Investigating Fulci Hospital

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 14, Post Number 333

-Fulci Outskirts, midnight-

It had been a few days since Diana's revival by Selene and she was still looking for clues as to who hired the black-clad soldiers who had nearly given her fatal lead poisoning outside Silent Cemetery when she instead got a job offer from her longtime client Mister Burke. At first Diana thought that it was a sick joke or another setup, but she soon learned that the offer was the real deal and accepted it. Mister Burke was a good client who always paid on time and in full, so even though the time that the suspected vampire Cassandra would call her back to the temple to go into the Dark Mistress' portal was nigh, Diana would take the job.

Wearing a new navy blue long-sleeved shirt and navy blue cargo pants with black boots, Diana also brought along the silver bracelet she had gotten from the ancient temple on the hill overlooking Haunted Village. While there were no special locks it could open in Fulci, she derived a certain comfort from wearing it. Its engraved message of "Those who walk the path of righteousness shall never fall." assured Diana that there might still be hope for her, that maybe one day she could leave her current lifestyle behind and do the right thing because she wanted to, not because of a guilty conscience, high pay, or talking with some woman who may or may not have been a hallucination.

While the bracelet protected her soul, Diana covered her bases by bringing Saint Sinner Valentine along to protect her body. She had been warned about somewhat intelligent "leader zombies" by Mister Burke and had brought the weapon along because of its special ammunition; she was not sure if she would need Armor-Piercing Rounds against the special zombies. She was also not sure what else could be prowling the streets of Fulci, so having different types of ammunition available on demand was never a bad thing. She also brought her SHG-IV smart glasses to both point out threats and communicate with Ami, whom she had bought a high-quality wireless headset to facilitate communication since the SHG-IV microphone was compatible with all standard wireless headsets. Finally, Diana had brought Ami with her mostly as an escape plan should the mission go south but also as air support should the opportunity present itself.

Before she walked into the town Diana took a moment to remember her objective.

Mister Burke had sent her to Fulci to search Fulci Hospital for enemies and clear it out for possible reclamation. The town's zombies were to be eliminated on sight. Any scavengers she encountered were to be dealt with at her discretion. While Mister Burke preferred that she not kill any of them, he made it quite clear that there would be no penalty should Diana have to kill some in self-defense. Thankfully Saint Sinner Valentine had less-than-lethal ammunition, so Diana had a relatively humane way of incapacitating scavengers that she did not want to kill.

However, after her recent near-death experience, Diana kept in mind that she might be quicker to react to threats with lethal force as the first and best option for self-preservation. She would have to do her best to keep that impulse under control. Up until now she had made it a point to avoid indiscriminate killing for a mix of practical reasons and personal reasons.

First, her other name was Stiletto, not Claymore. She was a precise weapon, not an overt weapon. Second, Diana was in enemy territory with all the zombies and who knew what else roaming the streets without deliberately antagonizing the scavengers. Killing scavengers on sight would eliminate any chance of there being a "live and let live" arrangement with any of them who might be receptive to such an agreement. Third, her objective was to search the hospital and clear it out, not engage in needless firefights with other humans.

After that session of patting herself on the back, Diana then put on the SHG-IV smart glasses and powered them on to do a comms check.

"Can you hear me?" Diana asked Ami. Ami flashed a thumbs-up.

"Loud and clear. Lemme try it while flying!" Ami said, taking off before Diana could respond. About a minute later Ami spoke over the headset.

"I'm about 15 meters up. Can you hear me down there?" Ami asked Diana. The blonde was pleasantly surprised to hear Ami's voice with clarity like the winged android was standing beside her.

"Loud and clear." Diana replied laconically. She was glad that she had invested in the headset since now the pair could communicate in an instant, facilitating air support or swift relocation to another place should things on the ground get too dicey for the huntress' liking. With her air support airborne and their communication link working as it should, Diana entered Fulci with Saint Sinner Valentine loaded with normal ammunition.

-Inside Fulci-

Diana immediately turned left at the familiar intersection, ignoring a gaggle of zombies shambling in the distance because at 400 meters away they were no threat to her. She proceeded left down the main street and followed the path that she had taken to the office building she had explored on a job she had taken on Mister Burke's behalf months ago. While walking down the street she looked around for zombies that posed a more immediate threat to her and did not see any, so Diana kept walking and soon passed by the sporting goods store from months ago.

Diana passed through the intersection and kept walking towards the office building, pausing when she noticed a single zombie in a tattered paramedic uniform standing roughly ten meters outside the office building. Diana set down Saint Sinner Valentine and brought out Silent Hunter for a suppressed long-distance attack. She dropped to one knee and took careful aim, then gently squeezed the trigger, dropping the zombie with a shot through the left temple. She dispelled Silent Hunter, retrieved Saint Sinner Valentine, and continued towards the office building to get her bearings.

According to Mister Burke, the quickest way to get to the hospital was to go down Savini Street until she reached Fulci Bank, then take a left onto Craven Avenue and follow it to its end. Diana looked up at the street sign and saw that Savini Street was straight ahead of her current position. She took a few moments to catch her breath, then brought Saint Sinner Valentine into a ready position and held it as she carefully approached the street lined with abandoned vehicles.

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-On Savini Street-

Diana walked down Savini Street with Saint Sinner Valentine at the ready and noticed something unusual. Most of the undead she saw had already been killed by blunt force trauma to the head, but there were a few undead who had been killed by an edged weapon driven through the head. Diana wondered if Mister Burke had employed someone else to make a reconnaissance run to the hospital before calling the huntress in to actually investigate the hospital. If that was the case, that would explain how he knew about the "leader zombies" that were said to be roaming Fulci. Diana did not mind him using another contractor from time to time because Mister Burke was a busy man who had to get things done within a certain timeframe.

"Ami, fly over Savini Street for me. Point out any undead that you see." Diana spoke into the SHG-IV headset. She saw a flash of brown hair and white with green overhead as Ami zoomed ahead of her.

"On it!" Ami said. Diana moved at a slower pace to give herself time to react to anything that her eye in the sky saw. Ami flew directly over Savini Street and flew until she almost disappeared from view, then banked left and flew back towards Diana without reacting to anything she saw along the way. Soon Diana heard Ami report on what she had seen.

