{"id":200,"date":"2013-07-21T13:04:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-21T13:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/?page_id=200"},"modified":"2013-07-21T13:21:07","modified_gmt":"2013-07-21T13:21:07","slug":"chapter-32","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/story\/chapter-32\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 32"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 32<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s close to midnight, and something evil’s lurking in the dark.
\nUnder the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart.
\nYou try to scream, but terror takes the sound before you make it.
\nYou start to freeze, as horror looks you right between the eyes.
\nYou’re paralyzed\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cDarkness falls across the land.\u00a0 The midnight hour is close at hand.<\/i>
\nCreatures crawl in search of blood to terrorize y’all\u2019s neighborhood\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd though you fight to stay alive, your body starts to shiver,<\/em>
\n For no mere mortal can resist the evil of the thriller\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

For anyone reading this who doesn\u2019t know where those quotes come from, you\u2019re completely uneducated in music.\u00a0 Maybe you came after 4\/15, though, so I\u2019ll educate you.\u00a0 Those are part of the lyrics of one of the most genius songs in pop music history.\u00a0 (Before 4\/15 ended it and made us start over, anyway.\u00a0 I don\u2019t use the other name; Brian is the one who uses it the most.\u00a0 It\u2019s too long \u2013 4\/15 is easier.) <\/i><\/p>\n

But back to the song\u2026\u00a0 The song is \u201cThriller,\u201d sung by the most infamous Michael Jackson.\u00a0 He had a lot of hits, but damn nothing ever topped \u201cThriller,\u201d though I gotta say \u201cBillie Jean\u201d came close.\u00a0 That\u2019s a whole \u2018nother can of worms though. <\/i><\/p>\n

So why am I discussing \u201cThriller\u201d?\u00a0 Good question.\u00a0 It\u2019s because on the night of 4\/15, I woke up to a horribly bad imitation of the 80s music video that changed music indefinitely.\u00a0 There were armies of the undead, but there was no dancing, there was no music, and the 80s version of Michael Jackson was nowhere to be found.<\/i><\/p>\n

The worst thing was, unlike watching it on the internet (or on TV when it got aired around Halloween)\u2026 I couldn\u2019t shut it off.\u00a0 It was horrific; it was real, yet\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

I still heard the song playing in my head the entire time.<\/i><\/p>\n

Funny what shock can do to a person, isn\u2019t it?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Sunday, April 15, 2012<\/b>
\n3:33 a.m.<\/b><\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t anything that could have woken him up, he later realized, when thinking back on that day.\u00a0 There was no one to disturb his peaceful rest, no touches to jolt him out of sleep, no poking or prodding.\u00a0 He wondered, later, what could have woken him up and never found a truly rational explanation.\u00a0 But awaken he did.\u00a0 His blue eyes shot open and absorbed the stark, white lighting in his room.<\/p>\n

Nick looked to the TV, but it wasn\u2019t working.\u00a0 There was no noise, except for the standard beeping of the monitors next to him.\u00a0 He groaned as he slowly rose in his hospital bed and took a good look around for the first time in two days.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t remember much of the past weekend.\u00a0 The last crystal clear memory he had was of getting into a stupid bar fight when he was getting drunk.\u00a0 After that, it was a mixture of fuzzy images and memories of sleeping on and off in the hospital for two days straight.<\/p>\n

He glanced at the other bed in his room and saw that his \u201croommate\u201d was sleeping, so he tried to stay quiet.\u00a0 Nick was curious why he couldn\u2019t hear anything except the monitors, but wasn\u2019t terribly bothered by it.\u00a0 Staring at the cords hooked to him, Nick ripped out his IV, not needing it anymore, but wincing at the slight pain it caused.\u00a0 Following along came the other wires, pasted along his chest to monitor him.\u00a0 Hopefully, it would get someone\u2019s attention and bring them down there quicker.\u00a0 He stretched again and got off his bed, wanting to do anything but lie down.\u00a0 It was the cool air hitting his behind which reminded him that all he was wearing was a hospital gown.\u00a0 With a swift tug that carried the curtain around his bed for privacy, he decided to hunt down his real clothes.<\/p>\n

Spotting them in a bag beside his bed, he happily grabbed them and changed.\u00a0 Maybe he could find a way to finally check out of there.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t sure how bad his injury was, but he felt fine now.\u00a0 Surely, they\u2019d be okay with him leaving.\u00a0 After changing, he tossed the hospital gown aside on his bed and decided to take a peek into the hall.\u00a0 If he could get a nurse\u2019s attention, she could send whoever was supposed to be watching him over and hasten his escape.<\/p>\n

