The reception desk was untarnished and still had a little plastic board sitting on it, its slots filled with pamphlets advertising local attractions. A set of elevators were set in the back wall, and a wide staircase was situated between them, a dusty but not entirely unclean red and green carpet runner leading up to a landing and then branching off to either side up to the second floor. Two large pillars sat in the middle of the lobby, the tiles on each one intact, aside from the odd crack, and there was a scratched and faded grand piano set in one corner, surrounded by a grouping of fake potted plants.
"Oh my God," Sarah said, walking over to the piano.
"Do you play?" Noah asked.
"I was really good when I was a kid. I played in some competitions here and there, still dabbled in it when I got older. But I haven't even seen a piano in years."
"Well?" Noah said.
"Well what?"
"Play something for me."
She smiled, slightly embarrassed to be put on the spot.
"Come on," he urged.
She walked around the piano and saw the bench was still sitting there, slightly damaged like the piano, but still sturdy. She ran her hand along the black finish, a flood of warm memories flowing through her, like even the touch of the piano had a strange calming power. She sat down and opened the fallboard, exposing a set of brilliant white and black keys, all of them undamaged. She brushed her fingers along the keys and then slowly, and timidly at first, pressed them down, tinkering with a little warm-up tune.
"Hey, that's pretty good!" Noah said.
Sarah looked at him. "I haven't even started yet."
"Oh," he said, backing up a couple of steps with his hands up, "please excuse me, maestro."
She smiled as she returned her hands to the proper position that came back to her like second nature. She took a deep breath, and then she started. Each key she pressed roused the hammers in the piano into beautiful motion as they struck each string and played a haunting melody that filled the lobby with a warm and rich texture.
Noah stood in awe as he listened to Chopin's "Funeral March".
The melody was striking and mesmerizing, albeit depressing. Sarah's fingers glided across the keys, nimble and sure of themselves. She struck each key with such grace that it was like she had never stopped playing.
When she was done, she relaxed her stiff posture and let her shoulders slump, a happy smile coming across her face.
Noah was still entranced, standing silently on the other side of the piano with a pensive look. "That was amazing, Sarah."
"I'm glad you liked it."
"It was a little gloomy, though. Don't you know any happier tunes?"
"I do, but I've always liked that one. I've probably played it more than any other piece when I was young."
"You must've been a depressed kid," he said.
"No, it wasn't like that. I don't know... it was always sort of calming. What seems gloomy to you was happy to me, if that makes sense. It was strangely comforting."
"But they play that song at funerals."
"I don't know," she said. "I can't even describe the feeling to you, but I've always felt like that was my song. Sounds messed up, but no other piece has flowed through my fingers as naturally as that one. I guess it was an omen of things to come."
Noah was deep in reflective thought, but didn't say anything. Finally Sarah got up and walked back to the middle of the lobby with him without anything more being said about it.
They headed up the staircase at the back of the lobby and followed it up until they got to the sixth floor.
"I don't think we ever got any supplies from this floor yet," Noah said, "so there should still be some stuff around."
"What about the scroungers?" Sarah asked. "How do you know they haven't already been here and picked everything clean for the bandits?"
"The scroungers only stick near the edges of the city where the bandits control. They follow the same gentlemen's agreement, if you want to call it that, that we have with the bandits; they have their areas and we have ours, and they respect that. The only people we have to worry about taking supplies from us is Zed or Delroy."
"What do you think is going to happen with Zed after that failed attack on us?" she asked.
"That remains to be seen," he said.
The two of them stuck close together for safety in case they did run into the odd zombie, but the floor was empty as they ducked in and out of the rooms, filling their sacks with toiletries, towels, first-aid supplies, and anything else that was of use to them. When they got done with the sixth floor, they went up and cleared out part of the seventh before their sacks were almost filled to capacity. They lumbered down the stairs with the heavy sacks over their backs and returned to the lobby.
"I just want to check in the kitchen for some things before we leave," Noah said.
They walked behind a buffet counter at the edge of the lobby and through a door leading to the kitchen.
They found themselves in a huge room filled with stove ranges, industrial ovens, stainless steel prep tables, and a whole host of long-forgotten mixing bowls, equipment, utensils, and rancid oils.
A pungent smell swam into their nostrils and made them turn up their noses.
"Oh, what is that?" Sarah said, setting her heavy sack down on the floor.
"No idea," Noah said. "I won't be long, so hopefully we won't have to find out."
He went off to the other side of the kitchen with his sack and rifled through cupboards and drawers, pulling out rolls of aluminum foil, parchment paper, and taking some utensils and wrapping them in a dusty towel before putting them into the sack.
Sarah looked around, still disgusted yet intrigued by the terrible smell. She tried to hold her breath when she could and take a big breath through her shirt when she ran out. As she took a few steps into the room, she noticed something on the floor.
Dark droplets littered the floor in a long trail leading from where she was standing to the far end of the kitchen. They were almost black in color, but shared a faint red hue, like old dried blood.
