Free The Hospital by Keith C. Blackmore Page A

time, and he was wasting it thinking.
    “Shit,” he muttered, and pushed at the doors. They didn’t budge. He glanced up and saw the dead motion detector mounted just over the frame. There was a push door at the right, however, and he eased it open with his shoulder, his shotgun ready.
    The hall was empty and shadowy, with the only light coming from a skylight at the far end of a waiting area. Debris cluttered the floor: newspapers, half-torn pamphlets, broken glass and shredded bits of clothing. Bulletin boards hung halfway to the floor on single nails. Vending machines had been raped and punished. Dark splashes stained the walls, and Gus did not give them any more attention than necessary. Dried blood was commonplace these dreary days. It was the fresh stuff he was more concerned about. The faded stench of something rotten lingered in the air.
    He proceeded cautiously, drifting close to the right wall, and headed deeper into the gloom of the hospital. His shoulder rubbed against broken glass, making it tinkle, and he turned to see a receptionist’s room behind a counter that had been assaulted. It was darker there, but he could make out the floor smeared with blood, dried in gruesome swirls done by fingers and bare hands. Bloody palm prints decorated the walls, on and over a photocopier with its lid ripped off. Paper littered one corner like a foul nest, and Gus could see bones sprinkled there, dried, old-looking, and gnawed.
    He moved to the corner, listened, and peered around it like he had seen U.S. marines do in action movies, side first rather than the top of his head. The corridor was long and empty. A wide blood smear from something being dragged went in that direction and disappeared into darkness. Gus pulled back. He wouldn’t hunt the thing if he could get what he wanted without incident. Two more corridors branched off from the foyer, leading off to places unknown and two stairways, one going up while the other led to the lower level. The place was big, too big to explore in a single day, and the medicinal supplies he sought—bandages, splints, and drugs—were not as visible as they would have been in a convenience store or supermarket. He would have to root around more. He’d already tried the drugstores, but those he found had already been looted, their shelves and back rooms picked clean as if devoured by a swarm of something huge and famished.
    Gus knew the hospital might have had its resources taken as well, but he had to make sure.
    “Just don’t be stupid,” he told himself. He had watched a fair amount of horror movies in his time, when the world was merely crazy and not fucking insane with things that bit and chewed living flesh. In watching as many movies as he did, he quickly gave up on the ones with the cliches, the action sequences and the stupid-as-fuck characters who, as soon as he or she died, caused the audience to cheer. Stupid mistakes. It was his code these days, and in reflection, he now knew those movies were more like visual survival guides. What to do and what not to do in an apocalypse. Gus learned from every God awful flick he ever had the misery to sit down and endure. Be prepared. Be protected. Watch your corners. Stay away from dark places––especially at night. Be quiet and talk in whispers. Clean your weapons, maintain your ride’s engine. Stay calm, and don’t be stupid. Being stupid got characters dead.
    With that in mind, he left the long dark corridor alone. There was no need to place himself in further danger by wandering off where his vision would be further lessened. And there were the drag marks in blood heading down in that direction. Chances were, whatever was doing the dragging was still down there, dormant and just waiting for the sound and smell of fresh meat. Gus looked about and saw the stairways across the way.
    Shotgun first, Gus headed toward a corridor to the right of the stairways. Tensed and ready for anything shambling toward him, he passed under