CHAPTER 12 - COMPLETE CONTROL

I marched straight toward the men, my pair of zombies not far behind me. Kat needed help, and she needed it now. These people were not going to stand in the way, not if I had anything to say about it.

“What the hell is going on here?” I called out as I approached.

“Who are you?” one of the men called out.

I was almost beside Alfred now, and I hefted my axe onto my shoulder. “Someone whose friend is badly hurt and needs medical attention. Are you going to let us past, or am I going through you?”

“Like to see you try,” he shot back.

“Bradley, shut the hell up,” the older man beside him said. He lowered his rebar, and the others followed his lead, dropping the tips of their weapons some. “You a student, miss?”

I nodded. “Med school, yeah. He’s carrying my roommate. She was bitten by a spider the size of a poodle. We need to get her some care, fast.”

“Got it,” the man replied. He stepped forward and offered his hand for me to shake. “Ed Lords. I’m the security supervisor this evening, so I’m in charge here for the time being. You good with that?’

“Mr. Lords, if it means getting Kat medical care, I’m willing to do whatever,” I told him. I shook his hand. It wasn’t like it would hurt, although I got the sense from his grip that he was stronger than the average guy. Maybe he already had a strength stone embedded?

“Holy shit, what are those?” Bradley asked, pointing. He’d finally seen my zombies and was predictably freaking out.

“Relax. They’re under my control,” I told him. I turned back to Lords. “Cadavers from the classroom. They came to life when all of this happened. I killed a couple and picked up the power to control them.”

“Complete control?” Lords asked.

“Rosie, dance a jig,” I said aloud. No sense telling them I could use nonverbal commands until I had to. Rosie danced a moment until I told him to stop. “Yeah. They do what I ask. Kinda gross, but I doubt we’d have made it this far without them.”

“You got the power from one of those crystals, right?” Lords asked. I nodded in reply, and he went on. “We’ve killed more than a few weird creatures ourselves, and they all drop those little stones. One of the EMTs inside got a white stone that lets him heal. Let’s get your friend in there to see if he can help her, eh?”

Healing powers? Why the heck couldn’t I have gotten those instead of zombie control? I was a doctor in training! Healing magic would be way cool.

On the other hand, without my pet zombies, I wasn’t sure we’d have gotten as far as we did, so maybe it was for the best. I followed him toward the security office, where I saw…lights inside? Maybe they had found candles or something?

Moaning behind me made me glance back. One of the zombies had broken clear of the woods. It hadn’t spotted us yet, just ambling about randomly.

“Another of yours?” Lords asked.

I shook my head. “No. There’s a whole pack of them back that way. We should probably get inside before they spot us.”

“And you brought them straight to us?” Bradley complained.

“I thinned them out some,” I snapped back. “But Kat needs help. We couldn’t think where else to go.”

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Lords gave Bradley a stilling look, which seemed to mostly work, then turned back to me. “It’s all right, we’re glad you did. Our job is to keep students safe on campus, and while things might be going crazy, that’s still the job. Let’s get you all inside, then. Oh, except the dead ones, okay miss? We bring those in it’s just gonna scare the shit out of the other folks, eh? You can find some quiet nook to store them out here.”

I opened my mouth to protest, then thought better of it. Lords was being helpful, and if they had a healer, that might be the difference between life and death for Kat. Besides, I’d just been thinking that I’d do whatever it took to save her. This wasn’t that large an ask.

“Rosie, Guildie, come,” I told them. The zombies followed me as I went to the parking lot right in front of the office, checking cars. I found one with an unlocked door quickly enough—this was Vermont; not everyone locked their car doors. I ordered both zombies into the car and told them to stay there.

Then I gave them the mental command to defend themselves against any attackers, but otherwise to stay out of sight. There was no guarantee they’d be all right, with no supervision, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances.

The zombies settled in for the night, I followed Lords into the building. The front room wasn’t large, with a waiting area and a large service desk. A single candle rested on the desk, giving some dim illumination. Beyond the desk, the space opened up some, and a group of people huddled in the dim light from the desk candle and one more, placed at the far side of the room.

Aside from the four men who’d met us outside, all of them campus police, I saw another two dozen or so people. That was way more than I’d expected, far better than I’d had any right to hope for. So far all we’d run into were the dead. The survival rate from this mess didn’t seem to be awesome, but the campus cops had beaten the odds in this place.

“Virgil, get over here,” Lords called. “Wounded.”

“On it,” a man said from the middle of the room. He snatched up an aide bag from the floor next to him and threaded his way past the sitting people to the entryway where Alfred still held Kat. “Put her down so I can examine her, okay? Right here is fine.”

Alfred set Kat down where he asked. She moaned, but otherwise didn’t stir. The venom was hitting her harder; she’d passed out a while back, but now she was pale, sweating, her breaths shallow.

“What happened?” The man had an EMT shirt on, and he certainly seemed competent enough, checking Kat out for injuries and assessing her condition. He noted the tourniquet, still holding itself together. “How long has this been on?”

“Less than an hour,” I replied. “We were attacked by spiders the size of a dog. One of them bit her. I got the tourniquet on as quick as I could, but some of the venom had already gotten through, and I’m sure more has since.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” he replied as he continued checking her over. “Mr. Lords, bring the candle closer?”

Lords did as he asked, giving us more light to see by. The medic pulled back Kat’s pants leg, easy enough since I’d cut it, but the cloth was wet with dark liquid now, and what was beneath was even worse. The rot I’d seen setting in hadn’t slowed. Kat’s lower leg was a mess, with a lot of the flesh already ruined by the venom. Red streaks ran up and down what was left of the skin on her lower leg, but they stopped at the tourniquet, thank god. It was still bad, though. Very bad.

“Can you help her?” I asked.

“I will try,” he replied softly. “My name’s Virgil. Was a paramedic over here before…all this. We’re going to have to take the leg. There’s no way I can save it after all of that trauma. But I think I can close the amputation wound, keep her from getting an infection. I might be able to clear some of the poison from the rest of her system, too. But if we remove the source by taking her leg, her body should be able to mostly heal itself.”

Losing her leg, with all of this happening? How would Kat even survive, without the ability to run from whatever monsters came after us next? This was a shitty-ass choice, and I wished more than anything else that Kat was awake to make it for herself. No matter what answer I gave, it could be the wrong one. But there was really only one answer I could give. “Do what you can.”

Virgil nodded. “I will. You’re a med student, right?”

“Yeah. Him, too,” I replied, pointing at Alfred.

“I could use some help while we do this. What year are you?”

“First,” I admitted.

“Okay, maybe not as much help as I’d like,” Virgil said with a chuckle. “But it’s still better than nothing. Come here, and we’ll get to work.”

My stomach did a little flip at that. If this was school, I’d be thrilled to stand in and help in a surgery. It was a lot different when the patient was my roomie, dying from a flesh-eating venom from a giant spider, with zombies running around outside. I didn’t even like Kat all that much; we’d been thrown together by random room assignment. But I wasn’t going to let her die without trying my best to save her, anyway.

“I’m in. Let’s go. She hasn’t got much time,” I replied.