900 Miles: A Zombie Novel

by S. Johnathan Davis

  I maneuvered the Hummer through the small town. We passed a pizza joint called Godfather’s Pizza, which had its front window smashed in. We also drove past a hotel called The Village Inn, which was almost burnt to the ground. The sign was the only thing unscathed by the fire, standing up above the building giving the illusion that a person could still stop in and get a good nights rest.

  There was a billboard that said, “White Sulfur Springs, Home of The Greenbrier Hotel.”

  “The Greenbrier Hotel, that’s where we’re heading,” Michael spoke from the back seat.

  Kyle gave me a look I couldn’t decipher, but I guided the Hummer down the street to the far side of town. Calling this place a hotel would be an understatement. It looked more like the White House. It was giant, and completely out of place in the quaint town, much like our bright yellow Hummer. At least the size of a few football fields, the white hotel was lavishly landscaped, and beautifully built. It was clear that this was someplace special for someone.

  “Something’s strange here,” Kyle murmured staring out the window. “We’re driving through a town, and there isn’t a single Z.”

  “It reminds me of that rich neighborhood Sophia lived in,” I replied and cautiously continued up the drive toward the entrance.

  As I braked, I made the comment that the hotel looked abandoned. There was nobody greeting us, or even milling around; the front door was smashed in, and actually had what looked like a hand smear of blood running down the front of it.

  Kyle looked back at Michael “Okay, now what?” It sounded like a challenge.

  Michael shifted in the back seat, looking out through the side window of the Hummer.

  “I’m not sure,” he replied, with a tone of frustration at the repeated questioning. “This is supposed to be it. The instructions I got told me to head to the Greenbrier Hotel, and we’d be escorted to the facility.”

  I parked in the roundabout that looped under an awning in front of the half-rectangular front of the building. Kyle opened his door, as did I, and we stepped out of the Hummer.

  “Do you hear that?” Kyle asked me.

  I paused, and tilted my ear up. Just barely audible over the dull roar of the Hummer’s engine, was what sounded like the beeping one would hear when a garbage truck backs up. It was followed by some ever so light dings in the distance.

  “I do. Where is it coming from?”

  Michael joined us, saying, “It sounds like construction.”

  “You’re right. Those are hammers dinging, and bulldozers moving around,” Kyle agreed.

  “I think it might be coming from behind the hotel.”

  We were so focused on the background noise that our guard was down. Too down. Kyle was the first to notice them. There were five zombies advancing on the Hummer. They were coming up on the driver’s side, my side, and on top of me before I had a chance to react.

  “Look out!” I heard Kyle scream. I had two of them pulling me to the ground when in an instant, each of their skulls exploded in a red spray, followed by the other three. All five of them fell lifeless to the ground.

  I sat there completely stunned. I had no idea what had just happened.

  Kyle instinctively dropped to the ground, but Michael just stood there looking around.

  “Rooftop,” Kyle whispered as he crawled under the Hummer. There were four faceless men with helmets and some sort of black plastic looking body armor looking down at us.

  “They have silencers.” No wonder I didn’t hear anything. I noticed them too, but only because they all appeared to be aimed at my head.

  “Don’t move. Don’t run. Do you have a ticket?” one yelled down to us in an almost monotone voice.

  Michael, his feet still rooted to the ground pulled out a batch of paper, which he waved in the air.

  “Yes! We have tickets! Please tell me this is Avalon!”

  The armored men lowered their weapons, and three more emerged from the front door of the hotel.

  One of them walked over with an outreached arm, asking to see Michael’s tickets. The trooper reviewed them, then stepped back to make a call via his built-in helmet intercom. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I assumed he was checking on the validity of the ticket. Finally, he strutted back towards Michael.

  “Welcome to Avalon, Mr. Hoskins.”

  Michael stood a little taller for a moment, saying, “Thank you.”

  In that same moment, I was surrounded by the other two, who were screaming at me.

  “Were you bit? Were YOU BIT?” one of them demanded. Still reeling from the incident, I didn’t say anything. Kyle came to my rescue.

  “If he was bit he’d be coming after you by now.”

  “Nobody asked you. Keep quiet!” was the response.

  I looked up at that one, mumbling, “I’m okay. No bites. Let’s just get inside.”

  “He’s covered in blood, but it looks like it’s from the creatures we just took down.”

  Another replied, “Let’s put him through the chamber.” We’ll know soon enough.

  He ordered me to step away from the Hummer, and to fall in line with my friends. We were marched up the steps of the hotel. Kyle turned back as one of the troopers got into the Hummer. He drove it around the backside of the building.

  “Are we going to get that back?” asked Kyle.

  “It’s yours. We’re just parking it,” a trooper responded, while glancing at his remaining buddy.

  I remember thinking that he had a smirk under that damn facemask of his.

  Chapter 19

  Just follow instructions, and everything will be okay at the other end…

  We were led, at gunpoint, inside. As we stepped into the lobby, the fresh smell of death flooded my senses. A wall by the concierge stand was charred black and glass lay melted on the ground where someone had clearly thrown some sort of homemade Molotov cocktail bomb. Also, a large chandelier had fallen in the middle of the room, shattering atop a creature that was still pinned under the weight of the fixture. Inanimate, its head was bleeding out all over the carpet from what looked like a large caliber gunshot.

