against the far wall, curled up in a ball with her hands over her chest, breathing shallowly. Her face was dirty and pale and she looked much thinner. Her backpack sat across from her. Empty food cans and glass water bottles were scattered about the room. Most of them were filled with urine. There were more in her backpack, filled with fresh water. She had been prepared to be lost for a long time. The girl looked defeated and helpless, and gazed at me with sorrowful, frightened eyes. I put my hand out to her. She screamed. It was a high-pitched ear-ringing scream.
“Hey, shut up!” I hissed at her, and reached to grab her.
“No, no, no!” she cried, her voice cracking. “Heeeeeeeeelp!”
I grabbed her wrist and tweaked it. “Knock if off!” I commanded. I dropped my pack on the floor and rummaged through it, cursing softly as I tried to find the glass bottle of ether. It was buried at the bottom of the pack and I was having trouble drawing it out with one hand.
Thump! I turned and looked out the doorway. A Stiff had bumped into the front door and thrown it open against its weight. I hadn’t closed it behind me. Two more Stiffs piled in behind it.
“Shit,” I muttered. I ducked back toward the closet door and pulled it shut behind me.
“What are you— ”
“Shut up!” I said in a harsh whisper. I grabbed her arms and shook her. “Those things heard you! Listen, you’re coming with me. We won’t hurt you or make you one of us.” I turned from her and reached into my pack, pushing a few items aside to grab a hold of the bottle and draw out the ether. “Hold still,” I said, uncorking the bottle and moving it toward her.
“No!” she screeched and lunged away from me and toward the corner to grab one of the bottles that she had left scattered there. She picked up a glass filled with yellow liquid and with a grunt she tossed it at me with both hands. I threw my arm over my face and the bottle crashed into the bottle of ether I held, causing both to shatter and urine and ether to splash over me. Blinking, I spit out a mix of urine and bittersweet chemical from my mouth. Glaring at the girl with rage, I tossed aside the broken cap of the ether bottle. This wasn’t going as smoothly as I had hoped.
I pushed my arm against her chest and shoved her against the far wall. “Keep quiet!” I commanded in a harsh whisper. “Or the Stiffs will kill us both!”
She didn’t speak. There was no window on the closet door. We were in the dark. We waited. I heard a thump against the door. The doorknob jiggled. They were trying to get in. But they didn’t know how to open the door. They didn’t even know it was a door. They wouldn’t break it down unless they were sure we were in here. We were safe. Eventually they would go away.
I crept up toward the door and put my ear to the wood to listen.
“Are they gone?” the girl whispered.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“Good,” she said.
“What?”
I turned to look back at her, but she had sprinted forward, grabbing the doorknob and yanking open the door. She screamed loudly and ducked behind it. My eyes bulged as I watched her as if in slow motion. She was incorrigible. She had kept herself alive all week, trapped in the Stockade with the Stiffs, only to now willingly throw her life away rather than go with me. It didn’t make any sense. It was safer where I was taking her. We weren’t mindless like the Stiffs. How could she rather die with them than live with us? The girl was incomprehensible.
I stared out into the hospital room and saw three Stiffs turn to look at me, toward the noise. They began forward toward the closet. I backed away against the wall. The front Stiff came, snapping its jaws wildly. Its grunts were low and vicious. I struck out at the bottom of its jaw with the palm of my hand, knocking its head back and causing it to stumble backward. Then I charged forward, barreling into its body and knocking the other two Stiffs aside as I rammed it into the far wall across from the closet, smashing in its skull against the concrete. The Stiff’s body lay motionless. The other two Stiffs slowly drew themselves up and converged on me.
I struck one in the face and shoved the other away. The human quickly emerged from the closet and made a dash for the infirmary’s main exit. A Stiff met her in the doorway. The commotion was attracting them all. She gasped and fell backward as the Stiff snapped its jaws at her and reached out to tear into her head.
I snapped a Stiff’s neck and grabbed the other Stiff around throat. It reached out with both hands to dig its fingers into my chest. I could feel my skin threatening to break under its grip. I cried out and pushed the Stiff with all my strength, throwing it across the room. It collided with the Stiff that had gone after the human, and the two crumbled against the wall. The impact had disabled them both. I went to the infirmary’s doors and looked out. A sea of Stiffs was pouring down the hall toward us like water released from a dam. I slammed the door shut and hurried to the girl. I grabbed her wrist and dragged her across the room. I pulled her under one of the sick beds and held her close, putting my hand to her mouth.
