The Dead

“Feeling comfortable Patrick?”

Patrick sat up in the hospital bed as the nurse adjusted his pillow. “I’m feeling fine,” he said, “But I haven’t had my operation yet. Ask me again afterwards.”

“Well I wouldn’t worry,” said the nurse, “It’s a routine procedure, hundreds of patients have the same operation each year. Just try to relax until we’re ready for you.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Patrick.

He watched the blurred shape of the nurse move on to the next patient, cursing himself for not asking her name. He should have learned all the nurse’s name by now, he had heard them enough times. Until the foreign body was removed, he would have to rely on his other senses to identify people. Unfortunately they were all working fine, it was his memory that was letting him down. He blamed it on the nerves, nothing more sinister than that. He had been in hospital for two days, the first two operations delayed by emergencies, some major incident elsewhere in the city. He didn’t mind waiting, at least in the hospital he could socialise with the other patients. At home he was alone. He was starting to suspect he would forget the names of friends and family, it had been that long since he had seen any of them.

The nurse moved from bed to bed, checking in on each patient. Patrick liked listening to the nurse, her kind words and compassion reassuring him no matter who she was speaking to. She took the same tone with all the patients. Patrick was the oldest there, seventy-three years old. The others were between forty and sixty-five in varying stages of disrepair. Patrick was the only patient expected to be out of hospital within a day of his operation.

He watched the nurse move to the bed opposite, just about visible around the dark blur in the centre of his vision. He waited to hear the nurse speak once again, to hear the warmth in her voice.

Silence.

The bed was empty, Patrick had not even realised. “Poor bastard,” he thought.

The previous occupant was a man named Cecil, an old-fashioned gentleman in hospital for an intestinal operation. There had been complications during the operation, Cecil left in agony since coming out of theatre. He had been suffering all night, moaning in pain until Patrick had fallen asleep. When he woke up, he had assumed that Cecil had received the painkillers he had so urgently needed. Empty beds don’t stay empty for long. Not unless the previous occupant had...

Patrick tried not to think about it, repeating to himself that it was just a routine operation. A routine operation. Routine. Not for him it wasn’t.

The nurse removed the bed sheets from Cecil’s bed, placing them in a canvas laundry bag on the floor. “Nurse?” Patrick called out.

“Yes Patrick?”

“Can you turn the television on?”

“Of course, which channel?”

“I don’t mind. Something with lots of talking.”

She walked over beside Patrick’s bed and switched on the television that sat suspended above him. He listened to the screen flickering on, the slow increase of volume as the TV returned to life. “There you go Patrick.”

“Thank you nurse,” he said.

The nurse continued on her way, exiting the ward. The television was on a news channel, he could tell by the tone of the speaker. A serious newsreader probably wearing a serious grey suit speaking in a serious tone. It was one of those twenty four hour news channels, Patrick noticed. “The FTSE 100 fell by two points today...”

Patrick lay back and absorbed the noise, trying to imagine the newsreader sat beside the bed, speaking to him as if he were a close friend come to visit.

“Wake up Patrick, it’s time to go.”

He opened his eyes and saw two people standing over him, the nurse from before and an orderly. “Did you sleep well?” asked the nurse.

“I didn’t even realise I had nodded off,” said Patrick.

“That’s nice. It’s time to go down for your operation.”

Patrick smiled, trying to put on a brave face. “Try not to worry, it will all be over before you realise,” said the nurse.

She unlocked the wheels on his bed, the orderly manoeuvring the gurney out of the ward. As he was being wheeled away, he could still hear the newsreader talking. “Breaking news, we are receiving some disturbing reports of extreme violence taking place in central London, with eyewitnesses reporting a group of people attacking others at random. More on this breaking story as it comes in.”

*

The bed moved through the hospital corridors, Patrick on his back staring up at the ceiling. He watched the light fittings pass overhead, each one appearing like a halo around the blurred shape in his eyes. For a moment he felt an intense feeling of dread, imagining the lights above were those someone dying saw on their way into the next life. He could almost hear the voices calling to him, “Walk into the light.”

He smiled at his own pessimism. It was a routine operation, everything would be fine. “It will all be over soon,” he told himself.

