|
Post by steve on Sept 16, 2011 14:47:14 GMT -6
UPDATE - The story is now complete on this board. I am porting my stories over to this forum, of which "Trapped in Paradise" is one of them. As the stories are large in nature, I will not be porting an entire story all at once but a few sections at a time. These stories are complete, which is why I am posting them in this section. If you would prefer to read this particular story in full before the porting is complete, please follow the following link: afmdwellersofthewastes.yuku.com/topic/466/Trapped-in-ParadiseSo, without further ado - TRAPPED IN PARADISE...
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 16, 2011 14:48:58 GMT -6
PART I
"I'm going to be fine."
Mark sighed quietly to himself & rolled his eyes while he listened to his mother on the telephone. It was far from the first time that Mark had to deal with his mother's paranoid, worst-case scenario drivel.
At every step of his development from child to teenager to young adult to just plain adult, Mark had to suffer through his mother's constant anxiety attacks. Practically all of those attacks usually centered around him gaining a modicum of self-control over his life.
"Yes, Mom, I will be careful riding my bike to school."
"Yes, Mom, I will be careful driving with my newly acquired driver's license."
"Yes, Mom, I will not drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or do illegal drugs at the party."
"Yes, Mom, I will be home from my date at 10 PM sharp."
"Yes, Mom, I will wear protection if my relationship ever gets that serious."
"Yes, Mom, I will not drive home drunk."
"Yes, Mom, I will not abuse my newly acquired credit card."
"Yes, Mom, I will behave myself in college."
"Yes, Mom, I will be fine in my new apartment."
"Yes, Mom, I am paying all of my bills on time."
"Yes, Mom, I am eating well."
"Yes, Mom, I am taking care of my car."
Just once, Mark had wanted to reach into the phone & strangle the living sh** out of his mother. Just once, he had wanted her to say that she trusted his decisions at...At anything! At what groceries he bought... At what job he accepted... At who he dated... At where he lived... Anything! Just once!
A lifetime of coloring in between the lines, though, meant little to whatever new advisory his mother had to offer. Had he never been in an automobile accident? Ever accidentally gotten even one of his girlfriends pregnant? Ever got pulled over for drunken driving? Ever been fired from a job? Ever been robbed? Ever gotten home late from a date? Ever been called by a collection agency because of not paying his bills? No matter how responsible he had been, he was never responsible enough. No record of his was clean enough.
As his mother droned on & on & on over how he should just stay home, just play it safe, just wait until the proverbial tidal wave washed over before poking his head out of the sand, he glanced out a window as he heard an ambulance, siren wailing, go down the street.
"Listen," he said tersely, interrupting her, "I will call you as soon as I get done with my shift tonight. I promise. I have to go to work now. Goodbye."
He left her no time to respond, ending the call & then immediately switching off the ringer on the telephone.
Mark quickly put on his coat & walked towards the front door to his apartment. With a little luck & going down the back roads, he figured he would be able to make it to work on time.
Although completely audible to him, he virtually ignored another ambulance siren as it sped down the road. He walked out of his apartment & into the apartment hallway. Locking the door behind him, he headed off to the elevator so that he could get to his car & head off to work.
========================
PART II
Mark didn't bother listening to the radio. He already knew what was going to be on it anyway.
As bad as his mother was, the public officials had droned on & on repeating the exact same messages like a skipping record.
"Yes, I know there is an outbreak of some flu going around."
"Yes, I will wash my hands thoroughly every time I go to the bathroom... Before every meal... After every meal... every time I even think about touching something."
"Yes, I will drink plenty of water."
"Yes, I will get plenty of rest."
"Yes, I will go straight to the hospital if I feel any flu-like symptoms."
"Yes, I will obey any & all instructions given to me by my elected officials."
Mark stopped at a stop sign, turned on his blinker & turned to drive down a side road. As he began to drive, he saw a glimpse of the highway. The highway had bumper-to-bumper traffic, as far as his limited vantage point could see.
He shook his head in disgust as he remembered the press conference where the officials told people not to panic. It was only a minor outbreak. It was already being contained.
"What do you think people are going to do?" Mark muttered to himself.
Mark didn't even bother with the more fantastic reports of people becoming violently delirious as a result of being infected. He ignored what some were now calling "The Zombie Effect." Apparently, there were reports where people afflicted with the virus were acting just like Hollywood-styled zombies - Stilted walk, trying to bite people, pale skin... The whole act.
Even though these people acted like zombies, though, you couldn't treat them like zombies. He had heard that one man had gotten arrested for freaking out when confronted with one of these infected people, resulting in the gratuitous use of an aluminum baseball bat.
Up ahead, Mark noticed that a car was stopped in his lane with the emergency blinkers on. The road, a paved back road with no dividing line for lanes, was too small for Mark to pass by. The shoulders on the road consisted of rough vegetation pock-marked by small trees & remnants of old stone walls. If he had been driving a small tank, Mark would have been able to go around the stranded car. He smirked, imagining himself in a small tank driving OVER the stranded car.
'Great,' he thought, pulling up to the car & putting his own car in park, 'Just what I need - Another reason to be late to work.'
Mark turned his car off & got out. Walking towards the stranded car, he began seeing the telltale silhouette of a man still sitting in the driver's seat.
"Excuse me," Mark began to say in a loud but polite manner, "Is there anything that I c--". He stopped his sentence in mid-word once he saw who he was speaking to.
===========================
PART III
She was dead. She had to be.
Her head was slightly tilted towards the car door window, which was thankfully rolled all the way up. Her face was motionless, her mouth was slightly open & her eyes were completely open. Mark could easily see at least eight to twelve flies using her face as a social gathering place, flying around, landing on & crawling on it with impunity.
Mark just looked at her for a moment, captivated in the exact same manner as one would be captivated by witnessing a car crash. Finally, he began to fumble for his cellular phone, which he had clipped onto his belt.
He pressed in 911, then pressed the 'send' button on his phone.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
"We're sorry, all lines are currently occupied. If this is an emergency, please stay on the line & an operator will be with you as quickly as possible."
He just looked into his phone incredulously, a mixture of surprise & disappointment. How could he dial the emergency 911 number & it be busy?
Keeping the phone line open, he looked back towards the window & noticed that the woman's head had turned away from the car door window during the time on the phone.
"Ma'am?" He cautiously called out, slowly walking towards the car door.
Ever so cautiously, he raised one of his hands & gently tapped the window lightly with one of his knuckles.
The woman instantly twitched alive, although startled from a deep sleep. Mark instinctually dropped his cell phone onto the road in reactionary fright, startled at such an energetic response from the woman.
Any momentary relief, though, that the woman had recovered from whatever situation she had been in was short-lived. The woman's arms flailed throughout the confines of the inside of car, wrists loose & floppy, fingers acting no different then cords on a cat-o'-nine-tails against the car door window, against the car door, against the windshield & anything else within her arm's reach.
The woman was still strapped into her seat by her seat belt & all of her activity was confined to her immediate area because of it. Mark, now growing more frightened then sorrowful over the woman's plight with each passing second, began backing up towards his own car. He was oblivious to his cell phone, still on the pavement, still trying to reach an emergency operator.
Through sheer random luck, the mindless thrashings of the woman had caused the driver's side door to open. Mark could now see clearly what his mind had already conjectured with equal clarity - Her legs thrashed as senselessly as her arms did. Her car, ever-so-thankfully disabled by some mystery that Mark now cared not to explore, ignored the random pushings of the brake, clutch & gas pedals.
What made Mark even more so fearful then he already was, though, was the lack of noise coming from the woman. No, "Help me!" or "I'm sick!" Her mouth opened & closed slowly, her head swiveling around at a disproportionately slower speed, contrasting to the wild & quick flailings of her limbs.
Only after Mark had returned to his car did he realize he had left his cell phone behind. Quickly, he ran back & grabbed it, reaching down to the road to pick it back up. When he did, he realized again that a significant event had happened without him witnessing it - The woman had stopped her violent thrashings.
Replacing her frantic gyrations was a simple, unnerving stare at Mark, her mouth slowly opening & closing. A single arm, now bloodied & bruised at the knuckles & wrists, reached out towards him, the hand opening & closing in spite of it's self-inflicted injuries not seconds ago.
Although she was still yards away, still strapped into her seat belt, the contrast freaked Mark out entirely. He grabbed his cell phone quickly & bolted back towards his car, every effort now made to simply leave the scene.
As he backed up his car down the street towards the nearest intersection behind him, a quick glance back towards the ever-shrinking car in front of him revealed no change - Just a woman, dangling from her driver's seat, with her car door open, reaching out for someone or something that would never be within her grasp.
Mark knew he needed to get to work. A few hours of processing paperwork, of making phone calls to other departments, of listening to some mindless "Top-40" styled radio station, would propel him back to the normalcy he so desperately needed at this point of the day.
Putting his car back into drive, he drove off, determined to have a normal day.
============================
PART IV
The word "Casino," to his superiors, was a six-letter word much like the derogatory word for African-Americans that began with the letter "N."
Instead, it was an "Entertainment resort & gaming complex." To Mark, it was his place of employment. As a card dealer? No. As a pit manager? No. As a stage hand? No. Assistant to the high rollers? No. Security? No. Store clerk? No.
Mark's official title was "Data reporting analyst / specialist." He worked in the finance department, a large room separated into 'cubicles' & 'offices,' the only difference of which was that one did not have doors & the other did.
His job was, by no means, glamorous. The fancy title hid the fact that he spent most days printing reports, reading reports, calling various people in various departments to ask why the reports weren't reading correctly, getting corrected figures from these people (which they should have given him in the first place but didn't), re-entering data into the reports & then handing those reports off to his superiors.
His arrival to his job, on this day, was by no means timely. Having gone through backroads the entire way, he managed to get to the employee parking lot only to find it closed. A chain attached to two steel cylindrical columns on either side of the entrance had a sign that read, "Use main parking lot at complex."
When Mark arrived at the casino parking lot, he found a disturbingly chaotic scene. Buses moved gingerly past sickened people, either standing still or slowly milling about for reasons known only to their sickened psyche. Large, burly men in bright orange vests, carrying police batons did their best to herd these sickened individuals off of roads &, if they could help it, off of the property.
Driving through the parking lot was slow & difficult. Eventually, he was asked to roll down his window by two such burly men in the bright orange vests.
"Employee or patron?" One of the men asked. It sounded as though it was a well-rehearsed question.
"Employee," Mark replied, digging out his badge & showing the man. The man nodded & pointed him towards an area haphazardly reserved for employee parking. The area's only credentials for being employee parking was that, at some point, some executive had deemed it so & so now it was so. On any other day for any other reason, the area could very well be patron parking.
Mark parked his car & got out, occupying himself with getting into the building as fast as he possibly could. It was a sentiment shared by a majority of people, employees & patrons, alike. He did so against a backdrop of shouted announcements from the orange-vested men, shouting things like, "All those with cold or flu-like symptoms are not allowed entry!," "If you have cold or flu-like symptoms, go to the hospital down the street. We are not a hospital!," "Medical services for paying patrons only!," "We are not accepting personal checks at this time! No checks can be used on the premises!," "Do not loiter in the parking areas! Go to or from your car or bus promptly!"
As Mark entered the building & the door closed behind him, he was temporarily relieved that he was leaving such a desperate situation behind him.
It was not to be; Mark was no further then twenty feet into the building when he was suddenly confronted from behind by someone.
==========================
PART V
"Honey, you look like Hell."
Amanda simply gave a rudimentary smile as she handed the obese, balding, middle-aged man his drink. At this point of the day, she was too physically tired & mentally stressed out to care.
"I mean that in a good way, though," the man quickly added, digging into his pocket & pulling out a $25 dollar poker chip. He slapped it on Amanda's serving tray & winked at her.
"Thank you," she replied quietly, walking away quickly while stuffing the $25 dollar chip into a small pouch strapped to her waist. Amanda walked back to the bar & placed her tray onto it. She then leaned on the counter, holding her head in her hands. For but a brief moment, she found bliss amongst the chaos of noise, lights & talking gamblers.
"Amanda," she heard a female voice say & Amanda quickly snapped up into a standing position. The name behind the voice was her friend, Jenny, who was a waitress just like Amanda.
"Boss wants you to take fifteen minutes off," Jenny said plainly. There was an awkward pause as Jenny looked Amanda over before adding, "On second thought, take a half-hour. You look like you're...Well, just take thirty, OK?"
"You sure?" Amanda asked, "Honest?"
"Don't worry about it," Jenny replied, "I'll cover for you. You've already worked eight hours, fifteen minutes won't even get you down to the lounge & back."
"Thanks," Amanda simply replied, leaving before Jenny could change her mind.
Amanda worked her way to an employee hallway & entered it, leaving the noise & lights behind her. Slowly, she walked down the hallway, using one of the walls as an occasional support. All she had to worry about now were the white, flourescent lights above & the clicking of her heels against the tiled floor below. Even that, though, felt like almost too much to handle.
The waitress' lounge was just a small room away from anything that the patrons could get to. With standing room only, you could pack forty or so women into it. Seated as furnished, it could hold about half of that.
Amanda witnessed something she had never seen since she had started working for the casino nearly four years ago - The lounge was empty. Deserted. Her mind reeled, trying to make sense of the alien sight before her. There was ALWAYS someone in the lounge; Always someone here, waiting around for the start of their shift; Always someone just hanging out, cooling down after a shift.
Of course, these days had been far from normal. She didn't live under a rock; She knew what was going on. Some sort of flu, or cold, or virus or something was going around. A lot of people had gotten sick. Some were getting better, others hadn't. The rest, though, was above her & she didn't care to know much more then she had already learnt.
She knew that she was getting two & one-half times her regular amount of pay for ANY time she could put in for the past two days. At two & one-half times her wage, she'd serve drinks while walking around naked. She smirked to herself, wondering sarcastically if exhibitionism would increase the tips she received.
At the age of twenty-six, though, Amanda knew that this job was not meant to last. She had never intended to stay on for so long as a waitress; Most waitresses didn't even last two years. They either transfered to another department where they didn't have to dress like a slut, could finally be paid enough to dress like a slut or simply quit.
Amanda didn't even realize she was beginning to doze off as she sat at the table in the lounge. She needed to rest her eyes, though; She needed to breathe some fresh air.
As Amanda fell asleep, her head resting on her folded arms which, in turn, were lying on the table, she thought to herself that she needed to find a "real" job, a job where she could wear some respectable clothes, earn a respectable wage & enjoy what she did for a living. It would be like paradise.
The next time Amanda would wake up, though, she would be as far from paradise as she could ever hope to be...
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 16, 2011 14:50:45 GMT -6
PART VI
This was the first time that Mark had been in the shipping & receiving department of the casino - Ever. It was loud. People were swarming about, absorbed in their tasks of off-loading crates from trucks, loading crates onto trucks, unwrapping the crates they off-loaded & sending the various boxes on those crates to the various departments inside the casino.
"Are you sure I'm allowed to be here?" Mark asked the man who had met him at the employee entrance.
"Yes," the man said without any hesitation in his voice, "And if anyone f**ks with you about it, tell them to see me."
'The man' had identified himself as William Tocot, Assistant Manager of Operations for the entire complex. By Mark's estimation, Tocot was one of those "natural-born leader" types - Fairly tall, deep enough voice & enough energy to evoke some primordial response in most people's brains that the person knew what he was doing. The height & voice added about a decade to Mark's age estimate of Tocot, thinking of him as no less then forty-five years old.
As Tocot quickly walked over to some man to speak with him briefly, Mark recalled Tocot's hurried conversation with him as soon as he entered the building...
"Hi there," Tocot had said, completely startling Mark. Mark knew he had flinched visibly at the sudden sight & sound of a man nearly one foot taller (not to mention easily fifty pounds heavier) standing behind him. Tocot wasn't blind so Mark simply figured his startled response was simply brushed aside for more urgent matters.
"Hi," Mark said, awkwardly shaking the outstretched hand that Tocot had produced. Tocot spoke & moved with such a ferocious energy that it was clearly intimidating, a microcosm equivalent of watching an elephant run right past someone at full speed.
"We're running a tight ship today," Tocot said, beginning to walk & Mark following, "So we're reassigning everyone we can to departments that are critical for the operation of the gaming facilities. You understand, don't you?"
"Of course," Mark said slowly, trying to keep up with Tocot, "But my gaming license won't allow me..."
"It will today," Tocot immediately replied, interrupting Mark in mid-sentence.
"OK," Mark reasoned, "But I'm not exactly skilled..."
Again, in mid-sentence, Tocot's response was sudden & sharp, "This isn't brain surgery & it's not at the tables. Think of it as an emergeny session of cross-training."
Before Mark could say something else, they had walked to the shipping & receiving department of the entire complex. Five large receiving bays, rectangular mouths that were easily twenty feet tall & just as wide, were in front of Mark, all in a row. People were scurrying about, much like ants scurried about when their hive had been stepped on or flooded.
"Mark," Mark heard Tocot say, snapping him back to the present, "Mark, over here for a moment. Over here."
Mark walked the few paces over to his left, the gestures by Tocot for him to walk over being more obnoxious then genuine.
"This is you new boss for today, Eddie," Tocot replied quickly, "Eddie...Mark. Mark...Eddie. Do whatever Eddie tells you to do, OK? OK. I've got to go."
Tocot quickly walked away & out of sight before Mark could get even one word in. Mark turned back to Eddie with a blank look, stumbling for words. Eddie, by no means, looked any more confident or competent then Mark was in this strange new environment.
"Look," Eddie said, looking at Mark's office clothes, "We've got overalls & boots for you to wear. Trust me, wear them. we've also got gloves in the changing room. We're going to have you shipping boxes all over the complex. If you've never been acquainted with all the departments here, today's your day."
"How low is your staffing here?" Mark asked out of curiosity.
"I'll put it to you this way," Eddie replied, his attention briefly occupied by a truck backing up to one of the bays, "Even if we had forty more people, it wouldn't be enough."
Mark merely nodded & began walking towards the changing room. As he walked into it, he noticed at least ten other people in there as well.
Changing along with them, Mark began to realize that today was going to be a very different day then any previous he had before. If he only knew as to how much more it would be different, his first instinct would have been of escape rather then compliance.
=======================
PART VII
"Hey, wanna make a few quick bucks?"
Those words rang in Charlie's head as he stood outside, draped in a bright orange vest & wielding a police baton.
The former biker, former drug dealer, former drug user, former soldier, former 'ad hoc' bodyguard for a fifth-rate frontman of a rock band hardly known outside of the county & former bouncer was now a "Patron Welfare & Services Specialist," according to the man who hired him. The job offer, interview, & acceptance of the job all happened in exactly the same place - At the bar where Charlie was drinking.
The job was simple enough - Encourage healthy patrons to walk through the door & discourage unhealthy patrons from staying on the property. At six foot three, two-hundred fifteen pounds, it was a job that had been pretty easy for Charlie to handle.
Charlie, though, was getting awfully tired awfully quickly of the tenacity that the unhealthy visitors had been exhibiting about getting into the casino. Their insistance about getting into the casino was becoming nothing short of fanatical.
"Sir, please step away from that door! Sir!" He would say to a man in a business suit that looked two shades darker then a white sheet of paper.
"Ma'am," he'd loudly but politely announce, "We are not admitting those with cold or flu-like symptoms! Please stay out of the casino!"
There were at least fifty people who had the same job as Charlie but, increasingly, it had been getting tougher to administer the type of crowd control that the casino had wanted. More unhealthy people were wandering onto the property. More of them were becoming more forceful about pestering those who could get into the casino.
Charlie had heard that a few of his orange-vested brethren had already gotten bitten by a few of the unhealthy & unwanted visitors. Bitten! Charlie knew he wasn't going to get bitten &, if he did, it would be the last thing that sick S.O.B. (man or woman) would ever attempt to do in their life.
The only thing that had made Charlie's job easier as the day had worn on was that there was an increasingly physical polarization between those who were healthy & those who were unhealthy. Healthy people looked...Well, normal, while unhealthy people, quite frankly, were beginning to look like they had come straight out of the hospital bed.
If he wasn't cherry-picking healthy people from unhealthy people, he was patrolling the grounds in an effort to "pick up the trash," a spur-of-the-moment euphemism for those who were too sick to continue standing.
Charlie wasn't a doctor nor was he being paid enough to pretend to be one. Charlie & another person would lift the person onto a stretcher, carry them off the property & dump them unceremoniously anywhere other then on the property. If an ambulance happened by at the moment they were dumping the person off of the property, Charlie would flag it down. A meeting of Charlie & an ambulance, though, hadn't happened yet & Charlie hoped it wouldn't happen anytime in the near future.
