Free!

Ground Zero

By: Walter G Esselman

Travis Lee woke to a scream cut short.  

The old man shifted in his hospital bed to get a better look at the only other person in the room—he never did get their name—but that guy was asleep.  Actually, they were in a medically induced coma, if Travis wanted to be accurate, which he didn't.  He couldn’t decide whether he envied the fellow, or not.  But it certainly made for an ideal roommate, since he never snored.

Pushing the call button for the nurse did not work for Travis.  Truthfully, he was more worried for the nurses than anything else.  In his—thankfully—short time here at St. Guinefort’s Hospital, he’d really come to like the nurses on duty.  The guys and gals were all great.  But one of them, Ethel, was a sweet, young girl who was doing great in life, despite that fact that her parents had named her ‘Ethel’.  She had flirted right back at him, which had warmed an old man’s heart.  

In the hallway, something scraped by the door.  Travis leaned over in bed and reached into his side table.  His daughter, Lily, had not been happy about him spending a few days in the hospital.  She had read a big article in Newsweek about how all the revenant outbreaks had started in hospitals.  Travis had argued ‘where else are you going to get knee surgery?’.  Bill at the Scuba Dive Bar and Grill had offered, but Travis had seen how clean the bartender kept his glassware; maybe next time.

Something hit the door outside with more force, like a person had walked into it.  The door handle jiggled.  Digging under the bible in the side table, he found what he was looking for and palmed it.  He had had to go to the hospital, but that didn’t mean that he was stupid.  He had his grandson sneak something in.  

The door opened and Travis heard a shuffling sound.  His heart was pounding.  He had not been this scared since he had been wounded in Vietnam, during the Battle of Hué. 

“Well, come out you pansy,” snapped Travis.  He did not respond well to people trying to scare him.  

A figure appeared through the door.  It was Travis’ doctor, but he’d looked better.  Dr. Cooper’s eyes were white, and the irises were now tinged with red.  The bloodied hand where he’d been bit hung at his side.  Oddly, Dr. Cooper still had his stethoscope around his neck.  The revenant looked first at the other patient in bed, and Travis’ hand tightened on the metal secreted in his hand.  

“Well?  What’re you waiting for?” asked Travis.

But the revenant did not attack.  It made a odd keening noise instead.  Travis looked over at the wheelchair that Ethel had deposited there not two hours ago.  That was before the noises had started.  And the screaming.

Maybe if he could get to the wheelchair, he thought.  At least he’d be mobile.  Then he heard a new noise from the hall.  Something moved slowly out there.  He turned back to the corridor leading to the doorway when he saw her.  It almost made him cry out in sorrow.

Ethel walked into the room.  But it was not his Ethel.  This Ethel was hunched over and the hospital scrubs on her back were torn open.  Covering her back—like giant cysts—were sacs filled with fluid.  She looked with limp, dead eyes around the room.

“Aw darling,” moaned Travis in sorrow.  “What’ve they done to you?”

Ethel ignored his words and moved over to the fellow in the coma.  Her shoulders were hunched forward, and her arms were twisted as they hung down so that the backs of her wrists almost touched.  She bumped into the edge of the bed.

Travis wanted to tell her to leave that man alone, but Ethel was not there.  And whatever was there, would not listen to him.  He noticed something moving under the skin by her jawline.

Suddenly, her jaw unhinged with a wet pop, which made Travis jump.  The revenant Ethel shook and started to vomit a milky green substance onto the man in the coma.  On her back, one of the sacs slowly deflated.  Then the torrent became a trickle and liquid stopped.  The jaw wiggled and rehinged itself.

The milky green liquid on the coma man started to move.  It oozed toward the man’s skin.  As it did, Ethel shuffled around the bed toward Travis.

“Aw sweetie,” whispered Travis.  “You don’t want to do this.”

But he could see that her eyes did not truly see him, not with any level of comprehension.  Ethel stopped next to his bed.  Something wiggled at her jawline.  Travis flipped out his folding knife as her jaw unhinged.

“I’m sorry darling,” he said sadly as he drove the knife right through her eye.  She stilled instantly.  Pushing her back with one hand, he pulled the knife with the other.  Seeing her fall, the revenant Dr. Cooper suddenly shot towards him.

“Come on you bastard!” growled Travis, happy to take out his anger on someone.