by Amy Miles
Turning around, I peer through the dim red light and realize that we have ended up in some sort of kitchen. A few pots and pans are stacked on long metal tables just like the one Nox just used to brace the door. Off to my right stands an industrial gas range with multiple burners. Shelves filled with dishes, cooking utensils, and mixing bowls stand off to my left.
“Help me!”
Shaken from my temporary inspection, I rush to Nox’s side and lean into the weight of a massive double door fridge that could easily fit six people standing side by side. The thing weighs a ton. My boots skid across the floor as I push, using my right side to shove as blood steadily drips down my left arm.
The metal feet of the refrigerator squeal as the bulk of it moves, but it is not nearly loud enough to drown out the howls and snarls from outside the door.
“How many did you see?”
“Enough,” he responds. With a final combined grunt, we shove the fridge in place and step back, breathing hard as we glance around for additional bracing. “Help me move more of these tables.”
“Do you really think they can get through that fridge?”
When Nox looks at me, I can see the fear that he’s trying to hide and move to help him without a second thought. The feeling of being trapped is suffocating as we systematically build a fortress wall, emptying the room of anything with any decent amount of weight to it to the opposite side of the room, but deja vu of building a similar barrier in my room hits me strongly as the door suffers another jarring strike.
Grabbing his gun, Nox backs away slowly away. “There’s no other way out of this room. This kitchen was just a backup. I think they may have used it more for storage than actual meal prep.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Judging by what I have seen of the space, he is right about this room only being meant as an overflow. The main kitchens had to be somewhere more prominent in the hotel and would have at least one door leading in and another back to a dining area to allow for a good flow of traffic.
Nox grabs onto my hand when something new slams into the door and the entire tower of tables shifts slightly.
“How did they get into the hotel?” I ask, staring so hard at the fridge that my vision begins to blur.
“I don’t know. The perimeter was secure. I checked it myself not half an hour before the breach.”
Rubbing my free hand over my eyes, I exhale slowly. “What about a Samantha? Do you know her?”
“Sure. She is Zoey’s friend. They were pretty much inseparable until...” he trails off.
“Until what?” I turn to look at him but don’t break the contact between us. He might be a bit of an ass at times but right now, I’ll take it.
Nox frowns and casts his gaze to the floor. “A couple weeks ago, she got sick. Nothing major. Just a nasty cough that wouldn’t go away. Iris took her down to medical.”
“Have you seen her since then?”
Scratching at the drying blood on his cheek, Nox shakes his head. “I can’t say that I really remember. I was out on that hunting party for a while. When I got back, I was busy taking care of you. Why do you ask?”
Glancing back at the door, I take a step back when there is another loud crash against it. “And the doctor that attacked us in the atrium? Did you recognize her?”
“What’s this all about?” Nox releases his hold on my hand and steps in front of me to block my view of the door.
“Just answer the question. Did you recognize her?”
“Yes, but only from seeing her around from time to time. Her name was Tiffany Fuentes but that is all that I know.” He crosses his arms over his chest. Even in the dim light he looks strong, confident and utterly disgusting. He reeks of zombie gore but doesn’t seem to notice.
“What if these things didn’t come from outside, Nox? What if they came from right here within the hotel?”
“That’s impossible. We have this place locked down tight. There’s no way someone would get infected without us knowing about it. Besides, it takes days for the full transformation to happen. There’s no way we could be dealing with this many Flesh Bags without earlier traces of their presence.”
Gripping my knife tightly in hand, I close the space between us. He isn’t going to like what I have to say but he needs to hear it. “That thing that attacked Zoey and I was Samantha and that doctor you just wasted wore a lab coat that was far too clean to have been on the outside. Something terrible is happening right here under your nose. Wake up and see what’s really going on around here.”
Nox shakes his head. “No. They would have told us. They checked Samantha for the outbreak virus and said she was clean. I’m sure they just wanted to keep her for observation.”
“And you really believe that? After what you’ve seen?”
Anger pinches Nox’s expression as he steps so close his chest brushes against my folded arms. “What exactly are you implying?”
I shudder when I hear nails clawing into the wooden door. I force myself to remain focused. He needs to know the truth, to look beyond the facade so that if we make it out of this alive, he can do something about it.
“I warned you that this place isn’t what you think. I’m not from here, so as an outsider, I’m not biased by emotions, but rather go by the facts alone. What I saw today tells me that you need to start asking some questions. Starting with where they are keeping their Flesh Bags penned up.”
He falls silent for several moments, barely reacting to the commotion outside. Without his radio, there’s no way to call for help and no way to alert Cap to our exact location. I may not trust the people in this place, but a few friendly faces with guns would be a welcome sight right about now.
“You’re wrong.”
“And you’re fucking blind. Those things out there that want to eat us might be your friends.” I point to the door. “It could be Zoey.”
