A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed so far. As is usually the case, 'real life' caught up with me since last time I as able to update, but I've been plugging away-slowly but surely-at this and a few other projects. I hope you all enjoy and will stick with it as the story continues!

Chapter Six

I jerked awake, blinking sleep from my eyes and reaching for my gun. I wasn't sure what woke me until I heard the same sound again: an odd, tinny plink. I looked around and saw that I had slumped against a vending machine, and Louis was standing in front of it with a handful of change. As I watched, he leaned forward to put another coin in the slot. It landed with a plink.

"Louis?" I asked, dragging myself to my feet. I stretched, sending a satisfying pop through the room, and then stepped beside him. "What're you doing?"

"I'm dying for some Doritos," he said. "But I'm fifteen cents short. You got any change?"

I looked at him incredulously. "No, I don't have any change. Louis, what the hell?" I pushed him aside and then leaned back, putting my foot through the brittle glass of the vending machine. It splintered on the first kick and shattered on the second. I carefully reached through the ragged edges and retrieved a bag of Doritos, tossing them to Louis.

"Uh, thanks," he said. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"You're too mild-mannered," I said and helped myself to a bag of pretzels. "But go ahead and try it on the cola machine. My ankle is too sore to do that again."

Louis kicked through the front of the machine and then handed me a cola. "Thanks," I said.

Bill, who had been dozing against the cola machine, leaped to his feet. "What the hell are you doing?" he shouted, holstering his handgun. "You scared the bejesus out of me."

"Sorry, Bill. Want a cola?" Louis offered Bill the bottle just as Bill's watch alarm went off. He turned it off and reached out to take the cola. Francis snored on the sofa that we had shoved up against the door until Louis took a bottle of water and poured it over his face. He woke spluttering. "We're getting ready to move."

Francis sat up and rubbed his face with his hands. "You're getting all dirty again," I said with a chuckle. I went to the counters lining the side of the room. There was a microwave so I assumed there would be other kitchen stuff there. In the third drawer I opened I found a dozen or so washcloths of different colors. I picked a couple up and walked back over to Francis, using the wash cloth to dab at his face.

"Ouch," he muttered as I pressed against his left cheek.

"You've got a bruise there, sorry," I said, trying to be more careful. I poured a little more water onto the dishrag and scrubbed vigorously at his forehead, then down his chin. "Oops. One there, too. And in this general area," I said, waving my finger back and forth in front of his face. After a moment, I had done all I could. "There. Aside from the blood coming from your scalp and that shiner, you look almost presentable."

"What about you?"

I hadn't thought of that. Now that he mentioned it, I felt rather grimy. I would've killed for a nice hot shower, but I settled for bottled water. I used a clean wash cloth and scrubbed my face clean; Bill and Louise washed up as best they could, too. We all knew that we couldn't count on getting another chance like this any time soon.

"What do you think?" asked Bill as he lit up another cigarette and took a drag.

"I think we look almost human enough to not be shot on sight," I quipped, shouldering my rifle. "The evacuation is at the roof?"

"Most logical place," said Louis.

"The only place to help while avoiding being infected," said Francis. "If the vampires attack, the pilot can just take off with no trouble."

"Zombies," I sighed.

"What?"

"Forget it," I said, following Bill towards the door. He pulled the bar off and opened it, then stepped into a blood-spattered, turquoise-painted walls. The power was still on at the hospital, though the building seemed deserted—except, of course, for the zombies.

"Try not to disturb them," Bill said as we crept down the hallway, and he pointed to a door. I looked through the small window and saw a group of infected milling about in the hallway. The halls were lit in an eerie green glow.

I shivered. "Stay close," Francis whispered. We made it to the stairwell down the hall before our let's sneak to the top of the hospital and not get in an ambush plan went to hell. A smoker snatched Louis as he drew up the rear, dragging him back the way we came, and his startled shout of alarm drew every zombie in the area rushing towards us.

"Zoey, you-" Bill said, pointing at Louis' thrashing body down the hall, but I was already in motion. "I'm on it," I shouted over the roar of the zombies.

I charged through the crowd of infected, using my hunting rifle as a club. By the time I made it to Louis, the butt of the rifle (or the stock-what did I know about guns?) was covered in gore and so was I. I hammered the smoker's skull in with the rifle and Louis collapsed. I dropped to a knee and we both coughed in the cloud of smoke.

"Don't make me leave your ass behind, Louis," I said, hauling Louis to his feet as more infected poured down the hall we'd just come from. "Get up." I got him to his feet and gave him a shove towards the double-doors. I crossed the threshold a split-second before the zombies arrived there, giving Bill and Francis enough time to slam the doors shut. The slim glass window shattered as a zombie's head broke through.

