The Hospital

The Barricade

"So what's your story, mister?" Jack Mitchell, the senior police officer, asked, looking down at the face of a man wriggling underneath the weight of the heavy office chair Jack was sitting on. Of course, he didn't expect any answer from the individual, as the creature now desperately squirming and chomping his jaws at the officer couldn't even be considered a human. Both of its legs were mangled beyond recognition and half of left arm missing below the elbow. Jack could only guess it was a result of a nasty car accident. Yet, severe injuries didn't bother the man. He was still reaching out with his intact right hand, dirty and bloody fingers eagerly scraping at Jack's shoe. The officer was careful and kept his feet far enough to avoid surprises. He studied what was once a young male, trying to understand what drove it to behave as it did. But instead of answers, the only sounds that came out of its dry mouth full of dirt were snarls and groans. Its pupils, hidden behind shrouds of milky clouds, had no signs of intelligence or soul.

"Jack, just finish him!" Billy Reynolds yelled from the top of the barricade a few meters away. He and his sons, Murph and Phill, volunteered to help defend the barrier erected around the hospital's main entrance. Meanwhile, Phill's wife and his two girls were taking shelter inside, though Billy was beginning to wonder if it was the right decision. Maybe they would have been better off at their farm outside the town. This place turned into the ghoul magnet, attracting more and more of them as the night fell. Billy cocked his double-barreled rifle he brought along when the chaos broke out and added, "Or let me do it."

"Take it easy, Billy," Jack replied as he slowly stood up, still pressing down the chair against the chest of the squirming creature. "Just trying to get to know the enemy."

"There's no taking it easy with those things around, Jack." Billy was adamant. "Blasting their brains out is all there is to figure." And he was right. Body shots and injuries did not seem to stop these individuals, just slowed them down.

"At least something we agree on," Jack said. He raised his right hand, holding a metal crowbar and slammed it against the creature's head. His skull cracked, turning off the inside switch. The ghoul gasped for the last time and froze with his jaws wide open.

"Sorry, buddy." Jack pulled out the crowbar and wiped it at the dead man's shirt. As he turned around to climb up the barricade, a sudden loud shuffle caught his attention. A human shape appeared from the nearby building's shadows and rushed towards the officer, rapidly closing the distance.

"Jack, watch out!" Billy raised his rifle, but Jack was standing directly between him and the approaching silhouette. "Goddamn, get the hell out of the way!" he yelled, waving his weapon, but it was too late.

The dim street light revealed a young woman. Dried blood from ghastly neck wound smeared her light blue blouse. Just like so many others, she wasn't herself anymore. Coming close within meters she raised her hands, ready to snatch when the gunshot echoed. The ghoul dropped the speed and tumbled to the ground with a new hole in the forehead. Her body twitched few more times before grinding to a permanent halt.

"That was close," Jack mumbled breathing heavily and looked down at still smouldering .40 Smith & Wesson in his hand. He'd just spent his last round on the creature. Jack cursed and holstered now-useless weapon. From now on, he will have to rely on the thick crowbar to do the job. Without wasting any more time, he clambered up the barricade to relative safety.

"Having fun? "Billy asked with obvious sarcasm in his voice. Jack would have thought that the old farmer was enjoying himself in any other circumstances, but he knew better. Billy was an old school tough son of a bitch, and nothing seemed to surprise him.

"Aren't we all?" Jack replied with a fake smile and picked up the riot shield from the car's roof where he left it earlier. It proved to be a useful tool at stopping charging ghouls and pushing them off the barricade.

"Lucky, it was just one."

And again, Jack had to agree with Rendal. Dealing with a single individual, mindlessly charging the barrier wasn't hard. But as the day went by, more and larger groups started to show up. It made the defence of their little blockade a lot more challenging. It seemed as if those affected by this strange behaviour were ganging up. However, Jack didn't notice any signs of coordinated actions. The crazies acted without any sense of reason or self-preservation.

If it were up to Jack, they would have barricaded themselves inside the hospital a long time ago, making it easier to defend and with fewer casualties. But the Sheriff insisted on keeping the main entrance open to allow the town's folk to get inside and put Jack in charge of guarding it. And Jack did as ordered, losing some of his close friends in the process. Their mangled bodies now rested inside the hospital, awaiting proper burial if that was ever to happen. The world went mad, was Jack's thought of the day.