With frightening speed, Nox slams me back into the wall. His hand tightens around my throat as a vein pulses down his forehead. “Do not speak to me about her like that.”
My toes barely touch the floor as he lifts me up. I pull at his fingers, struggling to breathe. With a sudden widening of his eyes, he releases his grasp and steps back. “Oh god, Avery! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” I croak out and rub my neck. “What I said was uncalled for, but you needed to listen. Maybe that’s why she never told you the truth. She knew you wouldn’t listen.”
“What are you talking about? Zoey always told me everything.”
“Then you already know that someone was hurting her?”
Nox inhales sharply and takes hold of my arm but this time with only enough pressure to maintain a loose grip. “She told you that?”
I nod. “She knew something, Nox, and that something made her terrified of the dark. What happened to her?”
Nox glances back at the door. For now, it is holding, but both of us get the sense that time is running out. Maybe I’m a fool for wasting precious time discussing this, but the alternative of him surviving and not digging into this further is too terrible to consider. Many lives beyond our own are at stake.
“She wasn’t well when she first arrived here. The woman who found her said that she was almost catatonic.” Nox turns back to look at me. “They found her in a mental ward, Avery. She was crazy and most of the people here treated her as such.”
“But not you.”
“No.” A small weary smile draws up his lips. “I saw beyond the mask. Hidden deep within was a scared little girl in need of love. Although she never spoke about her parents, I get the feeling that they dumped her in that place.”
I knew that feeling. Even having a mother, I felt abandoned most of my life. Overlooked and in the way. At least I wasn’t being force-fed pills to cover up the problems.
“She told me about the voices.
..”
Nox runs his hands through his hair. He flinches at a loud bang against the door and then lets out a shaky breath. “They started a few months back. She swears that she could hear people calling out to her for help in the walls. I never told anyone, though. Didn’t want them to justify her mental stability on that. She was just having a hard time adjusting. That’s all.”
I step closer and touch his arm lightly. “So you never heard them?”
“Every night when I got off patrol, I would check her room. Once, I thought I heard a man’s voice, but it was probably just someone in the hall. Zoey wasn’t the sort to lie for attention. Hell, she hated attention.”
“But you couldn’t bring yourself to believe her, could you?”
Hanging his head, Nox looks downtrodden. “She knew, but we never spoke about it. After a while, she just stopped telling me about them.”
I settle my hand more firmly on his arm. “I don’t think she was lying or inventing a story just to get your attention. I saw how she reacted earlier. There was genuine fear in her eyes.”
Nox leans back against the wall. “It’s all my fault. I should never have left her alone.”
“You didn’t.” I squeeze his arm. When he looks down at me, I offer him a genuine smile. “She was with me.”
“Yeah.”
When he falls silent, I know that he must be thinking about Zoey’s critical condition. All of our efforts to save her were in vain. Now we have no way of clearing a path for Cap to get through and we have become the victims in need of saving.
“This is not exactly how I thought I would go out,” he finally says, running his fingers back through his hair and ruffling it at the sides.
“Had it all planned out, did you?” I glance over at him as we move toward the back wall. The refrigerator rocks again and we realize at the same moment that there’s nowhere else to escape to.
Opening a drawer near him, Nox rifles through one and then quickly moves on to the next, tossing a half empty box of matches, a couple birthday candles, one of those eight-inch long fire starter lighters, and a couple of steak knives onto the counter. “Not down to the exact detail but I’ve thought about it a time or two. Something when I’m old and gray would be nice. You know, like falling asleep in bed and slipping peacefully away while my family all says their farewells.”
Ducking down, I join in with the search and scrounge through the lower cabinets but come up with nothing more dangerous than a wok, a pair of tongs, and an unopened bottle of cooking oil. This place is sparsely furnished in the way of weapons and with each thundering bang against the door, the more my anxiety rises.
“So this is it, huh?” I say, rising back up and staring at our pitiful armory.
“I’m afraid so. Unless you want to chuck a few plates at their heads but I imagine it will only tick them off.”
Nox begins an ammunition inventory as I make one final round, double checking to make sure the gas lines running to the stove don’t work. It was worth a shot.
Grabbing a spare knife, I tuck it into my back pocket and meet back up with Nox as the top table clatters off the barrier mound to the floor. Just outside the door, the angry growls continue.
“It sounds like we’ve attracted quite a group out there. At least we will make it easy for your guys to pick them off,” I mutter and use my shoulder to rub a bit of drying blood off my chin. One whiff of me and those zombies will be driven mad with hunger.
Nox wipes the black blood off the barrel of his gun with his sleeve and looks over at me. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Nope.” I slowly unwind the bandaging around my palms and toss them to the floor. “I’m a realist. Those things out there are going to bust in here sooner or later and we either go down fighting or the cavalry really does arrive in time and we are saved.”
“So you’re a realist, huh?” Nox hops up onto the counter and sets his gun across his lap to wait for the inevitable. “Sounds more like a pessimist to me.”
