Billy led them to the side of the hotel away from the parking garage. On this side of the hotel some of the doors were open letting in vague hints of the sun shining outside. It was almost bright enough that they could turn off their flashlights. They left them on though since neither of them wanted to risk someone being able to sneak up on them in the tight confines of the hallway. Billy stopped and spoke to them over his shoulder.
“My dad and uncle should be up ahead. I can yell for them to come here or we can keep going and surprise them. It may be better not to surprise them. Nobody much likes being surprised anymore.” Billy said. Randy could see how the apocalypse and all the Zombies could make it awkward to jump out and yell surprise in a dark hallway corridor. That was a good way to get yourself stabbed or shot.
“Go ahead and let them know we’re here. Remember. Anything seems weird to us you get a bullet in the back of your head.” Randy and Tony both checked their weapons a final time and put their backs to separate walls. Tony watched their backs while Randy focused on the direction Billy had indicated his dad and uncle were in.
“Dad! Can you guys come down here. We got visitors. They got guns!” Randy kind of wished he’d coached Billy a little better on what not to say. There was no audible response to Billy yelling, but they heard people moving out of the rooms at the end of the long corridor. They also heard people moving out of rooms in the other direction along the corridor. Randy found himself wishing he’d brought Kelly along with them after all. He focused on the group of people walking down the hallway towards them and trusted Tony to cover their flank.
Three men and two women lined up in front of them. Randy heard people shuffling around behind him as well. The people were all pretty scraggly looking. Pale and malnourished obviously suffering from a lack of hygiene. They were dressed nicely but the clothes hung oddly off their thin frames. Their faces were gaunt. They were armed with knives and fire axes and poles. They probably hadn’t set foot outside this hotel since the apocalypse started. They stood in a row staring at them now. Randy noticed a haunted look in their eyes similar to the way Billy looked. Something that kept them from being able to look him in the eye.
“Who’s in charge here?” Randy asked. He was holding his pistol in his hand. He had it down by his side where he could easily bring it into play if needed but not appear overly threatening if he didn’t need it. He caught several of them glancing down at the pistol covetously. He didn’t like the way they looked at him.
“We do thing’s by voting on them as a group.” An older man in front of Randy said. The man was tall and dressed in working man’s clothes. He had a carpenters claw hammer hanging off his belt.
“Ok. Well we’re looking for safe passage through your home here and out onto the street. We’ll want to stay here for the rest of today at least then we’ll move along. We have our own food and supplies so we won’t be a burden. We’re not looking for trouble but we’re ready for it if need be.” Randy patted his gun to emphasize his point.
“You got enough supplies to pay us for staying?” The old man asked.
“I wasn’t trying to negotiate a rate. I was telling you we’re going to be staying here then need safe passage out. We’re only going to take what we can carry so if there’s extra you guys can have it when we leave. If there’s not any extra, then we aren’t going to be leaving anything. I don’t plan on taking anything that belongs to you though if that’s what you’re worried about.” Randy didn’t feel comfortable the way these people were staring at him. He was extremely glad he had a firearm and they didn’t.
“You got to pay if you want to stay.” One of the women said. The others repeated the phrase quietly over and over. It was freaking Randy out. He considered just opening fire but held back. He didn’t have any desire to parade his wife and kids past these freaks, but he didn’t see where he had much choice. He didn’t think he had it in him to murder a bunch of people in cold blood just because they were acting weird.
“Ok. Shut up. I take it you guys have this floor. We’ll go down a couple of floors and spend the day there and then be out of your hair in a day or two. Any information you can give us on the best and safest ways to get out of here would be appreciated. I’m assuming there aren’t any Zombies on the lower levels here?”
The old man started cackling. “You think if we knew a good, safe way to get out of here that we’d be sitting in this damned hotel still? We’ve been here forever. Lots of people made a run for it in the beginning. I don’t think any of them made it. At least not the ones we watched. The first couple of floors may have some Zombies wandering around. The lobby has them for sure. You’ll stay on this floor and we’ll escort you down when you’re ready to leave. You can have the two rooms you’re next to right now. ”
The old man turned around and left before Randy could say anything. Everyone else took their cue from the old man. Billy left with the rest of them.
“For someone who isn’t a leader the rest of them sure do what he tells them to.” Tony observed.
They went and got Kelly and the kids. They let the blubbering kid run away and rejoin his parents. A couple of trips later they were all gathered in the two indicated rooms. There was a door between the two suites so with that opened they were able to turn it into one large room. They could even lock the doors, so they were able to feel at least a little secure.
Locked doors or not they set a watch schedule making sure to have at least two people awake at any given time. Everyone went to sleep fully dressed and ready to roll out of bed and fight if need be. They shut the curtains on the view of a trashed downtown Orlando after scanning the streets looking for a path out once they got back to street level. Randy really wanted to spend a couple of days here recuperating. However, the weirdness of the other occupants wasn’t making that seem like a great idea.
