"The Center Pointe" Chapter 5

Disclaimer: This book is very early stages, Posted for the benefit of my readers.  You will find many errors, this is the writing process. Enjoy the story.

Chapter 5

The first floor off the emergency room was mostly labs and offices relating to hospital business.   Most of the offices were locked and no trespassing signs hung on the wall.  At a nurses station down one of the triage corridors the trio found a memo stating the hospital was to be evacuated, it was to be cleaned and prepped for any future need then locked and closed so none of the people who had become infected would be able to get in and do damage.  It stated the hospital would be left in a state of readiness so that staff and doctors might return when the area was safer.

“Well this looks promising.” Stated Brian.  “This place was left in a state of readiness which means it should be fully stocked with medical supplies and food.”  If no one else has gotten to this place yet then we may have just hit the jackpot.” 

          Brian folded up the memo and stuffed it in his pocket.  The trio then continued their search of the first floor.  After about an hour of thorough searching they had found no signs the hospital had been breached by the creatures.  There appeared to have been iron grating affixed to vulnerable areas and heavy chains and padlocks set on vulnerable doors to keep unwanted things out.  The first floor had been locked down to keep it secure from thieves and creatures.  This surprised the three because it had been so easy to pry open the front doors thus making all this kind of pointless in the end.  But it would become very useful for them because now they could see that the hospital was an easily defendable position where others in need could seek sanctuary.

          When they came upon the staircase to the second floor they found the door locked.  Brian grabbed a fire axe that was affixed in a glass case.  In two swings he had broken the small window in the door and Karen was able to reach her small hands in far enough to reach the lock and unfasten the door.  It swung silently open and the trio slowly worked their way up the stairs to the second floor.  Although the door had been securely locked there was no guarantee that nothing had been able to get in here.  The creatures they had seen were determined little devils and if there had been something of interest in here they would have found a way in so the three humans were very careful when they swung open the second floor door and moved into the main hallway.

They stood there silently for a few minutes trying to listen for any activity on the floor.  Hearing nothing they began moving as a group from room to room shutting each door as it was cleared, their precision was almost military as they moved.  Eventually they found themselves standing at a set of double doors a big sign on it said medication holding.  They just stood there staring at the door each waiting for the other to open the door on fear that they would find it empty and their efforts in vain.

Rich was the first to step forward and grasp the handle.  He slowly pulled the door open and it groaned on its hinges as it swung outward.  Rich Karen and Brian just stood there for a moment to astonished to even move, but eventually a smile spread across the faces of the three and they rushed into the room to get a good look at their bounty.  The room was huge and filled from wall to wall with boxes of medications.  It was like a pharmacy warehouse.  There were several boxes sitting on several shelves filled with every type of medication one could hope for.

          As Brian and Rich were beginning to take inventory Karen approached them with a huge smile on her face.  In her arms she was carrying a box filled with medication to help her manage her crohn’s disease there was enough medication in the box to easily last Karen for a couple of years.  For the first time in a month the three friends felt the weight of their reality begin to grow lighter, they knew that if the hospital had stocked up on medication then they also must have stocked up on non-perishable foods in case of a long period between resupply or loss of power.  They finally felt as if they might be able to rest in safety without fear of being torn apart.

          After long hours of careful searching the trio found the entire hospital devoid of life and quite secure.  In the kitchen they found enough non-perishable food to last for months that could feed a large number of people.  It seems the hospital had invested in military rations in an effort to plan for the disaster that had been thrust upon them.  Finding this place intact was like finding a diamond in the rough.  Here people stranded out in the new wasteland would be able to find refuge, food and medical supplies.  The three hoped to turn this place into a beacon of civilization where the huddled masses could come and begin to rebuild.  These were the optimistic views discussed as the three friends gorged themselves on the food they had found, filling their empty bellies to the point of almost vomiting.  They sat there for a while just feeling the safety and security of this place.  It was almost an hour before any of them spoke.  Brian was the first to break the silence.

“Karen you should stay here and take inventory of the food and medication while Rich and I make our way back down the stairs and find a way to secure the front entrance from any creatures that may try and force their way in.”

“Sounds good, you two be careful.” Said Karen handing the gun to Rich and leaning in for a soft kiss.  The two hated to be parted even for a few minutes.

Brain and Rich made their way downstairs to the emergency room lobby while Karen got busy taking down their inventory.  When the two got to the lobby all was as they had left it.  The door was shut and the lobby was empty but the other side of the glass was another matter.  As Brian and Rich approached they were greeted by at least five creatures scratching at the glass doors to the emergency room.  Rich leveled the gun and was prepared to take a shot when Brian stopped him.

“Hold on.” He said. “This is as good a time as any to see if the doors will hold against them.  We have to know that we’re safe or this place is not worth setting up house in.

