by Lundy, W. J.
The motel attendant lowered his shotgun. “Oh, now it wasn’t like that, ma’am,” he said. “I just have a responsibility to keep my other customers safe.”
“Mmm hmm,” she answered, frowning. “I need a room for the night.”
“Credit card reader’s down,” he stated.
“That’s fine. I have a little cash left.”
“How much?”
“How ’bout you mind your own damn business. I asked you how much it was to rent a room for the night.”
He chuckled. “Good lord, you’ve got some spunk, missy. I got one room on the bottom floor for ninety-nine dollars and a room on the second floor for three hundred. Take your pick.”
She smirked. The sonofabitch was charging triple for a room on the second story, which would theoretically be safer than the room on the first floor if a mob of the infected made it through the perimeter in the middle of the night. “I don’t have three hundred,” she lied, trying to get a discount.
He subtly gestured at his crotch, enough so that he could deny her accusation if it came to it. “I’m sure we could work something out.”
She scowled at his audacity. “Yeah, not happening. I have two hundred cash. You’re already charging more than your sign out front advertises,” Sidney said, pointing out the window to the sign stating rooms were forty-nine dollars a night, plus tax.
“Well now, you can go on down the road a bit if you don’t like the prices, ma’am. The next hotel is only twenty-five miles west of here, but there ain’t nobody home.”
“I’ll take the one upstairs, but I’m only giving you two hundred,” she said.
He thought about it for a moment and then said, “All right. Two hundred, plus thirty for the state occupancy tax.”
“I just told you that I only have two hundred.”
He shrugged. “Uncle Sugar’s gotta get his, sweetheart.”
She sighed and pulled out Lincoln’s wallet from her front pocket, holding it so the man couldn’t see how much money she really had. His toothy grin as she reluctantly handed him the money made her want to kick him in the jaw and knock a few more of his teeth out. She took the key from him and walked stiffly to her car, setting the cat carrier in the back seat once again.
“Check out’s at ten!” the attendant called softly from inside the lobby.
“Fuck off,” Sidney muttered under her breath and sat down into the Toyota. It took her a minute to find the section of the building the attendant had shown her on the map, but she found it and backed into a parking spot nearby.
The parking lot was near capacity, no doubt lining that man’s pockets with plenty of money. It took her three trips to get everything up the stairs and into her room for the night. She didn’t want to risk leaving anything of value in the car, so she took both hers and Lincoln’s packs, carrying a sleeping bag and whatever else she could hold each time. The third trip consisted of the cooking gear, still in its box. The only thing left visible in the car were two cases of bottled water, but she wasn’t about to lug that up the stairs. The trunk had a spare bag of cat litter and food, but that should be fine, she decided.
By the time she was finished, she was soaked through and through, and was weary to the bone. She’d been on the road entirely too long and watched a friend—no, the father of her child—die in front of her. Somewhere along the road between Monroe, Louisiana and Kilgore, Texas, where she was now, she’d stopped thinking of the thing growing in her abdomen as a burden to be discarded at the first opportunity and began to think of it as a child. It was the result of her relationship with Lincoln Bannister, the man who’d died of wounds he received while saving her life.
And, somewhere else along that same road, she’d decided to keep the baby.
Sidney bolted the door and placed both packs against the bottom to add a small amount of security to the room then let Rick James out of his carrier. Looking around the room, she suppressed a shudder of disgust. It was like every seedy motel room she’d seen in horror movies and the occasional drama. A stain on the floor near the window could have been rust damage from a leaking window or where a prostitute’s lifeblood was spilled onto the carpet. Really, did it make any difference which one it truly was?
She poured a small bit of litter into the collapsible box she had for Rick James to do his business and set it beside the television, a twenty-four-inch Zenith cathode ray tube that was probably purchased in the mid-1980s. A little bit of food and water went into two more travel containers for the cat, and then she was finally ready to shower.
She stripped off her wet clothes and placed them on the counter; she’d hang them over the shower curtain bar when she finished showering. The hot water helped to ease her chattering teeth, and she began to warm up slowly, first on her upper body, then her legs. It took several minutes longer for her fingers to not feel like she’d had her hands in a bucket of iced water.
Sidney placed her forearm on the shower wall, resting her head on the arm. She stayed that way for several more minutes, enjoying the hot water as it washed over her. It’d been weeks since she had a hot shower, and the temperature of the liquid made her feel like she’d be cleaner than she had been in a long time.
Finally, when the skin on her fingertips began to wrinkle, Sidney started to scrub. It was gentle at first, using the cheap hotel washcloth to wash her body, but then she began to rub harder, pressing the cloth deep into her skin to remove dirt, real and imagined. As she scrubbed, the image of Lincoln’s lifeless body popped into her mind. There’d been so much blood. She scrubbed at her fingernails, only stopping when she worried that she’d tear her skin—something that she’d discovered could be fatal if an infected’s blood mingled with hers.
Satisfied that she was clean, or at least no longer filthy, she used the motel shampoo and conditioner, leaving the conditioner in her hair while she shaved her legs and trimmed everything up—something she hadn’t been able to do for a while. When she washed out the conditioner, she was amazed at how much better she felt after going through her normal bathing ritual. Things were far from perfect, but she could relax for the evening.
