Heart pounding and operating purely on instinct, Melissa crashed through the door to the next floor. She didn’t know what to expect, but knew that staying in the stairwell was akin to having a death wish. She intended to cross the floor and gain access to the other staircase, proceed down, and hopefully lose her pursuer or pursuers on one of the guest room floors. Perhaps, or rather she hoped, they would simply stop chasing her if she got far enough away from the executive suites. But these thoughts were nothing more than subconscious flickers; Melissa’s only conscious impulse was to keep moving, to ignore the pain and the wet feeling running down her arm, to carry through the cross section in the corridor and keep pushing towards the other set of stairs. She ran forward, risking a glance over her shoulder. She knew the next pursuer would be coming through the door at any moment and if he or she shot at her, they’d probably hit her as Melissa was running in a straight line. She saw a faint flash of light, presumably from the flashlight mounted on the weapon, and Melissa swung her right arm around instinctively, firing off a quick volley of shots in the vague direction of the door. Would they hit anyone? Probably not, but they’d potentially buy her a few more precious seconds. And that was all she needed. Melissa fired and fired until she heard the click of the weapon as it ran out of ammunition. She’d successfully held her pursuer back long enough however, and was now able to power through the door before her assailant could take aim at her. Melissa slammed the door shut and started down, jumping down the last few steps to the landing, and rounding the corner. She had maybe fifteen seconds at most before he or she came through the door above. She needed to put as much distance as possible between her hunter and herself as she could by then.
It didn’t even register that she was running away from one danger into a more unknown kind of danger. If there were infected people waiting on any of the guest room floors then she’d be amongst them before she could react. However, certain death was behind her, so Melissa surged forward, dropping down floor after floor. She heard the door above open and decided to hug the wall as close as she could, to avoid being visible if someone looked down the stairwell.
“Melissa? How’s it going?” She heard Roy ask over the radio, but ignored it. The person pursuing her didn’t though; a series of gunshots rang down from above, fired blindly down the exposed centre of the staircase in the hope of getting a lucky shot. A couple of bullets slammed into the concrete near the steps Melissa was standing on, sending little chunks of stone flying around, but neither the bullets nor the debris connected with her. Melissa was now more than a little afraid of being hit a by ricochet, but she determinedly pushed this fresh concern aside and kept moving as fast as she could. She knew she needed to reload the gun but was afraid she’d make a mistake in her haste if she did it while running. However, she didn’t want to stop and take the chance of getting caught in the line of fire. It was one of those situations where you were hung if you did and hung if you didn’t.
“Melissa? What’s happening?” Roy quizzed urgently over the radio, but again, Melissa didn’t respond. She couldn’t. She glanced and saw she’d made it to the forty-eighth floor. It wasn’t quite low enough, and for all she knew they were also coming down the staircase she’d abandoned.
“She’s on forty-eight!” She heard a rough, male voice call out; presumably the man chasing her, probably speaking into a radio.
“Damn it!” Melissa snapped; her voice filled with confusion, frustration and anger at her current situation. Melissa hugged the wall again as a second barrage of gunfire came her way. Once more, her luck held. While still rounding each corner of the staircase as fast as she could, she fumbled in her jeans pocket and eventually managed to retrieve one of the spare ammunition clips she’d taken from the woman. Melissa pressed the eject catch on the clip and let it fall skittering to the floor, slamming in the replacement as soon as she could. She yanked back on the barrel and cocked a fresh round, just as a third barrage impacted around her. Floors forty-seven and forty-six had sped past all within the past few moments, and before she knew it, Melissa was breathlessly looking at the forty-fourth floor.
Melissa didn’t have a clear plan, but she knew she couldn’t keep running at this pace indefinitely. She tore through the door and slammed it shut behind her, and then she pelted down the corridor and hurried towards the west elevators. Melissa knew she had a scant lead, if it was a lead at all, and was hesitant to give it up, but she needed to know where the elevators currently were. She darted down the passage on her right, and looked quickly at the LED displays to discover which floors the elevators had stopped on. One said twenty-two; one said twelve, both equally useless to her. She wheeled around to the other bank and saw that one was on the thirty-eighth floor, ticking over to thirty-nine. If she was lucky, and hurried, she could just make it in time. She only hoped it wasn’t full of the infected. Briefly, Melissa considered taking the west stairs down, but quickly decided against it; she didn’t want the soldiers following her down that staircase as it would give her less time to board the elevator if they were in close pursuit. She darted out of the corridor and ran flat out towards the other staircase, on the south side of the hotel tower, figuring her pursuer would be very close to the door in the stairwell she’d been using on the north side. This assumption was proved correct. When she was about half way down the corridor, she heard a blast of gunfire behind her and darted into the doorway of a room, flattening herself against the door. Someone further down the corridor opened the door to their suite and looking cautiously out, saw Melissa.
