Episode 25: Decayed (Part 3)
The last time I had been knocked out I awoke to the smells and sounds of a hospital ward. This time I awoke to smells of death and the unbearable shrieking of the dead. I wasn’t sure where I was. I wasn’t even sure what happened, but I knew something had happened to me. I shook my head trying to shake off the sensation of it all and I squinted trying to adjust to the darkened room I found myself in now. My head felt like it was underwater looking through someone else’s eyes and my body felt like a ton of bricks.
I turned to the left of me and realized I wasn’t alone. Madison laid sprawled on the floor not too far from me while a walker without legs crawled slowly towards her. I called out her name trying my hardest to pull myself up. My hands and feet sliding in something sticky as I did. I then found something more sturdy as I reached around in the dark. Something round and smooth. Then I looked down to see what it was and it took everything in me not to gag. My hand was resting on a skull. Then I looked down at the floor. I had been sitting in a pool of blood littered with guts and various bits of human flesh. I immediately scrambled to my feet the rest of the way.
“Matthew?” she moaned peering up at me through half-slitted eyes before falling limp again.
“It’s going be ok. We’re going be ok,” I whispered.
Next, I scanned the room looking for an exit. My eyes finally adapting to the darkness. I saw the true horrors of the room. Bodies littered the floor. Some in pieces and some whole. It was sickening and something no decent human should see, but here I was. In the thick of it and I didn’t know what to make of it. As I spotted the door, I heard a voice call to me. A woman’s voice.
“Who’s there?”
I squinted through the darkness on the other side of the small metal room and saw someone. They were bent over another figure. I step forward getting a closer view and quickly realized what was going on. A walker or what to use to be a young boy kneeled over her devouring her flesh. She peered up at me looking positively frightened. The life draining from her eyes. It was nothing I can do but it didn’t make it any less horrible. Madison then stirred again a little opening her eyes at the moment, but she quickly fainted again as her eyes grew wide at the scene set before her. Then the ghastly creature looked up at us with blood dripping from his mouth and stood up. He began walking towards us looking monstrous as flesh fell from his skeleton figure and bony hands.
I quickly headed for the door and began pounding on it. Bits and pieces of memory coming back to me as stared at the door. I recognized it. I remembered. The doctor injecting something into my neck. The sound of voices all around me. I could hear Pinto saying something to me as someone dragged me through this doorway.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of this,” he said or what I think he said at least.
As I starred at the young walker shuffling towards me, I put two and two together then. The files mentioning rapid decomposition. The Stones constant plead to heal him. This walker was Timothy. His birthday was the code and this room was for him. I starred at piles of bones and gore on the floor feeling sick to my stomach. They were feeding him. Keeping him alive in a sense. I was even sure I saw pieces of furniture resting beneath the piles of bones, blood, and dust. Some pictures even on the walls in one corner. I pounded at the door again feeling like I could faint myself from the sheer sight of it all. My gag reflexes becoming quite active again. As the young walker came closer and my pounding slowed, I heard a click.
I didn’t even realize I was leaning on the door when it opened. I fell forward with Madison in my arms. I looked up ready to fight if needed, but two welcomed faces stared down at me. Well, one welcomed face to be specific. Matthew and Doctor Pinto.
I smiled feeling relief wash over me, but they both gasped and I look back to see Timothy grabbing onto Madison’s foot. His mouth was inches away from it. Before I could even make a move, an ax came down on his arm and severed it. Matthew raised the ax again over his head and began to swing it again, but the doctor grabbed him stopping him.
“No. Let me do it. This is my fault.”
Matthew glared at him scooping Madison up in his arms. “You don’t even have a gun.”
“I have one. Here,” he said reaching under a sheet resting on a stretcher. “I was saving this bullet for…something else, but I think it has better use here.”
“For something?”
“Don’t ask,” he said avoiding his eye contact as Matthew continued to grumble.
As I put some distance between me and the walker the doctor walked over to him. Sorrow and pain etched on his face. He bent down staring into its dead eyes. The walker grabbed onto his coat, but he seemed completely unfazed.
“Timothy. Tim. You were a beacon of hope for us all. I’m sorry this happen to you,” he said addressing the young boy. “I remember when this place was nothing more than a run-down asylum. I thought we had transformed it. Made it better in midst of despair, but maybe it just truly drove us mad? I don’t know, but I don’t recognize anything anymore.”
“Hurry the hell up!”
“I hope there’s a heaven. Maybe even a hell. Anywhere that’s not here. Anywhere that you’re not like this because truly you deserve better than this. I’m sorry.”
“Please for the love of..”
“Goodbye Timothy. May you rest in peace,” he said as his bottom lip trembled. He aimed the gun at the young walker and a single shot rang out ending its miserable existence. He threw the gun aside and held his hands over his face sobbing.
Matthew then turned his attention back to me. He sighed and smiled, “You don’t know how happy I am to see you two. I..I thought I lost you.”
“Mat…Matthew?”
Madison began to stir again opening her eyes slowly. She peered up at Matthew smiling a bit, but then she looked over to see Pinto and practically lept out of Matt’s arms. She stumbled toward him trying to throw a punch, but she immediately lost balance and fell forward onto all fours drunkenly in front of him.
“I’m going to kill you. You drugged us!”
“I didn’t want to. They made me” the doctor whined staring down at her. He pointed to his face showing bruises and contusion all over it. “I try to give you the lightest dose possible, but they were watching me by the time I got to you.”
“Oh, really? Well, your face is going look a lot worse when I’m done!”
