The ZWD Trilogy (Book 1): Zombie World Dominance [The Destruction Begins] (38 page)

“Wow!
It looks like there is nothing left but ashes. It burned to the ground. You can
see that the large doors fell into the fire. I do not see any zombies
anywhere.”

“Husayn,
I think you are right. I would like to go down to look into the switch house if
we can get that close.”

“Kamal,
if that is what you want to do then we need to go so we can get it done.”

They
walked down the ridge to the burned switch house. They had to walk to the other
side to see in. What they saw was horrible. Allahohnim was the first to speak.

“Everyone,
look through these windows. These windows were, at least, three stories high.
This side did not burn completely to the ground. It is only two meters high.
Looking inside, I can see there is a large pool of something that looks slimy.
The slime looks like it has been scorched by the fire.”

“Thank
you Allahohnim. We need to try to get closer. Some of the wood is still
burning. The building has many hot spots. Be careful you don’t get burned. All
I want to do is get a little closer to see what that slime is.”

“Kamal,
I see a couple of puddles of slime just outside of the wall. See them?”

“Yes,
I do. They are scorched as well. The closer that we get the worse they smell.
These puddles or pools of slime smell like a sewer. Can you see into the slime?
There are bones with clothes in the slime. These were zombies. Now they have
been killed by the fire.”

“If
you squat we can see further into the switch house. The pools of slime are
everywhere. You can see in closer pools of slime there are clothes, shoes, a
skull and other bones in the slime. This smell is awful. I’m going to be sick
it is so bad.”

Kamal
turned away, bending over at his waist he started to throw up.

“Kamal,
I think if we need any more proof that this worked we will need to gather up
some of the pools of slime to take back. I am satisfied that we did what we
did. The proof is all of the puddles of slime inside. We found a way to kill
zombies in large numbers. Now we need to tell the world. I am going to be sick.
We need to get out of here.”

Husayn
bent over as he threw up.

“Husayn,
you are correct. We have killed a lot of zombies by trapping them. We burned
them to death in this trap. We need to get out of here the smell is
overpowering. I am getting sick from the smell. We need to get back to our
house to tell the others. We need to send this out on the radio so everyone
will know what we did.”

They
walked back to their house. They walked through the ashes looking for any
zombies. They did not find any. When they got back, the day watch let them back
in. Kamal stood.

“Everyone
please listen. We were successful with what we set out to do. We killed a large
number of zombies using the fire. We need to get this out on the radio to
anyone who will listen. This single act will not make us safe because we killed
a large number of zombies yesterday. We still need to stay observant as well as
we need to be watchful. I do not want to stop the watches. We still need to
keep searching for supplies. I think this house will help keep us safe. We will
need to do our job. We cannot let our guard down. Today we can celebrate.
Tonight we will eat our dinner. We will stand our watches and tomorrow it will
start all over again. We need to be on guard not only for zombies but for other
people that would want to take what we have from us. What we did today was find
a third thing that is known about the zombies.”

That
night they ate. That night they stood their watch. The next day they stood
their watch. The next day as well as all of the days following they did not
change their routines. They had a safe home to live in. They had killed most if
not all of the zombies in their small town.

Tomorrow
with many tomorrows to follow they would wake up in their new home.

They
would not be running run from the zombies again.

They
honestly believed that they would not have to run again. At least for a long
while.

University Medical
Center

New Orleans

ADZ +9d

Layla
woke up. It had been nine days since Australia Day Zero occurred. As she rubbed
her eyes, she looked around the room, groggy and disoriented, and at first she
did not know where she was. She looked up to see her husband looking down at
her as he held her head on his lap. Then she realized where they were.

“Good
morning, sweetheart. How long have you been awake?”

“Actually,
it’s good
afternoon,
honey. I woke up about two hours ago, but I let you
sleep,” Landon said with a smile. “You were really out of it.” He shifted his
weight and groaned. “We slept for almost 24 hours. We’d better find something
to eat before we go back to work. Do you know where to look? ‘Cause all I know
is I’m broke. I don’t have any money on me. All I’ve got is my money card, and I
heard somebody in the hall saying the vending machines are not taking money cards
any more. I guess that makes sense, since the outside power is out. The
computers at the bank can’t tell the machine whether the card’s got any money
on it or not. If there’s no any other food available, I know a way to open the
vending machines.”

“How
are you going to open the machines?” said Layla. “Do you have a key?”

“You
do
remember I’m a fireman, right? Or at least I was. We can get anything open. The
face of the vending machine’s made out of glass. All I need is to something to
jar the glass.”

“You
mean
break
the glass. You can’t do that. It would be destroying private
property. You could go to jail.”

