when everything falls to hell

Chapter 3 Fighting the Lifeless

My hands close around officer Dugel's gun. Don't look at his face... or his neck. Pretend this isn't the corpse of the man you've spent the last thirty minutes with. That he didn't just die saving your life. I pull the gun free of his hands while my own hands shake violently, and look to where Loki is standing nervously in the doorframe of the room he was hiding in earlier. "Hurry up Kairi" he whispers, impatiently shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Those bodies could start moving soon."

I swallow a lump in my throat at the thought. "I'm almost done just need to check if he has anything else we could use." I see him start to move toward me "but you stay there and if anything happens you run into the room and if I can't make it you shut the door, understood?"

I see the colour drain from his face at the prospect of leaving me to die and trying to survive on his own. He shakes his head very quickly "if you don't make it neither will I, i'll help you".

That's sweet but stupid he can't help me if one of those... those lifeless monsters grab me. I shake my head "if it comes down to it you will leave me behind".

"Bu-" he starts to argue but I quickly cut him off.

"Loki you promised that if I snapped out of it and came with you, you'd do everything I said, was that a lie?". I tilt my head slightly to the side and stare unblinkingly into his terrified green eyes.

"N-no it wasn't a lie..." he lowers his head guiltily "I-I just don't want you to die..."

I smile gently at him "I know, I don't want to die either but we'll both die if you try to help me when it's too late". He nods and looks at me with a resigned look in his eyes and I know he'll listen to my orders. Good boy. Now let's finish searching officer Dugel.

I kneel back down beside officer Dugel's body and appraise the items hanging from his belt. Hmmm there's a stun gun thingy but I don't know if it'll work on living corpses or even how to use it or if it can be used twice... best to leave it where it is. Next... he has handcuffs of course... not sure I wanna try handcuffing one of those things... but in an emergency we can use them to seal doors... i'll take them and the key. I spend a minute freeing the handcuffs and key from his belt. It seems all that's left is his baton... it would be a good idea to take that in case I run out of bullets... plus i've never used a gun before so i'll run out quicker while accomplishing less... yeah i'm definetly grabbing that.

As I wrestle the baton out from under officer Dugel's body I hear Loki's sharp intake of breath, I turn quickly towards where his trembling arm is pointing and I see several people shuffling down the hallway towards us, most of which are dressed like doctors. Not people, definetly not people I think as my eyes land on the spot where an arm should be. There's blood on the short sleeve of it's scrub but it's not bleeding anymore. Definetly dead, a living person would have blood pumping out as their heart beat. My eyebrows come down in confusion as I realize that they're not actually heading toward us, they seem to be wandering aimlessly down the hallway. That's weird they should be able to see us from here... unless they can't see! A small thrill of hope runs through me at the thought maybe... just maybe we can survive this. I look over to Loki and see that his skin is incredibly pale and that he's sweating and shaking in fear. His eyes dart over to me and he begins to open his mouth to say something but I quickly shake my head and put my finger to my lips in an unmistakable gesture for silence. He promptly closes his mouth and gestures me over to the room. I nod and slowly begin to rise from my kneeling position, as I turn to head towards Loki, a hand grabs my ankle.

I drop the baton and it rolls a foot down the hallway, back the way i'd run only ten minutes ago, and away from the three monsters that came from the other side of the hospital. As the baton hit the ground the monsters' heads snapped toward me and the other two corpses that were killed by Mariane struggle to their feet. I try to run towards the room as the monsters start advancing at a shuffling run, but i'm tripped by the hand I had forgotten about in my panic. I look into the sightless eyes of officer Dugel as he slides himself forward in order to take a bite out of my leg. My heart stops and for a desperate moment I can't think or move. Then I kick the monster as hard as I can in the face and feel its nose break as I push it away from my right leg. But it doesn't stop its advance and its nose doesn't bleed. It doesn't feel pain... so I was right not to grab the stun gun. The thought of the stun gun reminds me of the other weapon i'd grabbed from its belt. I kick the monster in the face again and use the seconds i'd earned to grab the gun from the pocket i'd stuffed it into earlier. I lean towards it and place the gun against its head. The safety's off because officer Dugel died shortly after using it so all I need to do is pull the trigger. I take a deep breath, close my eyes and squeeze the trigger BANG! The sound echoes loudly around the hallway and the recoil jerks my arm up slightly. The monster that was officer Dugel slumps to the ground motionless once more, a large hole running through the top of its forehead where the bullet entered and ripped its way out near its neck.