Pretty Much Dead Already, page 20
Rhett stands by the door, posture ramrod-straight and eyes fixed on the narrow gap of light beneath it. Every time the thump of boots or a distant howl echoes down the concrete steps, his hand twitches a fraction closer to his weapon. Jace has found a broken-backed chair and perched on it like a crow, scanning the room and speaking in low, steady tones to the most panicked. Cass is sprawled on a stack of empty grain sacks, one leg stretched out in front of him, absently picking at the dried blood caked under his fingernails. Michael, moves from body to body, checking pulses and changing bandages with a calm that almost makes him seem detached, except for the way his jaw clenches every time he finds a new injury.
It’s the first time since the siege began that we’ve been together without a wall of violence separating us.
Above, the gunfire is a constant, arrhythmic punctuation—sharp pops and the heavier, wetter sounds of shotguns. But then, without warning, it stops. Not fades, not slows. Just—stops. The silence after is its own kind of violence.
The cellar holds its breath.
Someone whimpers. A man in a torn mechanic’s shirt grips his kid closer. The only thing louder than the quiet is the realization that the fighting is done. Whether we’d won or lost is up for debate.
Thirty seconds, maybe a minute, and then the heavy scrape of the bolt. Every muscle in my body locks up. The door opens just wide enough for a single arm to snake through—a red windbreaker, sleeve soaked to the elbow. I see the fingers twitch, the hand flex, and then a voice I don’t recognize: “It’s clear. For now.”
A scout. Rhett is on him in an instant, hauling the man in and slamming the door behind him. The new arrival collapses to his knees, eyes rolling wild, but he manages to gasp out a report: “They’re gone. Pulled back. But the west gate—” He hacks up a gob of pink saliva. “They left it open. The dead are coming. Not fast, but—” He make a sound like laughter, or maybe it was just his lungs failing.
Rhett kneels next to him, voice flat. “How many?”
The man works his jaw. “Hundreds? Hard to count. The river slowed them, but now they’re headed straight here. Once they merge with the ones already here…it’s an LA horde level situation.”
Cass groans, but the sound is more disgust than fear. “Classic asshole move. Why risk your own when the dead do the cleanup?”
The room digests this, the survivors shifting as if the information itself has weight. The whimpering girl by my side has gone silent, eyes squeezed shut. I put a hand on her shoulder, uncertain, then leave it there.
Rhett wastes no time. “Listen up!” His voice carries, authoritative without being cruel. “We move in ten. Two teams. First—defense, plug the breach and hold it. Second—supply run to the triage, get the wounded out and bring ammo to the gate.”
He glances at Cass, who is already rooting through a bin of tools, discarding lengths of wire and dull hacksaws in search of something with more bite. “You know the back corridors better than anyone. Take a crew, sweep the perimeter, get what we need.”
Cass salutes with a smirk, then tosses a pipe my way. I catch it, barely, the cold steel biting my palm. “No time for lessons, Birdie. Hope you paid attention last time.”
I try to joke, but my mouth is too dry.
Dr. Michael appears at my elbow, clipboard in hand. “If you’re going, take these.” He hands me a roll of gauze, a sealed packet of burn cream, and a fistful of what looks like allergy pills. “Most of the injuries will be bites, but watch for the ones acting strange. Sometimes it’s hours before the fever shows.”
I nod, tucking the supplies into the pocket of my jacket. The gesture feels almost normal, until I realizes Dr. Michael’s hand is still on my wrist. Not gripping, just holding, a quiet anchor. When he lets go, it leaves a print.
Across the room, Jace is organizing the most able-bodied into a huddle, distributing what passes for armor—leather jackets, a few repurposed catcher's chest protectors, even a battered fencing mask. He speaks soft and steady, the tone more important than the content. “You’re not heroes,” he tells a trembling pair of twins, “Just be fast and careful. No fighting if you can run.” They nod, eyes huge, but I see the way their hands steady.
I check the pipe Cass handed me—blunt, but heavy enough to crush a windpipe. I feel a sick surge of pride that I recognize this on sight.
Rhett scans the cellar, then points at me. “Vale, you’re with me. We clear the way to the triage room, hold until the others catch up.”
