In the Lone and Level Sands (56 page)

“Good idea,” Layne said.

They woke the others, and everyone got out
of the cars. Many of them stretched, all were psychologically
preparing themselves to enter the hotel.

“Is this a five star?” Warren asked.

“Anything outside the car is a five star,”
Dex replied.

“I think a car is still better than that
stadium,” Keely said.

“Was it really that bad in there?” Ralph
asked. “I would think it’d be nice.”

Keely tried to avoid looking at him. “It
wasn’t. Not at all.” Katie hugged her.

“Well,” Layne said. “I guess there’s no
better time than now.”

Rain started to fall very lightly. It was
warm rain, and for all they knew, the closest to a warm shower
anyone would ever have. Dex stopped walking, and Layne looked at
him.

“We may not have any dry clothes for a
while, we should get inside before we get soaked.”

“It feels nice,” Dex said. He looked up at
the sky, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth.

“You can say that again,” Garrett said.

Kyle ran his fingers through his hair, tried
to shake the blood and grime from it.

“Does it always rain like this?” Jessi
asked.

“It’s usually warm,” Keely said, “but not
like this.” Everyone knew what she meant. None of them had ever
felt a rain quite like it, because none of them had ever needed it
so badly. Even Kara seemed happy.

The sky opened up, and rain poured out. The
survivors had to talk louder to hear each other.

“Hey,” Dex said, “I think they like it,
too!” He pointed to a zombie several yards away. It looked up, eyes
and mouth wide open, and stared into the sky. It didn’t even blink
as the water hit its eyeballs.

“Maybe they’ll be like turkeys, and they’ll
all just drown,” Lacie said.

“That’s just a myth,” Kyle said.

“No, it’s true,” Dex said.

“Oh yeah? Says who?”

“Myth Busters.”

“Bullshit,” Kyle said. “You made that
up.”

“Yeah? Well, it sounds possible.”

“It’s not raining everywhere at once, guys,”
Layne said.

Katie pointed. “Hey, he’s looking at us.”
The zombie had turned his head, and now stared at the survivors
just as he had stared at the sky.

“Mrh?” the zombie said. It was the least
threatening noise any of them had heard a zombie make. Then it
returned its attention to the sky.

“Why isn’t it attacking us?” Jessi said.
Kara was standing by her side, smiling, pulling Jessi’s shirt to
cover herself from the rain.

“Maybe they’re getting smarter,” Warren
said. “Maybe it can tell there’s only one of it, and a bunch of
us.”

Layne didn’t like the thought of those
things getting smarter. Then again, he wondered if one day they
could be human again. “Maybe it just needs to wash the blood and
dirt off itself. It’s getting heavy out here, let’s go inside.”

The group headed for the building. Layne
looked at the zombie. It fell to the ground on its butt and sat
there, legs stretched in front of it, staring into the pouring
sky.

****

There were a few zombies in the lobby, and
Layne and Garrett quickly dispatched them. Layne hopped over the
counter and found a board full of marked keys. “I assume if the key
is here, the room is empty?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Dex said.

“Try to get a few rooms, close together,”
Garrett said. “Ground floor.”

“Why not higher up?” Dex asked. “It’ll be
harder for zombies to get to.”

“And harder for us to get out of if zombies
do get in.” Dex frowned.

“It’s okay, Dex,” Kyle said. “You don’t need
a balcony view to impress her.”

Dex turned red. “I hate you guys.”

“Three rooms, side-by-side,” Layne said.
“With a vacant room on each side, so nothing comes through the
walls.”

“Sounds perfect,” Katie said.

Layne grabbed the three keys, hopped back
over the counter, and led the group down the hall.

It was dark in the lobby and in the halls,
but Layne still hoped the rooms would have power. He didn’t
remember seeing any lights from the outside, but he hadn’t really
been looking for them.

“All right, here we go.” He aimed down the
hall and shot a zombie standing at the end of it. “Rooms 103, 104,
and 105. Two beds each.”

“That’s only six beds,” Dex said.

“That’s why we
share
,” Kyle
replied.

“You’re so mean to me. I want a
divorce.”