As Charlie scanned a crowd just coming off of a tour bus, he spoke into his walkie-talkie.
"Hey," he said, "I need to go on break. I'm hungry & it's been four hours since my last one."
His reply was, "We'll send food out to you. Where are you currently?"
"Front entrance," Charlie responded.
"Stay there," the reply was, "How's a burger, fries & a beer sound?"
"You put cheese on that thing & you're a dead man," Charlie said, a brief smile appearing on his face for the first time since who-knows-when.
"No cheese," the reply was, "Got it. Stay there. It's on it's way."
Charlie re-holstered his walkie-talkie & continued to scan the crowd. Quickly, he began the task of weeding out those who were practically living in a tissue box & those who didn't look like they were about to drop dead.
=========================
PART VIII
Of the three casino areas they had, only two had enough staffing to be operational.
Twelve of twenty-one restaurants were operational, with lines out the door.
Fourteen of thirty stores were staffed.
The infrastructure of the casino had been patched together from departments that had absolutely no business answering phones, shipping & receiving supplies, parking cars, playing bouncers, sweeping floors, serving drinks or, for that matter, anything else.
William Tocot sat in his chair, slumped backwards, exhausted as he slept with "one ear closed, the other ear listening for the telephone."
His slumber did not last long as his telephone rang. Picking it up, he answered, "Bill Tocot, Operations."
"Bill," he heard a terse, male voice on the other end, "How's everything?"
"Doors are still open, sir," Tocot replied, recognizing the voice as Andrew Beccio III, Acting Chief Officer of Operations. In this particular crisis of massive staff shortages & an emerging pandemic, the proverbial 'buck' stopped with him.
"That's good," Beccio replied, "I just took a tour of the downstairs. It looks like we're holding."
"If the sick people stayed home, we'd have half a chance to breathe easy," Tocot admitted, adding, "Any word from the outside?"
"There's no point in listening to the news," Beccio replied, "Our only business is to stay in business. Let the cops & politicians worry about everything else."
"Very good, sir," Tocot said.
"Alright," Beccio commanded, "Take ten minutes & then make a sweep of everyone. I've got two people scouring for more talent. Any place we need more help?"
"Is that a trick question?" Tocot asked, with some humor in his voice.
Beccio laughed but then said, "No fooling. Where does it hurt the most?"
"Last I checked," Tocot drowsily said, wiping his hand over his tired face, "Our bouncers were mighty thin. The sick seem to be attracted to this place & we're running out of nice options to keep them back."
"Start being mean, then," Beccio immediately replied, "Push them off the property & then give them a tap on the legs to keep them off. Remember, though, off the property first. If they're on the property, we're liable. If it's off the property, they're liable. We've got the lawyers already working on how possible lawsuits will look."
"Very good, sir," Tocot replied, "I'll tell the troops immediately."
The phone hanged up on the other end & Tocot hung up as well.
Tocot was feeling a sore throat starting to come on. He started to feel a headache emerge. He could feel the bags under his eyes bulge, the arthritis in his hands flare up.
For now, all the patchwork & desperation re-assigning had worked. Tocot knew, though, that it wouldn't last. Personnel were being strained to their limits.
Employees were abandoning the sinking ship in droves. Four janitors that came in this morning were currently unaccounted for. Three people assigned to wait on tables had disappeared after they took a break. He had heard some of their ad-hoc orange-vested bouncers had quit.
As Tocot slowly got out of his chair, he came to the realization that the collapse of the casino as a viable business was inevitable. It was a case of not enough workers & too many sick people wandering around.
'We're going to be lucky,' he thought, 'If we last another two days.'
His conscience asked, 'Should YOU last another two days?' The question caused Tocot to pause for a moment. Resuming, he walked out of the office with another purpose in mind - HIS purpose.
======================
PART IX
"Just let me play, Goddamnit!"
His nose was like a faucet of snot, little drips of mucus falling down the 'facial waterfall' - Hitting his upper lip, then cascading down his chin until it dripped off his chin & fell onto the green felt of the card table.
He fumbled to retrieve his wallet from a pair of pants that looked as though they had been slept in. He reeked of body odor & a cheap baseball cap failed to hide the absense of hair that was neither combed or washed.
"Security!" The card dealer shouted across the gaming floor, already awash with the noises of people winning, losing, talking, walking & slot machines buzzing & bleeping.
"Goddamnit!" The sick man said, his speech gurgly from excessive saliva. In a fit of rage, the sick man threw his wallet straight at the card dealer, hitting him in the mouth. The card dealer recoiled, taking a step back & turning sideways.
The sick man's assault of the card dealer, though, had hardly begun. Launching himself across the card table, the sick man grabbed ahold of the card dealer's vest & began to pull at him. The card dealer, already reeling from the wallet, reactively fell to the ground. The sick man, his grip on the card dealer unyielding, followed him to the ground.
Security, in the form of three men wearing cheap but matching red sports jackets, arrived twenty seconds too late for the card dealer. Yet the card dealer never had to face the punches, scratches or bites that the sick man was to have dished out in an emotional flurry of violence. Instead, the sick man felt the sharp & painful sting of being hit in the back of the head by a heavy object. The sick man slumped to the ground, moaning softly as blood began trickling from his wound.
"Thanks, Gramps," Veronica flatly said, handing an old man back his wooden cane that she had just wielded as a weapon. The old man, uncertain of how to respond to the young woman who had just seconds ago snatched the cane from him, grabbed it back & walked away quickly.
Veronica watched as security took over the situation, grabbing the sick man with gloved hands as an emergency medical technician helped the card dealer. She then slipped back into the crowd, walking towards the exit of the gaming area.
If Veronica could have had her way, she would have used the old man's cane on someone else. In her unusually belligerent attitude, it was not below her to think of several other objects that she could quickly acquire that would do the same job or better then an old man's cane. Her emotions forced her to remember the scene not an hour ago...
"Hi," she plainly said, using every bit of restraint she could as she saw the two people sitting in the restaurant booth.
On one side was her husband-to-be, his face frozen with a mixture of shock, surprise & horror.
On the other side was "Kylie," who looked all of thirteen years old except for her chest.
Four months until their wedding. A wedding that she had been planning for six months prior. The right chapel. The right gown. The right cake. The right invitations. The right honeymoon. Everything had to be perfect for an event that, up until thirty seconds ago, was to be a reality. Her reality. Her perfect reality.
She had known the risks, of course. She knew of his reputation of having a "roving eye." He worked for a publicity company, his job was to schmooze people into believing whatever line of crap he was saying at the moment. He had just gotten a promotion as a project manager - He wasn't just going to spew the crap given to him but actually craft the crap himself.
She didn't want to believe the whispers she had heard. She didn't want to read between the thinly-veiled lines that some people had given her. The hints that any other person would have picked up on.
Finally, though, she had received "the phone call." It was a phone call that spelled it out, clear as day, to her. No more misinterpretations. No more hiding from a truth that was slowly building in her brain.
"Veronica," she could remember her husband-to-be's secretary saying over the phone, "I'm so sorry but if I don't tell you this, I'll never be able to live with myself."
Her name was Kylie. She wasn't thirteen - She had just turned nineteen. She was the youngest-looking nineteen year old in the history of the planet. She was an aspiring model, aspiring actress, aspiring singer. She already had two years of not-so-legal pole dancing under her belt. According to his secretary, she also had been in her husband's pants for about four months.
"This is yours," she simply said to her jerk-that-was, taking off her engagement ring & placing it on the table.
Turning to Kylie, she merely said, "He lied to me. He'll lie to you. Enjoy the ride while it lasts."
Veronica just wanted to leave. Leave the building. Leave the county. Leave the state. Leave the world. Nothing mattered to her anymore & she didn't care if it showed. Braining a sick guy with an old man's cane didn't even make her flinch.
She had been robbed, not of some material good like a watch or a necklace, but of her soul. Her love. Her caring. Her thoughts. Her dreams.
She walked towards the exit, never knowing that she'd never make it off the property.
========================
PART X
"Alright," Mark heard one of the unloaders say, just after stacking the last of the boxes on the hand truck, "Go get 'em."
Mark gripped the top box on the hand truck & pulled the entire device back, lifting the truck onto it's wheels. As he pulled the truck away, he looked back to see just as much chaos in the shipping & receiving area as he had when he had first arrived there.
Mark quickly hurried to the service elevator & stepped in with another person on a similar task. Mark could instantly tell by the man's facial expression that, he too, was learning the finer points of the shipping & receiving department in the same 'trial-by-fire' manner that Mark was.
"Going up?" The man asked, Mark nodding in affirmation. The man pressed the 'up' button & the elevator doors closed soon thereafter.
"I'm beat," the man confessed, his voice devoid of any passion or energy.
"Have you had lunch yet?" Mark asked.
"F**k lunch," the man replied, "After this, I'm out of here. You know what I've heard? Paris, France, is under some sort of martial law. Rioting in the streets. Police shooting at protesters with live ammo. Complete chaos."
"How can the sick have so much energy if they're sick?" Mark asked rhetorically.
"I hear that some of the sick go completely delusional," the man stated matter-of-factly, "They go rabid, attacking people. I swear, I don't know why I even bothered coming into work today."
"Just think of the size of your paycheck," Mark replied.
"Yeah," the man snorted, "If I live long enough to actually see it. Or if they actually cut one."
Just then, the elevator finished ascending to their desired floor, announcing their arrival with an electronic 'ding.' The doors opened up a moment later, the two men once again propping up their hand trucks so that they could easily wheel them out.
Mark watched the man wheel his hand truck away, down a non-descript hallway & then out of sight. Mark wheeled his own hand truck towards the administrative offices & into the flourescent silence that had become so rare within the casino's walls.
Mark wheeled his hand truck towards the office's supply closet. As he was a deliveryman & not a stocker, he had no qualms with simply leaving the boxes where they were. The entire building was in crisis & expedient delivery, not meticulous organization, was the order of the day.
As Mark was quickly wheeling the hand truck out of the offices, though, he heard something. It didn't sound human but more mechanical - A door closing, something metallic & heavy falling to the ground, a generic thud.
Something within him told him not to investigate, that he had more pressing concerns to deal with. Deliveries had to be made, the skeleton crew of the shipping & receiving department desperately needed ever moment of help that could be afforded to them. For all that Mark knew, the man he had shared the elevator with just moments ago had already abandoned his task, making his way out of the casino, towards his car & away to an uncertain future.
Mark, though, propped up the hand truck, letting it stand off to the side of the room. Slowly, he walked down towards to where he had heard the sound. The room bent off towards the left, down another hallway where there were more senior offices & meeting rooms.
This time, he heard a human voice - A male voice, obviously grunting in pain.
He also heard something else - Something that didn't sound...human. Something that...growled.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 16, 2011 14:52:56 GMT -6
PART XI
"What the f...Hell is going on here?!"
The scene, to Charlie, was incredulous; Having just returned from his hastily-eaten lunch, he discovered that not a single orange-vested person was manning the front entrance. Men & women, both healthy & sick, were flooding into the casino unfiltered & unimpeded.
"Get away from me!" He heard an old lady say behind him. Turning around, he saw a hollow shell of a woman, dressed in business clothes, trying to grab onto other people's sleeves & jackets.
Charlie walked over quickly & grabbed the sick woman from behind.
"Ma'am," he said in the loudest but politest voice he could find, "You will have to leave the casino. No people with sick..."
"Go f**k yourself!" He heard an anonymous man say, interrupting Charlie, "She's got just as much right to be here as anyone else!"
Charlie ignored the man as he quickly dragged the woman out the door. As he watched with his own eyes, the woman began to grab his arm & move as though she was going to bite down onto it with her mouth. He shoved her out the door, the delirious woman stumbling from the force of the shove until she fell to the ground.
"Hey!" He heard another voice say. The voice was loud. The voice was male. Years of being in far too many bar fights to admit in tasteful company honed his ears to tell that it was an angry voice. A voice attached to a body uninhibited by violence.
Charlie unsheathed his police baton, turned around & thrusted it in one smooth, punching motion.
His instincts were right - A man about twenty pounds lighter, a decade younger & six inches taller then Charlie was setting up to punch Charlie in the back of the head. Charlie's quick reaction, though, had put an end to the angry young man's plans. Instead, the young man was met with a hard police baton right in the sternum with enough force to crack a two-by-four apart.
The young man yelped, crumpling to the ground by the force of the blow, his head slamming down on the tiled floor.
Charlie paused &, for the briefest of moments, he thought that the entire world paused with him. Instincts turned over as he fumbled to unsheath his walkie-talkie & talk into it.
"Attention, attention," he said into the walkie-talkie, moving so that his back was to the wall but still looking at the fallen man, "We need EMTs at the front entrance immediately. One person injured. EMTs to the front entrance immediately."
"You a***ole!" He heard a distant woman's voice shout, "You killed him!"
He turned his attention to the crowd who were mostly ignoring the situation. A quick glance out of the corner of his eye revealed a disturbing sight - The sick woman he had previously thrown out the door moments earlier was on the verge of entering the casino again.
"Get back!" He shouted at the woman, lunging at the door & pushing her back from the entrance. Again, the force from his arm caused the sick woman to easily tumble to the ground.
Suddenly, he received a push from behind. Turning around, he saw another woman getting ready to give him another forceful push, her hands balled up in a fist. She paused when she saw the expression on Charlie's face. It was not the most pleasant of expressions & he made sure to sell as much of it's sincerity as he could.
"Get back!" He screamed with a venom rarely reserved to those whom he thought might kill him, pointing his finger at the woman.
"F**k off!" The woman screamed back at the top of her lungs, her voice cracking at the volume.
Then, he saw it - She was gripping a can of pepper spray, trying to partially conceal it until she could get close enough to him.
He raised his police baton, in a backswinging motion over his shoulder, aiming the baton at the woman's hand that held the pepper spray. Too quickly, though, she closed the distance to him, raising the pepper spray up to his face. Where the pepper spray once was, her head now sat. A fraction of a second was too late for him to stop his swing or even alter it's projection.
The swing might as well have been from an aluminum baseball bat, her head being the baseball. The cracking sound of her skull was clear & unmistakable. At best, he figured in the moment just before her body fell to the ground, she was in a coma.
At worst, he had just killed someone.
The flood gates were now open.
His absorbed attention afforded him the luxury of not hearing a man scream behind him, having been just bitten on the leg by the sick woman he had pushed out the door only moments ago.
=====================
PART XII
It was amazing to Andrew Beccio that so few people never did the one thing that would guarantee them success. It would make them successful in their careers, in their personal life, in their social life, financially...
People, Beccio would tell anyone with even the faintest interest in hearing him, never advertised themselves.
Sure, people were 'social.' People were 'friendly.' People were 'outgoing,' 'generous,' 'energetic,' 'courteous' & all the other buzzwords that were popular. People, though, didn't advertise themselves. They didn't sell themselves (And he didn't mean prostitution, either).
Andrew Beccio's entire key to success was that he always let people know that he could get the job done. Any job, any time, anywhere under any circumstances. He let his family know, he let his neighbors know, he let their neighbors know as well as the strangers who drove past his house.
His Dad was a bum; Sure, he worked a ten-hour shift at the factory welding crap together. In fact, Beccio wasn't entirely sure what his Dad did at the factory for all those years. He did know, though, that once his Dad got home from the factory, he was the laziest sack of s**t on the planet. The only time he moved his butt was to get his dinner from the kitchen or a beer from the fridge.
When Beccio didn't get enough allowance to buy a skateboard, he set up a lemonade stand on the edge of the road. When their car needed an oil change, Beccio dove right in with such reckless abandon that the next door neighbor helped him for fear that his seven-year old body might get crushed underneath the car. When there was a school fundraiser, Beccio knocked on every single door of every single house in the entire area.
Everyone knew that Andrew Beccio "could do it." Get good grades in school? He could do it. Change a transmission on a car? He could do it. Run for public office? He could do it.
Self-advertising, he lamented, was it's own reward. By the time he was sixteen, he already had a full-time salaried job working as an executive assistant at a company. To Hell with laws about minors in the workplace - He was ready for the big leagues today, right now.
School was a joke, for kids, for the 'little people.' What did he care about when Napoleon was born or what happened at the battle of Gettysburg? Teachers were 'pretend bosses' in charge of a 'pretend corporation.' He was in the real thing, working for real bosses in a real work environment. He was organizing meetings, having meetings with executives & making his proposals by the time he was twenty.
Beccio was never apologetic about the talent around him; They were either good enough or not good enough to get the job done. If they were good enough, then they worked for him for another day. If not, he shook their hand, told them that they weren't needed any more & a security guard made sure they were shown the door.
Even Beccio, though, had to answer to someone.
"Andy," Beccio heard on the other end of the phone, "Andy, how's my casino rolling?"
"Mr. Wright," Beccio stated, "Your casino still has it's doors open. How's everything with you?"
"Fine, fine," Mr. Wright replied slowly, "I feel terrible for everyone on the mainland. Simply terrible. Dawna says 'Hi,' by the way. she wanted me to tell you that."
"That was very nice of her," Beccio said, "I'm glad that the two of you are safe & sound on the island. It must be pretty quiet there."
"Andy," Mr. Wright stated, "Listen to me. I talked to my friends. They're emphatic that the casino stays open. If it was up to me, I'd say shut it. Shut it! There's no reason to keep it open. But my friends, Andy, you know how my friends are..."
"I perfectly understand, Mr. Wright," Beccio replied, "As long as I'm here, the casino is going to stay open."
"That's great to hear, Andy," Mr. Wright stated, "That's Andy that's talking. Hey, look, I don't want to keep you from your business, OK?"
"I'll talk with you later, Mr. Wright," Beccio concluded. They both hung up the phone moments later.
At that moment, a person stumbled into Beccio's office.
"Mr. Beccio," the person said, catching their breath, "You better come take a look of this."
======================
PART XIII
"Holy s**t," Veronica muttered to herself as she saw the wave of people coming towards her. It really did look like a stampede with people replacing the role that cattle usually held.
Veronica ducked into a woman's restroom as she heard people running & screaming past the restroom door.
Another woman ran into the rest room, her clothes ruffled from constantly being psuhed & shoved by the stampeding herd.
"Oh my God," the woman said, "There's a huge fight at the front entrance!"
Veronica looked around & saw that there was no other way out of the bathroom except for the entrance she came in. Veronica sighed, then pushed past the woman who had just stumbled in.
"What are you doing?" The woman asked, incredulous.
"Look, honey," Veronica sneered, "The stampede doesn't last forever. I've got to get out of this place."
As soon as Veronica opened the door, though, she was met by an elderly lady who clearly was not feeling well. Her face was so pale that the only splotches of color were small islands of faint yellow blotches on her cheeks. Fine grey hair, completely tussled about, dotted her scalp. The tips of her fingers were bloodied as was her mouth. A gash on her neck was swollen & red, so much so that it looked as though it had been comically slapped with the most garish red lipstick available.
Sympathy for this injured creature came at a premium, though; No sooner had Veronica opened the door then the elderly lady stumbled in & towards the other woman. Far from a frail, stilted walk, the elderly lady practically made a standing lunge at the woman. Arms outstretched, mouth opened wide & eyes opened wider, the sudden onslaught of the elderly lady on the woman caught both women by surprise.
Only that hapless quality called 'luck' saved Veronica from being bitten by the elderly lady, who had set her sights on the other woman.
"Ahhhh!" the other woman screamed, her voice raising in both pitch & volume as the elderly woman latched on with her mouth to the woman's shoulder.
Veronica ignored the woman's string of high-pitched, rapidly spoken obscenities as she searched for a weapon. Finally, finding no readily-accessible weapon within four seconds, Veronica took off one of her shoes & began to smack the heel into the elderly lady's skull.
Veronica's efforts yielded little else then the sight of the elderly woman continuing to dig her teeth into the woman's shoulder. In sheer desperation, Veronica grabbed the elderly lady by her shoulders & yanked her away from the woman, throwing her down the aisle of enclosed toilets inside the bathroom.
The woman, finally ridden of the elderly lady for at least a few moments, though, never stopped screaming. Blood poured from her shoulder, ruining her shirt & trickling down her pants. Veronica stared in disbelief at the sight of a pair of dentures, still embedded in the woman's shoulder.
"I'm going for help," Veronica stammered, looking back at the elderly lady who was now beginning to stand up.
Veronica knew, though, that she would not go for help. She wanted to escape. She wanted to escape now. Any exit she could pour out of, she would leave the casino running.
Picking up her shoe & placing it back onto foot, Veronica stumbled out of the restroom & back into the main hallway. It was chaotic, with people screaming & running about in every possible direction.
The woman with the injured shoulder ran limped past the mesmerized Veronica, snapping Veronica back into reality.
