The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 2, The Aftermath (31 page)

All activity came to a sudden stop when they heard the first
set of bodies slamming into the outer glass doors. Garrett was sure that he could even feel the impact vibrating through the floor. Being mindful to not let himself be seen, Garrett peeked around the door of the examination room and watched as a wall of zombies piled up against the outer doors. Hands and heads were banging relentlessly against the glass with such force that the frame holding the doors was visibly vibrating in its mounts. Garrett kept watching for several minutes until he was confident that the doors were not about to suddenly explode inward and unleash the mass of dead flesh they were holding at bay.

"Garrett!
” Cameron cried out from behind him.

Garrett stepped back into the room and found the teenager and Shellie both clambering around Kyle's side pressing gauze and bandages against
him where his freshly opened wounds were quickly turning the gurney and floor around it slick with blood.

"Shit. What the hell happened to him?
” Garrett asked as he took over for Cameron and pressed a fistful of fresh gauze into the man's side.

"It just started to bleed again when we were running through the park." Cameron replied. "He could barely stand on his own by the time I got him on the bed."

Garrett looked at Kyle's face and saw that his skin had turned deathly pale and the big man's eyes were rolling back in his head as he fought against unconsciousness. Something inside of Kyle must have torn open during their run through the park. The dark color of the blood pouring out of him indicated its source was internal and the amount it meant that he was quickly running out of time. Looking towards the gurney on the far side of the room, Garrett saw Doug crouching over his wife, their foreheads were touching and both of their mouths were moving in a soft prayer they repeated to one another. As much as Garrett hated to intrude on such a personal moment between the husband and wife, they just didn't have time for it.

"Doug." Garrett called gently while still maintaining a respectable distance from the couple, "Kyle's getting worse by the minute."

Doug didn't take his eyes from Emily but she did raise her voice slightly as she told him to leave her and go help Kyle. As she spoke the words she lifted one of her blood soaked hands and pressed it to his cheek while she lifted her head slight and pressed her lips to his. Doug pulled himself free from Emily and rushed over to Kyle's side where he ran through a hasty examination. Barking instructions like a true emergency room doctor, Doug directed Shellie and Cameron to various tools and pieces of equipment throughout the room to help him measure Kyle's vital signs and stabilize him.

Stepping away from Kyle, Doug called Garrett and Miranda over to a corner of the room for a conference.

"If I don't get in there in the next hour and stop that bleeding he's finished." Doug said with an authority that neither Miranda nor Garrett thought he was capable of, "The surgical suite is in the next wing and one floor up from us. The hospital is still on emergency generator power, so I should have enough juice to power the equipment I need." Doug said as he pointed out the overhead lights. None of them had even noticed that every third light over their heads was still glowing brightly. Utility services throughout the area had failed in the last couple of days and it should have been something they noticed upon entering the hospital but with their injured and the wall of zombies pressing against the doors behind them their attention had been focused elsewhere.

Doug continued, "Garrett, do what you have to do to get us a clear path up to the surgical suite. The elevator
at the back of the ER is serviced by the emergency generators. If it wasn't damaged in the fire, we need to use it instead of risking more damage trying to get him up the stairs."

Garrett made sure that everyone was positioned to help protect their wounded while Miranda and
he took off to check out the path their route to the elevator and the operating room a floor above them. After leaving the physical therapy wing they quickly determined that the hospital had gone into a lock down at some point after things started falling apart. Doors leading into every room had shut tight when a system designed to help prevent the spread of fire had been activated. The main corridors were segregated every hundred feet by sets of sturdy sliding doors that had shot out from recessed points in the walls. Working together they were able to slide those doors open enough for them to continue moving forward. Behind the doors of many rooms they passed they could hear indications of zombies trapped inside. When the lock down had commenced any zombies left in the main corridors must have found their way out of the building through the fire exits along the way. Those doors all had either panic handles that would allow them to be pushed open from the inside or still had power to the electric sensors that opened them whenever something passed in front of an invisible laser beam running across the floor. Once outside with the doors shut there was no way for the zombies to have come back inside through those same doors.

