The operating suite was their last bastion, a sterile white room that felt more like a tomb than a sanctuary. The rhythmic pounding of the infected on the heavy steel doors was a constant, maddening reminder of their predicament. They had been trapped for nearly a full day. The initial adrenaline had worn off, replaced by a gnawing, weary dread.
There were thirty-two of them left, crammed into the suites and the adjoining recovery rooms. The air was thick with the smell of fear and antiseptic. Lena moved among the wounded, her face a stoic mask that did little to hide the exhaustion in her eyes. The last of the IV bags were empty. The morphine was gone. All she had left were bandages and her own two hands.
Marcus, the burly man with the stop-sign shield, had been the de facto leader of the clinic's defenders before Quinn and Hex had arrived. He was a rock, a steady presence who had organized the barricades and kept morale from collapsing. He was a retired firefighter, a man used to running into burning buildings, not away from them.
It was Marcus who suggested they try to retake the infirmary.
"The main communications room is just past there," he argued, his voice low but firm. "If we can get to Hex's radio, we can send out a distress call. Find out if any other pockets of survivors exist."
It was a long shot, a desperate gamble, but doing nothing was a slower, more certain death. Quinn and Hex agreed. A small team of six, led by Marcus and Quinn, prepared to open the doors and make a push.
They opened the door a crack, peering into the dark hallway. It was quiet. Too quiet. The pounding had stopped.
"They've pulled back," Hex whispered from behind them. "It's a feint. They're trying to draw us out."
"Or they've moved on," Marcus countered, his desperation overriding his caution. "We have to try."
He pushed the door open and stepped into the hall, his shield raised. Quinn followed, axe at the ready, his senses on high alert. The hallway was empty, but the floor was slick with blood. They moved forward slowly, checking every doorway, every shadow.
They reached the main infirmary. The room was a disaster zone, cots overturned, medical supplies scattered. But it was empty. They were about to press on towards the comms room when a sound made them freeze. A low whimper, coming from inside a supply closet.
Marcus held up a hand, signaling for them to halt. He approached the closet cautiously. "Is someone in there?" he called out softly. "We're survivors."
The door creaked open, and a young boy, no older than ten, peered out. His face was streaked with tears and dirt. It was the son of one of the defenders who had fallen in the last attack.
Marcus's stern face softened. He knelt down. "It's okay, son. You're safe now."
He reached out to help the boy, and in that moment of compassion, he dropped his guard for a fraction of a second.
An infected had been hiding in the closet with the boy, crouched in the deepest shadows, utterly silent. It was not one of the mindless ones. It had waited. It had been patient. It launched itself from the closet, a blur of motion, ignoring the boy and leaping directly onto Marcus's back.
Marcus roared in surprise and pain as its teeth sank into his neck. He stumbled backward, trying to shake it off, but it was too late. Quinn charged forward, burying his axe in the creature's skull, but the damage was done.
Marcus collapsed to the floor, his hands flying to the gushing wound in his neck. His eyes, wide with shock and disbelief, met Quinn's. He tried to speak, but only a wet, gurgling sound came out. The life faded from his eyes, his body going limp.
The rock was broken.
The death of Marcus sent a shockwave of despair through the remaining survivors. He had been their symbol of hope, of defiance. With him gone, the fragile chain of command shattered. Panic, which had been simmering just below the surface, erupted. Fights broke out over the last scraps of food. People started talking about making a run for it on their own, a suicidal, every-man-for-himself madness. The community Lena had fought so hard to build was dissolving into a terrified mob.
Lena was forced to make a series of heartbreaking triage decisions. A man with a deep abdominal wound who could have been saved with a proper operating room and blood supply, she now had to leave to die, instead using her last sterile bandages on a woman with a broken arm who had a better chance of survival. Each decision was a small piece of her soul chipping away. She worked silently, her face a stone mask, but Quinn could see the agony in her eyes.
The infected, as if sensing the despair within, renewed their assault with a fresh, relentless fury. They were no longer just pounding on the doors. They were tearing the building apart. They smashed through the windows on the second floor, dropping into the rooms above. They found a weak point in the roof near a ventilation unit and began to tear it open. The clinic was being breached from all sides. It was no longer a sanctuary; it was a coffin, and the lid was closing.
Quinn, Hex, and Lena stood together in the relative quiet of a small doctor's office, the sounds of the final collapse echoing all around them.
"It's over," Hex said, his voice grim. He had been monitoring the breaches on a set of salvaged security cameras. "They're in the north wing and advancing from the second floor. We have minutes, maybe an hour at most, before this entire wing is overrun."
"We can't hold it," Lena admitted, her voice hollow. She looked at Quinn. "What do we do? Fight to the last? Die protecting this place?"
Quinn looked at the door to the office, knowing that on the other side of it, Lily was huddled with the few remaining children. He thought of his promise to Sarah, to Mark. His duty was not to this building. It was to her.
"No," he said, his voice firm. "We don't die here. Not like this."
A desperate, insane plan began to form in his mind. "We can't save everyone. We can't save this place. But we can save some of them. We break out."
"Break out?" Hex stared at him. "Quinn, there's a hundred of them out there! At least!"
"We don't fight the horde," Quinn said, his eyes intense. "We use it. We create a diversion. A big one. Something that draws every one of those things to the front of the building. While they're distracted, a small group of us slips out the back, through the morgue's loading bay. We get to the van, and we go."
It was a suicide mission. A desperate, long-shot gamble. But it was better than sitting here, waiting for the doors to break down.
"Who do we take?" Lena asked, the question heavy with the weight of the lives they would be leaving behind.
"Anyone who can fight and keep up," Quinn said. "And the children. We take all the children." He looked at Lena, his gaze unwavering. "My first priority is Lily. But we save who we can."
Lena looked around the office, at the last remnants of her failed sanctuary. The choice was agonizing. To abandon her patients, the people she had sworn to protect. But she was a doctor. And the first rule was to do no harm. Staying here meant harm would come to everyone. Leaving meant some might live.
She took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded. "Okay," she said, her voice filled with a terrible, newfound resolve. "Let's get our people out of here."
The decision was made. They would not die defending the ashes of their hope. They would make a run for it, a tiny flicker of defiance against the overwhelming darkness, with the life of a child as their guiding star.