Before Veronica could go very far, though, she'd need a weapon. A weapon capable of killing someone.
=======================
PART XIV
Four and one-quarter miles away from the mainland, an island that barely stretched one mile from tip to tip sat. It was officially called "Garrison Island," had only one road, twelve houses, one 'state park' & one 'port town.' The port town, nothing more then a small stretch of shops sitting next to the main dock, was called "Garrison."
Residential living on the island was a fairly new concept. The first house on the island was built in 1938 as a seasonal cottage & nothing more. Full-time occupancy wasn't practical until 1971, when an underground power line was installed to the island from the mainland.
Like so many islands, residency at Garrison Island was reserved for those who had large wallets. A state law halted any further development of the island in 1986, a law routinely challenged & upheld in the courts. No gasoline-powered automobiles were allowed on the island so battery-powered golf carts became their substitute.
Kevin Javier Wright had one of those 'fat wallets.' He had a fat wallet because he had precisely one good skill & wielded it with such expertise that few could match his talent. As a result, Mr. Wright had the privilege of parking his ever-growing obese butt onto Garrison Island & staying there for as long as he wanted to.
Mr. Wright was called, amongst his close circle of clients & prospective clients, a "Copier." He was like a financial investor, except all of his investing was illegal & off-the-record. He had such a knack for picking the hottest illegal trades to invest in that, when you gave him your money, it was though he was "copying" it - Hence the name.
His clients were all involved in illegal activities. He was handling twenty-two million from a drug lord in Cambodia. He was handling the accounts of a few members of the notorious "585" Mexican drug & illegal immigrant smuggling gang. He was handling the money of a Wisconsin man that was really the money of a senior U.S. Senator.
Mr. Wright's entire occupation consisted of talking on his cellular phone. If cell phones really did give their users cancer, Mr. Wright would be "Victim #1," as he talked so often on his cell phone that his arm had gotten tired with keeping the phone to his ear. A headset, fortunately, changed all of that.
"Honey," Mr. Wright quickly told Dawna, "Why don't you go upstairs for a few minutes? I have to make some boring phone calls, OK?"
Dawna, even at the age of twenty-six, knew 'the code.' A 'boring phone call' was a telephone call that she knew she didn't want to hear because it usually involved something illegal spoken to a guy who had no moral dilemma with sending anyone to the bottom of the ocean for any reason whatsoever.
Dawna Strandin & all five feet six inches of her taught modelling frame, walked upstairs to the master bedroom. "Go to your room" was the translation of what her lover had told her to do. "Go away" was another interpretation.
What did she see in a man who was only five pounds away from being medically obese & five years away from being as old as her father? On occasion, she saw a man who had the warmest, most sincere smile a woman could ever hope to see up close. She could hear a genuine laugh from a man never afraid of sharing his emotions with her. She could get a hug from a man who, more often then not, just wanted to cuddle & gaze at the stars while sitting on the beach rather then pull off her clothes & engage in some hot but short steamy sex.
'Kev,' as she called him, was a good man trapped in a bad body & in an even worse occupation. Tomorrow could either bring great fortune or a death threat that could actually be followed through on. His clients all had short tempers & even shorter patience for their investments to mature.
Dawna turned on the television upstairs in their bedroom. The local channel featured tired newscasters with scrolling text underneath their seated postures. All the news was bad; Allegations of National Guard troops cremating dead bodies on military bases; Allegations that the sickness had mutated; Allegations of the "Zombie Effect," a phenomenon where the heart stops in the sick but they still somehow function, albeit in a crazed sense.
With the world turning upside down, Dawna couldn't even think as to who would be thinking about money at a time like this. Money, after all, was based on trust - that it's value was genuine & derived from it's lack of quantity.
If the world really was ending, then what value would money truly have? Money was, after all, just paper. Money, even more simply, was just a number...A number represented by physical objects.
How valuable was something if everyone stopped wanting it...or needing it?
===========================
PART XV
Mark winced as he slowly walked towards the room where he had heard the suspicious noises. He hoped that it had come from a loud television set, a radio or from the speakers of a computer. He hoped that it would be something simple & easy to explain away.
What made the trek all the more tense for Mark was that now there was no further noise coming from the room at all. Everything was perfectly silent as he walked towards the general area of where the noise had eminated.
Then, he heard 'it' - Faint, telltale sounds of movement from the room standing in front of him. He could hear soft footsteps walking across the industrial carpeted floor in the other room. He could hear what sounded like loud breathing.
Suddenly, he snapped back into reality. He realized that he wasn't a police officer or an emergency medical technician. Opening the door could save someone else's life or end his own. As badly as he wanted to help whomever was behind the door, the obituary page in the local newspaper was already overburdened. Why further the typesetter's agony with Mark's possible demise?
Mark sharply turned away & began to walk back towards the hand truck.
That's when he heard the door behind him open up.
With the wall no longer to mute the sound, the loud breathing he could only guess at could now be heard unadulterated. It was louder, it was gurgly & it was right behind him.
"Hey," he heard a low, gravelly male voice say. Mark visibly flinched as he stopped in mid-stride to turn around.
The man, dressed in a business suit, didn't just look as though he had one foot in the grave - He looked as though he had four of the five toes from his other foot in there as well. Chalky pale skin, red-rimmed eyes & dark red lips accentuated his slightly shivering hands that held a wad of tissues that deserved to be burned rather then merely thrown away.
"Sir?" Mark asked. Looking at the man was an awkward experience. The two of them both knew that he was sick & yet he still desperately clung to the veneer of respectability by wearing a tattered business suit.
"I need a doctor to come up here," the man slowly said, slurring practically all of the words, "I'm...I'm too sick to move."
"I'll get someone up here as soon as I can, sir," Mark awkwardly replied, "You just stay seated & comfortable, OK?"
The man just nodded, turning & walking back into his office.
Mark bolted down the hallway, grabbed the hand truck & rolled it back to the elevator. Getting into the elevator, he pushed the button to go back down to the shipping & receiving department.
Mark's expedient trip back to the shipping & receiving department, though, proved even more jolting then being confronted by the sick business man. Upon arrival at the docks, he noticed it completely deserted. A truck was seated at one the docks, it's trailer open & it's cargo exposed but no one taking it out. Cargo, already out on the dock, had failed to be unwrapped & dispersed.
A telephone sat nearby, ringing endlessly in a futile bid to be answered. Mark walked over to the phone & answered it.
"Hello," Mark answered, "This is the shipping & receiving department."
"Hey," He heard an angry voice say, "Where's our food? We don't have food! Where is it? We have customers waiting for food! Some have already left!"
"Sir," Mark answered slowly, "There's no one in the docks. I've just arrived from making a delivery elsewhere. Do you know where everyone went?"
"Where everyone...?" The man stated into the phone with thinly-veiling anger, "Who's in G***amn charge down there?! I'm..."
Mark heard the man say, away from the phone, "Hey, they're sick! They can't come in here!" After the briefest of pauses, the man continued to speak off of the phone, "Hey! Hey! Holy... Someone call security! Someone call the medics!" Mark then heard the receiver being dropped at the other end, followed by what sounded like a scuffle.
As Mark began to put the handle back onto the receiver, someone touched his shoulder from behind. Mark quickly learned that he could instnatly leap about two feet forward.
Spinning around, he put up both fists in a make-shift attempt at instantly defending himself.
Whom he was defending himself from was none other then Eddie, his spur-of-the-moment superior in the docks.
"Don't do that!" An exasperated Mark yelped.
"What are you still doing here?" Eddie asked.
"Where is everyone?" Mark asked, resuming a normal posture.
"They left," Eddie summarized, "There's a huge fight at the entrance of the casino & it's done nothing but spread. Sick people are actually trying to bite other people. It's madness."
"Where are the cops?" Mark asked.
Eddie just shook his head, his facial expression selling his point better then any word could.
Lawlessness had arrived at the casino. What neither Mark or Eddie realized was that it was travelling towards the shipping & receiving department much faster then either of them had wanted.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 16, 2011 14:55:59 GMT -6
PART XVI
"I know what's going on up front," Tocot tersely replied, "Now open up."
A pimply, gaunt twenty-two year old in a banker's uniform opened up the door from the inside. Tocot quickly stepped in, nearly shoving the young man out of the way.
Tocot, holding a large & empty duffel bag, tossed it to the banker. The banker, not anticipating Tocot's actions, awkwardly caught the bag, his face still a mix of confusion & suspicion.
"Fill it with the bundles of hundre-dollar bills now, please," Tocot said, quickly & firmly, pointing to the drawers that contained the one-hundred dollar bills. The banker gave Tocot an extra glance, then slowly moved over to the drawers to comply.
Tocot knew what was going to come next &, in another moment the nearby phone rang. Tocot picked it up without hesitation.
"What the Hell do you think you're doing?" He heard a voice on the other end say. It was one of the few remaining surveillance people on the other end.
"Orders," Tocot replied, "We need to safeguard the money."
"Beccio hasn't said anything," the surveillance man replied, already trying to call Beccio on his cell phone.
"Beccio told me & now I'm telling you," Tocot said in a firm voice that bordered on anger, "We're moving the money to a safer place."
"All of it?" The surveillance man asked.
"As much as we can as quickly as we can," Tocot replied, "I want a camera track established from this position all the way to the helio-pad on the roof. Full record, for the insurance companies. Drop everything else - As soon as the money is moved, we're abandoning the building & everyone is on their own."
"Abandon...I'm calling Beccio for authorization. Stay right there," the surveillance man said, hanging up before Tocot could reply.
Both Tocot & the surveillance man knew that Tocot had been given an unenforceable command - The few security guards that were still available had already been pulled towards the entrance of the casino in response to ruckus there. The skeleton surveillance staff had no means of effectively tracking Tocot's movements once he left the bank. Tocot was restrained by only his honor.
Noticing that the banker had completed the task, Tocot zipped up the duffel bag & lifted it from the shoulder strap. The duffel bag was more large then it was heavy, a manageable weight for a quick pace but any running would be limited at best.
"I'll be back with more bags," Tocot tersely replied, walking quickly for the door, "Stay here & don't let anyone & I do mean ANYONE in here without my say-so. Got it?" The banker simply nodded quickly as Tocot left.
Tocot estimated that the banker had stuffed about three million dollars into the bag. Three million dollars was more then enough to retire on down in countries where paved roads were a luxury. With some shrewd savings & a low profile, Tocot estimated that he could grow that three million into nine million in only a few years.
Immediately, Tocot could see how the chaos was disrupting the entire operations of the casino. Some restaurants had already closed their doors, the sick banging on the glass to get in. Some people were being galliant & beating back the sick while the sick mobbed those of whom they could single out. Any doubt that the sick had become delusional by biting & tearing into non-sick people had been removed.
As Tocot walked through the few remaining corridors untouched by the chaos that consumed the casino, he began to smirk to himself. If he could just get to his car, he thought, he would be all set. No one would be able to get to him. He would be invulnerable.
Invulnerability, though, would be in very short supply on this day... As Tocot would learn all too late...
======================
PART XVII
The silent hallway felt like it was in a completely different world. The silence was it's own beauty; No one screaming, no one pushing, no one biting.
Charlie leaned his back to the wall, his legs bent at the knees, trying to use the wall as a chair as much as he could. His baton had gone back to being sheathed on his belt. He still wore his orange safety vest but he had long since lost the enthusiasm to be an authority figure of any kind.
How Charlie had gotten out of the growing melee that had started in the front of the casino would be a mystery he cared not to be explained to him. All he could remember was a sea of baton swings, ducking punches, pushing back attempts at being grabbed by both the sick & non-sick alike, pulling the non-sick away from the sick & liberal (perhaps even excessive) usage of every shouted obscenity he could think of.
Charlie's back slowly slid down the wall until he was in a sitting position. Charlie felt tired from every part of his body. Was it nerves that made his arms slightly shake? He could see his hands visibly shake without so much as making a conscience effort to move them.
He began to reflect as to how he was going to escape this escalating situation. He knew there would be no paycheck for him; The casino was 'gone.' Any shred of authority within the casino was gone. Charlie knew he'd have to escape the casino but escape to where? His home? A friend's house? A bar?
Without even realizing it, Charlie began to cry. He knew he had killed people today. On any other day, he'd be in handcuffs by now. If not in handcuffs by now then as soon as the authorities could settle everything down & sort everything out.
Charlie hadn't wanted to kill anyone for any reason. It was a myth that larger people were more violent then others - It just wasn't true. He had naturally ascended to his current height or weight. Sure, when he was a teenager, he excelled at lifting weights & physical fitness. All he needed to do at that age was look at a barbell & he'd gain five pounds of muscle.
At first, he didn't hear the footsteps walking down the hallway. Mired in his own sorrow, Charlie tried to keep himself from breaking out into uncontrollable sobbing. He forced himself to think of just how he was going to try & get himself out of this particular problem.
"Hey," he heard a male voice say in the distance. A barely contained Charlie turned to face the voice.
Down the hallway, he could see William Tocot quickly walking with a large, filled duffel bag.
"You're a security guard, right?" Tocot asked quickly.
Charlie stood up, wiping off some tears before replying, "Yes, sir."
"That's great," Tocot replied, his pace so quick that he was now in front of Charlie, "You can escort me to my car."
"Of course," Charlie replied, turning & trying to catch up with Tocot.
The two of them walked for one-half minute down another hallway before seeing an exit sign over a doorway. Tocot stopped & dug into his pocket. He unearthed both a set of car keys & three hundred dollars in one-hundred dollar bills. He forced one hundred dollars into Charlie's hand.
"Hundred dollars now," Tocot stated, "Two hundred when I'm in my car, ready to drive away. Deal?"
'How about I just take all of your money now,' Charlie had wanted to say, 'And throw your a** outside for all the sick people to tear through you?'
"Sure," was what Charlie did say, though.
"Let's go," Tocot said, after a nervous exhale.
Tocot opened the door & hurried out, Charlie quickly behind him. Tocot couldn't help but notice the abundance of people, most of them sick, milling about the parking lot. Charlie noticed the abundance of sick people as well, quickly pushing one down as he kept stride with Tocot.
"Where's your car, sir?" Charlie asked.
"Right over there," Tocot replied, pointing out to a casino car.
"A company car?" Charlie asked, seeing the casino logo on the sides of the car.
"I didn't want to damage my own car in these conditions," Tocot replied. What Tocot hadn't explained to Charlie was that it was all a lie. Tocot's luxury car was parked in the executive section of the parking garage. All of the company cars had the exact same keys for cost-saving purposes. One set of keys matched all of the other casino vehicles. The company car wouldn't be missed & it's disappearance wouldn't raise eyebrows once the proverbial dust had settled.
Charlie felt something tap him in the shoulder; It was a sick person who had snuck up on him. Charlie swung his baton down onto the sick person's head. The resulting hit convinced the sick person to stay on the ground.
As they both neared the vehicle, Charlie noticed that they had attracted the attention of no less then twenty sick people. Inside of a minute, they'd be swarmed by those sick people with another batch on their way.
Charlie was so focused on protecting their rear that he suddenly noticed there were sick people in front of them as well. Tocot was either oblivious to this or planned on getting into the vehicle before those sick people could close the distance on him.
"Watch your front!" Charlie yelled out to Tocot, pointing to three sick people who were closing in on Tocot.
Tocot saw them & froze in his tracks. Using his filled duffel bag as a shield, he attempted to push one of the sick people down with it. The first one was, indeed, pushed to the ground by Tocot's actions but the other two were undetered. While one grabbed at Tocot, the other swung at him with an open hand.
"Help!" Was all that Tocot could yelp as he stumbled backwards & fell to the ground. Charlie rushed in, a baton to the chest for one of the sick people & a stiff arm backwards to the ground for the other.
"Get in the car!" Charlie yelled, pulling Tocot to his feet. Tocot, now completely flustered, fumbled with the keys to the car. Charlie could do nothing but grit his teeth in mounting fear as the sick people continued to close in on them, their numbers growing.
Tocot opened the door, threw the remaining two hundred dollars on the ground & then slammed the door shut. As Charlie scooped up the two hundred dollars, his job was done & he began running from the scene.
Hearing Tocot gun the car's engine & drive away, Charlie began to wonder just how he was going to survive with an ever-persistent gang of sick people trying to follow him.
That was when he began hearing gun shots close by.
=====================
PART XVIII
The first sound she heard was a door slam.
"Hey!"
"Hey! You awake? You sick?! Help me with this door!"
Amanda's first thought was disgust; She KNEW that she had overslept. Flippantly, she thought to herself that she could now claim that she had 'slept on a job' before.
"Help me with this f**king DOOR!!"
"Alright!!" Snapped Amanda, a look of unleashed anger racing across her face.
Amanda stood up & saw a small, older Asian woman in the waitress's lounge. She was standing with her back against the door. She wasn't in an employee uniform & Amanda certainly didn't recognize her so that meant that she was probably a patron. A look of absolute fear could be read on the woman's face which perplexed Amanda.
'Christ,' Amanda thought with a sigh, 'So much for my next performance review...'
"Ma'am," Amanda began in a normal tone of voice, "That was wrong of me to react to you in that way. It was discourteous. You have the right to report my behavior..."
"Wha...?!" The older Asian woman reacted, her face contorting to express as much confusion as it possibly could.
"There's crazy people out there! Sick & crazy!" The older Asian woman clarified in a thick native accent, "All over the place!"
Amanda looked from the Asian woman's face to the door twice. She couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary. The older Asian woman was so hard-pressed against the door, both literally & figuratively that, even to Amanda's bleary eyes, it would have been futile to attempt to pry her away from it.
Pointing to the door knob, Amanda stated flatly, "See that button? In the center of the door knob? Push it."
The Asian woman looked to where Amanda was pointing & then pushed the button.
"That locks the door," Amanda continued, walking away & towards a phone attached to the wall. While walking away, she could see the Asian woman grab a chair from the table & try to prop it underneath the door handle. Amanda considered telling her that the backs of the chairs were too low to prop the doors up underneath the handle but decided to let the woman figure it out for herself.
Dialing the four-digit extension to the security desk nearest the lounge, Amanda allowed it to ring a few times as she watched the Asian woman abandon placing a chair underneath the door handle & begin to move the entire table over to block the door.
Amanda hung up & then re-dialed the main security desk for the casino. Again, she allowed it to ring a few times before hanging up. A call to the nearest bar also went unanswered. A call to the cashier's cage went unanswered.
Hanging up the phone in frustration, Amanda turned her attentions to the desperate fruits of the Asian woman's fortifications. She saw the table up against the door, with the chairs propped up behind the table towards the opposing wall.
"OK," Amanda said in a loud but friendly voice, "We are going to leave this room & walk to the nearest security desk for further information."
The words rang hollow to the Asian woman, who produced a small but sharp-looking pocket knife from her purse in response.
"You're not touching that door," the Asian woman replied, "There's crazy people out there! We're safe in here!"
"It is not safe in here," Amanda tried to reason, "There is no way out of here in case of a fire or other emergency. We need to evac..."
"No evacuate!" The Asian woman yelled, "We're safe in here from the people out there!"
"Right," Amanda replied after an awkward pause, "Well, I'm going to go outside & see if it's safe to leave, OK? Maybe there's a better room that we can go to instead of this one?"
Amanda slowly moved towards the door, pulling the table aside & unlocking the door. All the while, she kept a constant eye on the Asian woman, still gripping her pocket knife & keeping it pointed towards Amanda.
"I'll be right back, OK?" Amanda stated, receiving no response from the Asian woman.
Amanda opened the door & peeked outside. The hallway was empty & quiet. She could hear very little sound.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with me, ma'am?" Amanda asked. The woman's only response was to quickly move towards Amanda, which caused Amanda to back up quickly into the hallway. Once outside, the Asian woman slammed the door shut on Amanda. Amanda heard the door instantly lock & could also hear the table's legs being pulled back towards the door.
Shaking her head, Amanda began to walk towards the nearest exit to the employee hallway. She was already wondering how she would explain the presence of a crazy, older Asian woman to the security guards.
Little did she know that her quiet walk would be the last quiet walk she would take for a very long while...
=====================
PART XIX
Herding cats.
To Andrew Beccio, that's what a manager had to do every day when they walked into the office. The higher up you were, the more cats you had to herd, herd faster & herd more accurately.
As a manager, he never believed in the "Carrot & Stick" approach to management. It was the commonly-held belief that some employees would be motivated if you gave them a reward (a 'carrot') while others were only motivated by the threat of a consequence (a 'stick'). Most real-life employees weren't so polarized, of course; A combination of subtle rewards & equally subtle threats were usually adequate to keeping most employees on task.
