by Mark Clodi
“Tom, it doesn't matter. Just stop, I don’t want you to feel sorry, I mean it could have been my place or Steve’s or somewhere on the street, it had nothing to do with you. You didn’t shoot me, it was those skinhead assholes, okay?”
“You serious Max? You forgive me? That means a lot, a lot to me man. If you ever need anything I will be there for you okay?”
“Tom, we are all going to be there for each other, which is what this trip is about, which is what everything is about now. We go get what we need and get the hell out of Denver, maybe hole up somewhere until someone comes along and sets things straight. We are like the four musketeers, all for one and one for all!”
Tom spotted the nurse out of the corner of his eye and said, “Well the nurse is pretty insistent that we don’t spend too much time in here bugging you right now, so I gotta go. Thanks Max for not holding it against me!”
Max snorted, “Like I would! It was just bad luck Tom, that is all. Good night.”
The nurse shooed Tom off and leaving the door open, she came in and said, “Sorry Max, about earlier, I didn’t mean to freak you out, you know, with the kiss. I was just so glad we had been rescued. It was very unprofessional.”
Max blushed and looked away, “Ah, well that does not happen every day to me, you know? It kinda shook my image of what a nurse was supposed to be.”
“Well I am a nurse and should have known better. Anyway can you make it to the john or do you want me get you a bed pan? We do have them. Plus the doctor said you can get some underwear on and maybe a loose shirt, though he would rather you just slept the way you are for the night.”
Max looked at Beth and said, “The john, definitely.” Not elaborating on the number two that was starting to give him urgent pangs. It didn’t matter as he was too weak to sit down on the toilet himself anyway and when it came to clean up, well, he got to experience Beth’s expertise there too. ‘How fucking humiliating is this?’ he thought to himself as she cleaned him up and helped him step into a pair of normal size thirty six boxers Steve had put in the bag under the larger size he had displayed to Max earlier. He opted out of the shirt and fell into a deep sleep soon after his head hit the pillow in the examination room. While he slept his phone had small, spasmodic fits of vibrating, once at midnight, then again at one thirty in the morning and finally at four sixteen in the morning, all made from his home phone number.
is your plan then?”
Chapter 39
“Stop here Amelia, the lights are attracting too much attention.” said Diane.
“We are so close though, the Arvada exits start at Ward Road, just another few miles!”
“Deary, another few miles with every zombie in the world coming down towards us on the highway could mean we don’t make it at all, pull up here. The Solar Research Lab? Hm, a Marriott though, try that, I mean what can it hurt?”
Pulling into the exit, navigating around three wrecks that looked like they happened when the drivers were going the wrong way on the off ramp, Amelia turned left, drove across the overpass and pulled her car into the parking lot of the Marriott hotel. Huge, the hotel was huge. Amelia drove up to the valet service area and kept on moving slightly past it, then put the car in reverse and backed it right up to the front door, stopping about five feet shy of them. She killed the engine and they looked around for any movement. Nothing. Nothing inside, nothing outside, nothing anywhere. The lights for the parking lot came on abruptly, creating not only pools of light across an acre of concrete, but also pools of darkness on the outer fringes. There were some lights on in the hotel too, various rooms at different levels were lit. Amelia caught a face looking out of one of the windows, a movement by a curtain and the face and light were gone.
“Did you see that?” she asked Diane, who shook her head no. “It was up there on the, one, two, third, fourth floor there, maybe, what eight rooms from the end? It looked like a person there, a living guy, not a zombie.”
Diane gave her a skeptical look, but nodded, “It could still be a zombie you know.”
“No, no it looked like a little kid, not a zombie, we should go up there and see.”
Diane thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Yeah, yeah we should, heck we need a room anyway and I doubt there will be anyone here that can give us a key now. Are you ready to go in?”