Exhausted Randy and Kelly crawled into the oversized king bed surrounded by their kids and fell asleep in seconds. Tony and Caitlyn sat in their respective rooms on guard working hard to keep their eyes open. Caitlyn stared jealously at the bed all her sisters were sleeping on. She forced herself to stand up to stay awake. Out of sheer boredom she stared out the window through a crack in the curtains at the deserted city below.
Chapter 15: Now What?
Kyler and Jeff stayed hidden in the woods watching as more and more Zombies surrounded the command center. They alternated standing watch for a few hours to take cat naps. Kyler had just fallen asleep for his turn at a quick snooze when Jeff nudged him in the shoulder.
“Somethings happening.” He said.
Kyler climbed groggily to his feet straightening out his weapons as he stood up. He looked over towards the command center and saw that someone had come out on the roof and was trying to survey the Zombies.
“They have cameras in there. I wonder if the Zombies were blocking all of them?” Jeff mused.
The man on the top of the command center turned to go back to the middle of the trailer. Kyler was assuming the hatch was there that he’d come out of. A Zombie from the back of the crowd caught side of him and literally ran across the backs and shoulders of the packed Zombies. The Zombie took a flying leap and landed on the trailer. Other Zombies noticed what was going on and pretty soon a group of the adrenalized Zombies had jumped up onto the top of the command center.
Kyler and Jeff were straining their eyes trying to see if the guy on the roof had made it or not. While they watched another ten or twenty Zombies vaulted on the roof of the trailer setup as the command center. The Zombies were just milling around aimlessly on the top of the trailer, so the man must’ve gotten down the hatch before they got up there.
“We need to let them know not to come back out.” Kyler whispered to Jeff. Whispering was probably overkill considering the amount of noise the crowd of Zombies was making but it was an ingrained into them at this point.
“How the hell do we do that?” Jeff asked looking at Kyler with one eyebrow raised. It was a credible version of t
he Rock’s signature eyebrow move. Jeff hadn’t bothered whispering but he hadn’t said it loudly either.
Kyler had nothing to say to that one. How did you let a trailer full of soldiers with no way to see out know that Zombies were hanging out on the roof of their sanctuary? The issue was compounded by the lack of any communications gear for them to talk to the people in the trailer. The only way they could signal them would be if they came out on the roof. At which point it’d be too late to signal them anything as they’d be too busy fighting for their lives to try and figure out whatever charades Kyler could come up with.
Jeff and Kyler continued to rack their brains. A couple of the Zombies managed to stumble off the sides of the trailer and fall back into the milling crowd of them below. Kyler started thinking the problem may solve itself. He was the one watching a few hours later when he saw a ripple through the Zombies on the top of the trailer. He watched as they all started disappearing. He kicked Jeff to wake him up then flung himself at a low hanging branch and began climbing the tree he’d been leaning against. He wondered while he climbed why they hadn’t thought of climbing a tree to get a better view already. He scraped his knuckles pretty badly and it felt like he may have permanently damaged his left shoulder, but he made it to the skinny branches at the top of the canopy.
From this new vantage point he could see the top of the trailer much more clearly. He’d heard some muted gunshots as he climbed. He was assuming those had come from the people in the trailer defending themselves as the Zombies poured in. The onslaught of Zombies was a trickle at this point, but it was pretty obvious the defenders must not have fared too well. If they had of someone would’ve closed the hatch or come out to fight. Looking over at the command center Kyler assumed they could cross those guys off the list.
He stayed up in the tree another thirty minutes just to be sure. When he did finally climb down it was with a much heavier heart than when he’d scampered up. His mind providing the images of the men he’d briefly known at the camp being butchered by the Zombies pouring into the trailer. The hell they must’ve gone through trying to defend the wide-open container from Zombies tunneling in like a stream of fire ants. Emptying their magazines in ear drum shattering fire that would’ve been just a little too slow to stop the flow of the Zombies once they had the scent. The container filling up with the stinking bodies of the slaughtered. Blood deep enough to soak the boots of the defenders. Zombies emerging from the pile of dead bodies that would’ve formed under the hatch.
He hit the ground with both boots. Jeff took one look at Kyler’s face and got ready to roll out.
“Where we headed?” Jeff asked with his rifle positioned where he could easily get to it. He’d gotten it tangled in his backpack when he started putting it on.
“I’m not sure. All these people at mile markers need a ride. Go back and get the trucks and pick everybody up and get out of Dodge? Head to wherever the main camps are and unload?”
“Yeah. This mission’s FUBAR anyway. Let’s do it.” Jeff answered.
They grabbed their stuff and jogged through the trees back the way they’d come from originally. They were looking for the exit that would lead them to where three new trucks should be parked waiting for looters to load them up. Kyler was thinking they could just get in the trucks and go pick up the people at the mile markers instead. The trailers were pretty big so with people packing in together they should all fit.