Beccio had a different managerial strategy - "Job & No Job." Beccio didn't have the time or patience for figuring out his employees. Either the employee did their job or they didn't. If they did, they continued to keep their job. If they kept their job long enough, he gave them a raise. If they didn't do their job, they were gone...That day. When Beccio was a lower-level manager, he kept an empty cardboard box in full view in his office. The box wasn't for himself; It was for the employee who didn't do their job. He thought it was a subtle but effective message.
As Beccio tried to assess & contain the melee in the front of the casino, he thought to himself that William Tocot no longer had a job. He didn't care if Tocot was injured or not; He no longer had a job at the casino. He didn't care if Tocot was somewhere, doing his best to contain the situation; He no longer had a job at the casino. He didn't care if Tocot miraculously emerged right now, waved his hand in the air & all the problems magically disappeared in a flash; He no longer had a job at the casino.
"I want you," Beccio said over the noise, pulling one of the few security guards aside, "To lock every single outside door in this casino. No exception."
"But what about the exit doors?" The guard asked, "In case of a fire or..."
"No exceptions!" Beccio angrily replied, pointing his finger at the guard, "I want it done & I want you back here in twenty minutes."
Beccio took his wallet out & thrusted an one-hundred dollar bill into the security guard's hand. "One hundred dollars now," Beccio said, "Two hundred when you get back. Go!"
The security guard left & Beccio pulled another security guard aside.
"I want you to go to every single security guard you can find & tell them to start beating everyone back through those doors. Use whatever force you have to, including deadly force. Do you hear me? Deadly force!" Beccio told the security guard, pushing him aside after he was done talking to him.
"Get everyone out of the restaurants & shops & start closing the doors of both. I don't care if they're eating meals. Get them out of those areas & lock them up," he told another anonymous security guard.
Beccio looked up in time to see four sick people approaching him. The lead sick person looked deathly pale, saliva glistening on his lower lip & chin. Multiple scratches adorned both of his forearms & he grunted unintelligently.
A lone security guard tried to contain the sick crowd approaching Beccio. Beccio then witnessed the horrifying series of events as the guard easily outmatched the first sick person, only to be overtaken by the other three. One sick person grabbed the guard's arm & began trying to bite through the guard's jacket. Another went for the guard's leg. Another hit the guard in the head with an open-handed slap.
Within less then five seconds, the guard had gone from overpowering to being overpowered. Like a gazelle being confronted by lions, the guard was thrust into the ground by the remaining three people, where he was summarily being hit & bitten.
The guard, using all his might, thrust the remaining people off of him & attempted to get up & run. He was already bleeding from an arm & a leg with a welt sure to form on the side of his head where he had been hit multiple times.
The guard's freedom was brief, though; Another three sick people simply took over where the original four people had left off.
Beccio's concentration on the plight of the security guard was interrupted by his arm suddenly being grabbed. Beccio recoiled, seeing that his arm had been grabbed by a person who looked so pale & gaunt that he might have been mistaken as a corpse.
Beccio stumbled backwards, pulling away successfully as he ran away & towards a security post. He wouldn't make it; A sick person, stumbling into him, knocked Beccio over & onto the ground. Five sick people converged on Beccio before he could get back up.
Andrew Beccio's last screams were masked by the noise, chaos & confusion as the sick continued to overtake the healthy.
=======================
PART XX
"Don't think of it as a loss. Think of it as an opportunity."
Mr. Wright rolled his eyes & silently sighed as he listened to his client lament about the casino's condition. It was a part of the job that Mr. Wright took the verbal abuse of his clients when their investments turned sour. Regardless of why it had gone sour, as far as Mr. Wright's clients were concerned, it was always Mr. Wright's fault.
"I want to talk to you now, Fernie. Can I talk to you now? Are you listening? If you're listening, that means you're smart. You're smart because you want a way out of this situation. We all do. I do. You do. We all do. If making money was easy, we'd all be wealthy. It ain't easy, Fernie. It's like a maze. It ain't a straight line. There are lefts, there are rights, there are dead ends. The smart people, us, we see the walls of the maze & we have the ambition to move forward. We have the smarts to see a dead end, turn around & go back," Mr. Wright said in a rapid-fire session that defied his lung capacity.
Again, he listened to his client's rants & raves. Mr. Wright often felt like a police negotiator. The job had striking similarities to his own - Both job dealt with dangerous, powerful & unpredictable individuals; You could never say 'no' in either job without the very real possibility of some very harsh consequences; There was never a happy ending - Only lulls between crisises.
"Opportunity, Fernie, opportunity!" Mr. Wright interrupted his client, "Look, just hear me out on this, OK? Just hear me out. Keep holding the baseball bat, Fernie, if it makes you feel good. Put down the phone, take a few swings in the air. I'm as upset as anyone about the whole flu thing, that these sick people have turned all violent & stuff. You're preaching to the choir, Fernie, preaching to the choir. This is like the maze, though, remember? It's given us a corner to turn. We have to turn now. We're smart, remember? We see the turn, we take the turn. No one wants to take the turn but we have to if we want to move forward. Yes. You're seeing the light now, Fernie."
Mr. Wright afforded himself a smile as the conversation finally became more congenial. He shook his head to himself in amazement; How some of these people ever became powerful & wealthy was beyond him. They were, in his private estimation, nothing more then big babies. Granted, they were smart, big babies - They knew who to whine to, how to whine & what to do when the whining didn't work. At the end of the day, though, the big babies were powerless, pitiful creatures, dependant on those who put up with their crap to stay in charge & wealthy.
"Fernie," Mr. Wright said, "I gotta go. Gotta go, Fernie. I'm glad that we're talking positive now, OK? You've seen the corner, we're taking the corner & I want you to take that corner with me, OK? We're taking the corner together, we're going to see this through & we're going to make more money then we've ever done before. 'Cause that's what it's all about at the end of the day, right? Right. Money, baby, money. Gotta go, Fernie. Gotta go, OK? Talk to you later."
Mr. Wright hung up the phone & took a long, exaggerated sigh as he closed his eyes & rubbed his temples slowly. Getting up off the couch, he slowly walked out of the living room & into the bedroom.
"Dawna," Mr. Wright said, entering the bedroom & seeing Dawna sprawled out on the bed watching television, "Watching television rots your brain. Oh, yeah, you're a blonde. I forgot."
"You jerk!" Dawna playfully replied, throwing a pillow at Mr. Wright as he laughed while putting up a token defense. The pillow bounced harmlessly off his face.
Mr. Wright walked over & sat down on the bed. As he watched the television, though, his sunny demeanor was seriously challenged.
A news article was just ending that a major U.S. city was now under martial law. National Guard troops, dressed in draconian gas masks, helmets, body armor & bristling with weapons, were firing on a crowd of sick people.
Another news article featured a similar story in Europe, where the mass transit systems had been ordered shut down. Healthy people couldn't leave infected areas. Sick people couldn't get to hospitals. Hospitals were already overflowing with sick people.
The newscaster tried to quash rumors of the "Zombie Effect," an advanced stage of the illness where the infected were medically dead but still mobile but mentally slow & very violent.
Mr. Wright looked over at Dawna, who was absorbed at what was being shown on the television. For a moment, Mr. Wright saw every single reason why he needed someone like Dawna in his life. Youth always had the advantage of vigor & enthusiasm. Young women like Dawna hadn't been tainted by the cynicism of experience or aging. No doctor had told her yet that she couldn't have anymore babies, or there was a lump in her breast, or her eyesight was going, or she needed to have more calcium because her bones were wasting away...
Mr. Wright wasn't going to lie to himself; He was an older man who wasn't getting any younger. He needed "the little blue pill" more times then he cared to admit. He had to worry about blood pressure, about cholesterol, about eye prescriptions, about iron deficiencies, pulled muscles, obescity, adult diabetes... He had to worry about things the average twenty-five year old would never dream about worrying.
If Mr. Wright couldn't get any younger himself, he could make himself feel younger when he was with Dawna. He would have never skydived if it hadn't been for Dawna. He's gone to museums & art exhibits solely because Dawna wanted to. Eat at a restaurant he's never been before? Dawna. Go on vacation to someplace he's never been? Dawna.
Any man could become an old man - Just give them enough time & a lousy job. Men naturally became bitter with age, they didn't need some old woman to help them along. Mr. Wright, though, had a cure to bitterness. He had a cure to cholesterol, high blood pressure, lousy eyesight, an expanding waistline. That cure was a smile from Dawna. It was a hug from Dawna. It was Dawna suddenly showing him a picture in a magazine. Showing him a new outfit she just bought. Wondering if she looked fat in 'this or that.'
For a moment, Mr. Wright was twenty-five years old again. It was a feeling so powerful that he ignored the newscaster who was mentioning that violent, sick people were outside their station, trying to break in.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 17, 2011 9:17:23 GMT -6
PART XXI
"You're locking all the doors?" Eddie asked in complete exasperation.
The security guard completed locking the door, then turned to Eddie.
"Beccio's orders," the security guard tried to say in as authoritative tone as he possibly could. He was met by the blank slate that was Eddie's face, neither angered nor joyful. For a moment, their eyes locked in a duel over authority.
"Get the f**k off my loading dock!" Eddie nearly screamed, startling both the security guard & Mark alike. He shoved the security guard away from the door, the shove jostling the massive keyring that the security guard was carrying loose from his grip. It fell to the concrete floor, giving off a muted, metallic 'clshink.'
The security guard needed no further persuasion from Eddie or anyone else to cease what he was doing. Running as hard as he could, he ran towards the first open door leading out of the shipping & receiving area.
"So what do we do?" Mark asked, as Eddie picked up the keyring & clipped it onto his belt. Eddie couldn't help but feel the weight of the keyring as it tugged on his already overburdened belt.
Eddie looked over at the pallets that had yet to be unwrapped, yet to be distributed & were in the process of distribution when the structure of the department collapsed.
Before Eddie could respond, though, a noise caused both of them to turn towards an open doorway. It was a short, blood-curdling scream followed by a series of shorter screams that got both louder & sadder.
The security guard, holding his hands to his neck, wobbled desperately from the doorway. His face was a mask of pain & agony, his howlings echoing in the cavernous offloading zone. Fate would not allow either Mark or Eddie to help the wounded guard, who collapsed into a pool of his own blood only seconds later.
Eddie & Mark soon learnt of how the security guard had come to such a tragic fate. All they had to was keep watching the doorway.
Hands so frail they shook, skin so pale as to be almost white, a man shuffled into their area. The man was oblivious to the bright red scarring on his head & neck. Neither Eddie or Mark were oblivious to the front of his shirt, stained with blood that seemed to have originated from a blood-soaked mouth that cared little to drip all the way down in front of him.
"Oh, you can't be..." Eddie slowly said in disbelief.
The man's red-rimmed eyes were so bloodshot as to conceal practically all of the white normally reserved on an otherwise normal, healthy eyeball. This unusual physical characteristic, though, did not prevent the man from beginning to move towards both Mark & Eddie in a quickened shuffle. Both Mark & Eddie involuntarily moved a few paces backwards, both indecisive as to what to do.
"Sir," Eddie began to stammer out, moving around so that a pallet filled with merchandise was between himself & the man, "Sir, you can't be in here. It's for employees only."
The man let out a gurgly growl that left nothing to the imagination as to the man's lack of finesse or comprehension. Raising his arms to grab for Eddie, Eddie saw the man sneer just before hitting the constraint of the filled pallet, preventing his entire body from reaching over towards Eddie.
In the man's obsession over attempting to grab at Eddie, though, he had failed to follow the activities of Mark.
One swing of a pipe later, the man's failure to keep track of Mark had become complete. Mark's swing was not hesitant for one moment, it's complete intent was to incapacitate with no care for permanent injury or even death. The telltale sound of a being crushed was shortly followed by the sound of a body slumping to the concrete ground.
The man's legacy, besides his final resting place being the concrete floor of an offloading zone, was the few spots of blood that had been flung onto Eddie's shirt & face as a result of the blow. Eddie was oblivious to the man's final contributions to society.
"I think we need to lock down the area before anymore come in," Mark suggested, with Eddie slowly nodding his approval.
"I think we need to..." Eddie began to say, still mesmerized by the image of the sickly, grotesque figure that tried to grab him, "Yeah. Let's do that."
"Let's do that now," Eddie then said with renewed authority.
It was then that he saw what was captivating Mark's attention - Four more of those sickly, grotesque beings had wandered in.
=========================
PART XXII
Individually, some non-sick humans reacted & adapted with amazing speed & efficiency towards the sickly invasion of the casino.
Collectively, though, the invasion was little more then a rout against those without sniffles or coughs.
Harry Finderlane, a small business owner who was more sensitive about his bald spot then he cared to admit, immediately saw the peril at hand. Grabbing a golf club from a nearby store, he didn't hesitate in selectively walloping sick person after sick person.
Harry's contribution to curbing the invasion was cut short when his concentration was equally cut short. Two sick people, waddling slowly towards Harry from his blind spot, had little trouble distracting him long enough for six other sick people in wrestling him to the ground.
Jacquelyn Wiesbowski, on the other hand, unwittingly expediated the deaths of several other healthy people. Instead of possessing Harry's instinct to fight, the forty-seven year old former flight attendant trusted her instinct of flight. As she rushed to an exit door, she was tripped up by a dead body she did not see on the floor. Tripping over the body, her head slammed into the exit door, opening not only the door but her skull in the process. An opportunistic sick person took her out of her misery, which would have been short-lived anyway due to the massive head trauma that she was already suffering. With her body wedging the door open, more sick people then ever could enter the casino.
Luis Raynos, a retired semi-professional soccer player, used a broken broom handle to beat back the ever-increasing horde of sick people. After successfully subduing seven such individuals, though, he was met by unbelievable bad luck. A security guard, using a long-handled metal-cased flashlight as his weapon, swung & missed at a nearby sick person. The guard hit Raynos in the head by accident. Five converging sick people capitalized on Raynos' misfortune by ensuring he would never get up off the ground.
The sick, though, had their own brand of bad luck. A dead sick person was conveniently lying on the ground in front of a doorway. No less then thirty other sick people stumbled over the body, making them easy pickings for opportunistic vigilantes looking out for their own interests.
Chivalry was the downfall of Nate Oppohine, who thought he was pulling away an injured but healthy waitress from the melee. The waitress was, indeed, injured but far from healthy. Nate learned the extent of her sickness as she tore a chunk of his neck out with her teeth.
'Friendly-Fire' casualties were far from uncommon. Jane Thistle accidentally took out Paul Galopy's left eye out with the end of a conventional umbrella. Neither lived long enough to realize their actions. Kevin Nieges swung a baseball bat & hit Lisa Venderhoff square in the back instead of the sick person he was aiming for. The shot shattered three bones in her spine, turning her into a quadraplegic before hitting the ground.
There were too many incidents of pepper-spray misuse to chronicle. Larry Davidson, Michael Wallace, Cheryl Jones & Isabel Jackson were just a few who fell to someone else's overzealous & misguided usage of pepper spray in such a large crowd.
Oliver Blickwing slipped on some blood & cracked his hip.
A stampede to an exit door that could evacuate one person at a time caused a pile-up of nearly twenty five people - Just ripe for the plucking from the numerous sick people on the other side.
Finally, sporadic gunfire killed as many sick people as did healthy. Retired police officer Lewis J. Cameron mistaked the naturally pale Harriet Vissom as a sick person. A ricochet struck healthy George Tudini in the neck.
Even if someone did escape the melee & got to the outside unscathed, they still had to face danger from the outside. Bus driver Angel Rodriguez, in a panic, drove over twelve healthy people trying to drive his bus off the property. Two sick people also got in his way, along with a tree that permanently stopped his attempt at fleeing.
And so the rout continued on...
==============================
PART XXIII
The door was unlocked.
Any normal person above the age of eight could have opened up the door. They would have simply grabbed the door handle, pushed down on the thumb lever & pulled the door open while keeping the thumb lever pushed down. Simple.
The person on the other side of the door, though, was by no means normal. Amanda could see through the small, vertical window pane of the door a desperately sick man smacking his open palms against the door. If he was saying something, she couldn't hear it; His mouth opened & closed but no significant sound was coming out of his mouth.
Seeing Amanda through the window pane only agitated the man further, smacking the door repeatedly with his open palms. His gesture was futile; The door was not only metal but opened outwards towards him. Short of unhinging the door or opening it normally, the man was not going to enter the hallway.
"S**t," Amanda muttered to herself, unaware that her hands were slightly shaking in nervous fear. Even with a metal door between herself & the man, she knew the difference between confronting a man when you had security all around you & confronting them when it was simply 'mano-a-mano.'
Backing up, Amanda began to walk back down the hallway, now realizing what it was that had spooked the old Asian woman so much. She had to think about her next course of action. Continue to locate security guards? Find the first safe route out of the casino? Assist patrons?
'Condition Blackout,' she thought reflexively. All casino employees were trained for various contingincies. What if a patron has a heart attack... What if the casino was flooded... What if a bomb goes off in the casino... What if the lights go out in the casino...
'Condition Blackout' was the contingincy plan in case power went out throughout the casino & the back-up generators never came on-line to compensate. Up until today, 'condition blackout' was the worst-case scenario that the casino could envision. The casino, if it could be believed, thought that losing power was worse then a bomb going off. Losing power meant that patrons wouldn't be able to play the games as opposed to a mere bomb killing or injuring a few players but most of the casino stayed intact.
Amanda began running to the nearest employee cafeteria. The casino was so large that it held three such cafeterias, interspersed so that any particular employee could get to a cafeteria without a ten minute walk. Her head was as though it was on a swivel; Every doorway received an extra glance before she continued running, every sound was scrutinized before she felt comfortable with moving forward.
By the time she reached the cafeteria, she couldn't believe that sweat had formed on her brow. It had formed more through her ever-building stress then it did the physical act of running.
A guard post next to the employee cafeteria was empty. Nothing of value was inside of it except for a walkie-talkie that didn't work. She rolled her eyes after testing the faulty walkie-talkie, setting it down with a frustrated 'thud.'
Peering through the cafeteria windows, she could see that the lights in the cafeteria had been turned off. Never had she seen the cafeteria dark before; The cafeteria ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
The cafeteria wasn't like your normal room - The light switches weren't off to the side of the door on the inside. Since the cafeteria was staffed by the kitchen personnel, the switches were all located in the actual prep room (the "kitchen" part of the cafeteria) of the cafeteria.
A storage room in the cafeteria held the equipment that would be handed out in a 'condition blackout' situation. They consisted of a long-handled flashlight, a whistle worn around the neck & a small canister of pepper spray. The equipment was separated into little plastic baggies that could be quickly dispensed to whomever & however so that someone wouldn't have to divide flashlights, whistles & pepper spray on the spot. Five people, for instance, got five baggies which contained everything they needed.
Amanda despised going into a darkened cafeteria as much as going out with a man twenty years her senior & one hundred pounds overweight. Unfortunately, though, the choice would not be hers to make; She heard noise coming down the hallway & around the corner. The noise might have been friendly but she wasn't going to take the chance.
Slipping into the cafeteria, she crouched down so that it would be harder to see her amongst the mazes of tables & chairs. Slowly she began to walk her way towards the room with the 'condition blackout' equipment.
That's when she heard the sound. It sounded like someone smacking someone else with something wet. It wasn't particularly loud but it was consistent. Slowly creeping forward, she saw a flash of movement from the other side of the room.
Whomever (or whatever) was making the sound also was crouched. Amanda slowly positioned herself so that she could see who it was. Perhaps it was a patron who was hurt; Perhaps it was an employee having a nervous breakdown.
When Amanda saw what it was, though, her jaw dropped to the floor. The spectacle was short-lived, though, as another sound quickly gained her attention...
The cafeteria doors were flung open... By three slouching sick people.
======================
PART XXIV
Charlie had speed. The sick, though, had numbers.
Had Charlie not feared for his life the entire time, he would have found the scene around him almost amusing - An entire parking lot was filled with sick people, slowly meandering between cars, trying desperately to keep up with the decidedly more nimble Charlie. Even a sick person that Charlie was running towards had such slow reflexes that Charlie could push the person down before that person even remotely became a serious threat. There was a certain macabre amusement to watch the sick, their attention so focused on Charlie, stumble over each other even though their movements were no faster then a modest walking pace.
Charlie needed to get back inside the casino if he wanted any realistic chance of staying alive. Staying outdoors with nothing short of a machine gun with infinite bullets was a virtual death warrant, signed on the moment he let his guard down or was overwhelmed by the sheer number of sick clumsily following his every move.
Running out of the parking lot, Charlie pushed over a woman who had no concerns about either her missing left hand or that her clothes looked as though they had been soaked in blood. She fell like a ragdoll, which characterized how an obese black man fell when he tried to stumble into Charlie's path, arms outstretched & a bloody eye socket all that remained of where an eye once was.
