The Virus by Lee, Damien (summer books txt) 📕

his way into the garage. The guard’s pleas became muffled as he closed the door behind him.

13

Five minutes had passed. The murmuring zombies wandering beneath Amy unsettled her. She could see from her perch some of the disfigured men and women passing underneath the gap in the ceiling. Their expressions were blank as they shuffled about the ward, gently bumping into desks and chairs as if they were not there. They had been that way for the last five minutes, almost as if they had forgotten about their potential meal behind the elevator doors. Terry had been silent for the same length of time. Amy longed to shout out to him, to ensure he was still conscious, but doing so would alert the zombies to their presence. Tearing her gaze away, she concentrated on Ben as he tried to manipulate some of the pipes.

“Any luck?” she whispered.

“No, we’re gonna have to squeeze through.”

Amy watched as he carefully shuffled back along the pipe.

“You wanna go first?”

“Not really,” she said, looking back down at the wandering corpses. “Do you think I can fit through that gap?”

“You’ve got more of a chance than me. Just take it slow and you’ll be fine.”

She was not convinced, but knew they had no other choice. She nodded and wormed her way past him towards the intersecting pipes. The first gap wasn’t a problem, and she shuffled through easily. It was the second gap that she found to be troublesome. A thick pipe ran straight across her path, giving her the option of climbing over or crawling beneath it. She chose the latter, assessing it to be the bigger opening.

“Be careful,” Ben whispered as she wriggled onto her front, wrapping her legs around the pipe. She looked down at the foam tiles below her. One wrong move and she would fall straight through them. She slowly shuffled along the pipe until she reached the gap. Her head fit through the space fine, but it was her shoulders that obstructed her passing. She wriggled as much as she could until her upper body finally squeezed through. With a sigh of relief, she wormed her way over to the last obstacle and shimmied past.

“I’m through.”

“Can you see the vent?”

She looked ahead and saw the metal grating.

“Yeah, but it looks pretty sturdy, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to open it.”

“For fuck’s sake, it isn’t locked!”

Terry’s outburst echoed up the elevator shaft. As soon as the words left his mouth, the zombies were at the lift door once again.

“Shit.” He snapped as the pounding resumed. “Hurry!”

Amy tried to find Ben, but the darkness and complex pipeline restricted her view. She looked down at her wristwatch and found they only had three more minutes to escape. Her heart started to race.

“Ben?” she said, her eyes scouring the concealing gloom.

“What?”

His voice was close.

“How are you doing?”

“I can’t get through this second gap,” he said. Amy feared as much. It was barely large enough to accommodate her small frame. With Ben’s physique, there was no way he could pass.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, turning her ear for a response. The pounding and wailing from the crazed zombies below made it difficult to hear anything else. A series of metallic thuds filled the air, diminished by the raging corpses below them. Amy listened as a hissing sound came from the pipe.

“Ben?”

The banging continued until the pipe finally gave way. Ben emerged from the darkness, shuffling under the last pipe. She reached out and guided him the remaining few feet towards her.

“Thanks,” he said, easing himself upright.

“They’re getting in!” Terry yelled as an almighty thud reached them. “I’m going down.”

“Terry, wait!”

Ben lunged towards the vent. The sound of whirring motors filled the small confines. He ripped the metal grill from the wall and disappeared through the gap. Amy crawled after him, emerging into the dimly lit shaft. She found him stood on a small ledge, looking down at the descending carriage.

“Oh, no,” he said, helping Amy to her feet. “He’s going all the way down. Those doors are going to open.”

The pair watched the lift’s descent until it reached the bottom floor with a prompt ding. Silence. Amy’s heart hammered against her chest, the sound beating in her ears. The doors rolled open. There was a moment of silence before Terry’s screams of agony shot up towards them. Amy jammed fingers in her ears as the sickening sound of evisceration floated up the elevator shaft, echoing all around them. Ben held a trembling hand to his face, his jaw clenched.

“There’s nothing we could have done,” Amy said, watching the man for a response. She kept her fingers in her ears, muffling the sounds of the grisly feast below. Ben turned to face her.

“We need to get out of here.”

“Well, we can’t use the lift now,” Amy replied.

“I don’t know, we still could.” Ben motioned towards a metal fuse box attached to the wall on the opposite side of the elevator shaft. “I’m guessing the manual override to the lift is in that box. If we can get over there, we can call it up again and proceed with the original plan.”

“I don’t know, Ben.” She crouched down on the ledge, biting her nails as she considered the prospect. “Jumping on top of the lift, then going through the hatch where there could be an endless amount of zombies to get past. Then, even if we get out of the hospital, what do we do then? We’d hardly be out of the woods.”

She looked up at Ben, hoping to see the same concerns on his face. There was no emotion, at least none she could decipher as he stared hard at the metal box on the other side