Thread: Eat Someone Else {PatientOne & AnnaBeth Belle}

No, Hannah grunted, breath driven out of her lungs by the effort of pistoning her legs against the floor. Even over the linoleum of the hospital hallway, it was still an effort to drag the body of her patient. Too heavy to carry and there wasn't a small gurney available to put him on, it was either drag him or try to push him and a full sized hospital bed down the hallway. There were too many obstacles in the way, too great a chance she'd get stuck and have to abandon him. If that happened, Hannah didn't know what she'd do. It would make everything seem worthless and like she'd failed. No, she grunted again and continued to drag the man. A sheet knotted into a loop was across his toned, muscular bare chest and it ran under his armpits into a knot that Hannah held tightly in her clenched fists. The man, if he had been able to stand, was half a foot taller than her five foot seven and weighed, according to his chart, one-hundred and eighty-five pounds. It felt like more because Hannah was exhausted. Wasn't fear and the adrenaline rush supposed to give her super human strength? Come on. Come on. Come on come on come on! Even when she was unable to budge him, Hannah's legs never stopped trying to push herself backwards, dragging the man with her. Just a few more feet. Please. Just a few more feet. The walkers at the far end of the hallway continued to lurch towards Hannah and her patient, hissing and growling as they saw and scented living meat. A few wore remnants of hospital gowns, one was in some sort of military uniform and Hannah spotted Dr. Lutsch at the back, his snow white hair a giveaway even if she couldn't read the name on his bloody exam coat. Hannah was closer to her destination, a supply closet off the pharmacy room, than the walkers were to her, but they were moving faster. It was going to be close. If they caught her, they'd rip and bite and tear hunks of flesh off her screaming body until she bled out or died from shock. Her patient would die too, but he would have the mercy of medicated unconsciousness as he was eaten alive. No. Grunt. No. Grunt and pant. No! Screaming, making a last desperate effort so hard Hannah thought she'd rip something in her gut she got past the door and as soon as the man's bare feet crossed it she dropped him, hating the way his head hit her shins on the way down but better than that the hard floor. Accidentally stepping in his arm, Hannah pulled the door shut then leaned against it as the walkers crashed into it. Fortunately the door had latched and for all they were unstoppable, walkers generally couldn't figure out how to operate handles, even oversized ones that the hospital was equipped with. Go eat someone else! she screamed through the door then, Laughing on the edge of hysteria at her safety, Hannah threw the lock and slumped down on the floorr. While walkers howled and scratched their flesh down to bone against the door, Hannah sat and sobbed out her relief and the crash of hormones dumping into her system to counterbalance the adrenaline. I did it, she said through the hiccups of the aftermath of regaining control. I did it. Oh God, I did it. Looking over at the form of her patient, Hannah nodded slowly. I saved you. They didn't get you and they're not going to get you. Pulling herself to her feet, Hannah grabbed a hypoallergenic pillow off the shelf and put it under the man's head, then draped a couple of sterile blue OR sheets over his body to keep him warm. As she squatted beside him, butt resting on the heels of her extremely sensible nursing shoes, Hannah smoothed his coal black hair out of his face and into order almost like a mother with a child. I saved you and I'm going to get you out of here. I promise. Standing, she used the small but heavy black metal flashlight that had been among the man's personal effects. It looked like the ones the police used, only a little different and it had both bright and dim and a super bright strobing setting that made her eyes hurt. Keeping it on dim to save the batteries, she had no idea what kind of even how to unscrew it to check, Hannah moved around the room gathering supplies. The first thing she got was a bag of saline and another of glucose solution rigged to drip into the IV still attached to her patient's hand. That would keep him hydrated and fed, at least for the short term. Sugary water wouldn't work forever but it was good enough until he could come back enough to eat. Hitting the diabetic shelf Hannah gathered what she could and stuffed it into a pillow case then added as many bottles of sterile water as possible and that she could still lift. Another pillowcase got a selection of gauze and bandages, antibiotics, suture kits, painkillers and anti-inflammatories and, that essential survival commodity, tampons and pads. When she was done, Hannah sat down beside the man and held his hand. She lied to herself and said it was for his benefit, not hers. His name was Alexander Night. He'd come in barely under his own power, body shaking uncontrollably with a bone wracking fever that almost killed him. Night also had a dandy bacterial blood infection that the tropical medicine department was in love with and a good collection of contusions, abrasions, and what