She followed the trail to the end of the kitchen where it ended suddenly between a stainless steel table on one side and a conventional oven on the other. The smell was a lot stronger where she was standing, but she couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from. There was an open door leading to a dark pantry in front of her, but taking a step toward it and sniffing the air, she didn't think it was coming from in there.
She took a step back and stood at the end of the trail, bending to look under the table, but not seeing anything. She looked at the oven for a moment, knowing in the pit of her stomach that whatever was causing the smell was in there. She knew it was better not to open it, but curiosity got the best of her.
Steeling herself against what she was going to find, she wrenched open the door.
The putrid smell hit her like a cannonball, and she stumbled backward into the table.
"Are you all right over there?" Noah asked from across the room, still rifling through cupboards.
"I'm fine," she said through a bunched up handful of her shirt. Her eyes began to water and she tried not to gag from what she was seeing.
A clump of rotting meat sat inside the oven, like someone had put it there for later. It was badly decomposing, and it was hard to distinguish exactly what it was, but it appeared to be a skunk with two possums wedged underneath it.
Sarah shut the oven door and leaned on the table, squeezing her nose shut with two fingers and relaxing her throat muscles, still trying to prevent herself from gagging.
In the darkness of the open pantry, something moved. The figure stumbled through the shadows, emerging from the doorway and into the kitchen. Its footsteps were quiet, and Sarah didn't see it approaching her from behind.
Its skin was just as rotten as what was in the oven, one of its milky eyeballs missing from its socket. Its mouth hung open with cold saliva dribbling down a gray lip and sticking to its chest. Its yellowe
d and shattered teeth chattered in anticipation as it outstretched its long and bony fingers for her.
Sarah felt her hair being yanked backwards and she stumbled into the oven before waving her arms in wild defense and spinning around, her fight-or-flight instincts kicking in. When she saw the zombie reaching out for her, she instinctively jumped backward, one of her feet slipping on the floor, causing her to fall. She hit her head on the edge of the table before her body struck the floor with a thud.
The zombie fell on top of her, clawing at her chest. She reached up and grabbed its wrists, holding them in place as they shook about madly under her grip.
Noah dropped his sack and sprinted across the kitchen, shoving the steel table out of the way. It rolled across the floor and slammed into the industrial ovens on the other side, creating a crashing echo in the empty room.
He grabbed at the zombie's bare torso, trying to pry it off, but its loose and soggy flesh just peeled off under his fingers. He reached for it again and got a hold of the long and wiry black hair coming out of its withered skull. He held onto it with two hands and tried to pull it off, but the zombie wrapped its arms around Sarah's hips and held on, gnashing its teeth at her.
"Shoot it!" Noah yelled.
Sarah was still panicking and her arms just jerked in front of her in defense. When she began to process what he said, she remembered that she had a pistol strapped to her hip and pulled it out.
The zombie's weight pinned her legs to the floor, but she managed to lift her torso and grab hold of the back of the zombie's head with one hand as she pressed the pistol to the side of its head.
Its dead white eyes stared at her mindlessly as she pulled the trigger.
The gun went off with an ear-shattering bang and the zombie's face instantly slackened, all life leaving it, as its brain exploded out the side of its head and splattered across the wall and into the open pantry.
The zombie's arms went limp and Noah pulled it off Sarah.
She scrambled up to her feet and the two of them hurried away toward the entrance of the kitchen. Sarah put her gun away and they grabbed their sacks and brought them out to the lobby, setting them down by one of the pillars. They both stood hunched over, trying to catch their breath.
"Are you okay?" he asked her, checking the small gash on her head that she'd gotten from hitting it on the table.
"I'm fine," she said.
"Are you sure? Does your head hurt?"
She reached up, not realizing what he was talking about, and patted her fingertips around her forehead. She pulled them down and saw blood on them. "Does it look bad?"
"No, it's just a little cut."
"Well I feel okay," she said.
Out of nowhere, she burst out laughing.
Noah was taken aback. "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing," she said, giggling.
"What is it?" he asked, starting to giggle, too.
"No, it's nothing," she insisted. "I just... I don't know. That was exciting."
"That was exciting?" he said incredulously.
"Wasn't it?"
"Oh, you're crazy," he said. "I just want to know you're okay." He wrapped her in a hug and brushed the back of her head.
She calmed down and composed herself and took a look around the lobby. "I'm okay, I promise. Should we go?"
He looked at the sacks on the ground next to them and then at the entrance where they had come in. His heart was still beating quickly in his chest, and he had a very warm feeling from embracing her that he knew she felt too. "Well, you said you've never stayed in a hotel before, right?"
"Yeah," she said, not getting where he was going with it.
"I said I would be your guide, and what better place to show you than the penthouse?"
She smiled as they stared into each other's eyes, feeling that frenetic and sexual attraction to each other. "Okay," she said quietly, her hands squeezing his back.
They left the sacks on the floor by the pillar as he took her hand and led her back up the stairs. They climbed up to the twelfth and final floor, exhausted. Their legs felt like they were about to explode as they stopped in front of the door of the penthouse suite.
"How did you know there was a penthouse?" she asked between heavy breaths.
"There's always a penthouse."
