by Urban, Tony
Part of his duties involved taking out the trash and depositing it in the dumpster. The smell which had invaded the control room wasn't far off from how that dumpster smelled on the hottest August days. He tried to pretend that it wasn't his mother who was now smelling the same as rancid pork and rotten vegetables in the summer heat.
He was an orphan. He'd felt that way much of his life, but now it was real and he still wasn't sure how to react. So, he watched the monitors where zombies shuffled from room to room, bounced off walls, and tripped over discarded furniture.
He wondered if they were hungry, too. They hadn't eaten in days, either. Everyone that had been alive was long gone. Except him. And he wasn't going anywhere.
Mitch glanced away from the monitors and watched a few zombies that ambled outside the control room. Occasionally, they'd see him, approach the glass and bounce off like bumper cars. One of them was Mitch's father. He'd been sticking around the room for the last day and Mitch wondered if any sense of recognition remained.
Mitch pressed his face against the glass as his dead father approached and eventually smacked into it face first, his nose bending obscenely to the side. He looked into Mitch's eyes, bared his teeth, and growled.
"Right back at ya, Pops."
While the two stared each other down, Mitch thought about how much he'd hated the man. He never inspired respect or fear, let alone admiration. He was a career-obsessed asshole who used Mitch as a prop to further his own ambitions. All he felt for him in life was hatred. Looking at him now, in death, he found the old man to be downright pitiful.
"Where did all of your focus groups and polls get you, Pops? Rotting away in a bunker with all your asshole cronies. You're dead and I'm just fine. Bet you never saw that coming."
Mitch tapped the glass and his dead father went crazy. It banged and clawed at the window. More zombies, roused by the commotion, joined in and soon a few dozen crowded against the glass.
Mitch smacked it again, harder. Then again. The zombies became riled up like monkeys in a zoo and he enjoyed tormenting them.
He was having so much fun, he didn't notice the exterior cameras capture a car pulling into the Greenbrier's front lot.
The palatial resort was unlike anything Bolivar had ever seen. They passed through a gated entry point where, before the plague, a guard would have determined who was granted admission and who was not. After passing the guard shack, they drove up a long tree and flower lined lane. Then the hotel came into view.
It looked bigger than the White House. Pristine, white buildings stretched out far behind it and from each side. It was large enough to house Bolivar's entire hometown times twenty. All of this tucked away amid a forest in the middle of nowhere.
A few zombies roamed the grounds, mostly soldiers or men and women in dark suits. They totaled less than a dozen altogether and Bolivar thought that was a sign that Dash's story of a secret bunker buried beneath the resort might be true after all. Surely, if it was an ordinary hotel, there should be hundreds of zombies roaming the grounds. Rich tourists struck down while on a holiday. For there to be so few meant the public portion had been evacuated.
Bolivar parked the car in a circular drive, which surrounded a garden overflowing with red tulips. He and Aben exited the vehicle. While Juli tried to coax Grady out into the open, the dog hopped out and ran around with near boundless energy.
Bol and Aben destroyed the zombies. As they returned to the car, they saw Grady out in the open air. He stood there, statuesque, but when Juli took his hand and led him toward the hotel, he trudged along. The two men exchanged a shocked glance.
"Miracle?" Aben asked.
"I'd save that word for when he speaks."
"Then I won't hold my breath."
They gathered together as many firearms as they could carry and followed Juli and Grady toward the grand entrance.
Inside, the hotel was a ghost town. Everything was immaculate and undisturbed. The black and white tile floors were spotless. Bolivar half expected an attendant to come forward and greet them.
"Welcome to the Greenbriar," Aben said from behind him.
Bolivar looked back. "It's... interesting."
The decoration was nauseatingly lavish. Every window had colorful, fabric swags. Floral print covered all the furniture. The ceilings were fifteen feet high and were supported by ornately carved pillars. Every time he looked up, Bolivar saw a different chandelier.
"Do rich people really like this shit?" Aben asked.
"I think it's beautiful," Juli said.
Bol and Aben traded a smirk. They set the first round of their supplies on the floor and wandered around the lobby. Juli started up a red, black, and green carpeted staircase. Bol worked on getting Grady into a sitting position on a settee that looked straight out of Victorian England.
"Aw, shit."
They turned toward Aben's voice. He stood by the dining room and ran his hand through his stringy hair as he looked at something on the wall.
Bolivar left Grady and moved toward him. "What is it?"
"There's a dress code for dinner. Jacket and tie required. I guess I'm shit out of luck."
Bolivar laughed, a deep belly laugh that made him feel better than he had since this whole disaster had begun.
"Maybe there's one in the lost and found."
Aben laughed, too. "That's a good idea, Bol. I'll check on that."
Bolivar felt almost normal again, and even if it was only for a moment, it felt good.
Chapter 41
In the morning, hours before anyone realized Mead was gone, Bundy woke, looked to his side, and saw Mina's face only a few inches from his own. They had spent the night together in more ways than one.
It was awkward and embarrassing and amazing all at once. Bundy had been with women before, was even engaged for a few months, but the connection he felt with Mina was different and better.