They passed two groups of people in the forest as they ran. They told both groups to wait for them to come out and be ready to run and jump in the trailers. Sweating profusely and feeling uncomfortably chaffed they finally got to the exit. There were a few Zombies milling around the ramp where they’d been chasing the trucks. They’d have to get past those Zombies quietly. Kyler was hoping they could wait for it to get dark then just walk right past all the Zombies. As long as they stayed calm it should work fine. Especially if they limped a bit to make themselves look more Zombie like. As long as it was a dark night, they should be able to just walk right to the trucks that should be parked about a mile away.
“We should wait for it to get dark then try to just walk right past them all.” Jeff whispered to Kyler. Kyler nodded, glad that the two of them were thinking along the same lines.
“We can’t go try and pick everybody up until the morning anyway.” Kyler said. He was thinking out loud. “We can try staggering which trucks stop at which mile markers. If we time it right, we should be able to miss most of the Zombies. If it does get bad, we can just stay put for a bit in the trucks since they have all of that fencing welded on. We can always drive away using the video monitors.”
“Yeah. I think we’re good to go. We just need to make it across this no man’s land once it gets dark. We’ve got a few hours, so I say we nap it up.”
A few hours later the sun had gone down and a big ass shiny moon had gone up.
“That’s like the brightest moon I’ve ever seen.” Kyler said staring angrily up at the moon sitting just above the horizon.
“Yeah. We need some more pollution. Get more crap in the atmosphere to block the light. I’ve noticed it’s been getting brighter at night. You can see the stars a hell of a lot better now too.”
Kyler had noticed the stars. He’d noticed the moon too, now that he thought about it. He just hadn’t needed to risk his life on a non-overcast night in a while. As bright as it was the Zombies would spot them coming the second that they stepped out from the tree line. Assuming the Zombies were awake anyway. He didn’t see any of them moving around anymore. He hoped they’d all gone up into the homeless hotel underneath the overpass to sleep. They may just be crashed out in the tall weeds. The Zombies complete lack of caring where they spent the night made it extra exciting to go stumbling around in the dark. You never knew when you might step on a sleeping cannibal who’d try to eat you alive.
“Try and look like a Zombie.” Jeff said. He stuck his arms out and stumbled around the little clearing they were hiding out in. It sucked but that was going to have to be the plan. It never occurred to Kyler or Jeff to just duck out and escape leaving the people at the mile markers to fend for themselves. Both of the young men were possessed of a strong sense of responsibility. Neither would be able to just walk away from people who were supposedly under their protection.
Not seeing any alternatives, they simply walked across the road. They did it quietly without holding any gear in their hands. No one understood how Zombies could tell who was infected and who wasn’t, but they figured Zombies might notice if they were waving around flashlight and carrying machetes in their hands. Kind of like a group of bears would notice if a trained bear rode by them on a unicycle. It’d be obvious something was different about it.
They’d heard other theories thrown around. Normal humans smelling different from the infected was a popular one. It made sense that the virus would cause some physiological changes to the human body. One of those changes could be the way a person smelled. The pheromones they gave off. That sort of thing. This theory was extremely popular since the Zombies were often spotted walking around sniffing at the air. Especially when they were tracking down prey.
No matter how the Zombies identified a normal human up front once spotted you could be sure they wouldn’t stop chasing you. They also wouldn’t shut up with the screeching which meant every Zombie in hearing range would converge on you. Since all of them would keep right on screeching the circle just kept getting bigger. That’s how well armed men died. Most militia groups didn’t carry enough ammunition to kill ten thousand Zombies. They’d get surrounded and may take out a ton of the Zombies but eventually they’d lose. It would just become a numbers game.
Walking across the road in open sight of any Zombies who may decide to look in their general direction was a sphincter tightening exercise. Kyler was really hoping he could avoid having to do it again in the future. They made it all the way across the road and were walking down the shoulder towards the on ramp when Kyler kicked a c
an. The can rolled down the side of the road and disappeared into the tall weeds. Kyler and Jeff froze.
It hadn’t been a massive amount of noise. In the grand scheme of things, it was just the noise of a can getting kicked and rolling off the road. The kind of noise you’d ignore nine times out of ten. Certainly not a noise that would doom you to having your flesh ripped off your bones by a group of insane cannibals. Kyler stood deathly still next to Jeff. He was kicking himself mentally for the slip. He had been looking up ahead to see if he saw any Zombies grouped up under the overpass and just hadn’t noticed the can lying on the concrete covered in dirt. He wondered if Zombies ever stood still. If they didn’t, he wondered if they were giving themselves away by standing still.
In the weeds beside the road shapes began emerging from the weeds. Kyler’s first thought was it looked like a scene from an old Zombie movie. A dark field with the dead rising from their graves. In this case it was infected people rising from the weeds they’d chosen to spend the night in but same difference. Kyler started walking. Jeff followed behind him. The pucker factor increasing exponentially as more and more Zombies popped out of the weeds. Like an infestation of oversized demonic gophers.
Zombies! (Book 4): Nowhere To Hide Page 13
