Mixed Feelings

Dark, it's all dark. Am I dead? I can't be...I, I know I'm alive, I can feel it...Wait, what's that? It's so bright, so warm...it must be her, she saved me, she must have…

"A-Ada?" Derek mutters as he starts to open his eyes, everything all blurry and moving around, a figure standing to his right. As he recovers from the grogginess everything starts to come into focus and he realizes that the person is Page, a bit wide-eyed and worried. Derek looks around to find himself in a patience room of a hospital of some kind.

"Where am I? Where's my-" Derek's questions are interrupted by a sharp stabbing pain in his back as he tries to sit up.

"Hey, easy," Page says as she presses a gentle hand on his shoulder and getting him to lay back down, "We were close to a hospital after getting shoved into the bar by the bull. I brought you here,"

Derek just stares at her with a look of utter confusion, disbelief, and distrust.

She can't be serious, she must have some other motive.

"...Why?" He finally asks.

"Why, what?"

"Why did you, bring me here?" He asks with winded breath.

"Well, you jumped between me and the bull's horns, so this was the least I could do to thank you,"

Derek's expression changes hearing her response, becoming a bit softer and surprised. Derek goes to push himself up again, and manages to sit up.

"How long have I been out?" He asks as he turns to the left, seeing his stuff on the nightstand.

"Not more than a few minutes, actually," As Derek turns his body to the left and gets off the bed Page is surprised by how little blood is on the bandages, barely any blood stains them.

"Have you been standing there this whole time?" Derek asks as he puts his shirt and chest holster on.

"No, I got a key to lock the door so I could leave you," Derek stops putting his holster on for a moment to her response before continuing.

"...Then why did you come back?"

"Well I have no reliable way out of here," Derek reaches for his rifle, "And seeing your rifle I kind of figured that you were the one shooting at us back in the market," Derek once more pauses as he holds the rifle in his hands before he continues to drape the strap over his shoulder, "I thought you might have the grapple thing you used to swing over the street,"

I knew it, of course she was just using me for something.

"And what if I do?"

"Well I was hoping to just take it while you were asleep, but now you're awake...So I guess I have no choice but to ask for your help,"

"Help?" He asks, looking at her with a baffled and irritated expression as he walks towards her, "You know I'm the one who shot at you in the market, yet you're asking for my help?"

"Yes," She replies bluntly, standing her ground, "And I also know who you are, Derek Clifford Simmons, ex-leader of the Family, and responsible for the bio-terrorist attack at Tall Oaks, resulting in the death of the president. I read the reports of the China incident and even a couple more that I wasn't supposed to,"

Derek is left at a loss for words.

"But none of that really matters at the moment since I need to travel across a city full of zombies, and get to the shipping yard. So, will you help me?"

What on earth could she possibly want from me? She knows about my past, yet she asks for help...I guess I can help her for now and when I get a chance, leave her to die so my mission can be over with.

"...Sure,"

"Great," She replies with a slight smile, her focused expression lighting up a bit, "Let's get moving then, but, take it slow, and be careful. These zombies seem to always have their own unique quirks,"

Page heads for the door and goes to open it, but notices Derek is just standing there.

"Simmons? Do you need a second to rest?"

"N-No, I'm fine," He says as he walks up to the door.

Page opens the door, glancing out into the hallway before opening the door all the way and exiting the room, Derek following. Guns drawn, the two turn left and walk further into the hospital. As they reach the end of the hall they stop at the sound of something falling over. They turn around to see a zombie walking out from the reception room, it's the doctor Page stumbled upon. Derek grabs his pistol and shoots it, hitting it in the head. The zombie falls to the floor with an echoed thud. Derek lowers his gun as the two of them stare at the zombie to make sure it stays dead. No movement.

The two turn back around and walk into a large lobby, a pair of sliding glass doors are to their left leading to a small entrance room with another pair of sliding doors that lead out to what looks like a garden. In front of them is another hall going deeper into the hospital. To the right are some stairs, and near the stairs is another hall. Some tables are placed to the right of the stairs with some papers and laptops that have been thrown around on the ground. Blood trails near the tables trail up to the stairs.

"Let's go out there real quick, I need to contact-" Page gets interrupted when they someone moaning behind them. They turn around to the see the zombie starting to rise from the ground, their head fully green and the bullet hole gone.

"Guess the first one didn't do the trick," Derek says irritably as he brings up his gun.

