Season of Rot by Eric S. Brown, John Grover

adjusted his glasses and stood his
ground. Two dead things rushed into the room. He swung the wrench
and clobbered the first one in the head. It lurched sideways and
fell with a crash into one of Daniel’s worktables. Its left eye
dangled from its socket as the thing thrashed about on the
floor.
    The second intruder came at him too fast, and
he couldn’t get a good swing at it. It grabbed him, strained
against him, tried to sink its teeth into his flesh.
    Daniel threw the thing off and darted for the
door. He nearly collided with a third creature in the hall. He gave
a quick hard kick to one of its knees, then fled, not bothering to
look back as the creature toppled to the floor.
    As he rounded the bend in the corridor, a
voice cried out. “Daniel!” One of the hospital’s defenders, a man
whose name he couldn’t remember, was running after him. Daniel
skidded to a halt as the man caught up.
    “We need to get you up to the roof!” the
guard said. “You need to fly the helicopter!”
    Shit , Daniel thought.
    Vince, Harold, Laura, and any other survivors
were all counting on him. Counting on him to fly a type of
helicopter he’d never even sat in until today. He remembered the
time he’d spent going over its controls and knew he could do it,
even if just barely. It would be enough.
    The guard shoved a rifle into his hands as
they raced toward the roof. The weapon brought Daniel no comfort.
If they encountered a large pack of the dead on their way, it
wouldn’t make any difference whether or not they sent a few of the
creatures back to hell. They’d be overwhelmed and that was
that.
    They rounded another corner and jerked open
the door to the stairs that led to the roof. A decaying woman in a
bloodstained wedding gown leapt out at them, slashing the guard’s
throat with her long decorated nails. Blood spurted from the wound
with every beat of his heart.
    Daniel didn’t have time to take a shot at
her, so he barreled into her, pushing her back inside the stairwell
and over the railing. She hissed, still groping for him as she fell
into the darkness below.
    Daniel glanced back at the guard’s corpse,
wishing he could remember the poor guy’s name. Then he shut the
door to the stairs and sprinted up to the roof.
    ***
    Most of the hospital’s defenders were dead
and had switched sides in the battle. Mitchell had disappeared in
the fray, leaving only Martin and Jack to hold back the dead long
enough for Vince and Laura to escape.
    The dead had them cornered now two floors
below the roof, backed into a waiting room with no way out. Martin
was fighting the creatures hand-to–hand, holding them at the door
while Jack tried to reload. A purple blood-like substance oozed
from numerous wounds and bites covering his body. He punched one of
the things in the head, which flew off and landed on the floor to
be trampled under countless feet.
    Jack raised his gun and shot a creature that
had made it past Martin. The blast hit it in the chest, knocking it
to the other side of the room.
    “It’s no use Jack!” Martin wailed as a
wounded dead thing, its lower spine shattered, sank its teeth into
his thigh.
    “I know,” Jack whispered, letting his shotgun
clatter to the floor. He pulled a bandolier of grenades from his
backpack, which he had swiped from a fallen friend, and without
hesitation he popped the string’s pin and ran into the swarm of
undead. “See you in hell, Martin!”
    The waiting room burst into a ball of flames,
showering the street below with shards of glass and chunks of
debris.
    ***
    The building seemed to shake as Vince bounded
up the last steps to the roof. He lost his footing and would have
fallen over the railing had Chris not grabbed him.
    “What the hell was that?” Laura asked.
    “Jack,” Vince answered curtly as he shoved
her ahead of him. “There isn’t going to be a trip back, Laura. I’m
sure Martin did all he could, but I think we’re it. We’re the only
ones who are going to make it