Dr. Sharon Leesburg had delivered babies during hurricanes, blackouts, and one unforgettable tropical storm that flooded half the parking garage and forced staff to ferry patients through standing water on rolling office chairs.
She had never seen Memorial Health like this.
The hospital was enormous—multiple towers, multiple specialties, corridors stacked and braided into one another like veins—but standing on the first floor, it felt suddenly compressed. Like the building had inhaled and forgotten how to breathe back out.
The generators had been running for hours. Long enough that the hum stopped blending into the background and started registering as something else entirely.
Not reassurance.
A warning.
The vibration traveled up through the soles of her shoes, into her calves, into her ribs. Everything depended on machinery that was never designed to carry a whole city on its back.
Sharon stood just outside the cafeteria, a lunch tray balanced uselessly in her hands.
She'd promised herself ten minutes. Ten minutes to sit, sip water, remind her body she was still a person and not just a pair of hands.
She wasn't hungry.
The smell hit her before she even stepped forward.
Hospitals always smelled like something—antiseptic, plastic, faint ozone from electronics—but layered over it now was a heavier stink: sweat soaked into fabric, damp hair, dirt tracked in from outside.
And then the sharp edge: metallic, thick, unmistakable.
Blood. Too much blood.
Footprints streaked the tile in every direction, overlapping, smeared. Some were bare. Some were socked. Some looked like someone had slid, scrambling for traction, leaving dark crescent streaks where heels dug in. There were handprints on the wall—fingertips dragged downward like a person had tried to stand and couldn't.
Her instincts stirred, cold and automatic.
This is a surge.
But not the kind I trained for.
The cafeteria looked wrong, like it had been interrupted mid-breath. Chairs overturned. Food trays littered the floor untouched. A soda machine gurgled helplessly, sticky syrup pooling beneath it and spreading in a slow glossy lake. Someone had stepped through it. The sticky trail carried all the way into the hallway, where it mixed with darker streaks that weren't soda.
Staff lined the walls—some standing, some sitting on the floor with their backs against concrete, staring at nothing. A nurse's scrub top was ripped at the shoulder, dried blood darkening the fabric. Another woman was shaking so hard her badge clicked against her chest.
No one was eating.
"Dr. Leesburg."
Sharon turned.
Dr. Kim Alvarez stood near the corridor that led deeper into Emergency Services. His scrubs were wrinkled, his face drawn tight. His eyes were rimmed red like he'd been rubbing them with dirty hands for hours. He looked like a man who'd been awake too long and had seen something he couldn't unsee.
"Kim," she said. "What's happening?"
He exhaled through his nose, a sound that was half laugh and half warning. "Depends how honest you want me to be."
"Try me."
"We're past capacity," he said. "And past protocol."
He stepped aside so she could see.
The first-floor corridor into ER was unrecognizable.
Stretchers lined both walls, far more than overflow policy allowed. Patients lay shoulder-to-shoulder. IV poles jammed together so tightly the tubing tangled like vines. Monitors beeped out of rhythm, alarms chiming uselessly because nobody could tell which crisis was the loudest. Blood soaked through sheets in ugly rust-colored blooms. Someone's shoes lay on the floor beside a gurney, laces still tied, toes pointed inward like the person had stepped out of them and never came back.
Some patients groaned.
Others stared straight up at the ceiling, eyes glassy, lips moving silently.
Police officers stood posted every few yards.
That alone tightened Sharon's chest.
Several patients were restrained—not with hospital equipment, but with handcuffs clipped to bed rails. One man strained against them, neck muscles corded, jaw clenched so hard his face trembled.
His eyes weren't darting.
They were fixed.
Focused.
"What are these cases?" Sharon asked quietly.
Kim lowered his voice. "They're calling them bite victims."
The phrase landed wrong, like a joke you didn't get and didn't want explained.
"Animal?" she asked.
Kim shook his head once. "No."
Before she could ask anything else, a sharp shout erupted near intake.
