A World Alone - A Zombie Novel

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Stella P.O.V

Dropping the food off at the house, we receive the exact reaction I had expected. Genuine excitement followed closely by its ugly brother, false enthusiasm. Scattering the cans out across the kitchen counter, nobody jumps at the opportunity to take one. I can't blame them. The smiling dog plastered across every can doesn't exactly scream appetizing.

I begin to think that my trip to the supermarket was a pointless risk, when the woman who gave me the knife steps forward and takes a can, nodding at me with a smile. I don't stay to see if she actually eats any, the gesture is enough. We leave the small home the same way we came in, quietly. Stopping outside the front door, we pause, wondering if we should bother speaking to Aaron.

When we came back from the supermarket, we ignored them completely, focused only on dropping the food off. I should probably tell him that we weren't able to find much, but with Logan glaring at me and Rocket glaring at Joey, we decide not to approach them. Instead we begin  walking down the street, crossing a few lawns before skipping over to the road.

I continue to glance around nervously, but the area, for the most part looks deserted. All of the infected must have run off at the sound of the fireworks, or stumbled after the trail of smoke. I keep my guard up anyway, because I know that there may be a few stragglers still fumbling about.

We turn left where Rocket said to, already spotting the hospital in the distance. It doesn't look like much, almost indistinguishable from the shops surrounding it. A low, one story building that spreads out along the road a little wider than the buildings around it. It pales in comparison to most of the hospitals I've seen and I feel it better deserves the label of pharmacy, than hospital.

Although I suppose I shouldn't complain. If the building is small, that means that there are less corners for things to hide in. Less doorways for things to lurk in. It's a small thought, but it works to console me, massaging the anxious knots from my mind. But it doesn't take long for them to twist back up again as we near the hospital doors.

We come to a slow stop just before the little steps leading up to the entrance, our eyes mutually transfixed on the same thing. A steel chain has wrapped itself around the door handle, twisting around the bar like a snake. Walking up to it, I reach out a hand and run a finger along its length, weaved artfully in loops and held in place with a significantly sized padlock. I pull my hand back and look down at my finger, smeared with an orange grime.

Rust.

Whoever put this chain in place did so a long time ago. Maybe even at the beginning, when the outbreak had first started. I try to imagine the chaos of being in a hospital, where all the sick had first fled to. A breeding ground for the infection. Joey reaches out, distracting me from my thoughts and cups the padlock in his hand. Holding it in his grasp for a second, he moves to pull it away, giving it a harsh tug. It holds fast.

"I don't like the looks of this." He mumbles, dropping the lock and leaving it to clank against the chain.

Whoever had locked this place up had obviously intended for it to stay that way. I don't even want to imagine why. But I have to look on the positive side of things. If this place was locked up when the infection first spread, that would mean that it probably hasn't been looted. I can already envision the dusty shelves, lined with rows of prescription drugs, ripe for the picking.