Matt shook his head. “Whoa Whoa. Calm down. I wouldn’t even have known you were here if it wasn’t for him.”
“Well, what the fuck is that thing then? He was going to feed us to that!” she continued to fume staring at Timothy in disgust. “How long have you been doing this? How many people have you done this too?”
“Too many. Too many to count. I’m really sorry. I really am,” he sighed. He reached out his hand to help her. “Please, at least let me help you.”
She grabbed his hand surprisingly, but the look on her face wasn’t so forgiven. She balanced herself once on two feet and punch him square in the face. He stumbled backward.
“Why? The Stones?” I asked dusting myself off and removing bits of gore from my clothes.
“No. There’s been a breach actually. The cadavers have gotten inside. They’re slow, but I’m sure the hallways are being filled with them as we speak.”
“Meaning let’s get dressed and hightail it out of it here,” Matt smirked throwing me a bag. “Found our stuff in storage.”
“That’s fine and dandy Mr. Parker, but clothes aren’t going to get us out of here,” the doctor scoffed rubbing his new bruise.
“Well, we need walker blood then,” I said confidently.
“What?” Matthew and Madison gasped in unison.
“You got to cover yourself with it. It worked back at the clinic. It was how I made it out. It was like I was invisible to them. Like I was one of them.”
“I think your brother’s not well,” Madison said staring at me in disbelief.
The doctor shook his head chuckling. “He’s telling the truth. The soldiers use to do it when they knew they were going to be traveling in cadaver filled zones. Seen it with my own eyes the effects it has, but I admit I thought it was just a fluke and an excuse for the guys to be disgusting. Interesting.”
“Well, I’m not doing that. That’s nasty. I mean there’s no way you’re getting me to do that. The smell alone is going kill me!”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Walker blood is going be least of your worries…”
The doors then swung open and entered Marilyn Stone, Sargent Stone’s wife. She rushed passed us looking pale. One hand bandaged and blood-soaked, but that didn’t stop her. Her eyes grew wide staring at the body of her son. She instantly began sobbing starting at him. Her body shaking violently.
“What did you do to him?!” she shrieked. She then pulled out a gun pointing it at us. Her hand shaking as she held it. “My poor little baby!”
“As I was saying….” Matt scoffed.
She pulled the trigger and the gun went off striking the wall behind us. We all ducked.
“Mary. Please. It’s me you want. Not them. I did this,” the doctor confessed moving towards the table of chemicals.
“Aaron?” she squeaked. She looked over at him with almost a sadness in her eyes, but then she raised her gun and shot at the doctor.
The bullet hit his arm and he fell towards the table spilling chemicals onto the floor. He cringed closing his eye, but he remained standing holding on to the table. Then a small smile graced his face. “I’m lucky you’re a shit shot, Marilyn.”
He began knocking over the contents of the table violently. Chemicals and liquids of all kind falling to the floor mixing. Some creating smokey reactions and putrid smells. A little fire then began to rise as he knocked more glass and equipment onto the floor.
“What are you doing?” she shrieked.
“Ending this,” he said boldly. He then turned his attention to us. “It’s time you go. Get out of here!”
We all looked at each other unsure what to do, but Matthew grabbed Madison by the arm and grabbed me by the shirt with his other hand. He pulled us towards the door and out into the hallway. Out into a hallway full of chaos. Walkers, blood, and the screams of poor souls filled the hallways. In fact, Matthew took his ax and nailed a few of the dead in the head within minutes of being outside of the lab. Two of them turned armed soldiers.
“Go!,” I yelled as I grabbed one their guns. I handed him one. “Take this gun and I’ll meet you outside. Just don’t forget the blood. Camouflage yourself.”
“What?” he spluttered. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t bother to answer him. I knew what I was doing was crazy. Crazy and reckless. I pushed open the door to the lab and entered the smoke-filled room. The doctor was sitting on the floor almost in the same spot where we left him. He looked up at me as if I was a ghost.
“I told you to go. Leave me be, Parker,” he said in between coughs.
“But you’ll die here!”
“Maybe that’s what I want. It’s what I deserve.”
“Just shut up and come with me!”
I grabbed onto his arm pulling him up and squinted through the smoke. I could see the door right in front of us. A clear path through the flames, but as I headed for the door we were welcomed by the sight of Mrs. Stone. She appeared much like a jump scare in a horror movie. We almost fell backward from the sight of her. She was alive, but a guttural sound escaped her lips and part of her face looked like it was melting. Possibly horribly burned from the flames. She leaped forward jumping on top of me and the rifle I had required flew out of my hand. She wrapped her hands around my neck and began to choke me. Her nails digging into my throat. As I try to pry the crazed woman off of me I looked up to see the doctor standing over me. Then I heard the rifle go off and Mrs. Stone went limp pinning me under her.
The doctor pushed her off, stuck out his hand, and smiled. “You’re doing a shitty job saving me, Parker.”
I grabbed onto the doctor’s hand letting out a small laugh. Mostly out of relief. We next made our way out the double doors and back into the hallway where things were chaotic as ever. I looked over at the doctor who seemed to be preoccupied.
“There’s something I need to get. I must,” he mumbled heading for his office.
“What?! Come back here. It’s not safe!”
Then I spotted Lin and Tao down the hall. Lin held up the teen struggling to get through the walkers. The teen’s leg obviously hurt as he struggled to walk. Then I looked over to see Dr. Pinto busting down the door to his office being followed by walkers. One walker looking oddly like Sargent Stone!
The poll will be in the next post with pics!
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