Chapter 7: Power source!

Several hours later Quinn was doing normal rounds to make sure all his patients were doing okay, unfortunately he'd found three who had died without him even noticing. Of course the thought of their deaths made him sad but at least they had escaped all this madness.

He'd have to wait 2 days to find out whether New York was safe. He hoped to God it was. Even though they were split up Quinn still loved her and he hoped she was fine. Of course in 2 days time he would know whether the plague of undead had been halted or not.

Until then his patients were to take priority. He was just going through the charts of one of his coma patients, he'd been in it about two months now and there was no sign of him coming out of it, when the over head light began to flicker. Quinn looked up at it confused.

The power was virtually off on the bottom floor only the flashing red lights remained, fortunately these lights hadn't attracted any of the undead as none of them where gathered outside the most that had happened in the last hour was a group of about twenty had run past chasing a car.

Then suddenly the lights went out and Quinn was left in complete darkness and judging by some of the shouts and screams the whole hospital was out. Quinn took the torch from his coat pocket that he used to inspect mouths and turned it on. The little beam gave him enough light to see by but not much. The shutters being down on all floors except the top meant that the whole building other than the top and that was the managers office was in complete darkness.

Quinn heard footsteps from the hall and saw a large beam of light. He went to investigate and saw Phillip standing in the hall his torch attached to his shotgun.

"What's happening?" Quinn asked, he'd left Phillip and the others watching the TV.

"We think the local power station has been shut down." Phillip said.

"How?"

"We've no idea but the local news station was telling all survivors to head their as there was some sort of temporary military base there." Phillip replied

"So that must mean either they've shut down the power supply for essential reasons or something like that, or the base has been over run?" Quinn asked more to himself than Phillip.

"Yup I'd I could give a good guess as to which of those it is" Phillip said.

Quinn then suddenly realized the amount of patients who were on life support and needed the electricity.

"Oh Jesus we need power the patients need power!" Quinn exclaimed.

"What?"

"The patients need power for their life support systems"

"Oh crap!"

"We need to activate the emergency generator" Quinn said.

"Where is it?" Phillip asked, obviously he shared Quinn's concern for the patients.

"It's in the basement, I'm not sure exactly where it is but Steven should know."

"Come on then" Phillip said taking the lead back to the Quinn's office.

They ran down several corridors and twisted and turned up staircases to reach the office.

They reached the office to see the group huddled around several torches.

"Steven, we need to turn the generator on," Quinn said gasping for breath.

"Okay, What's the rush?" Steven asked standing up.

"No time just hurry" Quinn said ushering him out of the office.

Steven led them down to the ground floor, which was in complete darkness except for their torches.

They were running past the reception desk when Quinn tripped and fell to the floor dropping his torch, which flew out before him and shattered against the wall.

Steven stopped and pulled him up. It was then Quinn saw what he'd tripped on. It was a body of one of the zombies that had chased the police officers in. To be more precise it was a body, there was no sign of the other two.

"Shit" Quinn exclaimed he noticed the disappearance straight away.

"What?" Steven asked not even noticing the lack of two bodies even though it was in his torchlight.

"The bodies look, two of them have disappeared" Quinn said pointing at the single corpse.

"Dam it," Steven said cocking his shotgun, Quinn drew his revolver, he'd left his shotgun in his office as he left to do rounds.

Phillip who had just turned around and began helping Quinn noticed the single body straight away.

"Oh for Christ sake this is all we need" Phillip gasped. "Okay, Steven your ex-military you take point and advance to the generator, Me and Quinn will stay just behind you and watch the doors." he ordered taking a hold of the situation quickly, "Quinn here you go" he said handing Quinn a huge torch one of the ones that was used as a baton as well. "You've seen the movies where they advance through house, the way they stand I mean? The torch hand supporting the gun hand?"

Quinn nodded.

"Well take that stance the movies actually got one thing right." Phillip said giving a hearty slap on the shoulder.

Steven then began to stalk down the corridor past the reception his shotgun raised and pointing at any possible way the zombies could emerge from. Phillip was taking the rear and making sure none of them could jump out from behind them. Quinn was sandwiched in between them his gun raised and huge torch pointing at the doors he passed.

