It was a bit difficult for the truck to drive over all those corpses. Before trying to enter the hospital they drove around the entire building, shooting out windows and causing zombies to fall to their doom. Once back at the front they got into position, the truck was turned off again. Clearing the area of zombies was easily the most tedious part of the mission, but now began the most dangerous part.
Cameron laid out the schematics on the floor. "Just because we killed a fuck load of zombies doesn't guarantee that the ground floor of the hospital is clear. Both machineguns are to be pointed at the main entrance. I want five people with me to split into three pairs and slowly advance through the floor. Any takers?" Some hands went up, Cameron chose his people, and then threw a couple of rope ladders over the edge.
Before disembarking the six of them stocked up on ammo and screwed on silencers, then climbed down the ladder. For the first time in four days their feet landed on solid ground (actually it was a thick layer of rotting zombie corpses). They raised their rifles and slowly entered the hospital.
"Remember," Cameron whispered, switching on the flashlight taped under his rifle, "if you see a large group and can't finish them off quickly, call it in and high tail it back to the truck."
Natasha and Louie went right, while the rest maneuvered left. Cameron and Nick took a right down the first hallway they came across, and Andrea and Donald kept going straight.
Cameron and Nick checked behind every door, looked under ever counter, and scoured each hallway carefully. It was a hospital for Christ's sake. When the infection hit it was places like the one they were in that people came to hoping for help—only there was no help to be found, no cure. It was simply a death trap.
In every closed office the ground floor had there was always a zombie or a dead body. The hallways for the most part were virtually clear of zombies. Cameron figured that the zombies that had been wondering the hallways were drawn out by the noises coming from outside, or played follow the leader.
When they reached one door they were shocked to find one conference room that was stuffed with zombies. Looking through the glass door they witnessed the preserved zombies bashing against the walls and doors as soon as they caught sight of them. It looked like being spared from the elements had kept the things more or less in tact.
Cameron wiped his mouth nervously. "Have any ideas?" he asked Nick.
"Yeah," he said, though somewhat uncertainly. "I think I do." Nick led him back down the way they came. As they went Nick hugged the wall opposite to the room while still keeping an eye on it. Once he reached a certain point he stopped.
"So now what?"
"Flash the light as best you can on the door."
"Okay." Cameron pointed his rifle and flashed the light to the bit of the door he could still see. "What do we do now?"
Nick exhaled, and aimed his rifle. "Pray." He then unloaded a few rounds that blew off the doorknob, allowing the zombies inside the room to spill out. Before the things had the chance to regain their composure, Cameron and Nick began picking them off.
The horde noticed them and immediately began stampeding in their direction. All Cameron and Nick could do was walk back wards while continuing to put fire on the zombies coming at them. One ended up breaking through and getting way too close for comfort, so Cameron was forced to swing the butt of his rifle around to floor it. Stomping on its neck, Cameron aimed forward again to continue firing until the last one standing went down with a headshot.
Sighing, Cameron looked down at the monster that he was standing on as it tried to stand and claw upwards. He jammed the barrel of the rifle into the thing's eye and splattered its brains all over the floor.
"Probably not the best idea," Cameron commented.
"Yeah," Nick agreed. They continued onwards without saying another word.
As they traversed the halls slowly they noticed a sign pointing towards the cafeteria. Oh shit, he immediately thought. It must've shown on his face because Nick nodded in agreement. Nonetheless they quietly made their way there. The closer they got the more apparent the moaning became.
Keeping the backs to the wall, they peeked through the double doors and Cameron almost shit himself. There must have been over a hundred zombies were in there stumbling around and moaning, hungry for flesh. The things were so far inside the building that the four days worth of shooting went unnoticed to them.
Cameron bullied his brain to get past the fear and think. Think, dammit, think!
And a thought came to him. There was no possible way that he and Nick alone could kill all those zombies. He had to lead the things outside for another turkey shoot…. And there was only one surefire way that he could get the walking dead to follow him outside.
He tapped Nick's shoulder and gestured that they go back the way they came. Once they were far enough from the zombies, Cameron removed the flashlight from the rifle, and handed the gun to Nick.
"What's going on?" he asked cautiously, slinging the rifle over his shoulder.
"This will only slow me down," Cameron answered, putting the radio to his mouth. "Status report."
"So far so good," Louie responded.
"Same," said Andrea's voice.
"Okay, I want everybody to fall back to the truck for now. Report in when you do."
"Why?" Louie asked. "Did you run into a shit load of them?"