“The rooms all lead into each other, guys,”
Layne said. “We can sort everything out once we know it’s safe.” He
unlocked the door to 104, opened it, and went inside, gun
first.

Nothing moved in the dark room. Lightning
flashed, lighting it for a second. Thunder rolled soon after. Layne
reached for the light switch and flipped it. The light came on.

“Thank God!” Jessi said. Warren clapped.

“That probably means there’s warm water,
too,” Lacie said. Layne went inside the room. It was empty, and
very clean. He went to the door at the end of the room, which led
to the room next door, and unlocked and opened it.

They checked the rooms as thoroughly as they
could, found no zombies or any other threats, and shut and locked
the doors to the hallway. They gathered in the middle room to
talk.

“All right,” Layne said, “before we make
ourselves at home, we should go over a few things.”

Dex moaned. “Hurry up, Dad. We just want to
relax.”

“We’re all wet. It won’t do us much good to
lay down in the beds and get them wet, will it?”

“What do you suggest we do?” Warren said. “I
doubt they sell clothes in the hotel.”

The others exchanged glances.

“I’m going to go out into the hotel,
hopefully with a little bit of help,” Layne said. “And I’m going to
come back with clothes.” Lacie covered her mouth and winced.

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Kyle said.
“Are we talking about robbing the dead?”

“Pardon me for being insincere,” Garrett
said, “but I don’t think whoever we’re taking from needs their
clothes as badly as we do.”

Katie said, “It isn’t pretty, but it’s
something we have to do if we want to live.”

“I can’t believe we’re even talking about
this,” Lacie said. “I mean, even besides the indecency of it, any
clothes we find will probably be covered in blood!” She looked at
Ralph. “You’re with me, right? You aren’t going to support
stealing?”

The others looked at Ralph. “If I died, and
someone came along who needed my clothes, I’d want them to take
them.” Layne was a little surprised.

“Are you serious?” Lacie said.

“It’s the only way things will work, now.
Think of it as a sort of… re-written social contract theory. I
mean, if I died, and I had a gun, I’d be okay with someone taking
my gun. I wouldn’t need it. Why not my clothes? I wouldn’t care.
I’d be dead.”

“It’s a hotel,” Layne said. “They have to
have washing machines somewhere. I’m not going to bring back
anything horrible.”

Lacie sighed.

“Lace,” Dex said, “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I’m sorry. You guys are right. We
have to do what we have to do.”

“All right,” Garrett said.

“It’ll go faster if I have some help,” Layne
said. “Garrett, Katie?”

“Why does Katie have to go?” Keely asked.
Layne looked at her.

“She… she doesn’t, I guess. She just always
has.”

“It’s all right,” Katie said. “I’ll come
with you guys.”

“No! We just found each other again. What if
something happens?”

Katie looked into Keely’s eyes. “It’ll be
fine, I promise. I’ve been through much worse.”

“Then I’m coming, too,” Keely said.

“Fine with me, but if we’re gonna go, let’s
go,” Garrett said. He turned to Keely. “Ever use a gun before?”

“Yeah. Once.”

Garrett cocked a handgun and offered it to
her, handle-first. “Don’t be afraid to do it again.”

****

They made their way through the dim
hallways, trying to be quiet. They started on the ground level,
with the hallway zombie Layne had shot earlier.

“He’s a medium shirt,” Layne said. “38/35
pants.”

“Just take whatever you can,” Garrett said.
“The time for perfection is long fucking gone.”

Layne stripped the body down to the
underwear. He took the former man’s wallet out of the back
pocket.

“Can I see that?” Keely said.

Layne handed it to her. “What for,
though?”

Keely opened the wallet. “Howard Phillips.”
She looked at the body. “Thanks, Mr. Phillips. Rest in peace.”

Layne tried the handle of a door to one of
the rooms. It was locked. They found another, and the knob slowly
turned. Layne pushed it open and flicked on the light. A zombie
that had been devouring a corpse on the other side of the bed stood
up and turned to them. Garrett raised his gun.

“Wait!” Layne said. Garrett looked at him.
“We should try not to shoot unless we have to. There could be
hundreds of zombies in the building, we don’t want to attract
them.”

The zombie shambled toward them,
growling.

“Well what do you suggest we do? Ask him
nicely for his clothes?”

