by James Harden
"Well, what is it?" I asked.
Jack turned around, his face was white. "Hide," he said. "Slide underneath the Rolls. Quick!"
"What the hell is it?" I asked again.
"It's a freakin tank."
We crawled underneath the Rolls Royce flat on our bellies. Kenji heard it as well and immediately knew what it was. He grabbed Kim and pushed her into the back seat of a convertible.
The tank rolled closer and the ground shook. If it saw us we were screwed. There was nowhere to run. It stopped suddenly right out the front of the casino. The main gun lowered slightly and then fired three times. They were shooting at something further down the road, out of sight. It then continued rolling on. Thankfully the tank didn’t see us.
Kenji slowly stepped out of the convertible, keeping his eye on the road making sure it wasn’t coming back.
"What was that all about?" I whispered.
"Not sure," Kenji answered.
"Who do you think they were shooting at?"
"Don't know. But I don’t want to hang around to find out, we need to get inside."
Kenji stood in front of the automatic doors but they didn't open. He tried to pry them apart but they wouldn’t budge. It looked like we would have to break the glass but Jack moved over to help and together they were able to pull the doors slightly apart. Kenji motioned for us to come inside. "Quickly, we can't hold this thing open for much longer."
We were barely able to slip through the tiny gap. Once we were inside we moved up the stairs silently. Looking down I could see the bottom of the water fountain. There were casino chips and money thrown in for good luck or to impress people. I could just imagine some hot shot, high roller throwing hundred dollar chips into the fountain to show off to his lady friend.
Kenji moved up the stairs quickly. He waved us forward.
"Is it safe? I asked.
"Not sure," he replied.
When I reached the top I could see why he wasn't sure. The gaming floor was absolutely massive. I'd never been inside a casino before but this looked pretty damn huge. I looked left and all I could see where black jack and roulette tables and hundreds upon hundreds of poker machines. I looked to the right and all I could see where more tables and more poker machines.
Kenji surveyed the room. "What do you think, Kim? Have you ever been here before?"
"No. Never. I’m not a big gambler."
"This place is huge," Maria said. "Does anyone else feel really exposed?"
"What do you mean?" Jack asked.
"I don’t know. I feel like I’m being watched or something."
Maybe it was because we had been feeling this way all day. Even though it was better than being out in the harbor or on the streets I still felt exposed. And I still felt like we were being watched. Paranoia is hard to shake.
We crouched behind one of the roulette tables to at least give us a little cover. It was a pretty poor effort but it was all we could be bothered doing at that point.
"Do you think it saw us?" I asked referring to the tank.
"If it did, that means they'll be sending reinforcements soon. Just like they did before." Jack reminded.
"We need to secure this whole building," Kenji said.
We all deflated. We couldn't even see where the gaming floor ended. Securing the whole building would take a lifetime. There's no way we could do it in our current state.
"You're kidding, right?" I said.
"No. There's a reason why we're all feeling exposed right now. It's because there's a million places for someone or something to hide in here. We need to make sure this place is empty. We need to make sure we're the only ones here."
"Can't we find something to eat first?" Jack complained.
"Not yet. We need to make sure there’s no infection here. And we need to make sure the military aren’t using this building. Shelter first. Food second."
"But it’ll take forever. This place is too big," I said.
Kenji thought about it for a second. He knew it would be an arduous task but it had to be done. "Maybe we should split up," he said.
"Hell no," Maria replied. "That is never a good idea. In the history of ideas, splitting up has never been good for anyone."
"We don’t have a choice. Jack is right, we need to eat and rest. We can’t spend any longer than necessary securing the building. We need to split up so we can get it done quicker. Jack you go with Kim. Maria, Rebecca, you're with me."
Jack went to stand up but Kim pulled him back down. "Wait just a second. Splitting up into two groups isn’t going to speed this up much. This is a huge building. Maybe we should look for food first and then eat on the go. Or maybe, we find some food, find one secure room, hide there and eat. And then once we’ve rested we can start securing the rest of the building. Even if there are other people in here somewhere, if we're quiet, we could stay hidden without anyone knowing. It's certainly big enough. If we can't see them, they can't see us, right?"
Just then it hit us all at that same time, the reason we were feeling so exposed. We were in a casino. The most secure places on the planet. Security cameras were everywhere. Someone could be watching our every move; someone could be watching us right now.
We all craned our necks and looked at the ceiling. Spaced evenly between the light fixtures were small, black domes. Inside those black domes would be the cameras.
Kenji swore under his breath. "We need to find the security room," he said as he stood up.
I guess there was no use in hiding. If someone was watching they had already seen us.
Chapter 26
It didn’t take us long to find the security room. It appeared to be abandoned.
"Strange," Kim said. "All the computers are still on. And by the looks of it so are all the cameras."
"Well, at least this will make it a lot easier to secure the building," Kenji said.
"And that means we can eat sooner!" Jack added.
