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  The next morning, William was awakened by the new owner. He was pointing a rifle in William’s face. The new owner asked why he was in his daughter’s bedroom and not with his crazy bitch of a mother. William responded by snatching the rifle from the new owner and shooting him dead. Then he went throughout the house and killed the new owner’s wife and mother. He told the daughter to run and tell the police that Billy the Kid was back and killed her family.

  She did just that.

  When the police arrived, William was standing on the porch, waiting for them, the rifle in his hand. They told him to drop the gun. He said, Not until his daddy came home; he wanted him to read The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid before he went to sleep.

  The police shot him.

  He recovered from his wounds and was sent to Philadelphia State Hospital.

  My second week as an attendant was when I first met William. I was changing bed sheets in the men’s ward with him and another patient helping. Some jerk of a guard, mug’s name was Hank, always got a kick out of picking on the patients. Sometimes I wondered who were the real crazy ones, the patients, or guards like Hank. But I watched as he came up to William and stared at him.

  Hank said, “Fold them dirty sheets before you put them in the hamper, pig.”

  “There’s only one pig around these parts,” said William, “and it ain’t me. It’s the feller who eats three liverwursts sandwiches for lunch. That’s you,” patting his pot belly, “piggy.”

  The other patient laughed. So did I. Couldn’t help myself. Hank saw us laughing and spit in William’s face.

  William smiled and dragged his long tongue from Hank’s chin up to his ear.

  That set Hank off. He punched William in his stomach. He fell over. Hank continued to punch his back and kick his chest. I ran over and pulled him off. He tried to push past me. I shoved him back again, and he tried to swing at me. I ducked and came up with a nice upper cut shot that dropped him to the floor, the keys on his belt making a loud noise as they slapped against the faux marble floor.

  He stood and felt the bruise on his face as he said to me, “Watch it, convict. Have your ass sent back to Holmesburg.”

  “Don’t ever let me see you hitting one of the patients again, got it?” I said.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” said Hank.

  “Someone who’s not going to put up with your kind of garbage.”

  His gaze drifted across all of our faces. Then, without saying another word, he walked off.

  I helped William from the floor and asked him if he was all right. He nodded. I said, “What’s your name?”

  “They call me the Kid. Billy the Kid.”

  And that was how I was introduced to the 19 year old patient.

  Chapter Nine

  “Evening, fellers.”

  “Billy, where the heck did you get that gun?” I said.

  He looked over the gun, then at us as he said, “From the guard.”

  “What did you do to the guard?” said Melvin, sounding suspicious.

  “I ain’t do nothin’ to no guard. Somebody else did somethin’ to him.”

  “Who?” said Melvin.

  He shrugged, saying, “I don’t know. We was walkin’ down the hall, just finished our therapy session. He’s layin’ dead. Look like someone got a little hungry and took a mouthful out his neck. The nurse and her attendant left us, said they was gonna get help. That’s when I grabbed his piece. Ya know, The Kid always needs a piece, else he ain’t The Kid.” He stopped, drew on his cigarette, then flicked ashes on the oak desk, not caring one bit about ruining the finish.

  Melvin shook his head in disgust. “You’re goddamn nuts.”

  “No shit. The whole reason why we in Byberry. This is my home, feller. It ain’t no damn social club where you go to pick up chicks.”

  “Calm down, Billy. So what happened after that?” I said.

  “Well,” he scratched his head as he said, sounding as if he was unsure, “my guess is bein’ dead must’ve been quite borin’, ‘cause the guard opened his eyes and stood up.” I looked at Melvin and Haas, they both appeared to be scared; Haas more so than my friend. “Then he attacked. Managed to bite three of the folks in my group. The rest ran off, screamin’. I ran too, really didn’t feel like losin’ some skin. I like my skin. But I split from the group. I decided to head up here, I was tired and wanted to relax.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Doctor Haas. “I can’t believe this is happening.” He started rummaging through the nurses’ station, looking for medical supplies. He found some in a drawer and began to treat the hole in the side of his head as best he could.

