Two Summers Ago, the World Went to Shit

Chapter 21: Burn

I should've died. I had every reason to. I deserved to. But somehow, I still managed to live even when Bailey had been denied that chance. Honestly, fuck this world. Is this all you've got?

Chapter 21: Burn

Last night, the three of us stayed in a neighborhood close to the one Bailey lived in. The house we found was in good shape and provided the security we needed if another army of zombies came through. Jackson and I stayed together in a queen-sized bed in a room decorated in outdated furniture with floral wallpaper. Caleb was in the next room over, sound asleep. Once Jackson had fallen into a deep sleep, I slipped out of bed. I was wearing a black tee along with a pair of hot pink boy short style underwear that I found while plundering through the dresser drawers inside of this vacant house. The jeans I'd been wearing were laying on the floor beside the bed, so I slowly grabbed them before sneaking off downstairs as quietly as possible.
It was now the second week of May, so the days were beginning to radiate the early summer heat. Yet still, the nights remained cool. I'd been contemplating this excursion the entire day before strategically planning every aspect so I could be in and out and back in bed before the sun even rose. I knew if either of them woke up to me missing it would become an ordeal, so I was pretty confident that I could sneak out like a rebellious teen without them ever knowing I left in the first place. That was the goal at least.
     Once I was downstairs, I squeezed into the wrinkled, ripped skinny jeans before browsing through one of the closets. I found an old olive green jacket hanging up in a coat closet, so I threw it on to keep the late night breeze off of me. I glanced around the almost pitch black downstairs area before spotting the keys to the sedan we'd taken from the house where Bailey died. I took gentle steps towards the round stone kitchen nook table to retrieve them, and then I was gone out of the front door.
I took one last look around me to ensure that Jackson or Caleb hadn't woken up. Fortunately for me they were still tucked neatly in bed while I snuck off to find something that would take my mind off of Bailey's death and Grace's disappearance. Everything in the area had finally simmered down following the uproar and chaotic terrorization of dead corpses. I surprisingly hadn't seen a single zombie since then.
I drove the car out of the neighborhood and onto the main highway in the direction of the blue hospital signs I'd seen when we first arrived in Nashville. It was eerily dark and quiet with nothing to illuminate the road or my surroundings except the dim headlights on this car. Still, I continued following the street signs until I saw the huge glass hospital growing closer. I quickly turned into the massive parking lot until I was near the entrance. I shut off the headlights and the engine before my stomach turned in knots from this strange, unsettling feeling I got from being here. I should've taken my ass straight back home, but there's something about addiction that just makes you irrational and blind to your subconscious fears, especially when you throw a manic episode in the mix. So, I chose to ignore that gut feeling I had to satisfy my inner demon's cravings of an adrenaline rush and stuck with my original plan for the night.
I exited my car and took hesitant steps towards the entrance. I approached the once automatic doors that remained shut studying each speck of dust on them. I attempted to pull them apart, but it was difficult to get a good grasp on them. I groaned in annoyance as I struggled, and eventually, I walked around to the side of the hospital where I found a lonely door to a stairwell. I turned the handle and sighed a breath of relief when I discovered that it was unlocked.
The old door creaked open revealing a dark room where the fire escape stairwell was located. There was a faint smell of mildew, and I could vaguely hear water dripping from several floors above me. Every few seconds, drip, drip, onto a small puddle in the corner of the room. I took hold of the cold handrail that was painted red where several spots of the paint were beginning to flake off and followed it with the stairs.
Chill bumps covered my body as I navigated through the alternating diagonal steps, finally reaching a metal door with a bright red sign to the right of it that read FLOOR 2. I opened the door and found myself in an empty hallway of the hospital. I didn't see anything, I didn't hear anyone, so I felt like maybe everything was fine. I inched down the hall until I found a sign with room and floor numbers for each area of the hospital.
Strangely, I felt like I was back at the hospital with Rudy's group from the obvious similarities but also with the uncertainties both places gave me. I just had this lingering feeling that I wasn't alone here. I avoided my persistent worries and studied the sign until I located PHARMACY etched out in black lettering. It was located on the third floor, so I wasn't far at all.
Before I headed back to the stairwell, I turned to look behind me just to make sure I wasn't being watched. I never saw anyone, so I just continued my journey through the stairwell and up to the third floor. There hadn't been any evidence of power on the second floor or in the ground floor stairwell, but when I stepped out onto the third floor, I saw a single light flickering down one of the hallways accompanied by a low buzzing noise. Right behind that light, there was a sign hanging from the ceiling with an arrow pointing to the left and the words PSYCHIATRIC UNIT and PHARMACY labeled on it.
I carefully walked towards the sign, following the arrow by taking the hallway adjacent to the one I had been on. It was dimly lit down this section of the hospital which was more than either of the other two floors. At the very far end, I could see two double doors with AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY across the front of them. It gave me the creeps honestly with the way it seemed so closed off and secluded from the rest of the hospital. But before I got too far down the hall, I found the entrance to the pharmacy. I sighed a breath of relief.