The order catches me off guard, I just nod, and stand a little taller.
Cass sidles up, rolling his shoulders. “You look like shit,” he says, but it’s almost affectionate.
“Thanks,” I mutter. “You look like you slept in a trash can.”
He flashes teeth. “I did. More comfortable than most beds I’ve had.”
The survivors are already separating, the logic of self-preservation sorting them faster than any speech could. Some cling to loved ones, others hug the walls, hands white on their makeshift weapons. A few whispered prayers, but most just stare at the floor, jaws set.
I take one last look at Michael. He doesn’t say goodbye, just presses a hand to my shoulder and gives a quick nod. His eyes are dark, but clear.
We line up at the door, shoulder to shoulder. The scout who’d delivered the bad news is out cold, curled up on the steps. Jace bends over him, checks his pulse, and then tucks a blanket around his head.
Rhett draws his sidearm and holds it low. “Ready?” His eyes meet mine, and there is no doubt, just a kind of exhausted patience.
I heft the pipe, feeling its weight settle through my arm. “Ready.”
Cass grins. “Let’s make some noise.”
The door opens, and we go out into whatever is left of the world.
The hall beyond the cellar is lit only by the red flicker of an emergency lamp, the color wrong for morning or night. A haze of smoke hugs the ceiling; underfoot, broken tile and old linoleum mix with something wet that doesn’t bear thinking about. Rhett takes the lead, gun out but held low, each step measured. I follow—pipe in both hands—Cass behind, whistling a tune so soft I can’t place it, only that it’s obscene and probably about dying young. The rest bunch up behind us: Michael, sleeves rolled up, face already shining with sweat; Jace, ushering along the more meandering; and half a dozen others, the best the fort can spare.
The first body we trip over is still twitching. Not dead, not alive. Its leg has been shot off, the stump wrapped in a belt that used to belong to someone much fatter. Rhett pauses just long enough to confirm the lack of a bite, then keeps moving. Cass kneels, mutters something I miss, and snatches a utility knife from the corpse’s belt. “Waste not,” he says, flicking the blade open and closed with a practiced thumb.
The moans start faint, maybe a floor up or beyond the walls. But as we move, they grow—echoed by the slosh of shuffling feet, the occasional crack of something heavy hitting metal. The whole building is a drum, every step answering with its own ghost.
We make it twenty yards before the first dead finds us. It staggers out of a side room, mouth working around a tongue gone to rags. Its arms reach, but it’s too slow—Rhett’s bullet catches it just under the left eye, spraying the wall behind with blackish pulp. The body topples, still reaching, until Cass stomps its head flat, then looks back at me. “Your turn next,” he grins.
“Looking forward to it,” I say, and almost mean it.
Single file, we move down the corridor. The walls are scarred with bullet holes and slashes of something brown. At each doorway, Rhett pauses and sweeps the angle, covering every corner before waving us through. I keep my eyes up, pipe ready, but what I really notice is how my breathing has changed—not shallow and panicked, but deep and almost… excited.
We are a hundred feet from the first stairwell when a hand shoots out, clawing at Michael’s ankle. It belongs to a woman in what is left of a cafeteria uniform. She’d been gnawed from the waist down, but her arms work just fine. Michael barely flinches—he just pivots, stomps on the wrist, and drives a penlight straight into her eye socket. There is a sickening pop, and the clawing slows to a stop. “Keep moving,” he says, calm as someone reading a grocery list.
The stairwell itself is a graveyard. Five, maybe six of the dead, all jammed into the landing, mouths open in a chorus of failure. One had made it to the railing, chewing on a fragment of some unfortunate’s hand, now fused to its jaw by dried blood. Rhett empties his clip in measured shots, each impact a soft wet smack, until the way is clear.
We step over the remains, the stench so strong I have to swallow my own vomit back down. Jace passes a handkerchief to the nearest woman, her face already green. “Just focus on my voice,” he murmurs. “One foot in front of the other. You’ve survived worse than this.” She nods, shaking, but follows.