The cameras showed the entire gaming floor from practically every angle. It showed all the restaurants, and the VIP sections. It even showed the insides of the elevators. The only thing the cameras didn't show were the hotel rooms of the upper floors.
Kim sat down in front of one of the computers and started looking through some files. "Oh my God," she said. "Check this out."
She had found some security footage from the previous night. It showed people frantically running in all directions. In the top corner of the screen you could just see a security guard wrestle with some of the customers. The footage then cut to another angle, poker chips were everywhere, some people were dropping to the floor to scoop them up.
"Wow. That is messed up," Maria said.
Kim clicked through more files, looking for something more recent but she couldn't find anything. "Looks like the cameras are on but they’re not recording."
"So why did they leave them on?" I asked. "And where has everyone gone?"
"Maybe they evacuated everyone on this side of the bridge as well?" Maria suggested.
"I'm not sure," Kenji said as he leant over Kim and pointed at the computer screen. "There's the main restaurant," he said. "Probably our best chance for food and water. Can you bring up a map of the building, Kim?"
She minimized the live footage from the security cameras and searched through some more files. "Here it is."
She enlarged the map which showed just how big the casino was. The gaming section was only a small part. The rest of the building contained shops and bars. There were even a couple of theatre rooms and a whole hotel upstairs.
I was so glad we decided not to split up. We would've got lost for sure.
"OK, we should secure this floor first," Kenji said. "If we close these doors here and here we should be pretty safe. There are two stairwells that we can use to move up to the higher floors. And we can use this stairwell at the rear of the building as an emergency exit if we ever get in trouble. It leads us out here on to the road that runs along the water. From there we can make it
to one of the boats in the harbor."
"Yeah, because that worked out so well for us last time." Jack said.
"I know it’s not the greatest back up plan but at least it’s something. The last thing we want is to be trapped in here without an exit strategy."
"We should also lock the front doors," Kim suggested. "We don’t want anyone just walking in off the street like we did."
"How are we going to do that?" Maria asked.
"Not sure. Maybe we can find something to jam the doors so they can't open."
We took one more look at the map of the gaming floor. It was a large area but we knew once we had checked it out and made sure it was safe our reward would be all the food we could eat from the restaurant. Before we left the security room, Kenji did a quick sweep for supplies. He found a couple of walkie talkies and a gun locker that had been left open by the last security guards to leave here. I guess they left in a hurry. Inside the locker were a shotgun and a smaller handgun.
"These might come in useful," he said as he gave the handgun to Kim. "We don’t have a lot of ammunition, there’s only one clip for the handgun and only a two shells for the shotgun but it’s better than nothing."
"Hey, I’m not complaining," Kim said.
"And these radios probably won’t have the best range but they should work inside the building."
Kim brought the security camera images of the gaming floor back up on computer screen. We studied the images closely for one last time. It seemed to be deserted.
"OK, is everyone ready?" Kenji asked.
"Yeah, let’s get this over with. I’m ready to eat some real food," Jack said enthusiastically.
We didn’t split up to search the gaming area but we did spread out so we were in a long line with about a five meter distance between us. We checked under every roulette table, black jack table and craps table. We checked behind all the bars and behind all the poker machines. We found nothing. The place was indeed deserted, just like the security cameras had told us.
Once we were satisfied we were alone we headed for the main restaurant. Our eyes lit up. There was an all you can eat buffet set up in the middle of the room and by the look and smell of the food most of it was still fresh. I guess they didn’t abandon the casino up until the last minute. I could understand why they would want to stay open. Casinos are designed to take people’s money. They can’t do that if they’re closed. And people will always want to gamble, no matter what. I remembered reading something on the internet about how people actually gamble more during recessions. Maybe the same goes for zombie apocalypses.
Jack ran over to the buffet. "Aww man. I wouldn’t touch the meat or the seafood. But everything else looks pretty good, especially the potato salad."
The buffet was long and completely covered in food. Even though we couldn’t eat from the meat or seafood sections, I still didn’t know where to start. So I ended up making the biggest bowl of Caesar salad I’d ever seen. I think I poured about a gallon of ranch dressing on and mixed in some of the potato salad for good measure.
Jack wasn’t interested in salad so he went into the kitchen to see what they had in the fridges. He came back with a couple trays of cold meats. There was ham, roast beef, chicken and even turkey. It was a feast.
We must have gorged on the food for at least an hour. After eating so much so quickly I needed to lie down. We all did. So we ended up having a nap right there in the restaurant.
I crawled up under one of the tables and to my surprise; Maria curled up next to me.
"Where’s Jack," I asked.
"He went back to the kitchen to see if he could find any seafood."
"He’s still hungry?"
"Yeah, he’s starving. And he loves seafood. I think Kenji is in there with him."
"I’m so full I don’t think I’d be able to eat anymore even if I knew we wouldn’t be able to eat anything for the next three days."
"Jack’s mother is Italian," Maria said. "I think that’s where he gets his appetite from."
