Five Dead Novelists Rewrite My Zombie Chapter

The sound of raspy breath echoed in the otherwise silent room. It was dark. Slowly, the man lying on the floor began to stir. His mouth was open as he breathed his labored breath through chapped lips. The tubes in his nose were supposed to flood his lunges with oxygen, but the oxygen had run out, and now the tubes simply constricted his breathing. The man reached his arm toward his face and pulled at the tubes.

Sean had been accustomed to think that a man admitted to a hospital might reasonably expect to wake in a bed. His present situation, when he became sufficiently sensible of it, offered little encouragement to that opinion. He was on the floor, in complete darkness; and the only attention he appeared to be receiving was from a pair of tubes which, having ceased to supply oxygen, continued to inconvenience his breathing.

There was a man breathing in the dark, and for some time Sean listened to him with considerable dislike. The breathing was so rough, and so unnecessarily loud in a room where nobody else was making any noise, that he wished the man would stop. Then he discovered that the man was himself, and wished no such thing.

He was lying on the floor, which was an odd place to have been put to bed, if that was what had happened, and rather an uncomfortable place to have fallen out of one, if that was what had happened instead. There were tubes in his nose. Somebody, at some time, must have meant to look after him.

“They're meant to help me breathe,” he thought, pulling at them. “Only there doesn't appear to be anything coming through.”

The oxygen had run out. The tubes remained, as things sometimes do when the reason for them has gone away. “Well, I can’t breathe what isn’t there,” he thought, and took them off. As his hand came down, it brushed his face, which was sticky in some places, hard in others, and altogether unlike the face he remembered having.

Once the tubes were removed he felt the dried blood on his face and searched for the source of the blood with his fingers. There was a gash running across his forehead, one corner had scabbed over, but the rest was swollen and sent an electric twinge of pain down his spine when he pressed it. He definitely had an infection, but he couldn’t worry about that now more. He tried to remember everything he could.

He removed them. His hand, in falling against his cheek, encountered something dry and rough; and though he had no wish to extend the examination, the discovery that it was blood, and that a wound across his forehead could account for some of it, obliged him to proceed until a sharp pain convinced him that he had learnt enough. One end had scabbed; the rest was swollen. An infection seemed probable. For the present, however, there were difficulties whose claims were more immediate.

Blood! There was a cut across his forehead, with a crust at one end and a swollen, tender place at the other. He pressed it, and a sharp pain ran down his back.

“I shan't do that again,” he decided. It might be infected; but he had no means of attending to an infection in the dark, and remembering where he was seemed a better beginning.

His name was Sean, he had been admitted to the hospital after a bout of pneumonia that came on after the spear fishing expedition. He nearly had drowned in the ocean as he tried to pull his diving buddy out of the rip-tide that seized his friend’s shark bitten body. Sean had been lucky and he knew it.

He must remember where he was, and how he had come there. His name presented no obstacle; the circumstances which had lately made it necessary for doctors and nurses to ask it were less agreeable to recover.

His name was Sean. That was something.

He had been in a hospital. That was something more. The doctors had said pneumonia, and there had been water in his lungs, though he had certainly not gone into the sea with the intention of bringing any of it home.

It was great white season in Pacifica but he went out anyway, the spear fishing was great this time of year, and he was willing to take the risks.

He had been spearfishing at Pacifica with his friend Jacob. It was the season when great white sharks might be expected along that coast; but the fishing was excellent, and Sean had possessed that degree of confidence which allows a known danger to become, by familiarity, almost a recommendation. He had considered the risk. He could no longer take much credit for having considered it.

He remembered the sea now. Pacifica; a day of spearfishing; and Jacob, who had been thirty feet away when the shark came.

It was the season for great whites. Sean knew this perfectly well; but it was also an excellent season for the fishing, and he had allowed the fish to settle the question. Jacob was bigger than he was, and in his black wetsuit might have looked a more promising meal. The shark was sixteen feet long. It took one bite, then left him, as though it had discovered a mistake.

