Psych Ward Zombies (5 page)

Dave grabbed Janet and pulled her away from Amber. At the same moment Amber’s head jerked back and she let out a blood-curdling shriek. The whites of her eyes were a milky red like Luther’s, and her skin shared the same sickly gray color. She wore a grimaced expression, as if in pain. She began lurching frantically toward Janet with her arms raised and fingers clawing. Dave called for help and two orderlies came running. One was Eric, a young man of about twenty who had begun working at Eldemere about two weeks prior. The other was Chester. The four of them surrounded Amber in a tactical maneuver they had been taught for subduing violent patients. Despite facing a four-to-one disadvantage, Amber seemed unfazed. She did not speak, but her expression and mannerisms suggested a lack of general awareness. It was as if she were incapable of any thought other than to attack. Her attention switched from one staff member to the next, directing her lunges toward whoever seemed closest. She swiped out with her hands, trying to grab clothing, hair, or vulnerable limbs. As Amber staggered around in her erratic pursuit, the staff members kept their distance. As she moved, they remained in formation around her.

Dave gave the signal, and
the staff members swooped in on Amber simultaneously. Everyone grabbed a limb. Eric and Chester each held an arm, while and Dave and Janet took the legs. Amber struggled, tugging her arms, trying to kick, and craning her neck toward her captors in an effort to bite. She snarled like a rabid dog, an analogy made even more appropriate by the pink foam that erupting from her mouth. Once she had been taken to the floor, Dave knelt on both her legs while the two orderlies each pinned an arm down.

Janet realized the restraint room was already occupied, and getting Amber transported to another ward’s restraint room would be too dangerous. She ran to the equipment room and fumbled in the dark for half a minute before finding the article she was searching for: the straitjacket. It was not ideal, but under these circumstances it was the only reasonable option. She grabbed a spit hood for additional measure, since spitting on staff had historically been Amber’s specialty. She hurried back to where Dave and the orderlies were holding Amber flat on the linoleum
.

Dave saw the straitjacket and frowned. He realized it was their only choice, but dreaded the ordeal of actually getting the agitated patient into the device. Donning this particular version of straitjacket involved entering the garment through the back, threading the arms into the sleeves and then fastening the back of the jacket closed. Then the extra-long sleeves would be drawn down in a criss-cross at the hips and tied to straps at the back. The jacket would fit snugly in this arrangement, preventing the arms from being pulled out of the sleeves. The arms would be immobilized, but the head and legs would remain free to cause mayhem
.

Janet readied the hood first, since Amber was actively trying to bite. Dave remained at the feet while Eric put one hand under Amber’s head to hold it off the floor. He held her arm down with his other hand. Janet slipped the hood over Amber’s head and folded a
Velcro visor over Amber’s eyes to prevent her from seeing what was happening.

As Eric withdrew his hand from behind Amber’s head, he yelped in disgust. He held the hand away from his body and shook it. A slimy mixture of matted hair and putrefied skin fell to the floor with a juicy splat. The rotten scalp on the back of Amber’s head had simply peeled off the skull and had stuck to his palm like a handful of pudding. The gruesome sensation on his hand was too much for Eric, who lurched forward and vomited on the floor beside Amber. Despite this, he managed to keep his weight on her arm so she could not get free
.

“
Are you all right?” Dave asked.

Eric’s face was pale, and he had a strong urge to vomit again. He swallowed hard and tried not to look at the slimy residue on his hand. He looked up to the ceiling, hoping Dave would not see the tears welling in his eyes. “Yeah, dude, let’s just get this done,” he gulped.

“All right then,” Dave said. “We go on three... One. Two. Three!”

On Dave’s cue, the two orderlies picked Amber up by her elbows while maintaining control of her arms. Dave stayed at the feet to prevent any kicking behavior. Janet started with the right arm and helped guide it into the sleeve. Once the arm was in place, Janet tugged the sleeve taut and held it tightly. The process was repeated for the left side. Once completed, both arms could be controlled from behind without much problem. Dave stood up and released Amber’s legs while Janet held both sleeve straps behind Amber’s back. The group felt a sense of relief in managing to get the straitjacket on so quickly. However, the moment of respite was shattered by a chirping alarm from Dave’s walkie-talkie. The brief siren was followed by the sound of a panicked voice screaming for assistance
.

“
We need help on D Ward! It’s a riot! Multiple people are hurt! We need anyone who can help. Now!”

Dave snatched the radio off his belt and keyed the microphone
.

“
This is Doctor Hexer on B Ward. I’ll send someone right over. Hang tight!”