  We were then directed out the back past a few Olympic sized swimming pools, one of which was tinted with dark, red, blood. I winced when I realized that there was a creature slowly wading around at the bottom of the deep end. One of the troopers saw my facial expression, and said, “Thing fell in there. We haven’t had a chance to pull it out yet.” I wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t just put the thing out of its misery.

  The hotel had two wings in the back of the main hotel. Right away, it was obvious that this was the construction that we had heard. There was a chain link fence surrounding the wing on the left. It was re-enforced by a series of approximately twelve-foot concrete slabs, used as a perimeter. It was heavily guarded by a bunch more of the armored men, who were now starting to remind me of Storm Troopers from Star Wars, only in black.

  The people working on the wall were made up of both men and women. Most of them looked pretty rough, and none of them were exactly smiling.

  They were manually pulling up those large concrete slabs with a rope-made pulley system, and their clothing was worn and ragged. I remember thinking that they reminded me of what the Hebrews must have looked like in Egypt as they built the Pyramids. It wasn’t clear if the armored guards were protecting the men and women, or driving them to keep working.

  We walked around the side of the building to what one of the armored men called, West Entrance. Passing through a double barbed wire twelve-foot high fence, we came to the door leading to an underground passage. It was a blast door, designed to withstand a nuclear attack. Two foot thick, re-enforced metal that sat on two massive hinges.

  I suddenly remembered where I had heard of the Greenbrier. My Economics professor in college forced the class to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. The old bastard would actually pop quiz us to make sure that we’d read it, and were up to date on current events.

  I recalled rea
ding a huge spread, about the Greenbrier that we were actually quizzed on. As it turned out, the Greenbrier Hotel was a luxurious hotel where all the celebrities would visit. It was also the home of an underground, government funded fallout shelter created in secrecy during the cold war by Eisenhower.

  The Wall Street Journal reporter blew the secret wide open in the nineties. At that time, I couldn’t believe that the government was able to build such a big facility without anybody knowing about it.

  Its general function was to be the home for the Senate and the House of Representatives should there ever be a nuclear strike. I couldn’t remember much past that, except that it was supposed to be huge. Since it wasn’t a secret anymore, the government basically abandoned it and the town had it open for tourism these days.

  There were more guards, also dressed in black Storm Trooper outfits. They radioed through their helmet com-links announcing that we were coming in. I heard them make the request to prep the “chamber.” I didn’t know what the hell the “chamber” was, and was feeling on edge as we continued along.

  “What is this place?” Kyle asked.

  I started to answer, but one of our friendly Troopers growled, “No talking. All your questions will be answered after you pass the test.”

  Test? I thought. What test? We’d been tested enough since this thing started.

  The guards led us down a long passage that was pointed deep into the mountain on which the hotel sat. At the opposite end, there was a hallway where they stopped, though they ordered us to keep going. Peering down the narrow hallway, it was dimly lit and I hesitated before walking forward.

  “Just follow instructions, and everything will be okay at the other end,” the leader said. I didn’t find him very reassuring.

  The three of us entered the hallway, hesitantly, uncertain as to what we were dealing with. The door shut behind us with a reverberating thud, sealing us in the narrow corridor with tile running up the walls.

  “Take off your clothes; put your hands up against the wall to your right,” the demand came over a speaker.

  “What the hell is this? I paid a lot of money for this place. Why are we being treated like animals?” Michael bellowed suddenly.

  No answer.

  The three of us stood there for a few moments looking at each other, wondering just what the hell we got ourselves into.

  “Guess we should get this over with. I think they want to make sure we’ve not been bitten,” Kyle said, taking a deep breath.

  As one, we did as instructed. Once our arms were on the wall, a black light turned on. It exposed all the blood and gunk that was on our face, arms and hands, whatever was exposed to the creatures’ blood. I remember feeling disgusted by the revelation that I had so much of that crap all over my body.

  “Turn,” the voice boomed over the speaker.

  We all cautiously turned around.

  It was as if we were being moved around like cattle. None of us had any say in what was happening, and despite my anxiousness to get through this, I was beginning to feel a little pissed at the constant demands.

  A high pitch screech came from the walls. I had just a moment to look at Kyle, but before I could ask what the hell it was, a burst of cold water shot from both sides of us.

  I flinched back, instinctively taking a huge breath into my lungs as if I was getting ready to be submerged. The cold felt like a million needle pricks across my body.

  “Warm water cleans better than cold!” Michael shouted. “You hear me? What is this shit?”

  I noticed Kyle wasn’t even phased by the water. He had a bar of soap, and was washing away the filth from his arms and hair. Michael and I decided to fight through the coldness and do the same.

  When it stopped, the voice commanded, “Move forward. Step through the door. You’ve passed.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if we had not.