Something loud, small & fast skipped past Charlie as he began running close to the perimeter of the casino. The sound was unmistakable; It was a gun shot, the slug ricocheting off the ground in front of Charlie & away from him. Charlie skidded to a stop, falling onto his butt in a desperate slide to cease any forward movement.
"I'm not sick!" Charlie shouted out instinctually, not knowing where the shot had come from. Another shot rang out but Charlie knew not where it had come from or where it had gone to, except that it's path had nothing to do with where his body was at that moment. The crack of the bullet breaking the sound barrier gave Charlie the extra incentive to run behind a corner of the casino's building, pressing his back against the wall as he kept one eye out for the shooter & another out for the sick.
Just as Charlie had evaded the scourge of the bullets, so too did he realize that he had evaded (albeit temporarily) the scourge of the sick. The sudden silence, the lack of dead bodies or sick people wandering around in his line of sight, lulled him into a false sense of security that he knew would not last.
The sound of a gun shot reminded Charlie that safety in the outdoors was still at a premium no one could possibly afford for very long. This time, though, Charlie felt that he finally was dealt the upper hand. From his vantage point, he was able to at least see the purported shooters, having seen their target (A pale businesswoman with a serious limp in her right leg) dropped by a bullet to the head.
Charlie had peeked out to see a pick-up truck on the road, two men in the cab & one in the bed of the truck. The man in the bed of the truck had a scoped rifle & an aversion towards marksmenship that, on any other day, would have been downright morbid.
"Hey!" Charlie yelled, practically at the top of his lungs, "Hey! I'm alive! Don't shoot! I'm OK!" He waved his baton in the air, hoping that they would recognize his actions as being decidedly un-sick-like. Charlie looked around & saw that he could continue to afford such attention-grabbing behavior as most of the sick were still about forty yards away from him.
Charlie began a very slow jog towards the road, a move fraught with peril but one that Charlie hoped would be rewarded. These men, after all, had guns - They had a truck & they hopefully had someplace where they could rest in relative safety. In a pipe dream, Charlie began to think that he might have a chance to escape this disaster after all.
His gamble proved unwise; He saw the man with the rifle swivel towards him & fire off a shot. Charlie was able to react before the bullet had been fired, falling to the ground & lying flush against it. Where his chest once was, a bullet flew past & impacted the bricked casino wall several yards behind him.
Charlie was beside himself, now stranded in open ground with the sick closing in on him from behind & a rifle-wielding maniac only a few dozen yards in front of him. Remaining prone to the ground was a death sentence, executed by either the shambling sick at their leisure or the whim of the truck-riding rifleman who had proven that targets at greater distances were of no difficulty.
Charlie bolted up off of the ground with a yell & started running away from the truck, running towards the sick at a sprinting speed. He heard a series of three gun shots fired off in quick succession, one impacting a sick person standing right next to Charlie as he ran past. All the way, Charlie yelled - Partially in fright, partially in frustration & partially in sadness.
Running behind a corner of the building, Charlie suddenly realized that he was crying uncontrollably. Looking down, he had also noticed that he had wet his pants in the process. His arms shaking uncontrollably from fright, from exhaustion & from stress, he needed to find a way back into the casino if he wanted any chance of living after sunset.
Looking around, he began running along the side of the casino. Pushing sick people out of the way, he noticed that he was near the shipping & receiving docks of the casino.
'There's got to be a way in there,' he thought to himself, 'And if there isn't, I'm going to make one.'
=======================
PART XXV
Veronica was on the verge of tears. This situation, she kept thinking to herself, just couldn't be happening to her.
She had seen people killed in front of her. Killed. Not injured, not wounded, not nicked or scratched. Those people had been killed.
The sick, as though possessed by a hive mentality whose mechanics had not been explained, had gone from biting people to simply attempting to consume them however they could. They were grabbing people by the head, trying to tear eyeballs out, trying to hit people with open-handed hits, trying to tear live flesh apart with their bare hands.
Utilizing the only halfway-decent weapon available, a lone sign on a metal pole, she had defended herself adequately enough with defensive blows to her enemies' chest, arms & legs. A few times, her awkward swings had gratuitously landed on their skulls.
Veronica's bloodlust was far from unlimited. She was happy to disengage from combat with anyone as soon as she realized they were on the ground & injured. Often, she merely set up her opponent's deaths at the hands of another healthy vigilante who was more then eager to put aside any moral qualms they had about killing the sickly.
Combat, in whatever form she had been practicing it, had taken it's toll on Veronica. Developing a headache & already emotionally drained from her earlier confrontation with her cheating spouse, she had retreated into an employee's hallway. Aside from a healthy vigilante running by, it was a blessed throwback to the normalcy that she had taken for granted only hours ago.
"You OK?" She heard someone quickly ask her. She looked up to see a young, black man armed with an impromptu spiked baseball bat, nails having been pounded through the end of it. He was poised in a swinging position.
Veronica merely nodded, her emotions beginning to overcome her. The young black man nodded & walked away from her, towards the melee whose appetite for carnage & death had no end. She watched him leave, noting the confident stride in his step as he walked quickly down the hall.
She next stumbled past a makeshift medical room. A hurried, harried & frustrated medical technician was doing all he could for scratches, bites, lacerations, punctures & every other type of grievous bodily injury that the sick could unleash upon the healthy. Another man, armed with only a mop & a rolling janitor's bucket, did what he could to keep the floor from being awash in blood. Hastily drawn up signs, white paper with marker writings, warned people not to wash their hands upon coming in contact with blood. The scene was too noisy & chaotic for Veronica to handle & so she left almost as quickly as she arrived.
She wandered past four or five men who were planning some sort of counter-offensive towards the sick. Each one gripped their improvised weapons with awkward acceptance, none of them fully accepting of the gravity of what was unfolding around them.
"Sick coming!" She heard someone yell, causing her to turn around.
True enough, the sick had begun flooding into a nearby hallway. The group of men she had wandered past moments ago ran past her to engage the enemy. Briefly watching the events unfold, the sick were hardly a match when their numbers were confined to that of a small hallway. Her attention span lapsed as she heard one of the healthy men yelp from being scratched by a sick person.
Veronica, convincing herself that escape from the casino was the only way to save herself, began to wander the employee sections of the casino. The white, faceless hallways had insufficient signage for someone who had never had to traverse them before. Except for the red 'exit' signs hanging from the ceilings, she may have well been in a maze.
Whatever plans for escape she had, though, were soon thwarted by the sudden sight of a steady stream of sick people coming down an adjacent hallway. The door to the hallway propped open by a dead body, Veronica had to make a decision & make it fast - Should she run back to tell the others that they were about to be blindsided by another stream of sick people or should she make a run for it herself?
Instincts forced her to run away, not back to the others who were content to make their stand amongst a few anonymous hallways, but towards yet another exit door in her desperate hopes for escape.
Finding the next nearest exit door locked, though, her panic propelled her into complete desperation over her next course of action. Then, she saw it - A faint glint of hope artificially brightened into a beacon due to her predictament.
A sign was pointing towards the shipping & receiving department. Certainly, if she could find an exit to the casino, it would have to be there.
Quickly, she ran towards the direction that the sign dictated. Her possible salvation, in her mind, was only yards away.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 17, 2011 9:19:19 GMT -6
PART XXVI
"You distract them," Eddie yelled to Mark, "I'll close the door they came in from!"
Mark didn't have much of a choice, as Eddie ran around the sickly marauders the moment he finished yelling. Mark just looked at the four sickly people who continued to stumble towards him at a pace no greater then a casual walk.
Raising his lead pipe in a threatening manner, Mark tensed himself up as the four closed in on him. Ten yards away quickly turned to eight yards & then five.
Surprising even himself, Mark initiated the combat, lunging & screaming as he swung the pipe towards the one of the four sickly people. His swing was too short, amputating the nose of a woman already missing part of a jaw & part of her left hand.
Seeing his misfortune, Mark quickly stumbled backwards, nearly losing his footing as he hastily retreated. The sickly humans showed no extra enthusiasm, the remaining three continuing to pursue Mark at their established pace. The noseless woman, stunned, slumped to the ground briefly to a sitting position, blood pouring out where a nose once was.
Mark circled around to the group's side, winding up & delivering an overhead smack to an elderly man whose face was already covered in scratches & other minor wounds. His pale skin was virtually synonymous in color to that of standard letter paper, light blue veins tattooing his hide from beneath the surface of his flesh. The blow caused the elderly man to crumple to the ground immediately.
The elderly man's demise would soon turn into even better luck for Mark. The third sickly human, his illness clearing affecting his ability to reason & react, tripped over the elderly man's body in an attempt to pursue a retreating Mark. Seeing this, Mark knew he would have no greater an opportunity for such a riskless attack. As though swinging at a lowly-pitched baseball, Mark smashed the side of the man's skull in with one mighty swing that made an awfully crunchy yet watery sound.
Mark's last opponent was perhaps the most deformed of them all. His right hand completely missing & his left hand featuring only a palm with two limp fingers, a man in a tattered & bloody business suit stumbled towards Mark with a renewed sense of vigor that thoroughly startled Mark. Frightened by such an invigorated pursuit, Mark's grip of the pipe loosened & it fell to the ground, rolling towards the sickly man.
Spotting an opportunity, Mark kicked the pipe towards the man, causing it to roll directly into the man's path. Oblivious to Mark's strategy, the man stepped onto the rolling pipe, causing his leg to slip upward into the air & his body to careen towards the ground. Quickly grabbing the nearest filled cardboard box he could find, Mark heaved up & thrusted down the cardboard box onto the hapless man's head with every ounce of his strength. All Mark could hear was a crunching sound, the man's limbs twitching violently before suddenly ceasing all movement. A small pool of blood formed underneath the man's skull, partially masked by the cardboard box that had played both a murder weapon as well as plastic surgery tool in one fell swoop.
All appeared to be silent in the shipping & receiving department.
"Eddie?" Mark called out, "Eddie?"
'If that bast**d has ditched me,' Mark began to think just before he heard something. Something faint. Something right over his shoulder.
What caused Mark to bolt wasn't the sound, though, it was the smell. The smell of blood. The smell of a breath from someone who cared little that their breath was being filtered through a mouth doused with blood.
"Oh God!" Mark yelped, bolting forward & then turning around to see the sickly woman standing just behind him. Outreached arms from her sickly frame had come within an inch of grabbing his body, an open mouth all too willing to bite down at it's first opportunity.
With no pipe handy & no heavy cardboard box available, Mark was at the mercy of his legs to retreat to as safe a location as he could find within the next three seconds.
Fortunately, Mark would never need to enact such a hasty retreat. Instead, he was treated to the sudden & decisive overhead wallop that came from behind the woman. Causing the woman's head to snap back, she flopped to the ground immediately, her neck resting at an unnervingly unnaturally sharp angle.
"Hi," Veronica awkwardly said after she & Mark stared at each other for what had to be at least one-half of a minute.
========================
PART XXVII
"Mark!" Mark could hear Eddie plead, "Mark!"
Eddie's plea snapped Mark back into reality, breaking his gaze away from Veronica.
"Come on," Mark instinctually said to Veronica, waving to her as he ran towards Eddie's voice. Veronica reluctantly followed after a moment of indecision.
Eddie, as Mark could clearly see, was in a bind that he was slowly losing with each passing moment. Propped up against a door with all of his might, Eddie's face was turning a crimson red as he strained to keep the door from swinging open. Each pounding on the other side of the door caused Eddie's feet to slip just a little bit more each time. Mark could see a sick person's hand begin to creep through the side of the doorway.
Mark ran at the door as fast as he could, screaming the entire way. Eddie, looking up to see the oncoming, screaming Mark, was fearful for a moment that Mark had 'turned' into a sick person. He was relieved when, instead, Mark slammed into the door at full speed causing it to close completely. Only Veronica paid attention to the fact that a mournful howling coincided with the door being forcefully slammed shut.
"Lock the door!" Mark said, his voice straining as much as his muscles were in keeping the door from being opened again. Eddie, free from having to restrain the door, fumbled with the gigantic key ring left by the security guard.
"Damn," Eddie muttered under his breath, "I lost my place on this thing." Eddie tried key after key with no results. Even trying one key felt like an eternity to Mark, as he watched Eddie nervously fumble with key after key.
A sudden intense pounding on the door caused Mark to slip back a little, the door to open just a fraction & making locking the door a temporarily moot point.
"Eddie," Mark tried to say calmly, "I'm slipping. Hurry up."
"I'm trying," Eddie said, frustration creeping into his voice, "These keys are all out of order. I'm lucky they're color-coded in the first place!"
Suddenly, Mark felt the door slam shut again through no extra effort of his own. Both Mark & Eddie looked beside them to see Veronica now also pinning herself against the door. Mark then looked over at Eddie, his eyes saying exactly what his mouth had wanted to only without the obscenities & the shouting.
Eddie kept trying the keys until he finally heard a satisfying "click."
Eddie stepped back with a smile, standing up.
"OK," he said, "It's locked. You guys can come back from the door now."
Eddie witnessed two people reluctant to even breath, let alone move away from a door that only seconds ago was inclined to fling itself open to reveal an endless horde of sick & rampaging people. Eddie's smile weakened as he continued to look at Mark & Veronica.
"Really," he continued, "Um, you can move back. That's a fire door. Very sturdy."
Mark slowly moved away from the door with Veronica following his lead. The heard thumping on the door from the other side but the door held solid, not budging in the slightest. At the validation that the door would hold, all three of them broke out into huge smiles.
"See, told you," Eddie replied, pointing at the door.
"Eddie," Mark asked, "How many doors are left to lock up?"
"That was it," Eddie enthusiastically reported, "And, wouldn't you know, that was the only door I had any trouble with at all. The rest I just breezed right through without a hitch."
Veronica's smile suddenly vanished completely. Eddie noticed the sudden change in her demeanor.
"What about the door that *I* went through to get in here?" Veronica asked.
There was a silence amongst the three for a brief moment, each looking at the other. then, as though mentally linked, they all broke & ran from the door with Veronica leading the way.
"I'm sorry," Eddie yelled in transit, "I completely forgot about this one!"
"Save it for after you lock it!" Mark replied, seeing the door that Veronica was running for & beginning to speed past her to reach it first. Mark slammed into the door, bracing himself against it as Veronica quickly joined him.
Eddie ran up behind them, already fumbling with the key ring. His proficiency at it, however, was considerably improved & he locked it quickly without incident. All three of them heard the 'click' that the key produced & they all stepped back from the door.
Another silence fell over them as they all just marvelled at the sudden lack of crisises that they had to address.
"I'm Mark," Mark said to Veronica, breaking the silence.
"I'm Veronica," Veronica replied with a smirk, more about the fact that she was alive then anything that had to do with Mark.
"I'm Eddie," Eddie stated, looking at the resulting carnage in the shipping & receiving department, "And we are going to need a mop."
=============================
PART XXVIII
Fight or flight. It was an age-old question without a definitive answer.
Sometimes, you had to stand your ground; You had to fight. It didn't always have to mean in the physical sense - Punches, kicks, scratches. It could also mean one fiery retort versus an equally fiery retort.
Sometimes, you had to pick your battles & retreat; Taking flight. It sometimes meant swallowing your pride as a dumb-*ss boss continued to flaunt their ability to make bone-headed decisions that directly affected you. It could also mean fleeing from a scene of physical danger.
'Fight or flight' was a decision that Amanda did not have the luxury of time to decide over. Three sick people had already entered the darkened cafeteria that Amanda was in; Another sick person was somewhere, crouched like her, beneath the view of the tables & chairs.
For Amanda, it was time to flee. Flee fast. Flee now.
Standing up, she bolted from her position & ran towards the storage room door that held the 'Condition Blackout' gear. She prayed that it was unlocked. She prayed that she could get there in time.
She could hear the sick people respond to her sudden movements in the background. An increase in volume of their moaning & wheezing occurred. She could hear them begin to shuffle towards her faster - A chair being capriciously heaved out of the way, a table being carelessly nudged by bodies no longer nimble or sane.
Amanda ran up to the door & turned the handle. To her ecstatic delight, it opened up without difficulty. Running into the room, she slammed the door shut, locking it behind her.
The storage room was cramped, small & pitch black. Shelving units covered ever inch of wall space, the units filled to capacity with the little pre-packaged plastic baggies. Amanda felt around for a light switch &, incredibly, couldn't find one.
Suddenly, the door was slammed into hard by the sick people outside. The door, made of wood, reverberated loudly. Amanda let out a reactionary shriek at the sudden (but not unexpected) assault before calming herself down. The door, already locked with a simple handle lock, was holding against the combined hitting of all the sick people in the cafeteria.
Grabbing one of the baggies, Amanda ripped it open & fumbled to grab the long-handled flashlight from it. Feeling the handle, she tossed the rest on the ground as she quickly found the light switch for the flashlight & turned it on.
The pounding on the door had only increased in ferocity & rapidity as Amanda quickly looked around the room. As she had already suspected, there was no other door - She was met with each glance by a shelving unit filled with plastic baggies. The ceiling was a conventional business ceiling, tiled in a grid with removable tiles that were as light as styrofoam.
Quickly, she reached down & grabbed the remaining equipment from the baggie she had opened up. Looking up, she climbed onto the first two shelves of the nearest shelving unit. Poking at one of the ceiling tiles, she knocked it loose, pushing it upwards & into the crawlspace that separated the formal ceiling with the architectural one.
Shining the flashlight into the crawlspace between the two ceilings, she spotted the metal I-Beam & grabbed onto it. With two legs latched onto the I-Beam, one hand holding onto both the I-Beam & the flashlight, she nudged the ceiling tile back into place with her remaining hand.
Now, encased in near darkness with the exception of the flashlight, Amanda struggled to stay onto the I-Beam as she slowly inched her way along. The crawlspace, already claustrophobic, was downright confining as her hands gripped the grimy undersides of the I-Beam. Her back scrapped against the tiling beneath her.
She hoped that the I-Beam led somewhere safer, like a hallway or even an enclosed room to which she could plan her next move.
If she didn't fall off first.
If it led anywhere productive at all.
All she could do was inch her way along & hope that the sick didn't have a good vertical leap.
============================
PART XXIX
A woman with an impossibly deep gash in her neck.
A teenage boy missing most of his lips & walking with such a limp as to suggest that his left leg was broken.
An old man missing his right forearm, producing so much saliva from his eternally opened mouth that it was a solid line running from his mouth to the ground.
All of them became the victim to Charlie's baton as he made his way towards the outside of the shipping & receiving area of the casino.
Constantly circling around, keeping his baton poised, he had developed what he felt was a fairly successful strategy when confronted with light waves of the sick nearby. If he could, he'd single out the lone straggler of the group & kill them. Then, he'd quickly leave the area & step into a safe area where the sick would have to reconstitute to follow him. The slowest one of the group would become the new straggler & Charlie would go after that one. He'd repeat this process until the sick was so difused in an area that he could then afford to pick them off one by one.
Charlie considered it a successful strategy for a desperate situation, a situation he would so gladly pay to get out of as soon as possible. All it took was not seeing one sick person & he'd be bitten, scratched, punched or worse.
Fortunately, the latest area he was in was virtually devoid of the sick. He could see a few sick people about twenty yards away but they weren't grouped together. That was as close as he had come to being alone ever since escaping from the rifle-toting truck that had kept firing upon him.
Affording a few minutes to pay attention towards re-entering the casino then safe-guarding his own life, Charlie looked towards the casino & noticed that he was, indeed, at the outside of the shipping & receiving area of the casino. Noticing a small concrete stairway going up to a normal-sized door, Charlie launched himself towards it & flew up the the seven steps to the door.
Charlie tried the door handle but could tell instantly that it was locked.
"Hey!" He yelled, pounding on the door with his fist, "Hey! Is anyone in there? Let me in! Let me in!"
Charlie paused, looking around reflexively to see if he was still 'alone.' To his momentary shock, a sick woman had managed to get to the bottom of the stairs that Charlie was at. Her hair was tossed about, her blouse torn to ribbons (she apparently had no qualms concerning her amazing lack of modesty) & her hands completed consumed in blood. Charlie swung his baton around & nailed her on the head so hard that he winced as he felt the baton cave in her skull.
Quickly turning back to the door, he pounded on it once more with his fist.
"Let me in, Godda**it!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, "I'm not sick! Let me in before these things get me!"
To his utter surprise, he heard a voice from the other side of the door.
"We're trying to open the f**king door!" He heard someone yell through the door on the other side, "It's locked! We're trying to find the key!"
"Find it f**king..." Charlie began to say, before he saw something out of the corner of his eye.