He looked to Chester, who flashed a quick grin in response. Chester enjoyed the adrenaline rush of physical confrontations. His enjoyment of fighting served him well in the ring, but he also enjoyed subduing rowdy patients at the hospital. The idea of a “riot” seemed like a dream come true. Before Dave could say a word, Chester had already volunteered and was headed out the door
.

Dave looked to Eric, who seemed much less eager or confident with the idea. Eric made eye contact but quickly looked away
.

“
I think we’ve got things under control here. Go help,” Dave directed.

Eric hesitated. His stomach was still tied in knots, although at this point it was
based on fear more than nausea. He looked to Janet, hoping she would intervene. Getting no response, he resigned himself to the situation.

“
Right. I’ll go and see what I can do,” he said. Eric’s facial expression belied his acceptance of the task, but he trotted off in Chester’s wake. Dave and Janet were left standing in the corridor holding onto Amber.

Straitjackets are designed to restrict movement of the arms while allowing continued mobility of the legs. Dave knew he did not want Amber running around the ward, so he looped the sleeve straps around one of the handrails that lined the corridor. Amber was unable to sit down in this position, but Dave figured she was past the point of wanting to relax in a chair
.

He and Janet regrouped at the nursing station. At this point they were the only two staff members on the ward, aside from Mel who was busy watching Luther. Most of the patients had been awakened by the commotion, but they remained in their rooms. A few patients peeked out from their doorways but they did not venture into the corridor
.

“
Now this makes even less sense,” Dave said. He was struggling to come up with an explanation for what had happened. “Why is Amber like this too?”

Janet searched her thoughts, looking for some common thread. Suddenly an idea hit her like a baseball bat
.

“Doc, whatever it is, I’ll bet it’s contagious,” she suggested. “Like the flu or strep throat. I think that’s why Amber got it. I didn’t mention it before, but I saw Amber and Luther making out at the end of the hallway. That was about a half hour after he left the restraint room the first time.”

Dave was flabbergasted. The idea of some sort of death-rot kissing disease spreading through the hospital was bizarre enough, but he was also amazed that Amber could have been so quick and aggressive in latching onto the smelly serial killer.

“
So, it must spread by mouth contact,” Dave said. “Kissing, licking, biting, or anything like that could spread it.”

Janet turned to Dave with a look of
terror. “Oh my God. What about Jason?”

Eric caught up to Chester as they reached the outer door to D Ward, the geriatric section of the hospital. The sound of screams emanated from within. Chester hitched up his pants and turned to give Eric a nod. Placing his foot flat on the door, he gave a mighty shove and the door banged open wide. He and Eric walked into D Ward like Wild West gunslingers entering a saloon brawl.

They had expected to see chairs flying and people duking it out in the corridors. This riot, however, was no riot at all. The first thing Chester and Eric spotted was a group of four patients standing at the tall countertop of the nursing station. The group of patients stood shoulder to shoulder, staring into the chart room.
They all had their back turned toward the entrance.

In one of the day rooms, an elderly man slumped forward in a motorized wheelchair. He probably would have fallen out of the chair but he was held in place by a seatbelt. The patient appeared half-asleep, and his arm was moving erratically on the joystick of the motorized wheelchair. The wheelchair rolled forward and then back in an irregular rhythm. With each forward motion the chair would hit a couch, and with each backward motion it would hit a table. It reminded Chester of a teenager learning to parallel park for the first time.

Chester and Eric stopped just inside the entrance corridor, pausing to assess the situation. All was quiet, except for a low-level grunting of the patients at the desk and the repetitive “whirr-bump-whirr-bump” pattern of the wheelchair gently bouncing off the furniture. Nothing seemed all that unusual, aside from a large assortment of papers scattered on the floor around the nursing station.

Suddenly a medical chart
came flying out of the chart room and hit one of the patients in the face. A shower of papers erupted from the chart and fluttered down to the floor with the others. A couple more charts followed in quick succession.

“Someone’s in the chart room throwing charts at the patients. That must be our riot!” Eric
laughed. “I’ve got this.” Feeling suddenly emboldened again, Eric headed toward the conflict.

“Wait, hang on. Something isn’t right,” Chester warned. He reached out to grab Eric’s shoulder, but Eric had already started toward the nursing station. Eric walked up behind the group of four patients at the countertop and draped his arms over the shoulders of the two in the middle. He recognized one of them as Jason from B Ward

“Who’s in there causing trouble?” he asked, expecting to find a feeble elderly patient tossing charts from behind the desk. Instead he saw a nurse and five other patients huddled together in a single terrified mass. They were pulled back into the corner as far as they could go, with eyes wide and mouths agape. The nurse was holding a medical chart in her right hand, as if preparing to throw it at the patients standing beside Eric. She looked to Eric and her face drew into an even more terrified expression. She lifted her left hand and pointed at the group with a visible tremor.