Amelia scanned their surroundings again and then slipped out of the car, making sure to take the keys with her. Diane followed suit and when the doors were shut Amelia used the remote to lock them. Together they moved to the main doors, pressing on them they found them locked. There were two side doors as well, one for both Amelia and Diane to try. Amelia’s would not budge, but Diane pressed the handicap button and her door swung open with an automated noise. Both women went in and emerged in the lobby of the hotel. The place was dark, apparently no one had turned on the lights and they were not automated. Using the light cast off by the parking area Amelia could see the front desk, and signs indicating the way to the restaurants, pool, hair salon, massage therapist and gift shop. She grabbed Diane’s arm and pointed to the sign, indicating they should follow the sign to the gift shop.
Puzzled Diane nodded and both women set off down a dark corridor and arrived in front of the closed down gift shop. The doors were locked. Amelia looked around and spotted a bench, she said, “I am going to break the lower door window so we can get in there.”
She took the bench and, trying not to flinch, shoved it hard into the lower section of glass on the door. It made a loud thumping sound, but did not break. Amelia was amazed, she had not gone all out with her push, but had expected the glass to give away easier than that. She pulled the bench back and lifted it up off the ground for a stronger push, more like a battering ram this time. The bench struck the glass with another thumping sound the glass starred, but did not give in.
“Jesus wept.” She said, “How hard do I have to hit it? Diane I don’t think I would make a good burglar. You better help me this time.”
Diane replied, “Amelia, why are we breaking into the gift shop?” as she picked up the end of the bench.
“Flashlights, I bet they have flashlights and batteries in here, it looks like we will need them.”
Together their third attempt still did not shatter the glass, but it did push the edge of one corner out of the frame and Amelia used her foot to force it down into the store so the women could crawl through. The problem was it was very, very dark. Amelia cold just make out the cash register and made her way towards it, hoping for a key chain light that most places had as ‘last minute’ purchases situated around their cash registers. She was in luck and found an entire plastic container full of them, she pressed one and tossed another to Diane before turning and filling one of her pockets with them. Diane grabbed three or four, looking for the red ones, even switching out the blue one Amelia had given her for a red one from the canister. She caught Amelia watching her and shrugged, “I like the red ones.” The women then scanned the rest of the store, there was a battery rack and on top of it a half a dozen packs that included flashlights. Both women grabbed three, split the packages open and loaded the flashlights up.
“These are pretty good flashlights, very bright.” said Amelia.
“Yeah you cannot beat these new LED bulbs, they are hard to break and last forever. I got my husband a wind up one, it was a piece of junk. Oh sure it was bright while you were cranking the thing, but once you stopped it dimmed down pretty quickly. Still no batteries required.” As she was saying this she was scanning the store with her light looking around. There were no other doors to the place, no stock room, no bathroom, but there was a sink near the coffee maker. Amelia went over to the prominent Pepsi cooler and slide a door open, the machine was off but the drinks were cold. Looking around it she saw that the machine was unplugged from the wall.
“Hey Diane, someone unplugged the pop cooler.” Bending over Amelia plugged it back in and the machine chugged to life, including a built in light, which ca
st a thin glow into the shop. “Who would do that, do you think?”
“I don’t know, come here and get a candy bar, I know you have to be hungry we have not had anything to eat all day. What's your poison?”
“Snickers. And a nut roll. Least bad of all the candy bars. Oh heck give me a packet of the cashews too, protein and salt, almost everything I need. A bathroom is next though.” The last time the women had a chance to go had been a stop about three hours ago when they refueled the car at a deserted seven eleven store, Amelia had an ex-boyfriend who had worked at a seven eleven when she was sixteen, he had shown her how to turn the pumps on and off on one of the many times she had sat through his shift with him.
“Okay now a bathroom, then lets go check out the fourth floor.” The women crawled through the broken door with their loot, stopped at the lobby bathroom and headed over to the far wing of the hotel. Once there Diane was unsure of how far to go up, from the outside she had thought it was the fourth floor, however the hotel had rooms on the ground floor, which she thought were obscured from her vision when she counted. She opted for the fifth floor and they made their way slowly up the stairs until they were outside the door leading into the hallway to the rooms.
