Chapter 6

~Dan~

       I grabbed the first aid kit that I found in the room and set it down on the hospital bed before opening it to find what I needed. While seemingly abandoned hospitals always had a creepy feel to it, this was the best place to be while Spruceworth was somehow in a ghost town state.

       Well, not the best place since we already had a few run-ins with some sort of creature, and with a place as big as the hospital there could be a lot of those creatures to injure us.

       Like one already did.

       "This is why you don't go running towards those creatures," I said, still looking through the first aid kit. I honestly had no idea if I would be able to properly patch up the wound since it was quite deep but I could at least try to stop it from getting infected.

       "I'm no wimp," Noah said. "If nobody tries taking on those things, they'll be roaming around freely. Do you even know how to patch this up?"

       "I'm a dad," I said. "I have four kids who don't know the meaning of 'be careful'."

       "Did any of your kids get attacked by a zombie?" Noah asked.

       "Those aren't zombies."

       "Those aren't zombies," Noah mocked.

       "Do you want me to patch this up or not?"

       "No thanks. Cleo can do it. She's a mom and she's married to a doctor."

       "Being married to a doctor doesn't mean I can patch that up properly," Cleo said. "It's not like I go to work with him."

       "You're all useless," Noah said.

       "I can try patching it up," Courtney spoke up. "I used to intern at the hospital since my mom works here."

       "Then why are you standing there?" Noah asked. "Patch this thing up so I can get back to trying to kill those evil beings."

       "That's not happening," I said as I made my way to the door of the hospital room to make sure there weren't any of those creatures nearby. We were somewhat safe in there since we pushed the second hospital bed in front of the door but we didn't really know how much strength they had.

       "If we don't try killing them, they're going to kill us," Noah said.

       "He does have a point," Cleo said.

       "Of course he does," I said. "But is going out and hunting them really the best option? If anything, we should only try to kill them when they attack us, otherwise we don't know how much we could run into when we're trying to find them."

       "Fair enough," Noah said.

       As Courtney tended to Noah's wound, I stayed by the door and kept my ear out for any sudden sounds that might be a red flag. We tried looking through the hospital for other people but it was too big and Noah got injured so we had to settle for a room. We didn't know if there was anyone else in here.

       "You know what we should do?" Noah asked. 

       "If you say go out and fight those things, I'm ignoring you," I said.

       "Well, that's rude," Noah said. "That's fine, I don't have to talk to you anyway. You're of no importance to me. I'll just ask my sister-in-law. So, Cleo, you know what we should do?"

       "Please don't say go out and fight those things," Cleo said.

       "What? No," Noah said. "Well, yes, but it's clear that I'm the only brave one here. Anyway, what I was going to say was we should actually find some food and water. I'm hungry."

       "There are vending machines all over the hospital," Courtney said.

       "Yes, but the hospital is now apparently abandoned so I don't know if they'll even have food in them," I said. "Even if they did, we don't have money for it."

       "If the vending machines do have food, we either pick the lock that opens it up or we smash the glass," Noah said. "Everything's legal here now that everything is abandoned. So when I'm all patched up, we should look for some."

       Courtney sighed. "You won't be able to, Noah. It's best for you to rest for a bit, even if you don't feel like your energy is drained."

       "And how long is a bit?" Noah asked.

       "I'd say an hour or two," Courtney said. "Three at most."

       "But I'm hungry not," Noah said. "And thirsty. I don't want to wait three hours, or even one hour, to get something to eat and drink."

       "I'll go out and see if there's some food and drinks," I said.

       "Dan, no," Courtney said. "You're not going out in the hallway alone, not with those creatures roaming around."

       "I'll be fine," I said. "I've had to deal with worse. I did have you as a girlfriend after all."

       Courtney glared at me, not understanding my joke at all. Then again, we had very different senses of humour. I didn't even know if she had one, to be honest. 

       "I change my mind," Courtney said. "Go out there for all I care. But just so you know, if you scream, I'm staying in here. Someone else can save you."

       "Awe, you're so considerate," I said before looking around the room for something I could use to protect myself just in case I ran into one of those creatures. 

       "Dan," Cleo said and when I looked over at her, she handed me some kind of surgery knife she found. "Will this help?"

       "It's definitely better than nothing," I said. "When I leave, put the bed back and don't move it until you hear me knock on the door."

       "How would we know it's you and not one of those faceless zombies?" Noah asked.

       "Well, they'd probably try ramming the door down instead of knocking on it," I said. "I won't be long. I'm only going to check this wing of the hospital to see if there's anything we could drink or eat."

       I was about to head to the door but Courtney grabbed my arm. "Just be careful, okay?"

       "I'll be fine," I said.

       "A lot of people say that in movies before dying," Courtney said.

       "Okay, but this isn't a movie," I said. "And I'm going out looking for food. You should know that nothing gets in the way of me getting food." Just to reassure Courtney, I gave her a hug. She may be my ex-girlfriend but we dated for six years. She was a huge part of my life and once we finally got passed our differences, we were able to stay friends.

       Which might not be the best thing because she was also friends with my wife and they were always complaining about my faults together.

       "You two are confusing," Noah said. "If my ex was here and offered to go out looking for food with the possibility of running into the faceless zombies, I'd just tell him not to let the door hit him on the door out and then block off his entrance back."

       "Wow, someone's bitter," I said.

       "Someone's bitter," Noah mocked. "Just go get some food."

       I rolled my eyes before walking to the door and moving the hospital bed out of the way. I gingerly opened the door before slipping out then letting the door quietly close behind me. I looked back and forth in the hallway, not seeing a single sign of those creatures.

       So far, so good.

       I walked as quietly as I could through the hallway, gripping the surgery knife tightly in my hand. My heart was beating rapidly, not wanting to run into any of those creatures.

       While I had been to the hospital a few times and knew where the vending machines were, since I could never forget where to find food, it was a bit hard to find one since the hospital looked unrecognizable.

       I finally ended up finding a vending machine that had some food left in it. Now all that was left to do was find a way to open it.

       I spotted a fire extinguisher nearby and sighed. This was probably the only was I could get it open so I was going to have to be really fast just in case one of those creatures were nearby.

      I picked up the fire extinguisher and hesitated before slamming it into the vending machine, causing the glass to shatter. I hurried to grab as much food as I could hold, plus two water bottles before hurrying back to the hospital room.

       Before realizing I couldn't knock on the door because my hands were full.

       So I had to kick the door instead but I didn't get an answer.

       "Guys, it's me," I said. "Can someone open the door? My hands are full and I can't knock."

       "Hurry up and open the door," I heard Noah said. "He has food."

       After moving the hospital bed aside, Cleo opened the door for me. I quickly got back inside and dropped the food on the hospital bed and pushed it back in front of the door. "So I didn't run into any of them but they might have heard me break the vending machine," I said. "We might just have to be extra quiet for a while."

_________________

dan is me "nothing gets in the way of me getting food"

what a mood

i actually love all the groups i've split everybody up in. apart from ollie and shaw, they seem like the most unlikely groups.