“Leave me alone. I’m passing through. I don’t want any trouble and neither do you.” How could this vital detail have escaped him? Once again, good fortune was the only reason Greg was alive. If these men were dangerous, he would be dead already. Proper planning and awareness is how one survives, and Greg didn’t even give luck a chance.
The guy on the ground zipped his pants and nonchalantly walked over in Greg's direction. “Hey, bud. Are you alright? What happened to ya?” His words sounded as if recited from a script. Greg would later realize this was how Mickey sounds and it was more of a byproduct of being shallow rather than being insincere.
“Get away from me! Alright? I do not need your help nor do I want it. Back off.” Greg did his best to sound strong, but it sounded more like begging.
The old man on the roof let out a loud, fake laughter, “You want me to jump down?”
It was hard to tell if he was joking or not, but fear grew inside bringing a flashback of the blank-faced woman. “No, sir. I don’t. I’m sorry. I’m…I’m scared.”
“Scared of what? Who did this to you?” The frat boy beside him said and reached out to touch Greg’s shoulder. Greg moved away before it landed. Greg did not need to explain himself. Not to him, not to anyone.
The man from the roof said, “Never mind all that. My name is Harry. This is Mickey. We’re going to get out of here together, it would be smart for you to join us. What’s your name, boy?”
“Greg, sir.”
They wasted no further time exchanging pleasantries before entering into the building. Mickey led while Greg followed carefully. Harry promised shots of bourbon for the first two men to release him from his perch.
-
Whatever was following Jenna stopped once she entered the stairwell. She almost fell over a few times walking down, but once her eyes got adjusted to the darkness, it was okay. Jenna would have rather taken the elevator, but apparently there was no backup power. She kept her eyes at the bottom of the stairwell. Besides, the lobby would have plenty of other people scared like her.
Once she was at the bottom, she stopped and tried to get her composure before walking into whatever it would be she walked into. Jenna didn’t want to be flustered any more than normal, and who knew who she would have to talk to down here.
She needed to go. It was a lobby, not a haunted house. It was a crazy night, and she needed to get a professional to help Robert. It was time to take care of her man. She would walk into the lobby, report what had happened to the front desk, and go back up to be with him. He should be a little better by now, and maybe they could go back down the stairs together. She was overreacting because she was scared from the night before. She was shell shocked, that’s all. Her cousin Wally was in the military, and he said that PTSD happens directly after the first incident and can make people do insane stuff.
You know that’s not the case, though. There is something really wrong with Robert, he’s up there dead or worse because you left him.
Fine. She was going to walk into the lobby and get this figured out. The smell of lilies came when she opened the stairwell door. One of the few nice parts of the Grand American was the aroma. Robert said this was his favorite place to stay because of the room service and scent.
Her feet were sweating through the opening of her cast, such a gross feeling. If anyone saw her up close, they would totally be grossed out by her. She tried her hardest to walk quietly, but each step scratched against the marble floor. There would be no hiding, not for her.
The lobby was a welcomed sight. The dreary sky shined through the large, high-rise windows. It was such a huge room with pretty flowers picked fresh each day and vibrant colored designs on the marble floor. Jenna wasn’t an interior decorator. She would hire someone else to do that for her one day, but she knew to appreciate the beauty of the natural lighting mixed with the vivid layout.
Shadows moved in the lobby, but Jenna couldn’t see any people. Someone was there, just like someone was in the hallway. Well, not just like it, but similar. This time it was someone hiding the way she would hide, not like a lion hides from a gazelle.
“Hello? Who is out there? I need help. Can you call the ambulance? My cell phone is dead, and I'm in a lot of pain. I can’t even dial out of our room.” Jenna had made the decision to not tell anyone about Robert until she knew it was safe. If there were still crazy people out there, they would take her and kill Robert, but if they didn’t know Robert was around, maybe…Well, she didn’t really know but it made sense to keep it a secret.
Do you see the blood stains on those nice marble floors? Do you notice the smell of sweat and blood mixed in with the lilies? That’s because whatever happened outside also happened inside.
“Fine. I’m walking over to the desk and making a phone call. Please don’t jump out and scare me. I just want to get out of here.”
From under the desk came a female voice, “All phone lines are not in service. I’m sorry.”
She sounded as scared as Jenna, but kept going, “All the phones have been dead since it began last night. The black-eyed people are gone. That’s at least good enough for now. Right?” A beautiful Asian woman peaked her head over the desk and smiled at Jenna. Her smile was soft and welcoming. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer you right away. I didn’t know what I should do when I heard you walking down the stairs. You’re really loud, you know?” She smiled again. “But all the phones are dead, and I can’t help you. I don’t know when those people are coming back, but I do not want to be out in the open when they do. You should find somewhere to hide too.”
Jenna didn’t have the energy to argue. She soon found out that this woman, Edie, was a thirty-six year old front desk worker who recently moved to Utah and was a new expert on last night’s craziness. She spent the night hiding inside her desk, listening to screams and death. She could hear the sounds of bones breaking and people begging for help. Through a narrow crack in her desk she saw one woman throw a man twice her size further than Edie could throw a softball. She listened as the same woman spit on someone, and much to the disdain of Jenna, she listened to the man scream and groan until his breathing stopped.