  “We need to figure out a way to get out of here,” said Melvin.

  “Well, you can forget about goin’ out the front door,” said Billy, one of his legs crossed over now on his other leg as he picked his toe nails with the barrel of the revolver.

  I said, “Why’s that?”

  “That dead guard, who ain’t so dead anymore, was on the first floor last I saw him. And I could hear screams from down there a few minutes before yall showed up.”

  Melvin said, “We should try to make it outside. There were about four cars out there. We get to one of them cars, we can get outta here, see?”

  I heard a noise and turned back, quick. A patient was standing right behind me. She walked right into the wall of the nurses’ station. I gazed into her eyes. They were dead, but in a different way. She was still alive, just a vegetable. Harmless. I left her alone. She continued to watch us.

  “What good does it do with cars outside if we don’t have the keys?” I said.

  “We are in over our heads with this situation,” said Doctor Haas, wrapping a bandage around his head now. He grabbed the receiver of the black rotary phone and said, “Operator?” His finger tapped down on the phone. “Operator?” He tapped down again.

  Nothing.

  “What?” said Melvin, his eyes widened, worried.

  Haas sighed, “The storm knocked the phones out.”

  I shook my head. What next?, I thought.

  Doctor Haas said, “I suggest we get to the tunnel in here that leads to N-5. And we should do that immediately. My Ford is parked at that building. If we get to my car we can leave the campus and go for help. That’s hoping that the roads are clear and not flooded again.”

  “No, I need to get to Clara,” I said.

  “Who’s Clara,” said Haas.

  “A friend of mine,” I said. I didn’t want to tell the doctor she was my girlfriend. The staff here looked down on nurses who dated any of the attendants, especially attendants who were convicts. “She works at the children’s camp.”

  “That’s at least a mile away,” said the doctor. “You won’t make it on foot. You saw those patients jumping out the windows. In order to get to the children’s camp you would have to cut through the women’s group, directly behind this building. Those buildings house nearly two thousand patients. If those infected with the vaccine have reached them then that would be like entering a warzone.”

  “What do you mean?” said Melvin.

  “You haven’t noticed by now? The nurse, Doctor Oksenberg, this guard that the boy here mentioned.” He paused, then continued, “Anyone bitten is infected with the tainted vaccine, and the disease is somehow altering their brain function.”

  “If that’s the case,” I said, “shouldn’t your brain function be altered?”

  He shook his head, not wanting to accept the consequences. “No…No…I stopped the infection. I know it. I can feel it. I’m feeling better.”

  “Yeah, but I bet you ain’t hearin’ better,” said Billy the Kid. “Not with only one ear.” Doctor Haas squinted at the young patient. “Smile, doc, you’re one of us now. You’re retarded. You got one ear.”

  “I need to try. I need to try and get to her before it’s too late.”

  “Be reasonable. You’ll never make it on foot,” said Haas.

  “He’s right, Veimer,” sai
d my friend.

  “I gotta try. I can’t let anything happen to her.”

  “Hey, Vee, I’ll go wit’cha,” said Billy. “I’m good in warzones.”

  The doctor interrupted, saying, “If you’re that determined to reach her, well then, at least follow me to N-5. We would have to stop at my office there to get my keys, but then we can get in my car and drive to the children’s camp.”

  I thought it over for a minute and nodded. They were right. The best thing to do now was to get to a vehicle. It would be less dangerous than trying to get to her by way of walking.

  “Now, before we go anywhere,” said Doctor Haas, “William Kelly must turn that gun over before he hurts someone.” He held out his hand, staring at Billy.

  “The name’s Billy the Kid. And I need my…”

  “Enough. Hand it over this instant.”