I shrug and wince at the stab of pain in my shoulder. Fresh blood seeps out and I cup my hand over the wound. In a few minutes, that gunshot will be the least of my worries. “I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter. We are all going to die someday.”
“And you’re okay with today being that day?”
“Hell no!” I grab the box of matches and dump them out onto the counter. There are seventeen in total. Even if I could find some cleaning solution in this place to set alight, it wouldn’t be nearly enough to keep out the horde. “I’m never okay with dying, but sometimes it does seem easier.”
“Wow.” Nox snorts and rubs his hands over his jaw, smearing blood and zombie gore along his cheekbone.
Without his hat, I realize that his dark hair is cropped close and suits him well. I could easily lose myself in memorizing every feature on his handsome face, from his strong jaw, straight nose, sexy as hell stubble, and depthless eyes that sometimes betray him in all of the wrong moments. I guess if a girl has to go out, she might as well have a nice view.
“Something must have really messed you up along the way,” he says as he pats a bit of counter next to him.
Moving to sit next to him, I push myself up and being to swing my legs. “What can I say? Life sucks and no one is going to make it any better. I had to learn that little life lesson the hard way.”
Nox glances over at me then rests his hand on top of his weapon when the door at the top splinters. He looks paler than normal, but he holds his fear intact better than I suspect most would. I guess he’s seen some pretty bad stuff since he came here on his missions. Things that not even I’ve had to deal with.
“I lost my family too,” he says without looking away from the door. “At least I think I did. There’s no real way of knowing without cell phones these days.”
I nod with understanding. The entire world went dark around the same time. Cell towers went down first, overrun with incoming calls and texts that went undelivered. In a technologically dependent world, most people panicked when they couldn’t get through to their loved ones.
I just didn’t have anyone left to try to contact.
“Did you go looking for them?” I ask as another piece of the pile wobbles and falls.
“I wanted to. Hell, I had every intention of setting out, but every time I tried, something came up. Someone in my group got sick, raiders struck, or the damned weather changed. It was like something didn’t want me to go. So, after a while, I just accepted that I had to stay put. They knew where I was and I figure someday, if they can, they will make their way here.”
“And if they don’t?
Nox stares down at his hands. There is a slight tremble in them now. “Then I hope they live and die well.”
“Now who is the cynic?” I bump my shoulder against him and he laughs, leaning into me.
Maybe the affinity between us grew naturally over our brief time together, or maybe when thrust into shitting conditions like ours, you just gravitate toward human interaction, but whatever it is that makes him seek the growing connection between us is something that I suddenly find myself accepting.
“I lost someone a few months back,” I admit and glance at the door as it rocks on its hinges. Closing my eyes, I fight to draw up the calm that I always felt when I was with Cable. “He was never meant to be more than just a guy in my group, but he had this way about him that found cracks in my armor. Before I knew it, he was through my walls and it was too late to shove him back through.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” Moisture begins to well up in the corners of my eyes and I whisk it away. “But he taught me a few things, like how to survive and how to never give up hope. I wish that I had been able to hold on to that second bit, but it’s just not how I’m made.”
“Hope isn’t a bad thing.”
The weight of Nox’s shoulder again
st mine helps to keep me grounded in the moment as Cable’s image slips away. “It is when it makes you reckless.”
“And for some reason, you associate recklessness with love, is that it?”
I look over at him but can’t hold his gaze for long.
“I may not be the world’s leading expert in that area, but I can tell you that you’re wrong, Avery. Love is meant to be a good thing, especially when you are trapped in a world like ours.”
“A cynic and a hopeless romantic,” I chuckle, using the tip of my knife to clean the black blood from under my nails. “Somehow those two don’t seem to mix.”
“What can I say? I’m a complicated guy.”
I grin back at him, and for the briefest of moments, I feel a little lighter. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
“And maybe you aren’t the ice queen that I thought you to be.”
I reach out and grab hold of his hand. “What did you just say?”
“Easy, Avery. I didn’t mean for that to be an—”
“Shh.” I wave him off and hop down from the counter, heading straight for the wall as an idea blooms in my mind.
“What are you doing?”
“Does the generator feed into this section of the building?”
“I think it might. I’ve seen a few of the emergency lights flickering but most of them were dismantled to conserve energy. If it’s running, it won’t be at full capacity.”
Sliding my hand along the wall, I search for a handle in the dark. “Shine your light over here.”
Jumping down, Nox quickly joins me. “What are we searching for?”
“A freezer.”
Leaving him behind to question my sanity, I steer his light around the room and crow with excitement when I spy a silver handle and rush to yank it open. The air smells stale inside but has a distinct chill to it that might not be nearly as cold as I would like, but it will have to do. Glancing overhead, I smile when I find the second thing I’m hunting for.
“Avery, stop!” Nox tugs on my arm, forcing me to obey. “What is this all about?”