"Wait, don't-!" Page tries to warn him before he shoots the zombie in the head again. The zombie steps back from the impact, its head leaning back a bit. As its head comes back forward, it starts to shake.

"What the-" Derke mutters to himself as the head suddenly starts to rip open, revealing a large red sack with some eye around it. tentacles emerge from under the head, one tipped with a sharp bone, the other with a round blobby thing that looks like a plastic bag filled with blood. Derek aims to shoot it again but Page lowers his arms.

"Come on, let's head outside, we can deal with it later," Derek glances at the thing before looking back at her. With a sigh of annoyance, he lowers his gun and the two head out into the garden area. As they exit the hospital Page's radio starts to pick up a signal.

"Pa...P...ge? Page? You there?" Jacob's voice asks.

"I'm here," Page says as she picks up her radio.

"I forgot that hospitals blocked radio waves. How you holding up?"

"I'm fine, I'm in some sort of garden that's part of the hospital,"

"That place is walled off from the streets, so enjoy the fresh air while you can. How's the injured person, did they turn?" Page glances at Derek who looks away, "He's fine, there was a nurse who helped me, but she had been bit, and I had to take her out,"

"Oh, so it was a guy. He must be your type if you were so worried about him,"

"That's not why I helped him!" Page retaliates, "He was severely injured and in need of help, you would have done the same, wouldn't you?"

"...Sure," Jacob replies with an unconvincing tone, "So are you going to stay at the hospital till they recover or something? I'm almost at the shipping yard already, and it's not looking too good,"

"Well they've recovered enough to move, I'm bringing them with me,"

"Another person to deal with, yay," Jacob says sarcastically, "If you were at the Mercy Bar than you entered the hospital from the south end, the north end is actually only a couple buildings away from the shipping yard. Head to the north end and stick to the alleys to travel between buildings and you should make it here in little over half an hour,"

"Got it, see you in half an hour then. I'll contact you again when we leave the hospital,"

"I'll be waiting,"

Page puts her radio back, and as she turns to Derek she sees the doctor zombie is just now reaching the first pair of doors.

"Let's see if there's another way back in," Page gestures for Derek to follow. Derek glances back and sees the zombie before he follows Page into the garden. Several neatly trimmed bushes make tiny little fences about three feet high, forming walkways throughout the yard. In the center is a fountain with four metal fish shooting out water towards the center where a star stands. Lights surrounded by bushes shine on the star making it appear like its glowing. Some benches are placed around, making indents in the shrub fences. A large brick wall encases the garden, providing a sturdy barrier from the rest of the city.

Walking down one of the paths, the two zigzag their way to the right side of the garden. There's nothing but just windows in the hospital walls, no doors to he found. As they start to make their way to the other side they see the doctor zombie is outside with them. Derek brings up his handgun.

"I'll just kill it and we can be on our way," He shoots it, hitting the side of its head. It stumbles to the side a bit, but continues moving towards them. Derek shoots at it again, hitting the blood sack in the middle of the head. The sack burst open, the blood spraying onto everything near it, and bursting into flames. The zombie flails about as it's body catches fire but soon succumbs to the flames and falls to the ground, meanwhile the bushes that got sprayed by the blood are now on fire. The flames start to spread along the bushes, making the paths impossible to use without being burned.

The two quickly jump over to a different path, running around the spreading flames and passing the fountain. As they reach the doors to get back inside, the flames start to engulf the garden.

"Well," Page says as they stare at the fire filled garden, "Now we know not to shoot those ones," Page sees Derek hunched over slightly as he catches his breath, "You alright?"

"Yeah," He says with slightly winded breath, "My back just feels like it's on fire," He straightens up, "Let's get moving, I wanna get out of this damn city as soon as possible,"

Page and Derek walk through the second pair of glass doors and renter the lobby. Turning left, they head down a long hall with doors on both sides, the lights halfway down the hall are all dead, a dense darkness filling in where the light can't reach. Page and Derek cautiously walk down the hallway, Page on the left and Derek on the right. They both have their guns at the ready, scanning the side they're on as their footsteps echo throughout the building. They soon reach the dark part of the hall, the flashlights on their guns being the only source of light now.