She turned off the water and wrapped one of the two towels around her head, then opened the shower curtain. To her surprise, an unfamiliar figure stared back at her in the mirror. She’d always been on the thin side, but she could see the rib cage of the woman in the mirror without sucking in her stomach. Her hips were much slimmer and her small B cup breasts had shrunk to a solid A cup. The sleeve tattoos on both arms seemed smaller, more compact as the skin tightened there as well.
She realized that she’d lost weight—the fit of her clothes had told her that much—but she didn’t know how much until that moment. The showers at Lincoln’s house were purely to wash away grime and clean up after sex. They hadn’t been pleasant, so she’d not stayed in the bathroom long and hadn’t noticed how her lack of exercise and severely restricted diet had decimated her body.
She didn’t really like what she saw and vowed to begin some type of prison routine that could be done anywhere, consisting of push-ups, jumping jacks, burpees, crunches, and whatever else she had room to do when she reached her next destination. She’d also increase her rations, both to better take care of herself, but also to get the baby growing inside her the nutrition it needed.
Sidney wrapped the second towel around her body, wincing when it almost reached completely around her twice, and then left the bathroom. She dug around in Lincoln’s pack and pulled out a can of chili, which she opened and ate cold. Since he wasn’t around to share the can anymore, she ate the entire thing, effectively doubling the size of dinner that she’d been restricted to for the last month.
She threw the can away, burped a foul chili-flavored burp, and then chugged a bottle of water before returning to the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair.
With her nighttime routine complete, she put on one of Lincoln’s shirts from his backpack and curled up with her cell phone to read the news. It was all depressin
g, but El Paso seemed to be standing tall, so she turned off the light and curled up with Rick James for a long, restless night.
Outside, the distant sound of gunfire and an explosion disrupted the night’s silence. She turned onto her side, bringing one of the pillows up over her ear to clamp out the noise.
Sidney’s eyes flew open. Rick James was near her feet, his back arched and hissing at something out of her line of sight. Her hands felt along the unfamiliar sheets until the tip of her index finger jammed into a wooden nightstand. It took her a moment, but then she remembered where she was. Hotel, Texas… Lincoln dead.
The soft, almost imperceptible rattle on the doorknob across the room told her what the cat was upset about. She threw the covers off, wincing that she’d forgone putting on a pair of underwear or pants before she’d gone to bed. The only thing she wore was Lincoln’s t-shirt.
She landed on tiptoes, shushing Rick James as quietly and as firmly as she could while digging into the backpack for the large kitchen knife she’d stashed there, handle up. It snagged on something inside the pack, and she had to twist it free. Fabric ripped and she knew whatever it had caught on was probably ruined.
The sound of a key sliding into place startled her more than the thought of some infected asshole trying impotently to open the door. She pressed against the wall and peeked around the corner. The handle angled downward and the door pushed inward, only to be stopped by the slide lock up high.
It thudded loudly in the relative calm of the night.
Sidney watched in horror as a long, two-pronged metal rod of some kind hooked around the lock, and whoever was outside pulled the door back toward them. “Shit!” she shouted, realizing what the intruder intended.
She rushed around the corner, knife in hand. Maybe she’d seen too many movies, but there wasn’t any way she was going to become some post-apocalyptic sex slave.
Sidney almost made it in time to stop the door from opening before it burst inward, knocking her back. She fell, arms flailing wildly and hit the back of her head on—the dresser? She didn’t know what it was.
Her vision swam through tears and a swirl of lightheadedness as the door closed and locked behind the intruder. She kicked her legs feebly, trying to push away from the nightmare, to escape into the corner of the room and curl up into a ball.
It didn’t work. The man practically jumped across the distance separating them—or had she passed out?
When her vision cleared slightly, she saw the hotel attendant standing over her menacingly, smiling a crooked smile.
“We coulda worked out a deal and not gone to all this trouble,” he said, unbuttoning his pants and letting them fall around his ankles. “But you’re a special snowflake, aren’t you?” He pointed at her exposed crotch. “I see you’re already ready for me, baby.”
The attendant stroked his dick, making himself hard. Sidney kicked his shin weakly, still dazed from the blow to the head.
“Guess we’re gonna have a little fun, then send you on your way.”
She reached out, grasping the underside of the bed, and pulled, inching away from her attacker. He grabbed her ankle and yanked her viciously toward him. “Oh, no you don’t, bitch.”
The attendant fell to his knees and pulled her closer. “Yeah, you’re gonna enjoy this.”
Sidney turned her face away from the impending horror. Something metallic shone only inches from her outstretched hand. The knife! If she could only grab—
He fell on top of her and crushed her as he slid along her body. His hand trailed along her arm, and she whimpered when his fingers wrapped around the knife’s handle. He lifted himself slightly and held the knife in front of her face. “Was this what you were looking for? That’s not very hospitable, miss.”
“Just leave me alone,” she pleaded.
“Be good and this won’t take too lo—nngh. Aiyeee!”