The bed was wheeled into the surgery prep room, the brakes locked as he came to a stop. He saw a new shape move beside him, the anaesthetist he assumed. “How are you feeling Patrick?” the shape asked.

“Nervous,” Patrick replied.

“It’s normal to be a little afraid.”

Patrick felt tubes and plasters being attached to his body. He felt a little nick in his hand as the IV was inserted into a vein. “You’ll feel a cold sensation moving up your arm. What I would like you to do is to count backwards from ten.”

“Ten,” began Patrick, “Nine, eight...”

“Did you hear about the attacks?” said the nurse to the anaesthetist.

“Seven, six...”

“Horrible, I hope they catch who did it.”

“Five, four, three...”

“That’s the crazy part. It was more than one person, the news said there were groups of them going round hurting people.”

“Two, one...”

“It’s probably just the press scaremongering, I’m sure it’s nothing to wor-“

Patrick faded into black.

*

Patrick slowly regained consciousness, waking up from a long dreamless sleep. His body felt numb, the last of the anaesthetic wearing off. He became aware of the bandage wrapped around his head, applying pressure to his eyes. There was no pain, only a strange stickiness felt when he tried and failed to open his eyes.

It was then that he noticed the ward was silent. At first he thought it was taking a long time for his ears to “wake up”. The ward was normally noisy, filled with the sounds of a television, a nurse doing her rounds or a patient coughing. Instead there was silence. There was also a coolness in the air, not enough to make him shiver but a certain lack of heat in the atmosphere.

He sat himself up in the bed, stretching out his stiff arms and legs. He scratched at his hand where the IV had been attached, the plaster itchy wear it covered the small pinprick. He realised that this was the only discomfort he felt and smiled. The operation had been a success. Soon he would be able to see again, to feel a part of the world once more. And he was alive, he had not died on the operating table.

His body returned to its normal condition, bringing with it an urgent request from his bladder. Patrick sighed, realising he would have to forgo independence for a little while longer. “Nurse?” he called out.

No response. He called out again, louder this time. “Nurse, I need to go to the bathroom.”

Nothing. The only sound of life in the ward was his breathing and the distant metallic buzzing of a fluorescent light. Patrick felt pathetic, ashamed that he was still dependent on the assistance of others. He may be an old man but he had lived on his own for the past fifteen years. He didn’t need anyone else’s help, not now that his eyesight was repaired.

He thought back to his discussion with the surgical consultant, trying to remember how long he had said recovery would take. All he could remember was the consultant prescribing “plenty of rest”, he had not mentioned anything about keeping the bandage on. And he wasn’t going to sit in bed waiting until he pissed himself.

Patrick reached up to the bandage and pulled it up away from his eyes. He winced, expecting to be blinded by a sudden light. Instead he saw only gloom, the lights in the ward were all switched off, except for a small bedside lamp at the far end of the ward. The curtains were pulled and the doors were closed. Outside the ward, the hospital was also dark.

He was happy to see that the brown blobs that constantly eclipsed his vision were gone. His vision was still blurred, something the consultant said would pass once his eyes had fully recovered from the operation. For now, everything seemed as if it were behind frosted glass.

He should have been happy. Instead he was starting to feel uneasy about how quiet and empty the hospital was.

Patrick swung his legs off the bed, placing his bare feet onto the cold floor. He stood up slowly, pulling his hospital gown around his body, making sure it was tightly fastened, before making his way to the toilet cubicle in the corner of the room.

At first he moved slowly, still not trusting his eyes to guide him fully. He took tentative steps, there was no rush. No one else would be using the toilet.

He entered the toilet and relieved himself, ecstatic that he had performed the task all by himself. Filled with a renewed sense of self belief and confidence, he decided he would leave the ward and find a nurse, to work out exactly what was happening.

He made his way to the double doors at the ward exit and tried to open them. They were locked. They had never been locked before, at least not during his time there. Why? Then he realised that the doors had been locked from the outside. Why were they keeping him trapped in here?

He reached down and twisted the lock in the door. It unlocked with a loud click. He turned the handle and pushed the door open.

A rush of cold air entered the ward from outside, the chill almost knocking Patrick over it was so intense. He looked out into the hospital, the empty hallways surrounding the ward. The nurse’s station in the corridor was empty. Papers and bed sheets were strewn across the floor, as if abandoned in a hurry. It was silent, except for the sound of a siren wailing plaintively in the distance.