Nick had never liked hospitals.\u00a0 Hospitals and Nick had never meshed well.\u00a0 He\u2019d always gotten nervous in them and had just bad feelings about them altogether.\u00a0 It was a completely illogical fear that gripped his chest anytime he was forced to be in a hospital, but it had always been there and never faded, as he\u2019d hoped it would after he grew up.\u00a0 His logic always went to the fact that this was supposed be a place of healing, but more people died than lived on in hospitals.\u00a0 He wanted to get out soon, before something else happened to him.<\/p>\n

Scowling at the ridiculous notion, he chuckled at himself.\u00a0 His mother always said things like that, always pessimistic, always critical.\u00a0 After years of striving to cut out all the bad parts she had ingrained in him, he got annoyed when some notions of hers flared up in him.\u00a0 He never wanted to be anything like her.\u00a0 He wanted to be himself; he wanted to be Nick \u2013 happy, optimistic, comfortable-with-himself Nick.\u00a0 It\u2019d been harder since he had returned to Florida, though.<\/p>\n

Nick ran a hand through his hair and debated going to find a bathroom to try and fix it.\u00a0 No, he decided; that could wait for later.\u00a0 He stepped out into the hall and was shocked to find it completely empty.\u00a0 That was, until he looked again and saw that he was wrong.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t empty.\u00a0 It was just didn\u2019t have anyone alive<\/i> in it.\u00a0 There were plenty of people, looking like bundles upon the floor, until you looked closer and saw that, instead, they were bodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the fuck<\/i>?\u201d he exclaimed, the first words he\u2019d uttered aloud since he\u2019d woken up.\u00a0 Nick ran down the hall, checking rooms as he did.\u00a0 Everywhere he went, he found the same thing:\u00a0 bodies, corpses, all covered with some type of purple sores and vomit, their eyes open and unblinking.<\/p>\n

Again and again and again, he kept up his pace, checking every room he found.\u00a0 There had<\/i> to be someone alive in there.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t be alone.\u00a0 This was a hospital, for God\u2019s sake.\u00a0 His long-running fears about hospitals were supposed to be wrong and irrational.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t supposed to actually happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cHELLO?\u00a0 Can anyone hear me!?\u201d he bellowed.\u00a0 His voice echoed within the halls.\u00a0 He waited, but no response.\u00a0 He kept walking.\u00a0 Nick had no idea where he was in Tampa General and decided the first thing was to figure that much out, so he could get the hell out.\u00a0 Then, maybe, he could find out just what exactly was going on.\u00a0 A light above him was flickering sporadically, and that was the final touch in completing the creepy, horror film stereotype in his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello?\u00a0 Is there anyone here who can hear me?\u201d Nick called out yet again.<\/p>\n

He kept hope alive in his idea that, perhaps, he might actually find someone who wasn\u2019t dead, but his search continued to prove fruitless.\u00a0 All these patients, the doctors, the nurses, all of them, had been dead at least a day.\u00a0 How had this happened?\u00a0 Had this all gone down while he\u2019d rested, obliviously, in his bed?\u00a0 Could all this really have happened within a day?\u00a0 He tried to will his mind to remember something, anything, to help him try to figure it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlright, Mr. Carter, how are we feeling today?\u00a0 Apparently, that little bar brawl of yours did more damage than we thought\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

He sighed.\u00a0 No images; just a fragment.\u00a0 Nick wished he could focus enough to try and picture the doctor who\u2019d said that to him, but nothing came.\u00a0 That had been on the first day.\u00a0 Wait, what day was it?\u00a0 He pulled out his cell phone, which had a four-day lifespan before it died, if it had been fully charged.<\/p>\n

Damn, glad I charged it on Thursday,<\/i> he mused.\u00a0 The phone read April 15, 4:00 a.m.<\/i>\u00a0 He blinked.\u00a0 It was Sunday morning?\u00a0 He had been hoping he\u2019d been wrong about being in there, sleeping mostly, for two straight days.\u00a0 Apparently not.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay Nick, think.\u00a0 You get smacked with a damn bar stool, and you end up here on\u2026 um\u2026\u201d\u00a0 He thought for a moment.\u00a0 \u201cFriday morning.\u00a0 Okay, and the bastard did some damage, \u2019cause you stayed here for two days, sleeping and shit.\u00a0 Maybe one day\u2026\u201d\u00a0 He looked around again, reminded that all the doctors, nurses, everyone responsible for saving lives, had failed in the most epic of ways.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026 and then, the second, everyone ran\u2026 or died\u2026\u201d\u00a0 He started walking again.\u00a0 \u201cNeed to find a way out of here\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon came the sight he had been looking for.\u00a0 Simple, welcoming, and inviting elevator doors greeted him like an old friend.\u00a0 He only hoped the thing worked.\u00a0 Running over, he slammed his fist against the elevator button for \u2018down.\u2019\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t sure where he was, but he obviously wasn\u2019t on the first floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Hospital of Horrors is giving me the fucking creeps,\u201d he muttered, as the doors opened.\u00a0 His eyes went up to the light above the elevator, and finally, he learned where he was:\u00a0 the third floor.\u00a0 Nick wasn\u2019t sure if stepping onto the elevator was the brightest of ideas, considering, so far, the place was empty.\u00a0 He could get trapped inside with no one to hear him.\u00a0 At the same time, he wasn\u2019t thrilled about the idea of hunting down the stairs, so he stepped inside and hit the button for the main lobby.<\/p>\n

