Even with everything done, they both stayed by the girl's bedside, just staring down at her, and they both privately prayed that she would find her way back.
A young soldier knocked on the open door to draw their attention and reported, "The colonel wants to see you both in the conference room immediately."
They glanced at each other, then turned and followed the private out, and Rachel ordered the nurse who was on stand-by, "Let us know as soon as there is any change in her condition."
The conference room was quiet and everyone was already in their place. There with the colonel was the Lieutenant, both corporals, Alfred Knox, Morgan, and Josh.
Doctor Kavorski pulled his colleague's chair out for her, then he sat beside her and folded his hands on the table.
Rachel settled herself and looked to the colonel, and from his expression as he stared down at the papers before him, he did not have good news.
Colonel Halstead was quiet for another long moment, then he looked to the people who stared at him and simply said, "They've found us."
Tension instantly gripped the room.
"They're breaching barricades on two sides," he continued. "We expect them to assault the hospital within the hour. We've studied this scenario for a month and the conclusion is always the same. They'll end up surrounding the building and we'll end up with no way in or out, no way to get supplies or send missions out to find survivors. Eventually, they'll find a way to breech the hospital itself. The outlook of our ammo holding out over an extended siege is doubtful. We are about to find ourselves in a world of hurt here, people." He looked to Knox, to Josh. "Any suggestions?"
"How about fighting our way out?" Alfred advised. "We could make it through one side at least."
"Already looking into that," the colonel confirmed, "but we'll have to get the Stryker and the other vehicles away before we get surrounded. I already have teams ready to board them and they'll make strikes against the mobs once they're away, but that's only a temporary solution. The team at the power plant has been notified and I've given them orders to stay put for now. They have one Stryker and a Hummer already there, so we'll call them in for hit and run strikes as needed."
Doctor Caswell bowed her head and rubbed her eyes. "We are so close to stopping this thing."
"How's Princess?" the colonel asked with a solemn tone.
"We don't know yet," she replied. "She hasn't regained consciousness. We took samples of brain and spinal fluid as well as blood and other tissue to check on the status of the virus. Her blood is still infected but the tests on her cranial spinal fluid are either inconclusive or not complete."
Halstead nodded and looked to the table. "Okay, people. We're about to find ourselves on red alert here and we'd better think about what we're going to do about it. I want food stores taken to the top floor and everyone who isn't going to fight moved to the top two floors. I also want all of the ammo and weapons we can muster moved to floor five. Disable the elevators and lets be ready to barricade or otherwise cover the stairs. We need to set up for an extended siege and hope that someone sends us some kind of reinforcements before we give out here." He looked around the room and asked, "Does everyone know what they're supposed to do?"
Alfred spoke up again. "I still have some supplies in the RV. Me and the boy can go out and get what we need and bring them inside here if you need."
The colonel looked to Corporal Anderson and ordered, "Assemble a detail to help them out."
"Yes, Sir," the corporal complied.
"I don't want to move Zoe yet," Rachel informed. "If there's even the slightest chance of her recovering then I think we should give it to her."
"I'll have a detail down there to assist you," the colonel assured, "but if things go badly and that floor gets overrun then you will fall back to the upper floors, understood?"
She nodded and assured, "Agreed, Colonel."
Alfred asked, "Did your men see any of them mad-dogs comin' this way?"
"Afraid so," the Colonel confirmed.
Doctor Kavorski informed, "We did find out what is causing that particular anomaly." When attention focused on him, he went on, "It seems that they occur as a result of a human victim being bitten by an infected dog. Usually, as the result of a dog attack, we don't expect the human victim to survive, but apparently there were those who got away from their attackers and survived long enough for the virus to turn them, but it did so as if it was turning a canine, and that is where the behavior seems to come from. You see, any virus needs living host cells to reproduce, and as with this virus it borrows some elements of the host's DNA to that end. In this case, it passes on the canine DNA to the human host and we have what you are calling the mad-dog zombies."
"Very enlightening," the colonel commended dryly. "So when we see them we'll throw a stick and hope they'll chase it."
"Not likely," the Doctor corrected. "You'll have to think of them more as animals with rabies."
"So," Josh guessed, "just put them down like we have been."
"Let's save the discussion for another time," Colonel Halstead ordered, "and get ready to receive these sons of bitches when they hit us. We're likely to be faced with a fighting retreat all the way to the fifth floor, and from there it will be stand our ground or we all die. Let's get with the program, boys and girls."
CHAPTER 14
Before evening fell, the zombies had already surrounded the hospital. All teams fought gallantly, but the glass doors of the first floor succumbed quickly. Fire teams in the vehicles that were parked out front did what damage they could, but from there it was a fighting retreat away from the hospital to draw off as many as they could, but only a few hundred pursued them. This mob was the biggest yet and it seemed that every zombie in the city was converging on the hospital, their biggest remaining source of food. At last count, over four hundred people had sought refuge and now occupied the top two floors of the six story hospital, and those who were directed to fight did so with great vigor and aggression against an enemy that now numbered over ten thousand.
The defenders of the first floor retreated to the stairwell and barricaded the doors as best they could before retreating to the next level to make another stand. It took the zombies some time, but they finally broke through in two stairwells and relentlessly climbed up after those who still lived, those they meant to eat. Ammunition would not hold out long and everyone knew it, and the San Antonio Zombie Response Team was ready for that eventuality. Though they still fought with rifles, pistols and shotguns, they all had machetes, crow bars and a variety of knives hanging from their belts to await their turn. Other ZRT fighters were also brandishing improvised hand to hand weapons from anything they could find, and Morgan had a crossbow hanging on her back with a quiver of a dozen bolts that she would use as soon as her ammunition was exhausted.
In the ICU, Doctor Kavorski and Rachel continued to work with the samples taken from the still lifeless zombie girl who lay strapped to her bed.
With the sounds of the battle drawing closer from seemingly all sides, Doctor Caswell sat at the nurse's station, which they had fashioned into a makeshift lab, and peered into a microscope, slowly turning the knob to bring her subject into focus.
Doctor Kavorski strode in at a hurried pace and slammed a handful of papers down, shaking his head as he barked, "The virus is still in her blood! I don't understand! With all of the heat she was subjected to it should have died!"
Rachel continued to stare into the microscope and said calmly back, "It's acting differently in her tissues now. I'm not sure if the heat weakened it or what happened exactly." She pulled away from the microscope and looked to the bank of heart monitors that was integrated into the desk. Only one was on, one that showed more of a wave than a heartbeat. "Her heart even seems a little stronger, and her brain spiked activity twice. She's still in there. Now we just have to figure out how to get her awake."