"Just do as I said." He cut the transmission, and said to Nick, "You go back too."
"What're you planning to do, Cameron?" Nick demanded.
"I'm gonna be the bait and lead the things outside."
Nick was left speechless for a second. "You—you're a fucking idiot!" he exclaimed, causing Cameron to urgently shush him.
"Go back to the truck, Nick. That's an order."
"No I'm not."
Without hesitating, Cameron pulled out the pistol from his belt and jammed it into Nick's chest—but just like with Celia, the safety was kept on. "You ever watch zombie movies before the outbreak?" he asked seriously.
Nick was startled and confused, so Cameron pressed the gun into him to scare an answer out of him. "Ye—yes, I've seen a few."
"In any of them were there some people that went on a fool's errand only to have one or two of them mauled by zombies?" Nick's response was a nod. "Well the odds of that happening now will decrease if it's only one person—and that's obviously me."
"Be reasonable!" Nick begged him. "Are you some sort of glutton for punishment?"
"I'll be fine," Cameron assured him, removing the run and pushing him. "I'll have a head start. Tell the others to be ready to pull me up as soon as I reach the rope ladder."
"You're being a shit head," he said to him as he turned to leave.
"Yeah, well, we can't get anything done until this hospital is clear," Cameron retorted. He began walking back towards the cafeteria, limbering up as he went.
Yeah he was a shit head, he agreed. It was stupid of him to not use protection back when he did it with Marge, stupid of him to have been ready to rush off to Madison in a Hummer, stupid of him to lead thirteen people to the city, and what he was about to do was just as stupid. But hell, luck's been on his side so far. Might as well try to push it.
Louie and Andrea both reported that their teams made it back to the truck.
As he approached the cafeteria again, Cameron slowed his pace as his heart started beating rapidly, pumping adrenaline into his system. He squatted next to the double doors to compose himself, stood up, and exposed himself to the zombies in the large room. They didn't notice at first until Cameron shined his flashlight on them, and blew the brains out of the closest ones with his pistol.
The monsters all let out a carnivorous roar that echoed through the halls, charged forward, and Cameron turned tail to get the hell out of there.
Before Cameron turned a corner he took a quick look back, and was shocked. The goddamn things were congested at the double doors as they all pushed to get through at once.
"Come on, you assholes!" Cameron shouted at the top of his lungs, raising the pistol to shoot the ones that were getting through. "I'm right here! Come and get me!"
That did it. Like a dam bursting, they all managed to burst through and ran at Cameron. Not holding back, Cameron sprinted at full speed. He could hear the pounding footsteps and the growling behind him getting closer and closer.
Cameron made a left down a hall that would take him back to the truck. He went only part way before coming to a stop and looked back to see the zombies come into view. Once they did a few kept on going straight, so to get their attention Cameron once again raised his pistol to use up remaining rounds. Seeing that he had their attention again, he sprinted once more. Light from the outside appeared down the hall, when all of a sudden he tripped on something!
Some of the wind was knocked out of him, and shook his head before looking to see what he tripped over. It turned out to be the corpses of the zombies he and Nick had killed earlier. Shit! The zombies giving him chase were gaining fast. He wasted no time in going back to a full sprint. Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!
Cameron managed to reach the main entrance, and right there was the truck with everyone coaxing him to run faster. But the zombies were right behind him. Reaching the truck, he grabbed the rope ladder as he tried climbing while at the same time he was being pulled up. It was no use, though. The zombies were too close.
It turned out that somebody up there loved him. No sooner did Cameron think he was done for, than the two machineguns came to life and mowed down the zombies to cease their advance. He was quickly pulled up, and Cameron scrambled over the fence and collapsed on the roof breathing hard. As soon as he was safe, the rest raised their rifles to being clearing out the fresh wave of zombies.
A little while later, after the zombies were cleared, Cameron stood and thanked all of them. Then Walsh came up and punched Cameron square in the jaw, knocking him to the floor again.
"Sorry about that," he said, rubbing his knuckles. "But Marge made me swear that if you did anything stupid and lived that I'd punch you."
"I would've at least appreciated a little warning," Cameron groaned, standing again and moving his jaw around to make sure all was in place. As he got his rifle back from Nick, he said, "Sorry about earlier."
"Don't worry about it," he said with exasperation.
"No way the ground floor was cleared just by that," Cameron said to all of them, going back to business. "C'mon let's get back to it." He, Nick, Donald, Andrea, Louie, and Natasha all climbed back down to resume their zombie extermination.