  Billy scoffed and dropped the gun in the doctor’s hand. “Boy, losin’ that ear really made you a mean old some-bitch. You know, same thing happened to Van Gogh and look how it turned out for him. Maybe it ain’t wise that you hold onto that gun?”

  Haas placed the gun in the pocket of his white coat.

  That’s when we heard the stairwell door bust open.

  Chapter Ten

  Me, Melvin and Billy ran to the center of the ward and looked down the hallway. We saw about ten of these creatures exiting the stairwell, some stumbling out, others running. I noticed that one or two were original vaccinated patients from the third floor, but the others had bites and blood on them.

  Two or three from the group moved down the hallway in the opposite direction from us. The rest, they were coming our way. And fast.

  Me and Melvin went to run. I checked for Billy; he was standing, staring at the approaching mob. A sinister smile covered his face. I grabbed his arm. He said as he watched them, “They dead.”

  “What?” I said.

  “They eyes look just like the eyes of them folks I bumped off. The ones who stole my house. Makes my skin crawl.”

  “Let’s go, Billy,” I said. “Unless you want to wind up like them.” I pulled him, and we ran back to the nurses’ station where Melvin was just reaching the doctor. “We need to go. They’re coming.”

  Doctor Haas looked past me at the mob coming, about ten feet from entering the ward. Melvin shouted, “Come on. Is there any other way to get to the tunnel besides going to the first floor?”

  “Of course not,” said Haas.

  “Well, we’re going to have to fight our way through. We need weapons,” I said.

  “Janitor’s closet is ‘round the corner,” said Billy.

  “Come on,” I said.

  We followed Billy to the closet a few feet past the nurses’ station. I pulled the woman, who was watching us, by her hand and brought her with us.

  Billy opened the closet, and he and Melvin were searching for anything that could be used as a weapon.

  I waited outside the closet with the woman and Haas. I checked to see where the mob was. The hair raised on my neck when I saw them attacking the helpless patients. Some of them didn’t even scream as their flesh was ripped, without mercy, from their faces, arms and legs. But I think what scared me the most about seeing them being attacked was that I knew in a few short minutes, those being attacked would be up on their feet, joining their attackers.

  Melvin and Billy came out with two mops and a broom. Didn’t sound like much, but we had to do our best with what we had available. But then again, in those days, the broom and mop handles were made of heavy, thick wood. They could really hurt someone if you gave them a good whack.

  I turned to Doctor Haas and said, “Give me that gun.” He gazed at me. I could tell he didn’t trust me. “Look, I know how to use one, and I can use it to protect us.” He pulled it out of his pocket and held it, still not sure. “Goddamn it. Look at them over there. Once they’re done with those patients, they’re going to be coming for us. Now give it.” He sighed and handed me the revolver.

  Billy was holding the broom. Melvin had a mop and gave the other to Haas while saying, “We beat those mugs pretty good upstairs, Veimer, but it did no good. The only time I saw one go down and stay down was when you shoved that piece of wood in his eye.”

  Haas interrupted, “That’s due to the fact, as I said before, that the vaccine has altered the brain function of these individuals. So you must injure the brain in order to stop the failed vaccine from driving it, from controlling the specimen.”

  “Okay,” I said, looking at Melvin and Billy, “you heard the doctor, you take a whack, you aim for the top of the head, the brain.” Then I grabbed the silent woman by her hand and led her into the closet. She stood, wearing a long brown dress, staring at me as I closed the door on her. I felt so bad. I didn’t want to see her get ripped apart. I couldn’t imagine it. I just hoped they wouldn’t get to her in there.

  “We need to get past them, through the door, and down the stairs,” said Doctor Haas, then stopped for a brief moment. I saw his eyes roll. He stumbled, then caught himself and stood straight again. I noticed then that his face appeared a little flushed. He continued, “The first floor is going to be very dangerous, depending on how many of them are down there. You all know where the entrance is. Go there.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And make sure we close the damn door behind us.”

