The Hospital

The Standoff

The skull cracked and caved in from the impact. The man collapsed in front of Jack; his mangled body still twitching. Jack could feel the adrenaline rushing through his veins as he pulled the bloodied crowbar out of the fractured omen. With his left foot, he pushed the corpse off the barricade back into the advancing swarm. Dozens of hands reached out trying to grab him, and Jack took a step back, his shield raised, ready for another assault.

A fellow officer Gina Parkston fired her handgun at the man in a ripped sweater to his right. With the smouldering hole in his forehead, the ghoul vanished from sight, clearing the path for another creature. Cursing, Gina aimed and fired again. This time the bullet hit the ghoul wearing a torn fancy suit to the upper chest. He staggered for a second, screeched and rushed towards her. Gina pulled the trigger once more, but the weapon clicked empty.

"I am out!" Gina yelled, barely having time to raise her hand. She hit the attacker in the face with the grip of the pistol, breaking his nose. The ghoul snarled, ignoring the injury, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled closer.

"Get off me, you piece of shit!" she screamed in panic, punching him again. Oblivious to her pleas, the ghoul sank his teeth into the left side of her neck.

"No! Help!" Gina yelped in vain. She wriggled and squirmed, trying to push him away, but the ghoul latched on firmly and eventually forced her to the ground. He ripped a large chunk of flesh out of her neck and started to chew on it. Gina began to choke while her screams drowned in her blood. Coughing and gurgling, she still tried to resist, but strength was quickly abandoning her.

"Hold on, Gina!" Jack shouted, noticing his colleague in trouble. He stepped towards her, ready to strike when another creature slammed against his shield. The impact almost knocked him down.

Still chewing on her flesh, the ghoul leaned forward and opened his mouth for another bite. Suddenly the blade of an axe sliced through his neck. The blow crushed the spinal cord rendering him immobile.

"Hang in there!" Ian said, stepping closer. He grabbed still twitching corpse by the collar and threw him off the injured officer. He then kneeled to check on Gina.

"How is she?" Jack asked. He grunted and pushed the snarling monster clawing at his shield back, far enough to swing his crowbar.

"She's dead, Jack!" Ian replied. With the corner of his eye, the fireman noticed movement and raised his weapon. Instead of juicy meat, ghoul's jaws firmly latched on the handle of the axe. Ian jumped to his feet and using momentum twisted the handle upwards. The attacker's neck snapped, and Ian's heavy boot sent his body flying off the barricade.

Ghouls were climbing along the perimeter. There was no caution, no sense of preservation, no fear, just pure rage and hunger. Armed with anything they could use as a weapon, men and women greeted the attackers with fierce resistance. Bones crushed, limbs flew apart, and heads exploded as the corpses pile grew, but so did the number of monsters. Wave after wave they tested the fortification. Some got lucky and managed to reach the defenders biting and scratching. Shouts of the people mixed with the moans and snarls of the horde were deafening.

Barely catching his breath, Jack raised the shield as yet another ghoul slammed against it. Once an attractive young woman, scraped her nails against the reinforced fibre plastic surface, chomping her jaws at the officer so close to her. She relentlessly smashed her already battered head against the shield, smearing it with blood. Seeing her prey but unable to reach it enraged her even more. Jack leaned forward and tried to push her off the roof, but the crazed woman grabbed the edge of his shield and forced it down. In an instant, she was within inches from Jack's head. Her saliva, mixed with blood, sputtered all over his face, hitting him with the reeking stench of the rotting flesh. During his career, Jack saw his fair share of dead bodies. The smell was unmistakable.

"What the hell are you?" he whispered, gagging with disgust. Fighting nausea, Jack mustered all of his strength, shoved the snarling woman back far enough and took a swing with his crowbar against her head. The creature's forehead fractured, and the blood started to ooze down her face through the crack. The woman dwindled for a second, twisted her neck, her milky orbs still focused on the officer and groaned.

"Oh, for goodness sake!" Jack muttered, blaming himself for the sloppy blow, twisted the crowbar around and slammed it against woman's left temple. This time the sharp metal edge ploughed through the soft tissue and reached the brain, stopping the ghoul in her tracks. With her gaze still locked on him, she groaned and fell backwards into the sea of wriggling bodies beneath. Jack almost lost the grip of the crowbar stuck deep inside her head but stepped forward and managed to pull it out before her body disappeared.

Few meters away to Jack's left, Dean Oswald, one of the local volunteers, a young man in his thirties, crushed the head of the nearest ghoul with his baseball bat, shouting, "Here you go, you piece of shit!" The dismantled body of a man in a tracksuit fell backwards and disappeared from the view. Another hungry shape instantly filled space.

"I have something for you too!" Dean yelled and swung his baseball bat again, this time hitting the creature in the left shoulder. The attacker stumbled but managed to grab Dean by the left leg. Before he could react, Dean was knocked down to the roof of the car and pulled closer to the edge of the barricade where dozens of hands grabbed the poor soul and dragged him down. His desperate screams drowned in the noise of the horde tearing into his flesh, ripping him apart in split seconds. Jack was helpless to do anything but listen to his agony.