“Ready? I mean, not to sound scary or anything, but the kid was probably locked up in the room for a reason, so I am expecting the worst.” said Amelia. Both women had makeshift weapons, Diane had a novelty walking stick from the gift shop and Amelia had opted for a fire poker from the fireplace in the lobby.
Amelia slowly opened the door and they peered down the corridor beyond, it was a straight shot and while the lights were off, the electric ‘exit’ sign cast it's red shadow beyond where Amelia thought the door they were looking for was.
There were things in the hallway, a lot of rubbish and, it looked like suitcases or maybe bodies, plus there was someone moving three quarters of the way to the end. ‘Shit’, Amelia thought, ‘I was hoping it was just a scared kid, not a scared kid with zombies at his door.’ With as much reluctance as resolve she stepped into the hallway towards the movement.
As she passed the doors she found some of them open, and the smells from within were not comforting, it seemed like every other room staggered on each side, was an open doorway. Some of the doors had been battered open, most had not. Amelia, followed closely by Diane flitted from doorway to doorway, trying not to draw the attention of the thing down the hall. The first open doorway they ducked into had three bodies, a woman perhaps thirty years old, with two kids, one was maybe ten the other looked to be six or seven. Amelia almost vomited her cashews, Diane did. While Diane was retching Amelia watched the doorway and whispered, “Quiet Diane, I know, I know, but you have to stay quiet or whatever it is will hear us. Shh, shh.”
Turning back to the doorway Amelia heard running and was then confronted by woman in her mid thirties who smiled at her wickedly and said, “Oh you have come! Help is here, thank God!” as she rushed forward to embrace Amelia with arms flung open.
“Stop!” shrieked Amelia, after momentary losing her senses and almost, opening her arms to comfort a fellow woman in distress. Instead she stepped back and raised the poker up to the woman’s face.
The woman, who was hard to see in the dim light, smashed the fire poker aside, but Amelia was quicker and somehow had been expecting the blow. She swung the poker back around and struck the woman a sharp blow across the front of her face. The woman screamed in agony, “That was my eye you bitch!” and leaped towards Amelia again. By this time Amelia had stepped back into the room right next to where Diane was trying to get up from vomiting, there was little more room without stepping over Diane or leaping over the bodies, which were on the first of two full sized beds in the room. Amelia yelled, “Get back Diane!” and trusting her to do so Amelia half leaped, half rolled over the bodies to put a bed between herself and demonic woman. The zombie opted to go for Diane, who had just enough time to get her feet under her before being barreled over. Amelia was there in an instant striking the zombie in the back while it tried to maul Diane, whose arms were up in a defensive posture trying to push the thing off her. To make matters worse all around, she had not stopped vomiting and the mess and smell was nauseating. Amelia swung back for another strike when the zombie seemed to realize something was very wrong, it rolled over and tried to move sideways away from the blows Amelia was raining down upon it. Now it's hands were up in a warding posture, however it could not go sideways, there was not enough room, it ended up wedged half under a desk with it's legs sticking, and kicking, out at Amelia.
The zombie started making an injured mewing noise and Amelia switched from swinging to poking the thing, while Diane, who had now rolled back over to her hands and knees crawled towards the window of the room.
Finally Amelia was able to get herself into position and poke the zombie firmly in the throat, which seemed to take a lot of the fight out of it. She followed up with three rapid pokes to it's head and then drug it out from under the desk to finish it off with blows hard enough to bend her fire poker. Diane, meanwhile, had gotten to her feet and was watching Amelia with a look of horror on her face.
Amelia stopped, concerned, “What? What Diane? I had to finish it off.”
“No.” sobbed Diane, “No. That is not it.” She held up her arms, both of which were bleeding fiercely from bite wounds.
“Oh no.” Amelia said softly, “Oh no, oh no! I tried to get there fast enough Diane, I couldn’t get there, she, it, it was so fast! It moved too fast, but I thought I got to it before it did anything to you. I am sorry Diane, I am sorry.”