“It’s not us! It’s them!” she blurted, her voice hoarse from screaming.

Eric looked at the nurse for a second and wondered if perhaps the stress of her job had driven the poor lady crazy. She looked like a paranoid lunatic, sprawled on the floor and throwing medical charts at her patients. He turned to Jason on his right, hoping to hear an explanation. Suddenly the nurse’s words hit him like a brick, as he recognized the blood-tinged eyes and hungry scowl he had witnessed with Amber just a few minutes earlier. Eric hesitated, and all four of the patients grabbed him at once. They dragged him to the ground, like hungry lions on a wildebeest. Eric called out in pain, feeling the bites sink into his arms and neck. As his blood spilled out of his body, it took conscious awareness with it. His body relaxed and slumped flat on the linoleum. Eric’s attackers slipped and skated on their hands and knees in the sticky puddle of blood, biting at his corpse.

Chester had not moved through all this. His body was a hostage of his mind’s indecision. Part of him wanted to run back to B Ward and forget any of this had happened. Another part of him wanted to kick some ass. The latter part won, freeing him to action
.

Chester moved with purpose now. He crossed the width of the corridor to a supply closet and swung open the door. Normally the supply closets in the hospital would be locked, as they contain all sorts of household items that desperate patients could use to harm themselves.
With the electromagnetic locks disabled, the household items were available for desperate staff members to harm others. This included things like cleaning chemicals, extension cords, brooms, and vacuum cleaners.

Chester picked up an extension cord and a mop, tucking the mop under his arm. As he walked toward the mob that was devouring Eric, he made a looped knot on one end of the cord and slipped the other end through the loop. He had created a makeshift lasso.

He had been standing in the shadows at the far corridor, so the grisly quartet on the floor had not noticed him. Their heads were each buried in Eric’s torso and groin. As Chester strode up behind them, he casually dropped the mop to the ground. In the same motion, he slipped his homemade noose over Jason’s head and gave it a sharp tug upward. Jason was pulled upright, onto his knees. Chester planted one foot in the middle of Jason’s back, forcing him back down. He wrapped the free end of the extension cord around his hand several times and yanked with all his might. The cord cut through the decayed flesh of Jason’s neck, closing in until it snagged on the bony vertebral column. Giving another forceful jerk, Chester pulled the cord all the way through with a loud pop. Jason’s head pirouetted through the air before landing several feet from his body.

Chester tossed the cord aside and picked up the mop. The other three undead patients rose to their feet to face him. Chester quickly examined the mop handle and then grasped it at both ends. He brought the handle down over his knee, snapping it roughly in half. This left him two pieces, each about two and a half feet long. The break had been tapered, causing both pieces to have sharp, pointed ends. Chester grasped the first piece, which contained the mop head, and shoved the sharp end through the eye socket
of the creature nearest him. The ghoul collapsed into a heap.

Chester held the remaining piece of mop handle like a baseball bat. He made a downward swipe onto the head of one of the creatures. Its skull split like a watermelon. The injured monster stood erect for several seconds, apparently unaware that its head had become a
piñata. Then all at once, its legs gave out and it crumpled onto Eric’s partially eaten corpse.

The remaining ghoul hissed at Chester but did not advance. Instead, it took two steps backward and turned to face the nurse and patients cowering behind the nursing desk. It attempted to climb over the desk toward them,
apparently having decided they were easier targets. This elicited a renewed barrage of screams and flying medical charts. Chester stepped forward and grabbed the creature by the ankle. He pulled the beast off the desk and slammed it to the floor. Chester stepped onto its back and stood there, momentarily relishing his dominance over the monster. He gave a grunt, jumped into the air, and slammed his heels down like a pile driver. The sound of snapping bones and squishing organs was accompanied by a dense spray of blood from the beast’s mouth. Chester repeated this maneuver a dozen times, resulting in a zombie rug about two inches thick and surrounded by an immense sea of blood, macerated organs, and smelly goo.

The ward was quiet again, aside from the continued whirring and clunking of the motorized wheelchair. Its demented driver seemed unaware of the carnage that had just unfolded in the middle of the ward. Chester turned to the huddled mass of patients and their nurse. Picking a chunk of intestine from his beard, he said, “I think y’all might want to come with me.”