"I'm not seeing any living zombies on Savini Street, not until you reach the four-way stop near Fulci Bank. There's some on Savini Street going north, but they're about 225 meters away and don't know you're here. Unless you really want to get rid of 'em I wouldn't waste the time and effort, but that's just me." Ami reported to the huntress. Diana was glad to hear that the zombies were unaware of her presence and were so far away that engaging them was optional. She opted not to engage them for the time being and kept moving forward towards the end of Savini Street. Once at the end she would stop outside Fulci Bank to take a quick break, then turn left onto Craven Avenue and head for the hospital.

After roughly five minutes of walking at a brisk pace Diana reached the end of Savini Street and looked for Fulci Bank. She saw it in the form of a building with neoclassical architecture and a set of wood and glass double doors that had been smashed in by something; there were no tire marks on the pavement, so the use of a vehicle could be safely ruled out. Her next guess was that a lot of people battered the door with heavy objects until it gave way. She had no solid idea how the doors were breached and she did not have the time or the inclination to determine how. The huntress saw a soft yellow glow coming from within Fulci Bank that was provided by globe lanterns.

Diana's mission did not involve going into the bank, she would not worry too much about what lurked inside. Her focus was on getting to the hospital and getting inside of it in one piece. Diana faced the open bank doors and took a few minutes to catch her breath as Ami flew overhead in a widening circle to scope out the area for any threats her mistress needed to be aware of. There was radio silence on Ami's end, so there was presumably nothing to report.

Diana "rested" for about five minutes before turning away from the bank and finding the Craven Avenue sign on a lamppost to the right of her current position. Mister Burke was right about Craven Avenue being to the left of the bank. Having found where she needed to go, Diana quickly crossed the quiet four-way stop and got onto the street that she needed to be on in order to get to the hospital. Ami followed overhead and the pair continued their trek through a zombie-infested city.

-On Craven Avenue-

Diana kept Saint Sinner Valentine at the ready as she walked down Craven Avenue. Unlike on Savini Street there were no abandoned vehicles here, which meant that there was nowhere for the zombies to hide and wait in ambush for her. There was also no cover for the huntress to use should she get into a fight with zombies or scavengers, but it was what it was. Diana decided to call on Ami to perform another reconnaissance run ahead of her so that she knew what to expect.

"Fly ahead of me. Let me know what is on Craven Avenue." Diana ordered.

"Got it!" Ami said before zooming ahead of Diana to get the lay of the land. Again Diana slowed down to let Ami do her job and to have time to react to any unexpected surprises. The huntress continued at a slow pace and about three minutes later Ami zoomed overhead with an update.

"There's a lot of police vehicles up ahead and a LOT of zombies!" Ami soon chimed in.

"How many is a lot?" Diana asked Ami.

"I'm counting about one hundred zombies outside the front of the hospital. They're a mix of police, hospital staff, and hospital patients." Ami quickly added a rough tally to give Diana an idea of how many "a lot" was.

"That is indeed a lot of zombies." Diana conceded to the winged android. Even with Ami's support she could not take on that many with Saint Sinner Valentine. Her first idea was to use Silent Hunter to slowly and tediously eliminate each zombie from a safe distance with the Suppressor limiting the noise she made. However, being caught on flat ground by a hundred-strong zombie army was not a good idea. She needed a safer vantage point to tag them from.

Diana drew closer to the hospital and saw the outline of a police barricade that had been formed in front of the hospital using police cruisers and SWAT vans. In front of them was a line of roughly sixty zombies that had been killed months ago and behind the barricade Diana could see the faint twinkle of spent shell casings on the asphalt. The luster of the brass had been dulled with exposure to the weather, but just enough of it remained to tell her that Fulci police had made a desperate attempted to hold off the zombies. Whether they planned to stop the zombies completely or just buy time for the hospital to be evacuated was unknown, but what was known was that the barricade was eventually overrun.

Diana drew to within 200 meters of the barricade and caught a glimpse of the small zombie army standing between her and the hospital. Just like Ami said it was composed of zombified police officers, hospital staff in medical scrubs, and patients in medical gowns and plain clothing. Diana looked closer and saw that some of the police zombies were dressed in full riot gear that included helmets. That would make her job a little more difficult.

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Diana decided to retreat about 50 meters away to make herself harder to spot by the zombie army and to give herself some space to come up with a plan to get to the hospital. The simplest way would be to just have Ami fly her up to the roof and for Diana to go in from there. That would be the simplest and safest way to gain entry to the hospital without having to fight around one hundred zombies to clear a path. She avoided making unnecessary noise and avoided an unnecessary fight that way, so calling on Ami to fly her to the rooftop was the way to go.

Diana kept an eye towards the police barricade while calling Ami for pickup.

"Ami, I would like for you to pick me up and carry me towards the hospital roof." Diana requested transportation from her winged companion.

"OK, I'm on my way! Just stay where you are and be ready to fly!" Ami replied.

Diana stayed where she was and flipped the safety to Saint Sinner Valentine on so that she did not shoot herself in the foot in mid-flight or shoot and alert the zombies as to where she was going. While the zombies could not fly after her or fire weapons to bring her down, Diana did not want the mob congregating on the hospital and drawing even more shambling corpses towards the building with their incessant moaning. Diana heard Ami touch down behind her and felt her arms wrap around the huntress' waist, then the blonde felt her feet leave the ground as she went airborne.

Ami steadily gained altitude and flew towards the hospital, which was the tallest building in the immediate area. It also had searchlights on the roof that were burning brightly and served as a convenient beacon for the android to take her mistress towards. Diana noted the difficulty of holding onto Saint Sinner Valentine while being carried and made a note to procure a sling for the rifle the next time she visited a town or city.

-Five minutes later, on Fulci Hospital's roof-

Ami had carried Diana to the rooftop and had carefully lowered her mistress onto it, then stood by to wait for further instructions.

"I would like you to remain on the roof until I say otherwise, Ami. Depending on what I encounter inside, I may need a quick escape." Diana requested of Ami.

"No problem!" Ami replied, flashing a thumbs-up. Diana carefully brought out her Suppressed Handgun and flipped off the safety on Saint Sinner Valentine before locating the roof access door, which was only ten meters from her current position. The huntress carefully walked towards the open door with her night vision mode active and her Suppressed Handgun ready to deal with any zombies that lay in wait.

