The Strong Will Survive

Chapter Thirty-Two - KC

For some reason, the doors to the hospital were off their hinges. Maybe a zombie had a tantrum? I don't know, but I was perched behind one of them, all the while swiveling my head. Zombie patrol was maybe the second-most horrible thing I've done, and the third-most boring. I played my music out loud, closing my eyes and relaxing.

I went through an entire playlist and the sun was high above me, baking the snow around me. Snow? What day was it today? I checked my phone. It was Christmas Eve, almost a year after this had started. What would we do tomorrow? It was Christmas. Nobody had anything to give anybody else. What would we eat for Christmas dinner?

My eyes grew heavy in the blisteringly sunny but frosty air. I drifted off at a major plot point again, but I didn't know that it was at the time. About an hour or so later, I woke up to a scraping noise across the pavement. It goes without saying that it was a zombie.

The horrible bit was, there were more zombies. Apparently the touristy travel-in-packs mentality that humans have didn't leave the zombies. And there was seriously a crapload of them. I frantically tugged on the string tied to my waist. "This Christmas isn't gonna be fun, is it?" I grumbled as the horde struggled closer. "I don't think so. YO, ZOMBIES! What do you think? Am I gonna like Costco Christmas this year?"

The zombies didn't say anything. I didn't really expect them to. I mean, they're zombies. Duh. I kept tugging at the rope but nothing was happening. What was supposed to happen? I forgot the plan. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The zombies were getting dangerously close to me. My panicked brain was like, "You gotta face them. Cut the rope. Dooooooooo itttttttttt..." So what did I do? I cut the rope. Stupid me. I cut it with my only weapon: my pocketknife.

Where was my handgun? I flipping lost my handgun. "Tu es bete, Karlotta." I started my bout of swearing at myself with some French. Then I swore at the zombies. Bad idea. All I had was a knife. They got within punching distance as I was berating them for being zombies and making me lose my handgun. All the while, I was rustling around in the doorway for my gun so I could get rid of the zombies.

I slowly backpedaled into the hospital as the zombies lurched towards me. I tripped over something and fell on my butt. Guess what it was? It was my handgun. I flipping tripped over my gun. Grabbing it, I struggled upright and turned towards the zombies. They were attempting to get through the disheveled doors and failing. The others were off somewhere doing something, so I was on my own.

The rope was pretty taut before I cut it. Obviously they were moving because the tail end was gone from my sight. Swearing, I shot a few of the zombies in front while frantically searching with my eyes for the end of the yarn that I cut off. I couldn't find the yarn. Panicking, I shot a few more zombies in the head. "Boom. Headshot!" I cried weakly. I was tired and starting to worry that I was gonna get lost. I pushed the thought out of my mind and ran further into the hospital hallway.

There was a three-way fork in the hall. Which one to take... I had no clue where the nerd squad went. "When in doubt, go left." Muttering to myself, I chose the left turn-off and jogged that way, hoping upon hope that I went the right way and wouldn't get lost, and that there would be no zombies on my way.