Afterward, she opened up to him about her father for the first time. When she finished, he wished he could kill the man again for her. She fell asleep crying.
His heart ached for the pain she'd endured and he wondered if she'd ever be able to get over it. Was it even possible to move on from a lifetime of that kind of torment?
The feel of all her hard angles against his flabby chest was a pleasant surprise. Her skin was like warm velvet and he wished he never had to separate from it. He kissed her on the ear and she smiled, half-awake but keeping her eyes closed.
"Good morning," he whispered.
She stretched out and as he felt her warm, firm butt press against his groin he felt himself getting hard. She must have felt it, too, because she smiled and opened her eyes.
"Too early for that, my handsome man."
Bundy had been called a lot of things in life, but handsome wasn't one of them. The pure sincerity in her voice meant even more to him than the compliment.
"Can't blame me, though. It's your fault for being so damned beautiful."
She rolled onto her back, her small breasts disappearing against her ribs.
"Thank you," she said.
"For what?"
"For being so... gentle."
Bundy traced his fingers over her waist. "I want you to promise me something."
"What's that, hon?"
"That you won't ever thank me again for treating you right. That doesn't deserve a thanks. That's the way it's supposed to be."
She put her hand on his face and kissed him.
Bundy thought again that this moment should never end.
But everything good comes to an end sooner or later. Usually sooner.
Emory stood outside the warehouse and stretched away the stiffness, at least as much as possible at his advanced age. The morning was cool and he saw his breaths create pale clouds every time he exhaled.
Some of the others had been talking about moving on and looking for larger groups of survivors, but Emory had his doubts. The plague happened too quickly for any large group of people to have been evacuat
ed or saved. Of that, he was certain. But he didn't mind because as he looked out at the beauty surrounding him, he felt filled to the brim with the spirit of God.
He'd never considered himself to be an overly religious man, but staring out at the surrounding glory made it impossible to believe it was all some sort of happy accident. No cosmic egg could crack open and spill a yolk like this. Apologies to Monsieur Lemaître, but Emory wasn't buying it.
As he stood in the silence, he saw a small whitetail deer wander out of the woods at the rear of the warehouse. It nibbled on some clover growing amongst the grass, then caught a whiff of Emory. It craned its head in his direction, found him, and stared.
"You have nothing to fear from me. Although, I speak not for my compatriots."
It took a few more bites then bounded into the woods.
The sight filled his heart up almost to the brim. This was still a beautiful world and Emory was excited to see what the future held.
After waking up with Ramey still asleep against his chest, Wim was reluctant to move, but a rumbling in his belly got the best of him. He eased Ramey off and let her sleep as he headed into the break room where he remembered seeing some plastic bowls.
He took some cans of peaches, pineapples and cherries and mixed them together, hoping it would be enough to feed everyone. As he looked out the room's lone window, he too saw the deer wander out of the tree line, the sun illuminating the small rack of antlers atop its golden brown head. They looked to still be covered in velvet and that made him smile. He hoped there was a doe in the area, too. Perhaps life could go on after all.
He'd initially seen the plague as a curse, but maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe it was a cleansing of the slate. A modern day version of the Great Flood. He still wondered why he'd been spared, but now he was happy to be one of the lucky ones. He intended to put his lottery ticket to good use, and he wanted to make a difference this time around. He wanted to live, not simply exist.
Chapter 42
After he tired of harassing the zombies, Mitch returned to his swivel chair behind the TV monitors and spun around and around and around until his head was swimming. The boredom was the worst. Well, maybe the hunger was worse, but boredom was almost more than he could bear.
The zombies had dispersed again, wandering about aimlessly and doing whatever it was that zombies did when there was no one around to eat.
Mitch watched them in the monitors as they shambled around, occasionally bumping into one another and growling or hissing, then going on their separate ways again. He was bored with this show, too.
He flipped through the various cameras and almost went right past the one displaying the exterior of the resort, but the car caught his eye just before he switched off.
"That wasn't there before."
He glanced over at the rotting heap in the corner where his mother's body was slowly dissolving. Puddles of yellow and green goo had leaked out and inched their way toward him.
He sometimes woke up at night afraid that the putrefying liquid had washed the whole way across the floor and he'd find himself sleeping in it. Forget Liquid Plumber, this was Liquid Mother.
Mitch flipped through more camera angles, and in doing so, saw three men, one woman, and a dog inside the hotel. All appeared armed, except for the small nerdy-looking guy who sat motionless and stared at the wall.
"Jesus Christ, even the zombies have more personality than you, buddy."
While these new people looked prepared to fight zombies, they also appeared to be searching for something. They checked hallways, looked behind tapestries on the wall and did everything except pull on random books in the library and say, 'Open sesame.'
"You're looking for the bunker, aren't you?" Mitch grinned, his eyes avid. This was good. "You're searching for the heroes, but all that's left to find is me..." He licked his lips at the thought.
He turned again toward the body in the corner.
"We've got company, Mother." Mother didn't respond.
Over six hours of searching had proven fruitless. They'd found nothing. No zombies. No bunker. No false walls or secret passages.