looked like the graze of a bullet across one flank. Certainly he'd been shot before. His right shoulder bore the white cicatrice of a healed bullet wound and there were stab marks and slashes, healed, across his abdomen and one in his thigh that would have killed him if it went a centimeter deeper and sliced open his femoral artery. He had ID, a valid insurance card, and a high value American Express card to take care of the bill. What he didn't have was an explanation as to why he was there and what had happened to him. Cops had been called, but there weren't any warrants on him and the wounds, while alarming, were old and not sufficient probable cause to charge him with anything. They'd scratched their head and left. That was the first night he'd tried to escape. Well, leave against medical advice. Alexander had been delirious enough that they'd been able to persuade him back into bed but when he tried twice more in the next three hours staff had restrained him in bed. Even out of it Night hadn't liked that at all, screaming in at least two languages and pulling at them so hard Hannah marveled they didn't snap. Luckily they were padded so he didn't hurt himself. In fact they were quite comfortable if you were into that sort of thing. For the next two weeks, as the world fell apart around them, Hannah spent several hours each day in Night's room. He didn't talk much so she talked for both of them, gossiping about current events and petty hospital drama and which doctor was good to work with and which ones were assholes. Technically Hannah wasn't his floor nurse, she was a highly trained and experienced trauma nurse, but it was either stay at the hospital and try to pretend things were normal or go home - if she made it with all the roadblocks and outbreaks - with no guarantee she'd be able to get back to the hospital. And there'd been no word from Him at all. Nothing. Being at the hospital let her forget for a while. When it had finally flooded past the critical point in the hospital, staff had tried and failed to barricade this wing against the horde. Problem was a single infected person left inside had been enough to start the cycle all over again. They'd fought as best they could but as more and more of them turned the living became small pockets among the walking dead, then just became dead themselves. As far as she knew, Hannah and Night were the last ones alive in the entire hospital. But she had a plan. A plan and determination to make it work. If there was one piece of human decency left in the world, Hannah was going to be part of it. That's why she'd risked both of their lives to drag Alexander this far. The next part was going to be tough on both of them. Making sure everything was ready, Hannah swung open the windows on the far side of the room and looked down. Good. It was still there three stories below. A red fire department battalion chief's suburban. From working with EMT Paramedics she knew there would be a magnetic key box under the left front wheel well. Every emergency vehicle had one just in case they needed keys and the person who had them was busy or trapped or in the case of the chief, down the street kneeling over a dead dog and noisily stuffing steaming intestines in his rictus grinning mouth. There was enough moonlight to make it hard to miss. Fucking gross, she whispered and began to let the improvised rope out of the window. That was knotted together sheets and triple looped electrical extension cord stripped out of a floor buffer. It was enough to reach the overhang two stories below and just a big deep dipping step from there onto the top of the Suburban. Easy. Well, if you weren't trying to move a big hunk of passed out man flesh. First she lowered the pillow cases of supplies, letting the sheets they were tied to billow down beside them once they touched down, then she knelt again beside Night and held the flashlight under her left armpit. It took only seconds to disconnect the IV drips. Quentin Tarantino, eat your heart out. Pulp Fiction didn't know what it was talking about. Smoothly and firmly she pushed the needle into the IV port and delivered a cocktail that would have gotten her fired and sued if any malpractice lawyers still existed. Maybe they did. Maybe the walkers wouldn't eat lawyers out of professional courtesy. The drugs were a mix of epinephrine, a non-narcotic painkiller, and some seriously abusable prescription amphetamines along with what Hannah calculated to be enough buffer that the liquid wouldn't burn a hole in Night's veins. Habit made her cap the needle and drop it in the sharps box. I'm sorry, she said to Alexander. This isn't going to be fun for you. If the drugs didn't kill him, he'd be jolted awake like an energy drink ad company's wet dream. Problem was it would only last for a minute before his system shut down in shock, possibly into cardiac arrest. But there wasn't any choice. Hannah needed Night able to shimmy down the rope and get into the Suburban under his own power before he collapsed again. Once inside she could revive him - hopefully - and get them out of immediate danger. Come on, she said to him. Come on. Wake up. I need you to wake up. Wake up, soldier! she finally shouted, figuring he was probably ex military. Hey, it worked in the movies.