A Living Heart Pt 3: Painful Heart

Pain is a strong feeling, its a defense mechanism that tells our brain something is wrong.
Jenna's brain was getting the message loud and clear.

- "Doctor, she's waking up!" a woman's whisper said.

She felt someone touching her forehead with a wet towel or something similar,
her senses were coming back, becoming stronger than the dull of the pain.

- "She'll be okay, she only needs more rest. " A man's voice said.

Jenna's eyes opened and bright light flooded her, it slowly dissipated and the room's ceiling came into view.
She tried getting up but she was held down by the doctor, a nurse was besides him and she touched her own lips with a lone finger and said "Shh.. you'll stir them up, we don't want that, we need to be quiet."

The nurse pointed to the other side of the room, past the bassinets, dark figures were slowly swaying from one end to the other. The glass with a big crack that made the bassinet's room viewing window being the only thing separating them from the room. A flash passed through her mind and she remembered.

- "Bo!" She gasped faintly.. her voice was hoarse.
- "Quiet down mam! Please, if they get riled up they might break the glass, besides, you have lost a lot of blood and should rest." The nurse tried to be calm and sweet and she did a good job of it.

- "My baby.. Bo.. is he ok? is he here?"

The doctor moved away and sat on a chair close by, the redheaded nurse smiled and nodded.

- "The babies are ok, I made sure of it, they're sleeping peacefully now. I fed them while you were sleeping a while ago. That is the reason why so many of them are gathered outside.. they hear them cry and.. and.. they want them."

The doctor opened a can of soda and it made a loud "chhhk". One of the zombies on the other side of the window moaned softly. He took a drink and spoke.

- "We should get out of here as soon as possible. If the police or the army haven't arrived yet, it means we are on our own here and us being surrounded by those monstrosities is not a good scenario."

The young nurse turned around and worry could be seen on her face.

- "What about the babies? We cannot carry them all!" The nurse said, a little louder than she intended.

The doctor closed his eyes and adjusted his eyeglasses, putting them back on the bridge of his nose.

- "They're just going to slow us down, we leave them behind."

-"WHAT?!", the nurse shrieked.

Jenna was sitting up on the makeshift bed they had made within the bassinet room, she quickly turned to see the dark figures as the started to shift around and move replying to the nurse's exclamation.

Several moans started happening in unison like an infernal concerto, the zombies started to bang on the glass to the rhythm of the creepy music.

Jenna stood up and started to scan the bassinets. "Charlie", "Azul", "Shawn", "Angel", "Clarisse"... Where's Bo?!
She heard glass cracking and panicked.. Bo!

The nurse started to panic as well and started pushing the bassinets out of the room, the babies begun to cry and scream in response to all the noise and movement. She took "Barbra" and "Ben" first.

Jenna was scanning the remaining bassinets until she found the one labeled "Bo", her eyes went wide and she looked inside.. there he was in all his tiny glory.

She didn't notice it but she was crying of joy, she picked him up gently with her good arm and hugged him tight to her bosom, she heard tiny bells and sprinkles and she felt light and happy as if she could float away from here on a cloud, she smiled widely and showered the little bundle with kisses, someone grabbed her arm and she shrugged him off, then a slap to her face. Pain.. a strong message.

- "Snap out of it, you *****!", The doctor screamed.

The nurse took another couple of babies, this time leaving the bassinets behind. The doctor was now using them to make a make-shift barricade between the crumbling viewing room window and themselves.

- "Help me or we all die!!"

Jenna slowly snapped out of it and began moving bassinets with her free hand, her brain screamed as the pain surged through her upper body, she squeezed Bo a little afraid of letting him fall.

The window finally shattered under the pressure and two zombies started to crawl over and up the bassinets. The nurse screamed behind her as she took another couple of babies out of the room. The doctor bashed an oncoming zombie in its head with the chair he was sitting on earlier.

- "Doc! Lets get out of here! Now!!" , Jenna ordered.

The doctor nodded and left the chair on the zombie, he quickly went outside the room and into the open hallway after Jenna, he closed the door behind him. The redheaded nurse was coming back, fear in her face and screamed:

- "The babies!! They are calling for me! We got to save the rest!"
She tried pushing the doctor out of the way as the zombies poured into the closed bassinet room behind him.

-"Nurse Adams! Lock this door right now!", the doctor said with a stern voice.

-"The others.. Charlie!! Diana!! Tom!", the nurse started to cry.

Jenna could feel her pain.. it was apparent this woman loved those babies as her own.. she knew what she was going through, she lowered her head and softly spoke towards the nurse.

-"Listen, nurse Adams... they're gone...Im sorry but we have to make sure the others survive.. please.. help the other babies, help my Bo.. lock this door so they can't come in and get us.. please nurse Adams, do it for Ben, Shawn and the others..."

With a sniffle, she got a keyring out of her uniform's pocket and gave it to the doctor.

- "Its the blue and pink one.." the nurse said, walking back to the babies she saved. As the doctor locked the door, the door rattled as the first of them started pounding it.

Jenna could see the nurse carrying a baby laid on the floor into a bassinet and softly whispering "Shh little one, a friend has come to see you, you'll need to share you bed for now.."

He watched his Bo.. he was still crying.. this was the second time she saw him, the first being shortly after the delivery. She carried him and started to sing to him softly in his ear, rocking him, trying to make him fall asleep.

The doctor was busy checking the other doors, they had locked themselves inside this part of the hospital.
After a while, the doctor came back and approached the two women.

- "We are secure for now, let's move out of the hallway and into the nurse's station down the hall. We don't want to continue making them try to break that door, we should move."

Jenna nodded and offered to help nurse Adams moving the surviving babies out. She counted six of them. The full was almost full back there.. Jenna could feel a stormy cloud veiling her heart.

The evening passed without incident, the doctor turned on the news and all this pictures of chaos and disorder came through, they were asking people in cities to evacuate to safe zones and people in suburbs to stay put, to avoid contact with the infected and to avoid large gatherings of people if possible. The army was handling it and that they already contained the infection on the western and northern states.

They had made a temporal room for the babies in an empty storage room close to the vending machines in the little waiting room facing the nursing station. Bo was sleeping tightly next to a baby named Judy. She could not stop staring at him.. at his peaceful face oblivious at the danger he and his mother was facing.

- "They like it when you hold their hands, you know?", Adams said.
- "Oh? even if they are asleep?", Jenna asked.
- "Yes."

Jenna held Bo's tiny hand and Bo wrapped his hand around her ring finger, he squeezed a little and he baby-sighed.
Jenna's heart melted once again.

- "I'm Jenna by the way"
- "My name is Beatrice.. but everyone calls me Betty.. yes, I know, cliched."
The nurse's face smiled but Jenna could see the despair and sorrow in her eyes.

- "Well nurse Betty, Thank you for saving him..I really mean it.. thank you from the bottom of my heart."
Jenna let go of Bo gently and turned around to face Betty, she gave her a big hug trying to ignore the pain from her injured arm, she started to cry. Both women started crying and hugging each other tightly.

Outside their room, the doctor was listening to the conversation. He sighed and walked away, holding a key from the keyring on his hand.