There was no elevator music, no noise even then, with the exception of the whirring of the elevator as it descended.\u00a0 It pinged once it reached level two and then stopped.\u00a0 Raising a brow, he stared, as the door opened a floor too early.\u00a0 He stepped out.\u00a0 His senses were on high alert.\u00a0 Obviously, something didn\u2019t feel right, but that wasn\u2019t what had his attention.\u00a0 No, this was something different.<\/p>\n

What came next, his reactions, he could only attribute later to pure instinct.<\/p>\n

A sore-covered, pale, gray hand lunged for his throat, and only seconds before he dived down and rolled out of reach.\u00a0 Standing again, he breathed heavily for a moment and got a look at his attacker before it groaned and reached for him again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat.\u00a0 The.\u00a0 FUCK?!\u201d he yelled.\u00a0 It looked like a doctor.\u00a0 Well, like it had once<\/i> been a doctor.\u00a0 The eyes were cloudy, unfocused, unblinking.\u00a0 The mouth was slack and emitted no noise.\u00a0 It began to make its way towards Nick, not actually walking; it was more like a dragging shuffle, lacking any type of true coordination.<\/p>\n

Then, once he realized what he was actually facing, he began to panic.\u00a0 He turned and ran blindly down the hall, not caring even slightly about where he was going, at that point.\u00a0 A glance back showed the creature<\/i> following him at a slow and haunting pace.\u00a0 It moaned loudly as it began its chase, the noise echoing throughout the halls.\u00a0 Once a comfortable distance away, Nick paused and bent over to catch his breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t panic.\u00a0 Don\u2019t panic.\u00a0 Get it together, Nick.\u00a0 Just\u2026 just because\u2026 you\u2019re in a hospital, where everyone\u2019s dead, and now\u2026 now\u2026\u201d\u00a0 He shook his head.\u00a0 No, it couldn\u2019t be real.\u00a0 Had to be a dream.\u00a0 What else could it be?\u00a0 Nick pinched his arm sharply.\u00a0 \u201cOW!\u00a0 Damn it.\u00a0 Okay, it\u2019s real\u2026 I just\u2026 I just saw a zombie.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moan came once again, and it wasn\u2019t far off.\u00a0 He glanced around hurriedly.\u00a0 \u201cNeed to kill it.\u00a0 Need to get the hell out of here.\u00a0 Weapon, weapon, who\u2019s got a weapon?\u201d\u00a0 He pushed crash carts aside, shoved everything out of his way, and slammed his fist against the wall, letting out a long string of curses.\u00a0 Then he looked above his head and gave another silent Thank you, Lord<\/i> when he spotted it.\u00a0 A red, glass case was fixed upon the wall.\u00a0 The glass read, Use in Case of Emergencies<\/i>.\u00a0 He grabbed a small device from the crash cart he had shoved aside before and hurled it at the case.\u00a0 The glass shattered.\u00a0 Carefully reaching in, Nick pulled out a long and deadly sharp axe, ready to wield it when necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m either fucking crazy, this is somehow a dream, or I\u2019m in some horror flick come to life.\u201d\u00a0 He was talking to comfort himself, trying to settle his nerves with the sound of his own voice.\u00a0 However, nothing could calm him now.<\/p>\n

The moment came only seconds later, when the previously-encountered, undead doctor came back again to greet him.\u00a0 Nick gulped.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t ready for this.\u00a0 This didn\u2019t seem real.\u00a0 By all rights, it shouldn\u2019t be real.\u00a0 It was like he\u2019d woken up in an alternate dimension or something.\u00a0 Some part of his mind wished he had, and then he\u2019d have a chance of escaping this hell.\u00a0 He was frozen in fear, unable to move the way he knew he should.<\/p>\n

The zombie grabbed for his neck, but, thanks to Nick\u2019s quick motion, was only able to get his shirt.\u00a0 The mouth opened, a putrid smell escaping, along with yet another groan.\u00a0 Nick took the precious seconds he had and swung the axe as roughly as he could at the creature\u2019s neck.\u00a0 The head flew off into the air, landing atop another body, and the grip it had on Nick released, as the headless corpse fell.<\/p>\n