A snarling woman instantly filled the gap left by Dean. Her lower jaw was missing, tongue hanging loose and drooling spittle mixed with blood. She turned her head towards Jack, locking on him, released a gurgling sound and made a step when a bullet drilled through the back of her head, destroying what remained of her face. Her body dropped down next to the officer, revealing Shaun Rickman with his smouldering Bereta 92FS. Without a word, the man nodded to Jack and turned back to the gathering in front of him. Jack didn't know Shaun well, but his military background was evident. Shaun placed few more carefully aimed shots into the mass of bodies below, punching holes in the heads every time he pulled the trigger. He swiftly changed the empty magazine and fired again, thinning the herd.

Jack didn't have time to thank him. With a ghoul glued to his shield, he twisted it and forced the creature down to the roof of the car. The ghoul landed on his face while Jack stepped on his lower back and finished the moaning monster with a shattering blow to the occiput.

Further to the right, swearing Billy Reynolds struggled to reload his rifle as the man in a ripped t-shirt pulled himself up in front of him. Missing his upper lip and nose, the ghoul moaned and tried to snatch Billy with his intact left hand. The creature's right arm was ripped off below elbow, just clutches of muscle and tissue hung loosely around the protruding radius.

"Oh no, you don't!" Billy yelled. He dropped the 12 gauge shotshell and raised his rifle to block the attacker. The creature pressed against the barrel of the gun, his fingers bruising Billy's face.

"Damn you, bastard!" Billy howled in anger, struggling to keep the armless man away. The ghoul scraped at his face again, this time drawing blood. Simultaneously, a woman in a torn blouse and dirty jeans scrambled to the roof of the car next to them and immediately charged at Billy.

"Dad!" Phil's voice echoed nearby. The young man jumped in front of his struggling father and drove his blunt pipe into the charging woman's face. Her nasal and upper jaw bones caved in from the impact. The metal edge drilled deep inside her front lobe. The woman jerked a few times as she fell to her knees and stopped moving. Phill rammed the pipe further through her skull before pushing the corpse off the barricade.

Meanwhile, Murph jumped behind the ghoul slashing at his father and swiped his pipe against the creature's omen. The decisive blow fractured the skull, sending fragments of bone and brain tissue flying. The armless ghoul immediately ceased his attack and collapsed next to Billy's feet. Murph dropped his pipe, grabbed the corpse by the clutches of the t-shirt and tossed it aside, straight into another inbound creature.

"Step away from the edge, Murph!" Billy yelled, panting from exhaustion. But his warning came too late. Suddenly a bloodied hand grabbed his son by the left ankle. The young man instinctively stepped back from the edge, dragging the hand and its frail owner along. It was or used to be a teenager now desperately clutching at Murph's leg.

"Get off me!" Murph grunted, jerking his foot, but the hissing boy wouldn't let go. The boy suddenly pulled himself closer and sank his teeth into Murph's calf muscle. Murph winced in pain, lost his footing and fell on his back next to his father.

"Ah, you dirty shit!" Billy raised the butt of his rifle and smashed it against the little ghoul's head, screaming, "Let go of my son, you filth!"

Fuelled with adrenaline, he hit time and time again, turning the head of the kid into a bloody mess until his jaws finally relaxed. Murph, shivering from pain and shock, kicked the remains with his right boot away while Phil, done with the previous female attacker, rushed in to help his brother.

A cry for help to their left caught Billy's attention. A large ghoul clashed with one of the police officers and pushed the man down, ripping into his left wrist. An officer, screaming for help, fired three rounds into the attacker's body before the handgun in his right hand clicked empty. The ghoul ignoring his wounds, tore chunks of tissue and muscle from the wrist. Blood gushed out of the severed radial artery while the gasping officer, fighting the pain and despair, struggled to push his attacker away.

"Hold on!" Billy shouted, finally managing to reload his gun. He raised it to the head of the ghoul sitting on top of the wounded officer and pulled the trigger. The head of the man exploded, the force of impact pushing his body to the side. But the relief was shortlived. At the same time, another ghoul grabbed the injured officer by his ankles, drew closer and bit him in the lower leg. The screaming officer kicked the creature in the face, but more hands clutched on him and pulled the man off the barricade.

"Damn you, bastards!" Billy roared and fired into the crowd. He tried to grab the officer's hand, but it was too late. The man disappeared under the forest of hands where his screams quickly faded away. His pleas for help were soon replaced by the loud gurgling sounds of chewing, cracking bones and ripped flesh, as the hungry mob tore him apart.

Meanwhile, Jack dispatched another monster with a powerful blow to the head. He was beginning to run out of steam. Suddenly a hand appeared through the pile of chairs near the edge of the barricade. Five dirty fingers grabbed him by the left ankle and tugged with force. The officer lost his balance and fell to the car's roof, hitting his head against the hard surface. The impact knocked Jack unconscious while the snarling creature pushed itself closer to the defenceless man, ready to taste his flesh.

To be continued