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Ken scrambled into the back of the truck and looked back to see Dale dragging Lenore behind him. The zombies were falling out of the window and struggling to get up.

“Hurry! Hurry!” His voice sounded shrill, but he didn’t care.

Dale shoved Lenore up into the truck as Ken pulled on her arms. Lenore cussed at them with impressive insults, but they got her in. Dale slammed the doors shut, securing them.

Within seconds, the moving truck lurched and headed off at top speed.

Silently, Lenore sat down beside Ken on the bench and took his hand.

He sobbed silently beside her. He was surprised to see she was crying too, her big body shivering.

“You are one stupid faggot,” she finally said.

Ken threw his arms around her and wept into her large bosom. “I know!”

Clutching him tightly, Lenore rocked him. “I love you, anyway. ”

“You saved me,” Ken sobbed. “You saved me. I thought I was gone, but you saved me. ”

“No zombie is eatin’ my best friend,” Lenore declared through her tears.

Ken lifted his head. “But. . . what. . . oh. . God. . what about Jenni and the others? They’re still back there!”

Lenore just shook her head. “I don’t know, Ken. I don’t know. ”

As the truck headed back to the fort, the two friends clung to each other and hoped for the best for the other team.

3. Death’s Doorway Opens

It was evident from the chaos in the operating rooms that things had gone to hell fairly quickly. Dead bodies lay everywhere. Every single one had a gunshot to the head. Someone had meticulously gone through and killed every single person in ICU. Some, Jenni suspected, had not even been zombies.

“Why kill all of these, but not the ones in the ER?”

“Ran out of time, I suspect,” Bill answered Jenni.

“Can we hurry it up? This place is making my skin crawl,” Felix said from across the room.

“Yeah, this place is damn creepy,” Roger agreed.

Jenni unfolded her map and held it up against the wall to study it. The eerie lighting made her look very pale and almost dead. Roger felt uneasy by her appearance and took a step back.

“Bill, you and me can take care of the stuff in the O. R. Roger, Felix, you get those drugs from the pharmacy,” she said firmly.

Felix studied his map, then nodded. “Let’s roll. ”

Things were very messy in the operating rooms. They entered very cautiously, but only found dead bodies. The corpses were terribly decomposed and they tried hard not to look at them too closely. Together, Bill and Jenni loaded up operating tools in a bin, careful to get the ones Charlotte had requested.

Bill’s walkie-talkie hissed to life.

“Sorry, Bill. Ken’s my best friend,” Lenore’s voice said.

“What?” Bill fumbled to grab the walkie-talkie off his belt.

“What did she mean?”

“Hell if I know, Jenni. ”

Bill was just about to call Lenore back when they heard gunshots down below and what followed turned their blood cold. The bellow of a hundred zombie voices rising.