Desolate - The Complete Trilogy

by Robert Brumm

“Wow!” She turned her head and grinned at Howard with excitement. “Can we go swimming? Pleeease?”

  “Hey, you can’t go running off like that, okay? You scared me. We have to stick together until we know this place is safe.”

  Her gaze dropped to the ground. “Sorry.”

  He lifted her up so she could get a better look. “It is a pretty nice pool though, huh?”

  Pretty nice was an understatement. It was an infinity pool, creating a seamless visual edge between the crystal clear pool water and the sparkling Caribbean Sea beyond. Comfortable lounge chairs circled the pool and a swim-up bar under a thatched tiki-style roof filled one end. An elaborate artificial rock waterfall would have emptied into the pool. With no electric pumps running, the falls were dry of course, but it didn’t take much imagination to picture the peaceful setting. The others approached them from behind.

  “Damn, this beats dat grocery. Good job.” Tre slapped Howard on the back.

  “Don’t congratulate me yet. Let’s see if we can find a way inside. You doing okay, Dave?”

  “I think this one,” he pointed at Soo, “gave me enough painkillers to make a horse high. I can walk but I ain’t operating any heavy equipment.”

  The main front doors to the resort were locked, so they went through the pool area to the back. A large stone patio, dotted with more rows of lounge chairs, overlooked the beach. Six sets of French doors led from the patio to the hotel but those were all locked too.

  “There’s something weird about this place,” Ann said.

  “I know what you mean.” Soo shielded her eyes from the sun and looked up at the bedroom balconies above. “There are no signs of anybody around. No bodies, nothing broken or looted. That’s all we’ve seen lately.”

  “It was probably closed.” Howard pointed to the far side of the building. “Look, those windows are boarded up and they were starting to set up scaffolding. I’ll bet they were shut down for renovations when the plague hit.”

  One of the doors at the end was replaced by a flimsy sheet of plywood. Howard gave it a few tugs and pulled it away from the doorframe. He stepped inside to find a ballroom in the early stages of demolition.

  He poked his head out and smiled. “Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we’re ready to check in for the evening.”

  Eight

  It didn’t take long for everyone to agree on Howard’s closed resort theory. They explored most of the main floor and it was one of the few places any of them had seen lately where there were no bodies and no stench of decay. Other than the construction mess walled off by a layer of plastic, the building was clean and orderly.

  They decided to stay at least one night so Dave could rest and heal from his wounds. The guest room locks were battery powered, but without activating a card with the front desk computer, the stack of plastic room keys was useless. Tre found a master key after digging through the drawers and they suddenly had their pick of 187 guest rooms.

  They helped Dave into a room close to the lobby. Soo cleaned and dressed his wounds the best she could before letting him go to sleep. It was still early in the day so the others explored the rest of the hotel.

  The first thing Howard did was scrounge up a hammer and nails to properly seal up the makeshift door they had used to enter the building. After double-checking that the rest of the ground floor doors were locked, they all felt more secure. The smoke from the charred mess of burned-out van had died down, and despite what Dave had said earlier Howard was glad it was no longer broadcasting their position.

  The resort had one main kitchen serving three restaurants. The food in the massive walk-in fridge was either spoiled or close to it, so that didn’t do much good. Although the freezer was useless due to the country’s dead power grid, the food in there fared much better. A lot of the larger items, like frozen poultry, weren’t entirely thawed, and smaller items that had were still cool to the touch. They would be able to cook a lot of it for at least a few days before things started to turn.

  The freezer was merely icing on the cake because the pantry is what really saved them. Shelves of canned and nonperishable food lined the walls and could keep them fed for months, if needed. As long as they could find fresh water to drink and come up with a decent method for cooking, they were set for a while.

  Howard and Tre searched the basement with flashlights, finding the hotel’s laundry facilities and storerooms. Taking up almost half the building was a massive room containing the water boilers and HVAC system. At the far end of the room were two large machines.

  “No way,” Howard said.

  “What?” Tre pointed his flashlight beam to where Howard was looking.

  “Is it just me or do those look like generators?”

  “Just you. I don’t know no-ting ’bout what no generator looks like.”

  “I’m no expert either but that big GEN-E-ROCK logo on the side is a pretty big clue.”

  They went closer and looked them over. Each was the size of a large refrigerator turned on its side. An exhaust pipe connected to both machines ran up the side of the wall and up into the ceiling. A large fuel tank sat between them. Howard opened the access panel and studied the control panel, which he was relieved to find was surprisingly simple. Two levers, one marked “Auto-Engage” and the other “Manual,” were both set in the off position. Howard flipped the manual lever and pressed the red button marked “Ignition.” They jumped as the generators roared to life and filled the room with the noise of running motors. The light fixtures overhead flickered and turned on.

  Ann entered the room, a surprised expression on her face. “Holy crap. Let there be light!” she shouted over the noise.

  Soo and Emily followed.

  Howard couldn’t believe it. These massive generators had to have been designed to keep the whole building running in the event of a hurricane or something. Lucky for them, maintenance must have shut them down when the hotel closed for renovations. Otherwise they would have kicked in automatically when the power to the building went down. He checked the fuel tank, which read full. It was big, but he had no idea how long it would last so he powered down the generators, sending them back into darkness.

