by R. M. Smith
In their suite, their TV was tuned to CNN Headline News. Nothing was being broadcast about what was going on yet.
Matt walked out into the suite’s sitting area, passing a chair with clothes hanging on the back of it. He smiled. Maria remembered to bring his favorite blue t-shirt and sweats. Was sweet of her to lay them out for him. She must have done it last night after he went to sleep.
Another TV was tuned to CNN out in the sitting room. Matt ran through all of the news channels. Still, there was nothing being broadcast about the infection.
Matt opened a sliding glass door which led out onto the suite’s terrace. He walked outside to get a better look.
“Ah shit,” he shouted to Maria. “She’s driving the bus…oh crap she hit one of the burning cars! The bus is on fire now! It’s burning the sick people! Maria, the sick people are burning, come look!”
She didn’t get off the bed. “Matt, get some clothes on!”
“No one can see me,” he said with a laugh.
Putting her bathrobe on, she hurried out onto the windy balcony in time to see the bus turn the corner.
“Where’d she go?”
“I don’t know.”
Something splatted on the ground next to Matt’s foot. He stood on his tiptoes leaning further out over the balcony trying to see where the bus went.
Maria admired his bare butt and the muscles in his legs. With a coy smile, she stepped right next to him. She pressed her body against his.
He smiled. “Wow. Are you ready for round three already?”
She let her bathrobe drop off her shoulders. She stood naked next to him with a crooked smile on her face.
He kissed her shoulder, ran his open mouth down the swell of her breast. He ran a circle around her hard nipple.
Dropping down onto one knee to kiss her belly, he put his knee right in the dab of wetness.
“Ah great, I knelt in some bird shit,” he said as he stood back up wiping his knee off with his thumb.
“We can take a shower and wash it off,” Maria said sexily.
“That would be nice.”
Another splat landed on his shoulder.
“What the fuck? Stupid birds!”
He looked up. A diseased man was leaning over the edge of the balcony above them.
His face was yellow. He was reaching for them. One of his eyes dropped out of his eye socket and plopped down onto Matt’s chest. It rolled down the front of his chest.
“What the hell! Fuck!”
Matt’s skin changed color in a straight line from his right shoulder down to his nipple.
Maria screamed.
Matt shook his head no as he backed up into their suite. “No, baby. This can’t be happening!”
“No, Matt, no! Please! Go wash it off in the shower! Hurry!”
He quickly ran through their bedroom and jumped into the shower. Before he could even get the water turned on, his skin begin to bleed from every pore on his back. He tried to push the yellowing color away but it spread quickly up his arms, across his torso, and down to his legs.
He cranked on the hot water. It was scalding hot. His face grimaced in pain. The water was burning his skin. He vomited all over the inside of the shower glass. Shit surged all over the shower floor.
Maria fell on her knees next to him as he begged for help, gagging, his eyes bulging. He wouldn’t let her open the shower door or turn the cold water on. He died screaming in pain in front of her.
The bathroom filled with hot steam.
It was mixed with Maria’s screams.
Behind her, out in their suite, CNN broke in with breaking news. A newswoman said, “There are unconfirmed reports coming in from Orlando, Florida that an unknown disease has broken out. Reports are sketchy at this time. Stay with CNN. We will keep you updated.”
After crossing a sky bridge which connected two parking garages, Scott and Kim worked their way down a long infected hallway.
An elevator stood open at the other end.
“Step over here, this side,” Scott said as he stepped around a large pool of vomit. He leaned his back against the wall. “We can make it. It’s not that wide.”
Kim was right beside him. She leaned her back against the same wall, too.
The floor was caked with large splotches of vomit, blood and shit. In it, trillions of thin five inch tall worms were standing up. They had suddenly started to sprout up everywhere, like grass growing out of concrete. Maneuvering around the shit splotches was like hopping across a pond full of wobbly shifting stones.
As she shimmied along a short strip of uninfected carpet, Kim asked, “Are you sure this is the way to your car?”
Scott said, “Yea it’s on the eighth floor of the parking garage on the other side of this hotel.”
In a small foyer in front of a locked hotel suite, Scott found enough room to jump across the hall to a larger clearer area of the carpet. A cleaning cart was lying on its side right next to it.
Kim hopped over the splotch. She landed right behind Scott, too. He hadn’t expected her to jump right away. There wasn’t enough room for the two of them. Kim lost her footing when she landed. Scott reached out, caught her and held her close before she fell back into it.
“Thanks,” she said nervously. Her eyes were even with his chin. His body was warm.
A dead woman wearing a bloody nightgown came to a standing position on the other side of the cleaning cart. She slowly reached across the cart to touch the two of them.
Scott kicked the cart into her. She stumbled and fell backward into the worm covered shit.
Scott let go of Kim and quickly shoved the cart out of the way. He jumped onto the fallen woman’s stomach. A glob of puke erupted out of her mouth. Scott avoided it. He hopped off the woman’s stomach and over onto another clean section of carpet.
“Come on, do it!” he yelled at Kim.
Shaking her head, not believing what she was about to do, she hopped onto the woman’s chest as she was working to stand back up. The woman was forced onto her back. Kim jumped onto the carpet next to Scott.