"Come on," said Francis, shoving the door to the stairwell open. "Up these stairs."

"We won't get far," said Bill, pointing up the stairwell. A mess of beds, wheelchairs, gurneys and tables had blocked the stairwell. "We'll have to find another way around after this floor."

We trekked up the stairs and onto the next floor, emerging into what I thought might have been a lobby before the world went to hell. It was all horizontal stripes muted blues and whites and was stocked with vending machines and furniture that had been used to barricade the doors. There was a gift shop or cafeteria halfway down the wall on the right. There was nothing useful inside, though, so we kept moving.

Against the far wall, a set of wide stairs led up to a balcony walkway. We moved along the railing and through what might have been an administrative or reception area. The file cabinets had been upended and the computer monitor was broken.

"We can get back up the stairs here," said Louis, pointing towards the entry to the stairwell. We entered the stairwell just above the blockade that had stopped our progress below and crept up the stairs until we reached the top. Louis sighed, "Damn, this is as far as we go."

"I'm sick and tired of these goddamn stairs anyway," Bill grumbled and kicked the door open. We walked out into a long green hallway. A sign nearby read: "Elevator" with an arrow pointing to the right.

"Score," said Louis.

As we picked our way down the hallway, with its ugly green paint and depressing art prints, it was all I could do to stop myself from looking in the hospital rooms. The few I looked in were littered with corpses, with blood splattered across the walls and furniture.

"What happened here?" I asked, finding my eyes water. What was it about this hospital that brought the scope of this tragedy to the front of my mind? I felt a warm hand on my bicep and turned to see Francis pulling me to his side for a one-armed embrace. "Sorry," I whispered, brushing my cheeks lightly, embarrassed that I had been the first to go soft.

"People came here for help. They didn't know that they were getting themselves into," he said quietly, shaking his head. "Hindsight is always 20/20, I guess, but if things ever do go back to normal I guess hospitals will change."

"Everything will change," said Bill quietly. "Come on, through here."

We reached a nursing station that must have doubled as some sort of administration center; this was evidenced by a sign on the door to our right as we pushed through wide metal double-doors into the wards. The sign read: Dr. Rachel McAllister, Chief of Staff.

To say that this had been ground zero for the Fairfield infection would have been an understatement. The halls were riddled with corpses and the odd shuffling zombie which were easily dispatched. The rooms were covered in blood, with bodies festering on the beds. Quarantine tape that had once held sterile plastic over the doors lay in pieces or stretched ineffectually across the doorways to empty rooms.

"Ugh," Bill grunted. "I know I should glad they're dead and not trying to eat us, but damn."

I commiserated. The smell of decomposing flesh overwhelmed me, but there was nothing to be done. "Let's just move quickly," I suggested. "The elevator's that way, I think..." I pointed off to the left.

"Good guess," Louis said as we reached the T-intersection. "Is it still powered? Please say yes."

"One way to find out," said Francis. "I'm guessing no, but-" He hit the key, and immediately heard the sounds of machinery. "Holy shit, we're finally catching a break."

"Don't jinx it," I muttered, helping myself to a few clips of ammo from the bed near the elevator. I took the time to reload my pistols.

"Don't jinx it, she says," said Francis, rolling his eyes with a smirk. "What does jinxing it mean, anyway?"

And then we heard it: the blood-chilling scream of the infected in the distance. "That's what it means," I spat, looking around for somewhere to go. But it was too late; by the time we knew the zombies were coming, they were already there, pouring out of the vent right in front of us, streaming in from the doorways and the hallway farther in the distance.

I opened fire with my pistols a split-second after Bill's rifle began spitting, and with all four of us it seemed we were barely making a dent. "Someone throw a molotov!" Bill ordered, and I reached for my belt. I lit the thing and threw it, but at the last second something long and dark wrapped around Bill's foot and dragged him down the hall.

It was too late to stop my throw, and now there was a wall of fire between Louis, Francis and I battling the horde at the elevator, and Bill, who had been dragged into the operating room at the other end of the hall.

"We've gotta help him," Louis shouted over the din.

"We're comin', Bill!" I shouted, ready to action-hero my way over the flames to help the man who had led us this far.

At that moment, the walls on both sides of us crumbled, and dozens of zombies swarmed through. "Guys!" I shouted before being dragged to the floor by a hunter. The noise of the zombies was too loud; I was sure that no one would hear me and they wouldn't get to me before it was too late.