Amelia moved towards Diane, then stopped herself and said, “Let me get towels!” she moved into the bathroom and grabbed several of the clean towels, casting a glance at the room’s door she moved to stand near the window where Diane was attempting to staunch the flow of her blood from a ghastly looking wrist wound. As Amelia tried to bandage her arms, Diane, whispered, “There is another one behind you, a slow one.”
Amelia pretended not to hear but looked for her fire poker, there! On the bed, next to Diane’s flashlight. Diane fainted and pulled out of Amelia’s grasp, Amelia turned and grabbed the fire poker swinging it around on another soccer mom, this one in really bad shape, missing most of one arm, it's shirt was torn down the center revealing one breast which hung by fatty tissue to her chest. The zombie lurched forward grabbing for Amelia, after the first zombie Amelia was surprised at how incredibly easy it was to dispatch it's slower brethren, one quick, undeflected blow to the head, then several more blows to make sure it was down for good and not just pretending.
“I gotta shut the door, I gotta shut the door!” Amelia said to herself looking for a something to keep it shut as she advanced on the doorway. She kept her poker raised and approached the door quietly, listening for movement in the hallway. There! She heard a footstep, slow, tentative, another slow zombie! Amelia readied herself for a killing shot and when the zombie came through the door she bashed it in the head, only this one was quicker than most and deflected the blow with it's forearm, it was a young one, maybe eleven years old and it went down under Amelia’s assault, she was getting ready to whack it again when her inner voice told her to stop, stop! Her mind lurched forward looking for a logical reason why to go with her instinct to not strike again and she found it when she realized the zombie was screaming and crying! Zombies had not yet cried, so far as Amelia knew, but she veered her shot to land in the carpet beside the body and stepped back. Crying. Crying and sobbing, “Don’t. Please. Plee-ease don't!” then bawling. Amelia still was not sure.
'This is crazy.' she thought, 'I can't even tell humans from zombies now!'
She opted for not bashing the child’s head in and instead grabbed it's ankle and pulled it into the bathroom, slamming the door on it before turning back to the main door of the room, which she slammed shut. There was nothing to block it with and as the door had been forced she could not simply use the deadbolt. Instead she fastened the security cha
in, thinking it might at least give her warning if someone came into the room after her, then she turned and grabbed the two corpses on the floor and piled them in front of the door, they could be shoved out of the way, but it would take a lot of effort to do so and would make even more noise. The sobbing in the bathroom continued, Amelia turned towards the shut bathroom door and said, “If you are not a zombie kid I am really sorry for hitting you, but I didn’t know. If you are a zombie kid then I am not sorry at all and either way you better stay in the bathroom right now or I will think you are a zombie and brain you. Got it?”
The only answer was the deadbolt on the bathroom door sliding closed with a metallic ‘snick’.
“Good enough, stay in there while I help my friend.” Amelia turned back to Diane, letting her eyes linger once again on the bodies on the bed. Going to Diane she found the woman was still bleeding profusely, Amelia had no medical training, she did not know what a critical amount of blood loss was, but there was a lot of blood everywhere. She pulled Diane up onto the bed closest to the window and pressed a towel to the worst wound, wrapping it tightly around her wrist, before turning to the other hand and doing the same thing. Amelia could not keep the bandages tight and wound up snagging a pair of scissors from what looked like a crafting basket and cutting a bunch of strips out of the sheet on the bed. Once she did this she took the soaked towels off Diane’s arms and bound them with fresh towels fastening them securely with the strips of sheeting. Amelia did have some sense that she was doing something wrong, 'Changing the bandages' she thought, 'maybe that was it, if you changed them it did not allow clots to form? Maybe it was the tightness of the bandages, cutting off circulation to Diane’s fingers?' She checked Diane’s fingers pinching them and feeling them, both hands were cold and white, that didn’t look good.