“Not so bad,” he said.
“Come on!”
The woman behind them slowly started getting up again.
The remainder of the hall was clean all the way to the open elevator. Together they ran to it. Once inside, Scott pressed the eighth floor. Slowly the elevator doors closed.
They caught their breath.
When the doors opened on the eighth floor they were met with a hallway full of more dead people. All at once they turned toward the elevator.
Kim yelled, “Shut the door!”
Scott hammered the elevator buttons with his fist.
The doors didn’t close right away.
“Shut it!” Kim screamed. “They’re coming!”
“I’m trying!”
Finally, the doors closed.
Out of breath, Kim asked, “Was that the eighth floor?”
“Yea! Now we gotta get back down to it.”
Kim said shakily, “I wish I knew where my husband was. The bastard dropped me off and went looking for a parking place.”
“It’s alright,” Scott said. “We’ll get to my car. We’ll find him.”
The ninth floor was unpassable as the elevator doors opened. There were no dead people, only a carpet full of billions of tiny squirming worms. When the doors opened, all of the worms leaned toward Scott and Kim like a wind had shifted them toward it.
“I wonder if we could run across it,” Kim asked. “We have shoes on…it’s not like we’re barefoot.”
“I wouldn’t want to take the chance,” Scott said.
Kim nodded, “Ok, what do we do then?”
“Keep going up.”
He pressed the elevator button again.
The tenth floor was clean. Running out of the elevator, they took a quick left around a corner and ran along a hallway with large picture windows overlooking the city. “Ok, the parking garage is two floors below us…right there!�
�� Scott said pointing down to an open parking lot. “If we can get to it, we should be able to get out of here.”
“And go where?” Kim asked.
Questioning, Scott asked, “I thought you were worried about your husband? I thought you wanted to find him. Don’t you know where he parked?”
“No, I don’t want to find him,” Kim said quietly. “I really hope he’s dead.”
“Ok, let’s go to the airport. I’m supposed to go meet my family. It’s something we planned.”
She asked, “But where would you fly to? I mean, what if this is worldwide?”
Scott looked at her, put his hands on his hips and said with a nervous shaky laugh, “Well then I’d say we’re pretty well fucked.”
Janet Williams sat in the passenger seat holding onto the dashboard, tears rolling down her cheeks. She felt in her heart that she was going to die very soon.
Hundreds of the dead had their hands on the top of Nick’s car. They weren’t trying to break the windows to get in, they simply stood there, not moving. Their yellow hollowed eyes stared through the windshield at them.
“Just stay calm,” Nick said as he shifted in his seat. “They see us, but I don’t think they know how to get in here. If they did, I think we’d be dead already.”
“Why do they just stand there?” she asked in a shaky voice. “Why don’t they try to get in here?”
“I don’t know, but it’s freaking me the hell out.”
“Try and drive through them!” she yelled, stomping her feet. “Try and drive through them! I can’t take this anymore!”
Nick pushed on the gas. The dead were slowly pushed out of the way. None of them voluntarily moved out of the way. It was the force of the car pushing on them that made them move.
There was a thump as a body was run over, then another, and another. Janet kept her hands plastered flat on the dash board. Her eyes were shut. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Dead people filled the whole street. There was nowhere to walk. All of their heads turned to watch as Nick slowly drove along, rolling over them with the tires.
Nick yelled, “What the hell are they waiting for?”
“They ain’t…they ain’t moving! Go faster!”
Nick pushed the car up to 20 miles an hour. The front of the car was denting. The windshield was cracking.
Janet yelled, “Take the onramp!”
“No, that’s going back downtown! That’s where it started! I’m not going back there!”
“Take it! Let’s get out of this!”
He took the onramp up onto the highway. All four lanes of traffic going downtown were completely stopped.
“My god,” she whispered. “Where are the people? Where did they all go?”
Slamming his foot down on the brake, he stopped next to an empty car. The windows were rolled down. The interior was smothered in thin orange worms.
“What the fuck is that shit? Drive on the shoulder!”
Nick threw the car into reverse. Backing the car up, he squealed the tires, turned the car around and faced it into the dead on-coming traffic. He drove on the shoulder.
Her broken foot was killing her. If only she had some medication for the pain.
She managed to hop back down the street after abandoning the hotel bus. A burning traffic accident blocked access to the highway. She didn’t think she’d be able to drive the bus backward down the street. She had swerved around a lot of wrecks just to get to that point. She didn’t think she could do it again in reverse.
Carmen brushed her hair out of her face. Pulling her short shirt down she stepped out of the bus. She was self-conscious of being only in her underwear. She hoped no one would see her – but then again, she did. She wanted to be found, to be rescued.
Getting to her car was going to be hopeless. There were splotches of standing worms everywhere…in the grass, on the sidewalk, on the street, on the sides of buildings, on the sides of parked cars. She had to be careful of every single hop she took.
She leaned against a dry spot on the back fender of a police car to give her foot a rest. The car’s siren lights were spinning, throwing out spears of red light.