  The moans and shrieks from the infected people were growing louder. It caught our attention. We all looked to the massacre taking place in the ward; three of them had a patient on the terrazzo floor and had torn his torso open. One of them had their face inside his opened stomach and appeared to be chewing on intestines that were lodged inside.

  Another spotted us and was climbing over an alcove wall now, making their way toward our group.

  “Ready?” I said.

  No one made a sound. They answered by gripping their mops and broom tighter, Billy nodded.

  I said, “Come on,” and ran down the center of the ward, toward the hallway. Melvin, Billy and Haas, bringing up the rear, followed me.

  Most of them were too busy devouring the patients in the ward to even notice us, or if they did notice, we were already well past them.

  One of them was only about two feet away from Melvin, when they reached out and grabbed his arm. He screamed and jerked away from the maniac, then poked him in the chest with the mop handle, trying to push him back. Billy followed it up with a good crack to the top of his head.

  That dropped him. It worked like Haas said it would; the patient didn’t get back up.

  We continued to run.

  Near the edge of the ward, Billy slipped on a puddle of blood. His feet went up in the air, and he landed hard on his back. That caught the attention of the infected. They began moving toward us now. I looked back at them and noticed how the blood was everywhere; the yellow tiled walls were covered in streaks of it, and puddles were scattered throughout the ward.

  Me and Melvin helped Billy to get up; his bare feet slipped a couple more times on the blood, but he made it and balanced himself. Haas was covering us, making sure no one crept up.

  We began to run again, down the hall. This time, the ones in the ward began chasing us; some of them running. I heard a few loud thumps echo in the hallway and could only imagine that some of the creatures were slipping on the same puddle that Billy did.

  They screamed louder as our space between them grew.

  We made it through the stairwell door, and two of them were waiting for us. They both had bites; one had a bite on his arm, the other had a bite on the back of his neck.

  As soon as I came through the door and saw them, I pushed them back. I didn’t want to waste any bullets unless there was no other option. I knew Melvin and Billy were behind me and would take care of them.

  They did.

  Melvin hit one across the face. Didn’t kill him, but he dropped him to the floor and out of the way, giving us the chance to run off. But Billy was a good shot; he crushed the broom handle over the head
, and the creature was gone.

  We ran down the stairs. The creatures chasing us were still somewhere on the second floor.

  Haas’ speed was slowing a bit. Billy looked back and saw that he was about ten feet behind him. He said, “Come on, doc. Shuffle them paws faster. I know that one ear ain’t keepin’ you from gettin’ a move on.”

  Haas said, under his breath, “Shut up.”

  I couldn’t help but notice the hard rain beating on the windows as we ran, trying to make our escape of N-3.

  We reached the first floor entrance and could hear moans echoing in the hallway. We all looked at each other, all of us showing fear, even Billy. We weren’t sure what to expect on the other side. But we had no other choice, it was either fight our way to the tunnel, or wait here to get ripped apart by the mob coming from the second floor.

  “This is suicide,” said Melvin, beads of sweat running down his face.

  Haas said, “Suicide is standing here, waiting for them upstairs to bring us our death.”

  “Dumbo’s right,” said Billy. “Now let’s stop actin’ like a bunch a goddamn queers.” He held up his broom, a grip so tight around the handle that his knuckles were white, pushed past me and shoved the door open.

  We followed him through and were met with a crowd of diseased patients, about ten (maybe two or three nurses and attendants were part of the crowd), at one end of the hallway. At the other end, five patients, some of their arms covered in blood up to their elbows.

  A few of them held torn bloody body parts in their hands and were still eating them. I almost threw up, but had to swallow it down hard. We saw two of these creatures fighting each other over the leg of a woman. Unimaginable.

  The ones who weren’t busy eating had been standing, staring at the walls. Billy, busting through the door, got their attention. Now they were closing in on us from both ends of the narrow hallway.

  Our heads swung side to side, watching as they cut the distance between us and them.