“Get inside! Lock the door!” Melissa barked at the guest, who did as she instructed just as another salvo of gunfire was unloaded towards Melissa, blasting into the wall very near where she was tucked in. Melissa ducked down low and leaned out, raising her weapon and firing a quick succession of shots at her pursuer at the far end of the corridor. A pair of her shots missed, fracturing the window behind him, while three slammed into her target. He was wounded and took a step backwards, losing his balance just as Melissa hit him in the chest with another shot. He stumbled further and Melissa fired another barrage of shots; whether her accuracy was off from being forced to fight with such haste, or her adrenaline was upsetting the steadiness of her hands, none of the shots killed him, and instead slammed into his body armour, each shot forcing him back a little more. The final one caused him to lose his footing and fall backwards into the broken window behind him; the glass crumpled and he fell through, a throaty, frightened scream accompanying his sudden disappearance.
With her current pursuer dead, or at least falling to his death, Melissa broke into a run. She saw a few guests opening their doors to look at her quizzically as she sped past. Breathlessly, she curtly instructed them to stay in their rooms and hide as she moved past; hoping the sight of a woman brandishing a gun would be sufficient warning. She reached the turn of the corridor and took it, heading towards the entrance to the south side stairwell once again. She opened the door and hurried inside, but had no time to catch her breath as she heard the tell-tale sound of someone above her. Melissa shut the door and started running down. She had to get to the forty-second floor before the elevator. Gunfire erupted from above her, and she barely managed to get to the wall before fragments of concrete exploded where her foot had been. Melissa ran; she ran as hard and as fast as she could, while paying careful attention to the floor numbers she passed. She was so winded she could see stars at the edge of her vision, but she pushed through it, using every last ounce of strength in her body.
Melissa opened the door to the forty-second floor and shut it behind her, pausing for a fleeting second to drag air into her abused lungs. She staggered on heavy legs towards the west elevator banks. However, before she rounded the corner she heard the tell-tale chime of either the arrival or the departure of the elevator. Hoping on the former, Melissa turned the corner, her heart banging thunderously in her chest, and gasped when she saw a pair of the sick coming out of it. Acting purely on instinct, she levelled h
er gun and fired a clean shot at the head of the first, a woman who was undoubtedly beautiful before something tore a chunk out of her neck and infected her with whatever ailment was rampant in the hotel. She dropped silently, the blood from her wound spraying over the second infected, a tall, dark featured man. Melissa executed him; there was no other word for it, and she watched the look of surprise on his pale face turn swiftly to ugly anger before the bullet passed through his brain. As he crumpled to the floor, Melissa, though still not recovered from her dash down the stairs, forced herself to continue moving. As she came in line with the elevator, a third infected growled and lunged out at her; his arms outstretched and his mouth wide. Melissa reacted as fast as her weary body could, twisting and dodging out of his way. He tumbled to the ground, landing heavily on top of the bodies of his companions. Melissa hastily sidestepped him and entered the elevator, nearly losing her footing on a large pool of blood, which she could only imagine belonged to the woman she had just executed.
Melissa slammed the ‘door close’ button hoping, even if she couldn’t dictate a floor for it to go to, she could at least shut the doors. To Melissa’s great relief, the doors began to close but then, without warning, suddenly rebounded. She looked down and saw the leg of the third infected individual preventing them from sealing off the corridor. She acted quickly, kicking his leg out of the way as the doors began to come together again. It was then she caught sight of a shadow on the wall and could only assume one of her pursuers was about to round the corner. Melissa raised her weapon and fired several quick shots at the shadow, hoping to buy herself enough time for the doors to shut. He or she retreated, and after a second the doors finally closed. Melissa bent down, hands on knees, and breathing deeply, tried to steady herself and slow her heartbeat to something resembling normal. She had no idea if the weapon she was using was empty, and didn’t have a chance to check. The elevator was going to go up one floor, back towards the people she was trying to escape. Melissa needed to protect herself, and the best way she could think of doing it was to hide. She slipped the possibly empty gun into the back of her jeans, and, hearing Roy’s questions and demands for a response, snatched the radio.
“Not now!” She snapped and turned the radio off, replacing it on her belt. The elevator had started moving, so Melissa needed to do something quickly. She looked up and around, looking for the ceiling panel which acted as a maintenance access point for the elevator. She saw that the ceiling tile above the control panel looked a shade different from the others, and was seemingly a little looser.
She was a little short, but felt she would be able to reach it if she stretched as far as she could; the only alternative being almost certain death. Melissa crouched down on her burning, aching legs, a momentary reprieve as her over-exerted body begged for rest, then she leapt straight up, knocking the tile with an outstretched hand and making it loose. She jumped again and tried to swat at it, this time managing to dislodge it. Although the floor was slippery, Melissa managed to keep her footing as she repeated the process until the tile was completely dislodged and access to the elevator’s roof possible. Seeing that the elevator was about to arrive at the next floor, Melissa took a few deep, steadying breaths and, hoping she had enough strength, she crouched down again then leapt as high as she could, both arms extended to gain a tentative grasp on the edge of the access point with her fingertips. Her legs dangled freely and already, her fingers were starting to slip as her weight pulled down against the poor grip. However, she managed to hoist her legs up until she could place her feet on the waist-high railing and steady herself, which allowed her to re-secure her hold. Moving awkwardly, she was able to clamber up, having found something hard and metallic to grasp; gritting her teeth as she pushed back the thought that putting her fingers around it could be a mistake. With some difficulty, she was able to use it to pull herself halfway up, and while her legs dangled freely, was then able to reach out with her other hand to grab a handle to hoist herself further up. Eventually, she brought her legs up level with the lip of the hatch and ascended fully onto the top - just as the elevator jolted to a stop. Melissa quickly replaced the panel and knelt on her hands and knees, immediately looking around for a way to escape from her pursuers, or at least hide herself more effectively.