Then eventually Steven halted and paused in front of a metal door that read HOSPITAL STAFF ONLY.

"This shouldn't be open." Steven said as he looked at the door, the door was in fact open but only partly.

"Well we know that they've been down their at some point." Quinn uttered.

"Let's go we can't waste any time," Phillip reminded them. "I'll hold here you two get down there and turn that bloody thing on" he said getting into a crouched defensive position.

Steven flung the door open and headed down the stairs on the other side. Quinn followed him his gun raised to the ceiling to make sure he wouldn't trip and fire a bullet in the back of Steven.

Steven reached the bottom of the stairs to a door that had the symbol of electricity on it and a warning sign. This door was also partly open. Steven flung the door open pointed his shotgun round the room. Quinn followed suit. The whole room was deserted apart from the generator and various pots of things on selves. Steven set his shotgun down and began work on the generator. Quinn began to inspect the room. There was no way one of the zombies was still in there the room was tiny it was solid concrete and the generator lay in the center opposite the door where they had entered there was another big metal door.

"Where's this led?" Quinn said looking at it.

"The car park for the ambulances" Steven said not looking up from the generator.

Quinn put his hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly. His eyes were greeted with the site of the car park with three ambulances and a couple of cars still in it. However this wasn't the only thing in the car park. A few zombies were also stumbling around not many but still enough to make any one think twice of moving through it. Quinn managed to count eight before fear got the better of him and he shut the door.

"We may have a problem." Quinn whispered.

"Oh?" Steven said raising his hand signaling Quinn to be quiet then suddenly the generator kicked in and the room hummed and the whole room was filled with light.

"What's that then?" he said looking away from the generator and collecting his shotgun.

"There's zombies in the car park." Quinn uttered.
"Well we can't do anything about that now. Come on we've got two in the hospital to deal with-" Then there was the crack of Phillip's shotgun "One then" Steven said smiling at him. The pair then rushed back up the stairs to the ground floor which was no longer filled with red lights but was back to it's normal state of yellow light.

Phillip was standing over one the bodies of the zombie looking around for the last one.

"Good shot," Steven said slapping him on the shoulder.

"Thanks but there's still one left, I reckon he's still on this floor." Phillip said looking around "I think we should split up, It doesn't look like they have the intelligence to sneak up on us, this one ran at me down the whole corridor."

"Sure suits me," Quinn said handing the torch back to Phillip.

"Right Okay I'll take this corridor. Steven you take the other and Quinn I suggest you check the first floor just encase"

Steven and Quinn nodded and set off to their assigned area.

Quinn moved quickly but cautiously to the stairs to the first floor. He went up them keeping his gun raised. Then he entered the first wing of the first floor.

The silence was eerie as he entered. He couldn't even hear the machine noise that he was used to or the normal chatter of the nurses and patients, which he'd grown to love. Then suddenly from the bottom of the corridor there was the sound of something metal crashing to the floor. Quinn advanced a foot at a time keeping his gun trained on the corridor. He walked past the first patients room and glanced in. The sight was horrific the patient had been mauled to death his face and throat had been ripped to pieces there was no way he could have defended himself, he was a cancer patient and was close to death.

Quinn grimaced but carried on. He past another room that looked no better.

Then the third room he could here movement and a disgusting ripping sound. The sound of flesh being parted from the bones. Quinn kicked the door and stormed in he saw the zombie bent over one of the beds feasting on the patient. The patient was still alive and he noticed Quinn first and managed to mouth "Help" before his eyes went blank and he died.

"HEY ASS HOLE" Quinn shouted. The zombie turned letting out a low growl. Quinn's pistol was already raised and he pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the zombie's head and he flew backwards over the bed dead. Quinn sighed, in his rush to save the patients he'd en fact condemned them, but at least he'd done something. The other doctors and nurses had fled the hospital after they realized what was happening.

There were now no patients left in the hospital to look after. Quinn hadn't checked them all yet but they had all died in the lack of power by the time the power was back up it was too late. Quinn then set about making sure the patients who had been killed by the zombie weren't going to become zombies themselves