I knew what she meant. I'd been over to Jack’s house for dinner once. I’d never seen so much pasta in all my life. And Jack’s mother kept ordering me to eat. "You’re skin and bones," she would say. "You need to eat!"
"I wonder if she’s all right," Maria said after awhile. "She was always been so nice to me."
"Do you think they made it out in time?"
"I hope so. Jack seems to think they’ll be all right. He reckons they would’ve left the city early on to stay with their relatives out in the country."
"It was lucky your parents were overseas," I said.
"Yeah. They’re probably worried sick about me. I hope my house hasn’t been blown up."
"At least you know they are safe," I said with a slight tone of bitterness and jealousy.
Maria reached over and held my hand. "Rebecca, your mother is going to be all right."
Even when I was being a bitch, Maria was always patient and understanding. I quickly apologized. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that."
"It's OK. You don't have to apologize."
"But what are the odds my mother is still alive? You saw the other hospital. It was totally cleared out. The same thing probably happened at the hospital she was working at."
"You can’t think like that. It’ll drive you insane. You have to stay positive."
After our talk we were silent for awhile. I tried to drift off to sleep but I couldn’t.
A few minutes later Kenji and Jack had finally finished eating.
We decided that we should try and get some sleep in the security room. There weren't any beds but at least we would be able to keep an eye on everything. It sounded like a good plan but when we got back to the security room all the cameras and computers had turned off.
"Did they turn off by themselves?" Maria asked.
"Maybe it's got an auto shut down function or something?" Kim offered.
The feeling of paranoia was back. We decided that we should find a hotel room upstairs to get a decent night sleep.
Kenji made sure we found one close to a stairwell on the first floor so we could also leave in a hurry if we needed to. We found a room that was joined to the one next door. Besides Jack and Maria who had been sharing a bed all week while Maria’s parents were away, we all got a bed to ourselves.
In a matter of minutes everyone was asleep. Except for me. I was wide awake. To make matters worse, every now and then a helicopter would fly over the building or nearby and scare the hell out of me. I wanted to wake Kenji up a few times, tell him to get the shotgun ready or something. But I let him sleep. I kept telling myself that we were safe for the time being, that we were hidden and no one knew we were here.
I was trying to stay positive but it wasn’t working. After awhile I began to think about all the bad stuff that had happened. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the carnage and all those innocent people trapped in the tunnel and on the bridge. I felt like I shouldn’t be alive, like I had no right to have survived when so many people died that very day. I wanted to believe my mother had made it to safety before anything bad happened to her but there was no convincing myself.
I think in the end I was just too scared to sleep.
Chapter 27
In hindsight it was a pretty stupid thing to do, to go off by myself. But I couldn't sleep, I wasn't thinking straight. I slid out of bed in the middle of the night, careful not to wake anyone. Not that I had to be careful. They were all well and truly passed out. A jet could’ve flown right by the window and they would’ve slept through it. The handgun Kenji had found was on the bedside table next to Kim. I decided to take it with me, just in case.
The stairwell was right next to our room so I began to climb. I wanted to get to the roof, to see if I could see the ruins of the bridge. I don’t know why I wanted to see it. Maybe I was hoping the bridge would somehow still be there, that everything I had seen, the massacre and all the explosions was just a dream. Maybe I was in denial.
I made it to the top of the stairs but the door to the roof was locked. I decided to check out the penthouse instead because I figured it probably had views of the entire harbor as well. But as soon as I entered the penthouse suite goose bumps formed on my skin and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
I froze. Every muscle in my body was tensed.
It was totally dark but I could hear breathing. It wasn't my own. It was deep, heavy.
I reached for the gun tucked in my pants and flicked the safety switch off. I held my breath.
"A muse for a flame that would ascend the brightest heavens of invention."
I swung the gun around to where the voice came from. A match was struck and a dim orange light flickered to life and illuminated a man sitting on a couch all by himself. He put the match to the end of a cigarette in his mouth and inhaled.
"Nice night for a walk," he said.
He didn’t react to the gun. He didn't seem to care. He leant his head back and exhaled.
"You want a smoke?" he asked.
"No thanks." I said.
He grunted. "No one smokes anymore. Socially unacceptable it is. Gone the way of the mistress it has."
His eyes were fixed on the little orange flame in his hand. At the time I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know whether to run away or shoot the gun or yell out for help.
"So?" he said. "What brings you here, if you don't mind me asking? And why are you all by yourself?"
"Couldn’t sleep," I said still unsure of what to do.
"It's dangerous in the city. Especially at night. Even if you do have a gun."
He reached for something in the top pocket of his shirt. It was a small pill bottle. He tossed it over to me. "This will help you sleep," he said. "Helps me when I can't turn off my brain."
"What is it?"
"It's morphine."
Alarm bells started ringing somewhere in a distant corner of my mind. Who carries morphine around in their pocket and offers it to random people? "I don't take drugs from strangers," I said.
The man laughed out loud, like what I said was genuinely funny. He then started rambling off a whole bunch of facts about the drug.
