Eve

Chapter 36 (Part 2)

Inside the building, tumbled rows of plastic seats glued to each other and broken down wheelchairs pave the way to a large marble reception, where someday a woman named Beth would tell you to fill out a form and wait for your name to be called, maybe.

A hospital. Or, rather, what's left of one.

I browse by, my attention and coordination waving in and out of tune with every step.

Everything is broken. Everything abandoned.

If this was a shelter or a safe haven one day, I think, pushing open a door that reads 'EMERGENCY STAIRS', that day is long gone.

Up the stairs, I listen for... anything. Talking. Screaming, crying. Levon being annoying to some soldier.

Nothing. Nothing but the distant drumming of rain outside as I step by step my way up. Here and there, I have to dodge cinderblocks and tumbled over gurneys, squinting to see through the darkness.

Focus. Don't let your mind wander, Eve. Don't fall down. Pull your weight – you're pretty skinny, already, stop being a bitch.

I am Eve.

I am Eve.

I am Eve.

(What? I have to keep reminding myself. Give me a break.)

The second floor looks just as abandoned as the first as I pass by it. I keep climbing. Third floor doors are blocked by metal chairs and wooden bars. Over the fourth floor door, I notice a sign:

'INFECTOLOGY CENTER'.

I try pushing the door open. It comes loose and crumbles to the ground like it's made of cardboard.

The Infectology Center is a mess of broken everythings. Chairs, gurneys, bodies... pieces of broken metal and wood so battered you can't even tell what they originally were. Everything looks burnt, and the walls are painted black with chalk like the aftermath of a fire.

No sound. No movements. Just silence.

I'm reaching back to the stairs when I hear the gunshot.

"Who's there?" I ask, pulling my eyes up as I realize only a zombie would answer my question.

Another gunshot.

Climbing faster, I make my way around and reach the fifth floor. A sign on top of the exit door reads 'RADIOLOGY.'

"Is there anyone there?" I ask, forgetting again that only a zombie would –

"Who's there?" comes a very familiar voice from the other side of the door. "I have a gun!"

Pulling strength out of me like cold peanut butter with a plastic spoon, I push the Radiology door open with my body, projecting myself into a wide white room encrusted all around with big square windows opening up to the rainy night outside.

At first, the room looks empty.

Then I hear it, no more than a whisper, "Eve..."

There, leaning against the far wall between metal wheeled carts filled with rubber gloves and surgery equipment, Levon's body rests, a smoking gun lying on the floor by his right hand.

"Hey, Eve," he says. As I get closer, I notice he's smiling. "You can't get enough of me, can you?"

A few feet away from his body, near where the rain hammers down on a closed window, the gray and flakey lifeless body of a zombie rests, half its head blown off.

I finish penguining my way to Levon, crouching to his level as I notice the pool of blood growing under his body on the floor.

"Levon," I whisper, pulling his head from the wall and straightening his back. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine, Eve," he says, in a faint voice, raising his eyes at me. "Just had a little misunderstanding with Braineater over there."

"Did you get –"

I pause. Levon's face is pale, and his eyes look bloodshot like he's drunk or high.

"You understood me?" I ask, in a whisper.

"Yeah, I did," Levon says.

As he slips, I notice the rip on his shirt's right shoulder – and the nasty bite sprouting from it.

"You have a pretty voice, Eve," Levon says. "When it doesn't sound like grunting."