So the two of them took a seat at the far end of the emergency room.  Rich with the gun sitting in his lap and Brian with his club which he had now fastened his knife to the end of sat there watching the creatures on the other side of the glass.  At first the creatures seemed more occupied with their own reflections than the two men that had taken seats on the opposite side of the glass.  But after a few minutes they began to growl and beat on the glass in an effort to get at the two men.  For an hour the creatures assaulted the plexi-glass doors with no success.  The glass held firm and the two men inside finally tired of playing bait and went to make their way back up to the second floor where Karen had taken up to making an inventory of the medical supplies.

On their way back to the stairs they passed a door that had a padlock securing it.  When they had come through the first time their haste had made them overlook rooms that were locked, but now the pair took the time to examine this door.  The sign that was affixed to the door had been recently added and was not part of the hospital.  Upon reading the sign the two surmised that the military had probably put it there in case they were to return.  This filled the two with glee because the sign read ARMORY.

“They must have had plans for this hospital.”  Said Rich examining the lock that secured the door.

“Well let’s hope they come back at some point, we could use the extra help.” Said Brian.  “We can go and get the fire axe and then come down and hack our way in.  Who knows the toys they may have stashed in there.” At this point he seemed giddy with excitement.

It took the two men about ten minutes to check on Karen’s progress and then get back down to the armory with the fire axe.  The lock on the door was a heavy padlock fitted through two rungs.  It was connected to a steel plate.  It took Rich several minutes of hard whacking before the lock finally gave and shattered into several pieces.  The two men were beside themselves with excitement as they pulled open the doors to the armory.  In the span of a few seconds the two went from broad grins to disappointed groans.  The room was empty save a table in the center of the room and one small crate in the far corner.  The military had cleared the room to keep from arming civilians.  Brian jumped up and sat on the table while Rich looked over the room for anything they might have missed.

          “Well this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when we found this room.” Said Rich kicking a loose piece of the lock in anger.  It thudded against the wall with an echo in the empty room.

Brian looked on the floor and chuckled lightly to himself.  “They even swept.  Guess they didn’t want any civvies to sneeze and kill someone.”

Rich stood there looking at Brian for a second before both burst out laughing.  “Well at least they left one crate for us; maybe there is something good in it.”

          The two men approached the crate cautiously as if they were afraid that the lone crate may disappear if they moved to quickly toward it.  They were both optimistic that they would find something of use inside the crate but were also wary it could be something sinister.  They took a position on each side of the box and put their hands gingerly on the lid.  The lid was not locked and swung open silently with ease.  The two stood back staring at the contents for a moment before wide grins spread across their faces and they reached in the box like children reaching for Christmas presents.

Inside the crate were three rifles with scopes, four standard police issue handguns, three Smith and Wesson revolvers and ten army issue combat knives along with a few hundred rounds of ammunition and holsters for the weapons.  Rich and Brian spent the next twenty minutes fiddling with the guns and learning how they worked before putting them back minus two revolvers and two combat knives which they attached to the belts on their jeans.  They then picked up the crate and began to lug it back up to where Karen was still busy taking inventory of the medical supplies.

When they came into the medical supply room with the crate Karen looked up from her inventory sheet and immediately noticed the grin on the faces of her two compatriots.  “Well you two must have found something of value.”  She said with a smile now forming on lips that had not smiled enough since this apocalypse began.

          Once the two were able to drop the crate in the corner of the supply room Rich rushed over and picked Karen up swinging her around in his arms and then setting her down and tightly embracing her.  “We found a crate of guns and ammunition.  We will finally be able to have a fighting chance at defending this place, which also means we will be able to stay and hopefully make a home and safe haven here for the time being.”

“Well I finished the inventory of the medicine and medical equipment we have enough for a long time, this supply was left behind to ensure that if they were to return they would have plenty of supplies for a great many people so even if we take on a small community of other survivors we should have enough to sustain us for quite a while.” Said Karen planting a kiss on her husband’s lips as he set her back down on the ground.

After a long day of sorting through inventories of medicine food and supplies the trio were finally able to sit down and relax, ironically they chose to do that in the emergency room waiting area in front of the window where all the creatures were still beating on the glass trying to get in for a hot meal.

“Do you think this is smart taunting them like this?” said Brian looking at Karen and Rich who were cuddled together on the adjacent chair, Karen sitting in Rich’s lap with her head on his shoulder staring out the window at the commotion.         

“Well we may be in their bellies one day so I relish the chance to make them work for their meal.”

At this Rich and Brian were both silent for moment giving Karen odd looks.  Then the trio burst out in a fit of laughter content for the first time in the knowledge that for now they had a warm dry place to rest their heads with food and supplies.  For the moment they were happy and everything was okay.