When the violence erupted on the streets in the early hours, people turned up in droves, many of them wounded, injured, scared. Some on foot, others arrived by cars, clogging up the parking lot and the main entrance area. Things turned pretty chaotic, pretty fast. Some of the ghouls, mixed in the crowd, managed to get inside the hospital. They wreaked havoc, biting and scratching everyone around before Jack, together with fellow officers, took them down. That's when Jack got bit by one of them. His left wrist has been burning like hell ever since. Doctor Parkins gave him some antibiotics to slow the infection down, but it had little effect. Jack could feel it. The skin colour around the bite area was slowly turning grey. Jack tried not to think about it right now, though it worried him a great deal. Other bitten survivors, including some of his colleagues, reported similar symptoms, and some people even died from sustained injuries. Whatever it was, it caused a great deal of discomfort. Luckily, none of them displayed any signs of the same strange aggressive behaviour. At least not yet. That gave hope. He would have to speak to doctor Parkins whenever he gets a chance.

By the lunchtime, controlling an open area around the hospital entrance proved to be increasingly difficult. More of the ghouls started turning up, and the officers struggled to fend them off. Eventually, Jack suggested raising a protective barrier to help with the defence. Others welcomed his idea, and it soon turned into the barricade of the lined-up vehicles. They filled the gaps between the cars with office furniture, benches and anything else they could lift. Jack and his officers also cleared the immediate area outside the barricade from any abandoned vehicles with volunteers' help. They pushed the cars towards the square's centre, creating an open space for any incoming traffic as people still kept flocking in. Jack thought it was a good idea, and it certainly helped to deal with the crazies since now they could see them approaching from the distance. Piles of corpses at the base of the barricade was a tribute to that. They stopped collecting the bodies a while ago as the freezers inside the hospital were already full, including some of the offices turned into the body storage units. But the people kept coming, bringing horrifying updates of the nightmares they witnessed on the streets, and they needed space too. So the dead remains now littered the surrounding area, certainly not boosting the morale of the survivors.

Having lost two-thirds of his officers, the Sheriff asked people inside to help defend the entrance. Some agreed, others chose to stay with their families. Jack understood them very well. They all hoped that this nightmare would soon be over and to risk for others wasn't everyone's thing. But he was glad for the few that answered the call. As the daylight dwindled, so did the number of refugees. It's been a couple of hours now since Jack saw the last healthy-looking person passing through the barricade. He was starting to wonder if it wasn't the time to lock the doors from inside and wait this whole mess out. He overheard some chatter earlier that the military was getting involved. Eventually, the help would come.

As he reflected on today's events, Jack scratched the bandage covering the bite. Next to the burning feeling, it started to itch, and Jack found it even more annoying. He felt tired, dirty and hungry. All of them did. Damn, he would kill for a cup of coffee right now, but they ran out of it hours ago.

Suddenly, Jack noticed something on the opposite side of the town's square, by the groceries store's corner. Though it was dark, even from a good hundred fifty meters away, he could recognise a bodily shape swaying in the shadows.

"Another one," Jack said out loud, pointing at the shape. At least this one would not catch him by surprise.

"I see him," Billy replied and raised his rifle, just in case.

"How do you know is he and not she?" Murph said, standing to his father's left. Both he and his brother Phill had blunt pipes in their hands.

"Makes no difference, son," Billy murmured. "They will try to bite your ass off, regardless."

"Maybe it's a survivor?" asked Ian Farrell, standing to Jack's right. Together with Mark Oswell were the last two remaining members of the town's fire brigade, armed with fire axes. As the first fires broke out in the early hours of the incident, they responded to distress calls, but soon after had to defend themselves against violent attackers. Ian lost all of his crew apart from Mark. When he received a call from the Sheriff, both retreated to the hospital. Upon arrival, they parked their fire engine on the right side of the entrance as part of the barricade. Staggering crazies did not seem to figure out how to climb over the top of the large vehicle. They would stumble around it to the lower part of the barricade where the firefighters waited with their axes. Both men still wore their suits offering reasonable protection against bites, though Mark sustained few of them throughout the day.

"Survivor…" Billy chuckled. "Haven't seen one of those for a while now. Wanna bet it's one of those bloody ghouls? Let's ask him." He raised his hand, waved and yelled, "Oi, you, get over here!"