Melissa cautiously but swiftly stood, stepped over the small light mounted on the top of the elevator and onto a red girder that acted as a divider between this elevator, its mechanism and the neighbouring elevator on the other side of the girder. She tried not to look down and moved warily, holding onto something solid to ensure her safety at all times. Melissa knew if she’d thought to climb out of the elevator then it was likely that one of her pursuers might suspect she would think of doing it too. She gritted her teeth, looking for some means to get further away. There was no emergency ladder she could reach, no other elevator to move on to; if it was absolutely necessary she could try to leap at the cables belonging to the next elevator, but she didn’t trust herself enough to take a chance like that unless she had absolutely no alternative. But then the most curious thing happened, at least in Melissa’s opinion. The chime sounded again, and the elevator moved upwards, leaving her behind as she lingered on the red girder. No pursuers had checked to see if she was in there, and no gunfire had erupted to send her tumbling to her death. Nothing had happened; they had simply given up pursuing her. Why, she couldn’t help but ask herself. While glad of the reprieve, it seemed strange that they should make such an effort to put her out of action only to concede defeat so easily. Not that she was complaining, but it did lead her to believe that whatever they were up to was more important than just one person. Melissa, her arm wrapped around a vertical support beam, managed to lower herself so that she could sit down on the red girder supporting her. She looked up as the elevator casually made its way to the next floor, then she looked down, and observed a second elevator which appeared to be slowly coming up towards her, but it was a long way down. The shaft itself was dimly lit, with roughly one light to every floor and an extra one on top of and below each elevator. Melissa sighed, and went for the radio on her belt. She turned it on, and brought it up to her mouth.
“Roy?” She summoned him. “Are you there?”
A minute of silence passed.
“Melissa? Thank God. What happened?”
“Quite a lot, actually.” Melissa declared simply.
Chapter Four
Melissa relayed her story to Roy as concisely and quietly as she could, just in case someone overheard her. Roy, either shocked or surprised, listened in silence, with only intermittent, sharp intakes of breath in response. When she finished, Roy didn’t answer straight away. To him, what had happened to her just didn’t make sense.
“Well, Roy, say something.” She pushed crossly – not necessarily annoyed with Roy, more with the situation in general.
“I’m sorry, Melissa, it’s just a lot to process.” Roy answered slowly.
“Yeah, it was a lot for me too.” She retorted.
“I bet. The radio on the roof is tuned directly to the emergency channel. They shouldn’t have been able to take over that, but if it was as you say it was, then there’s a whole hell of a lot more going on than we realized. There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Melissa, something I haven’t mentioned up until now, and I’m sorry about that but I didn’t think it was worth worrying you with it until we knew more.”
“I don’t like the sound of this already, Roy.”
“We think they had to have had help from someone working on the inside to set this up, one of my security team most likely. The way the computer system was compromised, it couldn’t have been done remotely; it has to have been someone working under me.” Roy concluded with a flash of anger.
Melissa grunted an acknowledgement of the information and briefly wondered if she could trust Roy or the individual he was with. They were, after all, the only two survivors of the security team. Looking over the evidence she had available however, it didn�
�t make sense for him to be involved. Sure, he’d sent her to the roof, but these people, whoever they were, were already on their way. And if Roy had wanted her dead, he would have told her to go somewhere where the infected were plentiful and she would have been murdered by them. So Melissa chose to follow her instincts; she believed he was honest, reliable and trustworthy, and dismissed the doubts she had had as unfounded. And it wasn’t as though she had a whole lot of other options.
“Well, that sounds about right for the way things are going. Do you have any idea who it is, or was?”
“No. Donna and I are going through all the records we can access trying to figure out when it could have happened, but it’s slow going.”
“So, we’ve got armed killers on the top floors, cannibals on the ground floor and everywhere in between. What’s the plan, Roy?” Melissa questioned.
“I’m not sure there is much of a plan anymore. Maybe it would be best for you to find somewhere to hide until the police get inside. They’ve got to be aware that something’s happening by now. Helicopters landing on hotels don’t go unnoticed.” Roy explained.
“Well, I’m not sure that’s going to work out. If the people who landed on the roof are associated with the people who started the outbreak, and I’m fairly confident we can make that connection, then they’ve got big plans for what’s happening here. And if they’ve got plans then we probably should try to figure out what they are before they carry them out.”
A World Reborn: The First Outbreak Page 7
