“Sounds like a plan boss,” Ian said.
Samir frowned. Klaus began distributing keys. There were two floors and one hundred rooms starting from 100-200. They began on the lower level, starting from 100. Not ten minutes into their search Ian squealed. The rest of them came running to the room.
He was crouched down by the fridge. He turned to look up at their worried frantic faces.
“Sorry mates,” he smiled guiltily, shaking a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels. “I found the mini bar.”
Courage is as often the outcome of despair as of hope; in the one case we have nothing to lose, in the other, everything to gain.
- Diane de Pointiers
They drove out of Georgia by daybreak, entering South Carolina.
“Do you think we’ll ever find the others?” Jomo asked.
“I don’t know,” Lupe admitted. “But stranger things have happened. I found you, after all, at a gas station about to be mauled.”
Jomo smiled. “This is true.”
“Chances are they’re way ahead of us, and who knows where they ended up. They’re probably in Maine or Canada by now.”
“But at least they have numbers, and better weapons than ours.”
“Really? What kind of weapons?”
“We stopped in the museum and stole some weapons from the armory. That’s where I got my spear from. Um...” he tried to think. “There’s a battleaxe, a mace, a sword...”
“Sweet Jesus!”
“And of course Marina’s got her guns from her place.”
“And we have our sticks,” Lupe sighed.
“Hey, we’re pretty good with our sticks.”
Lupe laughed.
“You know what I meant.”
“Yes, and somehow, still funny.”
***
Claudia awoke to an odd noise coming from the hallway outside her room. The strange deathly silence
cast a pall over Saint Bartholomew’s hospital that she only now noticed with the return of sound. It sounded as if someone were clearing their throat; possibly the nurse or one of the two doctors. She’d heard the nurse say something while she was in and out of consciousness to the others: “There’s still a few of them up on the third floor.”
Oh God, what if it was one of them?
And she lay here with two broken legs. Something shuffled toward the doorway. When it turned into the entrance Claudia saw that it was the nurse, except that half of her face was gone. One of the zombies had bitten off her lips and the lower half of her face, so that her bottom jaw was missing, and her exposed upper teeth were caked in blood. There was blood in her blond hair but her eyes were still decidedly blue and human. She was struggling to cry out for help, arms reaching toward her, but her tongue was gone. There wasn’t much that Claudia could do, at any rate. She was immobilized.
“I’m sorry,” Claudia cried, “I’m sorry.” They must have found their way down the stairs from the third floor and gotten the rest of the staff. Her suspicion was confirmed when the doctors came in behind her, their throats torn out and already turned. They viciously pounced on the nurse, throwing her to the ground and finishing what another started. They hadn’t looked up to see Christina yet in the bed. She unhooked her legs, scrambling to get up. The leg casts not only made it impossible to stand up, but the pain that shot through her broken legs as she tried to dropped her to the floor instantly. All she could do was crawl. How she was going to get past the corpses feasting on the nurse in front of the door she hadn’t a clue.
When she thought things couldn’t get worse,
they did. The zombies that had made their way down the stairwell began to come into the room as well, smelling the nurse’s flesh, and possibly her own. No one would come to her rescue, as Guadalupe did for Jomo. She was quite alone. When the first one attacked her on the ground she already knew she was going to die, so she bit back, spitting out the rotten flesh of its drooping jowls from her mouth.
“How do you like that? HUH?!! You don’t like that so much do ya?!” She tore into one’s face, clawing its eye out with her fingernail, laughing madly as she gave as well as she got, fighting ’til the end, until she succumbed to their bites.
***
It took them three hours to clear all the rooms, only finding three shamblers, people who had most likely sought refuge in this motel and turned in their rooms after being bit, and didn’t know how to unlock their doors.
Once secured they rested, two to a room. The rooms they selected each had two Queen beds and were side by side in a row on the upper floor. It gave them a better vantage point of the parking lot and the surrounding environs should anyone or anything approach.
“What’s wrong?” Xinga asked, as she settled in the bed that was next to Kamara’s. She noticed that her friend was just sitting there, looking down.
“It’s just that I don’t know where my mom and sister are. Once we lost contact with everyone I gave up looking. All I know is they were looking for my father, but I don’t know where my father is, or if they were able to reach him before all the lines and towers were cut.”
Xinga looked at her blankly.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Kamara asked.
“Yes, I think so,” Xinga said sympathetically, “You miss your family.”
That was all it took for the waterworks to start after Kamara simply said, “Yes.”
Xinga walked over to her and placed her arms around her from behind. “I’m sorry. I know my parents are in China, but will never be able to reach them now.”
Kamara took her hand. “Thank you. I’m sorry too.” She turned and smiled at her through her tears. “Your English has gotten better.”
“Thank you,” Xinga said, doing a short bow, “I’ve been practicing.”
***
Oddly enough, in the next room Klaus was also discussing his parents with Samir.
“They’re in South Carolina, if they’re still alive. I never even checked if they were still alive after my wife left.”
Samir looked at him. “Then we should go back to South Carolina.”
“No, I can’t hold you guys back.”
“If I had one more chance to see my parents alive, do you think I would not take it?’
“I know,” Klaus said sadly.
“Then I will talk to the rest of the group tomorrow and we will see about going back to find them.”
“Okay,” Klaus said.
“Good,” Samir said. “Sleep well my friend.”
“You as well Samir.”
***
“How did I end up in the room with you chowder head?” Marina asked.
Ian laughed. “Just lucky I guess.”
“Yeah, rotten luck,” she said.