He turned the handle and pushed the door forward, letting it swing slowly on its hinges, giving way to the beautiful view of the room. He gestured an arm forward for her to go ahead and she smiled and stepped into the room. He followed behind her and closed the door. Noah went around the room checking every nook and cranny for anything dangerous, and found it was safe.
"Wow," Sarah said, looking out the window and admiring the view of the city. "I feel so fancy!"
"Well you deserve it," he said.
Her heart melted at the words and she looked at him with love in her eyes. Without another word, they embraced each other and locked their lips, exploring each other's mouths with their tongues. Their hands ran all over each other's bodies, and he pushed her toward the king-size bed. She fell on it happily with a devilish grin on her face. He grinned back and climbed on top of her, pressing his face to hers again as he ran his hands through her long blond hair.
She started to run her hands under his jacket and he leaned back and pulled it off, tossing it on the floor. She sat up and followed suit, then she lay back and ran her hands over his back, feeling the warmth of him through his shirt. His stubble scratched her face and tickled her, and the feeling made her smile at first, but then she felt the tingle run down her neck, over her chest, and down into her crotch.
She slipped her hands underneath his shirt, feeling his bare skin. He leaned back again and pulled it off, then he reached behind her and sat her up, lifting her blouse over her head. His hands slid around her back and unhooked her bra, pulling it off her shoulders and tossing it onto the floor.
His eyes ran over the contours of her breasts and every tiny bump on her areolas. He ran his hands up her stomach and over her breasts, cupping them and squeezing them, feeling her rigid nipples slide between his fingers. She let out a small moan every time his hands brushed over the tips of them, and she stared at him with lust in her eyes. When he saw the look, he couldn't take any more, and he threw himself on top of her and took her nipples into his mouth, one at a time, sucking on them and rolling his tongue around them.
She ran her hands through his hair and closed her eyes, arching her back and moaning in pleasure.
Noah started to run a hand up and down her leg, getting closer and closer until his hand pressed against her crotch, stroking along the seam of her jeans.
She bucked her hips in the rhythm of his caresses, feeling the warmth between her legs grow into a white-hot mess.
He reached up and started to slide his fingers underneath her jeans.
Images played in her mind, and phantom feelings of times gone by rolled over her body, making every hair stand on end. She smelled putrid breath, felt rough and uncaring hands groping her body, and saw the hideous and disgusting face of the bearded man with the glass eye inches in front of her.
She bucked suddenly and gasped.
Noah pulled his hand out of her pants and recoiled in surprise. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Sarah tried to crawl out from under him, and he tilted his body weight off of her so she could get out. She sat up at the top of the bed and defensively brought her knees up to her chest. "I'm sorry," she said. She knew he was going to be so disappointed in her, and she didn't want to upset him.
"It's okay, Sarah," he said, his eyes soft and worried. "What happened? I thought you wanted this."
"I thought I did," she said, "but I don't think I'm ready."
"Did something happen?" he asked, sensing something off about the way she said it.
She stayed quiet for a moment, not sure if she wanted to tell him or not, but seeing the softness in his eyes comforted her, and she realized that although she was still too traumatized to have sex
, she was silly not to be comfortable around him.
"When we tried to cross the bridge into Durham," she said quietly, "I got caught, and they raped me."
"Oh my God," he said, holding a hand up to his mouth. "Sarah, I am so, so sorry. I completely forgot."
"You knew?"
"You never told me," he said, "but I know what they do to the women."
"I'm sorry," she said again, her eyes pleading for forgiveness.
"Hey, hey," he said softly, "it's okay." He got off the bed and picked her bra and blouse up off the floor, handing them to her. He pulled his own shirt on and put his jacket back on, showing her that she was safe. He turned around and waited for her to put her clothes back on.
"Thank you," she said.
He turned back around and kneeled down on the bed again, cautiously rubbing one of her legs near her ankle.
She leaned forward and embraced him in a tight hug. "I want to," she said, "I'm just not ready yet."
He leaned back and brushed her hair behind her ear, looking into her eyes. "I understand," he said. "I'm not going to rush you. We can ease into it slowly whenever you feel you're ready."
"Thank you," she said again, squeezing him tighter.
She pulled her jacket back on and the two of them went down the staircase and back to the lobby. She came down the last stretch of stairs from the second floor leading to the landing at the back of the lobby when she saw something obscured behind one of the pillars. She trotted down the last stretch of stairs and onto the marble floor, craning her neck around the first pillar to get a better look. Noah was right behind her, but he hadn't noticed anything.
When she came around the corner from the pillar, she saw someone hunched over the sacks of supplies they'd collected, rustling through them.
"Hey!" Sarah yelled.
The man stood upright and pulled a gun out of a holster and pointed it at her face.
She stopped dead in her tracks, and Noah did the same, momentarily paralyzed by surprise. He started to reach for the pistol on his own hip, but two more men obscured by the pillar at the front of the lobby stepped out into the open and raised their guns at the two of them. Noah stopped his hand just above his gun, his fingers longingly stretching out for it, before he slowly raised his hands.
Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 2): A Rising Tide Page 10