There was another sick person at the bottom of the stairs. A woman in a waitress' uniform was missing a jaw, two fingers on her right hand & her shoes... Judging by the bloody smears she left for footprints. Another swing of the baton landed on the side of her head, toppling her instantly.
The sick waitress, though, was only the start of Charlie's concerns. The concrete staircase was only moderately high - Five feet at most from below the bottom step to the very top of the platform. A minimalist metal railing kept people from falling off the platform or the stairs. What it did not do, though, was prevent the sick from grabbing through the railing at Charlie. Two other sick people were attempting such a feat.
Just as Charlie felt one of his ankles being grabbed, he turned & swung his baton down on the sick person performing the deed. The blow to the person's head was only glancing, enough to knock him over but not to definitively end his life. Fortunately, it caused him to let go of Charlie's ankle enough for Charlie to reflexively move away until his back was practically pressed up against the door.
Another sick person was now walking around to head on up the stairs but he was far from the only one; Charlie could see that the sick had finally caught up to him in droves. At least twenty other sick people had converged on Charlie's general location, with more arriving by the moment.
"Hurry the f**k up!" Charlie screamed at the top of his lungs, so loud that he could feel his throat burning. Charlie poised his baton to swing at the first sick person to shamble up the steps when he heard the door opening up from behind him.
Charlie felt himself pulled in & he landed on the ground on his back, startled. Just as quickly, he could see the door slammed shut, three people huddled by it as one of them locked it.
"You're safe now," Eddie stated in a normal tone of voice, "You OK?"
Charlie's face was a mixture of perplexion, paranoia & joy.
"It's safe in here," Veronica said, "You can get up if you want to."
Charlie snapped back into reality, realizing that the people in front of him weren't sick. He heard pounding on the door that he had come through only moments ago.
"OK," Was all that Charlie could muster, letting the baton fall from his hand. It didn't escape anyone's attention that Charlie's knuckles were absolutely white.
============================
PART XXX
"So," Charlie asked, "What are we going to do with the bodies?"
"Keep 'em as a souvenir for our troubles," Eddie said with both a quick grin & an artificially cheerful tone. Neither was accepted graciously by anyone & Eddie's face sank almost immediately back into a poise of seriousness.
"Well," Mark replied, "We'd love to chuck them out but we can't without opening a door."
"Any way to the rooftop?" Charlie innocently asked, "A hatch?"
"Holy sh**!" Eddie blurted out, "I completely forgot about it! The ladder!"
The rest of the group saw Eddie run off to a room just to the side of the loading docks. Veronica started looking up towards the ceiling & found what the other two would have spotted only a moment later.
"There," Veronica said, pointing to the hatch in the ceiling, adding, "That's pretty high up, though."
Mark already had a mental picture of the difficulties associated with hauling up even a small dead body through the roof hatchway. Given their predictament, though, the hatch was a blessing compared to opening up a door that a mob of sick people could storm through.
Eddie ran back out of the office with a small set of keys, picking through them as he ran towards the ladder.
"I know that one of these has to be it," he said, his attention absorbed on the keys as he arrived at the ladder. Before anyone could say a word, Eddie was climbing up the ladder towards the hatchway. The metal ladder, by Mark's estimation, had to be at least thirty feet in height. Bolted to the wall, the ladder was unremarkable except for a cautionary yellow-bordered box around the foot of the ladder. Impromptu yellow reflective tape adorned the first six feet of the ladder's side, apparently in an attempt to make sure other people didn't run into it with vehicles or their noses.
Eddie arrived at the top of the ladder & started trying keys out on the standard padlock that kept the hatchway locked. Eddie would not need patience, as he was successful in finding the correct key on only his third attempt. The group heard the padlock opened & then Eddie pushed the hatchway up. It swung open, revealing the first rays of natural light that Eddie, Veronica or Mark had seen without sick people as in either the background or foreground.
"Come on up, guys!" Eddie yelled down to the others, "No one's up here but us!"
The group walked over to the ladder &, one by one, began to ascend it. First Veronica, then Mark & finally Charlie climbed up the ladder & onto the roof. Once they were all on the roof, Eddie began walking towards the edge of the roof above the shipping & receiving doors.
Eddie arrived at the edge of the roof & cautiously looked over it.
"Ants," he muttered with a bit of a grin as he saw the sick stumble around, "Look at them. At least fifty of them down there on that side alone."
Mark & Charlie also walked over to the edge of the roof & looked over.
"Cannibalizing ants," Charlie added, pointing to the staircase where he had killed a few of the sick before he was pulled into the docks. Mark & Eddie saw a swarm of eight sick people devouring the remains of a sick person that Charlie had killed with his baton.
"Then let's give them something to feed on, then," Eddie said, standing up & walking back from the edge, "The sooner we get those bodies off the docks, the better it'll smell."
"How?" Veronica asked, still near the hatchway's entrance.
The group sank into silence with only the groans, moans & howls of the sick down on the ground as they thought of how they could best pull the dead sick up through hatchway.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 17, 2011 9:21:37 GMT -6
PART XXXI
Her grip was slipping.
Her breathing was rapid.
Tears had long started to pour out of her eyes, down past her ears & drip down onto the ceiling tiles below.
Her nose was runny & chock full of mucus that was just begging to be blown out.
Amanda had felt as those she had scrambled beneath the I-beam for centuries & had gone miles. In reality, her exodus had lasted less then fifteen minutes & her progress could be measured in yards.
Slowly, she poked at one of the ceiling tiles near her & moved it aside. She prayed that it was a silent, empty room with plenty to eat & a machine gun at the ready.
What Amanda found was a small & simple windowless office. A desk, a chair, a file cabinet & a wall calendar of exotic scenery that was two months behind were the only features that she saw in the most thorough ten-second scan of the room she could muster.
Best of all, no sick people.
Amanda's legs let go of the I-Beam & she hung from it through the ceiling tiles. Upon having to rely strictly on her limited upper-body strength, she quickly let go of the I-Beam, dropping gently down onto the desk.
'Safe,' she thought with a sigh & a whimper.
Safety away from marauding sick people meant that her emotions were finally allowed to overcome her. Amanda broke down & started crying uncontrollably. Taking a seat at the desk, she covered her head & continued to sob as quietly as she could.
Her face was quickly transformed into a waterfall of tears as hastily found tissues did their best to sop up the water.
Finally calming down, she sat back in the chair, almost wanting to fall asleep. Wanting to wake up & realize that it was all a terrible dream. Wanting to simply be able to walk out of the casino without a care in the world.
Amanda spied a telephone on the desk & picked up the receiver. She dialled 911, praying that someone on the other side would say, "Yes, we're sending a battalion of military troops to your position right now."
"We're sorry," the 911 recording stated, "But all lines are currently in use. Please stay on the line & an emergency responder will be with you shortly."
Amanda hung up the phone & then quickly dialled for the operator.
"We're sorry," a different recording replied, "We are experiencing a high volume of calls. Please hold & the next directory assistant will be with you momentarily."
Amanda hung the phone again & then dialled the telephone number for a local radio station.
"Hey," a male DJ-voice recording replied, "You've dialled into the WZMB rock radio call center. If you know the extension of the person you need to reach, press one. If this is concerning a prize you've won at the station, press two. If you'd like to speak on the air, press three."
Amanda pressed the number three. The phone began to dial & then ring. And ring. And ring. And ring some more.
"Come on," she muttered to herself as quietly as possible. She waited through thirty rings & then hung up the phone.
Amanda sat quietly for a moment to collect her thoughts. She needed to escape the casino. She needed to arm herself with something more then a long-handled flashlight. She needed to get out her uniform which, at this point, was caked with grime, dust, dirt & whatever else was between the ceiling tiles & the I-beam she had just crawled on.
'The locker room,' Amanda answered to herself in thought.
'How am I going to get there?' Her conscious retorted, 'Fly?'
In response, Amanda got up from the desk & walked over to the door of the office.
'Run,' she answered in thought, gripping the flashlight defensively as though to swing the handle down on someone like a small club.
==========================
PART XXXII
Of course she wasn't home.
Mark simply hung up the telephone, his shoulders slumped & a thinly-veiled grim expression formed on his face.
'Of course,' Mark thought, 'Mom is alright. She wasn't sick. She felt fine this morning. Who'd want to attack her? Who'd want to...'
His thoughts were interrupted indirectly by Eddie.
"OK!" He shouted up the ladder to an awaiting Charlie, "You can start hauling it up!"
'It,' Mark thought with a snort, watching as the remains of one corpse was slowly pulled up through the hatchway by means of a rope tied to it.
For some reason, Mark felt compelled to get back to work. He quickly picked up the mop & began vigorously washing a blood stain from the floor as best as he could. Maybe, he thought, if he concentrated all his effort on eradicating the blood stain, he could forget about everything else. He could forget about his missing mother... Being surrounded by vicious sick people... About the very real possibility that society had, at least temporarily, collapsed...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"OK," Charlie said, "On three."
Charlie held the corpse under it's armpits while Veronica held the corpse by it's feet. Near the edge of the wall, Veronica was slightly leery of any movement she made that might conceivably tip her off the side of the edge. Charlie, in a case of diplomacy, agreed to be further back from the edge then he wanted to be. It was a small sacrifice to make, though, for Veronica's full cooperation.
"One," Charlie said, the two of them beginning to swing the corpse back & forth like a swing on a swing set.
"Two...Three!" Charlie exclaimed, releasing the corpse on 'three' over the side of the wall. Veronica, synchronized with Charlie, heaved her part of the corpse over at the same time. The result was a satisfying toss of just under nine horizontal feet, the corpse landing on the ground with a squishy 'thump.'
"We got two more with that one!" Charlie exclaimed with a grin, looking over the side of the wall. The corpse had landed on two other sick people, most likely killing or disabiling them permanently.
Veronica just smiled at Charlie's comments, no where near as thrilled as he was about delivering the collateral damage.
As Veronica's brief glimpse over the side of the wall revealed, there was more then just two sick people lurking outside. There were hundreds.
What were they going to do with all those sick people on the outside?
Worse, thought Veronica, what were they going to do with all the sick people still inside the casino?
They weren't going to be able to stay in the shipping & receiving area of the casino forever. At some point, they would have to decide whether or not they would invoke a plan to eradicate the sick or find a way to flee the casino.
===========================
PART XXXIII
Dawna knew that she shouldn't. However, knowing that she shouldn't but doing it anyway had been the story of Dawna's life.
Dawna shouldn't be smoking a cigarette at the age of eight. She did it anyway.
Dawna shouldn't be getting "felt up" by boys at the age of ten. She did it anyway (And made some good money, too!).
Dawna shouldn't be drinking alcohol at eleven. Did it.
Dawna shouldn't have "gone all the way" at thirteen. She did that seven times before the age of fourteen.
Pole dancing before eighteen? Smoking marijuana? Sleeping her way into getting a dancing job on a television show? Plastic surgery to give her that extra 'oomph' for the photographer? The 'art' films she was in that were only one or two non-nude scenes away from being a straight-out adult film?
Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.
Everyone hated her, Dawna figured, because everyone had always wanted to be her. They wanted to be the prankster that successfully pulled off the prank & got away with it. They wanted to grab a cookie from the cookie jar & never get caught. They wanted the power to eat at any restaurant they chose whenever they chose. Now, they wanted to be on a secluded island off the mainland when everything was going up in flames.
For Dawna, the key was as simple as a sports logo - Just do it. If you want to date that 'special someone' in your life, just do it. Go up to them & ask them out. Point blank. Need a career change? Just do it. Now. Not tomorrow or next week or next month. Put in your resignation today.
The people who excelled at life, at least as Dawna was concerned, didn't fear change. They didn't fear doing things, saying things, being things. It wasn't about responsibility; People who loved what they did always managed to deal with the details. Dawna had no problem sitting in a make-up chair for half-an-hour as some person dabbed make-up on her for her dancing job. The politics that occurred on the set of those 'art' films? They were no biggie.
People who failed in life were always the ones who either took chances they didn't want to take or didn't take chances at all. Dawna could pick these people out of a line-up any day of the week. Dawna was known to be reckless but she had been reckless doing things she WANTED to do, not NEEDED to do. If something didn't feel right, she simply walked away & went elsewhere to get her fix.
The people who took no chances at all (or, at least, no big chances) were the worst kind of people of all. They might as well, according to her, not even have souls. What good were they? What did they do in life that couldn't be replaced by robots or computers or something? They led worthless little lives filled with worthless little jobs making worthless little excuses about why they didn't have this-or-that in their lives.
Maybe this, she thought, was why she enjoyed being around 'Kev' so much. He did what he wanted to do. Despite the occasional death threat from the occasional client, he enjoyed what he did. Was he afraid of the law? No. Was he afraid of the occasional death threat? He respected them but always knew that they would blow over once the investments always turned around.
She felt bad for the people on the mainland, who were suffering because of the flu or disease or whatever the media was calling it now. However, she had EARNED the right to be on a nice island away from the violence. She had EARNED her right by being a better person then others.
So, in a way, she didn't feel bad at all. HER hard work, HER outgoing personality, HER ability to stare fear in the face & laugh... All of these things had gotten her to where she was today - Safe on an island. Why did SHE have to feel horrible about others? What did she do to them for them to deserve such a fate? Nothing.
Dawna flipped through the channels of the television set. One station featured a reporter 'embedded' with a group of vigilantes who were hunting down the sick. Another had a debate over what to do with the sick. There was a priest who said that killing the sick was immoral. There was a station that featured old animated cartoons from the 1950s.
As she flipped through the channels, she sneezed. She blew her nose with a nearby tissue & tossed the tissue in the trash.
She thought nothing of the headache she had, attributing it to stress from seeing all the disturbing images on the television.
===========================
PART XXXIV
No one was around. There wasn't even a sound except for her own rapid breathing & the hum coming from the flourescent lights on the ceiling.
The hallway was empty.
Now was Amanda's chance to make a run for it. She knew that it would be a long run. A run in which she could guarantee that she'd have an encounter with a sick person. A sick person she'd have to kill or, at the very least, injure to the point of escaping.
The first ten yards were perfectly silent. She peered down one intersection of hallways only to find emptiness & silence.
As she continued to travel, though, she heard 'it.' A heavy footstep, followed by a short scraping noise. The sequence was repeated a few times before a hissing gurgle became attached to it.
Amanda looked behind her to see what her ears had already heard. A lone sick woman was approaching from far behind Amanda. Dressed in the tattered remains of business attire, the sick woman walked on her good right foot (still sheathed in a fashionable but business conservative black high heel) while her footless left leg scrapped behind her, leaving a bloody reminder of where she had been.
Once Amanda saw the sickly woman slowly pursue her, Amanda knew it was time to run. Run fast. Run hard. Don't stop running until she got to the locker room.
Trying not to mentally paint her destination, the locker room, as a panacea to cure all of her ills, Amanda knew that it would still be the best place to go, regardless. She'd have the chance to change into real clothes & not the skimpy waitress outfit she currently had on. She'd have the keys to her car again. She'd be near all sorts of areas that might offer her some hope for safety & even escape.
Click clack click clack click clack click clack.
Amanda ran down the hallway at full speed, as fast as she could. Running past one hallway, she could practically feel the breath of someone (probably sick) as she ran by. Seeing another sick person coming out from an open doorway, she swung at the sick person as she ran by. She grazed only the sick person's arm but it was enough for her to keep running.
She slowed down to turn a corner & was finally confronted by another sick person blocking her path. An obese but young man whose left forearm dangled from the rest of his arm by only an exposed tendon, reached out with his "better" right arm.
Raising up the handle of her flashlight, she smacked the handle right on the forehead of the man. The blow, by no means lethal, stunned the man enough to cause him to stumble backwards a few steps. With Amanda's path now cleared, she quickly seized the opportunity to continue onward.
Click clack click clack click clack click clack.
Running down the hallway, Amanda suddenly stopped. She was tired of running in her uniform waitress shoes. The shoes weren't designed for running, just to complement the rest of the uniform. Amanda flicked them off without so much of an afterthought & continued running, leaving the shoes where they rested.
The absence of her shoes, though, did not equal the absence of her encounters with sick people. A security guard with more chunks of flesh missing from his face then were still currently attached to it lunged at her, knocking her into the wall. Fortunately for her, though, the security guard fell to the ground as a result of lunging at her. Amanda quickly recovered & continued her dogged pursuit to get to the locker room.
A few yards later, Amanda discovered that she was beginning to lose adrenaline. All of the apprehension she had about getting to the locker room was beginning to catch up to her. Weaker & weaker, she felt both her running as well as her arm strength plummet.
Turning the final corner, she pushed past two sick women who's only fault in securing Amanda as their next victim was being too preoccupied with eating the flesh from their present one. There, up ahead, was the locker room. A quick glance back revealed that the two women, seeing Amanda quickly elude them, went back to munching on their earlier prey.
Amanda pushed open the door to the locker room, only for her to stand in shocked silence immediately after it at the sight before her.
Four sick waitresses were feasting on the remains of another waitress. Amanda could instantly tell that a bench, haphazardly thrown aside near the doorway, probably served as a last-ditch & failed effort to block the door from the marauding sick people.
Before Amanda could turn around & leave unnoticed, the flock of feeding sick waitresses turned to spot Amanda.
=========================
PART XXXV
"So," Veronica asked, everyone standing around a full pallet of merchandise still in their cardboard shipping boxes, "What do we do now?"
The legendary Knights of the Round Table had their historic round table. Mark, Eddie, Veronica & Charlie had to settle for a large, rectangular block consisting of varying sizes of cardboard boxes wrapped in cellophane. The discussions, though, would be no less important.
"Kill them," Charlie blurted out, "Before they kill us. It's just a matter of time before they starve us out of here. A door could be broken down, the power could go out, sprinklers could go off..."
"It's all well & good to try & 'bell the cat,'" Mark replied, "But just how are we going to do so without risking our own necks? How can we even the odds with all of them out there?"
"We could always try & re-take the casino hallway by hallway," Eddie suggested, continuing, "We've got the world's largest keyring. If we could just, I dunno, lock them into an area..."
"Divide & conquer," Charlie stated, pointing at Eddie & smiling, "Yeah, we could do that. One hallway at a time. One-on-one, these guys are nothing. They need to gang up on you, sneak up on you, things like that."
Charlie looked around at the others for a moment before adding, "So, who's with me?"
"I'll tag along," Mark said, surprising even himself.
"How many of these things have you killed so far?" Charlie asked.
"A few," Mark replied, realizing what he had said only a moment earlier.
"Yeah," Charlie slowly said, nodding, "So you know what it's like. Good...good."
"OK, um, look," Charlie stated, "I don't want to sound like I'm taking over or anything, alright? I know that everyone's got their own opinion & that's all cool with me. So, however you guys want to help out or if you don't want to help out, that's OK. OK?"
"Well," Veronica replied, her attempt at a diplomatic tone being far from diplomatic, "It would be helpful to see what we have hear in shipping & receiving to live off on. After all, what we have or don't have might influence us as to what area of the casino we might want to try & conquer next."
"Yeah," Charlie replied enthusiastically, "That's smart. That's good. I like that. Yeah."
Charlie looked at Mark & then back at the others before saying, "Yeah, you & Eddie can just do an inventory. We can split up into pairs so if something happens to one of us, the other can go back to the other group for help."
"Sounds like a plan," Eddie replied with almost too much cheerfulness. Veronica quickly glanced over at Eddie. She noticed that he had quickly surpressed a smirk, an expression everyone else hadn't noticed.
"Why don't you guys go out the door that Veronica arrived in?" Eddie suggested, "I'll take the key for that door so that I can re-lock it. It's the closest door to the ceiling hatch so that any bodies you guys drag back, we can dump off the roof without messing up the rest of the area."
"OK," Charlie said, "Good deal. It's time to take back the casino, one hallway at a time."
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 17, 2011 9:23:47 GMT -6
PART XXXVI
"S**t."
The obscenity was so automatic that Amanda didn't even realize that she had blurted it out. Her attention, deservedly, was on the four sick waitresses who she had just interrupted their feasting on another waitress.
Just as her obscenity was reactionary, her response towards seeing the locker room as a make-shift refuge from the chaos was automatic.
She ran out of the room as fast as she could.
'So,' her conscience asked, 'What's Plan B?'
"Shut up," she muttered to herself as she ran down the hallway. The hallway was hardly vacant; She ran past an old woman missing a left arm & an obese patron who made a half-hearted grab at her with a hand that had only two fingers.
Amanda thought furiously about what other alternatives she had left.
The shuttle bay where the shuttle buses picked up & dropped off employees? Too dangerous & too far away.
Administration area? Might be locked & there's no food unless a snack machine counted as 'food.'
Shipping & Receiving? She hardly even knew how to get there & with those huge bay doors, the area might already be flooded with sick people.