“I’m not so sure about staying here for long.”
“Why’s that?” Marina asked.
“I still have to see if my mom and dad and sister are alive in Virginia. We’re only one state away.”
“That’s if they’re still there.”
“I have to try.”
Ian was disappointed the next morning to find out Samir had other plans, namely to go back the way they’d come, to find Klaus’s folks.
“But we were already headed up north,” Ian protested.
“Which is why we need to go back and see if Klaus’s parents are still alive first, before we go any further,” Samir said, as they all stood outside on the balcony to their rooms.
“I say we should vote,” Ian said.
Samir nodded. “That’s fair. All in favor of South Carolina raise your hands.”
All but Ian raised their hands.
“This is bullshit!” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Samir said.
“It makes more sense,” Marina said.
“Yeah, okay then.”
He wasn’t convinced.
“You all hate me anyway. I get it,” Ian muttered under his breath.
“What?” Kamara asked.
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything! Fine, we’ll go back to South Carolina.”
***
As Ian and Marina packed their bags she said, “I heard what you said out there. No one hates you Ian. Not even me.”
“You all think I’m a joke. I’m just a player, and I don’t take anything seriously.”
“Do you?” she asked.
“Did you see me joking when Ashley died?”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Yes. Well, did you?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Just because you don’t see me cry doesn’t mean I don’t feel things. Doesn’t mean I don’t take our situation seriously.”
“I know. We’re not doing this out of any animosity toward you Ian. We just don’t want to have to backtrack twice.”
“Yeah, I know. I get it. I just have the feeling the more I wait the less chance there will be of them being alive.”
“Well, you have to figure Klaus is feeling the same way.”
“Yeah. You’re not worried about your parents?”
“In Russia? I doubt they’re even concerned about me. Not that I would have any way of knowing for sure.”
“If you could fly a plane out of here to see them one last time, would you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I never truly felt loved by them. I mean they love me because I’m their daughter and they made me, but not in the way that most parents care for their children. I was more like a possession to them, something to show off, until I grew up, got tattoos,
and left home. Then I was just the embarrassment.”
“They’re not proud of you?” Ian said, “For coming here and going to school, and making it on your own?”
“Proud?” Marina laughed. “I don’t think pride ever even came into the equation.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s life. You live, you die. You do the best with what you’re handed.”
“Cynical much?”
“Much,” she agreed. “Anyhow, if your family is still alive now, chances are they’ll survive until we get there.”
“You believe that?”
Marina winked, “Gotta believe in something.”
***
“Gonna take a peek,” Lupe said, as she opened the door to the gas station Food Mart.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll wait here. I’ve had about all I can take of convenience stores,” Jomo replied.
“Understood.”
“Just call for me if you have to,” Jomo said.
“No worries, I will.”
Lupe entered the store, the tinkling bell announcing her arrival. Upon first glance she noticed many of the store’s shelves had been emptied. Immediately after a man popped up from behind the counter and pointed a gun at her. Lupe let out a startled squeak.
“What’s your business here?”
She struggled to come up with a reply.
“I said STATE YOUR BUSINESS!”
“I-I-I,” Lupe stammered, “just came in to see if
any one was alive in here, and if there was food or supplies we could take with us.” She paused as the man eyed her. “We’re willing to pay,” she added.
Jomo ran in. The man pointed the gun at him now. “Who are you?!”
“I’m with her.”
“Is it just the two of ya?”
“Y-yes,” Jomo said.
The man looked at them for a moment longer, and then lowered his pistol. “I am sorry about that. Gang came in here the other day, robbed half the place. I would have given them what they needed freely, if they’d just asked nicely, but they just came in here busting up the joint, and taking everything in sight. My gun was in the safe in the back. Lot of good it did me there. They had bats and knives, threatened my life. I don’t know why I stayed. After, I mean. I guess I was expecting more customers. The whole world’s coming to an end, and I’m trying to run a store. Funny, right?”
“Not all that funny,” Lupe said. “I get it though.”
“Figured if the store kept running, the world would catch up and everything else would get back to normal, but everyday I saw fewer and fewer people. But I still went home, showered and got dressed every day and went to work like normal. It didn’t matter that half the streets were empty. It didn’t even matter if I saw those things across the street. I just walked a little faster, made sure they didn’t see me...” He couldn’t continue. “It’s all so stupid and pointless.”
“We’re sorr...” Lupe began.
The man jabbed the gun under his chin and blew his brains out, splattering the wall with the stores many advertisements, employee achievements and its first dollar bill, behind him. Jomo and Lupe screamed. He slumped back behind the counter, sliding down the wall, tearing posters along his descent.
Once they got some semblance of control over themselves, Lupe said, “I can’t believe he, I can’t believe he- killed himself.”
“No,” Jomo shook his head. He started to make his way around the counter.
“Wha-what are you doing?” Lupe asked.
“We don’t even know who the man is.” Jomo crouched down beside the body, avoiding looking into the man’s face. Lupe stood next to the counter but refused to go around. Jomo searched in the man’s shirt pocket and then his jeans and found his wallet. He pulled out the driver’s license. “Rick Hammond. He’s,
was
forty-three. Pictures of... looks like his wife. Two kids, boy and a girl.”
“Why do you need to know that?” Lupe said.
“Because there is likely no one left to mourn him. It’s our job now as the last people he’s seen alive.”
Guadalupe nodded, smiling and tearing up at the same time.
Jomo stood. “Let’s go. We don’t need to take anything from here.”