They all sat for the next couple of hours watching the creatures clawing at the windows.   No matter how much they beat on them or scratched on them the plexi-glass windows held fast.  They could tell after a while that even the creatures on the other side got the idea that their meal was out of reach and they all began to gradually wander away from the three people on the other side of the barrier.  It was a few minutes before any of them spoke;

 Brian was the first to break the silence.  “Hmm.  Well it seems we are not in a zombie movie after all.  They seem to get the idea we are unattainable.  This might be a good thing.  If they all leave this may be a better safer place than we thought.  If things keep this way we may be able to help save a lot of lives.”

“Yea, but we will still have to work on fortifying this place and plugging any places that seem weak enough to where more determined ones might find a way in.  If we want to make this a place where people can flock to for safety then we will have to take precautions.  Also we should think about painting a sign large enough for people to see that this is a safe place for them, we may be able to even find a radio to contact other survivors.”

Karen looked at Brian for a moment both contemplating Rich’s words.  They both knew Rich was a born leader and if anyone could see them through this nightmare it would be Rich who lead them.  It seems that it took for the world to end for them to see in Rich what they had never seen before.  He was always the take charge type but you never can tell how someone would act in a crisis until a crisis presents itself.

         

          For the next week the trio set about to making the hospital a more secure place.  With the guns and knives now at their disposal they were able to thoroughly search the entire premises and search each room for any survivors, creatures or dead bodies, the last of which they were very grateful they did not find.  Luckily even the morgue had been emptied and cleaned before the military and hospital staff had fled.

          They had come across no resistance throughout the building and were relieved to find the basement secure and stocks of freeze dried foods packed in boxes in the back of the dark and creepy looking room.  The basement was not entirely what one would expect, for the first thing it was not musty or wet like you would envision it to be.  It was used primarily as a generator room.  Unfortunately upon looking around Brian and Rich found no fuel for the generator.  They guessed having an explosive substance in the basement of this building when just about everything a person touched generated an electric shock would have been a bad idea so in the end they were grateful there had been no fuel for the generator because the chances were good one wrong move and they would have blown the building sky high.

          Rich and Brian were just about to start inventory on the stores of freeze dried foods when a loud BANG rang out from a few floors above them.  The two were momentarily startled before regaining their wits and running full speed to the stairs mounting each set of steps three at a time trying as fast as they could to make their way to where they had last seen Karen.  They were three flights up and about to hit the stairs to the floor Karen was on when again BANG, BANG.  Rich began yelling out to Karen trying to find her, they ran through the medical supply room but Karen was not there, they noticed the crate was open and a rifle missing.  Three more shots rang out.  BANG, BANG, BANG.  It was coming from a room at the end of a long corridor.  The two men rushed down to the room and burst in.  They were expecting to find a bunch of the infected but instead found Karen at the window.  The window was wide open and she was sitting on a chair with the gun resting on another chair staring intently through the scope.

          Without taking he focus off of whatever she was seeing through the scope she called to Rich and Brian to join her by the window.  “You two need to get over here and see this.”

          They both approached the window Karen was at.  They were able to see quite easily across the landscape.  There were no trees or other building to obstruct their view.  There was a large field before them and off in the distance you could see the town of Monroeville stretching across the horizon.  It wasn’t long before they saw what Karen had been shooting at.  About 100 yards away in the field there was a small group of creatures attempting to make a lunch out of a group of people numbering about twelve.  They were all running for their lives trying to make it to the hospital.  Rich and Brian could already tell from a group of creatures that seemed to be fighting over something that some of the group had already succumbed to the superior numbers of the infected.

“You two need to get down to the emergency room and get the doors open for them when they get close enough I will tell them where to go.”  Karen fired two more shots and two more creatures dropped.  She was a fantastic shot, a born sniper. “GO NOW!” she shouted at them still looking through the scope and cracking off another couple of shots.

          Rich and Brian wasted no time rushing down to the emergency room.  They had their guns drawn ready for anything they might encounter when the group made it to the doors, if they made it at all.  When they made it to the emergency room there were three creatures still outside the doors trying to get in with no success. The two men took up positions at the door; as soon as they could see the group of people they were ready to throw open the doors and shoot the three creatures trying to get in.  They did not want to kill them too soon so they would not alert any others to their position.

          They waited impatiently for what seemed like an eternity hearing the crack of Karen’s rifle every couple of minutes.  It was almost getting to the point where they thought the group had been overpowered and were already dead.  Rich and Brian were about to open the doors anyway when they saw the group of people burst from the woods and come rushing up the parking lot toward them.  Trialing them were two creatures the group almost didn’t see the other three creatures that had been at the door of the waiting room who now saw the group and began rushing toward them forgetting about Rich and Brian at the door.  One of the group fell and tried to run the other way when they saw the additional three creatures rushing toward them grunting and screaming like wild animals. Another crack from the rifle and another creature dropped to Karen’s marksmanship. 

