Six Hours, Six Minutes and Six Seconds

Zombie horror. Any and all feedback welcome. Enjoy.

 

Allen Weathers stood over the body that had just been wheeled into the morgue. As was the new standard process, the body was strapped to the gurney face down. This one had been pronounced dead only an hour ago, so he knew he still had plenty of time, but he still felt the familiar urgency. He raised the circulating bone saw and began to open the back of the head. After he’d cut a large enough hole in the skull he peeled it away and picked up his scalpel. He began to cut the brain out. After he’d made it through the stem he reached in and pulled it out. It came out of the head with the same slurping, sticky sound that he’d heard thousands of times now. Once the brain was out, he took it to the firing chamber, locked the door and turned on the burners. As he watched it burn he contemplated just how he’d gotten here.

                Medical school had been a breeze. He cruised through his classes. Working on cadavers was no big deal, but then he had to start his internship and work on real live people. When his first patient died, Allen lost it. In his heart, he knew that he’d done what he could, but it hadn’t been enough. He couldn’t live his life like that. His attending tried to reassure him saying that things would get easier; he’d get used to it, but he didn’t want to get used to it. He didn’t want to live his life with that kind of guilt all the time.

                So now he was sitting on $100,000.00 worth of student debt and a degree that only benefitted him if he worked in the medical field, so he switched his specialty to pathology. The morgue was a good fit for him. The people came to him dead. All he had to do was determine what had killed them and send the body onto the funeral home. That is until about two years ago when the dead started to rise. That’s when his job description changed dramatically.

                As he stood there cursing his bad luck the door burst open and two orderlies came in pulling two gurneys behind them. “What’s the clock gentlemen?” He asked. He remembered how when he’d started this job he would ask question like cause of death or things of that nature, but now time was all that mattered. 6 hours, 6 minutes and 6 seconds seemed like a long time, but that was his deadline and he wanted to stick to it.

                The first orderly stopped and just shrugged his shoulder. The other gave him a clueless look and said, “We’re not sure. They were found dead.”

                “Well how long has it been since then?” He asked irritated.

                “Less than an hour. A neighbor found them and called it in. Don’t worry, they’re strapped down like always.”

                “Have you ever had to cut the brain out of a thrasher gentlemen?” Allen asked, more than a little irritated. “It’s not pleasant I assure you. They scream when you do it.”

                “Well then I suggest you hurry,” Retorted the orderly who turned and walked away. He paused at the door and turned. “Oh, the EMT’s told me to tell you that there is another outbreak going on. It’s going to be a busy night.”

                “Thanks a lot.” Allen said waving them off. He already had the saw out and was about to begin with the first body. He looked at the clock. When the dead started to rise a little over two years ago, nobody knew what to think or do. It looked like the world was going to crumble at first, but eventually the military and police forces had gotten things under control. The walking dead are slow and clumsy and don’t seem to have any purpose other than to kill more people. They also don’t seem to feel any pain except trauma to the brain. The zombie books and movies had been partially right in their prediction. The brain was the key, but shooting it was not enough. In fact, shooting the brain made the zombies scream and become enraged. It had to be burned. Even cut out and separated the body would continue to move until the brain was burned. 

At first to deal with the masses of walking dead, the entire body was just burned. But then a group of scientists obsessed with finding the cause and hopefully a cure had found out two important facts. The first was that only the brain had to be burned. The second was that it took exactly 6 hours, 6 minutes and 6 seconds for the dead to rise. There were never any exceptions. When somebody was pronounced dead, they would start a timer and wait hoping that maybe this time the body would rest; that maybe it would all be over, but as they always did when the timer hit 666, the dead would rise. 

Knowing the time was useful for dealing with the problem. The world was able to return to some state of normalcy with a few outbreaks here and there, but the significance of the number 666 had caused a religious hysteria that swept the world. Since the scientific and medical worlds had failed to come up with a reason for this new disturbing phenomenon, the world believed it to be a punishment from God. Allen didn’t know if God had anything to do with this or not, be he agreed that this felt like a punishment. He guessed people were just doing what came naturally to them. When their science failed them, they inevitably looked to the heavens. The Greeks, Egyptians and Romans had done it centuries ago, and people were still doing it.

Everybody who died was to be immediately brought to the morgue for brain cremation. After that, the families could have a normal funeral without having to worry. The problem was that people died a lot. Every second somebody dropped somewhere and unfortunately sometimes they were alone. 