Aben wasn't too surprised. If there was a top secret bunker, it would almost certainly be inaccessible from the general hotel. But he doubted there was ever a bunker in the first place. And with even more certainty, he doubted anyone would be alive, even if the stories were true.
He didn't share his thoughts with Bolivar because he could tell the soldier was distraught over the perceived failure. Bol has pinned all his hopes for the future of humanity on this place, and now he realized that donkey tale was wildly misplaced. Aben wasn’t going to say that out loud, but he did suggest they consider moving on sooner rather than later.
"I know. We'll go in the morning." Defeat clouded Bolivar’s voice.
Aben nodded. "No sense lingering."
"I don't understand the hurry," Juli said.
They both turned to look at Juli when she spoke.
"There's nothing for us here," Aben said.
Juli motioned to the floor to ceiling glass windows that looked out on the surrounding mountains.
"And what's waiting for us out there?" She'd been removing the dressing on Grady's bite wound, but stopped as she spoke.
"Jorge said they destroyed Philadelphia and killed everyone in it. I saw what was happening in Baltimore. That was Government sanctioned homicide. D.C. is gone. Do you really think anything is different in Chicago or Dallas or L.A.? Really?"
Both men remained silent. Aben realized she has a point. He was quite confident the country, and probably the whole world, had been wiped out. Maybe there were islands in the Pacific or villages in inaccessible parts of the Amazon where people avoided being turned into zombies, but as for everywhere civilized… Nice knowing you. Here’s a souvenir t-shirt.
"What then?" Bolivar asked. "We just sit here and do nothing but exist?"
"Is that so bad? At least, for a little while? For all we know, those zombies will die off on their own. Maybe they'll rot to pieces or starve to death if people like us aren't dumb enough to go out there and get eaten."
"She's got a point, Bol," Aben said.
Bolivar looked at him, his eyes wide. "But what about other people? People who might die without our help?"
"I'm not cut out for saving the world, Bol." Aben saw Bolivar's eyes flare and realized he needed to dial it back. “I’m just saying, it might not be a bad idea at all to take a day or so and think about things."
Bolivar gave a slight nod, but didn't respond otherwise.
"The appliances in the kitchen are all gas. I'd be glad to make us something to eat. The pantries were very well stocked." Juli said.
"That sounds good."
"Watch after him for me, okay?" She looked at Grady who sat silent as a church mouse.
Aben gave his most reassuring smile. "I doubt he'll get up and run away, but we'll keep an eye out."
She left the room. Bol moved to Grady and busied himself with examining the wound. Aben felt he was purposely ignoring him and that was all right.
Aben stared out the window and thought it looked peaceful. He remembered learning once upon a time that the Earth was self healing. That's how it survived meteors and ice ages and all that shit. It was the people who were ultimately its biggest enemy.
Maybe this is what the world needed, Aben thought. A do-over. Sucks for everyone who died, but the idea that this was all for the best was something he couldn't shake.
Chapter 43
Hard rain and violent thunderstorms kept the group trapped inside the warehouse for three days. Mead never returned and that bothered Wim.
He'd liked Mead in the few days he'd been around him. Most of the others didn't appear to miss him, and that confused Wim even more than the man's sudden departure. He might have been an odd duck, but he was incredibly smart and innovative when it came to fighting and defending themselves against the zombies. Wim wanted to search for him, but the rain coming down
was of the cats and dogs variety and Ramey and Emory talked him out of it.
There was nothing to do but talk, and talking had never been Wim's strong suit. Even Emory was running out of stories to tell. Wim had gotten to know Peggy better and he was glad for the opportunity.
She was a country girl and reminded him of his mama, only rougher around the edges. She too had grown up on a farm and they discussed that commonality off and on, but like everything else, the interest wore off soon enough.
Wim knew many of them, especially Mina and Peggy, had grown tired of their quarters. Wim didn't entirely blame them. The only options for sleep were upright in chairs or prone on the hard floor.
The warehouse was dark on a sunny day and an abyss on dreary ones. It felt like an oversized, sterile coffin. Ramey had spoken little about her father, but Wim caught her staring out the windows for long stretches at a time and knew she too was getting antsy.
Their meager food supplies were dwindling, and when they woke to clear skies on the fourth day, heading out wasn't just an option, it was a necessity.
Wim's plan was to go out and scavenge again, search for Mead, then return to the warehouse to regroup in case the man returned.
He was outvoted. The majority, which included everyone except himself and Emory, wanted to say their final goodbyes. Wim didn't fancy himself any sort of leader and he didn't object.
Ramey had informed everyone of her father's letter and they unanimously agreed to head in that direction. As they loaded their supplies into the vehicles, Wim noticed that the steel radial belt was showing through on one of the pickup's tires. He checked and there was no spare.
"It's not safe to drive like that," he told her.
"Well, it wasn't really my truck anyway. Just felt like it."
She agreed to leave it behind. It was funny, Wim thought, the way people became attached to their big cages of metal. He knew his own Bronco couldn't last forever, but hoped to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