His diving buddy Jacob was bigger than Sean. His muscular body in his black wetsuit must have looked like a much better meal to the 16 foot great white that came out of nowhere. Sean saw his buddy get hit by the shark, but he was 30 feet away and couldn’t do anything about it. After a single bite, the shark had realized his mistake; the large black swimmer didn’t taste like a seal, so the shark abandoned his prey and swam off.

Jacob had been thirty feet away when the shark struck. A large man, in a black wetsuit, he might have offered the appearance of a seal to a creature sixteen feet long; at any rate, one bite had apparently been sufficient to correct the error. The shark went away, leaving consequences which required rather more attention than its own.

Sean could never remember that departure without anger. There was something dreadful about the ease with which the creature had finished doing what could not be undone.

Sean swam as fast as he could toward the mangled body of his friend, but by then they both were caught in a rip current that began sucking them out to sea.

Jacob had passed out either from the blood loss or from the pain: his nearly severed left leg attached to his body by a thin piece of muscle and the remaining neoprene from the wetsuit. Sean grabbed Jacob around his torso and began kicking with all his might, swimming laterally to escape the rip tide.

By the time Sean reached his friend, a rip current was carrying them both out to sea. Jacob was insensible, whether from pain or loss of blood could not be known; his left leg remained attached by a small portion of muscle and the torn material of his suit. Sean caught him about the body and began to swim across the current.

By the time he reached Jacob, the current had caught them both. Out they went, away from the beach; and Sean, who wanted very much to go towards it, had to begin by swimming across.

He knew that much about a rip current. Knowing was the easy part.

Jacob had fainted. Whether it was the pain or the loss of blood, Sean could not tell; the left leg was held to the rest of him by a little muscle and a strip of wetsuit. There was no useful way of looking at it. Sean put his arms round his friend's body and kicked.

Compared to Jacob’s 6’2’’ frame, Sean looked like a large child. At 5’8’’ weighing in at 150lbs, Sean didn’t seem like much of an athlete. He had been out-muscled by kids his age for his entire childhood, and adulthood hadn’t really changed things. But, what Sean lacked in physical strength he more than made up for in will-power and determination.

For such an undertaking his appearance recommended him very little. Jacob, who stood six feet two, was a large and muscular man; Sean, at five feet eight and a hundred and fifty pounds, could remember no period of his life, from the schoolyard onwards, in which somebody of his own age had not been ready to demonstrate how easily he might be overpowered. He was not strong.

Jacob was six feet two; and Sean, who was five feet eight and weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, had never been able to see why growing up should be called growing up, when some people were allowed to grow so much farther than others. Beside his friend, he might almost have been a boy. The other boys had always been able to push him about. Men could, too.

“But I can keep trying,” he had thought. It was not a very large advantage; just then it was the only one he had.

After fighting with the tide for nearly an hour, Sean managed to drag his friend to shore, only to collapse exhausted on the sand. A group of Chinese fishermen from Pacifica found them on the beach and called the ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived, Jacob had already died from blood loss, and Sean was hypothermic.

Persistence was another matter. He had learnt to continue after the likelihood of success had become obscure; and for nearly an hour, with no encouragement but the necessity of continuing, he struggled towards the shore. He brought Jacob on to the sand at last, and collapsed beside him.

A party of Chinese fishermen from Pacifica found them there and summoned an ambulance. Before it arrived, Jacob had died of blood loss. Sean was hypothermic.

For nearly an hour he fought to get them out of the current and back to shore. At last there was sand beneath him, and he dragged Jacob on to it. Then he could do nothing more.

Some Chinese fishermen from Pacifica found them and called an ambulance. Before it arrived, Jacob was dead. Sean was so cold that the next part of the day came back to him in pieces.

In his constant quest to save money and pay off his student loans, Sean had opted out of renting a thicker wetsuit, and had gone out with his shorty suit that he had bought for skin diving in San Diego.