There were no policemen. There were no firemen. There was no rescue attempt. No helicopters were flying over advising people what to do. The city was deserted other than the wandering dead, hands reaching, mouths gurgling.
The inside of the police car next to her was plastered with puke and worms. Who knew where the policemen could be?
“I need to get somewhere safe,” she said to herself. “Need to barricade myself in…block myself so they can’t touch me or even get close to me.”
The rental trucks! That’s it! I can block myself in! They won’t be able to reach me!
Someone touched her back.
Carmen closed her eyes.
For an odd second, she thought it was John. She waited for the sickness to take her life. She expected warmth to grip her back as the infestation took hold. She expected to be coughing to death soon.
But it didn’t happen.
She opened her eyes.
A woman with long blonde hair, a pair of blue sweats and a long blue t-shirt which was too big for her was standing next to her. She looked pregnant.
“I’ve been watching you,” Maria said. “I saw you sitting on the ledge of your hotel room window.”
Stunned, blinking, Carmen asked, “Oh, really?”
“Yes. My husband saw you fall.”
“Oh, I…jumped. I didn’t fall.”
“He’s dead now.”
Carmen swallowed back thoughts of her own near death seconds ago. “Your husband?”
Dead people were slowly coming up the street behind Maria.
Maria thought that Carmen looked like she wasn’t in any better shape than she felt herself. This girl’s face looked haggard even though she was probably in her mid-twenties.
Awkwardly, Carmen said “I broke my foot.”
Maria looked down at it. “You’re just wearing socks out here? Where’s the rest of your clothes?”
“They got covered in puke.” She started talking faster as the dead people approached. “I was trying to get to my car before any more of the dead people got too close. I’ve been avoiding them as much as I can but it seems like there’s more of them now.” She started shifting against the police car. The dead people were getting too close for comfort.
Maria looked up. “Oh. We…or I mean I have a car. Matt drove. He parked it right there,” she said, pointing at the car sitting behind the police cruiser. “He didn’t want to use the hotel valet. He never liked it. He didn’t want to have to tip.” She smiled. “We thought we were lucky to have gotten this spot…it’s always so hard to find a spot here…”
Carmen nodded; it was true. Finding a parking spot in downtown Orlando was always a pain in the ass – especially at lunch time…but that doesn’t matter right now! The dead people are right there!
“I’m leaving,” Maria said quietly as she pulled some keys out of her pocket. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Carmen asked quickly, “Can I come with you?”
Maria nodded. She thumbed a keychain. The car doors unlocked.
Carmen hopped in a sprint over to the passenger side and slid in. The car seats were leather. They were cold against her bare legs.
Maria drove away from the reaching people who were only steps away. She drove through the congested streets avoiding more dead, looking for any escape from this madness.
Norman Hinshaw didn’t care if his employees thought he was a lazy prick, even if he was one. He had the right to be whatever the hell he wanted to be because he was the owner/operator of this fucking Rent-A-Center! He laid down the law! He laid down the rules; and if Kay or any of the other worthless bitches who worked there didn’t like the fact that they had to watch the front counter while he went into the back office for a nap, then fuck them! That was their problem.
This was his show! This was his ba
by! It took him eight years to get into this place. He worked his ass off to get it, too; spending umpteen hours a day kissing ass, seven days a week bending over for customers, and years working overtime, going over books, making sure everything was as pretty as a peach.
Other than finally getting the owner/operator title, he also was proud that his store had the perfect location. It took blood sweat and tears to get this building on the corner of the frontage road and the highway beyond – and once he got it, he pushed for more storage. He wanted a warehouse. He wanted delivery trucks. He wanted to be the best place in Orlando to rent from. And now anytime anyone came up the off-ramp or drove along the frontage road, they’d be able to see his store, his fleet of trucks, and his giant welcoming Rent-A-Center sign.
“It’s naptime, Kay. You watch the fucking counter while I’m sleeping. If it gets busy, call Rita. If Rita’s busy, then call me. If nobody shows, fuck off til I wake up.”
Kay chewed her gum. “Whatever, Norman!”
She was the only one who really put up with his bullshit. The other seventeen employees did what he told them to do with a groan. Most of the time Kay ignored him, his cue ball cover-up and his small “cutesy” mustache. She’d either play solitaire on the computer at the front desk or go back in the warehouse. She’d talk to her friend Rita; or Carmen - but Carmen had gone downtown to have lunch with her boyfriend.
Business had been so slow lately. All six of their trucks were parked at the dock in the warehouse. They hadn’t had a delivery in weeks.
Kay stopped playing solitaire. She was losing anyway. She picked up a remote on the desk and turned on a wall of TVs on the north side of the store. If she was lucky she might be able to catch the end of “Steve Wilco.”
All of the TVs came on at once with the volume muted. A woman on CNN was talking about some breaking news in downtown Orlando. Kay pressed the mute button on the remote. Sound came blaring out of the TVs. She held the volume down. “Shit! Normie won’t like that.”
“Repeating: We have unconfirmed reports coming in from Orlando, Florida that an unknown disease has broken out. Reports are sketchy at this time. Stay with CNN. We will keep you updated.”
“Damn, what the hell’s going on downtown?”