The service elevator behind the charred remains of the emergency room was right where Doug had told them it would be and was intact and still drawing enough power to operate correctly. Garrett and Miranda rode the elevator
to the second floor and made a quick check of the route they would need to take to the operating room. While Garrett searched an operating room that looked as though it had all the equipment Doug had asked him to look for, Miranda checked the last few rooms at the end of the hallway near the double doors blocking off the rest of that wing.

Stepping back into the hallway, Miranda noticed several bullet holes rippled across the security doors in the middle of the hall. Looking into one of the holes from several feet away she saw a blur of motion somewhere on the other side of the door. She walked up closer to the door and pressed her eye against the bullet hole. Stifling a gasp she stepped back from the door a second later. The hallway beyond th
at set of doors was clogged with undead. She couldn't get a count of all of them but from that brief look she was sure there must be fifty or more of them just a few feet away. They did not seem aware of their presence yet, but that wouldn't last for long. It was just a matter of time before at least one zombie in that wing caught a whiff of them and sounded the alarm to the others. Miranda eased back down the hall to the operating room where she found Garrett still searching for one last piece of equipment Doug had instructed him to be on the lookout for.

Standing in the frame of the door, Garrett stared at the security doors as Miranda told him about what
lay just beyond them, "Those doors are sturdy enough. But I don't see them holding back that many bodies for long." He mused as he saw something pass in front of the light through a bullet hole. "We don't have any choice though. If we don't get Kyle up here for surgery, he's done."

Garrett and Miranda rode the elevator back down to the first floor and Miranda stayed at the elevator while Garrett went ahead to gather everyone else and bring them along. With zombies still pressing against the outer doors of the therapy wing, it was decided to keep everyone together instead of splitting up while Doug was performing the surgery. Kyle and Emily
were situated on wheeled gurneys and pushed down the hall towards the service elevators. Both gurneys almost completely filled the elevator and only Miranda and Doug were able to ride along with them to the second floor.

While waiting for the elevator to, Garrett detected a sound from outside in the
waning storm. Straining his ears he concentrated on the noise while motioning for everyone else to be quiet.

"Planes." Cameron stuttered, "Jet planes!"

"There back." Garrett exclaimed, "It must be another recon flight, like the one we saw back in the park."

Garrett and Cameron moved to the end of a short recessed hallway where there were a bank of vending machines and a small sitting area with windows on three sides. Scanning the skies all around them it was Shellie who called out from behind them the first sighting of the aircraft.

"It's just flying in circles." Shellie mused as she tracked the plane with her finger. "Maybe they are looking for us."

Garrett followed her eyes until he caught sight of a plane as it moved out from a thick rain cloud.  He could hear both jets but there was something different
with the sounds this time. When they had overflown the park the noise from the planes had been steady in pitch, growing in intensity as they neared and then fading all at once as they grew further away. In that instance it had been almost impossible to tell by sound alone that there had been more than one plane. He could now easily make out two distinct jet engine sounds. While he didn't know a great deal about planes, it didn't take an aeronautical genius to recognize that one of them did not sound right. There was a distinct straining sound coming from a plane that he was still unable to see inside the lowest level of clouds. He thought that one of the planes might be suffering engine problems while the one circling in and out of the clouds was keeping station nearby while his wingman nursed their plane along. The planes were on the far edge of town and moving towards them but making slow progress.

"Look, that ones in trouble." Cameron called out as he spotted the second plane
when it dropped suddenly from the clouds trailing a stream of dark smoke behind it.

The plane was
flying straight but with a slight nose down orientation. It was cruising at such a slow speed for a jet fighter that it must have been risking a stall. Even from a distance Garrett thought something else looked odd about that aircraft. He had seen F-18's before and was familiar with the shape and sleek lines that made them look deadly even when not in motion. There was an oddity about the shape of this particular fighter that he couldn't place for several seconds.

"The canopy has been blown." He exclaimed as soon as the realization hit him, "that pilot must have ejected."

The second plane came into view above and behind its stricken wingman. This plane was flying in a slow deliberate circle, spiraling downward from inside the lowest level of cloud cover. Garrett concentrated on the space in between where the jet was circling; he thought he understood what that pilot was looking for. His hunch was proven correct when a blossoming parachute canopy dipped from the clouds and into view. They could all see the tiny black shape dangling several feet underneath the parachute as it slowly drifted on the wind all the while dropping steadily towards the ground. The circling jet completed one last circuit and then pulled back up into the clouds. The sound of its engines increasing thrust told them that it was quickly leaving the area.

