Desolation ✔️

Chapter 26: War Zone

Ash was right: it's dark. Incredibly so.

Mine and Ellis's only source of direction are the beams of light illuminating our backwards path. We only use them for sweeping the darkness before jogging blindly towards our determined hideout. We approach the wooded forest where we slept the night before, our tent still pitched where we left it and the wood unlit from our campfire. Our footsteps echo along the pavement as we pass one destination after another, time floating away from us.

Forest—passed.

Gas station—passed.

Stadium—passed.

Ellis takes a sharp turn around some buildings, opposite of the highway we traveled. Neither of us speaks. My only reason being because I'm saving my breath. Ellis's being that we can't draw any wandering dead near.

"Crap." Ellis skids to a stop in front of me and I nearly ram into his back. I fumble with the flashlight a few seconds too long before it finally flicks on. The light peels back only a layer of the darkness, but it's enough:

The street—more like, alley—continues up before curling into a circular shape, likely for paramedics to drive through, drop off patients, and speed off for the next patient. Reminds me of a sewing needle. Pillars support part of the building on either side, a sign in the center reading 'UW Health'. Windows are shattered, ambulances are overturned, dead bodies pile outside the doors, and—oh.

Not only are there dead patients lying, but dead patients walking. Everywhere.

To our luck, they haven't noticed us. Startled by sound, not scent. Unless someone's openly bleeding, I guess? No point trying to test that theory now. Panic prickles my chest anyway. The dead block the front doors, moping mindlessly like they've entered this dead end and don't know how to turn around. Between every car are several bodies so close, they brush past each other or continuously ram head-to-head without thinking to turn another direction. There are so many. Too many. Way more than the stock outside the stadium. Is this why we haven't come across any yet? Because they're all here?

More important question: why here?

"Okay." Ellis keeps his voice low and leans close with his hand over his mouth to keep his voice from traveling. "We obviously can't get through without fighting. Which obviously will only create sound and startle all of them. So here's the deal: we car hop."

"Car hop?"

"Frogger for people, how's that?" He offers a smirk, his humor back however temporarily. But I can't return it.

"We hop from one car roof to the next. We get through the horde that way until we're at that window." He points to a busted window closer than the locked hospital doors. It's on the second floor, so we'll have to climb.

"But each time we land, we'll create noise." I switch off the light and stuff it in my backpack.

"So we'll be fast. They're slow. By the time they reach one car, we'll be landing on the next. Just...just don't slip."

"Oh yeah, that's totally comforting."

But I don't attempt leaving. This is it. This is what we have to do. What if we die before even getting inside the hospital? What then? No. Don't think that way. We will make it in and out. It will be fine.

We will be fine.

I whip out one of my guns. Breathe. A part of me worries the dormant zombies will hear my thundering heart, but I fix my eyes on the building and take another breath. "Okay Ellis. You in front so I can make sure you get across safely."