I told them we should leave! I told them! No amount of fortifying would protect us from these things! They keep getting smarter! The attack came at about two in the morning. Instead of being woken from a nightmare I usually have about this time, I was woken by a smashing of glass somewhere above us. Those fucking things found a way to climb up the building! They got in from the second floor, something none of us even thought they could do!
I just don't know where to begin. It happened so quickly. There was so much screaming going on, I didn't know who was screaming and what for. As silent as the leathers came (I'm now calling the mutated freshies leathers because of their leather-like skin), they employed a new tactic. They shriek at us. It's an ear-splitting cry so deafening, it disorientates you. It's the worst noise I've ever heard in my life.
They came rushing down the stairwell and charged into every room they came across. They were stalled only by empty rooms as they came down the hallways systematically looking for us. They found Francois and Nicholas and they didn't stand a chance! I'm sure they were part of the screams I heard. Our room was furthest down the hallway away from the stairwell, so we had the unfortunate pleasure of hearing all the chaos before they reached us.
One of the screams I made out was from Judith and Sandra's room and half of me wanted to get up and grab my bat, but the other half, the smarter half, was paralyzed. It knew I would be no good with just a bat. Maybe if it was just a few, I could stand a chance, but I know there was a lot more of them than just a few. If these were the zombies that left all those tracks in the snow, it sounded like all of them were outside our door.
I got up and grabbed the bat anyway and leaned against the door. Kat began panicking and I tried to hush her, but the terror was claiming her senses. I heard the doorknob next to me wiggle and my stomach dropped to my shoes. The doorknob began turning, and I grabbed it with all my strength and turned it the other way. Just went I was about ready to reach for the lock, I was jolted back by a ramming force on the other side of the door. I nearly fell over, but hanging on the knob, I pulled myself back to the door as the zombie on the other side won and turned it all the way. It forced the door open enough to get its arm around, grabbing the door. I tried to push the door closed on it, but like a convulsing tentacle, it swung at my forearm and its sharp nails raked a set of five deep scratches all the way down from my elbow to my wrist.
The pain caused me to let go of the door for a split second, all the time needed for the leather to shove the door open on me. I stumbled backwards, hitting my head on Kat's bed frame. The zombie looked past me at Kat, shrieked and leaped as she slid backward as far as she could until she met the wall. She kicked at its head, forgetting her leg and ankle were broken, kicking at it with the cast as well. The leather grabbed that cast and tried to take a bite out of it, but the result was it losing its teeth. While Kat was battling with her undead attacker, I shook the ringing out of my head (I need a fucking football helmet) and reclaimed my bat, swinging at its back. I heard a crunch as the bat landed squared in its back, meaning I broke its spinal cord, and it went down in a crumbled heap. You know that theory I wanted to test? I never thought I'd have tested it so quickly. It seems if you interrupt their nervous system at all, they die. This means you can kill them by breaking their backs.
I tried to get up to get back to closing the door, but it was too late. Two leathers were already standing on the other side of the doorway. And that's when I heard the gunshots. It was the same report I heard when Dustin saved me back at the river. It was his rifle being fired, taking out one of the two, and then the second as it looked to see who was firing. I yelled out, "DUSTIN!" but all I heard was more shots. Three, four, five, six, seven. And then I heard more screaming. I shouted "DUSTIN!" again and this time sparked by a dire sense of urgency, I went out to the hallway and instead of seeing Dustin, I saw Carmello being eaten. I ran up to that bastard leather and caved in its skull before it even knew I was there!
I heard wet coughing and wheezing. I looked down at Carmello and he was still alive. He held up his right arm, reaching out to me with the ghost of his hand and through the bloody gurgling, I managed to hear him say, "Kill me, man. Kill me!" I stood frozen for a second, not sure what to do, but I quickly did the math in my head based on the number of the shots I remembered hearing and the number of zombie bodies I saw in the hallway. Seven for seven. He was an amazing shot for shooting a rifle one-handed with his left hand.