He sat upright on her pelvis, screaming in pain as Rick James launched himself from the bed, digging his claws into the man’s face. The knife fell, the tip embedding into Sidney’s chest.
She ignored the pain and grasped the handle as the man struggled with the fifteen pounds of teeth and claws tearing into his skin. She pulled the knife from her own body and thrust outward, blindly, into the man’s stomach. He grunted and hunched his back, pulling the knife free with his movement.
Sidney stabbed him again in the stomach and felt the blade sink all the way into him until hot liquid poured over her fingers. She twisted the knife and pulled it free once more, then plunged it into him again.
The attendant fell backward, away from her, begging for her to stop.
She used her free hand to push herself upright. The edges of her vision began to go dark, and she lowered her upper body a few inches.
By the time Sidney’s head felt like it wouldn’t explode if she sat up further, her would-be attacker had pushed his feet against the cheap motel carpet, gaining enough traction to separate the two of them by a yard.
“You sick, pathetic fuck,” she spat. He groaned incoherently in response.
Sidney attempted to stand, but settled for crawling instead. She crawled toward the man, retching as the carpet squished wetly underneath her hands and knees. When she was beside him, a rage, unlike anything she’d ever experienced, filled her. It came from deep inside, burning with an intensity that surprised her.
Without thinking, she grasped his flaccid penis and nutsack and began sawing with the kitchen knife’s serrated edge. Her attacker tried unsuccessfully to pull away, but his blood loss made him weak, and his moans of pain were muted garbles.
When the flesh separated in her hand, she realized why people did this to rapists. It had been like this for thousands of years, the practice only stopped in the last couple of hundred years. She crawled toward his head and jammed everything she held in to his mouth.
“Be good, and this won’t take too long,” she hissed, repeating the words he’d said to her.
And then she slid the knife across his throat, shielding her eyes against the expected geyser of blood. Instead, it dribbled out weakly onto the carpet, the man’s heart long since stopped.
She spat on his corpse and then cried.
She sobbed uncontrollably for what seemed like hours. Finally, Rick James came to her and licked her face with his rough tongue.
“Ugh, stop it,” she groaned, realizing that the cat was licking the man’s blood from her face.
She pushed herself to her feet, testing her legs unsteadily. When it seemed like she had enough strength to stand unsupported, she did so, and examined the room. Minus the floor, the room looked more or less like it had before.
Sidney debated dragging the body outside and flinging it over the railing. She didn’t have the strength to do that, so instead, she dragged it to the closet and closed the door.
She thought about it for a moment. She didn’t know what the fuck the creatures on the East Coast were, but she’d seen thousands of horror movies and knew it was better to be safe than sorry. She opened the door once more, stabbed the corpse through the eye to destroy the brain, and then closed it again.
“Just to be safe,” she muttered aloud before lurching toward the bathroom for another shower.
53
El Paso, Texas
April 24th
The rest of the Ian’s journey to the Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, where their new employer had set up shop, was more of the same: Run; hide, avoid infected, avoid people…don’t get trapped in clusters of people or vehicles because infected will soon show up if they’re not already there.
Thankfully, Kinsey was right about the truck they took from the Talladega safe house. They could pile four times the supplies into the back, and it had a five-hundred-gallon tank for diesel in the bed. They filled all the tanks on the outskirts of El Paso when they found a tanker train stalled on the tracks.
The last thing they needed was to be trapped in the city without fuel.
They got smarter
and learned how to mobilize through this new world, but it was slow and cautious instead of the mad dash that it started out as. It took two weeks instead of one and three thousand on the odometer from Talladega, which was right around a thousand highway miles, typically. They had to take a large detour to the north to avoid a solid wall of bodies headed right toward El Paso about a hundred miles west of Dallas near a town named Abilene.
They approached the city slowly from the northwest and watched over the open plains of sand dunes as F-16s and Apache helicopters flew toward the east to drop ordinance. The sounds of their constant barrage in the distance filled the days and nights, but they knew it wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough; there were just too many.
Semi-trucks, as well as other vehicles, took any road they could find to get into the downtown area, which seemed to be the only safe zone left, based on the amount of traffic. To Ian, it looked like a Sunday buffet for the infected. He couldn’t even imagine what all of these people would look like stumbling around once they were infected. Then Ian had an interesting thought…how long could an entire society of these things actually live? They were supposed to be alive, so wouldn’t they starve to death, or better yet, die in three days from dehydration?
“Boss. Boss! Ian!” Kinsey shouted.
“Yeah, what?” Ian replied, startled from his speculation.
“The roads are cleared of stalled vehicles. Tells me that there’s some organizing going on down here. Somebody’s gotta be in charge.”
“Yeah, but how many are in charge, is the question,” Ian said then added with a look of disdain at the scene before them, “What a fucking mess.”
Overhead, a sortie of four mismatched jets and fifteen or sixteen Black Hawk and Apache helicopters flew by. “They’re running combined, hodgepodge operations from three branches of the military,” Toby said, pointing at the aircraft. “And those old Hueys we saw earlier? It looked like some collector or something pulled those things out of mothballs for transports. This is a war zone where only one side needs bullets… Fuck me running,” he grunted.