-Inside the roof access stairwell-

Diana walked through the open door and looked down to see a standard stairwell that led down to an open metal door. She approached the stairs and began walking down them as quietly as she could; the stairs were concrete, so they were not quite as loud as metal, but she still needed to exercise caution during the descent. So far she had seen no signs of the undead or any signs of activity. Perhaps everyone had been evacuated and the hospital was empty.

Diana reached the bottom of the stairs and carefully peeked into the open doorway to get a glimpse of what lay ahead. Ahead of her was a hallway lined with open doors to patient rooms. Inside the hallway was a scattering of zombies who were isolated from one another and were thus easy targets for the huntress. She glanced to the right of the doorway and saw that she was currently on the 10th floor, so it was time to start exploring and see what she could find out.

-On the Tenth Floor-

Diana quietly entered through the doorway and looked ahead of her to spot a zombie in green medical scrubs standing in front of a doorway. Diana carefully aimed her Suppressed Handgun at its head and gently squeezed the trigger, firing a single shot that hit it in the right temple and brought it down. Now that it was dead Diana would begin peeking in each room for further zombies to eliminate or for anything that Mister Burke might find of interest. Diana picked the room to her right and peeked inside.

Nothing except an empty hospital bed.

Diana then looked into the room to her immediate left.

Again there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Diana planned to repeat the process in each and every room to make sure that she had a clear path to the rooftop in case she needed to leave in a hurry for some reason. Maybe the zombie population was far too great for her to take on. Maybe the hospital would be invaded by a large scavenger gang who was in no mood to share the space with an outsider. Or maybe there was some other reason that would necessitate a quick escape. Diana would clear each floor of zombies so that she could escape quickly if the need arose.

-Tenth Floor, twenty-five minutes later-

Diana had swept the entire floor and had picked off any stray zombies she could find, which meant that it was now officially safe. Diana was standing in front of the stairwell that led down to the ninth floor. Before proceeding any further she decided to ask Ami for a status report.

"Ami, how is it looking on the roof?" Diana asked Ami.

"Everything's good here. No sign of any zombies or helicopters!" Ami reported. That was exactly what Diana had wanted to hear.

"Thanks. Let me know if you see anything." Diana replied before going silent again. She pocketed the Suppressed Handgun, then opened the door with her right hand. Diana moved through it and carefully shut it behind her.

-In the stairwell-

Diana drew her handgun and looked down from the railing. She noticed that there was a zombie in a white labcoat and blue dress shirt with black pants and brown dress shoes standing near the ninth floor door, so she sidled up to the railing and aimed carefully at its head with her handgun. Diana steadied her hand and fired directly into the top of its head, scoring a hit that dropped it to the concrete floor. Now that the threat was gone she moved quietly down the flight of stairs and reached the door that the zombified doctor had been guarding.

Diana again pocketed the handgun and opened the door, then quietly slipped through it and quietly closed it back.

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-On the Ninth Floor-

Diana pulled out her handgun and looked down the hallway to spot a slightly larger cluster of zombies than she had spotted on the last floor. Diana quietly propped Saint Sinner Valentine in the corner near the doorway and used her free left hand to hold the handgun steady for a shot on a zombie in a bloody medical gown staring blankly at another zombie wearing green medical scrubs. Diana steadied her aim on the zombies in the gown and fired, taking it down with a shot through the right temple. She then quickly shifted her aim right and fired at the head of the other zombie, taking it down with a shot through the left temple.

With those two zombies down Diana swept the rooms to her immediate left and right. She found nothing but empty rooms, so she continued down the hall and took out another zombie in a medical gown standing with its back to her. She took the opportunity to shoot it in the back of the head and shot it, taking it down with the same ease as she had the preceding zombies. She then quickly inspected the rooms and found them empty, so she went to the right and spotted a gaggle of ten zombies standing around a nurse's station located halfway through the floor.

Diana walked back and retrieved Saint Sinner Valentine, then walked to the end of the hallway and propped the weapon in a corner before returning to the nurse's station and seeing that the ten zombies already there were joined by another: this one wore a white labcoat and black skirt with white dress shirt and had long, stringy hair. Diana needed something that fired faster than her handgun to handle this batch, so she dispelled it and brought out her Suppressed Submachine Gun before flipping the fire selector switch to single-shot mode and taking careful aim at the closest zombie. She brought it down with a single shot through the left temple, then shifted aim to the next one, a nurse in green scrubs who was missing a good part of her throat. Diana aimed for its forehead and gently squeezed the trigger, firing a single shot that killed it instantly.

Diana was aiming at the head of the next one when the stringy-haired zombie noticed her and screeched. The huntress took aim at its head and fired a single shot, but it ducked the shot and rushed towards her. Diana quickly flipped the fire selector switch to full auto and aimed for its head, firing on full auto to make sure she got it. It took four shots to the head, but it was killed in mid-run. It sprawled to the floor just a meter from her feet and Diana turned to face the zombies it had rallied to attack her.

Diana remained calm and carefully aimed at the head of the closest zombie and brought it down, then worked her way through the remaining seven. It took a full minute before they were all killed, but at the end of the skirmish Diana was still alive and they were not. Diana walked back to her assault rifle and reclaimed it, dispelling the Suppressed Submachine Gun to free up her hands. She made her way back to the nurse's station and was about to pass by to sweep the rest of the floor when she decided to search it instead. Carefully stepping over the corpses, she took a moment to search the nurse's station for anything of value or interest.

On the desk was nothing of interest, but the computer station to the left of the desk had something that attracted the huntress' attention. On the monitor was an e-mail that had been left open by a hospital employee. The huntress was intrigued by this and moved closer to take a look at what information the e-mail contained. She sidled up to the monitor and leaned down to read the message.

"Dear Hospital Staff:

I've received a warning from the police that the dead are pouring out of Fulci Cemetery and are roaming the streets eating people. At first I thought it was someone's sick idea of a joke, but I turned on the news and it's real. The police are doing what they can to stop what's going on, but they're spread thin. They've spared everyone they can to buy us time to evacuate and they've set up a barricade at the square just outside the hospital. I'm issuing an evacuation order effective immediately." Diana read part of the message. She looked around her to make sure that no zombies were trying to "sneak" up on her. Once she was sure that it was safe to do so she resumed reading the message. She read on and learned more about the situation inside the hospital; this segment was added about two hours after the first message was sent.

