Wither With Me

CHAPTER 31 - HOSPITALITY

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Greetings, dear reader!

Originally, in chapter 25, I mentioned a certain female character named Julie. I realized this character might end up getting confused with the similarly named Julien. So, I decided to rename her as Eleanor. Chapter 25 has already been updated with this change. I thought it was important to mention it!

That's all. Thanks for reading!

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"Great... Now what?" William let out a grunt, staring at the big, open space in front of the truck.

From their perspective, the buildings seemed to open up in all directions, leaving room for an enormous square where many nearby streets converged and merged with each other. At its center, a statue of a woman on horseback kept watch over the city, a silent beholder of its tragic past. Her attire was of obvious religious nature. She held the reins with her right hand and a cross with her left hand.

Past the square stood a massive building, dwarfing everything around it. A seven-story high building, colored with pretty patterns of bright blue gradients, reminiscent of clouds. On its front façade, right beside an unmistakable cross symbol, there was a large sign:

[SAINT MARIE HOSPITAL]

They had finally arrived at the shelter, which was a good thing. The shambler army filling the square and surrounding the hospital, not so much. They were neither moving nor making a ruckus. They stood there. All of them facing the hospital, but with their heads pointed up towards the sky.

"Oh god... We can't get into the hospital like this...!" said Nora, cowering on her seat.

"You don't say... Marcus? Any ideas?"

Marcus' face peeked into the cab from the back compartment.

"Hmm..." he squinted his eyes and scratched his chin, as if trying to make sense of the crowd of zombies in the square.

"And...?"

"Well, I can't say I've ever seen them surrounding any particular building like that... One way or another, I'm afraid we can't do much until they move out of the way. There's just too many of them..."

'Great... Under normal circumstances, they only move around during the night. I don't think there's any other shelter nearby so we can wait them out... Could we drag them away...? An alarm wouldn't work, not against something this big... Perhaps a gunshot...? No, no, that'd be a bad idea... We could end up drawing even bigger crowds from neighboring streets into the area...'

He sighed, frustrated.

"Damn, we can't stand here all day. We need to-"

"Step out of the truck!!" a female voice called out to them from the outside.

Out of all the things William was expecting to hear out there, other people were pretty much at the bottom of the list. Acting on reflexes, he grabbed his rifle from on top of the dashboard. He rolled down the driver's window, and aimed the weapon at the person outside.

It was a woman of strong physique and average height, with tanned skin and long black hair held back in a ponytail. Her attire lacked color of any kind, as if she had intentionally chosen darker tones in order to not stick out.

She threatened him with a pistol. Her hands didn't show any signs of hesitation, her eyes pierced him with fiery determination. With a quick look at the side mirror, William spotted some more people sneaking behind the truck. None of them seemed to hold firearms.