It was fully lit within the moderately sized room housing tons of medications. I peeped in the small window on the door, and once I saw it was empty, I entered. I immediately began rummaging around various areas in the room trying to locate either of the two drugs I desperately craved. I fumbled through shelves, cabinets, and drawers tirelessly, becoming frustrated with myself.
Several minutes passed, and I'd eventually found ketamine and fentanyl. I took all of the stock along with several syringes and laid them on top of the big counter located in the center of the room. I studied each component just picturing how it would feel to be high right now. It would've been stupid and reckless for me to shoot up while in an unfamiliar, sketchy environment, so that's exactly what I did because as we've established, I make shit decisions and I needed the cravings to stop. I needed all of this to stop.
I drew up small amounts of both drugs into the syringe before finding a vein to insert the needle into. Even though the drugs themselves weren't exactly immediate, it still gave me a sense of relief and comfort knowing that I would soon find that place I wanted to be in. I stood in the pharmacy for a short period of time, looking around, waiting on the effects of the injection to kick in. I looked at the white cabinets and shelves I'd unorganized around the room and then up at the ceiling where there was one small stain from the evidence of a leak. Once I found the lights scattered throughout the ceiling, they turned to blurs, and I felt myself drifting into that high I so desperately longed for. Only this time I had the strangest hallucination.
"Sammi," Sophie said in a confused tone as I vaguely remembered seeing her with Grace rested gently in her arms.
At the time, my legs didn't even feel like they were attached to my body; I was weak and numb. Everything I looked at was black or splotchy, including Sophie and Grace now. The sedative effects of the drugs were kicking in, and before I knew it, everything went black—Grace and Sophie were gone.
I have no clue how much time passed by, but when I'd woken up, I could hear Sophie beside me.
"Sammi, wake up. We need to get out of here," she said in a worried whisper.
I blinked several times to clear my vision before realizing this wasn't a hallucination. Sophie was really here, and so was Grace. They were alive.
"You're both here. How," was all I managed to mumble out.
"There's no time to explain. We need to get out of here before they find us," she whispered as the two of us sat hidden behind the counter in the center of the room.
She was holding Grace carefully in her arms when we heard the door open behind us. She quickly held her finger up to her mouth, signaling me to keep quiet while the person investigated the pharmacy. Unfortunately, there was plenty of evidence that I'd been here from the vials and syringes left on the countertop. It wouldn't take them long to figure out that we were hiding here, somewhere. I just feared what Sophie knew about this place, and I feared what would happen if we were found.
I'd find out soon enough.
Grace made some of her sweet baby noises in the midst of our attempt at hiding which gave the person the green light that we'd been located. I closed my eyes anxiously, reopening them once the person revealed themself. I'd never in my life seen anyone that looked so far gone and completely mad. I felt like I was in a house of horrors, screaming once I'd made eye contact with this thing if it was even still a person.
They had a perfectly bald head with the darkest veins I'd ever seen visibly displayed on their scalp and around their face. Their eyes were almost black, like there wasn't even a person behind them. They had dark circles around their eyes, and their teeth had been filed into sharp, pointed shapes that became known when they smiled horrifically at me.
I just continued screaming while Sophie and I scrambled to stand and run. Only, she and Grace got away, but I didn't. It was like I froze; I thought I was moving so fast, but I was functioning in slow motion while Sophie managed to escape from inside the pharmacy. Part of me was relieved that she made it away with Grace, but the other part of me was afraid of what this place was.
The man grabbed me by my arm, dragging me across the pharmacy as I continued to scream. Eventually they laughed psychotically before sinking their teeth into my arm like a fucking vampire, only this was his way of inflicting pain, not supernatural feeding. My skin crawled at the thought of this horrific person biting me like some kind of rabid animal. And he did it over and over, leaving bloody holes all over while I kicked and fought against him.
He dragged me down the hall and through the double doors of the psychiatric unit where I was thrown into a room with several others who seemed as afraid as me or who were almost too far gone like the man I'd just encountered. The door was slammed shut, and I observed the room from the far corner where I was now sitting to distract myself from what just happened. The bloody bites on my arms stung so badly, but I felt like that wouldn't be the worst that would happen to me here.
As I gazed around the room, I noticed one group of women on the left side sobbing hysterically against the wall. In the very back, there were a few women eating on something, but I couldn't quite make out what it was until I saw one of them cleaning off a human humerus. My eyes widened, and I turned towards the right side of the room where another set of women had their eyes and mouths sewed shut—no joke, their fucking lips were completely closed and you could see no part of their eyes, only their eyelids sealed together. They were propped up against the wall like puppets, not moving, possibly not even alive. I pulled my knees up to my chest, shaking from a full blown panic attack thinking of all that could happen to me while I was trapped here. Jesus fucking Christ. I'm going to die here. I was certain of it.