          Rich and Brian knew by now that the window Karen was firing from was now out of view it was up to them to help the incoming survivors.  Taking the opportunity left to them by the creatures rushing the group the door to the emergency room was now clear and the two rushed out after the creatures who were almost at the group.  Brian was a faster runner than Rich and got closer to the action.  When he was within acceptable range Brian dropped to one knee and brought his handgun up to aim.  CRACK, CRACK, CRACK.  Two more creatures dropped from shots to the head.

Just as Brian lowered his gun Rich came rushing by clearly intent on intercepting one of the creatures who was just about on the only child of the group who had been dropped in the panic.  She couldn’t have been more than ten years old and both creatures had now forgotten the rest of the group and seemed to be going for what they thought was the easier meal.  Rich bolted past the group gun raised.  The little girl had begun to cry as the creatures got closer and closer.  The tears in her eyes were evident to Rich who was still about fifty feet away from her.  Images of the family they could not save began to flicker in his mind.  The smell and the picture of the family being torn apart by these things sent Rich into a rage he could not and would not see another child torn to pieces by these things.

          Rich skidded to a stop and raised his gun he made sure to aim for the head so any stray bullets would be over the child.  CRACK, CRACK.  One of the creatures received a bullet to the neck and back.  Rich may not have been a great shot but he was good enough to slow the damn thing down and make the other one stop rushing for the child and turn his attention to Rich.  Rich saw the creature coming at him and stood his ground.  In the background he could see the other creature writhing on the ground blood pouring from the open wound on the neck.  That one wasn’t getting up any time soon.

          The lone creature was now coming at Rich full speed.  Rich stood there waiting for just the right time.  When the creature got close enough rich raised his gun and shot the thing point blank in the head.  Most of its skull and flesh disappeared in an instant and the creature dropped to the ground gurgling sounds coming from what remained of its neck.

          Rich now turned his attention to the other creature that was still alive, it had begun to slowly claw its way on its hands and knees toward the child.  She had fallen to the ground and was in a fetal position crying for her mother.  When she saw the creature inching toward her bleeding out she screamed and began trying to crawl away.  Rich took one quick look behind him and saw Brian ferrying the rest of the group into the building.  Now he knew the only danger that remained was the dying creature on the ground but even it was able to just touch the child it could send her into cardiac arrest with its shock.  Rich walked up to the creature as it was flailing on the ground to busy trying to get to the little girl to notice the man who was walking up to him knife dawn.  Rich felt to fire another round would be a waste of ammo so while the creature was preoccupied he took his knife and drove it through the things head stapling it to the earth and spilling the rest of its blood over the dirt.

          Rich watched the lifeless form for a moment for any indication that it may still be alive but after seeing no movement or breath Rich withdrew his knife from the things head and sheathed it.  The child was now sitting against a tree with her legs drawn up to her chest crying.  When Rich began to approach her she screamed, she did not understand what was happening and didn’t want anyone near her.

          “It’s ok, it’s over kid, its dead.”  Rich put his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender attempting to approach the child without further scarring her.  “Your safe now please let me help you so I can get you into the hospital where no of these things can get you.”

          The child stopped crying for a moment and looked up at Rich with huge green tear stained eyes.   Seeing this man’s hands raised to the air and not grabbing at her seemed to calm her and she allowed Rich to gather her in his arms and make for the door which Brian was still holding open waiting for them despite the protests of many in the group.  By the time Rich had gotten through the door and Brian had secured it the little girl had fainted in Rich’s arms trying to mentally escape the stress of the day.  Rich went to the nearest room and laid the child down on the bed and covered her with a nice warm blanket.  After watching for a few moments to make sure she was breathing normally he joined Brian back in the waiting room, he was staring out the window at a group of creatures that was now assembling at the windows beating on the glass trying to get in.  The group behind him was cowering in fear afraid of the things breaching the glass but Brian held firm starring them down unafraid.

          Rich walked up to his friend and stood beside him.  Not too long ago the two were arguing about bills and things that seemed so important at the time but were so insignificant now.  This was a new world and to survive it you would have to depend on those you trusted most and there were no two greater friends at this point than the two men standing at the glass staring at the things pawing for a fresh meal.

          “We saved some didn’t we?”

“Yea.  We did.” Said Rich putting his hand on his friends shoulder.

The two were standing there letting the survivors of the group catch their breath and calm down before speaking to them.  They just wanted to take a moment to bask in the small victory they had won this day by saving eleven adults and one child.  A few moments later, Karen, gun strapped over her shoulder joined them and for the longest while the trio said nothing, they just stood there peacefully, silently giving thanks to whomever above was watching out for them and the human race.