It certainly caught the shape's attention as it moved towards them, dragging its right leg behind. Seconds later, few more human forms appeared from the shadows, turning towards the barricade and instantly rushing forward. Some moved faster than others rapidly closing the distance.

Now Jack could count at least ten of them, their numbers growing.

"And he brought friends," Billy said now firmly squeezing his rifle. "Boys, stay close," he told his sons, his eyes locked on the movement in the distance. Dozens of shapes now rushed towards them, and soon they could hear their snarls and growls. The fastest ghouls had reached the centre of the square by the time other defenders noticed them, bringing the barricade to life.

"Get ready, people!" Jack shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. He did his best to look confident. There were maybe fifteen other men and a few women on the barricade apart from him, but only half could still shoot their rifles and handguns. Most of them, like Jack, ran out of ammunition some time ago. They now relied on any melee weapons they could find such as metal bars, baseball bats or using their empty guns as clubs. It seemed as if the incoming tide of wriggling bodies had no end. Their snarls and wheezes now filled the air, striking fear and panic into the hearts of even the bravest.

"So many!" someone shouted.

"Where're all they coming from?" another voice added in disbelief.

"We need to retreat!" yelled yet another. The panic spread rapidly. And some gave in to that panic. Few of the officers and armed civilians opened fire at the approaching shapes now scrambling through the maze of abandoned cars. Some hit their fast-moving targets, knocking them down for good, but most of their shots missed or hit non-essential body parts, barely slowing the advance.

"Hold your fire, lads!" Jack shouted. "Let them get closer and aim for their heads!" He felt despair building inside him too, but years of service taught the man to keep calm under pressure. The biggest crowd he had seen so far, and retreating now seemed like an excellent idea, but he instantly dismissed the tempting thought. There was no time to secure the entrance door, even if they abandoned the barricade. The creatures' mass would break through the glass doors with ease, starting a massacre inside the hospital.

"Judith!" He turned to the female officer standing by the entrance. Jack stationed a few of his remaining officers by the door, just if some of the crazies would get past the defenders. "Get the sheriff and tell him to haul his ass with reinforcements back here. On the double!"

Judith quietly nodded and instantly vanished inside.

"Get your shit together, people!" Jack then ordered the rest, trying to restore some discipline. "If we fail to stop them, everyone inside dies!" he added and raised his shield, facing the approaching horde. He had no time for inspiring speeches.

The first group of the ghouls finally managed to cross the maze of the vehicles. They poured into a well-illuminated stretch of an open space leading to the barricade. The light revealed their mangled, bloodied and disfigured bodies relentlessly pushing forward. Jack could now clearly see the gruesome details of the approaching horror from less than fifty meters away. Some of the attackers had broken or injured hands and legs, others were missing their limbs entirely, struggling to balance. Most creatures had chunks of tissue and muscle ripped out of them with dried or fresh blood covering their clothes, but it didn't seem to bother their owners one bit. They all had one goal, and Jack knew perfectly well what it meant. They were in for a fight for their lives. To Jack, they were not humans anymore but rabid and dangerous animals. He tightened the grip on his crowbar even more, by now barely able to hear his thoughts through the unbearable noise of shrieks and groans emanating from the incoming crowd.

"God help us", for the first time Billy's voice trembled as he aimed his rifle at the nearest creature, that used to be a slim young man, and pulled the trigger. The back of the man's head exploded, spraying his brain and skull fragments on the others running behind him. Ghoul's lifeless body stumbled to the ground. Billy fired a second shot, this time hitting another creature in the upper chest. The bulled punched the hole through his ribcage, tore the lungs and shattered the upper spine, forcing the ghoul to fall to the ground. Though Billy missed the head, the creature's spinal cord was severed, effectively rendering him immobile. The ghoul snarled and moaned as dozens of others stampeded over his mutilated body.

The sporadic fire erupted alongside the barricade as defenders placed carefully aimed shots at the nearest attackers. Several of them dropped to the ground with their heads covered in blood. Some still advanced few meters, pushed by the momentum, before running out of steam and joining the corpses ranks littering the area. But more followed, replacing the fallen ones. But many missed their shots even from a close range. Hitting a moving target wasn't an easy task even for trained officers. Bullets tore into the bodies and limbs, ripping through tissue and muscle, temporary slowing the creatures down, but the crazies ignored the injuries. They were picking up the pace again. Moments later, the first wave of the hungry monsters slammed into the base of the barricade.

To be continued