Down the next hall, the noise is louder. You can hear the herd—the slap of feet, the grind of bone on concrete, the low moaning that never quite stops. Cass falls back to cover the rear, his new knife out, and every few steps he pauses, turns, and listens.
Then the corridor narrows—a section under renovation, plastic tarps and stacks of drywall crowding the path. It forces us into a choke point. Rhett signals halt, then motions for me to take the left while he clears the right.
A pair of zombies—one in a suit, the other in a janitor’s green—burst from behind a pallet. The janitor is missing a jaw, but makes up for it with both hands, latching onto Rhett’s forearm. I lunge, swinging the pipe in an arc that catches the suit just above the temple. The impact is disgusting—a crack, then a gush of black fluid that splatters my face and leaves my ears ringing. The body folds, twitching, and I hit it again, just to be sure.
Rhett handles the janitor with military precision: a knee to the gut, then a single shot through the base of the skull. He wipes the blood from his arm with a strip of the dead man’s shirt, then looks at me. “You good?”
“Better than him,” I say, glancing down at the crumpled suit.
Cass whoops from the rear. “Damn, Birdie. You always had that swing?”
I wipe my mouth, tasting copper. “Guess I just needed the right motivation.”
“Remind me to never piss you off,” he says, then turns to check the next corner.
We press on, the survivors behind us muttering prayers or just breathing hard. Jace keeps them together, offering a hand when someone stumbles, never letting anyone lag. I see the way the kids watch him, desperate for any sign of calm.
Halfway to the triage room, we hit a wall of debris—overturned desks, chairs, even a vending machine wedged sideways in the hall. It blocks everything but a foot-high gap at the bottom.
Rhett assesses, then shakes his head. “Not going through there, not with wounded.” He scans for alternatives, but the doors on either side are sealed with steel bars.
I look up, then down. The maintenance hatch set into the floor is battered but not locked. I point. “We could try that. Might lead to the basement crawl.”
Cass claps me on the back, sending a fresh wave of blood down my sleeve. “Always thinking, Birdie. You sure you weren’t born Beta?”
I shrug. “I just like tunnels.” He cracks a grin at my randomness, pride floating in his eyes, that was totally something he would say…with less swear words.
Rhett pops the hatch with the butt of his gun, and Cass drops down first, boots thudding on the metal below. He calls up, “Clear enough,” then helps the next person down.
We shuttle everyone through, Michael lowering the injured with surprising gentleness. The air below is worse—damp, electric, thick with the whine of old machinery—but at least there are no zombies in sight.
We crouch-walk for fifty feet, then find another hatch. Cass checks the seam, then eases it open just wide enough to peer out. “All clear. Let’s go.”
One by one, we emerge into a supply closet behind the triage room. The door on the far side is rattling, the handle jumping as something outside claws at it.
Rhett and I take position, weapons raised, while Cass and Jace hustle the survivors into cover. Michael is already unpacking gauze, prepping for whatever mess we find.
Rhett counts down from three, then yanks the door open.
A mass of the dead tumble in, six or seven bodies packed together. The first—a Beta with half its scalp missing—goes straight for Rhett, but he plants a boot in its chest and sends it back into the heap. I swing my pipe at the nearest, a woman in scrubs whose name tag still read “HELLO, I’M KAREN.” The strike crushes her windpipe, the noise wet and final. She collapses, arms still reaching.
Cass handles two at once, knife in each hand, grinning like a demon as he works. “Come on, you lazy bastards!” He yells, slashing and ducking.
It’s over in less than a minute. The bodies twitch, then still, blood pooling across the tile. The only sound left is the ragged breathing of our own.
The triage room is a symphony of pain. Bodies line the walls—some upright on cots, others sprawled where they’d collapsed mid-scream. The air is thick with blood, the metallic sting of it cutting through even the overpowering stench of sweat and antiseptic. The noise isn’t just people; it’s the clatter of tools, the hiss of portable oxygen, the desperate shuffle of feet. You can’t think straight in here, but you don’t have to. There’s only the next emergency.
Michael barks orders without looking up. “Vale, gloves on. Tray three, stat.”
I find the gloves, snap them over hands still sticky with old blood. There is no time to wonder if I’m qualified for this; I’m here, and that’s the only credential that matters.