“The
police department is closed,” he smiled. “There’s no police around to arrest
me. If the hospital isn’t taking any insurance information, they sure as hell
aren’t gonna worry about a broken vending machine. We need to get something to
eat or we won’t be any good to anyone. I’m sure it’s gotten worse since
yesterday.”

“Okay,
I agree we need to eat something before we go back into that hellhole of an ER.
The patients just keep coming. I feel like when we discharge them they just walk
back around and get in line to come back in again. There are so many people
dying right in front of us. It’s like there’s nothing we can do. I’ve only been
a nurse for a year. In all that time, I only saw one person die. Now it’s 30 or
60 every shift. What’s killing them so quick?”

“I
think it has something to do with when they’re injured by a zombie. If anyone
gets as much as a nick from them, they catch something that kills them.”

“Landon,
this scares me. Is that how we’re going to die? It looks like they’re in
horrible pain before they die. We ran out of pain meds before we came up here.
There’s nothing that we can do but watch them die. The world has gone to hell.
This isn’t how I wanted to go out. I thought that I’d be in my 90s, in a
nursing home, just dying in my sleep in a warm bed.”

“I
won’t let anything happen to you. I’m your personal fireman. Firemen don’t let
people die if they can help it.”

Layla
gave him a big hug. They went out into the hall and she headed for the restroom
to freshen up before going back downstairs.

Before
they went back to work they would look for something to eat. They found a set
of vending machines with candy and chips in it.

“Watch
this,” said Landon. “This is my fireman’s special key.” His special key was a
fire extinguisher with which he broke the glass on the front of the machine.

With
their pockets full of vending machine food, they walked back into the ER. They noticed
a handwritten note on the wall saying that the morgue was full, and that any
new bodies had to be taken to the loading dock. There was a refrigerated semitrailer
backed up to the loading dock. They were stacking the bodies as far forward in
the trailer as they could.

When
they had left the day before, conditions were bad in the ER, but now it was
much worse. All the gurneys and chairs were full of patients. They were even
having to lay patients on the floor because there was nowhere else to put them.

Layla
looked for Savannah, but she could not be found. She asked the charge nurse at
the desk, whose name was Morgan, where she was. Morgan said, “Layla, I know how
much you liked Savannah. I’m sorry to have to tell you that she died last
night.”

Layla
turned and grabbed on to Landon. Her eyes were full of tears. She opened up and
cried as he held her. With Savannah’s death, it all caught up to her. When she
came to work at this hospital after graduating nursing school the year before, Savannah
had been her trainer. For the last year, she had always tried to get scheduled
to work with Savannah. And now she was gone.

After
a few minutes of holding on to her husband, she straightened up as she dried
her tears. She was a Registered Nurse, after all. She had a job to do.

She
looked at Morgan and said, “What happened?”

“I’m
so sorry, honey,” Morgan replied. “She got scratched. It was one of the dead
patients that died of a zombie attack, and they were moving the body to the
morgue. The dead patient had a busted-up hand with a finger bone sticking out.
The gurney tipped over. She was helping put the body back on the gurney when it
happened. She got scratched by the sharp bone sticking out. We all have to be
careful that we don’t get scratched by any of them. If you get a scratch or
other minor injury, it looks like that means a death sentence. Are you looking
for something to do?”

“My
husband and I were resting. We’re ready to go back to work. Where do you want
us?”

“We’re
so short-staffed that we’re no longer assigning rooms at all. Just look around
for a patient to help. The dead go out to the loading dock. There’s a map by the
elevator. From now on every dead body that goes out will have two people moving
it. They’ll wear leather gloves and a biohazard gown with a face mask. If
anyone receives an injury from the body, they have to leave the hospital at
once. We have gloves at the charge station. When you use a biohazard gown,
don’t throw it away. We’re almost out of them.”

Layla and
Landon went off down the hall to find a patient they could help with. The first
patient they found was a middle-aged woman that had been slashed across the
face. It definitely appeared to be a zombie attack, but when Layla asked her
what had happened, the woman told her that she fell in the street. She denied that
her wound was from a zombie. However, as Layla sat next to her, she was already
starting to slip away, and she was dead within the few minutes since Layla had
been caring for her.

Layla
looked at Landon and said, “Will you go to the charge desk and get a pair of
leather gloves? I’ll get a pair of biohazard gowns for the both of us. We can
ask one of the aides to help. Seth is right there. I’ll ask him. Please be
careful. This shit is killing the hospital staff now.”

“I know,
honey. I’ll be right back with the gloves. See if Seth can find us a gurney. I
don’t want to carry her to the loading dock. Not now.”

