I walked over to the nursing station to see that the rest of the nurses had started on their paper work before shift change. They all looked subdued; many had worried looks on their faces. I stood for a moment wondering who would call in sick tonight. I walked over to sit next to Kyra who yawned and took a quick sip of her tea. I nudged her arm with my elbow.
"Hey, have you heard anything on Carrie yet?" She shook her head and continued to work. I thought about the missing guard. My suspicions were that perhaps the guard had gone down to emerge to get coffee and see if he could work his charms on some of the emerge nurses. I had to laugh at the thought. He had unsuccessfully tried to as he put it "work his magic" on Kyra. However she had shot him down and had given him a lecture on adultery being a sin. She had smacked his left hand and told him that she was not blind and had seen his wedding band. A smile cracked on my face every time he walked by her and couldn't look at her. "What about the guard? McCree said that he left at three to go get coffee." Kyra's head immediately shot up.
"You know what's funny; I did see him punch in the code for the elevator. You know what else is strange. I haven't heard from any other unit in the hospital tonight. I thought with emerge the way it was we were going get a lot of people on our floor tonight. I called the surgical unit an hour ago and no one answered." Kyra picked up the phone and dialed the number to the surgical floor. I could hear it ringing and then going straight to voice mail.
"Why the hell would they not pick up? There's always supposed to be someone at the desk. I think we should call around see if anyone has heard anything. Last night was a real strange night. Kyra you call cardiac, burn unit and peds. I'll take OB, emerge and neuro, something doesn't feel right." It took a good ten minutes but the result was the same. Each floor for whatever reason didn't answer. I sat for a moment looking at Kyra. Each of us seemed to be trying to work out the variables in our head. It wasn't unusual to not see any other nurses from other units on our floor. We were a lock down unit which meant all stairwell doors and elevators were locked not to mention patient's rooms. Plus although most nurses wouldn't admit it, most were afraid to come to our floor. Most of the time the other staff in the hospital were content to just call, but tonight the phone had been dead silent. I decided to at least try neuro one last time.
I could hear the phone ringing when finally someone picked up.
"Hello, who's this?" the nurse on the other end sounded strange as if she had been crying. As she spoke her voice seemed to shake.
"This is Tessa from psych. What's going on? You guys have been quiet all night long, along with every other unit." I said trying to hide my dislike for the neuro nurses.
"Please! I can't talk to loud our they'll hear me." The woman sobbed and her last few words were almost incomprehensible.
"Stop fucking around you guys. We were just wondering if you guys admitted a lot of people tonight. The emerge was standing room only last night." I said half annoyed.
"We did take on a lot of people but something was very wrong!"The woman was openly sobbing now and sniffling.
I turned back to Kyra holding the phone up so all the girls could say something. "Hey, Kyra can you believe this neuro had to take on some patients and actually do some work for a change!" I said in a whinny voice.
"Please listen you don't understand!" The nurse screamed into the phone terror in her voice. "It started with a whole bunch of bite patients. They came up from emerge. The doctors there thought it was some kind of new virus. So they admitted these people to be monitored over night, until they could figure out what to do with them. They just assumed the psychotic episodes were caused by the disease. That's why they didn't send them up to your floor. They believed that it was all biological and not caused by emotional issues. They wanted to rule out all the different viral causes first before considering the mental causes. There were just so many we started sending them up to other floors. Cardiac, the burn unit, oh god we even took some of the child bite victims up to peds. At first they were normal but then they started attacking random people. We restrained a few at first but then it started to get out of hand. It wasn't until Doctor Shamisa went in to check on one of these patients, when things got fucked! He was bent over one old woman and out of the blue she leaned up so fast and bit his neck. He was bleeding everywhere. One of the other nurses tried to go help him but a minute later he began to attack her. I ran out of the room there was blood everywhere." The woman on the other line was in hysterics now. "All of a sudden the bite victims that hadn't been restrained were in the halls. They were attacking people. They gathered around them like a pack of rabid dogs just tearing people apart. They didn't care who they attacked. And the people they attacked. I thought they were dead, most lost so much blood or suffered such severe trauma I thought it was impossible to survive. I thought for sure they had died, but they just got back up and started attacking other people. I've been hiding for two hours. I think those things have just been busy. I can't even believe it now, but I think they were eating the people they killed."
