The Walls of Lemuria (9 page)

He raised the flashlight over his head in order to see past the massive blob of hunched over forms. He couldn’t. They were everywhere. Simply everywhere. There wasn’t a single window in the entire hallway, and without the lights along the ceiling, the whole length of the passageway was blacked out. The figures inside grew more agitated the longer Keo shined the flashlight at them.

Impossible. It’s impossible.

“Daebak,”
Keo said under his breath.

“What?” Jake said behind him.

“Hmm?”

“You said day-bat?”

“It’s nothing,” Keo said. “Just something my mom used to say to me.”

“Oh.”

“Remember what I told you, Jake. Keep your shotgun pointed at the floor and only shoot away from me.”

“Okay…”

He turned off the flashlight and put it away, then unclipped the radio. He didn’t press the transmit lever right away because he didn’t know what to tell her.

“Sorry, babe, but you’re on your own. See ya!”

Not quite.

He keyed the radio. “Gillian.”

He hadn’t bothered to keep his voice down. There was no point because they knew he was here. They could see him, and it looked as if some of them were sniffing him, getting as close to the mouth of the hallway as possible without entering the stream of sunlight.

“Keo,” Gillian said through the radio.

She sounded relieved. Maybe she had expected him to turn and run as soon as he saw what awaited him inside the lobby. She wasn’t far from the truth. Keo desperately wanted the medical supplies in the rooms along the hallways, but he didn’t intend to die here in this place, at this moment.

But he didn’t say any of that. Instead, Keo said, “You were expecting someone else?”

“You’re still here. I’m surprised, that’s all.”

“How many rooms are in Hallway C?”

She didn’t answer right away. “One of the nurses said ten,” she said finally. “We’re in the last room at the back, after a slight right turn.”

“What about a side door into the morgue? They don’t bring bodies in through the lobby, do they?”

“No. There’s a back door at the end of the hallway that they use, and the morgue is right next to it. But I don’t think you’re going to be able to use that one, either. Sorry.”

Of course not. Why should it be that easy?

“Keo, be careful,” Gillian said. “I don’t think they can be killed. I stabbed one of them in the head with a scalpel last night. Where the brain should be. It just…kept coming, like nothing happened.”

Tell me something I don’t know,
he thought, but said, “Understood. Stay put.”

Keo clipped the radio back on his hip.

What now?

“How are we going to get to them?” Jake asked. “Through…that.”

Keo shook his head. He had no answers for Jake. A part of him wanted to leave. Head back to the police station. Get on the road with Norris and the others and head to Fort Damper. Yes, he wanted those medical supplies, but he wasn’t going to get them. Not with all three hallways teeming with those undead things. And he wanted to help Gillian and the others trapped in the morgue. He liked the sound of her voice, her sense of humor. But that was another pipe dream filled with black-eyed creatures that refused to die.

“See the world. Kill some people. Make some money.”

Remember?

Keo sighed.

“Keo? Should we just go back?” Jake said, watching him closely.

“Not yet.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I want to make sure.”

“Make sure of what?”

Keo didn’t answer. Instead, he took three quick steps toward the mouth of Hallway C, lifted the shotgun, and fired from a meter away. Fire stabbed forth from the barrel of the Remington, lighting up the interior of the passageway for a brief second.

Two of the creatures closest to the blast were ripped apart by buckshot. Flesh tore and blood splattered, but neither of the inhuman things went down. Keo didn’t know what he was feeling—maybe acceptance, or possibly fascination—as he watched the smelly, pruned-skin forms glower at him. One of them had lost half of its head; black globs of something that probably used to be blood but couldn’t possibly be anymore
slurped
out of its shattered skull. The other one had lost its left arm in the blast—not that it seemed to notice.

“Oh, Jesus,” Jake whispered behind him.

Keo racked the shotgun and fired again, then again and again.

Fingers flew off, a chest exploded, and the sound of bones crunched under buckshot. A leg buckled and the body collapsed before the creature picked itself back up and stood on one bent leg.

When he stopped shooting, they looked back out at him.

Waiting…

Keo was already reloading the Remington with fresh shells from the pouch when the radio clipped to his hip squawked and he heard Gillian’s voice, slightly frightened. “Keo, what’s happening out there? Are you okay? We heard shooting.”

“Everything’s fine,” he said into the radio.

“Are you still coming to get us?”

He didn’t answer her right away, and instead shoved another shell into the shotgun.

“Keo? Are you still out there? Please answer me…”

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it back there, Gillian.”

There was a long silence from her end. Then: “I was afraid you were going to say that. We can still hear them through the door. I can’t be sure how many, but it sounds like a lot.”

You have no idea.

“And they can’t get through?” he asked.

“No. The door’s solid steel, like I said. They stopped trying to break it down last night. I guess they just gave up.”

They do that. If they can’t get through, they give up. And then they wait, because eventually you’ll have to come out. And they have all the time in the world. What does time mean to something that doesn’t care if you smash their skull in or obliterate their brains?

“Hey, you still out there?” Gillian said.

“I’m still here.”

“I thought you might have left us.”

“Not yet.” Then, “What kind of supplies do you have in there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Food. Water. How long can you last?”

“We don’t have anything in here, Keo. We didn’t exactly plan this. When it happened, it was so fast. I was just looking for a place where they couldn’t get in. It’s my fault we’re in here.”