This is what must have happened with the two people before him, an older couple. He took a perfunctory glance at the bodies to determine cause of death. He couldn’t suppress his training even though he knew he had to hurry and take care of the brain. The man didn’t have signs of trauma to his body and Allen guessed that it was probably a heart attack or a stroke. The woman on the other hand, had slash marks on her wrist. The world was a scary place these days, especially when you were alone. The suicide rates were through the roof. Most people would put a gun to their heads though in hopes that this would stop their bodies from rising again. It didn’t.    

Allen was just about done with the woman when the doors burst open again. The same two orderlies had two more bodies in tow. “Sorry, Allen.   Another delivery for you. Don’t you usually have help down here?”

“Yeah, but Simmons hasn’t showed yet. He hasn’t called either,” Allen answered distractedly trying to keep up with the sudden influx of bodies. “What’s the time on these two?”

“Only about twenty minutes. They just died in the ER. Man I hope Simmons is okay. The paramedics said things are getting pretty ugly out there,” replied the orderly.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Allen said only half believing his own words.

“You need any help with these?” 

“No, no. Just make sure the restraints are good and tight.” The two of them fiddled a little more with the straps then turned and left. Allen smacked the big red button on the firing chamber and didn’t take the time to watch the woman’s brain burn.   He still needed to get the three bodies that lay with their brains removed into body bags and into the cold storage units. Then it would be onto his next two customers. He hoped that things weren’t as bad as the EMT’s said or else he would start to need some help.

The last time things had gotten bad, and the hospital had become overwhelmed the doctors and EMT’s had started just removing the people’s heads before sending them down to the morgue. This, of course, didn’t kill them, but it made the thrashers a lot easier to deal with. Plus, then the whole head could just be burned which made things go a lot quicker. Of course, the ease of it didn’t make up for the horror of thrashing bodies strapped to gurneys convulsing up and down the corridors of the hospital while Allen and whoever was there to help him put screaming head after screaming head into the firing chamber. He shuddered at the thought and said a silent prayer that it wouldn’t come to that.

To reassure himself he hurried and got the bodies into storage and turned his TV on and flipped it to a news channel. The picture came up with a female reporter standing on the street talking excitedly. There were police in riot gear in the background and the words Breaking News were displayed along the bottom of the screen. The woman was talking so quickly it took a moment for Allen’s ears to comprehend the words. As she talked, one of the walking dead came stumbling out of a building across the street behind her. Several officers opened fire at once, cutting the reporter’s sentence short. Allen watched the screen in horror as the head of the victim nearly exploding from the impact of the bullets. The body fell flat on its back, but after a moment began to struggle to get up.

The door behind him sprang open. The same orderlies were back with more bodies and one of them was thrashing. Allen cursed to himself and walked towards the shocked looking young men. “What are your names?”

“Jim,” said the first not taking his eyes of the flopping body in front of him. He elbowed his partner.

“Jacob.”

“Well Jim and Jacob, if you’re not squeamish would you mind holding this one down while I remove the brain?”

“Yeah,” Jim replied.   Jacob didn’t respond but he grabbed hold of an arm and a leg. Jim followed suit. Allen quickly grabbed his saw and set about work. The body thrashed and moved but there was no screaming at all while he removed the back of the skull. Allen had come to find that the only pain they felt was in the brain. Before he grabbed his long scalpel to cut the brain stem he grabbed a thick towel wadded it up and stuff it under the thing’s head trying to smother the mouth as much as possible being careful not to be bit. He knew that these things carried no disease but he still didn’t want a chunk taken from his hand.

With the mouth covered as best as possible he cut quickly through the brain stem. A muffled scream came out of the thing’s mouth as soon as the knife touched brain tissue. The thrashing increased and Allen had a bit of trouble pulling the slippery brain out of the head. Once it was out, he didn’t waste any time in burning it. The creature on the table thrashed and screamed the whole time until the brain was completely engulfed in flame. He looked at his two impromptu assistants who were both pale and sweating more than a little.

“Thank you Jim, Jacob.” They both nodded and turned to go. He felt a little bad about exposing them to this. They were both young and obviously new around here, but when they were thrashing, it was hard to get it out alone. He supposed he could have burned the whole head, but he really didn’t want to start resorting to that so early in the game. Before they got out the door he stopped them.