"Things are really going to shit outside and the police can't hold the dead back for much longer. Those idiots in Capital Crocus think that this is just a joke, but thank Ishgar that Hargeon Town's taking this seriously. Hargeon General Hospital's sent all six of its medevac choppers here to help us and Capital Crocus finally decided to chip in five after I gave them an earful over the phone and sent the video footage as proof, but it's just not going to be enough. The hospital's only a quarter of the way empty, but there's no turning back now. I've already given the order and people are on edge, so I've been forced to make a terrible choice." The second part read. Again the huntress looked around to make sure that nothing was trying to get the drop on her. Again nothing was nearby, so she felt safe enough to continue reading the dire tale of Fulci Hospital's final hours.

"May whatever deity's out there have mercy on my soul for what I'm about to type out.

Take everyone who can walk to the helipad. Leave the critically ill and those with human bite wounds, even if they can walk. We can't save everyone, not with the time we have left. We also can't risk what's happening here spreading beyond Fulci.

This decision is my responsibility, no one else's. Get them to the helicopters and don't look back.

Fulci Hospital Administrator Francine Barclay"

Diana stood up from the monitor and looked around her one last time before moving on. There were no zombies coming out of the rooms to her left, so she readied Saint Sinner Valentine and cautiously made her way around the rest of the ninth floor and eventually reached the stairwell without having encountered another zombie. Diana opened the stairwell door and entered the stairwell, gently closing the door behind her.

-Inside the stairwell-

Diana walked up to the railing and glanced down to see that at least six zombies in green scrubs were loitering in the stairwell thanks to the door to the eighth floor being left wide open. That was of no concern to the huntress, who calmly set down Saint Sinner Valentine and produced her Suppressed Handgun. She aimed down and took careful aim at the first zombie, then brought it down with a single shot through the top of the head. She repeated the feat until all six of them were dead and lying on the concrete floor.

Once they were gone Diana picked up Saint Sinner Valentine with her left hand, descended the staircase, and entered the eighth floor.

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-The Eighth Floor-

Diana entered the eighth floor with Saint Sinner Valentine raised and ready to fire. That was good because there were over a dozen reanimated nurses and patients waiting for her in the hallway. One of them spotted her and raised its arms, then moaned in a forlorn manner. That signal initiated a chain reaction of moans as zombies began to emerge from the rooms to her left and right. Diana did not have time to switch to a suppressed weapon and used the assault rifle in her hand since stealth was rendered a moot point anyway.

The huntress opened the door she had just went through, then stepped halfway through and stepped all the way to the right, holding the door open with her body so that she had a clear escape route if she felt like she was in danger of being overwhelmed by the undead. She then began to pick off the oncoming zombies from that position, prioritizing the ones closest to her and aiming for the head. She tapped out single shots to the head and began bringing down zombies as fast as she could shift her aim to the next zombie and fire. Zombie after zombie went down, but more were shuffling from around the corner and Diana was starting to get a little concerned that she might have made a mistake in not bringing out a backup weapon.

A reanimated doctor wearing a white coat and white dress shirt with brown pants and a stethoscope around its neck was around seven meters from her when Diana spotted it. She raised Saint Sinner Valentine, aimed for the head, and squeezed the trigger.

CLICK!

Saint Sinner Valentine had run out of ammunition!

It would take five seconds to reload, but the huntress did not have that kind of time. Diana hurriedly set the weapon down, brought out her Suppressed Handgun, and aimed it with both hands at its head. She fired a single shot to the forehead and brought it down when it was within three meters of her. That was three meters too close for her liking.

Diana spotted another zombie doctor at ten meters and aimed for its head, then squeezed the trigger and put a round between its eyes. It fell backwards and Diana first picked off a reanimated female patient in a medical gown shuffling a meter behind the doctor, then took down another zombie just to the right of the first reanimated patient. The rate at which the zombies appeared was starting to dwindle, suggesting that she was making progress against them. She still had seven more floors to go before the hospital was officially cleared, but the huntress was making progress and that was always good.

Diana picked up Saint Sinner Valentine and put the handgun in her pocket, then gingerly stepped around and over the bodies of the fallen zombies as she started to explore the eighth floor for additional clues as to what happened to the hospital during the Fulci outbreak. Diana made her way to the nurse's station and dispatched a trio of stragglers with the newly reloaded Saint Sinner Valentine, then began to search the desk and computer for anything else that could tell her what had happened here. The floor of the nurse's station was a mess of blood, fallen books, and scattered papers that were impossible to read.

Diana turned her attention to the desk and found nothing out of the ordinary on it; it had all the usual items like a landline phone, a desk calendar, personal pictures, and other items appropriate to a desk. She turned to the computer station and noticed that the computer monitor had fallen off the desk and had been busted in the commotion, so she could not read any digital missives that had been sent to it. Diana walked out of the nurse's station and fought her way to the other end of the eighth floor, then entered the stairwell to go to the seventh floor.

-In the stairwell-

Diana sidled up to the railing and looked down to see that the door to the seventh floor had been wedged open by a rubber doorstop and that there was a lone patient zombie standing and swaying in place just outside of it. Diana set down Saint Sinner Valentine, pulled out the handgun, and aimed it at the top of the unsuspecting zombie's head. She then squeezed the trigger and shot it through the top of the head. It fell to the concrete floor and did not move.

Diana pocketed the pistol, picked up the red assault rifle, and then slowly made her way down the stairs in an effort to reduce the noise her descent would make. Booted feet on concrete stairs were far from quiet and she would have to do the best she could because the door to the seventh floor was wide open and too much noise would attract the undead before she was ready to face them. Diana quietly made her way down the stairs and reached the open door to find a lot of zombies roaming the floor. The huntress' work would be cut out for her.

Staying where she was, Diana raised Saint Sinner Valentine, aimed at the head of a patient zombie in a medical gown with a badly chewed left arm, and fired a single shot. It fell to the floor and a chain reaction of moans put the entire floor on alert. Zombies began pouring out of the rooms and filling the corridor, all of them wanting to take a bite out of the huntress. Diana remained calm and took down zombie after zombie with single shots to the head until she had downed seventeen zombies out of roughly forty shambling towards her.