His economy had certainly done him no service. There were student loans to discharge, and, as he already possessed a short wetsuit bought for skin diving in San Diego, the expense of hiring a thicker one had been resisted with a firmness which would have been admirable, had firmness in the shop supplied any warmth in the sea. It had supplied none. He remembered the hospital, some talk of pneumonia and fluid in his lungs, and the visits of people whose presence had then seemed quite ordinary. How gladly he would have welcomed the least interesting of them now!

He had saved money on a wetsuit. “There are the student loans,” he had told himself, “and there’s the suit I’ve got already, and I can’t very well pay for everything twice!” It was a short suit, bought for skin diving in San Diego, where he had been perfectly comfortable in it, and he had somehow allowed being comfortable in one place to stand for being comfortable in another. He remembered being pleased with the saving. That was the worst of remembering it.

He remembered being admitted to the hospital, he remembered the doctors talking about pneumonia and fluid in his lungs, he remembered the visitors who stopped by, but he couldn’t remember much else. The next thing he remembered was waking up in darkness.

Beyond those visits there was nothing. His memory carried him no farther than the bed from which he must somehow have been removed.

The hospital followed: the doctors talking about pneumonia, visitors coming and going, and then a gap. He could not find the end of the gap. It ended here, on the floor, because here he was.

Sean willed himself to sit up and as he did, he focused his attention on the rest of his body in search of other pains that would indicate injury. He moved his toes, then his feet and legs: no pain so far. He felt his torso, chest, and arms: all good. Besides the pain coming from the gash in his forehead and an acute thirst, he felt fine. Water, he needed water. Sean felt along the floor in the dark and found the base of a table. Reaching up, he found the surface of the table. He stood up holding onto the table for support. His head began to spin and he thought he would pass out, but he steadied himself against the table until the feeling passed. He wasn’t just thirsty; he was hungry; very hungry. How long had he been out? He didn’t know.

He sat up, and examined the rest of his person with as much care as darkness permitted. Toes, feet, and legs could be moved without pain; his chest and arms seemed sound. The wound in his forehead, and a thirst more urgent than any he remembered, were his principal complaints.

A table stood within reach. By following its leg upwards he found the edge, and raised himself; but the experiment of standing was so immediately attended by dizziness that he remained leaning against it until he could trust his balance. Hunger now joined thirst. He must have been unconscious for a considerable time; how considerable, he had no means of deciding.

Sean sat up.

First he moved his toes; then his feet, and then his legs. Nothing seemed broken. He felt his chest and arms, and found no fresh hurt there either. Apart from his forehead, the chief difficulty was that he wanted water very badly indeed.

A hand stretched into the dark found a table leg. Following it upwards, he reached the top and pulled himself to his feet. The room immediately seemed to turn round him, although he could not see it turning.

“Wait,” he said under his breath, and held on.

Presently he could stand. There was hunger to be considered now as well as thirst. How long had he been lying there? A day? Longer? His stomach was quite certain that it was too long, but could supply no date.

He began feeling his way around the room. He gathered from the tubes he had pulled from his nose that he was still in a hospital. He felt his arms and found the IV line still inserted into his vein. Somehow he had missed it when he was checking his body for injury. He found the IV tube and followed it up to the bag.

It was empty. He pulled the IV line from his arm and felt the warm blood begin to ooze from the hole left by the line. It didn’t bleed much, he was very dehydrated.

In searching his arm again he discovered an IV line, which had escaped his earlier notice. The bag to which it led was empty. He drew the line out, pressed the little puncture, and waited for the slight bleeding to stop. There seemed very little left in him to spare.

There was another tube in his arm. He had missed it when examining himself, and followed it to an IV bag, which was empty also.

“Everybody's finished except me,” he thought.

He pulled the line out. A little warm blood trickled from the place; there was not much, and he pressed it with a finger until it stopped. Then he felt for the wall behind the bed.

He continued feeling around his room. Sean found the wall behind the bed and decided to circumnavigate the room to create a mental image since it was pitch black. Since the bed was blocking his movement to the left, he moved to his right with his hands sliding against the wall. He bumped into a trash bin and moved passed it, coming to the first corner.

