Catapult

I’m turning. It’s been going on for a few hours now. Three fingers on my left hand have turned black and I’m having a hard time breathing. It’s like I’m underwater or someone is sitting on my chest. But really it’s death creeping up on me slow. Not that different than a normal death I guess except that I know what’s coming.

Really, today is the first day that I can officially call it a Zombie Apocalypse. Before today we had it under control. Or at least we thought we did. But today all hell broke loose. Lana, that dope, set the perimeter too close to the hospital. We are well past the “I told you so” stage, but damn if I didn’t tell her so. Anyway, we were burning folks that started to creep, but the work was piling up and supplies were scarce. The decision was made to build closer in and just keep a tighter reign on the sick. So, because Lana didn’t build us enough standoff distance, some asshole actually catapulted over the Q fence and hit tent city at 6am.

To be fair to Lana, I’m not sure how you could predict the catapult. I mean, it’s a goddamned catapult for christsake! But the hospital has (or had I guess is more accurate) a library. And in that library was a book on Roman warfare and sure enough this Dudley guy scrapped together a freaking catapult from a swivel chair, a bookshelf, two mattresses and a shit-ton of plastic tubing. Incredible really. But devastating. So he overcalculated his arc and smacked into Mess Hall B like a human missile.

It should have killed him and I would still be going about my day in relative safety. But alas, Dudley do-wrong had the audacity to smack his grape sideways in such a way as to die and resurrect himself lickety split because his brain stem was still mostly intact. He stood up and went creep-running all zigzag nutso biting at random through a wave of staff that were almost zombies themselves before their first coffee of the day.

He took out six nurses and four doctors before someone (maybe Rose?) smashed him with a fire extinguisher, evening up the other side of his head. But once he was down for the count, we had a problem. Gina Rodriguez, the head nurse, was overly fond of Dr. Sawyer (aren’t we all) and didn’t want to put him down even though he was missing a hand (currently in Dudley’s gullet) and was turning fast.

So, she stood there patching him up and arguing with the rest of us long enough for Sawyer to take out an additional three nurses. During this shit storm, we lost track of one of the original nurses, who’s ear Dudley had also ingested. That nurse (Chase I think his name was) went and chowed down half of our night shift who were hotbunking adjacent to the mess. You can probably guess the rest.

I got sideswiped as I was running for “de hills” as it were. I was halfway to the outer lot and had avoided most of the melee by using my trusted Louisville Slugger on two of my Wednesday night poker crew and then slipping north, cutting through the supply tents. But Murphy’s Law being what it is, I didn’t see that the original commando nurse Chase had slipped free from the main event and was creeping outside of the breezeway when I came running through. He got one glancing rip before I kicked him off.

It barely broke the surface, but it was enough. So now I’m dying and watching tent city get literally ripped to shreds from the hardpack on the mesa above the fence. The cat is out of the proverbial bag. It is the first day of the end of the world. I’m hoping to make it long enough so that I can see the ocean again. Why? No idea. I just want to die with my eyes facing the water and the waves crashing over my feet. I probably won’t make it though. Because of a catapult.