“Guys,” They both stopped to look at him. “If things are really getting that bad out there,” He nodded towards the television, “Maybe you two ought to see if they can send somebody down here to give me a hand.” They nodded in unison and turned to leave. Allen set about taking care of the three other bodies he still had left. He’d barely finished with the first when the doors to the morgue swung open again. A young female intern with a shocked look on her face stood before Allen.

After a moment of silence Allen offered, “Are you my help?” She nodded. “Do you have a name dear?”

“Alice.”

“Alice,” He repeated. “Well that is a pleasant name.” She managed a weak smile. “Alice, what year are you?”

“First. I just started a month ago.” Allen knew that the doctors upstairs would send somebody green down here to help him, but not this green.

“Okay Alice. All I need you to do for now is to help me bag the bodies and put them in storage. I’ll take care of the brain removal if that is okay with you.” She nodded took a deep breath and seemed to come out of her shock a little. “My name is Allen by the way.”

“Nice to meet you Allen,” She replied. He smiled at her then got back to work. After he was done removing the brains from the rest of the corpses she helped him bag the bodies as requested. Then she stood there and just watched to news. Allen decided that it was a distraction and went over and turned it off.

“I’m not squeamish you know. I can help you remove the brains,” she offered. 

“Good. I’m going to need your help if things keep going this way.”

“I’m just distracted because my parents are out there,” She nodded her head towards the television which was as good a representation for the outside world as any down in the basement of the hospital. “I tried to call them awhile ago and they didn’t answer.”

“That doesn’t mean…well that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are…”

“I know, but I’m still worried.” Her whole face seemed to drop.

“The thing I’ve found Alice is that when these things break out, it is just best for us to focus on our work down here until the crisis is over. We can deal with the aftermath later, but until then we are a very important part of making things better,” Allen said. Almost as if his words had summoned them, the doors parted again and Jim and Jacob came through, two more bodies in tow. Neither of these were thrashers.

”Here you go Allen,” Jim said. “Fresh delivery. We have a few more coming right after this. These are all unknown time of deaths too, so I guess you’d better hurry. EMT’s say that they’re en route with some live ones.” Allen guessed that the term live ones meant that the patient had died more than six hours ago.

“Great. Thanks boys.” They nodded and left again. “Well Alice, shall we?” She nodded and they set to work. He pulled Simmons instruments out for her and she quickly set to work de-braining her victim. They both had the skulls peeled back when Jim and Jacob dropped off three more bodies. They took some of the empty gurneys with them.

                “Sorry Allen. Things are getting backed up, up there.” He waved them off. He had work to do and there was no time for chit chat. His morgue was already running out of room. Soon they would be stacking bodies where ever they could. Alice had her patient’s brain out first and put it into the chamber. She went over to the new arrivals and began to work. Allen finished up and came over to help her. The night wore on in this way with the number of live ones increasing by the hour.

Allen was proud of Alice. She’d taken to the grisly job without complaint and was actually faster at it than Allen. That is until the next delivery came down. By then, they had about ten bodies on deck at any given time so it took Alice quite a while to notice who had just arrived at the morgue. Allen vaguely noticed her finish off two more bodies and go to wheel over some new ones when she screamed. She back pedaled to the corner and collapsed sobbing. Allen rushed to her not knowing what was wrong. Their new arrivals were lying still. Besides, the thrashers hadn’t spooked her yet.

With tears streaming down her face she got out the word, “My parents,” nodding her head in the direction of the newly arrived couple. Both man and woman had several bite marks on them the worst at their necks where chunks of flesh had been peeled away. Jim and Jacob had started leaving time of death cards with all the bodies to help Allen keep track. He looked at the cards and saw a question mark. Cursing, he sprang up from Alice, grabbed his saw and started working. Alice screamed at the sight of her mother’s skull being opened then turned away and began to heave in the corner.

“I’m sorry Alice, but I’m trying to hurry before…Well, you know.” She continued to sob in the corner. He finished quickly with her mother and started on her Father. Just as he was about to finish the circular cut in the back of the head, the body bucked then began to thrash around. Hoping that Alice hadn’t noticed, he finished the cut and managed to peel the skull away with a little trouble. He grabbed towel and tried to stuff it in the moving corpse’s mouth, but in his haste wasn’t careful enough and got bit. The wound was deep and was bleeding profusely.