It wasn’t quite self-pity he heard in her voice; it was more like resignation. She was giving up, likely because she had heard the same thing from him. That, more than anything, made Keo feel all of two feet and stuffed with a big bag of crap.

“Gillian,” Keo said.

“What?”

“The town’s dead except for a handful of people that I’ve met so far.”

“Oh, God. I was afraid of that.”

“What I’m trying to say is, those people in there with you wouldn’t be alive now if you hadn’t taken them there.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Gillian?”

“I’m here,” she said softly.

“You did good.”

“Thanks, Pa.”

He smiled. She had a wicked sense of humor. He wondered what she looked like…

“Now, sit tight some more and I’ll figure out a way to get to you,” Keo said. “I promise.”

“Thanks, Keo. Whoever you are.”

“I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Don’t be a stranger.”

He put the radio away and looked back at Jake. The young man’s eyes were focused on the hallway, on the creatures watching him back.

“Jake,” Keo said.

Jake didn’t respond. His attention remained glued to the hallway.

“Jake,” Keo said, louder.

The young man flinched a bit and finally looked over at him. “We can’t get to them. They’re all the way back there. We’d never make it all the way back there.”

Keo nodded. “I know. Let’s go outside. See if there might be a back way into the morgue.”

“And if there isn’t?”

“I don’t know,” Keo said. “We’ll figure something out.”

*

Jake leaned against
the hood of the Lancer, probably wondering why he had ever decided to come along in the first place. Keo didn’t blame him. Even though he knew it wasn’t going to be a quick rescue mission, he hadn’t really expected this.

How the hell was he going to get Gillian and the others out of the morgue when he couldn’t even access the room in the first place? There were no windows anywhere that he could see, and Gillian herself said there was no other entry or exit out of the place except through the one steel door. The back door that the staff used to transport bodies to the morgue was closed, and when he leaned against it, he could hear the creatures moving restlessly on the other side.

He walked around the building once, then a second time, just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything the first time. He hadn’t. He could walk around the hospital a third and a fourth time, and a door still wouldn’t magically appear for him.

Gillian radioed him back during his second lap around the place. “Any second now, Keo.”

“I’m still looking.”

“Where are you now?”

“Outside.”

“Must be nice.”

He imagined it had to be pretty bleak for her and the others at the moment. Morgues were, after all, where you stored dead bodies, and without electricity the freezing units wouldn’t do what they were designed to. In another day the smell would be unbearable, if it wasn’t already by now.

Keo circled back around to the parking lot and glanced at his watch. Thirty minutes until noon.

“Norris,” Keo said into the radio.

It took a few seconds before he heard the ex-cop’s voice. “Yeah, kid.”

“You been listening in?”

“Couldn’t turn the channel. Real exciting stuff you guys have going on there. So what’s your next move?”

“I don’t know yet. Are you packed and ready to hit the road?”

“We’re all ready to go, but you still have until noon to get back here.”

“Roger that.”

“Are we going somewhere?” Gillian asked through the radio.

“Fort Damper,” Keo said.

“What’s there?”

“A fort.”

“Smart-ass.” Then, “Figured something out yet? It’s getting pretty hot in here.”

“I’m still thinking.”

He heard her sigh heavily. It was overly dramatic and for his benefit, no doubt.

“Sit tight,” he said.

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll call and cancel my day at the spa.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Keo, did I tell you?”

“What’s that?”

“I’m very attractive.”

He smiled. “Is that right?”

“Yes. I also have green eyes. It’s one of my best features and I’d love for you to get lost in them. So please, get me the hell out of here.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He stared at the building in front of him for a moment. Specifically, at the red-and-black brick and mortar that made up the wall. Behind that was the morgue, and Gillian. All he really needed was another entrance that wasn’t teeming with bloodsuckers on the other side. A new door of some kind.

A door…

“Gillian,” he said into the radio.

“Really, really attractive,” she answered almost right away.

He smiled again. “Where are you and the others right now inside the room?”

“We’re kind of scattered everywhere. Why?”

“I need you to move everyone away from the back wall. As far as you can. Get everyone to the front of the room.”

She didn’t answer right away. Then, with more than just a touch of concern in her voice, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to make a door.”

“Oh God, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Trust me.”

“I don’t even know you.”

“Trust me anyway.”

“I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“None that I can see. It’s a morgue, so it has those steel tables, right?”

“Yes…”

“You’ll want to use them as cover, just in case. Understand?”

“Just in case of what?”

“I thought you were going to trust me.”

She sighed again. “Okay. And then what?”

He walked back to the Lancer and Jake. “When you have everyone moved as far away from the back wall as possible, let me know.”

“Okay,” she said. Then, “Keo…”

“Yeah.”

“Is this going to work?”

“Definitely.”

“You sound very sure of it.”

“I am.”

“Are you insane?”

“I’ve been called worse.”

Jake looked ready to leave when Keo reached him. “Are we going?”

“Not yet,” Keo said.

“How are we going to get them out?”

“Do me a favor and start looking for a vehicle with keys in them.”

Jake gave him a perplexed look.

“Like the ambulance,” Keo said. “See if the keys are still inside.”

“And if it’s not?”

“You know how to hot-wire an ambulance?”

“I…” He stopped and shook his head.

“We’ll figure it out,” Keo said. “For now, you might want to get your stuff out of the Lancer.”

*