Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 82: I Had Lost My Mind

Chapter 82: I Had Lost My Mind

My breath was coming out in pants, my lungs burning as I continued to run to my second bunker.

The tunnel was dark, and I didn’t bother to grab a flashlight when I ran. Luckily for me, it was also a straight line from the first bunker to the second, so I didn’t really need to see.

That was when I ran face-first into the wall in front of me.

My momentum caused me to fall back on my ass, my chest hurting like a son of a bitch, but I needed to get up. I needed to get to safety.

Coming to my feet, my legs like jelly, I stuck my arms out, trying to find the door in front of me.

I felt the cold metal of the door and slid my hands around as I tried to find the hatch wheel in the darkness.

Finding it, I quickly started to spin in.

The door let out a soft groan in protest as I pulled it open, and I prayed that the zombies couldn’t hear it.

Then again, with how loud my heart was pounding, it wouldn’t be the door giving away my position.

Slipping through the small space between the door and the frame, I quickly turned around and shut it, spinning the wheel again until it was closed.

I turned around and sank down to the floor, my back resting against the cold metal.

No, I couldn’t stop. I still need to get to the medical bunker. Cheng Bo Jing said that I needed to get as many walls as possible between me and the primary bunker, and that meant I needed to keep going.

I looked around the room in front of me. It was a good sized one with floor to ceiling shelves containing everything I could get my hands on that was non-perishable.

There were boxes upon boxes of MREs that Fan Teng Fei got me. He thought it was for my office at the hospital since I had once told him that the MREs tasted better than the hospital food, but I saved them up and brought them out here once a month.

In fact, all the guys had a hand in setting up the different bunkers; they just didn’t know about it.

I let out a long string of curse words in my head as I realized that I hadn’t taken any of my go bags.

I wanted something to be able to jam into the wheel like I did to the hospital doors, but I didn’t have that wheel lock on me right now.

In one corner was a mop and a broom. That would have to do.

Taking the mop, I put it through the wheel, letting the ends touch the door frame. I did the same on the opposite side with the broom, effectively creating an "X".

I doubted that would hold them off for long, seeing as they were strong enough to break a metal chain, but it would give me a few minutes to get away.

Fuck. I was feeling like a blond in a horror movie. With all my luck, I would be going through all this just to have the zombie killer pop up right behind me.

I quickly looked over my shoulder. Nope, no killers.

I needed to get a grip.

"Keep going!" yelled Bai Long Qiang as he popped into the food bunker. "There are five of them going through the bunker. The beer is making it hard for them to be able to smell you, but I don’t know how long it will last."

His words got me moving again, and I went to the wall holding about 250 cans of condensed soup. Finding the latch down low and behind one of the cans, I quickly pulled it, opening yet another hidden door.

I looked around the room one last time, trying to think if there was something I could do about my scent in this room.

I found a few bottles of concentrated all-purpose cleaner, one that smelled like fake lemons and pine trees, and I rushed to grab it.

Unscrewing the top, I started to pour it all over the floor of the bunker.

The liquid wouldn’t be able to contaminate my food, but the smell was so strong that my eyes were watering.

Sending up a quick prayer to whoever was listening, I went back to the hidden door and slipped inside that tunnel, closing the hatch behind me.

This tunnel was not as easy as the other one was. This one winded around like a snake, and if I ran through here, I would be running into a wall every few feet.

Maybe I should have invested in lighting in these tunnels, but that was something I would have to figure out next time. When I wasn’t running for my life.

I blindly reached out my right hand and felt the rough texture of the cinderblock wall.

Each tunnel was surrounded by the same metals that coated the bunkers themselves, but unlike the bunkers, I didn’t really bother making the tunnels nice.

I started to walk forward as quickly as I dared, keeping the tips of my fingers along the wall.

It felt like it took forever to get to the medical bunker. My legs were burning with how much I put them through, but I couldn’t stop now.

"Almost there, Kitten. You are doing so good," whispered Cheng Bo Jing. I was too tired to be startled, but that didn’t mean that a warm feeling didn’t flow through me.

They might be nothing more than voices and hallucinations that my brain came up with as a way to not be alone, but that didn’t take away from the way that the guys made me feel.

"I am so tired," I complained, my voice nothing more than the slightest whisper.

"I know, Kitten, I know. But you are doing great. You are almost there. I can see the door a few feet away. Just a bit longer, and then you can collapse. Okay?"

I nodded my head, wanting to save my breath.

The lactic acid in my legs made it next to impossible to put one foot in front of the other, but I still moved forward.

I wonder if lactic acid would make me taste worse to the zombie or if it was like adding lemon to a marinade.

Yup, it was official. I had lost my mind.