"I took the tower out from under our desk, and climbed inside like a jack in the box until the crazy people left. Is it weird that I actually thought about where I would hide in case of a major event, months after taking this job? I think it’s weird, but it saved me. That and not crying while everyone is dying around you.”
-
Each door in The Commodore was either opened or missing. The odor of an old building and rusty halls seeped in with the ghost-town feeling. The browns and the beiges looked awful in the little bit of light coming in from outside. It was really weird that there was no power at all in SLC. It was confusing, but Mickey was going to play it cool until the opportunity presented itself to find out some true facts. No sense in asking the skinny nerd who could barely talk through his broken face. Not to mention it seemed like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Small talk would be good though. Mickey could always try to instigate a conversation with the poor kid. He looked back to Greg as they walked up the first flight of stairs directly at the entrance. “What a mess. What do you think happened here?”
Greg struggled out his words, “They must have searched the buildings after they were done on the streets. It is as if they were attempting a large scale extermination.” He stopped and stared at a large red stain on the wall, examining it like a famous painting.
The guy sounded terrible, Mickey could barely understand a word he said. If Mickey thought he took brain damage after his car accident, it was nothing compared to this guy. Mickey said back to him, “Man, you sound terrible, bro. We got to get you an icepack or something.” The door at the end of the hallway was the only one closed. It must lead to the stairwell leading to the roof.
“How exactly did you survive?” Greg asked. His voice sounded like an accusation more than a question.
The door took a little fidg
eting with before it could open, “Dude, I have no idea. My buddy, um, a friend of mine was drunk driving last night. He hit someone, and then all of a sudden I blacked out. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in a ghost town and Andy is gone.” It was going to be harder to lie than Mickey had expected. Already he was talking too much. People who over-explain themselves are usually hiding a secret.
The view from up on the roof was amazing: to the east, beautiful mountains with a tiny bit of last winter’s powder leftover, to the north, Salt Lake City, and to the west was the nicest, ritziest hotel in the city. It was cooler up here than at the ground level too. If Mickey were ever poor with his life was in shambles, The Commodore would be a good consolation. Greg didn’t follow Mickey as he walked through the door. Instead, he stared at him in disbelief, “Wait, did you encounter any of the blank-faced people last night?”
“Blank who?” Mickey asked. This whole situation was getting weirder and weirder.
“The infected people or whatever you would call them. The ones who did all of this. Are you messing with me, or do you really not know anything?” Greg said. Mickey was starting to wonder if the head trauma this guy had was making him crazy, or if he was always this condescending and over imaginative. He was talking down to Mickey, which didn’t make any sense since Mickey was the biggest fish in this frying pan. Hopefully it never came to the point where Mick would have to teach him a lesson.
“Dude, I have no clue what you’re talking about. I wrecked my car. I mean, my friend wrecked his car, and I seriously don’t remember anything after that. Maybe the old guy can help us understand what the heck is happening.” Fat chance this old guy who acts like Uncle Dave would do anything other than bring more condescending comments. Either way, Greg was starting to get annoying.
Greg sneezed and blood shot out of where his nose used to be. Mickey felt bad for him, even if he was frustrating. The poor guy was skinny and weak and wasn't the type to have many (or any) friends. Whatever happened through all of this, Mickey wouldn’t bail on him. He had failed one friend already. There would be no failing this dude. Mickey needed to reclaim himself as a good guy, and Greg would be the perfect person to help prove it.
Harry was too busy looking over the edge to pay the boys any attention. Maybe he thought they were still down at ground level, or maybe he found someone else down by Mickey’s car. Andy?
“Hey man, before you jump to any conclusions - I, I, I, I can explain.”
Mickey couldn’t explain it away though, no matter what he said.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.
-
It seemed like someone else was in the room. Jenna wanted to believe it was paranoia, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of someone else watching her. She tried to carry on a conversation with Edie, but it was so hard to concentrate.
Edie told of her experience from her hiding place last night. Apparently a small crack in the desk allowed her to be a voyeur of all of the crazy people. She told her about a battle between a giant man in a basketball jersey and several of the crazy people. He had fought off six or seven of them, but one of them drove a pair of scissors into the back of his neck. Edie went on to say, “The craziest thing about it though, was like, the way the jersey guy dropped. They fought and fought and fought. They never gave up, and he kept fighting them off, even after they stuck him. Then he was… done. The black-eyes left him for dead looking for the next person, not even giving like a high five. They just moved on, and he just laid there, for like, two hours or so. Dead.”
What do you say after that? It wasn’t only the one guy who went crazy last night. Edie makes it sound like every one lost their minds.
“We were trying to get home when I…”
“And who is we?” Edie said singing her words. She was like a kid in a candy store. Jenna suddenly wished she was alone again in the lobby rather than with this psycho. The crazy in her eyes said that she wouldn’t help Jenna if one of those people came back.
What did Edie call them? Black-eyes? They will come back, and when they do, Edie will leave you and let you die. She will watch though.