“S**t! Alice, I’m going to need your help.” She just shook her head and said nothing. “Alice, I can’t do this alone.” She turned around slowly and began to get slowly up. “I can cut the brain, but you are going to have to pull it out.” Without waiting for a response, he sliced the knife quickly through the brain stem. Immediately, the thing that had been Alice’s father began to scream and thrash violently. He did his best with the injured hand to hold the body down and looked at Alice waiting. After a moment’s hesitation, she bit her lip, reached in and yanked the brain away from the skull. She quickly put it in the firing chamber and slammed the button. The she pressed her hands against the side of her head to block out the sounds of her already dead father’s dying screams. After a moment they subsided.

Alice wiped her eyes with the back of her hand then just stood there. Allen suggested that she go take a break. While she was gone, he did the best he could to clean up his hand. He would need her to do a quick stitch job when she got back. The doors opened behind him, and he turned to see an ashen faced Jim pushing a gurney in front of him. “Jacob ran away,” he announced. “He just said screw this s**t and left.”

“Well I’m glad you’re still here,” Allen said to him. “Do we have a lot more coming in?”

“They’re never going to stop coming. They just brought a police man in and he died on the table. I have to go get him next.”

“Well the best thing to do, Jim, is to keep working. If we keep doing our part, it’ll all be over soon. They’ll get things under control out there. They always do.” Jim nodded as if he believed him, but Allen knew he didn’t. He didn’t even know if he believed himself. Alice returned a short time later and stitched up his hand. Then they set back to work not saying a word to each other. Allen thought it best just to let her focus on working.

The night wore on this way and they kept up for awhile, but soon they were running out of room. The amount of thrashers being brought down increased with each passing hour until it seemed that they were all thrashers. Jim didn’t even speak to Allen after awhile. He looked exhausted and as if he were about to follow Jacob’s lead at any moment. 

Then the bodies start to come down without heads. Allen noticed that a few of the bodies that have been brought down are wearing scrubs. He recognizes a few of the heads that he is forced to throw in to be burned. The firing chamber will only hold so many heads at once so they are forced to sit and wait while the heads burn. Neither Alice nor Allen has anything to say to each other. He feels like he should have some words of comfort, but he can’t find any. What kind of comfort can words offer when the world is ending around them? They are stuck here in the morgue doing the world’s dirty work not knowing when it will end; not knowing if their efforts are in vain. 

Finally, Allen flips on the TV again. Expecting another breaking news report, he is shocked to see only the emergency broadcast signal announcing to anybody watching to just stay in their homes. He flips quickly through the channels and sees the same thing. Alice’s voice startles him, “Do you think we should go?”

“No. If it’s that bad, we’re better off down here.” He didn’t know if that was true, but he felt a little safer down here.

“How long has it been since anybody brought a new body down?” Alice asked.

Allen looked at the clock and tried to remember. It was passed 1:00 in the morning but he couldn’t remember how long for sure. He looked at Alice and shrugged his shoulder as the power in the building went out. After a moment, the emergency lights kicked on bathing everything in a yellowish glow. In the new silence that had fallen over the hospital, Allen heard a scream somewhere a ways down the corridor. He grabbed a flashlight from a drawer, told Alice to stay put and opened the doors to investigate. As he round the corner, he heard Jim’s voice yell to him, “Allen, help me.”

Allen shined the light in the direction of the voice in time to see two zombies lean over Jim and bite his neck. Jim tried again to scream, but it was cut off and only a gurgling escaped. Allen was rooted to the spot not knowing what to do, when he heard a shuffling behind him. He whipped around and saw another zombie shuffling towards him from the other direction. He turned and went back into the morgue. 

Without saying a word to Alice he began to barricade the door. She rushed over to help him. After they got about a dozen headless bodies in front of the door Alice asked, “Was that Jim screaming?” Allen shook his head affirming what she already knew. “What do we do?”

“Nothing. It’s over. If we try to leave they’ll kill us before we get to the elevators.”

“Well somebody has got to be alive up there.”

“I think that anybody who is alive left the hospital awhile ago. There are a lot of dead here. We can’t let them rise and get to the outside world. The city won’t stand a chance.”  Alice nodded knowing exactly what Allen meant to do. He opened the door to the walk-in cold storage unit that had brainless bodies stack floor to ceiling. He started to pull bodies out to make room. As he did this, the pounding outside the door started. In the small window they could make out three zombies in the dim light. Allen motioned for Alice to get in the refrigerated room. He figured the metal door would be enough to keep the flames out. He hoped it would be enough protection. Alice stepped inside. Allen began to close the door behind her but she stopped him and grabbed his arm.

“You’re coming in here too right?” She asked looking him in the eye.