I didn't have time to kill him. I knew he didn't get them all, so I had to find them. Right as I turned the corner, I encountered two more, and one of them had fucking Augustina's arm in its mouth! Rage ignited inside me and overrode every bit of fear and common sense that I had that told me not to charge these two creatures. Adrenaline pumped into me and I felt like I could match these two hyper zombies toe for toe. I swung my bat at the first of the two, hitting its head so hard that it popped like a balloon spraying the wall opposite of him with blood and bits of skull and grey matter. The other got the jump on me, though. I was so blinded by fury that I didn't notice the one eating Augustina's arm drop it and move towards me.
The bat flew out of my grip as I crashed on the ground with the leather now on top of me. He was already moving in the for the bite before I could even move my arms to protect myself when his skull exploded. I looked up behind me, and there Timothy was with Carmello's sidearm. "HOLY SHIT! I never fired a gun before!" he exclaimed. I told him to get out of the hallway away from the doors and he started running towards me as I got back up, but was tackled immediately by a leather as he passed an open room. He got slammed so hard into the wall, it cracked the drywall The gun slipped from his hand and slid across the floor towards me, but I was already dashing towards the zombie as it went to bite Tim's neck. Just as Timothy felt the wretched hot breath of the leather, I whacked it as hard as I could in the head, spraying Tim across the face with zombie gore. He got a bit in his mouth, and immediately started to vomit. After he finished, I asked if he was OK, and he said it felt like his ribs were broken, but other than that he was fine.
I went back to pick up the gun and counted in my head. Nine, ten, eleven. I was going to make my way to Dustin's rifle when I heard Sandra screaming again. I rushed to her room and saw another leather reaching behind a drawer where Sandra was hiding behind. It was leaning halfway behind the dresser, so I had no shot at the head, but I put my newfound knowledge to use and cracked his spine like a pretzel stick. And that's when I saw Judith's body in her bed, her throat torn open and her entrails spilling out from her stomach onto the cold green tile. I looked behind the drawer and saw Sandra whose eyes lit up at the sight of me, and she started to get up from her crouch, but I told her to stay there. It's safe there for now, and she nodded.
When I went back into the hallway, I was joined by Timothy who had picked up the rifle. He said he had two more rounds in his rifle. I ejected the clip in my gun, and I had what looked like 10 in mine. We searched the hallways looking for anymore of them, and checked the remaining rooms for survivors. We found Hector cowering under his bed, and it took me a few minutes to get him to come out. Jonathan pushed everything he could against his door, and he said the zombie almost got in had it not been for the gunfire that drew away its attention. Sandra was still behind the drawer. Hector, Johnathan, Sandra, Timothy, Kat and myself. That's all who survived.
I headed back to Carmello, who now expired, and put one round into his head. I told Sandra to run to Kat, waited a few seconds to let her get there and put a round into the head of her mother. Dustin's head was pulled clear off his body with half his spinal cord still attached. Augustina, missing a left arm, was still alive, but bitten all over. She said a few prayers to herself, then nodded at me. I held the gun to her head, looked away and pulled the trigger. Nicholas and Francois were both entirely eaten. The horde must have come down on them first, eating as much as they could before they decided to move on with the rest of the hospital. I had no idea they were staying with each other, but honestly it didn't matter. Their body scraps were thrown all over the room in such a gory mess, it took me a few seconds before I could even find their heads. That saved me a couple rounds.
Kat dressed my arm as best as I could. I forgot I was even scratched until I realized there was no more zombies and the adrenaline flushed itself from my system. It throbs now, almost feeling like something's underneath my skin trying to get out. I honestly don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't know if you can get infected from a scratch or if you have to get bitten. Because of my uncertainty, I had to have a talk I didn't want to have with Kat. I told her if I turned, she was to take this gun, aim it at my head and pull the trigger. Seeing her breakdown the way she said broke my heart.
We all helped dig graves and bury the deceased. Even Sandra helped. She made more tongue depressor crosses and seeing so many out there in the garden just killed me. We lost too much today. I nearly lost Kat. I nearly lost just about everyone else. Found the ambulances today, but they won't start. Lost Judith, our mechanic, so there goes that idea. We don't know what to do now. If we tried to leave on foot, we'd freeze or instantly be picked off by leathers. If we stayed in the hospital, we could be attacked again. We chose the hospital and we opted to stay in the basement where the only access in was through a pair of doors at the bottom of the stairs, and we chained it shut. If they somehow manage to break through these doors, well, that's all we can do.
I'm drained. I simply cannot process anymore.
Until tomorrow.
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