Zompoc Survivor: Inferno by Ben S Reeder Read Free Book Online Page B

wandered the hall further down, but they seemed blissfully unaware of me, so I backed up and turned to Kaplan and Amy, holding up two fingers. He nodded and tapped his finger to his forehead, then pointed at my pistol. With a sinking feeling, I nodded and put my finger on the trigger.
    I took a deep breath and stepped around the corner. The gun came up in slow motion, and I traced the green dot up the body of the one closest to me until it came to rest on her ear. The SOCOM coughed and bucked in my hand, and she went down. The other one turned his head, either following the movement or the sound of the gun, and I moved the gun to cover his nose. A trigger stroke later he was on the floor, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. Before I turned to signal Kaplan the coast was clear, something made me look to my right. Movement in the corner mirror caught my attention and gave me a split second warning before the ghoul in purple scrubs came barreling around the corner. My finger tightened on the trigger the second I got the barrel on him, and before I knew it I’d fired three more rounds at him. I must have hit him with at least one shot because it’s body slid to a stop a few feet from me, and I kept the gun up. No movement in the mirror, so I put a round in the ghoul’s head and walked up to the far corner. When I stuck my head around the corner the coast looked pretty clear.
    Only then did I look back. Hernandez and Kaplan had their guns up and were firing. I ran back toward them, but before I made it halfway, the guns were coming down.
    “Clear,” Hernandez said.
    “So, what’s the plan now?” I asked when I got to the corner.
    “Why don’t we just take out the infected in the stairwells,” Hernandez said.
    “We don’t have enough ammo,” Kaplan said. “There are four floors between us and the ground. If some of them hear us, we’d have to shoot them all. I say we check the other stairwell. Maybe it’s clear.”
    “Too bad we can’t just take the elevator down,” Amy said. Kaplan rolled his eyes and Hernandez muttered a heartfelt “I wish.” The discussion continued around me, but my brain was already somewhere else.
    “I need a wire coat hanger,” I said after a little thinking. All three looked at me like I’d just asked for a ham sandwich at a kosher deli. “Amy’s right, we should take the elevator.”
    “The elevators would’ve been the first thing they shut down when they started losing the building,” Hernandez said.
    “Good,” I said as I headed for the nurses station. Hernandez started to say something but Kaplan put a hand on her arm to stop her.
    “I know that look,” he said. “Let’s see where he’s going with this.” By the nurses station I found what I was looking for: the locker room where the floor nurses stored their stuff when they were on duty. The door was open, the inside dark. Kaplan brought his gun up and nodded to me. Warily, I reached around the corner and felt for the light switch. As soon as the lights came on we heard a whimper inside. I raised the SOCOM as Hernandez swept into the room behind the lieutenant, both of their gun barrels moving. Kaplan moved past the lockers in the middle of the room and brought his weapon to bear on something I couldn’t see. He gestured to Hernandez, and she moved to the left, out of my line of sight.
    “Ma’am,” I heard her say. “Shit!” she cried a second later. On the heels of her exclamation I heard a split second of noise scrape across the inside of my head before the harsh pops of their weapons cut it off.
    “You okay?” Kaplan called out. I came in to the room to find them in opposite corners, guns pointing at the corner opposite the one I was in.
    “I’m good, sir,” she responded. “God I hate screamers. Wake up the goddamn neighbors.”
    “Not asking, corporal,” Kaplan said with a shaky looking grin.
    “Not telling, sir,” she said as she gave me a wink. I nodded to the hanger rack beside