“Yeah, but I have to do something first.” She nodded and let him close the door. When she heard him slide the pin in the door handle, effectively locking her in, she knew what he meant to do. She began to pound on the door and scream for him to let her out; to let her help him, but she knew it was in vain.

Allen heard Alice, but he had work to do. There was no need for both of them to die. If he started the morgue on fire, the sprinklers would kick in and douse the flames, but luckily for him, the maintenance room was down in the basement also. He should be able to disable the system. He just had to get passed the zombies first. They were clumsy creatures, but three on one were not good odds and that was only if the three at the door were the only ones in his way. From news footage, he knew that fire seemed to spook the creatures. They probably on some level knew it was the one thing that would put them down for good.

He considered letting Alice out and trying to make a run for it, but with as many dead as there probably were in the floors above them, he still thought that would be impossible. In the end, he decided that a bull rush out the door and down the hall was the only strategy that made sense. He grabbed a few bottles of embalming fluid and stuffed them in his lab coat and made sure he had his lighter. He picked up the flashlight which was heavy duty with a long handle that would light his way and double as a weapon. The bodies piled in front of the swinging doors were stopping them from opening inwards, but luckily they swung both ways.

After a few short, quick breaths he lunged at the door. He had to make a leap over the tangle of bodies on the floor, but he still hit the doors with a good amount of force. The zombie in front flew backwards knocking the one behind it down. The other however, managed to keep its feet. Allen wasn’t so lucky. He sprawled forward over the two that were down. He regained his feet quickly, but not before a zombie grabbed him. He tried to throw him off, but couldn’t. The other two on the floor were starting to get up. After hitting his attacker with the flashlight only managed to dowse his light, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the formaldehyde. He smashed the glass bottle on the creatures head and fumble to strike his lighter. 

He didn’t know how he managed it, but suddenly flames leapt up all over the zombie’s body. It screamed and let him go, running into the other zombies. Allen didn’t wait around to see what happened. He ran to the maintenance room. He found what looked to be a water pipe running to the ceiling and turned the valve attached to it off. If this didn’t do the trick and the sprinklers put the fire out anyway, he would go back and get Alice and try to make a run for it after all. Going back into the hallway, he doused the walls as best he could with embalming fluid and lit the on fire. He watched the sprinklers praying they wouldn’t come on. When they began to drip and a small dribble came out he closed his eyes waiting for the shower to hit him. After a moment he realized that they didn’t have any pressure behind them.

The fire spread quickly and the fumes from the chemicals were noxious. With his job done Allen had a small glimmer of hope that he might live through this. He stumbled towards the morgue. The zombies were in the hallway now engulfed in flames and posed no threat. Allen began to feel weak as he rounded the corner and saw the doors. He barely managed to make it to them. He pushed a couple times before his confused mind realized that they were blocked from the other side. The heat on his back was intense. He felt as if he were already on fire. He pulled the door open and stumbled over the bodies and fell. The world went dark and his last thought was that at least he wouldn’t ever get up again.

It took a lot less than 6 hours, 6 minutes and 6 seconds for the hospital to burn down. Hundreds of zombies burned up in the blaze along with more than a few people who were still living. The city had been overrun, but with Allen’s courageous sacrifice, the police were able to get things under control. 

After the blaze was doused, the only thing left of the hospital was a twisted metal skeleton. They began to dig out the wreckage and debris not hoping to find survivors, but to dispose of any bodies that were capable of rising again. They finally cleared away enough wreckage to get to the basement when they heard the pounding. A rescue worker stepped up to the partially melted walk-in fridge and pounded on the door in answer. He expected for the zombie behind the door to resume pounding and was shocked when he heard a female voice yell, “Please, let me out!!”

Author's Note

Tear it apart, please.

Reviews

[Hyori]

Wow this is amazing! Definitely one of my favorite pieces, and the thing you did with 666 was cool too. Keep up the good work!

[fogisbeautiful]

Tear it apart? Why? It was really good! Gross, disturbed, kinda twisted, but good! It was cool to get this perspective from a zombie story, the morgue guy, I mean who ever talks about the morgue guy? And he's the one dealing with the dead people all the time anyway. And the 666 thing was a nice touch. I'm glad that Alice survived, even though Allen didn't, I even thought for just a nanosecond that you might let him live and I was like, "Crawl, damn you, crawl!" :) The only thing I really have negative to say is to watch out that you don't switch from past tense to present tense. I caught it a couple of times and it made me pause (which is never good). But other than that, excellent!