Diana remained calm and held her ground. She picked off another thirteen zombies before the assault rifle needed to reload. She calmly set down the empty assault rifle, pulled out the Suppressed Handgun, and finished off the remaining ten with a single shot to the head apiece. Now that the bulk of the horde had been eliminated, Diana could begin her sweep through the floor, but not before she waited for any stragglers to show themselves. The huntress picked up Saint Sinner Valentine and waited six minutes before moving into the hallway.

-The Seventh Floor-

Diana slowly and cautiously made her way down the hallway and swept each room for stragglers or more of those stringy-haired zombies but found neither enemy type waiting for her. Diana rounded the corner and cleared out a few stragglers standing at the nurse's station, which was a total mess of blood, bloodstained papers, and trashed computer equipment. A headless corpse of a doctor was lying prone on the floor.

There was no point in searching it for clues, so Diana pressed on and cleared out four zombies barring her path to the stairwell. Diana swept all the rooms on her way to the stairwell and picked off three reanimated patients lurking in three separate rooms. Once she was satisfied that the seventh floor had been cleared she entered the stairwell and paused at the railing to take a brief break from her mission.

-In the stairwell-

Diana paused at the railing and took a slow, steady breath. She looked down at the sixth floor door and saw that it had been left open. Diana wondered why that was the case on some floors but not the case on other floors. She also spotted one of those stringy-haired zombies wearing a doctor's coat, blue blouse, and black knee-length skirt with dress shoes. Diana slowly backed away from the edge and readied Saint Sinner Valentine for action.

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-In the stairwell-

Diana slowly and carefully raised Saint Sinner Valentine over the railing and slowly and carefully aimed at the stringy-haired zombie's head. She held the crosshairs steady on the top of its head and squeezed the trigger. A shot rang out and the stringy-haired zombie fell to the concrete floor missing a chunk of its head. Now that it was dead the path to the sixth floor was open, but she heard moaning coming from within the hallway, so she had better be quick if she wanted to get into a good defensive position from which to take on the zombies.

Diana quickly hustled down the stairs and stopped just outside the doorway, then aimed her assault rifle at the head of the first zombie to lurch into view. She fired a single shot and dropped it, then began to take down the other sixteen zombies shambling down the hall towards the huntress. Diana remained calm and brought them down one by one with carefully aimed shots until none remained standing. She then took a deep breath and waited several minutes for stragglers to round the corner to get to the source of the loud noises. Her patience was rewarded when two stragglers finally showed up.

Diana quickly took them down with a single shot through the forehead apiece and entered the sixth floor hallway.

-The Sixth Floor-

Diana swept each room and noticed that not all of the doors were open. On the closed doors she noticed handwritten signs that listed the patient's name and a simple Rest In Peace beneath their name. Curious as to why that was but not so curious as to open the door, Diana pressed on to the nurse's station and killed a lone nurse zombie in green medical scrubs with a left arm chewed off below the elbow. She then searched the station for clues.

The area was strewn with papers and books, but the computer equipment was intact and a message was on the screen. Diana walked over to the computer monitor and leaned down to read what was on it. It was a message sent from the nurse in charge of the sixth floor to a doctor named Dr. Kraft.

"I can't believe this is happening.

I came in to work early this morning and everything was fine. I gave all the patients their medicine and all of them took it without any trouble, even the elderly Mrs. Stuart in Room 608 who was hospitalized after a fall in her bathtub over two weeks ago. Normally she's combative and says that her family is trying to get her put in a nursing home so that they can take her property... for the past two weeks she said that I was in on the conspiracy to get her sent away, but today she didn't fight me. She just said that she was going to join her late husband Herbert soon, so there was no point in fighting me anymore.

I told Dr. Edwards what I had been told and he said to take Mrs. Stuart's vital signs. I took them and everything was fine. What did she mean by her going to join her late husband? Who knows?

Just a couple hours before I was to get off of work this zombie outbreak happens. I don't know what the Hell's going on outside and neither does the hospital administrator, but it's definitely not good because I can hear what sounds like gunshots coming from outside. Dr. Edwards has been in touch with Administrator Barclay, who's ordered the hospital to be evacuated immediately. Dr. Edwards is going to stay behind to care for the patients who are staying. He's a brave man and a good man. He's a lot braver than Dr. Carlisle.

That asshole doesn't deserve to be called a doctor. As soon as he got the evacuation order he abandoned his patients on the second floor without a word and hurried to the helipad. He jumped on the first medevac chopper out of here and left Dr. Reese to take over on the second floor. I hope that asshole gets what's coming to him one day." The message read. Diana looked around her and stood up in time to shoot a lurching reanimated patient through the left temple long before it could round the desk to get to her. The body had just hit the floor when she turned her attention back to the screen to read more. The next message was a reply from Dr. Kraft, who worked on the third floor. It was sent an hour into the evacuation.

"Edna,

Everything's really going to shit here. The patients and staff are panicking and they don't know what's going on, only that something really bad's going on here if there's an evacuation order in effect. We're keeping the televisions in patient rooms off to try and keep everyone calm, but it's not gonna work much longer. Some are claiming they can hear gunshots and screaming from the streets below and bad news spreads fast.

The first and second floors are getting flooded with people suffering from bite wounds and Dr. Reese is doing all she can to help, but she's a specialist in pediatrics. Dr. Carlisle's the one who's supposed to be in charge of the second floor, but that cowardly asshole's already fled. He was better at playing office politics than actually doing his job, but right now we need every trained doctor we can get. We've already lost five doctors to desertion and one to having his throat torn out by a combative patient. Hospital security drew their guns and shot the patient in the head after multiple body shots and tasers didn't even slow him down, but it was too late for Dr. Hanson... the patient had already torn his throat out with his teeth and Dr. Hanson bled to death on the floor.

After that incident hospital security's been assigned to protect the doctors we have left, but some of the security's gone missing too. The people with guns and the training to use them fled first. Isn't that just our luck?

