The Contaminated

Chapter 10 - No Joy

Joel and Pierce stalked the shadows of the alley. Pierce had a pipe to defend himself with. Joel had his handy crowbar. He brought it for its multi-purpose uses. Joel thought to himself about how he used to walk these streets with his headphones in. Seeing children playing, cars driving by, people walking by him. Now it was quiet, besides for their footsteps and the sounds of scattered zombies. 

Joel's thoughts were interrupted when he saw movement about 20 feet ahead of him. He stopped and immediately signalled for Pierce to stop too. They took cover behind a corner. Pierce watched their backs as Joel peered out. He saw two figures with gasmasks disappear into an alley. They were too fast to be zombies. He didn't trust it though so he signalled to Pierce to be quiet. They sneaked up to the alley. Joel peered around the corner and frowned. Nothing. Just another road. The figures were gone. They didn't look like military, but they were prepared. 

Joel double checked the alley and then nodded to Pierce. They carefully made their way to the walk-in clinic. They didn't talk much. Mostly because they didn't want to alert any creatures to their location. Plus Joel didn't know what to say to Pierce. He knew he was worried about Hunter. There's nothing he could say to help.

Pierce watched Joel's back again as he scouted out the clinic. There was no movement inside but he knew there'd be something waiting for them. He slowly opened the door. He picked up a pebble and threw it to the back of the waiting area. He waited a couple of moments. Soon movement made it's way over to the sound. It was a slow, shuffling, old man. Now a zombie. It seemed to be the only one in the clinic though. Joel put up one finger and pointed into the clinic. Pierce nodded in acknowledgement. 

Joel snuck through the ajar door towards the shambling corpse. With a hunting knife he hid on his hip, he took out the creature with barely a noise. Joel knew better than to assume there were no more zombies, but that's why he had backup. He didn't know the clinic too well as he had a family doctor. He saw a fire escape plan in the hallway and got the layout. Pierce followed carefully. They both knew what was at stake and what the risks were. They had no time to be distracted. 

Suddenly a noise came from a back room. It sounded like metal crashing on the ground. They both snapped their heads up but saw no movement throughout the clinic. They crept slowly to the back. Joel peered through the window into the room with a flickering light. He saw the silhouette of a woman. She was on the ground. Near her was a dead body of a man and a duffel bag. Joel peered around the room to see any other threats but nothing was there. Only the woman. Joel let Pierce look as well. 

Before they could make a plan glass shattered behind them. They both turned to see a zombie fall through the front window. Joel immediately looked back to see the woman looking in their direction. She ran towards them and when she got closer they saw she was a zombie too. She seemed to be a nurse at this clinic. Joel tried holding the door closed as the nurse tried banging against the glass. Blood trailed from her hands with every hit. She made loud moans and screams trying to reach the fresh meat in front of her. 

They needed to hush her up before more zombies came. Joel looked to Pierce and they both nodded. Joel backed up from the door and the zombie fell forward and landed on the ground. Pierce kept an eye on the entrance. The zombie that fell through the window was crawling towards them, glass sticking out of his eyes and all over his body. Pierce readied his pipe and Joel readied his crowbar. It took a couple of swings to finish the zombies but they stopped moving soon. 

As the two caught their breath, they listened for trouble coming. That was a lot of noise. There had to be a couple of zombies who heard it. Once Joel was able to breathe normally again, he headed into the back room. The stench of rotting flesh hit him. It was most likely the zombie on the floor. Looks like the nurse had killed it a little too late for herself. But she did manage to pack some items in the duffel bag. It looked like most of the back room was empty but Joel searched for anything extra. He found some suitable weapons too. When he grabbed everything he could and put it in the duffel bag, they made their way out of the back hallway. 

That's when they heard groaning and moaning. It turns out the noise had brought unwanted attention. They hid behind the front desk as a group of 4 zombies lurched their way through the broken window. They had two options. Option 1 was to try and escape without being detected, option 2 was to fight this group. There were only two of them so their chances weren't great. 

Suddenly Pierce thought of an idea. He looked in the desk area for something that would make a lot of noise. He picked up a clipboard and prepared to throw it. He aimed at the back hallway and chucked it into a painting. The painting fell and the glass shattered. All of the zombies started heading towards the noise. Joel gave a quiet high five to Pierce as they snuck out of the clinic and back towards their safe house.