“Grrrraaall!” the zombie said.

“Maybe we should just shut the door and look
for some corpses that aren’t walking around,” Keely said. The
zombie was getting closer.

“That’ll take forever. Our friends will be
growing mushrooms by the time we get back.”

“Rangllle!”

“We won’t have friends to get back to if we
attract too many zombies,” Layne said.

The zombie started up again, but Garrett
stepped forward and brought the butt of his shotgun down on its
head as hard as he could. The zombie fell to the ground,
unconscious.

“Well, that solves our issue,” Katie said.
They stripped the body, and Keely took the ID card.

“Making a collection?” Layne said.

“It’s so we don’t forget who we owe,” Keely
replied.

****

The process took longer than Layne had
hoped, but after about an hour and a half, they had gathered enough
clothes. The four made their way to the sub-level of the building,
where they found several washing machines. The survivors could do
little more than stand around and wait for the clothes to
finish.

“It’s been a while,” Katie said. “I hope the
others are okay.”

“There are more people up there than down
here,” Layne said. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

Keely was sitting on top of a dryer.
“Where’d you find all of these people, anyway?”

“Most of us came from the plane.”

“Yeah,” Katie said. “It crashed. We got
lucky.”

“The rest of us came from the church,”
Garrett said.

“How was that?”

“It’s in the past, and I’d like for it to
stay there.”

Keely looked down, a little embarrassed. “Is
that where you guys found the Jesus freak?”

“Ralph? He’s not so bad,” Layne said. “He
can be annoying, but he’s a good guy.”

“So what are we going to do?” Keely asked.
“I mean, what’s the objective? Where are you all going?”

“We came out here to find you,” Katie
said.

Keely spread her arms. “Here I am.”

“You’re wondering what happens next,”
Garrett said. “To be honest, I wonder the same thing.”

“We’ve been through a lot, together,” Layne
said.

“So, what then?” Keely said. “We all just
wander around aimlessly? One big happy family?”

“The more of us there are, the safer we
are.”

“I don’t know. It’s easier for a small
number of people to hide.”

“So what do you want us to do? Split up? Go
our separate ways?”

Keely looked down again. “No. I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s okay,” Katie said. “Look, we’ve all
been through a lot. We’ve looked out for each other, we’ve saved
each other, and we’ve lost a few along the way.” Keely looked up at
her. “But we always have each other. It may not work forever, but
it works right now.”

“Okay,” Keely said. “Then I’m with you
guys.”

“Good,” Garrett said. “Because someone your
size won’t do too well on her own. No offense.”

“None taken, big guy.” Keely hopped off of
the dryer. “Our clothes almost done?”

“About ten minutes,” Layne said.

“Awesome.”

“Hey, Layne,” Garrett said. “Maybe we should
stay here a day or two instead of leaving in the morning. We could
all use the rest, and it’ll give us some time to figure out where
we’re going.”

“Maybe. Let’s see how things turn out.”

A few minutes passed, and the last of the
dryers rang out to let the group know the clothes were done. The
four of them gathered everything and headed back to the rooms.

****

When they got there, everyone was sitting on
the ground.

“Took you long enough,” Dex said.

“You don’t get any,” Layne replied. Dex
laughed.

They handed out the clothes, and everyone
took turns changing in the bathrooms.

“Hang up your wet clothes so they’ll dry,”
Layne said. “Did anyone check to see if there’s hot water?”

“The toilets flush,” Dex said.

“Do they flush hot water?”

Dex stood up. “I’ll go check.” Layne raised
his eyebrows. “The shower, not the toilet.” He headed for the
bathroom.

“Okay, so where is everyone sleeping?”

“On the bed,” Kara said. Layne almost
jumped, and everyone laughed. Kara buried her face in Jessi’s
stomach.

“It’s okay, honey,” she said. “Don’t feel
bad, they’re just happy, okay?”

“Sorry,” Layne said.

“It’s okay. She’s just shy.”

Keely got up and walked over to Kara.

“Hey, kiddo. Your name’s Kara, right?” Keely
kneeled down to Kara’s level. Kara cautiously looked at her, and
nodded. “That’s a pretty name. My name’s Keely.”