Assuming Room Temperature (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 3) (18 page)

“That’s kind of what I’m worried about.”

“Yeah,
that
could happen.” She laughed. “You’re nice enough for an old guy, I suppose. And a dork. But I’m not into the geriatric thing.”

That offended him a bit. He wasn’t old by any stretch of the imagination, even if some mornings he felt about eighty. He was only approaching thirty for God’s sake. Jake was tempted (but only for a second) to ask if she’d like to find out what someone with experience—as opposed to only youth—could do, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Beatrix had some attributes that would make any red-blooded man howl at the moon, but he was still relieved when she grabbed her carbine and rolled off him.

He wasn’t ready to even think about being intimate with a woman again yet anyway. The wound left on him by Laurel’s death was still so raw it hurt when he breathed.

Shit. I already had a wardrobe malfunction today too.
He groaned and reached for his weapon.

Bee offered him a hand up and, ego smarting, Jake pointedly ignored the gesture. He bounced to his feet with a kip like Steven Tyler used to do on stage during a concert, and smirked. “Geriatric, huh?”

“Okay. My bad,” she held up one hand, “I forgot about that silver fox guy. The one who was like sixty-five or so that tried out for
Ninja Warrior?
He was in damn good shape for his age too, so I’ll admit—”

“Never-mind. Come on.” He turned and stalked towards the third story window. He just knew some conversations wouldn’t go anywhere good. “Let’s go find Mr. Hanky up there before anything
else
happens and ‘le merde frappe le ventilateur’.”

Ponytails bobbing as she jogged along, Bee said “I don’t speak Spanish.”

Jake winced as the headache behind his left eyeball once again began to throb.

* * *

Upon breaking a third floor window next to the canopy and entering the hospital proper,—as Jake had guessed—they found a total absence of undead presence inside.

Their rifle’s tactical lights illuminated a pronounced lack of clutter within too, which neither of them could understand. Until they checked one of the darkened stairwells that is. Anything and everything that wasn’t bolted down: end tables, treatment carts, waiting room chairs and loveseats, hospital beds, large anesthesia machines, huge containers filled with steel surgical instruments, even heavy cases of “adult pull-ups” had been used to completely fill the landing up to the second floor. With all of that stuffed together like a gigantic Jenga puzzle—combined with the steel security doors at ground level, there was no possible way anything living or dead could gain entry to the upper floors.

Bee whistled, carefully keeping the muzzle of her rifle pointed safely away from O’Connor as he tried to peer down into the mess. “Whoa. That would’ve taken a while.”

“It’s been nearly four months since the zombies rose,” Jake reminded her with a shrug. “I’m sure there wasn’t much else for the guy to do. And his life would’ve depended on keeping them from getting through the doors, so...”

“Good point,” she admitted.

They began climbing towards the fifth level, still leery of the door at each landing and moving quietly, but there didn’t seem to be anything above. No moans, no shuffling footsteps, no stench of decay that marked the presence of the dead, it was a nice change. Upon reaching the proper floor, Jake slung his rifle after dousing its light, and pulled his large Hammer pistol. Ensuring the magazine in the heavy repeater held .45 slugs and not 12-gauge cartridges, he flipped off the safety, took a firm grip on the door handle with his left hand, and waited for Bee to squeeze his shoulder to signify she was ready. When her fingers tightened on his deltoid, O’Connor pulled the door open and ghosted into the hallway beyond, moving swiftly to his left. Bee went right, eyes roving downrange and looking for a sight picture as she moved to press her back against the wall.

This was considered textbook “CQB (close quarters battle) dynamic room entry.” Jake had learned the process overseas from a crusty, old SEAL who’d beaten it into his SAS brick over and over and over again, until they could,
Fucking preform the fucking process fucking properly!
as the older man had so eloquently put it. The entry team lined up all on the same side of the door. The second man put his hand on the first man’s shoulder; the third man put his on the second man’s and so on and so on. The last man in the stack readied himself, and then squeezed the shoulder of the one in front of him. Moving up the line, each man gave the one to their front the signal, until the lead man felt the squeeze on
his
shoulder. Then, knowing the team was ready, they entered the room. The first going left, the second right, on down the line, until the entire group was inside (preferably in three seconds or less) and they proceeded to decimate any opponents within.

