Twelve Days in Hell Read online

own.

  She pushed the morose thoughts out of her mind and started to wash and dry the sheets and blankets. After a couple of hours had passed, she was feeling much better. She was even smiling and humming a happy song while she made her way from room to room offering blankets to the patients.

  She felt good in her heart that she was actually doing something to help people in need. She knew she couldn't make friends with the patients but she was happy to help them none the less. From floor to floor and hall to hall she would ask them if there was anything that she could do to make their stay more comfortable.

  Most of the time she was either asked to turn on the television set in the room or to change the channels. Every now and then she was asked to raise or lower the bed to make it more comfortable. All she knew was that she was happy to help.

  ————

  The Ambulance rolled in with lights flashing, sirens wailing, and screeching tires.

  Two young paramedics jumped out and flung open the back door. They rolled the gurney out as smoothly as they could while moving as fast as they were able.

  One of the doctors met them at the door and asked what the patient's symptoms were.

  “Blurred vision, slurred speech, going from icy cold to burning hot, vomiting and diarrhea.” said the younger of the two paramedics.

  The doctor escorted them all to an empty examination room, where they began by taking the old man's temperature and blood pressure.

  Whatever this illness was, it was new, so they ran a few tests to see what it was doing to his body. They kept him in room 502 while they ran the different procedures and read the scans.

  Something was attacking the man's brain and nervous system.

  Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours, and the patient's breathing grew more labored.

  ————

  Molly made her way to room 502 and knocked lightly on the door.

  The patient, an older gentleman, was lying on the bed facing the door when she walked in.

  "Is there anything I can get for you to make you more comfortable?” she asked.

  He sat up holding his stomach and said in a slurred voice, “I can't feel anything.”

  She thought he meant he was cold, so she gave him in a blanket.

  "So numb” he said.

  She told him everything was all right and that he was in good hands, and she walked out the room.

  The hospital staff found out too late that the virus was airborne, only after a few more patients were brought in with the same symptoms.

  A nurse became sick, displaying the tell-tale signs of the virus.

  The doctors advised patients and staff to wear face masks and to report any unusual symptoms as soon as they experienced them.

  Meanwhile, in room 502, the first patient was scratching at the flesh on his right arm. When he broke the skin, he placed his cold lips to the cut and tasted blood for the very first time.

  His eyes became as large as disks in the sockets; and his pupils became so large that he looked like a cartoon character. Like a wild animal, he ripped off a large chunk of flesh from his right arm and chewed it then swallowed it.

  The nurse went to room 502 to find a pool of blood next to the hospital bed and a trail of blood leading to the bathroom.

  She called down the hall for a doctor, and then went to the restroom door and gently knocked.

  “Mr. Hawkins are you OK in there sir?” she asked.

  But the sounds she heard coming from the other side of the restroom door told her what she feared. She heard teeth chattering, and whimpering.

  The doctor rushed in the room and he flung open the door to find Mr. Hawkins bleeding from his arms and wrists.

  At first they thought it was a suicide attempt, but after looking closer to the wounds they realized it was teeth marks in the flesh and by the time they saw Mr. Hawkins's eyes it was too late.

  He lashed out and bit the doctor on the neck and started to drink the warm blood which he found to be much tastier than his own cold blood. He then took a couple of big chunks out of the doctor's throat.

  The doctor, unable to call for help, lay on the bathroom floor with blood spurting out of his wound like water from a garden hose. He took his last breath as the nurse ran out of the room screaming in terror.

  Molly was wearing her mask, but she noticed she was starting to feel some of the symptoms that the doctors had warned about.

  Her shift was over, so she was making her way to the emergency entrance when she heard the nurse's screams echo through the halls.

  Frightened, she ran to her car, a silver four door Cadillac. As she was leaving, another ambulance screeched to a stop.

  Needless to say, it was going to be a very long and hellish night at the hospital.

  Day 2

  Police flooded the hospital.

