A large man tired and out of breath crawls forward out from under the body of a zombie. In his hands is a long sheet of jagged metal with cloth wrapped on its wide end. He grips it tight, a backwards grip. He's beaten and bruised but by some miracle, not a scratch on him. His blade is covered in rotting bits of flesh and blood. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, and before he could react he hurls a stream of rancid bile.

  “Hohh fuck- me…” he had been running for an hour, all across the hospital popping heads wherever he could. The door to the roof was barricaded, he wanted to make sure his men made it safe without being chased. Using the sword as a cane he hobbles over to a corner, taking a quick breath, making sure to kill every freak in his way. He was weak, his legs burned and his back was about to snap.

  “I… I can't… I…” He tries to hold in a cough “Fuck- No- No, I- I have to- I have to kill them all… for my fallen men. Son of a bit-ch!” He coughs hard “Will pay…” Every time the freak moves, its claws tap the tiled floors, its flesh scraping against itself and its horrid moans gurgling in pain.

  Night came quickly. The hospital was haunting, every clawmark, every decayed pile of moldy flesh and bones. He hid from the freak as much as he could, the room he found was large. A glass wall to the left, it was shattered, covered in blood and pieces of torn lab coats and gowns. The middle of the room was covered in torn metal, wires and soot. The ceiling had a painted skylight, there were webbings of flesh everywhere. Pens and other metallic tools impaled on the walls of the room. It was a massacre.

  “This room- could that thing have caused this? Looks like an MRI room.” he staggers his way over to a computer, he presses the power button, but nothing happens “Right, place has been out of power for years.” he looks around for a clipboard or anything that can give any information on who was here before the room went to hell. Only ones there were covered in moldy dried blood. None of it was readable. There was nothing that could help.

  “But if that thing came from here… It must've somehow melded with the MRI machine. And if there's anything I know about it, it's a super magnet. Gotta be something to that.” Before he could do anything else, there’s thuds coming from outside the room. The freak bursts through the opposite wall, its malformed tendrils flailing wildly as it lets out a horrid guttural screech. The razor claws at the end of each limb slicing through the air, trapping the captain inside the glass room. He takes a closer look, studying it. The MRI machine was in fact there, it was like a mouth. Sharp jagged shards of large metal and bone line the circle, the bed was folded back, like a waterslide into a garbage disposal.

  The metal. It lined its body like quills. “Son of a bitch!” He gulps hard “I gotta turn it on somehow, give it power, but nothing here has that much juice!” Then he sees it. Out of the corner of his eye.

  A sticky note. “Tell Mario to look at the generator room in the basement, there's people saying there are rats in there. - T”

  The blades were inches away from the glass, the freaks eyes fixed onto him. He took a deep breath and ducked down, grabbing what's left of a chair and throwing it at the freak. It was enough and with it distracted, he managed to run out. His legs felt like jelly, a stick that was about to snap inside of it. But he couldn’t stop now. Just had to get down to the basement.

  Stumbling his way down, he slices an ash covered shambler right down the middle, to the collarbone. Mounting his automatic rifle in the gap made, he pushed the zombie, causing it to walk backwards as he held onto it with the sword stuck inside. Pulling the trigger, he keeps the recoil downwards, riddling another set of zombies till they’re even more dead on the floor. Putting one foot on the zombie, he pulls out his blade, adding to the pool of black bile blood on the floor, even if a small amount.

  He looks around, watching out for the freak, following the signs near every door he bursts through, until he finds the sign that leads him to the generator room. But there was a problem. The door needed a passcode. And, its batteries had run out. There was no way to open the door. “FUCK WHY! MOTHER FUCKER!!” He punches the door over and over until his fist starts to bleed. He rests on the door, sliding down to the floor. “God- damn it!” he swipes the blood and sweat off his face with his arm. Tears streamed down his face. He coughs out hard, blood smearing the floor ahead of him.

  “My body is about to fail me; my men made it out safe; I can't avenge my fallen comrades.”

  He looks ahead of him. Shadows on the wall, they have a familiar feel to them. Then, they merge into a massive blob.

  “No- if I'm gonna die here, I'm not gonna go out without a fight.” He stands up, reloading his gun, and readies himself. As soon as it turns the corner, he fires off his gun, popping one of its eyes, it thrashes around violently, grabbing equipment with its tendrils and swinging them around. He can't get a clear shot, but the monster swings a tendril up smashing into the sky lamp, the glass shreds its rotten flesh as it rains down, he pops another eye, then two. It only had three left. “Come on, you fat fuck! COME GET ME!”

  Half-blind, it thrashes violently, rolling its way towards him, the tendrils flail and he slices one off, it recoils in pain, bashing itself against the tight walls of the generator hall, the Captain jumps to the side of it, as it smashes through the door, crashing into the diesel generator. Taking this opportunity, the captain quickly scrambles up and runs for it, smashing the start button.

  For a few seconds a droning noise quickly increases in frequency, and the generator starts suddenly, and the machine-fused zombie crumples in on itself.

  His gun and sword fly out of his hands, as well as every metallic object in the room, and in its body slices and crushes it into paste. He runs back, getting launched forward by a blazing ball of explosive fire. His last sight is that of a wall meeting his face.

  -

  He wakes up, eyes frantically searching the room, and looking down at his arm, a massive gash with a large plastic shard lodged within it. Looking towards a window, he grimaces at his own features in the reflection. Bloodshot eyes, and a nose dripping with dark red liquid all the way down to his chin and neck, bruising all over.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The constant ringing in his ears keeps his mind from forming a coherent thought, and his body refuses to respond. Even thinking about moving sends pain down his body, and he just wants to go home. But looking back at the window, he sees himself smiling despite everything else.

