The Real Night of the Living Dead (4 page)

Then he charged at me.

I didn’t give him the satisfaction.

I meant to swing the leg, but he was charging so fast that I didn’t have the time. I held it up and, as he ran toward me, I rammed the wooden leg in his left eye. It entered his head and drove in about five inches. And that was it for him.

He dropped dead. Blood was seeping from the hole, where he had an eye only a few seconds ago, and was forming a puddle on the floor under his head.

We waited a moment, waiting for him to get back up. He didn’t.

But the last few patients to be vaccinated were up. Up and running toward us.

Chapter Five

A few minutes ago, before I helped Melvin fend off the two creatures, I had just saw
Oksenberg’s
eyes roll after being bitten. Then I saw the four moving toward us (some faster than others), and my lips trembled as I stumbled back, not sure of what to do.

The one on the floor, who had bitten
Oksenberg’s
ankle,
was now grabbing on his pants, pulling himself up, wanting
to get more of the doctor’s flesh. The patient who had taken the bite out of his neck was now ripping at the doctor’s clothes, trying to expose his bare skin.

Throughout all of this, the nurse’s screams filled the air. Doctor Haas was still in shock, watching his colleague being butchered before our eyes. Neither of them saw the four coming from behind.

I was trying to spit the words out as I continued moving back. Finally, I said, “Doc…Nurse…Run…”

It was too late.

Two of the four reached the nurse and grabbed her. Poor lady didn’t have a chance. Maybe if me and Doctor Haas helped to pull her away she would’ve made it, but we were cowards. I was up against the wall watching the chaos that these doctors created, and Haas stared as the one who grabbed her put his mouth to hers and came away with her lips and part of her cheek. I could see her jawbone as she screamed, and then the blood running down her neck.

Doctor Haas fell as he tried to run. He picked himself up and ran to the closed door.

The second of the two to reach the nurse tugged at her arm and bit right under her elbow. The nurse’s screams mixed with the gargling of her own blood as the last two of the four reached her and began feasting.

I looked at Haas; his hand wrapped around the door handle. His eyes looked like they wanted to pop out of his head.

“You can’t leave,” I said. “We
gotta
do something. We can’t leave them here.”

“What the hell? Do something?” shouted Doctor Haas. “Do what? They’ve gone insane. We need to call security.”

I turned to my left and saw a line of wooden chairs resting against the tiled walls.

I turned to the nurse. Her screams had died off. The four patients had eaten her nose and most of her face, and now they were working their way down her torso. Her white gown was red with blood, and the patients’ faces were covered in her blood. I could hear the sounds of flesh being chewed and grunts from them as they enjoyed it.

I turned to
Oksenberg
, and he was still screaming as the two patients continued to torture him. I looked back to my right at Haas who now had the door opened. “Grab one of these chairs. We’re going to save the doctor.”

Haas hesitated for a moment, but then he released his hand from the handle and followed me to the chairs. We each grabbed one and ran over to
Oksenberg
.

Haas cried as he swung the chair at the patient who was trying to bite through the doctor’s pants. After three or four good hits, the patient moved away from
Oksenberg
and moved toward Haas. Haas was holding the chair in front of him, using it as a shield against the maniac.

I rushed the man who had ripped off
Oksenberg’s
shirt and was taking bites out of his back. With the legs of the chair facing out, I ran toward him and speared the legs into his face. He flipped back, falling off his bed and landing on the floor.

Oksenberg
dropped to the floor, his back drenched in blood. He grabbed the bed frame, struggling to get to his feet.

I came around the bed and saw the patient trying to get to his feet. I raised the chair up over my head and brought it crashing down to his back. He dropped, but was trying again to get up. I swung the chair back harder and released it. It exploded against his back, and pieces of the chair flew in ten different directions.
 
He dropped again. He was still conscious, but the blows must have injured his spine, because he wasn’t moving his legs.

I watched him as he tried reaching for me from the floor. I stepped back about two feet so that I was just out of his reach.
Oksenberg’s
blood covered his fingers as they stretched out, trying to grab hold of my foot. Wasn’t until our eyes met that I got the chills and had to turn away. For me, their dead eyes haunted me the most.

That’s when I saw Melvin in trouble. I picked up one of the legs from the broken chair and ran to help him.

After taking down the patient at the window, we heard screams and moans. We saw another five patients running toward us. I knew we’d end up dead if we stuck around. I’m sure Melvin felt the same way.

We ran toward the door.

We passed the four who were still feasting on the dead nurse; God rest her soul.

“Help
Oksenberg
,” I shouted to Melvin. Then I ran to Haas who wasn’t fighting the attacking patient, but doing his best to protect
himself
with the wooden chair.

The attacking patient didn’t see me approaching. I came from behind at full speed, leaned forward with my shoulder leading the way, and drove into his back. He was lifted off his feet and flew a couple yards before smacking against the tiled wall.

Doctor Haas wasted no time in fleeing from the room, the chair still in his hands.