  “We can use this, but only if we need to. I have no idea if that’s enough fuel for a couple of days or if it could last us a lot longer. I don’t want to chance it.”

  “A two-bedroom suite but no air conditioning? I want my money back,” said Soo.

  “No TV either,” Ann chuckled. “No phone. No Facebook.” Her smile slowly faded. “No nothing.”

  They stood there for a moment in the darkness, a single flashlight beam illuminating the room. Soo put her arm around Ann.

  Emily tugged on the bottom of Howard’s shorts and looked up at him. “What’s Facebook?”

  Nine

  Soo broke the surface, her lungs aching for air and her eyes stinging from the salt water. She took in a deep breath of cool morning air and treaded water. It seemed like yesterday that she and her older brother had breath-holding contests in the pool at the Y. No matter how hard she tried, he would beat her every time, holding out until she came up for air and then surfacing himself with a big grin on his face.

  After he left for summer camp one year, Soo spent practically the whole six weeks in the bathtub, working on squeaking out a couple more seconds under water. By the time he got back, her best time was two minutes, thirteen seconds. Not bad for a ten-year-old girl, even if she said so herself. She nagged her brother to take her to the pool the moment he walked in the door so she could finally beat him and bask in the glory.

  Unfortunately, Soo never got a chance for a rematch because her brother found true love while at camp. He met a girl from another school who happened to live just a few miles away and spent the rest of the summer with her.

  Angry at being abandoned by her brother, Soo convinced her parents she was old enough to go to the Y by herself, and she hit the pool with a vengeance. Her two minutes, thirteen seconds soon turned into three minutes
and beyond. She taught herself and perfected various swim strokes, spending so much time in the pool that summer, she earned the nickname Squid from her brother. Much to her chagrin, the nickname stuck and quickly expanded beyond her own family.

  By the time she reached high school, she’d been Squid Kim for so long that many of her classmates had to stop and think for a moment if somebody asked her real name. Squid dominated the high school swim team and made varsity as a freshman. By the end of her junior year she was courted by practically every university in the country with a Division 1 swimming program.

  Her bright future, filled with scholarship offers to any school she chose–and possibly Olympic gold– ended abruptly one night when she was seventeen. Her friend Stacy drove Soo and two other friends home after a party at Mike Anderson’s house. His folks were out of town. Stacy swore she was okay to drive. Soo and the other girls didn’t protest.

  The next thing Soo remembered was waking up in a hospital, surrounded by her family and feeling like every single bone in her body had been pulverized. She suffered a broken pelvis, three broken ribs, a compound fracture in her right femur, and a thirteen-inch laceration on her right arm that the doctors feared might have caused nerve damage. Stacy was pronounced dead at the scene. Her two friends in the back seat fared much better. Tammy walked away virtually unscathed and Christy walked out of the ER that night with a black eye and a chipped tooth.

  Scholarships evaporated as quickly as they had arrived as Soo worked through painful months of recovery and physical therapy. It was during this time she grew to respect and form bonds with the nursing staff. When she graduated at nineteen, a year late due to months of missed school, her dreams of a life in the water were behind her. She enrolled in the School of Nursing at UCSF, paying tuition with financial aid and a savings bond from her grandmother. Her uncle hired her to help out with his fishing business in the summers, paying her a little over market value as a favor to the family.

  Soo slowly swam toward the beach, taking her time to enjoy the warm water against her skin. With no running water in the hotel, they had their choice of the pool or the sea to wash in. For Soo, it was no contest. Her feet hit the sand and she emerged from the water, hurrying to wrap her towel around her naked body.

  She sat down on the nearest deck chair on the beach and wrung the water out of her hair. It had been four weeks since they’d arrived at the resort and at least twice that long since she’d washed it with shampoo. There were literally hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny bottles in the housekeeping store rooms, but she’d held off and stuck with simply rinsing her hair in the salt water. It was softer and more manageable than it had ever been, and she rolled her eyes thinking of the fortune she’d spent on hair products over the years.

  Soo caught herself daydreaming and glanced up and down the beach. It was clear, as usual, but stupid of her to let her guard down. The last person they had seen near the resort was a man who passed by on the beach over a week ago. They watched him from behind the windows but he didn’t even spare a glance at the building. He had an assault rifle over his shoulder and pulled a wagon of supplies behind him on the hard, wet sand close to the water’s edge. As far as those creatures, they’d been lucky. So far, it appeared none had come this far from the city yet.

  She heard a catcall whistle behind her and spun around. Howard stood on the patio and gave her a wave before heading inside. She smiled at him and cinched her towel tighter, feeling foolish and wishing she’d gotten up a little earlier for her morning dip. She picked up the handgun Dave insisted they carry anytime they went outside, and headed up the beach.