  The middle aged doctor lay in a large pool of blood in the bathroom of room 502. The nurse was in shock, sitting in the waiting room wrapped in a blanket.

  It was 1:30AM and the patients with the new virus were quarantined away from the larger populations.

  An officer shot Mr. Hawkins, and the body was moved directly to the morgue, where they could transfer him to a medical examiner to determine cause of death and perform more tests.

  From the coldness of the body the medical examiner was able to tell that Mr. Hawkins had died somewhere between 12:30AM and 1:00AM.

  “How can this be?” he asked himself aloud. The patient had died before he was shot; the examiner could also tell this from the blood. The tests and examination didn't lie.

  He reported his findings to the doctors on staff and told them to check on the other quarantined patients.

  Doctors and nurses made their way to the quarantined section of the hospital. What they found was what looked to be a massacre. There were fingers and mangled pieces of flesh on the floor. Blood was smeared all up and down the walls. The smell in the air was unforgettable; a metallic smell that must have been from all the blood.

  The police were still in the building when they heard the screams of horror. They rushed to the quarantined section to find the doctors and nurses surrounded by, for lack of a better term, zombies.

  The cops immediately opened fire. A couple of bodies dropped but at this time there were around forty wide eyed creatures and the cops were outnumbered. One by one, screaming in the night, the not-so-healthy were joining the ranks of the undead.

  ————

  Molly's symptoms were getting worse.

  She knew she needed help but with the scream still echoing inside her head she decided the hospital was not the best place for her to be.

  She didn't wake up Danny when she went to bed, she just hoped that she would feel better later on in the day.

  The clock rolled over to 5:30AM and Danny awoke to strange noises. Not those of birds or passing cars but chattering and whimpers.

  It was not like whimpering in pain, it was more like the sound of the need to do something, the way a dog whimpers to get outside to use the bathroom. Danny turned to see Molly sitting up in bed, and she looked to be her licking her arm.

  “Honey what's the matter?” he asked.

  She turned around and faced him, her lips blue and her teeth red.

  “What the hell?” Danny leaned toward her to get a better look.

  Her eyes were wild and she started screeching. She jumped at Danny.

  He was so freaked out by the blood he saw that he didn't realize she was out for his blood until the second time she snapped at him.

  He grabbed her arm, which was covered in teeth marks. He started to call her name, and then he realized she was not herself, and that he must fight if he wanted to live.

  Molly came at Danny yet another time but Danny was ready and he pushed her to the floor.

  He tried to run past her to call the cops but she grabbed his ankle and he tripped and fell hard onto the wooden floor. He gained the upper hand by kicking her in the stomach.

&n
bsp; He had never fought anyone in his life, and here he was fighting his undead wife for his life.

  He ran into the bathroom and locked the door.

  She was soon outside it, breathing heavy and wild, banging on it and making chattering sounds with her teeth. Danny looked all around the room to see what he could find as a weapon to defend himself.

  The fact that he was going to have to kill his wife started to sink in. He felt an intense pain in his gut, and he found it hard to swallow.

  He looked under the sink and found a large wrench that he had used to tighten the water valves on the toilet.

  It's do or die he thought to himself as he raised the wrench above his head and shoved the door open with his free hand.

  He knocked Molly to the floor and gave her a good whack to the temple.

  She went down, never to come up again.

  Danny started shaking and crying uncontrollably. The reality that he killed his wife, his high school sweet heart, his better half, his best friend, started to sink in.

  He hurried to the phone and dialed 911.

  All he heard on the other line was static, hissing and buzzing. The line was dead. He turned on the TV just in time to see the images from the local news choppers of riots in the streets.

  What the hell was going on, anyway?

  The hospital was where the rioting started, they were reporting, when a large gathering of people spilled from the building onto the streets, but they had no more details than that.

  It wasn't just a local thing, either–there were several news stations across America telling how riots were starting, in numerous places all across the map. From the Carolina's to California, it was like all the country was taking a turn straight to hell. Loved ones attacking each other, even