I looked to see where Melvin and
Oksenberg
were. I saw the injured doctor, a few feet away from me, crawling toward the door. Melvin was grabbing something off the nurse’s cart and then ran toward me.

I threw my hands under
Oksenberg’s
arms and lifted him up, then dragged him out of the room.

I could hear the screams getting closer. I dropped the doctor in the hallway, turned back and saw Melvin running out now. The screaming patients, with their arms outstretched, were about four feet behind him.

Chapter Six

We shut the door and pressed our bodies against it, waiting for the head-on crash.

It came and our bodies bounced off. But we knew if they made it through then we were done. So we stood our ground. We put all the
might
that we could into keeping that door shut.

There was a small window in the door, about a square foot. My face was right up against it. I looked through and my eyes met with some of these lunatics. They snarled at me, wanting to break through and get their pale hands on us.

I leaned my head away, out of their sight. I was trying not to entice them; hopeful that if they didn’t see anyone through the window they would think we were gone and give up trying to bust out.

My eyes went to Melvin, he was a few inches from my face, and he was covered in sweat. He looked to Haas who was leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath, and shouted, “Bring that goddamn chair over here.”

The doctor, startled by Melvin’s demanding voice, jumped up and brought the chair over. Melvin grabbed it and, as I continued pushing on the door with my hands, he wedged the chair under the handle. “Let go,” he said. “Slow.”

We both stepped back and inspected the door, making sure the chair would hold it shut.
Looked good.
“That should buy us some time,” I said. I turned back and Doctor Haas let out a sigh of relief,
then
sat on the floor.
Me
and Melvin looked up and down either ends of the hallway. Empty. Not a person in sight. We followed Haas and sat on the floor.
Oksenberg
was lying on the floor, his back pressed against the wall. We knew we had to keep moving, but for the moment, we wanted to catch our breath.

“What the hell happened in there?” I said. “Don’t they usually test this stuff on guinea pigs or monkeys before testing it on humans?”

Doctor Haas was silent. He saw the hard gazes that me and Melvin were giving him and knew he had better say something. “Those were the guinea pigs.”

“They’re people,” said Melvin. “You
ain’t
no better than them, doc.”

I looked at the doctor, waiting for his response. He had this look on his face like he was biting his tongue, dying not to give us his opinion of the Philadelphia State Hospital patients. He squinted,
then
his eyes went to his injured colleague. “We must get him to the emergency room.”

“What about the rest of the people in this building? We need to clear this place out.”

“He’s right,” said Melvin.

“Do you realize if you release these patients you are going to be faced with a potential catastrophe? Some of them are very mentally ill, and if you think we have a problem now with whatever it is that happened to the patients in that
room, then wait until you unleash
the patients that I mentioned on this campus.” He stopped for a moment, his eyes moving between me and Melvin,
then
he continued as the banging on the barricaded door began to recede. “We’re surrounded by farmland, for miles around. The day shift is gone until morning. The few remaining guards would not be capable of handling such a problem; a problem that would arise if we begin to evacuate this building, or any building. And it would be some time before police could arrive. For now, we leave them where they are, and we get Doctor
Oksenberg
to the emergency room.”

“Leave me, Scott,” whispered
Oksenberg
. “I won’t make it.” Blood was running down the corner of his mouth. Not a good sign.

I gazed at
Oksenberg
.
Couldn’t take my eyes off him.
Poor guy.
Not too long ago, I thought he was a grade
A
jerk. Now, looking at him, riddled with bites, covered with blood, I felt bad for him.

He began to mumble, “What did we do? Dear God…God…What did we do
?...
” He continued repeating this as Melvin jumped to his feet, a bit more energetic.

Melvin said, “You hear that?” We listened. I didn’t hear a thing. “They stopped banging on the door.” He ran to it and peeked through the window.
“Sweet Jesus.”
He turned to me with wide eyes. “Get a load of this.”

I ran over, put my face
beside
his, peeking through. “It can’t be.”

“What is it?” said Doctor Haas from the floor, sounding curious.

I turned to Haas and said, “It’s not possible.”

“What is not possible?”

I couldn’t believe it myself, even after seeing it with my own eyes. “The nurse…She’s alive.”

The doctor came to the door. He shoved Melvin out of the way, anxious to prove us wrong.

Her white uniform, almost completely covered in blood, had been torn from her body and discarded near the foot of her cart. She was naked now, walking with a bad limp, around the room.

 
They mutilated her to the point where she didn’t appear to be human any longer. She looked like a monster from the creep shows. Her face was gone; there may have been small sections of flesh and tissue still showing, around her temples, but most of what used to be her face was now bone and muscle, covered in blood. Her entire body was covered in bites; the crazy bastards must have eaten off half her body weight. On certain parts of her body I could see bones through the torn flesh and muscle; some of her ribs showed; her calf was gone and her fibula was bare, even appeared as if they licked the blood right from the bone. I was shocked. Unbelievable, I thought. No human would do this to another. Who would be sick enough?