'Elevator,' she immediately thought, spotting an elevator up ahead.
What Amanda hadn't spotted, though, was a female patron missing a left eye, part of her jaw & most of her nose.
Amanda felt her right shoulder being grabbed from behind. The yank on her shoulder was hard, the grip on her outfit was tight. Amanda yelped in shock & fear as her shoeless feet, unable to grip the smooth floor below, caused her to slip & fall towards the ground.
The sick female patron, oblivious towards her physical condition, was also blatantly oblivious about the laws of physics. Not compensating for holding onto a heavy weight falling to the ground, the sick patron center of gravity tipped over, also causing the sick patron to tumble to the floor clumsily.
Amanda was beside herself & screamed in reaction as her first instinct was to use her leg to kick the patron off of her. The patron's grip was vice-like, though, despite getting her body flipped onto it's back & smacking her head against the floor. Gurgling & hissing, the patron tried to right the rest of it's body by using it's free arm to also grab ahold of Amanda.
Amanda's sudden realization that she was still gripping the long-handled flashlight could not have come soon enough; She used it as a club against the knuckles of the hand that was still grabbing her. The handle landed with a satsifying loud "thunk," blood coming out of at least one of the knuckles that was hit.
Her struggle against the patron had not gone unnoticed; Two of the sick waitresses were walking towards the struggle as well as a few other of the sick from the other end of the hallway. Amanda estimated that she had less then twenty seconds before she would be swarmed. Swarmed, as she had come to learn, was synonymous with death.
Amanda felt the patron's other hand grab onto the front of Amanda's outfit. The patron was setting up to bite Amanda, opening what remained of her mouth as wide as it could & making a soft "Ahhh" sound.
As hard as she could, Amanda swung the flashlight down onto the patron's head. As she swung, though, she suddenly realized that her entire outfit was coming loose. Being zipped up from the back, the zipper had come loose during the struggle & the outfit had already partially unzipped itself.
Amanda begin to wiggle furiously out of her outfit as she continued to smack the patron's head with the flashlight. The patron, too distracted by the blows it was taking from amanda's flashlight, stubbornly clung to the outfit as Amanda finally freed herself from it.
Standing back up, Amanda had little time to celebrate her escape; The two waitresses were just yards away from one end of the hallway & no less then five sick people were coming down the other end.
With nothing more then her bra, panties & the flashlight, Amanda ran towards the elevator with reckless abandon. If some sick patron was hiding in there, it would be the end of her. It was a chance that she would just have to take.
Amanda ran to the elevator & pushed the button for the doors to open. Fortunately, they opened immediately & Amanda ran inside & pushed the button for the top floor.
Nothing.
The two sick waitresses were only yards away from the elevator. The sick patron that Amanda had been struggling in had since stood back up, her grip still solidly on a now-vacant waitress' outfit.
The doors still had not closed.
Amanda furiously pressed the "Close Doors" button inside the elevator as she could now hear the hissing & gurgling sounds that the sick waitresses made as they advanced on the open elevator doors.
Five feet...Four feet...
The elevator 'dinged,' signalling that the doors were beginning to close. The doors closed without incident, two feet separating the outstretched arms of the sick waitresses & the doors of the elevator.
As soon as the elevator began to move, though, Amanda immediately lunged down to the elevator buttons to spot the red emergency stop button. Pushing it in hard, the elevator lurched to a stop & began emitting a ringing siren.
No one could call the elevator to a floor. Odds were, the sick wouldn't have the intellect to pry open closed elevator doors.
Amanda, for the moment, was safe.
Sitting down on the floor of the elevator, she broke down & began to sob uncontrollably. For all she knew, no cavalry would come to rescue her. There was a very real chance that she would be killed or die in this elevator unless she made the next move - The correct next move.
========================
PART XXXVII
"Ready."
Mark uttered, his voice dry as it slightly crackled. He had armed himself with a solid metal rod that hooked slightly at it's end. Roughly two feet long, Mark had absolutely no idea what it could possibly be used for or why it was just lying around in the shipping & receiving area.
"OK," Charlie explained, "You be the key guy. We find a door, we clear the area, you lock the door. If opportunity knocks, defend yourself. I'll do the killing. OK?"
"Got it," Mark agreed.
"So," Eddie asked, interrupting them, "Are you guys ready to be conquerors?"
Charlie looked at Eddie & nodded, saying, "No time like the present."
All four of them walked over to the door that Veronica had entered the shipping & receiving area through. Mark hastily stripped the key for that door off of the keyring & handed it to Veronica. Eddie saw Mark hand the key over to Veronica.
"Yeah," Eddie said, "I was going to ask about that. We'll need to lock the door behind you for...Um, obvious reasons."
"Do we need to set up some sort of knocking signal to get back in?" Mark asked, partially rhetorically to the others.
Eddie shrugged in response, remarking, "I think if you just bang on the door really loud & scream your heads off, we'll know it's not the sick."
Charlie laughed at the reply, adding, "Hopefully, not in desperation like when I was back outside."
The group laughed for a moment longer before the humor dropped off sharply & the sobriety set in.
"You guys ready? For real?" Eddie asked, clearly serious. Both Mark & Charlie nodded.
Eddie nodded to Veronica, who gripped the key as though to unlock the door. Veronica, seeing Eddie nod, put the key into the lock & turned it to unlock the door. They all heard a click as the door unlocked.
"Good luck, guys," Eddie said, "Keep safe."
Veronica quickly opened up the door, Charlie & Mark poised to run through it.
The short hallway leading out from the shipping & receiving area was silent & empty. Charlie & Mark walked through the doorway. Five feet past the door, they looked back to see Eddie close the door behind them, hearing the familiar sound of it locking.
"Didn't think you'd have to do this today, did you?" Charlie said, his tone overly humorous.
"Beats watching television, I guess," was the only reply that Mark could think of.
Charlie smiled as the two cautiously walked towards the intersection of the two hallways. Charlie, spying around the corner, saw a sick person feeding on some hapless individual lying on the ground.
"Showtime," Charlie muttered to himself, just audible enough for Mark to hear it.
=======================
PART XXXVIII
"They're crazy."
Eddie shook his head as he quickly took the cellophane wrapping off of a pallet that was stacked with cardboard boxes. Veronica watched him as he skillfully balled up the wrapping & threw it into the nearest wastebasket.
"So," Veronica asked, "What do we actually have here?"
Eddie paused for a moment, his back turned to Veronica.
"We don't have anything," Eddie stated, not turning around to face Veronica, "Not anything useful, at any rate."
"So," Veronica asked, "What do we do?"
Eddie turned around, walking over to a flatbed cart & rolling it over to the pallet.
"I don't know," Eddie sighed, "Look, Veronica, all we have is what we haven't shipped out to other departments. We're not a warehouse, we're not a kitchen, we're not an armory...We're not anything! We send it out & receive it. That's all we do."
"Well there's got to be something that we can do within the confines of this place that'll make our lives better here," Veronica stressed, "For all we know, this room might be our home for days...Weeks!"
Eddie thought for a moment, then looked up at the hatchway in the ceiling.
"You know... It's stupid enough that it just might work," he said to himself, loud enough for Veronica to hear him.
"What?" Veronica asked.
Eddie looked over at Veronica, saying, "Why go after them when they'll already come to us?"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mark took out a large marker & wrote the number 'three' on the door that they had just locked.
"That is so cool," Charlie commented, "I would've never thought of that."
"Well," Mark replied, "There's got to be some way to keep track of which key goes to which door. So, you just label the key & the door with the same symbol. In this case, numbers."
"Yeah," Charlie said, "Too bad we're running light on sick people, though. This is getting kind of dull, you know?"
"Be careful of what you wish for..." Mark warned with a humorous tone. Charlie nodded in agreement.
"Hey," Charlie suggested, "I think after these next two rooms, this area's secure. We can go back & see how the others are doing."
"I'm sure they'll love to be in something other then the shipping & receiving area," Mark commented as the two of them walked to one of the aforementioned rooms.
Mark dug out the keyring & began to try various keys on the door's lock. Charlie stood ready to brain anyone or anything that came out through the door that looked even remotely ill.
So far, their crusade towards liberating the casino had been less then eventful. More stressful through suspense then through actual events, Mark withheld that he badly needed a rest break despite the lack of action. He could feel his head throbbing & his pulse racing, even though Charlie had been more the capable of handling the few sick people they had encountered thus far.
Mark unlocked the door, looking up at Charlie to signal him that it was open. Charlie nodded & motioned Mark to get back.
"Alright," Charlie shouted, "If you're healthy, now's the time to say something! If you don't, we're going to kill you! Do you hear me? We're coming in to get you!"
Charlie quickly opened the door, letting the door slam open as he poised his weapon to be swung.
Nothing - It was an empty room. Both Charlie & Mark slumped their shoulders, partially in relief & partially in disappointment.
"On to the next one, then," Charlie plainly said, walking away as Mark quickly closed the door. He wrote a number on the door as well as the same number on the key.
One more room & their first small section of the casino would be cleared with minimal confrontation.
Mark knew, though, that such progress would not be in such plentiful supply elsewhere. Feasting on easy game now, he thought, meant that the more difficult catches would be that much harder to obtain.
==========================
PART XXXIX
She could hear them.
With the elevator stopped between floors, Amanda could hear the sick pound on the elevator door on the floor she had just been on.
The pounding was futile; Even if they were able to break the doors down, which they wouldn't, they still wouldn't have the intellect to pry the actual elevator car doors open. Even then, the elevator car had to have been at least six feet above the floor when she stopped it.
Amanda thought about trying her luck with one of the other floors. After all, the elevator car had been stopped for so long that the sick on other floors had to become disinterested in the elevator. Did they even know how to operate an elevator in their state? She had seen that they had lost the knowledge of opening doors that required handles, knobs & other types of latches.
Her crying having subsided a few minutes earlier, Amanda stood up & looked at the elevator ceiling. She knew that there was an escape hatch in the ceiling of the elevator car. It was there in case of a fire or a prolonged malfunction.
Amanda, without shoes, gingerly hopped up on the waist-high metal railing the elevator car had & leaned against the wall. Without looking up, she poked the ceiling tile out & let it harmlessly fall to the floor of the elevator car. Behind the ceiling tile was the industrial dark grey shell of the elevator car, a hatch protruding from it. A big red handle on the hatch did everything but scream "Push Me!" No further understanding of how to open the hatch was needed & Amanda performed the operation in one smooth, professional-looking motion.
With the hatch open, Amanda slowly took the flashlight & placed it on top of the elevator roof. She stood it up on the lens so that it would have little chance to fall over unless purposefully pushed.
Amanda cautiously gripped the opening with one arm to steady herself, then gripped it with both arms. Amanda's head already poked out of the opening as a result of standing on the railing & an even taller person would've had their shoulders exposed if they had been in the same position.
Bending her legs down as though she were about to attempt the highest vertical leap she could, Amanda pushed off the railing while using her arms to push herself against the lip of the opening. The combined thrust helped her to get her torso completely out of the elevator. The sudden beneficial shift in her center of gravity was enough to allow her to wiggle her legs out as well.
Grabbing the flashlight again, she turned it on & slowly stood up. The inside of the elevator shaft was dark, dirty & full of industrial metal never intended to be seen by anyone other then elevator maintenance workers. Inset into one of the walls of the shaft was a simple metal ladder that went both straight up & straight down. The direction downward was obviously blocked by the elevator itself.
With no other option, Amanda began climbing the ladder. She felt the cold, cylindrical bars press against her bare feet as she climbed one rung at a time. Dust & grit fell on her as she climbed, adding to her already incalculable misery.
The flashlight soon signalled the end of the climb, ending in another hatch. The hatch was virtually identical to the one in the elevator car except that this one was slightly larger. No doubt, this was also a safety feature as well in case people got trapped in the elevator with absolutely no readily available means of professional assistance to rescue them.
Amanda pushed the hatch open & was relieved when she saw daylight pour through the opening. She unconsciously smiled as she climbed through the opening, painfully aware of her next obstacle : The roof.
The roof, covered in small stubbly stones to prevent a build-up of heat, was an obstacle her feet simply would not be able to endure.
Amanda sighed to herself as she ever so gingerly stood on the roof. She was not near an edge to see outward or down in any meaningful direction. The casino, with it's many levels, had a multi-level roof that required a network of ladders to traverse amongst the various levels.
Standing still & being gingerly about pressing her weight down, Amanda thought as to what her next move was going to be.
=========================
PART XL
"Pretty cool," Veronica said, slowly walking through the hallway. She had to remind herself not to be paranoid as Mark & Charlie stressed that the section was completely closed off to the sick.
"Yeah," Eddie agreed, "If we can just continue connecting hallways like this..."
Eddie's voice trailed off as he looked around the hallways a bit more. Tensing his upper lip, he looked over at Mark & Charlie for a long moment.
"I've got a plan," Eddie stated plainly & suddenly, gaining both Mark & Charlie's attention, "I've got a plan to gain back the whole freakin' casino."
"What is it?" Charlie asked.
Eddie paused for a moment, then said, "These sick people, they just naturally gravitate towards us, right? I mean, they want to harm us. Kill us. That sort of thing."
"So far," Mark replied.
"If we go hallway to hallway, though, we're the ones chasing them. We're the ones moving into their territory - Their turf. Now, you guys told us yourself that there were only a few sick people here so that this hallway was easy to clear. The next hallways, though, are going to be tougher. Then, of course, are the wide-open patron areas - The casino floor, the restaurants the walkways. Those areas are going to be suicidal to clear if we go into them," Eddie reasoned.
"What are you suggesting?" Charlie asked.
"We let them come to us," Eddie proposed, "I mean, do you guys really want to continue to break into rooms or turn corners to suddenly find yourselves in trouble? It's going to happen. Sooner or later, it's going to happen. It didn't with this hallway but what about all the others?"
"That's easy to say," Charlie replied, "But how are we going to do it? There's a ton of sick people in here. They're not all going to come after us. Even if we do have an area where they come to us, they'll have to come from so far away as to make it impractical after awhile. We're bound to have to go after them at some point."
"Look," Eddie said, "We lead them down a hallway, one at a time. Someone clubs them over the head. Kills them. We dispose of the body. We let the next one in."
"It won't solve the issue of how we lock up the casino so that we can drain it of these people," Mark replied.
"It's a start," Veronica chimed in, adding, "Hey, we're at the bottom already, OK? If you guys want to be brave, go ahead but there's only four of us. What happens if it goes down to three? Or two? What happens if no one bothers to show up to rescue us for days?"
All four paused for a moment to contemplate their situation. Only now, hours after the rout of the casino, was the depths of their dire situation beginning to sink in.
They had all survived a rout that so many others had not. A rout that was most likely not confined to a casino. All that kept them alive at the moment was a few fire doors & the temporary disinterest of the sick. They knew that such disinterest would not last.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 18, 2011 4:08:25 GMT -6
PART XLI
If she walked slowly, stepped slowly & didn't think about it, the small stubbly stones really didn't hurt that much when she walked on them with her bare feet.
Yeah. Right.
Amanda had walked about forty yards on the rooftop of the casino despite the intense protest from her feet. Each step caused some sensation of sharp but instantaneously diminishing pain. It was as though somewhere random on her foot, someone was jabbing her with a needle upon every step.
She hissed in pain. She grunted in pain. She even let out a small yelp a few times.
Desperate for any salvation from her torturous walk, she looked for anything that would help her get off of the roof. She looked for an open hatchway. She looked for a rooftop doorway. She even looked for a ladder to another rooftop level - Standing on the rungs couldn't possibly be any worse then the current surface.
What Amanda spied, though, curiously didn't connect with her plans at first. Ahead of her was where the hotel tower architecturally merged with the original casino building. The hotel, twelve floors of fairly luxurious rooms topped with a high-rollers casino at the top, was an extension & had rooms on all four sides of the tower.
The first floor of where the tower met the casino, though, did not have rooms on the side that merged with the casino roof. Clearly, who would want a window view of...Well, ever-expanding casino roof? Unfortunately, the architects & designers did not see it that way until it was far too late. Thus, the first floor on that side were hastily converted into office space.
Amanda looked at her flashlight, looked at her feet & then looked at the hotel tower up ahead.
It was a crazy idea but she had to try.
The windows, she thought, couldn't possibly be that hard to break.
The glass couldn't possibly be that sharp if she accidentally came into contact with it.
Slowly, gingerly, carefully, Amanda began to walk towards the hotel tower. If her plan didn't work, though, Amanda would be stranded on a rooftop with few other options.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"This is a nice, narrow hallway."
Charlie tried to stretch his arms out to the side & could hardly get them halfway up. He smiled at the revelation that the hallway, indeed, was narrow.
"There's a door with a glass window at the end," Mark commented, "So that a sick person could see if someone was in there."
Charlie nodded & smirked at the same time as he looked up at the ceiling. It was the same standard ceiling tile as everywhere else. Reaching up, he poked one of the ceiling tiles loose. Moving his head around to get a better look at the space above the ceiling tile, he smiled broadly.
"Think there's enough room up there for someone?" Charlie asked, almost rhetorically.
"There's enough room up there for you," Veronica stressed, adding, "Don't think for a minute I'm going to be the one doing the clubbing."
"The biggest concern," Eddie chimed in, "Is crowd control. Just how are we going to limit this to one sick person at a time? These are just standard doors, you know? Once you open them...They stay open."
They pondered this for a moment. Without the ability to regulate how many sick people could walk into the hallway & how often, their plan would be worthless. They would be quickly overwhelmed &, soon after, quickly killed.
=======================
PART XLII
Amanda didn't even want to look at the bottoms of her feet. Nevertheless, she was beginning to see spots of red on where she had stepped previously.
She was closing in on the windows & was pleasantly surprised by what was emerging as she was getting closer to them. The windows looked different.
Normal hotel room windows were sealed shut for safety reasons. They were sealed shut so that a desolate gambler wouldn't throw themselves out of a window & splat against the ground below. Only the very top floors had balconies & windows that opened. They had these features because the only people who could afford those rooms could also afford to lose a bunch of money without feeling like they just ruined their lives.
The office windows, though, looked as though they opened. She was still too far away from the windows to definitively tell if they could be opened or not but they did look different.
Just as she took another painful step on the rooftop, she heard something overhead.
The sound had come from a jet fighter flying high above.
Amanda's facial expression never changed for a moment. She knew that the jet fighter wasn't going to save her. No one was going to save her. If Amanda was going to be saved from this situation, Amanda herself was going to have to do it.
Amanda turned back to the task at hand. She took another painful step towards the window. Had she had shoes on, she may as well had been inside the tower by now.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Think it'll work?"
Mark looked over at Charlie, Veronica & Eddie. He looked back down at his hastily-built scale model made of nothing but two pieces of cardboard & some imagination.
The concept was simple - Bolt two doors together perpendicular to each other to form a letter "L." The axis would be the same as that of a normal door - At the hinges. The sick would push the door open, thereby pushing the second door into place, blocking the doorway. With pins, the "L" could be jammed into either position, regulating the flow of the sick people.
"Let's find out," Charlie said.
Turning to Eddie, Charlie asked, "Got any power tools?"
If the device succeeded, then their plan would be set into motion. They would have an area where they could safely confront, kill & dispose of the violent sick people. If they were even fast enough, they could eradicate more sick people then those who were entering casino.
It was a slim hope on their part but hope nonetheless. At this point, hope was all they had going for them.
========================
PART XLIII
'Finally,' Amanda thought to herself.
Her feet were absolutely killing her but now she was at the office windows.
The office windows had a screen over them to keep the bugs out. Amanda nonchalantly took her flashlight to it &, in a couple of very determined smacks, managed to pry the screen off. As the screen toppled to the ground, Amanda looked at it & had a thought that could only have been inspired by her current predictament.
Taking the screen, she set it flat just underneath the window from where she was standing. Then, she stood on the webbing of the screen.
It wasn't pure bliss but it at least got her feet off of the sharp, stubbly rocks that made up the entire roof of the casino.
The windows of the offices were much like standard home windows - Divided in half horizontally, with the bottom portion the most likely of the two halves of being lifted open. Why the windows were like that Amanda had no idea. Perhaps it was just cheaper to install run-of-the-mill windows into rooms that would be used only by employees.
Amanda had no desire to be crafty about opening the window. Her flashlight & a hefty swing was the only option she cared to use because it was the first one available to her.
Smack! The window soon spider-webbed with a few cracks careening to the edges of the window.
Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!
Amanda finally broke through the window, each successive swing of the flashlight making the hole in the window a little larger. She fought back her intense desire to crawl through the window now that the opening was minimally large enough. Instead, she made certain to knock out every single shard of glass & even pushed most of the shards of glass immediately on the opposite side of the window away.
