Chapter 20

The two of them tore through the ranks of the undead, Hic hitting every shot of his bow flawlessly, while Zach crushed their ranks with his raw strength and stamina. But it wasn't quite enough. Five of the shamblers broke past the two of them, three of them immediately finding their marks in the fleeing hospital staff. The screams of their victims echoed off the walls of the hallway as their teeth sunk into the soft flesh of their retreating backs. All three of them fell to the ground as chunks of their muscles were torn off of their bodies, their traumatizing strangled grunts and groans ringing in my ears.

And even so, Doctor Sheila continued to stitch my wound closed, this time working on the backside. "Doctor, you have to let me up, now, they need help!" She shook her head at my request.

"Even if I was done, which I'm not, your body doesn't have the strength. For someone of your experience, getting shot is not an easy thing to recover from." She said all of this with a matter of fact tone. I shook my head in anger. "Please, there has to be something you can do, there's only two people here fighting back, I need to help them!"

She was about to shake her head again, but stopped short of the first twist of her neck. "I forgot, we just got those!" She turned her head towards Zach and Hic, and shouted, "Boys, there's a small green bag in the room behind it, someone has to grab it now, or Alaric here can't help you two!" Zach glanced behind his shoulder to look at who was yelling, hesitating slightly at the bark of instruction, before Hic used the body of one of the shamblers he had killed to leap over Zach and duck into the indicated room.

Zach was forced to put his attention back in front as more and more shamblers pushed forward. The three that had found victims were still happily munching away, their hands bloodied as they dug deeper and deeper into the bodies.

Hic flew out of the room, sliding into place next to the Doctor and handed her the bag. My vision was starting to swim in and out of focus again, the pain in my shoulder becoming unbearable. I stared at Hic, and in an agony induced hysteria, I lamented that I didn't know him all that well, despite fighting together for three weeks. I don't know why I did this, most likely to distract me from the pain, but I made a vow to get to know him and Zach better after this.

From the bag, Doctor Sheila pulled out a familiar looking epipen, labeled 'epinephrine-compound-c'. I flashed back to the last time I almost died, that same epipen falling out of Zach's hand as I came back from the brink of unconsciousness. Doctor Sheila uncapped the tip and proceeded to jab the fine tip into the meatiest part of my leg.

The same feeling as last time flowed through me, though I still felt a significant amount of pain from my wounds. Stamina and energy began flowing through my veins. I pushed Doctor Sheila to the side and stood up, the weakness in my shoulder forgotten. It was still agonizing, but now it didn't feel crippling, it didn't feel like it would make my shoulder unusable. And luckily for me, my sword arm hadn't been the one that had gotten hit. Or maybe it was unlucky for the shamblers who were currently gnawing on the dead bodies of the hospital staff. I don't know how they got out of the underground, or why, but I did know that with the way I felt right now, they wouldn't be out of it for long.

I reached down to grab my sword, my muscles already tensing in anticipation of my attack, only to grab empty air. Panic shot through me, and the memory of me dropping my sword upon being shot flashed through me. Shit! I screamed internally.

I glanced back at the shamblers eating the bodies, indecision coursing through me, before clenching my jaw and raising my fist. I didn't really know how to fight using my hands, but with how simplistic these guys' moves were, I felt….. Well, not confident, but ok enough to engage them.

The drugs pumping through my system were causing my body to shake slightly as I approached the closest shambler. There was so much tension in my muscles, they felt like they would snap in half. The shambler noticed my presence as I got closer, its mouth slowly chewing and swallowing whatever it had had in its mouth. It let me get closer and closer, until I was just two feet behind him, before he exploded into action.

His bloody and stained hand tried to grab a portion of my face. It wasn't there anymore. I ducked underneath his attempted grapple before grabbing a portion of its hair and bringing its face down directly into my knee. I don't know if it was the weakness of its rotting body that caused its head to cave so easily, but that single strike was all it took, its lifeless body hanging on to my knee.

With a grunt of disgust I pushed it off. I noticed the other two shamblers had realized what was going on, and had both polished off whatever they had been chewing before hunching over into an attack position in front of me.

I raised my fists to sit in front of my face, the unfamiliarity of the stance showing in my body. They both snarled and showed their blood red teeth, bits of flesh and stringy tendons hanging from between their teeth. That's when I heard a cry of pain from behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder worriedly, only to see a shambler have its whole mouth buried deep into Zach's shoulder, blood spurting out in all directions.