George Foster used the same technique with great success for years during his time as a domestic and international “problem solver” for the United States military. He’d drilled Jake and his friends relentlessly once they’d decided they needed to flee his Ohio safe-house, and they’d become adept at it quickly for one very simple reason. If they failed the exercise—and fail they did sometimes—they got to do ten more chin-ups. Or fifty more push-ups. Or sit-ups. Or run laps around the inside of the old warrior’s underground motor pool for another half hour.

As politically incorrect as it might be: Pain was a
very
effective motivational tool.

While not there to take part, Beatrix Foster was quite good at sneaking-and-peeking. It seemed that her crass uncle had seen to it she could handle herself in tight situations as well. Jake noticed her gaze kept moving from side to side as they crept smoothly down the hall which would keep Bee from “tunneling,” basically seeing only threats that were directly in front of her. Tunneling was a dangerous and many times fatal habit in combat. Focusing on what was before you and neglecting to watch your surroundings (or your back) was a good way to get dead, really, really fast. Such was not the case with Bee. She kept her gaze moving just as he did, searching for targets.

They reached the first intersection and Jake moved forward, retrieved his mini Mag-light from its pocket on his tac-vest, and “cut the pie”, making sure to crouch low to the ground so he wouldn’t produce a silhouette. Seeing that no bullets came screaming at him—and no ghouls staggered out from the darkness—he clicked the light on and panned it into the gloom. Nada. There were a scraps of paper towels—along with a crap-load of empty Doritos bags, Snickers wrappers, and half-crushed plastic Pepsi bottles—around a nearby trashcan, but otherwise there was no sign of human habitation. That equated to no stink of unwashed bodies or overflowing toilets. The pair moved up to the next junction and the hallway grew slightly brighter. A single door stood open perhaps a third of the way down its length, and sunlight beamed into the hall from room beyond. Slowing to a crawl as they drew nearer the opening, Kat and Bee heard a male voice berating someone.

“…because you don’t possess
any
manners whatsoever. Yes, I’m talking to you. Do you see anyone
else
here? Lord, trying to have an intelligent conversation with you is pointless. It’s like talking with a bloody goldfish. The little thing realizes you’re there, but doesn’t know and doesn’t give a single, little fishy-turd what the sounds coming out of your mouth mean. You might at least
attempt
to pay attention occasionally, you know. Just to break the norm? Fine, act like that then. I’m going to have some lunch.”

A rustling came from inside the room, followed by the sounds of angry footsteps. Jake edged forward he waited beside the entrance, putting himself slightly out of sight and right to deal with it there if source of the footsteps proved dangerous. He readied himself, then his stomach fell when he saw Beatrix step into the middle of the hall and quickly adjust her shirt into a more flattering fit. Basically she just tied the bottom in a knot to show off her bare waist and naval but damn, Jake had to admit it was a nice picture. He tried to wave her back and away, but she merely gave him a long-suffering look and leaned against the far wall in a provocative pose.

That’s when the scruffy fellow they’d seen relieving himself on the dead outside came through the door. He wasn’t a large man, but had a bit of height and stood perhaps only a hair or two shorter than Jake. The light blue scrubs fit his too-slim frame well, but O’Connor wished he could feed the poor guy a few Big-Macs. If he could’ve found a few, that is. In addition to the scrubs, the man wore a set of mismatched shoes—one brown, one black—a pair of glasses that had seen better days (neither of the arms matched the frame), a nurse’s coat with pockets at the bottom hem, and—judging from the amount of beard-growth—hadn’t shaved in a week or three.

“Hi there!” Bee piped in a happy voice, giving him a bright smile.

The whip-thin man turned to gaze at her calmly.

“Oh, it’s happening again. This never gets old.” He shook his head, and removed the eyeglasses to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Please leave me alone, I’m not in the mood. You’re just another hallucination anyway.”

He began rooting through his coat pockets, tossing items into the wastebasket outside the door.

“I’m not, actually.” Bee told him.

The bespectacled man sniffed. “Well, you would say something like that, wouldn’t you? That’s par to course at this point, because I’m cracking up. I have conversations with pretty, young women endowed with really great knockers every other day. Now where the devil did I put those twenty milligram olanzapine...? Ah, here we go.”

Pulling a bottle full of pills from his right coat pocket, the frazzled man popped the top and downed a pair without water.