“Stay down and shut up!” I commanded.
The front door pounded and shuddered. The Stiffs wouldn’t let up now. They could smell blood. The hinges of the door began to splinter away against the rhythmic hammering. Finally, the door was broken away from the frame and collapsed forward. The Stiffs clambered in.
Feet shuffled and dragged before us. A Stiff bumped into the bed we were under, knocking it slightly, the frame vibrating around us. Its foot stepped a few inches from my face as it staggered by. The girl tried to break free, but I held her tight. She would be dead if she tried to escape now. The Stiffs weren’t looking for us. Her screams had attracted them, but it was the blood they wanted.
Soon they were falling upon the bodies of the four Stiffs I had taken out. More than a dozen gathered around each body, tearing into the skin and pulling out the dripping, gooey innards, feasting on the organs voraciously. Their faces and hands were stained in deep red and they grunted wildly as they tore the bodies apart.
Now was our chance. I didn’t speak. Grasping the human’s wrist, I slid out from under the bed and drew her across the room. The Stiffs were too engaged with their potluck of corpses to even notice us slip by them and out the infirmary’s doors. The hall was empty. I led the human down it, dragging her around the corner through the other hall that led to the prison’s main door.
“We have to get out of here now!” I whispered hastily. “These Stiffs smell blood! It’s only gonna make them more aggressive!”
The human tried to yank her arm free of my grip. “I’m not going anywhere with you!” she hissed.
“You don’t have a choice,” I shot back. “You’re dead without me.”
“I’d rather be!” she retorted angrily.
“Shut up!” I commanded. “You want to attract more Stiffs? Let’s just get out of here!”
“No!” she shrilled. “I’m not going any-aaaahhh!”
The human cried out as a dormant Stiff, sitting against the wall, reached up, grabbed her leg, and dug its teeth into her skin with all its strength. Blood poured out around its face and teeth from the girl’s calf. I released the human and struck out at the Stiff twice, forcing it to release its mouth from her. It jerked back, falling against the wall, then slowly struggled to stand. It must have been sitting in the hallway for a long time. It was nearly comatose from not having fed, but the struggle in the infirmary and the girl’s cries must have awakened it. I slammed my fist into its skull, crushing it against the wall. The Stiffs would be on the human in an instant. The smell of her blood would attract them. Those that weren’t feeding in the infirmary would be on her quickly.
I turned to grab the girl. She was rushing in the opposite direction, hobbling on her good leg down the hall toward the opened gate ahead. She was leaving a faint trail of blood behind her, like breadcrumbs for the Stiffs to follow. I groaned. She was heading toward the cells. I looked away from her, down the hall that led to the main exit. Stiffs were coming through the door now and the
hall was beginning to fill up as they moved toward us. They could smell her. They wanted her blood. There was no going back the way I had come. I turned and raced toward the opened gate.
A long, dark corridor stretched before me. Cells lined the walls on each side, most of them opened, some even broken off their hinges, but a few locked shut. They were rusted and corroded, and the floor was dull, flat, and hard. Stiffs wandered about the length of the hallway, which stretched far back until it reached a wall. There was nowhere to go in this room. Stiffs were everywhere, plodding forward toward the human. It was a dead end.
The girl sprinted ahead, favoring her good leg as she went. She dashed between the bodies of two Stiffs as they reached clumsily to grab her and headed straight for the staircase. It led up to the second floor of the cells. There were no Stiffs up there. Stiffs didn’t know how to climb stairs. They just tripped over the steps if they tried and fell. Take that as a helpful hint if you’re ever face-to-face with an uneducated zombie, Joe. Find stairs.
I followed her. I raced ahead as Stiffs began surrounding me. I dodged them as bony, wan fingers reached out to grab me, scratching at my skin. The noise of snarling and roaring Stiffs was incredible. It echoed off the walls, a cacophony of hollow, guttural tumult.
I came to the staircase and stamped