"Wow you ladies on neuro are amazing! That is just one hell of a story. I tip my hat to you ladies for coming up with that in only eight hours. Seriously you expect us to believe that story. At least you answered my question, so you guys did have a busy night." I said not trying to hide my sarcasm.
"Look you stupid fucking bitch! This is not a fucking joke! There are people sick with some sort of a disease that is making them eat other people! I don't know how much more fucking clear I can be." She screamed with everything she was worth at me. Suddenly her tone changed from one of anger to one of pure fear. "Oh god there here! Oh Jesus I don't want to die…."
All that followed was her bone chilling scream. To this day I don't know why I stayed on the line. It seemed like she screamed for hours and the sounds that followed afterwards I can't even describe. It's not like in the movies when the line goes dead. I heard everything the bones being broken, the flesh being torn and the final painful scream. All of it will haunt me till the day I die. I felt Kyra grab the receiver and pull it away from my ear and slam it down. I looked at her and something inside the pit of my stomach made me feel like what I had just heard was all real.
"Kyra that was just weird. I can't even explain it." I said to her trying to figure out whether the girl on the other line was lying or if she was telling the truth. In the corner of my eye I could see that Lori had been watching us. I turned and watched her get up from her seat and walk over.
"Ladies I see its social hour over here. Look I want to go home just as bad as the rest of you, but we still have to get the paper work done before the next shift comes in. So here is what I am going to do. I'm done my work so I will go upstairs and find out about Carrie. Then I will go to the neuro floor and give them shit for distracting you my nurses from their jobs. Finally I will go down to the emerge and find out if we are going to get a lot of people in tonight. If you two ladies had finished your work instead of messing around with the neuro floor, then you two could fuck the dog and get paid for it too. If you will excuse me I'm going to go do nothing but drink coffee for the next forty five minutes."
I turned to look at Kyra and rolled my eyes as Lori walked away. I watched her walk to the elevator where she punched in the code. I turned back to my paper work for a moment, but looked up when the bell chimed as the elevator hit our floor. As I watched I hoped Lori would take her sweet time downstairs. I could see Lori step forward to go into the elevator, but then stop and step back. I noticed McCree's guard step out. At first I assumed he was drunk from the way he moved. It seemed slow and unsteady. Lori stood in her spot frozen for some reason. Then out of nowhere he lunged at her. I could see he bit down into her check ripping away a huge chunk of flesh. I stood up pushing the chair back with some much force it hit the nurses behind me. I reached over and yanked Kyra up. We both stood eyes wide. Lori was screaming but we didn't seem to hear it. Then as her screams got louder more people started coming out of the elevator. I counted at least ten. They swarmed her and began pulling at her. I watched one rip her arm off. I could see many of these people had some sort of ugly trauma to their body. Some had no face. Others seemed to have their internal organs poking out of strange holes in their torsos. Suddenly I felt Kyra pulling me. We began to run down the hall, passing one of the two sets of fire doors that divided up the floor.
"What the fuck was that!" I screeched at Kyra, I could feel myself start to panic.
"I don't think that nurse was lying." I could see that Kyra was shaking as she spoke.