A nurse screamed.
A chair toppled and skidded across tile, a loud scrape that cut through the alarms like a blade.
A man lunged forward with startling force, slamming into a metal supply cart and sending bandage packs and syringes clattering. Two officers rushed him, shouting commands, hands gripping his arms as he twisted violently—far stronger than his lean frame should've allowed.
"Sir, calm down!" one officer barked.
The man didn't shout back.
He snarled.
Not panic. Not confusion.
A low, guttural sound that came from somewhere deep, like his throat had forgotten human language.
It crawled under Sharon's skin.
She took an involuntary step back.
The man ignored pain as an officer tightened his grip. Ignored shouted commands. Ignored everything except the nurse who'd stumbled backward in front of him.
His eyes tracked her with hungry precision.
He lunged again.
The nurse lost her footing.
Sharon moved without thinking. "Get her back!" she ordered, voice sharp enough to cut.
The officer hesitated—then obeyed, yanking the nurse away just as the man was forced down onto a stretcher, cuffs rattling as he thrashed.
He didn't stop.
Didn't slow.
Didn't even blink as blood—his own or someone else's—smeared his mouth.
His teeth snapped at air, fast and wet.
Sharon's pulse thundered.
"Dr. Leesburg!"
She turned.
Angela Freeman—senior nurse from Women's Services—pushed through the crowd. Angela's scrubs were streaked with grime and something dark. Her mask hung loose around her neck. Her hair had escaped its clip, sweat flattening curls to her temples.
"Angela," Sharon said. "What's going on?"
Angela's eyes were too wide, too bright. "We don't even know anymore. People are just… showing up."
"Ambulances?"
"Some," Angela said. "But most are driving themselves. The outage knocked out 9-1-1. No dispatch. No screening. If they can move, they come."
So the hospital had become the magnet. The last place people ran when they didn't know where else to go.
Sharon felt the weight settle in her chest.
"So ER is the first stop."
"And the last," Angela said quietly.
A scream echoed farther down the corridor—sharp, terrified—and cut off mid-sound like someone had put a hand over a mouth.
Sharon's grip tightened on the lunch tray until her knuckles ached.
The cafeteria behind them erupted into shouting. Someone yelled for security. Someone else cried. A monitor alarm blared, then stopped.
Sharon's mind didn't go to administrative checklists. Didn't go to protocols.
It went straight to her floor.
Labor and Delivery.
Postpartum.
Newborns.
Women in active labor with bodies already at the edge of endurance. Families clustered close, trusting the hospital to be a safe place.
Her children flashed through her mind without permission—Tally's stubborn chin, Justin's steady voice, Ella Belle's small hand curled around her finger.
Lord, she prayed silently, please let them be safe.
Another crash sounded—glass rattling somewhere to the left.
Sharon straightened. "We need to get upstairs."
Angela stared at her. "Sharon—"
"If this spreads," Sharon said, voice firm, "we cannot let it reach Women's Services."
Kim's jaw tightened. "You think this is spreading?"
Sharon met his eyes. "I know it is."
Another scream tore through ER.
This one closer.
A patient tore free of a nurse's grip and slammed into a man in scrubs. The man fell hard and slid across the tile, leaving a smear of blood behind him like a paintbrush dragged too fast. The patient followed instantly, dropping on him with full body weight.
Hands clawed at his chest.
The patient's mouth opened—
and Sharon heard the sound when teeth met flesh.
Not a bite like a dog.
A ripping, grinding tear.
The man screamed. It turned to a choking gargle as blood filled his mouth. His hands slapped weakly at the attacker's shoulders, slipping on slick fabric.
Police rushed in, weapons raised but hesitant, and Sharon watched—horrified—how long it took them to act. The patient didn't stop when struck. Didn't stop when pulled. Didn't stop until multiple bodies forced him down and someone finally jammed a knee into his spine hard enough to make his ribs creak.