His next proceedings were more methodical. Having found the wall behind the bed, he resolved to follow it round the room; a complete account of his surroundings might suggest some means of improving them. The bed obstructed his passage to the left. To the right, after an encounter with a rubbish bin and a turn at the first corner, he found a sink.

“If I go all the way round,” he thought, “I shall at least know where the edges are.” The bed wouldn’t let him go left, so he went right, keeping one hand against the wall, and putting each foot down as carefully as possible, which didn’t prevent his first discovery from being a rubbish bin. He struck it with his foot. He would rather have discovered it with his hand.

At the corner he turned, and found a sink.

As he turned inward to his right, he came across the sink. His heart leapt, he was so thirsty. He reached for the faucet, couldn’t find it, but remembered that hospitals have those foot pedals that turn the water on. Searching with his right foot, he found a pedal and pushed it. He nearly jumped back as the pipes made a loud creaking and sputtering sound. The water must have been turned off for a while.

No discovery could have been more welcome. For a few seconds, however, its promise only aggravated his thirst, for he could find no handle to the tap. Then he recollected the foot pedals used in hospitals, searched with his right foot, and pressed one.

For a moment the mere shape of it was almost as good as a drink. Then he began searching for a handle, and found no handle at all.

“Now, what use is a sink without—”

The pedal! Hospitals sometimes had pedals. He felt below with his right foot, pressed one, and nearly jumped away when the pipes answered with a creak and an extraordinary spluttering. It sounded as though the water had objections to being called for.

After a few moments, he heard the water come splashing into the sink, and reached down his head to drink from the faucet. The water had a rusty flavor, but it was wet, and it quenched his thirst. He drank until he couldn’t drink anymore.

The pipes creaked and sputtered so violently that he almost withdrew. Presently water began to fall into the basin. He bent to drink directly from the spout; and though the taste of rust would ordinarily have furnished a very sufficient objection, he found himself capable of overlooking it. He drank until he could drink no more.

But it came. He bent his head to the spout and drank. There was a rusty taste, which he noticed without being at all inclined to argue about it. He drank until he could hold no more.

“What the hell is going on here?” Sean wondered to himself. He didn’t normally curse, but first his buddy had died, then he nearly died just trying to pull his buddy ashore, then this. “Where is everybody, and why are all the lights out?” Something about the quiet seemed ominous, Sean had been in hospitals many times before, but he had never been in one so quiet.

“What the hell is going on here?” he thought.

It was not his usual language. Had any of his visitors remained to hear him, he might have felt obliged to excuse it; alone, with Jacob dead and his own survival rendered increasingly difficult to understand, he was less inclined to regret the expression than the absence of an answer.

Where was everybody? Why were the lights out? A hospital at night might be quiet, but never, in his experience, quiet in this manner. There should have been a footstep, a distant conversation, some sign that the arrangements on which he depended were still being made.

“What the hell is going on here?”

He did not commonly swear. On this occasion the words seemed smaller than the question. Jacob was dead, he had nearly died himself, and now somebody had left him in a hospital without so much as a light.

Where was everybody?

He had been in hospitals often enough to know that even when the people were quiet, the hospital generally was not. This one was silent all the way through.

He continued feeling his way around the room. Moving on from the sink, he felt a cupboard, and past the cupboard a door. He was tempted to open it, but he decided to see if he couldn’t find a window that might let some light into the room. He moved past the door and rounded another corner inside the room. About half way down the next wall he found the window: its shades had been shut. He found the string to open the shades, but was surprised by the darkness that remained once the shades were drawn open. He felt the window that was in front of him. It was covered with something that felt like cardboard. As he found the edges of the cardboard with his searching fingers, he began peeling back the tape, until he could pull the first piece of cardboard away from the window. A small beam of light shone in from the small piece of cardboard that he had removed, and he squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light. A sense of foreboding overcame him, as he turned around to investigate the rest of the room.

