by Maxey, Phil
Marina looked at all the shelves of forgotten items that were once important to someone and wondered if they would ever find new owners.
“Can I have this?” said Jess, holding up a foot-high plastic dragon.
“Sure.”
Marina walked along the aisles until she found Joel. In his hand was a backpack that he was piling ammo boxes into.
“Just one box for the M4, but plenty for everything else.”
She walked up to him, looking back to see if Jess was close by, she wasn’t. “When you were sleeping…”
“Yeah?”
“You were talking. Most of it I couldn’t understand, but you mentioned the name R—”
Joel momentarily paused, and he was sure his heart did the same.
“— Ick. Was that someone you knew?”
He continued packing the backpack with green boxes of different sizes. “Just someone I knew in LA.” He couldn’t fit anymore in and heaved it onto his back. “I got what I need.” He saw she wasn’t carrying anything. “You don’t want anything?”
She looked around the shelves. At the end of one, all by itself was a samurai sword in its sheath. She walked to it and slid the blade out. “Russell used to keep these. Man, he loved his martial arts movies.”
Conversations with Russell of who was the best Kung-Fu actor came flooding back to Joel. He looked away pushing the guilt back down.
Marina lifted the sheath, slung it over her back and walked away. “I’m done.”
Joel followed. When they got to Anna, she was holding her radio in her hand.”
“What is it?” said Joel.
“It’s Gabe, he’s not doing too good.”
“Is he going to die?” said Jess.
“I don’t know.” Anna looked at Joel. “If he should change, while we’re driving…”
“You’re suggesting we just leave him?”
“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, he’s got a high fever, and his heart rate is erratic. That wound on his shoulder is not healing. The virus affects some more than others. In Gabe it’s being quite aggressive.”
“What does he need?” said Joel.
“Rest. Somewhere where I can monitor him. I saw a sign for a hotel. I think it’s just a mile further along the highway. If we—”
Joel shook his head. “The only way I know to keep you all safe is to keep moving.”
“I can’t guarantee Gabe won’t change while you’re doing that.”
Marina looked at Joel. “If it’s safe, why not hole up in this hotel for the night? If he changes, we can deal with it.”
Joel slid his hand over his beard. “Okay, fine. We’ll check it out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Joel looked through multiple layers of glass doors which led to a hotel foyer. All were closed, and across the tiled floor in-between were a number of ripped magazines extolling Arizona’s tourist attractions.
“We could just drive one of the pickups through these,” said Hardin, peering through the glass.
“These doors look pretty secure. Let’s keep it that way. No, we’ll find another way in.”
“Over here!” shouted Evan, pulling upwards a ground floor window on the large five story building. Everyone walked across to him. “It was already open, I guess they never got a chance to close it.”
Marina looked at Joel. “You sensing anything?”
Evan froze with his foot already inside the gap.
Joel shook his head. “I’m not sure.” All of his improved human senses weren’t picking up anything, but there was something else, almost like an itch in his brain, that was telling him otherwise.
Evan squeezed through the gap. “This room looks empty,” he said from inside. His hand then emerged and Bill handed him a shotgun.
Joel handed his rifle to Marina and blew out his cheeks. The afternoon sun was feeling particularly warm on his forehead. He looked up at the burning yellow circle. He was sure it was larger than normal. He climbed through the gap and retook possession of his rifle.
The room they were in was large, easily thirty foot wide, and was completely empty of bodies or furniture. At the opposite side to the windows was a long counter with glass cases, and beyond that, just visible in shadow, what looked like a kitchen area. Joel took one step onto the plush carpet then realized the crunchiness wasn’t due to its design but rather the copious amount of dried blood which had soaked into it. “There’s been death here.”
Evan looked down. “Wait… I thought it was just a patterned carpet.” He stepped off the dark circular crimson patch he was standing in the middle off.
“Nope.”
Evan raised his gun in no particular direction.
Kelly’s feet, then head and body appeared through the window gap. “How’s it looking?” she said, standing upright.
“Vamp’s have been here. I just can’t tell if they still are,” said Joel.
Kelly picked up her shotgun from the window frame and looked around into the corridors and doors that branched off from the dining area. “Wouldn’t they already be on us if they were in here.”
Joel walked across the room towards the foyer. “Maybe. Let’s find a side door or something to let everyone in.”
The blood stains continued on the otherwise smooth-tiled floor of the lobby, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. About twenty yards further into the central hallway was a huge mound of furniture. Tables, kitchen appliances, chairs, and other pieces of wooden construction were stacked on top of each other, against one side of the wide corridor.
“Why do you think they did that?” said Evan, with Kelly standing beside him.
Without answering, Joel walked past one of the building’s wide staircases and other closed doors and examined the mass of wood and steel. Closing his eyes, he quietened his mind to what lay behind the barricade. At first there was only an icy silence, then sound and screams burst into his mind. His eyes flicked open and he wavered before clearing his thoughts.
“Behind all this is a door that leads to the basement. And in there are a lot of vamps.”
Evan gently touched a chair leg that was pointing towards the ceiling. “This going to hold them?”