  His eyes flutter close, but quickly open up, what feels like hours having passed during that single blink. The captain reaches out, grabbing onto railings to hold himself up, almost screaming in pain but gritting his teeth to keep himself quiet. Slowly he drags himself up the long staircase. Tired, half dead and seconds from collapse, he moves one foot forward ahead of the other. Then the other, and he keeps going, his eyes soon focused on the door outside, leading to a roof.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, he collapses, eyes closing for just a second. And they open again, he’s leaning against the edge of the roof, next to a zipline. The desk that had kept the door closed is smashed inwards. Lifting himself up using the zipline, he stares at the moon, the cold air bathing him with freshness. A stark contrast to the heat of the corpse infested hospital.

  Staring down the zipline's path, he sees something glimmer in the moonlight. A metallic case wedged between a rock and the carpark wall, at the very bottom floor. “Fuck me…” He whispers to himself. Going back was not an option, so grabbing the rope on the roof, and attaching it to a hook on the zipline, he clambered up on the ledge. Taking a deep breath he jumps forward.

  The air rushes past him, the wire creaking under his weight, and sparks flying as he’s dragged by gravity towards hard gravel. Landing with a cry of pain, and a loud thud, he closes his eyes to rest.

  Awake again, he’s crawling towards the entrance, past skeletons and broken wooden shacks of a long-gone settlement. Head back down, he keeps crawling, turning towards the rock he saw before, using the wall to pull himself back up. Looking down at himself, he’s covered in more scrapes, dust and debris covering every wound. “Fuuuck!” He groans, grabbing the case and falling back down on his ass after he tugs it. Looking over it again, it was too pristine and white to be something expired or useless.

  Opening it up however, he didn’t expect to find a glass vial, filled with a pinkish clear liquid, that was easier to see against the black padding inside the case, but not helped by the darkness of the night. Taking it out, he stuffs it inside a pocket, and closes the case. It’ll be a good weapon as any other. He needs to keep moving.

  Dragging himself up with another grunt of pain, he stumbles on forward, away from the hospital and the carpark. Buildings blur past him, the maze of the city dragging him further inside itself until he stops in front of a house. The roar of drums and engines hasten him to move forward, pushing the door open and falling behind a window. Something cracks and breaks, but he can’t think, pain flashing throughout his entire body.

  He can only close his eyes and hope they ignore the house. But soon enough the cultists drums are fading, and he’s standing in front of a sink, dark water flowing out of it. Growling in annoyance, he stumbles towards a fridge, ripping it open, and ignoring the mass of flies rushing past him. Using his good arm, he fumbles around, until grabbing onto a plastic bottle with clean water inside.

  Quickly he washes his wounds, all grime and detritus pushed out by hand and water, and him hissing in pain. Quickly grabbing a cloth he wraps it around his leg. Pushing away a skeleton by a dining table, he sits down, staring at the ceiling.

  He wakes up again, darkness surrounding him, and the sounds of drums getting louder. A small slit to his left reveals he’s leaning against the inner wall of a wardrobe, looking into the same house. Two cultists pass by, arguing about why they have to search this house. An open door, a mistake he won't make again, got their leader curious. They argue some more, only a few minutes before they’re called back, one of them eyeing the wardrobe warily.

  “Hurry it up, Father shouldn’t be kept waiting.” The cultist scoffed in response, hurrying his pace out of the house. What seems like hours, but closer to half of one, passes and the captain crawls out, groaning in pain and looking at his wounds. The makeshift bandaging stayed on, thankfully, but whatever was now wrong with him, made it hard to make things out.

  So all he saw was a blurry mess as he stumbled out of the house, his sense of direction leading him to what he thought was back home. But the further he went, the more the buildings seemed to get smaller, and less frequent, until it was naught but dust and sand. And the incoming storm wasn’t helping with that regard. Because as soon as he notices it, he’s lost.

  Memories of his soldiers flash by within his head, the only thing keeping him from falling down and accepting his death, is the hope that some of them made it back alive. The hope that his sacrifice wasn’t in vain. Nor the sacrifice of those left behind. And that he was going to make all those zombies pay. No matter what, he was going to wipe out that fucking hospital.

  And so, he kept stumbling, his body ignoring the pain, and eventually he was now walking. Glaring directly into the storm, his vision seemed to clear up. The sounds of groaning filled his brain, to the left, right and all around him. He was surrounded, and soon he saw them. Almost brushing against him within the storm. His hands twitched for a weapon that was no longer there. So far they seemed to ignore him, but he had to keep moving before they took notice.

  And unfortunately, like everything else going to shit, one of them grabbed at him. He was able to move out of the way, but that just alerted the rest of the horde. They all turned to him, hunger in their voices. But within that cacophony of gluttony, he heard a thump. Not a footstep, but of something falling, being dropped or thrown. And a hiss that seemed to pacify the zombies quickly.

  The storm was now clearing up, and in front of him, stood a figure in black. A steel ball canister by his feet releasing a noxious looking purple gas that seemed to seep into the undead. And he was pointing his arm out, a single covered finger extended to his right. The captain turned, and saw nothing but more storm, but also an open path between the zombies. And so he took the opening, trying to keep his breathing still, as to not inhale whatever gas was pacifying the corpses.

  Only minutes later, did he find himself lost again, and once again, the figure in black appeared before him, pointing somewhere else. On and on he walked. And each time the figure would appear, like a guardian angel, pointing him towards salvation. Until he stopped. The smell of miasma filled his nostrils, and he turned to run. Falling over, his weight dragged him to the ground instantly. And so he crawled, as fast as he could. But the miasma seemed to cling to him, every inch he moved, it felt like the miasma covered several feet.

  But he had to get out. He had to come back home. He had to-