Bee gave him a worried, sideways look. “Should you be taking it like that?”

“Almost certainly not, but evidently I skipped a dose somewhere which is explains the fact you’re standing there. Why am I still talking to you?” He put his glasses back on and turned to walk away down the hall. “Better yet, why do I feel the need to justify medicating myself
to
myself, in the middle of all this?”

Bee moved up and put a hand on his arm. “Look, you’re not freaking out, okay? I’m actually here. My name’s Beatrix Foster and—”

“Yes, yes. I’m sure you’re very glad to see me since you managed to survive on you own all this time, magically got by the barricades I made to keep those things out, and have an unbelievably over-active sex drive to go with the impressive D-cups,” he assured her tolerantly, “But I’m very tired of waking up thirty seconds after you take your clothes off to learn I’ve violated my sleeping bag. Again.”

She cringed. “Ew! Did
not
need to know that.”

The man shrugged. “Imagine how I feel about it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I—”

“She isn’t just in your head.” Jake so did not want to hear any more about the man’s nocturnal fantasies and stepped into view. “Neither of us are. We’re real people, real survivors.”

Their host blinked repeatedly in surprise. “Oh. I...didn’t realize my tastes ran in that particular direction? I’m flattered to be sure, but, uh…”

Rolling her eyes with exasperation, Bee took her hand from his arm, moved it up to the breast of his dirty nurse’s jacket, and gave him a vicious ‘titty-twister.’

The scruffy man yelped in pain and clutched his chest. “Ow! That hurt!”

“Bee!” Jake got between them before she could go for the slim man’s other nipple. “Sorry about that. Look, what’s your name?”

“Dr. Robert Barker! And why the hell did you do that?” he demanded, still rubbing at his injured nipple. “Jesus, I think I’m bleeding!”

“Don’t be such a baby. I barely got any English on it at all.” Bee smirked.

O’Connor paused to give the cringing man a skeptical look. “Really? Robert Barker?”

“Yes!”

“Damn,” Jake’s brows went up, “Did your parents lose a bet with God or something?”

Barker grinned at him and stopped rubbing his tit. “My, thank you. I’ve never heard
that
before.”

Bee frowned in confusion. “I don’t get it.”

The doctor sighed and waved a hand for Jake to let her in on the big secret. “Robert Barker?
Bob
Barker? You know, like the guy who used to be on
The Price is Right?
”

The young woman’s eyes got
big and she puffed out her cheeks. Bee held her breath until her face reddened, but was forced to turn away in an attempt to cover her laughter with a fit of coughing.

Barker watched her shoulders quake in suppressed mirth and pursed his lips together. “You know, that reaction is really irritating, even after all these years.”

“Sorry. She’s new.” Jake managed to keep an amused smile off his face only with a supreme effort of will. “Now that you’re sure we won’t disappear in a puff of smoke and anti-psychotics, did you want to get the hell out of here?”

“I’ve attempted to do so before, several times. There are just so many of those things outside. I assume they’re everywhere?” When Jake nodded in conformation, Barker sighed. “Blast. Doesn’t that beat all? And here I thought humanity would end up destroying itself with its stockpile of nuclear weapons. I’ll admit, I never considered zombies to be a real End-Of-The-World possibility...”

Jake snorted. “I’m with you there doctor. I don’t think
anyone
saw the maggot-heads coming. If they had, I’m sure the suicide rate would’ve been sky-high beforehand.”

Barker considered that for a moment. “True enough. You said something about fleeing this death-trap?”

“Yep!” Bee finally managed to stop laughing. “Our glorious leader has a plan.”

“I’ve asked you not to call me that.” Jake glowered at her.

His expression didn’t faze Bee at all. “Oh,
I’m
sorry. Our high majesty of messy-headed-hotness and firm-assery here came up with a way bail the hospital—that doesn’t involve being tuned into tartar—before we came in for you.”

O’Connor’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re quite finished? Thank you. We’ve got about seven minutes to collect your things—meaning, whatever you can carry—and get back down to the ER canopy. Our friends used a vehicle to draw the bulk of those things out front off, and there shouldn’t be many to deal with by way of comparison out back by the helipad. There
were
about three dozen near an ambulance at the ER entrance when we made our way inside, so we thinned them out by roughly a third. Twenty or—”