Joel nodded. “I reckon so. But…” He looked around then walked to a wall light and pulled the glass lamp shade from it, and then walked back and carefully placed it amongst the refuse, obstructing the door. “We’ll put things on here that, if they fall, we’ll hear them. Should give us some kind of warning.”
After a bit of exploring through other doors with ‘staff only’ signs above them, they found a corridor which led to a side entrance, one that could be unlocked easily from the inside.
They all moved into the building, apart from Gabe who needed Dawn and Mary’s shoulders to enable him to stay upright and made it to the foyer with the others.
They all stood looking at the mass of furniture along the corridor.
“Behind all of that is where the vamps are,” said Joel.
“Hell, I’m not staying in here then,” said Hardin, walking back the way he had just come from.
“That barricade has held them so far,” said Joel. “And there are going to be vamps wherever we go. We’ll all stay on the same floor, in a few rooms, close to the fire exit.”
Hardin stopped.
“Do you think they’re all the guests?” said Mary.
“Maybe,” said Joel.
Marina looked down at Jess, who was holding Flint on his leash. “Wait here.” She then moved behind the large dark wooden counter, and slowly opened the door to the office behind. The room was largely mundane, with a desk, computer, and a few filing cabinets. It also had a wall of key cards hanging from on one wall. Roughly half of the forty spaces were missing. Marina frowned, then quickly picked each card from its hook, until she had a small pile, which she crammed into her pockets. She then walked back to the foyer. “These are the rooms we can stay in.” Some of the group were missing. “Where did the others go?”<
br />
“Seeing if the other floors are safe,” said Mary, standing next to Jess and Flint. Gabe was leaning back on one of the small sofas, with Anna hovering over him.
Hardin slammed his hand against the side of a vending machine.
Anna looked angrily at him. “Maybe not let the monsters know their dinner has arrived.”
He frowned and hit it again.
Marina looked at her daughter. “Let’s see if we can find the others.”
Joel pushed open the door to the first floor. He looked into the long corridor and its patterned carpet and paused as his mind flashed back to months earlier, when he discovered his first vamp.
“You alright?” said Kelly.
Joel pushed himself off the frame of the door and walked forward. “Just tired.”
“Of course you’re tired, the sun’s still up,” said Claire, walking into the corridor behind him.
Joel ignored the comment and moved along trying each door. The fourth one he arrived at was already open. He peered inside, already knowing there was nothing living within, but what drew him in was the cool draft. He entered a small room with a single bed, and a large hole where the window used to be. He walked forward and stuck his head between splintered panes and looked down fifteen feet to a set of blinds, laying on top of a dark red smear on the concrete.
He wasn’t sure if the occupant had jumped or been pulled out.
What does it matter, dead either way.
He looked up at the sun. He could feel its rays boring into him and pulled back.
Only a few more hours until sundown.
He wasn’t sure why, but he felt that was a good thing.
*****
Anna looked down at a man that was dying. She was doing what she could to keep his fever down, and she had him on anti-viral medication, but the scourge was going to take him regardless. She had seen it happen on too many occasions to know there was no changing the outcome, and she hated that. She walked across one of the bigger rooms they had found on the fifth floor and sat on a two-seater sofa against the opposite wall. The dull blue light that was seeping through the closed blinds confirmed that the sun had gone down, and she reached out with her right hand to make sure her shotgun was within reach. She then pulled the single blanket she had found over her and looked at Gabe and Dawn laying next to each other on the bed. Both soundly asleep.
She pulled her glasses from her face, and laid them on her lap, then leaned back.
No sleeping. I’ll just rest for a bit, then get someone else to take my place.
“What…”
Anna opened her eyes to darkness and crying.
“I’m sorry…” said Gabe from somewhere in front of her.
For a moment she was confused as to where she was, then her memories from a few hours earlier flooded into her mind, and she instinctively grabbed her shotgun and stood. Her glasses tumbled to the floor.
Swearing, she crouched and spread her free hand across the coarse carpet, trying to feel the metal frames, when she heard the bed creak. She looked up, trying to make sense of the shadowy blurs that were moving in front of her. “Gabe? Mary? Are you awake?”
“I couldn’t help myself…”
“Gabe?”
Her hands moved frantically across the rough surface. “Where are they!”
Then she sensed him. Even with her blurred vision, she could see the dark shapes of legs in front of her. She swung the shotgun around, but it only moved parallel with her shoulder when her arm knocked into Gabe’s hand, which grabbed her wrist and squeezed.
The pain shot up her arm making her drop the gun. In the gloom she kicked out, her boots digging into the middle-aged man in front of her, but despite the impact he held his grasp.
“Let me go!”
She went to shout again, but a vicelike grip latched onto her neck and lifted her upwards. Barely enough air made it down her throat as she flailed at the man that, just a few hours earlier, she had been caring for. She knew she only had a few more moments of life, as she could feel her head swimming from the lack of oxygen, and small sparkles of light started appearing in her vision.
