Free Cryonic by Travis Bradberry Page B

to his feet and retrieved what I could of the damaged rations. I couldn’t pick up much because I wasn’t letting go of the gun. I put Carson’s arm around my shoulder and walked him over to the building entrance. As we opened the front door, we caught the attention of an infected nurse and soldier. I pushed Carson inside, and he fell to the floor. I followed him in, dropped the groceries, and began searching for something to block the glass doors.
    I spotted a janitor’s closet in the lobby and pulled the door open. Two brooms leaned against some rusted shelving. I grabbed them and ran to the front door. I leaned my shoulder into the glass and wedged the brooms into the door handles as the infected pushed on the door from the other side. Their furor was drawing the attention of other infected who lumbered over and joined them against the glass. They moaned, growled, and pushed against the glass, stressing the strength of the broom’s ability to keep them out. I pushed the lobby desk against the doors while bloody hands smeared the other side of the glass. I helped Carson back up. As we headed to the elevator bank, a confused tenant approached the building from the outside. She screamed as the violent horde pounced upon her. They tore into her abdomen and devoured her flesh while we stood there on the other side of the glass waiting for the elevator.
    I felt terrible about blocking the doors. I just didn’t know what else to do.

15.
    â€œOh my God! Oh my God!” Celeste cried. “Are you two all right?”
    I lugged Carson into the apartment, then shut and locked the door behind us.
    â€œI’m fine,” I said, “but I don’t know about him.”
    Alex and Celeste helped me get Carson into his room. We laid him on his bed and stripped off his blood-soaked clothing. He was covered in bite marks and deep scratches. Carson didn’t say anything while we cleaned his wounds. Then he fell into a deep sleep, and we left him alone. The three of us went into the kitchen and salvaged what we could of the rations. There was rice, dried beef, and canned bok choy and cabbage.
    â€œWhat happened down there?” Celeste asked.
    â€œYou couldn’t see?”
    â€œA little bit, but you were out of our line of sight most the time,” Alex explained.
    â€œIt’s gotten ugly down there. Whatever my cryonic friends from the hospital had is spreading like mad. Carson got attacked, and you’re not going to believe who did it.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œDr. Feng.”
    â€œWhat did he attack him with?”
    â€œHis teeth and nails.”
    â€œYou mean he turned into one of those . . . one of those things?”
    â€œYes. When Elliott bit him, he must have passed the virus on to him. Pretty much all the doctors and nurses down there have it.”
    â€œThis is not good,” Alex muttered under his breath.
    â€œThat’s not the worst of it. Remember when we were trying to figure out if the infected cryonics were alive or dead?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œWell, they’re definitely dead. I pulled that machine gun from the spine of one of Feng’s henchmen. He was walking around like it wasn’t even there, and his throat was ripped to shreds—arteries hanging out and everything. He was completely bled out.”
    â€œWhat are you two talking about?” Celeste asked. “Dead people don’t just get up and walk.”
    â€œWe had vitals hooked up to these people, and they were completely flatlined, walking around the room attacking people like wild animals,” Alex explained.
    â€œAnd they’re trying to get into the building.”
    â€œThey are?” Alex looked terrified. He ran over to the window and pressed his nose against the glass.
    â€œIt’s OK. I mean, we should be OK. I blocked the front door pretty good.”
    We stood at the window. The crowd had thinned a bit, and bodies littered the street.