Anyway, everything's stable on the third floor, so I'm going to go down to the first floor to see how I can help Dr. Reese. She's in way over her head and I'm not leaving here, so I'm going to help her. If you get a chance to, come join me on the second floor. I could use the help." Dr. Kraft wrote back to the nurse. Since that was all that was written, Diana stood up and left the station behind to begin clearing the way to the fifth floor. She easily eliminated the lone patient zombie staring blankly at the stairwell door and swept the open rooms for any more zombies.

She did not find any waiting in the open rooms, so she opened the stairwell door and entered the stairwell. From the messages she had read the lower floors were full of bitten people, which meant that they would be full of zombies too. She was not sure how the fourth and fifth floors were, but she was sure that there were some zombies there too. Some bite victims might have hidden their wounds and lied to try and get to the medevac choppers but ended up stuck on those floors because of the sheer number of people that had to be evacuated. It did not take a psychic to predict what had happened once the bitten people had died and reanimated.

Standing in the stairwell, Diana quickly reloaded Saint Sinner Valentine and took a deep breath before peering over the railing. There was nothing waiting below, so she went down the stairs and placed her left hand on the lever for the door. She took a moment to prepare to fight through a heavily infested floor before opening the door and quickly propping it open with a rubber doorstop she had found on the floor to her left.

[Post Word Count: 1,340]
[Total Word Count: 7,292/11,000]

-The Fifth Floor-

Diana repeated her strategy of shooting the zombies from the doorway, a strategy that gave her the option to retreat if the undead were in greater numbers than she could handle. As it stood she managed to take out all the undead she could see in one thirty-round magazine of Saint Sinner Valentine's infinite ammunition. All she had to do was switch to another weapon while the five-second reload took place and she had chosen her Suppressed Handgun as her backup weapon of choice because it was quick to use and had sufficient range and power for her zombie elimination needs. Once the thirty zombies she had spotted had been brought down Diana switched to her handgun and swept the hallway for any stragglers, but most of the doors were closed and marked with the notes like the doors on the sixth floor were.

Diana picked up Saint Sinner Valentine in her left hand, quietly moved from beyond the doorway, and quietly picked off two stragglers in two separate rooms with the Suppressed Handgun in her right hand while making her way to first the nurse's station and then the stairwell to the fourth floor. The station was a total mess with badly torn bodies lying on the floor and waiting for her was a single stringy-haired zombie in blue medical scrubs.

Diana quickly raised Saint Sinner Valentine and aimed for the head just as it noticed her. It barely had time to shriek before the huntress fired a fully automatic burst into its head, dropping it to the floor. However, it was already too late because she heard moaning coming from the end of the hall where the stairwell to the fourth floor was. It had summoned more of its brethren in an effort to bar her path. The stringy-haired zombie had underestimated the resolve of the huntress... Diana quickly moved on from the nurse's station and aggressively confronted the zombies, taking them down one at a time with single shots to the head until none remained.

At the end of the skirmish Diana counted around twelve zombies on the hallway floor that had been marshaled to try and stop her. Diana walked past their bodies and reached the stairwell door without further incident. This job was getting to be tedious, but Mister Burke was a good employer who had never tried to cheat her and always gave her the information needed to do her job, so Diana would grin and bear the tedium so that she could keep getting hired by him for tough but high-paying work. She opened the stairwell door and immediately made for the railing.

-In the stairwell-

Diana sidled up to the railing and looked down to see an ominous bloodstain leading from the doorway deeper into the fourth floor like something had been dragged past the threshold. She did not see any zombies about, so she quickly reloaded her assault rifle and moved down the stairs as quietly as she could. Diana soon arrived on the threshold of the fourth floor and did not see any zombies in the hallway, which was either very good or very bad. Now that Saint Sinner Valentine was reloaded the huntress pressed onward onto the fourth floor.

-The Fourth Floor-

Diana carefully entered the hallway and noticed that this floor was a lot bloodier than the previous six. Bloodstains liberally marked the walls and the floors, providing grim evidence to support her hypothesis that bite victims who tried to hide their wounds to get access to the medevac choppers were gathered here due to the priority that the upper floors had in evacuation. Either they had turned and killed everyone on the floor or a surge of zombies from the first three floors had gotten to them and killed them first.

Diana looked in the rooms and saw that the room doors that were open had bloodstains suggesting that patients were attacked in their rooms and dragged from their hospital beds. All the bloodstains led towards the nurse's station. Diana slowly walked towards it with her weapon at the ready and turned left once she reached the station. What she saw caused her to involuntarily take a step back.

There was a pile of decaying bodies that had been stacked in the center of the nurse's station and the bodies were those of patients, doctors, and nurses. As could be expected of an area where human bodies had been piled, it was an utter mess. It was such a biological hazard that even the brave Diana did not want to wade into it to look for information, so she quickly moved away from the choking stench of decay before she got sick from it. She would probably need to burn her clothes and get new ones... or wash them repeatedly until the stench went away.

Diana made her way through the remainder of the floor and encountered no opposition because all the open rooms were empty save for the bloodstains. She was hesitant to think of what waited for her on the remaining three floors, but she had already come this far. She might as well go all the way and see what waited for her on the last three floors. Diana found the door to the stairwell propped open by a rubber doorstop and walked through.

-In the stairwell-

Diana quietly made her way over to the railing and looked down to see rotting bodies lying on the stairs near the door to the third floor. No zombies were in the area, but they were certain to be on the third floor. Diana walked down the stairs and made her way over to the bodies. She noticed that they had tattered blue shirts and black pants; they were either Fulci Police or hospital security. Diana moved past the body and into the hallway of the third floor, which had the same bloodstains on the walls and floors as the previous floor.

-The Third Floor-

Diana stood just outside the door and saw that there were well over four dozen zombies filling the hallway in front of her. Clearing this hall was a by-the-numbers operation... or it would have been had a stringy-haired zombie wearing a white lab coat, bloodstained white shirt with a bloody collar, brown pants, and black shoes not walked through the crowd and spotted the huntress. It raised an arm and screeched, sending its brethren after her and running down the hall, presumably to rally more zombies to attack. It was then that Diana realized that she was facing one of the "leader zombies" Mister Burke had warned her about. After seeing it rally its brethren and retreat to get more zombies to send after her she now knew how they had earned that moniker.