He points me to a woman on the floor, her thigh a mess of torn meat and pulsing red. “Pressure, here.” He shows me the spot, then lets go. For a second, I panic—the blood surges, warm and slick, between my fingers—but then I lean in, weight behind it, and the bleeding slows.
“Good,” Michael says, moving on to the next crisis.
Around us, the wounded groan or sob or stare into space. Jace is everywhere, crouching by a young man holding his own guts in with a towel, whispering to a child with a tourniquet on her arm, stroking the hair of a Beta girl whose face has been reduced to a mask of purple and black. He never lets anyone go unseen.
The woman beneath my hands whimpers, tries to claw at my wrists. “Hurts,” she rasps.
I don’t know what to say, so I just squeeze harder. “You’re not dead yet,” I offer. “So keep fighting.”
Her eyes met mine—bleary, but sharp—and she nods once. “Bitch,” she manages, but there’s respect in it.
I grin. “I’ve been called worse.”
A surge of noise from the corridor—the shouts of Rhett and Cass corralling new arrivals. The doors bang open, and a wave of fresh wounded pour in, trailing blood across the tile. Some walk, some crawl, some are carried. Cass barrels through at the head, holding a girl in his arms like she weighs nothing.
“Got a live one!” He yells. “She’s bad.”
Michael meets him halfway, stripping back the girl’s shirt to reveal a bite on her arm, already edged in black. “We need to cut, now,” he says, voice grim. “Vale, bring the kit.”
I fumble for the tray, knocking a bottle of iodine to the floor, but manage to grab the scalpel, bone saw, and a roll of surgical tape. Cass sets the girl on the table, brushing her hair back from her face. She’s younger than me—maybe sixteen—but her eyes are bright with panic, pain, and terror.
“Hold her down,” Michael orders, his voice is low and steady already in 'doctor' mode.
Jace and Cass each grab a limb. I take the other arm. The girl thrashes, screaming as Michael injects her with something from a cloudy syringe.
“Sorry,” he mutters, and then he starts to cut.
I’ve never seen a human body opened before. The skin parts, white then red, then the fat beneath. Michael works fast, ignoring the screams, slicing down to the muscle and through it in a single, practiced motion. He reaches bone, uses the saw, and the room fills with the smell of hot marrow.
The girl losses consciousness. Cass winces, but doesn’t let go.
Michael tosses the infected flesh into a bucket, then packs the stump with powder. “Sutures, Vale,” he says, and I realize he wants me to stitch.
My hands shake, but I thread the needle and get to work, remembering what little I’d seen of Michael’s technique. The first pass is way too shallow, but the second bites deep, and I find a rhythm. The blood slows, then stops. I tie off the last stitch, feeling dizzy.
Michael checks my work, then gives a rare smile. “You’re a natural.”
I want to cry, but there’s no time. The next patient is waiting.
For the next hour, I loose myself in the blur of violence and care. I press wounds, clean bites, learn to recognize when someone is beyond saving. The dead are dragged to a far corner, stacked three deep, but I don’t look at their faces.
I focus on the living.
Jace is a ghost, floating from bed to bed, his words a salve when nothing else works. I hear him tell a woman her child is safe. I watch him hold the hand of a man whose chest has been opened and sewn shut, whispering until the shivering stops. It’s a different kind of medicine.
Cass and Rhett take turns dragging in more survivors and shoring up the barricade at the door. Once, I catch them passing a flask between shifts, eyes dark with exhaustion. When they spot me watching, Cass winks and Rhett just nods, the gesture an entire conversation.
The chaos builds, then plateaus. The wounded thins out. Michael circles the room, checking every patient, then slumps against the wall, breathing hard.
I sit beside the girl I’d stitched, still unconscious but stable. Her face is pale, but her breathing even.
Michael crouches next to me, hands bloody to the wrist. “You did good, Vale. Better than good.” His voice is light, a hint of pride and awe in his words.
I shrug, unsure what to do with the praise, real honest praise with no hidden meaning or agendas. “You taught me.”
He smiles, not quite kind. “You learned. There’s a difference.”