Nick released ragged breaths, and despite the cool air, beads of sweat gathered on his forehead.\u00a0 He wiped his brow, staring down at his handiwork and then at the axe still held in a death grip in his hand.\u00a0 The blade was spotted with brown blood, and when his gaze shifted downwards, he noticed it was on his shirt, as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to get out of here.\u201d\u00a0 He ran, looking for any signs of stairs.\u00a0 He certainly wasn\u2019t going near the elevator again, after what had just happened.\u00a0 Once he saw the sign pointing the way to the stairs, he almost wanted to cheer, as he headed that direction.<\/p>\n

He was only a few feet away when he heard the noise that made his own blood run cold.\u00a0 \u201cUhhhhhhhhhhhhh\u2026\u201d\u00a0 A long moan, followed by a harmonic chorus of the same sound, that seemed to be stemming from the depths of Hell.\u00a0 He had not one iota how many had just made that sound, and he couldn\u2019t care less, as the noise came around the corner, drifting in his direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cCause this is Thriller!\u00a0 Thriller night\u2026 and no one\u2019s gonna save you from the beast about to strike\u2026 Thriller!\u00a0 Thriller night\u2026you\u2019re fighting for your life inside a killer\u2026 thriller\u2026\u201d he sang shakily, a pure nervous reaction when his eyes took in the dozen zombies headed his way.\u00a0 Nick\u2019s mind raced for a plan.\u00a0 There was no way he\u2019d be able to take them all alone.\u00a0 He needed something to delay them even more.\u00a0 He needed a window of time to get away and out of sight.<\/p>\n

Nick\u2019s thoughts went back to everything he\u2019d learned about zombies in horror movies.\u00a0 He had no idea how much of it was true, but it seemed best, for the moment, to act like all of it was and learn what wasn\u2019t later.\u00a0 One of the things he knew was that if he could get out of sight, they would forget about him, and he could manage to escape.\u00a0 He needed a plan, and his eyes skipped around endlessly, in search of anything that could help him.<\/p>\n

He brightened when he saw the fire extinguisher hanging upon the wall.\u00a0 \u201cThank you, fire safety.\u201d\u00a0 It would be the second time he\u2019d been saved by emergency fire setups.\u00a0 Gripping the extinguisher fiercely, he waited for them to get a bit closer, so the impact would be stronger.\u00a0 He stared at the beings headed his way, all doing the exact same, awkward, dragging shuffle, all of them staring with milky eyes and slackened jaws.\u00a0 The smell that hit him was intense, and he was forced to repress his urge to vomit.\u00a0 They were patients, they were doctors, and they were nurses\u2026<\/p>\n

It hit him then, just as he pulled the handle on the extinguisher, grunting as it thrust him backwards.\u00a0 The zombies were shot back in brute force.\u00a0 The spray made some of them tumble back onto the others.\u00a0 They all fell down like nothing more than dominos.\u00a0 They toppled like bowling pins.\u00a0 He tossed the empty extinguisher aside, but the realization slammed into him.<\/p>\n

They had all been victims of whatever had killed them.\u00a0 All had had those purple sores he\u2019d seen on every corpse he\u2019d encountered.\u00a0 Leaving that chilling thought for later, he bolted down the stairs, battle axe in hand and ready to go.\u00a0 He needed to get out of there.\u00a0 He could figure everything out later.\u00a0 First, he had to live.<\/p>\n

He reached the ground floor and was able to see the lobby from where he was standing, by the ER rooms.\u00a0 There were more bodies there than anywhere else, he noticed, except maybe the morgue.\u00a0 A place he definitely did not<\/i> want to go.<\/p>\n

He picked up his pace, running to the lobby.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t stick around any longer; it was obvious Nick would be dead mighty quickly if the bodies down there began to rise.\u00a0 Outnumbered and doomed would be the ultimate understatement if that happened.\u00a0 He skidded to a stop, just beyond the help desk.\u00a0 A creature rose to greet him.\u00a0 Before it could even moan, Nick swung around his axe, slamming it directly into the top of its skull.\u00a0 Congealed, brown, gooey blood sprayed into the air from the force of the blade, and the body slumped to the ground.<\/p>\n

He reached down to grab the axe, pulling it forcefully out of the now shattered skull.\u00a0 Nick heard another groan about to greet him.\u00a0 Leaving no time to think, he ran for the doors.\u00a0 Bursting through them, he took one last look back, before running fearfully out into the night.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

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Chapter 32 \u201cIt’s close to midnight, and something evil’s lurking in the dark. Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart. You try to scream, but terror takes the sound before you make it. You start … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":32,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/200"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/200\/revisions\/221"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}