Only able to see the small cones of light in front of them, Page and Derek stand slightly closer together to distance themselves from the doors as much as possible. As they near a door on the left that's opened slightly ajar, they can hear the sound of something being eaten. The sound of teeth moving up and down as something stretchy and chewy is mashed in between them, sending chills down their spines and making Page feel a little sick to her stomach. The two glance at each other before looking towards the open door as they near it.

Only a few steps away, Page points her gun away from the door as she grabs the handle. Gently, she turns it as she slowly pushes the door close. With a soft click, the door closes, the sound of something eating now mostly gone. Page lightly raising her hand off the handle and grabs the key from her pocket. She tries to put it in the lock, but it doesn't fit. She puts the key away and the two continue down the hall, their lights soon shine on another large lobby, slightly larger than the first one connected to the garden.

As they walk into the lobby they look out the glass doors leading out to a large parking lot and see flashing red lights, along with the sound of a blaring siren. It doesn't take them long to realize that they're coming from an ambulance barreling towards the hospital with no intent to stop. It's about to crash into the hospital! Page and Derek jump back into the hallway as the ambulance breaks through the two pair of double doors, glass flying all over the lobby. Page and Derek see the ambulance fly past the hallway and drive out of site, and within seconds they hear it crash with a loud bang that seems to shake the entire building.

They hurry into the lobby to see the ambulance has crashed into the back wall of the lobby, only able to see the back side of it. The doors to the back are open, showing two dead people, one looks to have been a zombie while the other person looks to have been human, they must have both died from impact, no doubt the driver did too. They can start to smell something burning as a light starts to emit from the sides of the ambulance. The flames quickly start to spread and become larger.

Page and Derek hurry through the lobby and enter a wider hallway as smoke alarms go off. Luckily the annoying, blaring, alarm make them put their guns away to cover their ears, because soon a loud explosion back in the lobby goes off. The two notice zombies in small waiting room to the sides of the hallway starting to move around and start to make their way towards the hallway. Page and Derek uncover their ears as they run in a full on sprint before the zombies can enter and block the hallway. The whole hospital seems to have been woken up by the smoke alarms as the two continue their mad dash into another lobby. They stop when they see that the next hallway is already filled with zombies.

"Upstairs!" Derek exclaims as he waves for her to follow him. Zombies start to enter and fill up the lobby as they make it to the stairs in the back left of the room, practically skipping every other step as they hurry to the second floor. Reaching the second floor they see the hallway heading the direction they need tro go is also filled with zombies, but it's not completely blocked off. Derek grabs a flash grenade off his belt.

"Cover your eyes!" He shouts before chucking the grenade at the zombies. Page and Derek cover their eyes as the flash goes off, blinding the zombies in their way. They quickly uncover their eyes and hurry past the zombies as they recover from the flashbang. They quickly reach the end of the hall, a set of smaller stairs to their right, zombies crowding it and quickly taking notice of them. Page and Derek grab their pistols and start to unload on the zombies. Page only had two shots left in her clip, and it soon starts to just click. She quickly reloads her magazine and continues to shoot at them zombies.

They soon all fall to the ground as both Page's and Derek's clip become empty. They hurry down the stairs, not wasting precious time to reload just yet and turn right upon reaching the first floor. They burst through a door and enter a much smaller parking lot. Only a few zombies walk about the parking lot, but the street a couple yards away is full of them. The two quickly distance themselves from the hospital as a horde of zombies start to approach the door they just ran through. Page sees a gas station across the street, a wide enough gap in the mass of zombies to run to it.

They hurry towards the street and the zombies start to move in towards them, the gap slowly becoming thinner. As they run through it they can feel fingers brush against them just barely out of reach. They hurry into the gas station, Derek grabbing some movable shelves and putting them in front of the doors. Two zombies with grey skin are inside the building with them. The two quickly reload their guns and take them out with headshots. They see a hole in the ceiling, leading up to the roof.

"Can your grapple hook work with two people?" Page asks.

"No," He says as he puts his gun away and grabs his hookshot, "But I can toss it down to you after I use it," He heads over to the hole.

"Hold on, how can I-" Page gets interrupted when Derek shoots the hookshot at the ceiling, and gets pulled up through the hole and disappears out of sight.

"Hey!" Derek hears Page shout as he puts his hookshot away.

You can't be mad at me, you knew who I was and took the risk of trusting me.

"Derek?!" He hears her cry out, her voice filled with worry. "Derek!" She yells again. A couple gun shots shortly follow. He can hear the horde of zombies at the front of station as they slam against the glass, trying to get in.