  Still grumbling about the abrupt cold shower, we moved through the door to find a beautifully furnished locker room. It had mahogany cabinets, expensive soaps, most importantly, towels, and fresh clothing. We dried off, and each picked out a white jump suit that seemed to be one size fits all.

  As I put it on, I explained to Kyle and Michael what I thought the place was, based on the Wall Street Journal article.

  We sat there for several minutes before a door on the far side of the room opened. A man dressed in a suit and tie stepped through the door. He was an older gentleman with a friendly smile and a trusting face. The perfect person for the job, I thought uneasily.

  He introduced himself as Jarvis, and explained that his role was to help ensure our smooth assimilation into Avalon.

  “What is this place?” Kyle asked, trying to confirm my earlier thoughts. Jarvis explained what I had, but elaborated in much better detail.

  He explained that the Greenbrier bunker, originally called Project Greek Island, was two football fields stacked on top of each other in size, contained one thousand beds, a cafeteria and a working hospital. It had months’ worth of food, water and other provisions, a self-sustaining nuclear power cell and a TV studio that would rival NBC.

  It was true that it was no longer in working order, as far as the public was concerned, but a private entity had purchased it in 2000, and had been keeping it up for a profit, in case of catastrophe; it is what Michael had been paying for all these years.

  Michael was absently nodding in agreement.

  Jarvis asked if we’d like a tour, taking us on a walk around the facility. It was indeed massive. He went on to explain that the government got away with building it in secrecy by what he called, “hiding it in plain sight.” Eisenhower had paid for the second wing of the hotel to be built directly above the bunker, so that they could build without raising suspicion.

  Jarvis showed us the cafeteria, where we all grabbed some canned fruit and dried beef jerky. Even though it was dry, and had probably been sitting there for months, it was the first meat source of protein I’d eaten in days, and I relished in each bite.

  He then took us by the Communications studio, which he explained was connected to a one hundred foot tower on a hilltop five miles away. The whole thing was designed to allow communication with what was left of the population after a nuclear strike.

  Funny thing about that, I thought. Who the hell would be left to communicate with, radioactive mutants?

  I noticed that every hallway had a digital LED clock blinking the time in red. Jarvis saw me glancing at it.

  “They are to keep people oriented to night and day. It gets confusing living underground.”

  My thoughts momentarily carried me to the Morlocks from H.G. Wells, “Time Machine.”

  As we began heading towards what Jarvis explained was the sleeping quarters, he said,

  “The three of you can share a room. There are three beds per an Elite Suite, which is the ticket you have. You should be a hell of a lot more cozy in there than with the general commoner population.” He winked and smiled at Michael as he spoke. Michael nodded back.

  Kyle and I were just taking it in. Jarvis turned to face Michael directly, adding,

  “Gordon sends his apologies, but he has urgent business at the moment. He’ll meet all three of you for dinner in the great hall.”

  “No problem,” Michael said casually. “I know he’s a busy guy. Tell him to take his time.”

  I felt lost. I wanted to know just what the hell was going on. Filled with questions, I finally asked, “What is with everybody knowing about this place? It’s big, but you’re clearly not giving away tickets.” I could hear the tension in my own voice, and made an effort to correct it with the gesture of a smile. If my life was to be trusted to these people, I needed to know what I was dealing with.

  Jarvis paused, smiled, and stated that the organization needed skilled labor. Most of the Elite clientele did not have the desire or skills to raise exterior walls, guard the city, or keep the facility running.

  “Besides,” he cont
inued amiably, “we all need a little pampering. We’re working towards acquiring some of the more creature comfort services like massage therapists and personal assistants.”

  “Gordon and the other private owners spread the word in the initial days of the outbreak via Youtube, twitter, and a bunch of other social networks, that Avalon would provide safety, which we do, as long as you work and obey the rules.”

  “Rules?” Kyle asked cocking his head up.

  “Yes, rules. I almost forgot...” Jarvis became more serious. “We have three no-exception rules here at Avalon. One, no commoner will ever strike, hurt, maim or kill an Elite customer. Penalty is the Arena. Two, no commoner will ever be allowed a free ride. You must work to be able to stay. Penalty of non-compliance is the Arena. And three, inability to pay for Elite rates, makes you a commoner. Of course, the three of you know this already. You read the agreement before you signed and paid.”

  Michael smiled and said, “Of course.”

  With that, Jarvis stopped in front of a metal door. With a genial smile, he, cheerfully said, “This is your new home.”

  Michael thanked him, and then the three of us stepped into the room. Jarvis bid us good day, with the reminder that he’d be back shortly to escort us to dinner in the great hall.

  Once the door closed, Kyle and I glared at Michael. “Who is Gordon, and what the hell is the Arena?”

  Chapter 20

  Has anybody explained the Arena to you?

  Michael didn’t answer at first. His gaze was drawn into the room that we would now be calling home, even if it was just for a short time.

  I didn’t know what to expect. I think we all would have been happy with a few bunk beds, and a closet where we could hang our respective white jump suits.

  This room was a palace, filled with three beds, a large TV stand, which held a much larger than needed TV, and a closet that I think probably could have held another two or three people.