He continued along the wall. Beyond the sink was a cupboard, and beyond the cupboard a door. Though strongly tempted to open it, he thought it prudent to seek a window first; light might make the door, and whatever lay beyond it, a less uncertain proposition.

Halfway along the next wall, he found the window with its blind drawn. To raise the blind without admitting any light was a disappointment for which he had not prepared himself. His fingers presently supplied the explanation. Cardboard had been fixed over the glass, its edges secured with tape.

He loosened a corner and removed one piece. A thin beam entered, painful at first to eyes so long unused to it; then, as he turned towards the room, shapes began to distinguish themselves from the general darkness.

Beyond the sink stood a cupboard; beyond that was a door. Sean found its handle, but did not turn it. A window would be more useful first. At least a window could tell him whether it was day or night, which was more than anything else had told him.

Round the next corner, halfway along the wall, he found one. The blind was down. He drew it up, and was considerably disappointed to find the darkness exactly where he had left it.

“Then what's the blind for?” he wondered.

There was cardboard over the glass, held in place with tape. He picked at an edge until he could peel away a piece. A narrow shaft of light entered; it was such a small piece of daylight that he had to stand blinking at it before he could bear to look round.

From where he stood by the window, he could see dark splotches on the otherwise white walls. “What is that?” Sean thought to himself. Then, as if his nose hadn’t been working before, he smelled it: blood. That iron smell so unmistakable to someone who grew up with a father who practiced taxidermy as a hobby. He looked down at his body again, just to make sure that the blood wasn’t his. With the light shining into the room he could see that he had lost weight. He could count his ribs, and his stomach had flattened out. But, there were no scars on his body that would suggest a source of the blood.

There were dark patches upon the white walls. He had scarcely asked himself what they could be when their smell answered him. His father had practised taxidermy as a hobby; Sean knew the smell of blood too well to misunderstand it now.

He looked down in apprehension at his own body. He had certainly grown thinner. His ribs were plainly visible, and his stomach had lost its former shape; but there was no injury, apart from that on his forehead, to explain what he saw about him. His eyes moved to the cupboard, where a mirror caught the little light. Something had been written upon it.

The walls were white, except where they were not. Dark splashes marked them in several places.

And there was a smell.

He knew that iron smell from his father's taxidermy, though he would much rather not have known it here. Looking down, he saw how thin he had become. The ribs showed plainly; the stomach beneath them was flat. Yet, except for the cut on his head, he could find no wound to account for all the blood.

As his gaze glanced around the room, his eyes landed on a mirror that covered the cupboard. There were words written on it, but he couldn’t make them out until he took a step toward them. “Don’t get bit.” The words were written in blood, clearly by someone’s finger, but Sean couldn’t figure it out. Why was there so much blood everywhere?

A step nearer made the words legible.

“Don't get bit.”

Blood had served for ink, and a finger for the instrument of writing. The writer had plainly been in earnest; but whether the warning explained the empty hospital, or the empty hospital explained the warning, and how either could be reconciled with the visits he remembered, were questions to which the greater certainty of the message afforded no answer.

A mirror on the cupboard caught the light. Somebody had written on it with a finger. Sean went nearer to read the words.

“Don't get bit.”

He read them again. They were written in blood.

“By what?” he asked.

It was the sort of instruction that left out the part you most needed. He would have been happy to obey it, if only he knew how.

Panic rose in his mind, but he breathed deep to stay calm. On the bright side, he noticed in the mirror that his head wound wasn’t as severe as he had imagined. It definitely would leave a scar, but it didn’t appear to be too bad. Sean also realized that he was pretty much naked. His hospital gown was torn and his feet were bare. He opened the cupboard to find his belongings: his wetsuit, mask, snorkel, fins, spear gun, dive knife sheath with dive knife missing, a pair of spandex shorts and a shirt that he normally wore under his wetsuit, and a pair of booties.