Snap. Snap. Snap. Edie was snapping her fingers to get her attention. “Helloooo. Who is we? Were you with someone? What happened to them?”
“Wait… where is everyone?” The epiphany came to Jenna in the perfect time. The lobby was supposed to be where there were survivors. She should have noticed this sooner, but between Edie’s weirdness and the feeling of having someone watch her, it must have slipped her mind.
Edie looked around her feet and scanned the room, “Oh yeah, they all were taken after they were killed. The black-eyes were like a cleanup crew. They scooped people up and took them out the door. Even the ones who were still living were dragged until the crazies got tired of them and snapped their necks. Quiet people are probably easier to drag.”
What could be worse, sitting in a locked room with your sick, maybe dying boyfriend? Or sitting in a lobby with this lunatic?
Sweat tickled Jenna’s shin causing a chill to come over her. She looked outside into the streets, empty as the lobby. Who else was out there?
Sun beams worked their way into the high windows and reflected off Jenna’s bracelet. Robert bought this for her on their six month anniversary. He was going to ask her to marry him soon, and she would have said yes.
Three long shadows adjusted on the marble floors. She followed them up to the old rundown building across the street and found three figures watching from the roof.
There they are Jenna, and here they come.
“Edie, we need to move. Someone is watching us!”
Her eyes warmed at Jenna’s urgency, “Come on, girl! I know the perfect place!”
-
“Was that a chick?” Mickey asked knowing the answer. Harry spent the last two minutes trying to get the attention of the girls in the Grand American. When they finally saw him, they got spooked and ran away. Harry could understand why. Three men staring from afar would send the wrong vibes.
Harry is going to have his hands full with these fidgety fellas. This was probably not the first group of women either ever scared off and wouldn’t be the last.
“We need to find them,” Harry said. “They won’t be safe alone.”
Greg looked shocked at his words, “You want to go down from the roof already? How do we know it’s not a trap?” The boy sounded like a coward.
Harry didn’t think there was time for fear, not after everything last night. He might have been seven shades of drunk, but he would never forget what he saw. “I guess we’ll have to wing it, huh? Those women need to know we’re not dangerous, and we can protect them from those freaks.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Freaks? Blank-faces? What are you guys talking about?” Mickey asked.
Harry would come to find out Mickey was probably the only person in the city who had no idea what was going on. Harry remembered Mickey’s car accident. It was the introduction to a really bad story. “Boy, no words can describe what happened here last night that could make you believe. Your rice-burner was the start of a bad time for this city, maybe even the world. These crazy freaks started fighting and killing people left and right until there weren’t any more normal people left. And then they took them away. Carried ‘em like ya carry dirty laundry. Any normal people down there didn’t have a chance. They were all dead. Every single one of them. Well, except Greg here. It looks like he musta been up close and personal with one of them for a little while. How did ya get out, boy?”
“A guy in a leather jacket.” Greg did not want to go into any more detail and that was okay.
“Yeah, there were a lot of heroes down there fighting those things. Some of them even got pretty solid licks in and knocked a few out. Maybe even killed them, if they actually die. But after a while there were too many of them. I stood up here and witnessed the whole thing. Nothing can sober a man up like watching another man die. I heard them at the door, pounding and pounding, but they weren’
t smart or patient enough to get it open. They wanted to come up and get me, and they couldn’t. So I sat up here with my last pack of cigs and a fifth of Jack in my belly and watched the world burn.”
Harry paused before continuing, “Ya know, I never wanted to be alive before like I do up here on this roof, in this moment right now. I watched one woman fight three of those freaks when they grabbed her little boy. She used everything she could find to protect him. In the end, two more came and snapped the kid’s neck while the other freaks got her down dead.” Harry shrugged at the ridiculousness of the story. “These freaks are terrorists, but they ain’t wearing turbans and singing Allah. They spent six hours terrorizing a city and then cleaned up the mess they made.”
Greg cleared his throat and spit off the roof. “If what you’ve said is true, then there is one issue about calling them terrorists.” Another spit flew down to the ground. “Terrorists do not clean up after themselves. We’re dealing with something else. These are people with intentions of keeping what they kill and coming back for more.”
“Ahhh, yeah, you’re probably right, boy,” Harry said. “Let’s go find those girls before it’s too late, and we'll stop in my apartment on the way. I might have something we can use as a weapon or two, just in case. Deal?”
Both followed Harry without saying a word. They knew better than to argue. One thing was true: the world, the old place with laws and opinions, was murdered last night. Once, there was room for chance, but that wasn’t the world they lived in anymore.
-
Jenna followed Edie through the dining room’s swinging doors into the kitchen. Edie talked about how she had spent time recently covering in the kitchen when they were short on servers. One girl, Charlotte, called off at least twice a week, and Edie was always willing to stay late after her front desk shift. “So, you see, because Charlotte was such a party animal, she would skip out on work if there was something else going on. Last Christmas party she and the head chef got a little intimate, so he was never going to fire her. She probably got a raise out of it.”
Dark Genesis (Shadow and Shine Book 1) Page 5