"He must have been waiting to make sure the other pilots chute deployed. Probably heading for home to organize a search and rescue effort." Garrett mused.

They watched the parachute as it drifted closer to the edge of a commercial part of town. In a few moments it disappeared from sight just behind a row of office buildings not more than a mile away from them.

Shellie was the first to speak, "
We have to do something. That pilot might still be alive. If they send a rescue party for him we might all be saved."

That was exactly the thought that Garrett had been considering. That downed pilot might very well be their ticket out of there. The survival kits those pilots carried included distress beacons and radios for contacting rescue missions.
There was another reason why he considered it important to reach that pilot as soon as possible. The odds were good that the pilot had just dropped down into a very hostile situation. While they may have gone through training on escape and evasion at some point, Garrett doubted if that pilot was prepared for the environment he was about to be facing. They needed to get to him as quickly as possible if he was to have any kind of chance at survival.

"Cameron, you and Kimberly ride the elevator back up to the second floor. Let the others know that I am taking Shellie to find that pilot and bring him back here." Garre
tt said as he looked to Shellie. Without even a blink of reservation the woman nodded her head in approval. He would have preferred to go it alone, being able to move faster and putting no one else in danger. But, there was a possibility that pilot was injured and carrying him back to the hospital by himself was not an attractive option. Shellie had already demonstrated her usefulness with firearms and Garrett trusted her to watch his back out there in the open.

Knowing that they would not be able to exit the hospital back through the rehab wing where they had entered, Garrett led the way towards the burnt
remains of the emergency room. Pushing open the last set of security doors, they came into the charred hallway leading to the ER where they found a section of wall collapsed, giving them a handy exit along the side of the hospital. Rushing from the building in short dashes from cover to cover, Garrett led them to the sidewalk along the main street that ran parallel to the building. They dropped down between two cars and took a couple moments to get their bearings and ensure they had made a clean escape from the hospital without picking up any followers.

#

Ltjg. Olivia "Huntress" Frostburg couldn't remember another time in her life when she had been so terrified. Their patrol through the storm was a first for her and it was something she knew she had to face and conquer before she was truly accepted as a naval aviator by her peers. Despite the advances all branches of the armed forces had made in integrating the sexes into their ranks, flying was still an exclusive boys club where she constantly felt like an unwanted outsider. At 28 years old she was entering her sixth year of military service and during that time she had found that it was still a woman's looks that opened more doors than their actual abilities. When she pinned on her flight wings she swore to herself that she would overcome that obstacle and make it a point to prove her worth through actions and deeds instead of on her back like other female's she knew. She had quickly put her foot down in all matters of sexual harassment or suggestions from her fellow pilots, making it clear from day one that she was all business. Crusher had taken her under his wing and had helped shield her from some of the immature antics of the others in their squadron. She admired Crusher, he was a strong leader who had been on the fast track to squadron commander when the world fell apart. He expected the best from everyone he flew with and did not play any favorites. Male or female, if you were on his wing, the standards were the same and that was just how she liked it. It was Crusher who she was most worried about disappointing now. When they had hit the edge of the storm and she had felt the buffeting of her plane reaching a point where she was worried she might lose control. She had contemplated contacting him and requesting a postponement of this flight. She had dismissed the notion after reviewing the ramifications of such a request. While it would easily fall under a common sense call for safety reasons. Calling off a mission for any reason was something that no one ever forgot. In this case she would be seen as not having what it took when the going got tough and her chances of ever being assigned another high risk mission would be reduced to zero. She would probably find herself pushed down the ranks to flying resupply and transport missions, nothing more than a glorified taxi driver. That would mean the end of her career; her promotions would come but only at the absolute fringes of when they were due. Over a twenty year career she would never see combat operations and would eventually retire with a record that was about as dull and unimpressive as one could get. She rationalized that it was just a single mission and she knew that the only danger would be that coming from the storm. There would be no ground fire or hostile aircraft she needed to worry about. She had no concerns about putting ordnance on a specific target or providing cover for a bombing mission. This was going to simply be a test of her most basic flying skills and she wasn't going to let it end up being the one black spot to a promising career.