For a moment he felt himself close to panic. He forced his breathing to grow slower, and considered his reflection with an attention he would willingly have bestowed on anything else. The cut looked less serious than it had felt; a scar was likely, but it was not so terrible a wound as his first fears had made it. His gown, on the other hand, was so torn as to perform scarcely any of its office. His feet were bare.

The cupboard contained his possessions. There were the wetsuit, mask, snorkel, fins and speargun; the spandex shorts and shirt usually worn beneath the suit; and a pair of diving booties. His knife sheath was there also, but empty.

Panic began to rise in him. He took a slow breath, looked at his reflection, and made himself attend to what he could see. The cut was less terrible than it had felt; it would leave a scar, probably, but his forehead was still recognisably a forehead. The rest of his appearance was less satisfactory. His gown was torn, and there was practically nothing beneath it.

In the cupboard were his things—the wetsuit, the mask, the snorkel, the fins, and, which was rather more welcome just then, the speargun. There were the shorts and shirt he wore under the suit, too, and the diving booties, and the sheath for his knife.

The sheath was empty.

“Where is my knife?” Sean wondered. He had paid a lot of money for that knife. After being attacked by a reef shark a few years back Sean had invested in a high quality dive knife with a six inch titanium blade, with a sheath that strapped to his ankle. He hadn’t been attacked by a shark since that time, but he didn’t want to risk it. He always went out spear fishing with his knife.

He quickly pulled off the remains of his hospital gown and squeezed into the shorts and shirt. “Better than nothing,” Sean thought. He considered going barefoot, but decided to wear the diving booties because they had a bit of traction and Sean also realized that the ground was partially covered by debris. It looked like a dog had tried to chew on sheetrock but had thought better of it. Sean started to close the cupboard, but then decided to take his spear gun. None of his surroundings were making any sense to him.

The empty sheath distressed him. Since an encounter with a reef shark some years before, he had never gone spearfishing without the six-inch titanium knife then purchased; and though it had cost more than he had liked to pay, and required a sheath fastened about his ankle, neither price nor inconvenience had afterwards been thought sufficient reason for leaving it behind. It was to have made him safer.

Now, when he could have wished to be better assured that his precautions were sufficient, it was gone.

He discarded the remains of the gown and put on the shorts and shirt. They were little enough, but afforded an improvement. The proposal of going barefoot was soon dismissed; for the debris scattered about the floor, which he could now see but could not conveniently avoid, gave the booties an immediate usefulness, both in protecting his feet and in securing his footing. The fragments appeared to be broken sheetrock, with edges so irregular that something might almost have been trying to chew it.

Before closing the cupboard, he took the speargun. His acquaintance with the room had not produced a corresponding confidence in its safety.

“Where's my knife?”

That had been an expensive knife, with a six-inch titanium blade. A reef shark had attacked him some years before, and ever since then he had strapped it to his ankle whenever he went spearfishing. Saving money was all very well; there were some savings he had declined to make.

He put on the shorts and shirt, and considered the booties. Bare feet would have been easier, but bits of broken wall lay over the floor. They looked as though something had started eating the room and found it disagreeable. He put the booties on.

The speargun came out of the cupboard with him. He had no particular explanation for taking it, beyond the fact that explanations of every other kind were becoming so scarce.

His eyes searched the rest of the room. From where he stood he could see everywhere in the room except to the immediate left of the bed. He stepped back toward the window and began to peel off more of the tape and cardboard. As more light came into the room, Sean could see what he had been missing. Just to the left of the bed, there was a hole in the wall about the size of a doggie door, the edges looked like it had been chewed through, and halfway into the room through the hole in the wall lay a corpse with Sean’s dive knife embedded all the way to the hilt in it’s head.

Only the space immediately to the left of the bed remained hidden from him. He returned to the window, removed more tape and cardboard, and admitted enough light to examine it.

There was a hole in the wall, about the size of a door intended for a dog. Its edges had the same gnawed appearance as the scattered fragments. Halfway through it lay a corpse; and in the head, driven to the hilt, was his missing knife.