Still the patient strained, teeth snapping at air.
That was the moment.
Not fear.
Recognition.
This wasn't an illness she could diagnose.
This wasn't something she could fix.
Angela's voice shook. "Sharon… we need to go. Now."
Sharon nodded once.
She turned toward the stairwell.
Not the elevators.
Never the elevators.
She moved quickly but deliberately, cutting through corridors as alarms blared and voices overlapped. Angela stayed at her side. Two more nurses fell in behind—Patrice Holloway from postpartum, and Claire Han, younger, pale, jaw clenched like she was biting back a scream.
A pregnant woman stepped into Sharon's path, clutching her partner's arm. "Doctor," she said, voice shaking. "Please—what's happening?"
Sharon stopped.
This mattered.
"I don't know everything yet," she said honestly. "But I know we are safer upstairs. If you can walk, come with us."
The woman didn't hesitate. Others overheard.
A man wrapped his arm around his wife. "We're with you."
A pediatric resident joined. Then another nurse. A family pushing a wheelchair.
Sharon didn't stop them.
Leadership wasn't about shouting.
It was about moving first.
Behind them, ER descended into louder chaos—carts clattering, someone sobbing, a security radio squawking uselessly.
Ahead—
the stairwell door waited.
It was only twenty yards away.
It might as well have been miles.
The corridor between ER and the stairwell had turned into a bottleneck. Bodies pressed too close. People moved in opposite directions—some trying to flee, others pushing deeper inside as if the building itself might protect them. Sharon felt it immediately: the heat, the panic, the way fear makes adults act like children.
Something slammed against metal behind them.
Once.
Twice.
The sound wasn't random.
It was deliberate.
"Don't stop," Sharon said, voice steady even as her pulse raced. "Eyes forward. Stay together."
Angela stayed tight on her left. Patrice kept a hand on the shoulder of a pregnant woman whose breathing had gone shallow. Claire hovered near the wheelchair, knuckles white as she helped steer it.
A man stumbled out of an exam room ahead, blood smeared across his sleeve and down to his wrist like he'd plunged his hand into a bucket.
"They locked the doors," he said wildly. "They locked us in with them!"
Before Sharon could respond, a crash erupted behind him.
A glass panel shattered.
People screamed.
The man spun—
and something hit him hard from behind, knocking him flat.
Sharon saw it in sharp, ugly flashes.
A body moving too fast.
A mouth open too wide.
Hands clutching, not pushing away—pulling closer.
The man screamed once, then the sound broke off into wet choking as teeth sank in. Sharon saw the attacker's jaw working, saw a strip of skin stretch and snap, saw blood spray across the tile in an arc.
"MOVE!" Angela shouted.
The crowd surged.
Someone fell.
Someone tripped over them.
Sharon grabbed the arm of the woman nearest her and yanked her forward. Her shoulder burned. Her legs felt suddenly too heavy. Adrenaline took over like a switch.
This wasn't a hospital emergency.
This was collapse.
A police officer fired a warning shot into the ceiling.
The crack was deafening.
The thing on the floor didn't flinch. Not even a blink. It just kept eating, head dipping and lifting, dipping and lifting, like a starving animal at a bowl.
That detail hit Sharon harder than the blood.
No pain response.
No fear response.
Only hunger.
"STAIRS!" someone screamed.
They reached the stairwell just as another patient burst free from a gurney, IV pole clattering. A nurse tried to intervene and was thrown aside with terrifying ease. Her body slammed into the wall hard enough that her head bounced.
Sharon didn't hesitate.
She shoved the stairwell door open and motioned everyone through. "Go! Go now!"
Angela helped haul the wheelchair inside. Patrice practically carried one woman the last few steps. Claire slammed the door behind them—
just as something hit it from the other side.
The impact rattled the frame.
A low moan seeped through the seams, followed by dragging nails on metal, a sound like someone scraping a fork down a plate.
Someone sobbed.