Patrick stepped out into the corridor, the floor feeling like ice beneath his bare feet. He looked around, hoping for any signs of life. The hospital was dark except for a few emergency lights that created small spots of respite amongst the shadows. “Hello?” he called out.

There was a loud, deep moan somewhere in the distance. It reminded him of Cecil except this was not a moan of pain. It seemed more like a cry of hunger.

He walked down the corridor, wiping his eyes. The distortion was fading, large blurs becoming abstract shapes. It felt unreal, unrendered. He pressed on.

His foot slipped on a loose paper, Patrick reaching out to the walls to balance himself. His hands touched something wet and sticky on the wall. He walked into the beam of a nearby emergency light and held his hands up to his face to see. They were covered in red.

Patrick gasped in horror, wiping his hands on his medical gown.

Something moaned at the end of the corridor, just out of sight. It was like the moan before only closer and more urgent, as if the hunger was becoming uncontrollable. “Hello? Are you okay?” said Patrick.

A grey shape appeared in the corridor before him, stumbling slowly in his direction. He could not make out quite what it was, just that it was moving straight towards him. It moaned once more, this time causing a chill to shoot up Patrick’s spine. He started to back away, keeping a distance between himself and the grey shape.

More grey shapes appeared in the corridor behind the first, each of them moaning with the same hunger. Patrick felt a sudden urge to run and he did not disobey, turning and fleeing back to the ward. He closed the doors behind him, rushing to work the lock. He looked through the glass window in the door. The grey shapes were closing in, more and more of them corridor, coming for Patrick.

They stumbled up to the door before throwing their bodies, causing the wood to jump in its frame. Patrick tried to discern what they were, the grey shapes remaining formless even up close. Suddenly he caught a glimmer of something, two eyes staring through the window. Human eyes. Slowly they started to take form, a mob of grey skinned men and women banging on the door desperate to get inside. He saw their mouths stained red with blood, a deadly red lipstick smudged around the edges. Most of their bodies were decaying, large swathes of flesh torn from the whole, leaving black wounds that oozed a sickly yellow bile.

Patrick turned away, unable to look anymore. He ran to the window, hoping to find some way to escape. He drew back the curtains and revealed a world in chaos.

The city was burning, fires raging throughout the city. He could see helicopters flying above, back and forth like furious hornets, their spotlights pointed down at the city. The concourse in front of the hospital was a wreck, crashed cars and ambulances twisted together in catastrophe. More of the grey humans walked around, heading towards the hospital. He looked up at the other wing of the hospital and saw patients trapped against the glass, watching the chaos unfold below. He saw one patient hold up a blanket, “SOS” written in a suspicious red paint. He looked around and saw no help coming. The hospital was where help came from. How could anyone be saved when the hospital was like this?

The door banged again, more and more grey bodies pressing against it, desperate to get inside, to get at Patrick. He ran to the toilet cubicle and closed the door, locking it again. He wiped tears from around his eyes, sitting in the corner and praying for escape. Praying for forgiveness from what sin he had committed to be treated like this.

What had he done to deserve this punishment? Had he not been a good man, had he not tried to live a decent, honest life? Patrick held his head in his hands and began to cry. Now he knew that he had not survived the operation, that he had died and been condemned to hell.

He heard the ward doors burst open with a loud crash of wood and splinter. A chorus of moans grew louder as the grey mob approached the toilet. He could feel the cubicle vibrating with the volume of their moan, their hunger. The toilet door would not hold them off for long. Patrick pulled the bandage down over his eyes, hoping that if he closed his eyes, it would all become just a bad dream that he would wake from any moment now. They were coming to devour him and there was nothing he could do to stop them.

The door swung open, the moaning mob forcing their way inside. Patrick couldn’t help it, a morbid curiosity taking over. He lifted the bandage and saw the grey shapes before him, the undead now appearing in horrific clarity before him. Patrick looked at the closest zombie towards him. It was the nurse from before, the warm friendly features that he had imagined twisted into a grim death mask that hungered for his flesh. Patrick looked at the name badge pinned to her chest. Maggie. He had finally learned her name.