He could see nearly all the room now, except the space to the left of the bed. Back at the window, he stripped away another piece of cardboard.

There was a hole in the wall.

It was about the size of a little door made for a dog; but nobody appeared to have used tools to make this one. The edges were ragged and gnawed. A body lay halfway through it, with the upper part inside the room.

His knife was buried to the handle in its head.

“Oh my God” Sean cried out. The noise of his own voice cutting through the silence startled him even more than the corpse. Sean stepped closer to the body and held his nose as the smell of rotting flesh made him dry-heave. It appeared that this person, whoever he or she was, had tried to crawl into the room through the hole, and that someone had stabbed him in the head before he could get through. Sean was horrified by the thought of being trapped between the walls of a hospital only to get stabbed through the back of the head once he was close to escape.

“Oh my God!”

He had not meant to speak aloud. The abruptness of his own voice in that silence frightened him afresh, though there was now a cause for horror which needed no assistance from imagination.

Approaching the body, he covered his nose, and could scarcely prevent himself from retching. The person appeared to have been crawling into the room, and to have been struck through the back of the head before getting clear of the opening. Of the identity, even the sex, he could not at first be certain. He could only imagine the dreadful position of somebody trapped within a hospital wall, brought so near escape and killed in the attempt.

“Oh my God!”

The sound of his voice frightened him almost as much as the sight. It was a real voice, in a room where everything else had been still for so long.

He went closer, holding his nose, and retched at the smell. Whoever this person had been, they seemed to have been crawling out of the wall when somebody struck from behind. To be caught there, almost through, and then—

“Did I do this?” Sean asked himself. He concluded that it couldn’t have been him, but still he wondered. Sean grasped the handle of the knife and pulled it from the skull. It made a sucking sound as the blade slid out, and it brought some tissue with it. Sean wiped the blade on the bed, went back to the cupboard to gather the sheath, and then strapped the knife to his ankle. Someone had killed this poor guy, and he wanted a way to protect himself in case the person came after him.

Could he have done it himself?

He rejected the idea. The knife was certainly his; the act was surely not; but memory, from which he wanted the plainest confirmation of that distinction, remained obstinately silent, and the very eagerness with which he assured himself that another person must have done it revealed how much he feared the contrary.

He took the handle and drew the blade out. It came with a sucking sound, and some tissue clung to it. He wiped it on the bed, recovered the sheath from the cupboard, and strapped it to his ankle. Whoever had killed this unfortunate person might still be at hand; he could not depend upon receiving kinder treatment.

“Did I do it?”

The question came before he could stop it. No, surely he had not. But he could remember nothing about being on the floor, either.

He grasped the knife and pulled. It came free with a wet sucking sound, bringing a little tissue on the blade. He wiped it on the bed, fetched the sheath, and fastened it round his ankle.

“Somebody’s done this,” he told himself, fastening the strap, “and if they come back, I don’t mean to have to ask them for my knife.” He made quite sure that he could reach it.

Sean went back to the window and pulled the rest of the cardboard from it. He was on the fourth or fifth story, and he was back in San Francisco, the hospital in Pacifica must have transferred him there. As Sean stared out the window he could see the streets of the city. There was no movement, everything was still. Cars were stopped in the middle of the street, and some of the building appeared to be burned out.

The rest of the cardboard came away from the window. He was in San Francisco, four or five storeys above the street. There must have been a transfer from the hospital in Pacifica; he could remember none.

Cars stood abandoned in the roadway. Several buildings appeared to have burned, and the city seemed entirely without movement. Beyond the nearer roofs he looked for the Bay Bridge, and saw instead a confusion of wire and broken concrete where it should have carried traffic towards Treasure Island.

At last he tore all the remaining cardboard from the window.

San Francisco lay outside. He was on the fourth or fifth floor; they must have moved him from the hospital in Pacifica. Below him, cars stood in the middle of the streets. Some buildings had burned. Nothing moved.