The stairwell smelled like dust and old concrete, almost comforting compared to the warm stink of blood and bodies below. Emergency lights flickered, casting long shadows.
"Up," Sharon said. "We keep moving."
They climbed.
Footsteps echoed too loudly. Sharon could hear her own breathing now, harsh and fast. Her heart pounded like it wanted out.
Halfway up the first flight, the door below slammed again.
Once.
Twice.
Then a third time—harder.
Something wet thumped against it, like a body thrown.
A slow slide followed, leaving a squeal down the metal on the other side.
The pregnant woman in front of Sharon whimpered.
"Don't look back," Sharon said gently, hand firm at her elbow. "Just keep going."
In the back of her mind, her faith whispered, steady and quiet.
I will walk through the valley—
She didn't finish the verse.
She didn't have time.
They reached the next landing.
The stairwell door below gave a sharp metallic screech.
Angela gasped. "It's bending."
Sharon felt fear bloom fully now—not panic, but a cold clarity.
"We don't stop," she said. "Not until we reach our floor."
A man further up stumbled, clutching the railing. "My wife—she can't—"
"I've got her," Patrice said, already moving. No hesitation. No drama. Just action.
Sharon admired her in that moment. The steadiness. The refusal to fall apart.
The door below burst inward.
Metal tore. Glass cracked.
A shape surged through the opening with a moan that turned into a hungry, wet sound.
Claire let out a sob.
Sharon snapped her gaze to her. "Claire. Look at me."
Claire froze.
"You are doing exactly what you need to do," Sharon said. "Stay with us."
They climbed faster.
By the time they reached the fourth-floor landing—the one that led toward Women's Services—Sharon's legs burned and her lungs felt raw.
The door ahead stood intact.
Blessedly intact.
She shoved it open.
The hallway beyond was quieter.
Not calm.
Contained.
Staff turned toward them in shock as the group spilled out—patients, family members, a wheelchair, faces streaked with sweat and tears and—on one nurse's forearm—blood that was not hers.
"What happened?" someone shouted.
Sharon didn't stop moving. "Lock the doors," she said. "Now."
Angela ran ahead, shouting orders. Patrice guided patients into rooms. Claire sagged against the wall for half a second, then shoved herself upright and moved again.
Sharon turned back as the stairwell door rattled violently behind them.
Hands slapped against metal.
Fists.
Bodies.
The sound rose into a chorus.
She slammed the door shut and helped Officer Daniels—who appeared with a dead radio in his hand—jam a crash cart against it.
"It won't hold forever," he said grimly.
"It doesn't have to," Sharon replied. "Just long enough."
She stepped back, chest heaving, and looked at the faces around her.
Nurses.
Doctors.
Patients.
Family members.
All staring at her like she had answers.
Her phone buzzed weakly in her pocket.
Hope flared—sharp enough to hurt.
She pulled it out.
No service.
The screen was blank except for the time.
Tally. Justin. Ella Belle.
Her throat tightened.
She closed her eyes for one brief second.
Then she opened them and became what the room needed.
"Listen to me," Sharon said, voice carrying. "What's happening downstairs is not under control. We cannot assume help is coming. From this moment on, this floor is a safe zone."
Murmurs rippled.
"No one leaves," she continued. "No one enters. We barricade every access point. Interior rooms only. Blinds closed. Lights low."
Someone whispered, "What are those people?"
Sharon didn't answer directly.
She didn't need to.
"They are no longer patients," she said carefully. "And we cannot help them without risking everyone here."
The banging on the stairwell door intensified.
Metal screamed.
Someone cried out.
Sharon didn't move.
This was her floor.
Her people.
Her responsibility.
And as the hospital shuddered beneath them—sirens fading, screams rising, the wet animal sounds of feeding echoing from below—Dr. Sharon Leesburg understood with absolute certainty:
She would not abandon her patients.
Not today.
Not ever.
And whatever this new world demanded of her—
she would meet it head-on.