As
Landon went to the charge desk to get the gloves, Layla asked Seth about the gurney.
When Landon got back with the gloves, Layla had the biohazard gowns. Seth also brought
two sheets to use to roll the woman’s body onto the gurney. That way they could
pick her body up off the floor without having to touch her any more than absolutely
necessary.

When
the dead woman’s body was on the gurney, Seth and Landon rolled her over to the
loading dock. As they passed the elevators, they stopped to listen. They could
hear the sounds of people screaming coming out of the closed elevator doors.

“Landon,
can you hear that?” said Seth. “It sounds like someone — or more than one
person — is being killed. I can’t tell if it’s coming from upstairs, or the
basement. Whatever it is, I don’t want to open those damn doors.”

“I
hear it, too, Seth. It sounds like they’re fighting for their lives. I’m not gonna
open those doors for love or money. Whoever it is will have to do the best they
can on their own. Come on, we need to get this body in the truck and get the
hell back inside before something happens.”

“You
got it. I’ve been to the truck before. We need to hurry. The door on the
loading dock has a tendency to fall shut. If we don’t block it open, we’re
liable to get trapped out here.”

The
two men moved as quickly as they could. They opened the loading dock door, and
Seth used a cinder block to block it open. They loaded the woman’s body in the
trailer. As they came back into the building, Landon kicked the block out of
the way of the door so it would close behind them. As they pushed the empty
gurney down the hall, they saw the elevator doors open. The car was there, and
a headless body was blocking the doors open. Landon looked at Seth. “I don’t
know about you, but I hope that’s the only thing that was in that elevator. If
there was anything else in there, I don’t want to think about it.”

“Oh,
my god — Landon, did you hear that? It’s coming from the ER. Who could be
screaming like that?”

“Come
on, man. We have to hurry. Leave this damn gurney here. We need to get to the ER
now! Find something you can use as a club and let’s go.”

The
two men ran the last hundred feet to the emergency room. Seth grabbed a fire
extinguisher from the wall. Landon found a steel pipe that came off a gurney.
As they got to the emergency room door, it was standing open. The both of them
stopped right where they were. In front of them were eight or ten zombies, fighting
with anyone that they could get a hold of. The carnage of bloodied, ripped,
torn and smashed bodies began at the door and led inside. In the time that it
took for them to get to the loading dock and back, they had managed to kill 25
or 30 people in the ER. They didn’t know what to do. Seth stood frozen in
place.

Landon’s
fire training took over. He rushed towards the first zombie that he saw. As he
ran, he swung the steel pipe like a baseball bat. He struck the first zombie in
the head but it had little effect. He looked past the zombie and saw Layla on
the floor. Her head was twisted around backwards on her body, her eyes fixed in
a vacant gaze. In the moment that it took to glance at his wife, a zombie that
he missed on the floor as he ran past stood up and grabbed him by the head. As
the zombie pulled Landon’s head backward, it snapped his spine, killing him.
Landon was dead before he hit the floor.

Seth
backed out of the emergency room, dropping the fire extinguisher. As he started
to run around the corner, he slipped on the slime the zombies left on the tile
floor, causing him to slip. As he fell, his head hit the corner of the wall
that he was running past. His body twisted and he injured his spine. The fall
did not kill him. He was paralyzed from his neck down. He was still alive, lying
on the floor.

He
could see a group of zombies coming up the stairs from the basement. All he
could do was watch them coming towards him. Seth laid on the floor unable to
move. He would not have to wait for long.

A
nurse’s aide on one of the higher floors above the ER called an elevator to
move a body to the makeshift morgue. The dead in the morgue in the basement,
however, had begun to turn. The last person to leave the morgue
had left
the door standing open. That was all it took. The elevator was an older one,
where the door remained open on the floor that it was on. The zombies had moved
out of the morgue crowded into the space between the morgue and the elevator.
The elevator had stopped in the basement, allowing the zombies to move into the
open elevator door.

When an
aide on an upper floor then called the elevator, the door closed, trapping the
zombies in the elevator car. When the elevator arrived upstairs and the door opened,
the aide took one step before he saw the zombies. He started to turn and run,
but the zombies pulled him inside. He pushed random buttons as he struggled, hoping
that the door would reopen and allow him to escape, but the door remained
steadfastly closed.

The button
the aide had pushed was for the first floor. By the time the door opened,
allowing the zombies to spill into the short hallway facing the emergency room,
the aide had been torn apart.

The
zombies lumbered out of the elevator into the emergency room and began killing one
person after another, continuing until they could not find any more people to
kill.

The
makeshift morgue in the basement was now wide open. The dead stored there had all
become zombies. They found the open stairwell and gained access to any floor of
the hospital. Nowhere in the hospital was safe now that the zombies had moved
out of the basement. It wouldn’t be long before the University Medical Center
Hospital would be another place overrun by the dead.