Free Psych Ward Zombies by James Novus Page A

the creature by the ankle. He pulled the beast off the desk and slammed it to the floor. Chester stepped onto its back and stood there, momentarily relishing his dominance over the monster. He gave a grunt, jumped into the air, and slammed his heels down like a pile driver. The sound of snapping bones and squishing organs was accompanied by a dense spray of blood from the beast’s mouth. Chester repeated this maneuver a dozen times, resulting in a zombie rug about two inches thick and surrounded by an immense sea of blood, macerated organs, and smelly goo.
    The ward was quiet again, aside from the continued whirring and clunking of the motorized wheelchair. Its demented driver seemed unaware of the carnage that had just unfolded in the middle of the ward. Chester turned to the huddled mass of patients and their nurse. Picking a chunk of intestine from his beard, he said, “I think y’all might want to come with me.”

Chapter Nine
     
    “I hope Chester and Eric are all right,” Janet said. She was genuinely concerned, although the two orderlies had only been gone for a half hour.
    “I’m sure they’re fine. I’ll call D Ward and see what’s happening,” Dave reassured, picking up his walkie-talkie. “Wait, I thought you didn’t like Chester.”
    Janet’s face flushed a little, but in the poor lighting Dave did not notice.
    “Fat guys aren’t really my thing, but I guess he’s all right,” she mumbled. Chester’s recent heroism had caused her to reconsider her biases. Under different circumstances Dave might have teased Janet about this, but for now he jus t let it go. Besides, he was a little worried about Chester himself. He keyed the microphone on the walkie-talkie.
    “This is Doctor Hexer calling D Ward.” He paused for fifteen seconds before repeating his call. There was no answer either time. Dave checked the buttons and knobs on the radio to make sure it was turned on and tuned to the correct emergency channel. It seemed to be working properly. The third call to D Ward once again garnered no response. Dave and Janet shared a glance, knowing they were both thinking the same thing .
    “Maybe we should go look for them,” Janet suggested. Dave pointed out that they still had two animated corpses on the ward along with seven other patients. He, Janet, and Mel were the only staff members on the ward and they needed to stay there. Plus, as far as anyone knew, the rest of the hospital was fine other than rioting geezers.
    About five minutes later, they heard the doors to the ward open and Chester walked in. He was alone and covered in blood. Janet and Dave stood up immediately and ran toward him. Janet was first to speak .
    “Are you okay? Is that your blood? ”
    Chester shrugged. “I’m okay, I think. But we did run into some trouble. Whatever happened to Amber and Luther also happened on D Ward. Some of the patients turned into zombies and were attacking everybody else. It was crazy!”
    “Chester, these people aren’t zombies,” Dave snapped. He was angry that Chester seemed to be making fun of patients who were sick. “It’s some sort of medical illness. Maybe a virus. I don’t know, but I think it’s contagious.” Dave looked down at the gore covering Chester’s clothes. He took a step back and said, “I think you’d better wash that off.”
    Janet directed her attention to the door of the ward and then back to Chester. “Where’s, um, everyone else?”
    Chester hung his head and stared at his feet. (Actually, he had not seen his feet in years. He hung his head and stared at his enormous belly.)
    “I took what was left of D Ward over to C Ward,” Chester explained. “It’s calm over there and it seemed like a safer place than here. Eric ... uh... Well, Eric got eaten by the zombies.”
    “I told you they’re not zomb ...” Dave suddenly realized what he had just heard. “Wait. Did you say ‘eaten’?”
    “Yeah, man. They ate that dude! They ate him like a damned old