The huntress recalled what the doctor zombie had done and recalled that all the stringy-haired zombies she had encountered so far appeared to be drawn from the ranks of people who in life had been well-educated. Doctors certainly fit the bill and so did nurses. That could account for the slightly higher brainpower of the "leader zombies"; she wondered if "leader zombies" being former doctors and nurses was just coincidence or a peculiar feature of the Fulci zombie virus. She would have to solve that mystery after she had fended off the four-dozen zombies shambling towards her!

[Post Word Count: 1,232]
[Total Word Count: 8,524/11,000]

-The Third Floor-

Diana held her ground against the wave of undead, picking them off one by one as they approached. When Saint Sinner Valentine ran out of ammunition after thirty shots Diana set it on the floor at her feet and pulled her Suppressed Handgun to take on the rest of the zombies, taking them out one by one until only three remained. Diana finished them off and pocketed her handgun, then reclaimed her assault rifle and took a deep breath. The closer to the bottom floors she got the tougher the resistance became, if only due to sheer numbers of undead. She did not have long to breathe because two dozen more zombies rounded the corner and at their head was the stringy-haired reanimated doctor!

Diana raised her weapon and fired at the leader, but it bobbed and weaved around her attempts at headshots and began running right for her. Diana quickly aimed for its legs and fired at the right leg, hitting it and bringing it down. It soon recovered by using its arms to pull itself along the floor at a worryingly fast pace; it moved at the speed of a jogging human. Diana focused her aim on its head and brought it down with five shots to the head, but the average zombies had closed to within ten meters of her while she was distracted with their leader.

Diana used the rounds left in Saint Sinner Valentine to pick off as many zombies as she could, but once it ran out she had to set the weapon down and pull out her handgun to finish the rest. Once the second and final wave was down Diana pocketed the pistol, picked up the assault rifle, and made her way through the third floor. As she walked she started to see what a mess the area was.

There were overturned patient beds in some of the open rooms and bloodstains leading from all of them towards the nurse's station. Opposite the nurse's station was an overturned gurney that had bloodstains on it. That may or may not have been the origin of the third floor's takeover by the undead. Diana walked to the station and saw the same pile of bodies in the nurse's station. She knew that nothing was going to be gained there, so she kept moving and rounded the corner to go for the stairwell door.

She picked off a straggler in the hall with a single shot to the head and was a meter from the door when it suddenly opened and in poured over a dozen zombies. Holding the door open was a stringy-haired nurse zombie, but Diana could not get a line of sight on it, so she would just have to take out the zombies it had let in.

Diana stood her ground and began picking them off with headshots until all twelve were down. She caught her breath and began to move towards the door again but was stopped when the door opened again and in poured another dozen zombies before it closed again. Diana carefully aimed and picked them off too. Once all twelve were down she reloaded her weapon and waited for the door to open again, which it soon did.

Instead of average zombies a trio of stringy-haired nurse zombies in green medical scrubs rushed at Diana. Recalling her previous experience with them, she did not bother going for headshots right away and instead aimed for the legs, bringing down two of them before the third closed with Diana and knocked the weapon out of her hands with an unexpectedly forceful blow. The disarmed Diana immediately punched it with her left hand, pulled out the handgun with her right, and jammed the suppressor against its head before pulling the trigger and killing it with a point-blank shot to the forehead.

The huntress immediately stepped back a meter and aimed the handgun at the head of the first crippled leader, killing it with a shot through the head. The second one had gotten to within a half-meter of her before Diana shifted her aim and shot it through the forehead. Now that all three leader zombies were dead Diana could relax a little.

She pocketed the handgun and picked up her assault rifle, tapping the reload button and walking towards the stairwell door on the opposite end of the hall. This time it did not open to release more zombies into the third floor, so the huntress assumed that she had killed them all and that the stairwell was safe. She opened the door with her left hand and went into the stairwell to go to the second floor.

-In the stairwell-

Diana walked up to the railing and looked down to the door. She saw an improvised barricade of metal filing cabinets, gurneys, desks, and other objects piled in front of the door opening to the second floor. Off to the right of it was a white sheet taped to the wall with words in bold red letters. The curious huntress walked down the deserted stairwell and towards the barricade. She glanced at the note and got a warning that was written long ago.

DO NOT OPEN- THE SECOND FLOOR'S BEEN OVERRUN! Read the note's simple message. Diana did not think that such a warning was necessary, but then she got the feeling that it was written for the benefit of explorers like her. On a desk that formed part of the barricade was a white sheet of notebook paper with something scrawled on it in a shaky hand. Diana picked the note up and began to read from it.

"The second floor's totally gone. It all happened so fast. Those zombies came up from the first floor and swarmed everywhere! We lost Nurse Hodgkins, Dr. Mercer, and Dr. Kraft along with a lot of the other remaining senior staff. Dr. Kraft told the rest of us to flee and block off the second floor with anything heavy we could find and we did.

The second floor's been sealed off, but everyone still trapped there is as good as dead. It had to be done. The doctor said that if any of those zombies got through to the third floor it'd be a slaughterhouse. Now all we have to do is wait and hope that we get rescued before the outbreak spreads any further. I just hope that the infection hasn't spread beyond the second floor or we're all doomed." The note read. Diana took the note, neatly folded it, and put it in her right cargo pocket. She then stared at the barricade that had been put in place at the cost of many lives.

The huntress did not want to do this, but for the first time she was considering scrubbing the mission and going back to the client to tell them that the job was just too hard for a lone mage. She had Ami with her and the winged android would lend her arm cannon to the fight if asked to, but there was no telling how many zombies were sealed in on the second floor. If she released them she was not sure that she could take them all down before being overrun. Diana had to think carefully about what she was about to do.

Diana had built up a reputation as a problem-solver who always managed to complete the mission no matter how tough it was, but tonight she felt like the odds were just too great for her to take on alone. Mister Burke had wanted her to check out the entire hospital, but the first and second floors were inaccessible to her due to the sheer amount of zombies in the hospital. After her brush with death outside Silent Cemetery Diana did not feel like pressing her luck like this.

[Post Word Count: 1,312]
[Total Word Count: 9,836/11,000]

-Outside the second floor, fifteen minutes later-

Diana thought about the issue for a long time. She thought about trying to move the barricade to gain access to the second floor and attempt to muscle through the zombies, but the metal filing cabinets, desks, and other obstructions were just too heavy to move. Diana could call in Ami for help moving the obstacles, but then clearing the barricade would unleash an untold number of zombies on the pair and they might not have enough time to get to higher ground before being overwhelmed. Diana weighed her options and decided to just call it a job.