  A little over a week ago Dave and Howard started patrolling the areas in the vicinity of the resort to try to get a read on what was happening out there. They broke into the local police precinct and loaded up on guns and ammunition. Now that they had more time, Dave properly trained them on how to shoot the 9mm pistol she carried as well as the AR-15 assault rifles. They’d handled and fired guns in the city when things went to hell, but Dave had gotten all “sergeant” on them. He insisted that if he was bunking with “a pair of gun-toting gals” then they’d learn the safe Marine Corps way to shoot. They only dry fired the guns on the beach for fear of attracting attention, but she felt more confident than ever that she could protect herself when the time came.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to get any work done being so close to the ocean, Squid.” It was one of the last things her brother had said to her the last time they’d talked on the phone. It was a couple of days before she left for Jamaica, just a few months earlier.

  “You’re right, but what do you want me to do? Get a job in Chicago and move in with you? You can’t even swim in the lake in the middle of August without dying from hypothermia,” she’d joked. “And I thought the bay was cold!”

  She’d applied for the job on a whim, not happy with the way her career was going and looking to get some distance between herself and her overbearing parents. A day barely passed without her mother reminding her she was almost thirty and still not married. If only she would have reconsidered. Maybe if she was still at home…

  Soo padded across the patio with bare feet, her key in one hand, the gun in the other. Howard appeared behind the glass and opened the door for her. “Hey! How was the swim?”

  “No complaints. How was the patrol? Did you guys find anything?”

  He nodded toward the lobby. “We were just about to meet in the suite to talk about it. You coming?”

  “Um, yeah.” She glanced down at her bare legs. “I better throw something on first.” She looked up and caught Howard staring.

  He cleared his throat and his face turned red. “Yeah. Good idea. Why don’t you do that?” He jabbed his thumb in the opposite direction. “I’ll be in there with the others if you need me. Not that you need me to get dressed, of course.” He squinted his eyes shut and pinched his nose. “I’m just going to shut up and leave now.”

  Soo nodded and bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Okay. See you in a bit.” She hurried off to her room.

  Howard spun around and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Real smooth,” he whispered to himself.

  ****

  They met at the dining room table in the Royal Suite. The suite was where the group spent most of their time since it was on the first floor and close to the lobby and hotel kitchen. In addition to the living room and two bedrooms, the suite had a fully functional kitchen where they did all their cooking. It was easier to transport the food they needed from the pantry and freezer to the normal-size and familiar kitchen of the suite.

  Dave and Howard had figured out how to isolate circuits for the generators in the basement. Instead of wasting precious fuel to provide electricity for the entire resort, they were able to power the breakers for the walk-in freezer, the lobby, and half of the first block of guest rooms on the main floor. By running the generator for a few hours a day, they were able to save most of the frozen food and enjoy the luxury of electric conveniences for a little while each day.

  The only thing they didn’t have was running water. The Caribbean Sea offered an unlimited supply but was no good for drinking or cooking. The pool water had been fresh, but was now not only heavily chlorinated but stagnant, and growing funkier every day. Fortunately for them, the Royal Gardens Beach Club and Spa Resort underwent a “green” initiative a few years ago. One of the projects was to capture the rainwater from the building’s gutters into cisterns for the gardeners. Two large plastic tanks on the corners of the building (cleverly disguised behind ivy-covered lattice) held hundreds of gallons of rainwater. All they had to do was boil the water in one of the huge soup pots found in the restaurant’s kitchen, and they were good to go. For now, the natural gas flowed unfettered to the building so cooking was no problem.

  Soo walked into the suite wearing a T-shirt and capri pants from the gift shop. Howard poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her. Dave sat at the table sipping his own cup. He was fully recovere
d from his wounds and looked good. They all did, as a matter of fact. The peace and comfort of their little corner of the hotel and three square meals a day did them all a world of good. Even Howard managed to put on a few pounds and no longer complained about his surgery site.

  Emily happily munched on a bowl of corn flakes, reconstituted powdered milk running down her chin. Ann had braided her hair with colorful beads she found in the arts and crafts room and they pinged off the side of the bowl as she bent forward to eat. She looked up and smiled at Soo with those big, bright eyes. Emily had warmed up to her after a few days at the resort, and Soo found she was falling head over heels for the little girl.

  Sitting at that table with her little “family” in their five-hundred-dollar-a-night suite and sipping on freshly brewed Colombian coffee, it was easy to pretend everything was normal. That this would last forever. The look in Dave’s eyes said otherwise.

  “So me and Howard went out pretty early this morning, before sunup, in the LEAF.”

  The resort sported a brand new Nissan LEAF electric car – another green initiative purchase. It was perfect for quietly searching the area and could be charged using the hotel generators.

  “We didn’t see any of those things, which is good, but we didn’t see any people either.”

  “They could just be hiding,” Ann suggested. She sat down at the end the of table. “I mean, that’s what we’re doing, right?”

  “That’s true, but I think it’s safe to say that shantytown in front of the hospital got thinned out. Really thinned out. We all saw firsthand how vicious those thing are.” He glanced over at Emily, enjoying her cereal and oblivious to the conversation. “I don’t think too many people got away.”

  “Obviously, not all of the survivors made it to Oswald in the first place,” Howard said. “It’s a big island. But as for people around here…besides that guy on the beach, we haven’t seen anybody else.”