Then she smelled it. The warmth of his breath on her face, and the stench of blood. She wanted to retch but couldn’t due to her throat being constricted.
“I had to… Don’t you understand? The thirst… it’s… too… much…” His nails dug deeper into her neck, causing small trickles of blood to run down her skin.
If Anna had been able, she would have consoled him, tried to make him feel she was on his side, just before she blew a hole in him, but instead these were just pointless thoughts. As her vision narrowed, she thought about her parents, and that she would be glad to see them.
Joel smashed through the door to the hotel room like it wasn’t there, and an explosion of splintered wood flew into the room. He went to move forward, to tear the thing apart that was holding the doctor against the wall, when the vamp that used to be Gabe, swung around to face him, bringing Anna with him like she was just a doll.
A beam from a flashlight illuminated the room, and the vamp ducked slightly behind his captive.
“I’ve not got a clean shot, Joel,” said Marina, looking down the sight of her handgun.
Joel held his hand up slightly behind him, his eyes not leaving the vamp. “Gabe. I know you don’t want to do this.” Joel could smell from the thickness of particles of blood in the air that Dawn was almost certainly already dead. But he could hear Anna’s heart was still beating.
“I… I…” Gabe stuttered as if a thought had lodged in his brain, and then his head flicked to the side. And then the other.
“What the fuck is happening to him?” said Marina, the gun in her hand swaying slightly to stay on target.
“I don’t know!”
Gabe’s head righted itself and his eyes narrowed. He then looked around left and right, as if seeing the room for the first time.
Joel sensed the air around him change, as if it had become electrified, and he could hear the vamps heart rate increase.
Gabe’s head then fell slightly to one side, as if he was studying Joel. “What is your name?” The words came out with a clarity that seemed to echo in Joel’s mind.
“You know my name, Gabe. Now put the doctor down, and we—”
“You don’t even know, do you…”
“Know what?”
“I think I got a shot! Shall I take him?”
Joel anxiously looked to his side. “Hold on.” He then looked back to the vamp. “What don’t I know?!”
Gabe sneered. “What was so special about you? Why should you have been chosen!”
“He’s gone crazy!” shouted Marina.
“I will find—”
The forehead of Gabe exploded across the room, and he fell back onto the bed. Anna collapsed to the floor.
Marina pushed past Joel and kneeled, feeling Anna’s neck for a pulse. “She’s not breathing!.. Joel?”
He shook his head then kneeled. “Clear her airway, then start compressions”.
Marina blew into Anna’s mouth, then started pressing on her chest. “I know what I’m doing. Done this a few times before.”
Claire, Kelly, and Hardin’s faces appeared in the room’s doorway.
“What happened?” said Claire.
“He turned,” said Marina.
“She dead?” said Hardin.
Anna’s hand started to scratch at the carpet, then moved to her throat.
“No…” Marina grabbed a pillow and slid it under her head.
Anna coughed then her eyes widened, and she looked around. “Gabe?”
“He’s taken care of,” said Marina.
Joel got up and walked around the front of the bed. The white of Dawn’s eyes were just visible amongst the blood seemingly poured over her. He grabbed a blanket and pulled it over her head.
Hardin walked further into the room. “How do we know she won’t turn?”
Joel continued looking at the figu
re beneath the sheet. “The dead don’t turn.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Joel laid in the double bed looking at the moonlight on the ceiling of his room. It was one of the more smallish options with a desk, drawer unit, small safe, and an equally proportioned fridge.
Despite how exhausted he felt, his mind wouldn’t quiet. He couldn’t shake the feeling that whoever was standing in front of him for those few seconds before Marina fired, was not Gabe. There was someone else looking back at him through the vamp’s blackened eyes, he was sure of it.
He breathed out in frustration.
Makes no sense.
He sat up, spilling some of the tiny empty glass alcoholic bottles from the mini fridge, then stood and walked to the window. He pulled the blinds to one side and looked out into the night. The moon was providing more than enough light for him to see the stores and other hotels which stretched into the town. He looked at the mountains in the distance and wondered if Nebraska would be any safer than where they were. Marina was right. The human race was in trouble, and he wasn’t sure if it could be saved.
He went to turn away when a speck of light appeared in the town, then blinked out. At first, he wasn’t sure if he imagined it, but light meant humans.
He threw his pants, boots, and jacket on, and pushed the window wide open. For a moment, he sat on the frame letting the cool desert night air wash over him, then dropped the twenty or so feet to the ground, landing in the parking lot at the side of the building.
He looked in the general direction that he thought the light was, then took off across the concrete, running free. He was soon moving at a pace down a wide road with mostly flat landscape on both sides, then skidded to a stop at a junction with gas stations on two corners. A mass of vehicles sat in the center of the road, most crumpled and smashed. He walked slowly over to the closest, a red pickup, and looked inside. It was empty apart from a child’s doll. He reached in, picked it up, and sighed. Dropping it back on the driver’s seat he looked along the road to the north. A slew of billboards and hoardings fought for space at the edge of the road, and, back from them, single-story fast-food restaurants. He spotted movement far off as the road climbed to a small hill.