The huntress had seen all of the hospital that she could. She would climb back to the rooftop to get Ami to fly her to Fulci's outskirts and from there she would go back to Shirotsume to report what she had learned to Mister Burke. She had done well to get this far and now she had better quit while she was ahead.

Diana began the lengthy trip back to the rooftop and to Ami.

-The Third Floor-

She had just re-entered the third floor and looked at the window of an open room to her right when she got an idea. If she shot out a third floor window as a marker, she could use Ami to fly her to a second floor window and shoot that one out, then go inside to take a careful glimpse of the number of zombies on the second floor. If there were not that many, she would clear it out and proceed as planned. If there were too many, she would leave and proceed for Shirotsume.

Diana brought up Saint Sinner Valentine and shot out the window she intended to use as a marker, then made the room more distinctive by taking a blanket off of the bed and hanging the tip over the broken glass, using a chair to keep the bottom secure. Once that was done Diana dispelled the Suppressed Handgun in her pocket and made her way for the tenth floor.

-The Rooftop, twenty-five minutes later-

After a lengthy walk and climbing numerous flights of stairs Diana was finally back on the rooftop. There Ami was waiting patiently for her. The winged android spotted her and raised a hand in greeting.

"Hey Diana! Glad to see that you made it!" Ami greeted her mistress. Diana raised a hand in greeting.

"I need you to do something for me. I would like for you to fly me down to the second floor of the hospital." Diana requested of the winged android. Ami flashed a thumbs-up and walked towards Diana.

"All right, I can do that. Just hang on tight!" Ami said to Diana, grabbing the blonde around the waist and taking off directly upwards. The pair ascended straight upwards and then flew around the building before Ami began a carefully controlled descent with Diana in her arms.

-Outside the second floor-

Hovering just one window below the very same one she had shot out and put the blanket through, Diana shot out the second floor window to a patient room and peered inside. Her smart glasses immediately showed six target markers in the room, so Diana decided to take them out. Six headshots later Diana had cleaned the room out, but moaning coming from the hallway told her that more were on the way.

"I really don't think you should go in there, Diana." Ami opined after taking a glance around her mistress. A minute later around sixteen zombies piled into the room with another ten trying to get in, which confirmed that it was far too dangerous to try and go inside. Further moaning told her that even more zombies waited within. Diana took a deep breath and decided to play it safe.

"I am not going in, Ami. There are far too many zombies for me to take on alone. Fly me by all the windows on the second floor, please." Diana requested a reconnaissance run before calling it quits. She could try and get clever by luring the zombies to one end of the hall before flying to the other side and entering through a broken window, but she suspected that there were far too many zombies to make such an approach practical. She would be swarmed by multiple zombies by the time she could clear out the batch waiting for her in the room.

"OK!" Ami said. Ami took Diana on the requested reconnaissance run and looking in each window confirmed what Diana had suspected. Each and every room had at least twelve zombies in it, meaning that the floor had in excess of one hundred zombies waiting for her.

"I have seen enough. Please take me to the outskirts of Fulci." Diana requested. Ami nodded and flew Diana away from the hospital and towards safety. Diana would just have to present the evidence she had gathered and hope that Mister Burke would not be too angry at her for failing to clear the entire hospital. Maybe this would not be too much of a blemish on her reputation.

[Post Word Count: 858]
[Total Word Count: 10,694/11,000]

-Shirotsume, Mister Burke's Residence, eight hours later-

Diana had left her boots at the door and had left Saint Sinner Valentine with a guard stationed just outside the living room in which she had met Mister Burke several times in the past. He was seated at the opposite end of the low table from Diana. Ami was standing to Diana's right and Kumiko stood to Mister Burke's right.

"I understand that you ran into a lot of opposition last night." Mister Burke said to Diana.

"Yes, sir. I managed to clear eight out of the ten floors of Fulci Hospital before I made the decision to withdraw. There were far too many zombies for me to take on alone and there was a barricade that blocked access to the second floor." Diana said to him, producing the note in her side pocket as evidence to support her claim.

"Outside the stairwell door to the second floor I found a barricade made of metal filing cabinets, desks, and other heavy objects that had been put in front of it to seal the zombies in. I found this note explaining what had happened to make the barricade necessary. Before I left I had Ami fly me around the second floor to look for a safer entry point. I could not find one that was not teeming with over a dozen zombies." Diana informed Mister Burke. Kumiko walked over to Diana and picked up the note, taking it to Mister Burke. She handed it to him and he began to read over the brief missive.

"I see." Mister Burke commented. He set the note down and looked Diana in the eyes.

"I appreciate the effort that you put in for me and I commend you for being wise enough to realize when pressing on would be far too dangerous. This was only a reconnaissance mission, not a suicide mission." Mister Burke complimented Diana for her decision to be smart and leave when the odds were too great for even her to overcome.

"I would like for you to take another mission to Fulci Hospital on my behalf in a week's time. I would like you to gather more information from the hospital for me. I would also like photographic evidence or video evidence of the hospital's condition. Next time I will provide you with some specialized gear that should even the odds against the zombies and make gathering the evidence easier." Mister Burke requested and added the offer of special gear as an enticement. It did not take long for the huntress to make up her mind.

"I will accept the mission." Diana answered confidently. She sort of liked Mister Burke and did not want to let him down by doing an incomplete job. Mister Burke smiled when he heard her acceptance.

"Splendid. I will contact you in a week's time with details. In the meantime, I offer you the use of my guest bedroom should you like to rest awhile." Mister Burke stated before offering Diana a safe place to rest awhile before returning to guild headquarters.

"I would like that. Thank you." Diana accepted his offer of a safe place to sleep awhile.

"Very well then. You know where it is, so I will leave you to it so that I may begin requisitioning the equipment for your next trip to Fulci." Mister Burke said to her. Diana thanked him again and she proceeded to the second floor with Ami as company. She appreciated his hospitality and appreciated his understanding of the circumstances that prompted her to withdraw and try again another day. Next time Diana would complete the job no matter what lengths she had to go to.

[Post Word Count: 618]
[Total Word Count: 11,312/11,000]