They're going to break in any second, and most likely tear her apart...why should I care? …

Something in Derek forces him to grab his hookshot and drop it down into the hole, standing away from the hole and expecting her to come up. The sound of the glass breaking but no sound of the hookshot starts to concern him.

Don't tell me already-!

Derek walks to the hole, glancing down to see nothing but zombies filling the store.

"Page? Page?!" Derek calls out from the top of the roof as he looks down at the ocean of zombies anxiously.

No, no! Gosh dammit! Her and the hookshot are now both gone!

In the corner of his eye he sees something moving up towards the roof, turning he sees Page. He's filled with relief, and doesn't realize how pissed she looks.

"Page you're alright-" Derek's slapped in the face before he can finish his sentence.

"You left me, to die!" Page shouts at him as he recovers from the sudden blow. He starts to rub the side of his face she slapped.

"I dropped the hookshot for you didn't I?" He retaliates, his look of relief gone and now an expression of utter annoyance taking its place.

"Yeah, right before the zombies broke through the glass," Page walks away from Derek, looking around for some place they could go to. Page takes the hookshot out of the bag and, examining it for a second before walking up to the side of the building. She aims the hookshot at a nearby parking garage. Derek huries over to her.

"Hey, what are you-?" She shoots it, and pulls the trigger. She goes flying upward towards the building and is pulled into the third story level of the parking garage, disappearing out of sight.

Great, now I'm stranded on a gas station in the middle of a zombie infested city. Just great!

However, Page soon reappears, looking down at him. He sees her chuck something towards him and his hookshot lands mere inches from his feet. Derek picks it up, looking at the hookshot, and glancing up at Page.

She could have left me to die after I did that exact thing, but she didn't...why?! I don't understand! Why didn't I just let her die?!

Derek shoots the parking garage, and soon comes flying towards it. He lands on the third floor, Page a couple feet away.

"...Thanks," Derek says hesitantly as he gets up and puts it back in its holster.

"Try and leave me again, and I'm shooting you," Page warns before she starts walking, "Now come on, we need to go before the bull finds out where we are,"

I can't tell if she's serious or not, especially after giving me back my hookshot...did my thank you sound sarcastic?

"Jacob, you there?"

"Yeah. I'm at the entrance gate to the shipping yard, you two almost here or what?"

"We're in a parking garage right next to a gas station that's across the street from the hospital,"

"Stand on the side near the road, what level are you on?"

"The third one," Page states as she walks to the side of the building looking over the street, Derek following. She sees a large gate not too far away down the street, a lone figure standing near it.

"There you are," Jacob replies, "I see ya now...wait, Derek's the guy who saved your life?"

"What?"

"You said you helped someone cause they saved your life, but you didn't tell me it was Derek,"

"Uh, yeah…" She glances at Derek before looking back down at the gate, "Look, that's not super important right now. The bull is at the gas station, do you think I could make it there in a car?"

"The last thing we need is the bull to follow us to the shipping yard. If you can make down to the street I'm sure you can run here, you two aren't that far and most of the zombies seem to be heading towards the hospital,"

"Alright, I'll see you in a bit," She puts her radio back on her belt, "Come on," Page says before she heads for some stairs on the far right of the floor. Luckily there aren't many zombies so they're able to make it to the stairs with ease. They hurry down the stairs and reach the first floor in seconds. Heading onto the street they hurry to the large gate where Jacob is. It's only a couple yards away. They make it halfway to the gate when they hear the sound of a bull far behind them.

Glancing behind them they see the bull has already started stampeding towards them. They look back towards the gate and see Jacob is already pulling the gate open. Soon there's enough space to run through.

"Come on! Hurry!" He shouts as he waves an arm at them. They reach the gate, the bull already halfway there. As soon as Page and Derek run into the shipping yard all three of them slide the gate shut and quickly move to the side of it. They all have their guns drawn as they wait for the bull to reach the gate. There's a loud bang as the gate becomes partly dented in the middle. There here the bull snort a bit and than nothing. Pure silence. They all finally have a moment to breath when they hear the bull start to walk away, then it runs off, probably to go attack more zombies.

As they all relax a bit, they hear helicopter blades whirling through the air. They turn towards the docked ships to see a helicopter with the Terrasave logo on it landing on one of them. It's filled with people in full tactical vests, wearing gas masks, and machine guns at the ready.