After doing the fastest sprint of my life we finally reached the end of the hallway. I looked out to the window at the end of the hall, seeing that it was slowly getting lighter outside. Something inside me told me to go closer to the window. Slowly I walked and looked out. I could see one of the main roads that went by the hospital along with a glimpse of the parking lot. As I looked below I felt myself stop breathing for a second. I reached over and pulled Kyra so she stood next to me. As we stood there we could not believe what we were seeing. Cars were scattered everywhere on the road. Many had swerved and crashed in an attempt to not hit fleeing pedestrians. I could see a police car being swarmed. Seconds later I watched as the officer pull his gun and try and fire out the window. The things began to try and shove their hands in the small open part of the window. They quickly broke the glass and pulled the officer out. At that point I turned my head knowing I would vomit if I watched. Suddenly I realized that something was very wrong and deep down although I did not want to admit it. I had the distinct feeling the police weren't coming to save us. I looked down the hall and I knew what I had to do. I looked up at Kyra and as if reading my mind she grabbed my arm firmly.
"No, you aren't going to do this. One of the other girls probably already did it." I could feel her grip tighten on my arm.
I pulled my arm away forcefully and looked her dead in the eye. "Kyra, we would have heard the doors pop if they did. If the police or fire isn't coming then all these people are going to die. I have to pop the doors."
"And if you do pop the doors then we have a bunch of mentally unstable people running around on this floor. Who could either A) hurt us or kill us or B) they could go and get torn up by those things." Kyra stood back for a moment crossing her arms defensively as if she were trying to discipline a child.
"Kyra, what if it's like this all over the city? What if the police can't handle this problem? What if the police, fire or even the military never come? Those people will be locked in their rooms starving to death. Do you really want that on your conscious? Because I know that if I die, which from the looks of things could be very soon. I sure as hell don't want to answer for why I left a bunch of people to die locked in hospital. I'm popping the doors!" I turned away and began to run.
I could feel my heart rate increase and my stomach begin to churn as I approached the first set of fire doors. I looked through the first set of small doors to see if any of those things were walking around. So far things were looking good. I pushed open the door slowly and began to make my way down the hall. I looked everywhere trying to stay as alert as possible. I turned the corner finally to go to the front desk. I slowly walked behind the nurses' station. Near the elevators I could see those things were still preoccupied with Lori's body. I felt myself gage as I watched. I turned my attention to the back room where our drugs were kept. I quickly located the key pad to punch in the code for the doors. As I punched in the numbers it occurred to me that the beeping noise from the buttons would alter the strange creatures to my presence. I had just hit the last button and heard the doors pop when one of the things rounded the corner and began to walk into the room. I felt frozen in place as I watched one of the things slowly makes its way into the room. I could feel my heart pounding and tears welling up in my eyes. As it began to reach for me something in me snapped. I looked over to see the nurse on wheels next to me. I quickly grabbed the cart and pushed it into the creature knocking it down. I began to run but as I did it grabbed my leg. I could feel it was trying to pull my foot towards its mouth. I quickly turned and gave a swift kick to its face. It wasn't much but it was enough for it to let go of my foot.
I began to run down the hall. I was sucking in huge amounts of air as I ran. I could feel my longs burning and my eyes beginning to water. As I ran I could see some patients had begun to wander out into the hall. I looked at them and screamed. "Get the fuck off this floor and out of this hospital now, for the love of god. RUN!" I hit the first set of fire doors so hard that I tripped and fell down. I pushed myself back up and ran to the spot I left Kyra. It all felt like a terrible nightmare. As soon as I arrived I realized Kyra was gone. I looked around peaking into patients rooms, just praying I would find her. At this point I could feel the tears rolling down my face. I started to run down the halls again. I could hear the screaming. I wasn't sure if it was the patients or my fellow nurses. I began to cry even harder as images of the horror and pain these people were feeling flooded my mind. I doubled back and went through the fire doors again.
I ran blindly not realizing were I was going or what I would do. As I neared the nurse's desk I didn't look to see that one of the patient's doors was open. Two arms quickly shot out of the room and wrapped around my waist. I felt myself be pulled into the room. The door slammed shut quickly. I looked up to see McCree staring down at me. I started to scream when he quickly covered my mouth with his hand. I felt his forearm push me up against a wall. I could feel McCree pushing up against me. He moved his head close to mine and whispered into my ear. "Stay quiet and stay still or this is going to turn out badly for the both of us."