Dawning of the Dead

Chapter Two

October 2019

            When Ikarus woke, there was light.

            He blinked his eyes and wondered where he was. For a moment, nothing came to him except a fog of thought. Then, as his head began to clear, he remembered the accident but not how it had happened, the sound of screaming that he was pretty sure came from his own lips, the woman (or was she a girl?) who had spoken to him, helped him. He remembered the snippets of conversation at the hospital that moved around him like bees, buzzing in and out of his head.

            Hospital, he thought. I’m at the hospital.

            When Ikarus opened his eyes, however, he wondered if he was in a hospital in the pits of hell. Looking around him, he saw that the floors were dirty and covered in grime and there were black spots that looked like burn marks all along the walls. The window to his room had been smashed open and shards of glass littered the floor like diamonds.

            Turning to his right, Ikarus saw that all the machines hooked up to him had stopped working. The heart monitor screen was black and the bags that held fluids were empty. He carefully detached the needles from his skin, he swung his feet to the floor and waited for the dizziness to pass.

            He pressed the call button for the nurse but the light above his door didn’t go on. He figured it no longer worked, much like the rest of the electrical equipment. He stood carefully and went to the small bureau that stood beside his bed. Opening if, he found his wallet, keys and clothes, all placed neatly in one of the drawers. There was a layer of dust on them. He wondered when his parents had last been to see him, wondered how long he had been out. He had only been brought in last night…

            “What the hell is going on?” He said out loud. Ikarus’ voice was hoarse from disuse. He needed water. He needed to find someone to help him. Carefully, he took off the hospital robe and dressed. He ached all over, as if he had slept for years instead of days. How could a hospital go to hell like this in only one night? He thought.

            Was it really only one night through? He looked for his watch in his pile of belongings but the watch had stopped in December of 2010. He looked outside and saw only a haze along the horizon. What day was it? Had he been asleep one night or one year? Ikarus didn’t know.

            When he was finished dressing, he stepped out into the hallway and was violently ill. He ended up on his hands and knees moving back against the door to his hospital room. The floor and walls were covered in blood. Great smears of it streaked the white linoleum. He even spied some blood on the ceiling but couldn’t figure out how it had gotten there.

            He looked up and down the hallway and saw only darkness with the occasional flickering of light. Thankfully he had been sick on the floor and not himself. Shaking, he stood and stepped around it. Instinct told him that it would not be a good idea to call out, that he had to get out of here. Whatever had happened to the hospital could happen anywhere. He had to get to his parents house, had to, had to.

            With his heart hammering in his chest, Ikarus made his way to the elevators but stopped short. The elevator doors were wrenched open and Ikarus looked at the dark slick of blood that led from the middle of the hallway floor into the elevator shaft. Looking in carefully, Ikarus saw that there was blood splatter on the back of the elevator shaft as well, the blood almost black against the gunmetal grey walls. He went to the stairwell door and saw a line of blood there, too, but there was nowhere else for him to go, no other way out.