Sean looked passed the building to the Bay Bridge and let out a gasp as he saw the tangled mess of wire and concrete that had once been the bridge connecting San Francisco to Treasure Island. It was destroyed, completely destroyed. “Were we attacked?” Sean tried to imagine a scenario that would match with what he saw before his eyes, but he failed to come up with anything. He was so caught off guard by the sight that for a few minutes he failed to notice the movement on the street directly below the hospital.

The destruction was complete.

“Were we attacked?” he wondered. No supposition he could form seemed adequate to the sight, and for several minutes his attention was so wholly occupied by it that movement immediately below the hospital escaped him.

Beyond the buildings should have been the Bay Bridge, running towards Treasure Island. There was a tangle of broken concrete and wire instead.

The bridge was gone.

“Were we attacked?” he thought. But even that question would not arrange what he saw into anything he understood.

While he was trying to make sense of the bridge, and failing, and trying again because he couldn’t think what else to do, people had been moving in the street immediately below him. He had nearly missed them. They walked between the cars with a queer, jerking movement, as though they could agree upon a rhythm, but not upon how a person ought to walk to it.

People were milling about, walking between the stopped cars. Their pace seemed unnaturally jerky yet melodic, in tune with each other, but strangely inhuman. When Sean noticed them he tried to open his window, to yell to them for help, but the window wouldn’t open. Sean yelled at the top of his lungs and waved his arms, “Hey, I’m up here!” The windows were dual pane and didn’t let any sound pass through, but his waving arms seemed to get their attention. One by one, the people stared up at Sean and began walking toward the hospital.

People were passing between the cars. Their steps were jerky, yet possessed a strange correspondence, as if each were moving to a rhythm which all the others understood. Sean tried to open the window. It would not yield.

“Hey! I'm up here!”

The double glass appeared to prevent his voice from reaching them, but his waving arms were seen. One face turned up; then another. They had seen him, they understood that he required help, they were coming to the hospital; and Sean, whose whole desire for some minutes had been to discover another human being, continued to beckon with a gratitude which left him little attention for the character of those he invited.

People! He tried the window. It would not open.

“Hey! I'm up here!”

He shouted and waved both arms. The double glass kept his voice inside, but one of the people looked up. Then another did, and another. They began coming towards the hospital.

For a moment he waved harder.

Sean kept waving his arms, but as the people drew near, a wave of terror crept over Sean. The faces of the people approaching the hospital barely looked human. Their eyes were sunken in, their hair was patchy and looked like it was falling out, and their mouths hung open. Some appeared to have open wounds, others were missing limbs, while others looked like nothing more than skeletons with a tight layer of skin.

As they drew nearer, gratitude gave way to a terror greater than his loneliness had produced. The faces were scarcely human. Eyes lay deep in their sockets; hair was missing in patches; mouths hung open. Some bore wounds which should have made walking impossible, others had lost limbs, and some seemed no more than skeletons thinly covered with skin.

He had been so eager to attract their attention. It was too late to consider whether their attention was desirable.

Then he saw their faces.

Their mouths hung open. Hair had come away in patches; eyes lay deep in their sockets. Some had wounds that ought to have kept them in bed. Some had limbs missing. Others were so thin that the skin seemed stretched directly over bone.

Still they came.

Sean stepped away from the window and sat on the floor where he had woken just minutes before. A prayer escaped his lips “Oh God, what has happened?” He sat silently on the floor for a few moments thinking of what to do, and that is when he heard the gurgling moan come from the other side of his door.

Sean stepped back and sat upon the floor where he had awakened. “Oh God, what has happened?” escaped him in a whisper. For a few moments he remained quite still, endeavouring to determine what he ought to do.

Then a gurgling moan sounded on the other side of the door.

Sean backed away and sat down where he had first awakened. He had wanted somebody to notice him. That part, at least, had worked.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “What has happened?”

For a few moments there was only his breathing again. He tried to think what he ought to do next.

Then, from the other side of the door, came a gurgling moan.