“Max,” Jake said skeptically. “Something about you doesn’t seem quite-“
He let his attention to the door lapse too long. Apparently whatever fever was wracking these people’s brains was impairing their ability to remember how doors worked, and instead of simply turning the knob on the unlocked door, they simply slammed their bodies against it, and it gave; it was not built to withstand the force of two grown men who didn’t care how bruised their bodies were.
They charged in and Jake’s mind closed off for a minute. Up close, they were grotesque. They had dried streaks of drool on their chins, and were receiving a fresh coat at that very moment. They were grey in the face and their eyes were blank and inhuman. There were more of them now too. Behind the first two, both of whom were wearing nerdy t-shirts, was a woman dressed like an EMT.
That was all he had time to register before the first of them lunged at him. He took up his mighty bedpan once more; it hadn’t failed him before.
Crack!
Jake hauled back and swung the pan with all his body weight behind it at the head of the first intruder, who staggered against the wall but didn’t entirely go down. The second, having seen the power of the bedpan and coveting it for himself, grabbed the rim while Jake was gloating over his first non-pixelated battle victory. The other man was much smaller than Jake, but had terrifying strength, and Jake found his grip on the poopy Excalibur slipping. With one more yank the other man had it, but to Jake’s surprise he didn’t try to wield it on Jake; instead he turned and began bonking the other intruders on the head with it, swinging rhythmically back and forth with his whole upper body: he looked like he was playing a very sad game of charades in which he’d drawn the phrase “drunken elephant.”
Jake hoped against hope that somehow this one was the good one, the one he’d misjudged and who was actually on he and Max’s side.
He wasn’t.
He knocked the others over the head with the pan until they were all in a pile in the hall, then turned back to Jake. There was no triumphant smile or villainous gloating, merely a look in his eye like a starving pit bull who suddenly had the Dog Chow factory all to himself.
He advanced on Jake who cast around, looking for anything with which to fend off an attack. He glanced at Max. Her eyes kept darting back and forth between Jake and the other man, unbelievably calm. Finally, her gaze rested on him and she appeared to decide something.
Jake threw himself backward in shock as she leapt out of the bed, launching herself over the foot of it and straight into the other man. They rolled onto the floor and in the glimpses Jake got as they scratched and hit one another, he saw that Max’s gaze had gone blank again. The other man rolled Max onto her back slammed a fist over and over into Max’s face. Jake tried to grab him and pull him off his friend, but he was too strong, and Jake just wound up flying across the room and crashing into Max’s IV cart.
Dazed, he struggled to his feet just in time to see Max pin the other man and, to his dismay, take a bite out of his shoulder. A big one. Max looked up at Jake menacingly and nothing of her that he recognized was behind those dead blank eyes.
Terrified, Jake said weakly, “Braised beef?”