Carefully, she set the flashlight just inside the window. The bottom of the window being at her waist, she lean over to begin the process of crawling through. Even in tragedy, Amanda couldn't help but smirk over the fact that her feat was nothing more then a real-world recreation of a well-known child's game. In that game, children used a pair of tweezers to remove objects from an imaginary patient without hitting the sides of the opening that they were trying to remove the object from. In Amanda's case, she was removing herself from the roof, trying not to hit the sides of the now smashed window.
With the quickest of hops, Amanda pushed herself enough through the windows so that she could simply wiggle the rest of herself in. Residing on a somewhat cluttered desk, Amanda rolled off of it & inspected herself for any scratches she might have received from stray glass fragments. Her happiness was quite genuine as she saw no red lines, indicating scratches & felt nothing sharp or painful except that her feet still smarted from walking all that distance barefoot across the roof.
'Safe,' Amanda thought to herself with a sigh that was long & audible, adding, '...for now.'
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It was, by no means, a perfect job but Charlie had neither time or patience to care.
The "L" door was finished.
'Finally,' Charlie thought to himself as the holes of the door's "axis" were drilled.
"Let's get this thing to the doorway," Eddie said, with Charlie nodding.
Hacked together with bolts, screws, nails & a pipe, the door was as every bit a 'Frankenstein's Monster' creation as the phrase suggested. No one, from Mark to Charlie to Eddie knew if the door would even hold up to constant use. They didn't have time to find out.
Mark had already gotten above the door frame through the ceiling. The holes in the door frame were already drilled to allow the pipe to go through both the top & bottom of the frame with the door inbetween.
As they put the door in place, though, one team member was not present...
========================
PART XLIV
"Grrrr! Grrrrr!"
Mark couldn't help but smirk as Eddie, playing the role of an infected person, pushed at the special "L"-shaped door that their group had installed in the doorway.
Eddie pushed on the part of the door that stuck out into the hallway. He slammed it as hard as he could as though closing a normal door. Mark, from above the doorframe, pushed a small bar between the doorframe & the "L"-shaped door to ensure that the door did not completely close.
"Eddie," Charlie laughed, "You are the dumbest sick person I've ever seen!"
Eddie, continuing to pretend on being infected, then pried the door open effortlessly by gripping the small crack that resulted from the door not completely closing. Pushing as hard as he could on the correct part of the door, he stumbled through the doorway & continued to stumble towards Charlie.
Charlie applauded as Eddie, still acting like the infected, walked right up to Charlie before reverting back to his normal personality.
"God," Eddie deadpanned, "You are trusting."
Turning around to Mark, Eddie gave a thumbs up signal with his hand.
"I think we are good to go," Eddie remarked, Mark returning the gesture.
"Want to pretend on getting brained with a pipe?" Charlie asked Eddie with a smile.
"I trust your skills," Eddie replied, "I wanted to make sure the door held, that's all."
"Hey," Mark chimed in, "You guys want a turn at this or are we all set to go live?"
"I'm ready," Charlie immediately stated, looking at both Eddie & Mark, "You guys ready to even the score?"
"No time like the present," Eddie said with a sober tone, "I'll go & tell Veronica we're ready."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amanda couldn't believe it; The bottoms of her feet really didn't look as bad as they felt.
With no bathroom available in the immediate area, Amanda had been inventive to relieve her feet from any additional suffering. That meant capriciously emptying out a desk drawer, pouring water into it from a nearby water cooler & letting her feet soak in that.
For a moment, Amanda just let the relief on her feet soak into her & sweep her away. No infected people to deal with; No noise; No smells; No sights of carnage. For a moment, Amanda had to fight the urge to fall asleep.
The office area she was currently holed up in resembled a shallow "U"-shape. At each end of the "U" was a door out to the hallway. What the "U" bent around were two bathrooms that could only be accessed by going out into the hallway. Amanda had no intention of going anywhere until her feet felt better. Already, she was eying a box of tissues & a roll of tape in a later effort to construct a pair of makeshift shoes.
As Amanda began to think about what her next move was going to be, she heard something. She heard footsteps walking down the hallway.
========================
PART XLV
Veronica felt trapped - Not physically trapped but it may just as well have been.
Eddie found her as she was still on the phone, trying to get through to anyone... To the police, to the military, to anyone & anywhere.
Instead of a live person, she had encountered answering machines, automated messages & endless rings.
Instead of them trying to find a means of escape, she was bound to three men with the irrational plan of wiping out sick people - HUMAN BEINGS - piecemeal. No, 'wiping out' was too sanitized a phrase. These people wanted to MURDER OTHER HUMANS. MURDER!
OK, she had no problem with self-defense. If someone kicked you, you had the right to kick them back. That was self-defense. When she had helped out Mark by braining that sick woman, she was defending Mark. that was self-defense because Mark wasn't able to defend himself. That was OK.
What the three men wanted to do was something other then self-defense. They were going to goad infected people down a hallway & kill them. That wasn't self-defense; That was murder.
Veronica, though, was smart enough not to say anything for now. She was outnumbered three to one. She was the only woman in the group & Charlie had demonstrated absolutely no reserve for killing people. As far as she was concerned, her neck was just as snappable as an infected person's.
As Veronica placed the receiver back onto the phone so that Eddie could tell her that it was time to start the process, she wondered to herself how she was going to get out of this situation. She wondered how she could vacate a building full of infected people &, more importantly, how to vacate an area filled with three increasingly homicidal people.
Veronica swore to herself that she was not going to go to jail over this.
"Look," Eddie instructed, "All you've got to do is stand at this doorway & look through the glass. When you see the sick person, encourage them to walk down the hallway. That's all you have to do."
"The door is going to be locked?" Veronica asked.
"The door is going to be locked on your side," Eddie assured her, "I'm going to run through the door to lure the sick person down the hallway & you just stand at the door. We'll work on everything else later."
Veronica nodded & made a quick smile. Eddie nodded in return & walked through the door, giving a thumbs-up sign to Charlie. Charlie, hiding above the ceiling, was laying down on his stomach, ready to give a skull-crushing blow to whomever was unlucky enough to walk underneath.
All Veronica could think as she waited nervously for their first victim was that she was not going to go to jail over this.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They were footsteps; Amanda could tell.
Quickly grabbing a wad of tissues, Amanda dried off the swollen bottoms of her feet. Taking new dry tissues, she placed them on the bottoms of her feet & grabbed a tape dispenser. Ripping a portion of the thin cardboard off of the cardboard tissue box, she placed the cardboard piece on the top of her foot & began to tape the entire contraption up.
The result was 'The World's Worst Shoe' but it was far better then walking around barefoot. Amanda quickly made another 'shoe' for her other foot.
Grabbing her flashlight, she began to walk towards one of the two doors in the "U"-shaped office area. It wasn't until she was actually at one of the doors that she realized that the 'shoes' had done their job - She had felt virtually no pain while walking.
The footsteps were growing louder but there was a curious characteristic about them. The footsteps were regularly paced, much like a normal person's footsteps. Those who were infected had stilted walks, stumbling walks, "asymmetrical" gaits either because of injury or because they were so severely infected that they had lost the ability for fluid, efficient mobility.
Amanda bit her lower lip in indecision. Should she peek out to see who this individual was or stay hidden? If the person was healthy, why weren't they calling out or saying something?
Amanda backed away from the door to give herself more time to think. Just moments later, she heard the doorknob shake violently. Unwittingly, Amanda let out a small shriek in startled response.
The decision had been made for her.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 18, 2011 4:11:02 GMT -6
PART XLVI
"Who's in there?" Amanda heard a voice on the other side of the door demand, "Are you sick? Are you bitten?"
Amanda paused for a moment, not sure whether or not to respond. Finally, she replied, "No."
There was another awkward pause before Amanda heard the voice say, "Are you going to open the door?"
Amanda moved towards the door & unlocked it, quickly stepping back. She saw the door open only a second or two afterwards.
"Oh!" She heard the man say, quickly backing up out the room upon seeing Amanda, "You should of told me...! Look, I'll just stay out here until you're decent."
Amanda didn't even realize what the man meant until she looked down & realized that she was still in only her bra, panties & the make-shift shoes that she wore.
"Um," Amanda replied, "It's all I have, really. Do you have a coat or something I can borrow? Anything?"
"I'll get you a towel," the man replied, "I'll be right back. You should be safe here, I haven't seen any crazies on this floor."
Amanda heard the man walk away & open a door a fair distance away. It only took a moment or two for the man to jog back.
Knocking on the door, the man said, "Incoming!" Two white shower-length towels were thrown into the room as the door was shut as quickly as it had been opened.
Amanda took one of the towels & wrapped it around her waist, creating a make-shift skirt for her equally make-shift shoes. For a split moment, her wardrobe was no different then that of a Hawai'ian hula dancer & the irony wasn't lost on her.
As soon as she had her 'skirt' on, Amanda opened the door.
"Um," she started to say, taking a good look at the man for the very first time since they met, "Thanks."
"Yeah," the man replied plainly, trying hard to look only at Amanda's face but failing for a moment.
"I'm Lenny," the man said.
"Amanda," Amanda replied.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Hey!" Eddie shouted down the hallway, past their special "L"-shaped door. Eddie was holding an empty, thick plastic bucket & banging on it with a wooden ruler.
"Hey!" Eddie continued, "You freakin' idiots! I thought you guys wanted to eat us! Huh? You want a piece of us?! Well come get us! I'm right here! You hear me? I'm..."
Eddie's voice instantly stopped as he saw the first sick person round the corner & begin to stumble down the hallway. His expression changed as instantly as his voice had stopped, backing up towards the "L"-shaped door.
"OK," he quietly said, "They're coming..."
Mark, above the "L"-shaped door, allowed Eddie to run though it. From his vantage point, Mark could clearly see the inspiration towards Eddie's quick retreat - No less then nine sick people were stumbling down the hallway towards the "L"-shaped door.
It was showtime.
========================
PART XLVII
They looked awful &, as far as Mark was concerned, smelled even worse.
Only two feet above from where the infected people were congregating around the "L"-shaped door, Mark was careful not to make any noise. Looking over at Eddie, Eddie nodded to Mark that they were ready for their first sick person.
Mark lifted the peg that prevented the door from opening so that a sick person could get through. Sure enough, no sooner had Mark lifted up the peg then a group of three infected people pushed through the door. With the other half of the angled door now blocking the doorway, Mark quickly set the peg back into place to prevent any further infected people from prying open the door.
Eddie's reaction to seeing three infected people come through instead of only one was of immediate shock & fear.
"Three incoming," Eddie stammered, quickly running around a corner. He quickly ran past Charlie, lying in wait above & repeated himself.
"Three?" Charlie quietly asked half-rhetorically as Veronica opened the door to allow Eddie in.
Charlie could hear the three infected people approaching as they made the turn to come down the hallway. More repugnantly, he could smell them getting closer as well.
Veronica used every last bit of willpower she had to restrain herself from running away from the door as the sick people stumbled ever closer towards it. If absolutely necessary, she was fully prepared to make a run for the ladder & head for the roof.
So fixated on the incoming infected people that it came to a shock for Veronica when Charlie swung down & caved in the skull of the first infected person to stumble underneath him. The blow was so powerful that it snapped the person's neck, instantly collapsing the person to the ground like a rag doll.
Unbelievably, the other two infected persons marched onward as though nothing had happened.
Charlie, seeing the second one stumbling towards him, delivered a crushing blow to the second infected person as well.
Undetered, the third sick person stumbled towards the door that Eddie & Veronica were behind with reckless abandon. Charlie waited, poised to strike as the third & final infected person made the same fatal mistake as the first two.
Pow!
Eddie saw Charlie give a thumbs-up sign just before Charlie got down from lying above the hallway. Eddie nodded & opened the door to join Charlie.
The experiment was a complete success.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"There's fifteen stories to this hotel part," Lenny told Amanda, "But I can't clear any of them because I don't have keys to any of the rooms."
"Do you have a room?" Amanda asked.
"I've found one," Lenny replied, "But I don't have the key. You can deadbolt the door from inside, though. There's also some small high-stakes casino on the top floor but I can't get to it because you need some sort of special key for the elevator to go up that high."
"I need clothes before I can do anything," Amanda stated plainly, gesturing to her current wardrobe.
"I can't provide you any," Lenny said, "I can't get into any of the rooms."
"All hotel cleaning staff have a master key to get into any of the normal hotel rooms," Amanda stated, "Have you found any of them dead yet?"
"I don't know about dead," Lenny said, "But one floor beneath us there's a whole lot of infected people who'd like to see us dead. Some of them look like they work here."
Amanda sighed for a moment.
"Got a weapon?" Amanda asked plainly, holding up her plastic flashlight.
======================
PART XLVIII
"Three!"
Eddie & Charlie let go of the corpse that they were swinging towards the edge of the roof. It plummeted in a graceful arc, landing with a thud on the asphalt below. Charlie quickly looked over the edge to see the results.
"Damn!" He cursed silently, "Missed 'em."
In a louder voice to Eddie, Charlie said, "Can you believe that? They're swarming like ants down there & we still manage to miss them."
Eddie peeked over the edge of the roof & could easily see at least one hundred infected people milling about outside the shipping & receiving area.
"Yeah, well," Eddie replied, "We're going to need to find a better way of disposing these guys. I mean, they'll eat anything that's placed in front of them but hauling these guys up here is a pain & a half."
Charlie nodded in agreement as he watched the corpse that they had just thrown over the side of the roof being devoured by other infected people.
"Hey," Charlie asked, "Different subject for a moment."
"Yeah?" Eddie acknowledged.
"What do you think of Veronica?" Charlie asked, "You think she's on the same page as us?"
Eddie shrugged & hesitated before saying, "Well, I think she's just as frightened as we are. She's just showing it differently, that's all. Why?"
Charlie just shook his head, replying, "She just seems indifferent, you know. Like none of this phases her. It's a little insulting, if you ask me. We're doing all the work & all."
"Maybe if we get her to do something other then stand in front of a window," Eddie suggested, "It'll take her mind off of things."
Charlie nodded, saying, "Yeah. Yeah. It ain't fair for her to watch all of this & be a fifth wheel. Give her something to do, something constructive."
Charlie & Eddie began to walk back to the ladder so they could head on back down to the shipping & receiving area.
Their plan was working but it would need to work much better if they were going to make any significant headway in clearing the casino.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Ready?" Lenny asked.
"Yeah," Amanda replied.
Both Amanda & Lenny were inside the casino hotel stairwell. In front of them were about forty infected people, separated from Amanda & Lenny by only the stairwell door to that level.
"OK," Lenny instructed, "When I open this door, you go up the stairs & wait for me. We attack these things one at a time. I take a swing, you take a swing. We keep moving up the stairs &, hopefully, we don't run out of stairs before we run out of these people. OK?"
Amanda nodded, knowing that without a way of clearing the hotel floors & having access to all the rooms, their present level of safety was a hollow one at best. She awkwardly held a length of pipe as Lenny slowly moved towards the door to push it open.
As Lenny shoved the door open & then moved swiftly back up the stairs, Amanda realized that there would be no way out of the casino until they had cleared the casino entirely.
Amanda watched as the infected, privy to the door now being open, quickly walked through the newly-opened entrance & began to stumble up the stairs towards them.
=========================
PART XLIX
"Good one!"
Lenny saw the result of Amanda's swing - A direct hit just between & just above the eyes of an infected businessman who didn't seem to care that he was missing a huge chunk of his neck. The businessman fell backwards down the stairs, causing a chain reaction by knocking down four other infected people behind him. Amanda & Lenny knew, though, that those people would get right back up.
It was Lenny's turn to swing at the infected people that were invading the stairway. Squaring up & rearing back to get the most out of his swing, he chose a woman missing both eyes & a nose.
Lenny's swing was more like a "baseball bat swing" then a "chopping wood swing," the result being that the woman was instantly knocked sideways across the staircase. Smacking into the wall by the force of the blow, the swarming infected people quickly pushed her aside & kept moving up the stairs.
Both Amanda & Lenny took a few more steps up the staircase, Amanda constantly glancing back to make sure that no infected people were coming down the staircase.
Amanda aimed at the head of a man wearing the remnants of a cook's uniform. Her aim was off, though, & she hit him directly on his left shoulder. The force of the blow caused the man to fall directly forward onto his face.
The sudden forward jolt of the man startled Amanda, the pipe dropping from her hand. Lenny noticed it before it had even hit the ground.
"Grab your pipe!" He yelled to Amanda, looking back towards the infected mob that was slowly moving up the staircase. Amanda looked down to see that her pipe was teetering on one of the stairs directly in front of the mob, on the verge of rolling down the staircase directly at them.
Lenny quickly aimed & swung indiscriminately towards the advancing crowd. A man in a sports jacket got a hit directly in the jaw. A thin man in a T-shirt missing more of his arms then he already had got hit in the right pectoral muscle. An obese, elderly woman in what had to have been a soiled nightgown got hit in the left ear. Her backwards falling body caused quite a cascading effect, toppling no less then eight other people behind her on the staircase.
By the time Lenny was through, Amanda had picked up her pipe again.
"I got it!" She blurted out loudly, taking a token swing at an infected Asian man. Smacking him between his neck & his right shoulder, he fell backwards into the crowd but was too light to cause anyone behind him to be toppled.
Amanda & Lenny moved back a couple of more steps. Already, they had gone up three flights of stairs. Neither of them knew if the mob was beginning to thin out. Although Lenny had lost count, it was a safe bet that they had killed at least thirty people so far.
Lenny hoped that they hadn't attracted the entire contingent of infected people in the casino after them. Otherwise, the end of the staircase would also be the end of the line for them.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"It's risky," Charlie admitted, "But like we have a choice."
"You're sure these guys can't, like, jump up?" Veronica asked.
"They can climb stairs," Eddie admitted, "But the height between the loading dock & the ground below is pretty high. That ought to be enough to keep them back."
Eddie walked over to the loading bay door & pressed a green button. The door began to open like a huge garage door, it's many segments sliding up the track.
Charlie & Veronica saw the scene behind the loading bay door - Dozens of infected people walking around. The opening of the loading bay door caused many of them to walk over to the loading bay area. Stopped only the height difference between the ground & the elevated loading dock floor, dozens of infected people, three deep, thrusted their arms forward in the futile chance of grabbing at the healthy humans inside.
"I figure," Charlie said, his eyes locked on the motley crowd of infected individuals, "If we throw them directly into the crowd, they'll just eat them up. Save us a trip from launching them off the roof."
"Sounds like a plan," Veronica merely said, never taking her eyes off of the crowd. Men, women, young, old...Whatever the infection had done to them, they were now united in one common purpose - Eating things, namely humans & ideally those not infected.
"I'll tell Mark to get ready to allow more sick people through," Eddie said, forcing his eyes away as he walked back towards the hallway door.
Veronica knew that she had to escape. As Mark walked back through the door, she began figuring out just how to do it before one of those infected people had the smarts to defeat a five-foot high natural barrier.
==========================
PART L
Mark, perched above the "L"-shaped door, could see the growing crowd of infected people as they wandered around in the hallway. A few of the infected people pushed against the "L"-shaped door on occasion but, for the most part, they were content to wander around in the hallway in whatever delirium was possessing them.
What really was beginning to get to Mark was the odor that the infected people emitted. The rancid odor wasn't overly powerful but was pungent enough to cause Mark to always frown as a reaction. Mark knew that, if he ever survived this terrible ordeal, he would have to burn the clothes that he was currently wearing - No amount of washing was ever going to get the type of stench that he was being exposed to out.
Out of the corner of Mark's eye, he saw Eddie wave to him down at the other end of the hallway. Mark quickly nodded in return &, with a hand signal, prepared Eddie for the arrival of a few more infected people.
Taking a peg out, Mark effectively 'unlocked' the door for the infected people to pry open. Sure enough, two such infected people took little time in figuring out how to pry open the door. With efficiency, Mark saw them through & then placed the peg back in, 'locking' the door before anyone else could get through.
In Mark's mind, he played cheesy 1970's game show music as an equally cheesy game show announcer said, "Here's our next two contestants : She's a thin businesswoman, but don't let that fool you. With that serious limp & an arm that looks like all it's good for is dangling, she's proven she's up to the fight. He's an overweight sports fan who STILL has a sports cap on his head. Don't tell him now but that crude amputation below his left elbow might affect his playing career!"
As the two infected people wandered off after Eddie, Mark turned his attention back to the crowd of infected people wandering around behind the "L"-shaped door. He couldn't help but notice that the hallway was beginning to fill up.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They were still coming. Lenny couldn't believe it.
With only three stories left until they reached the top-floor casino in the hotel stairway, Amanda & Lenny knew that they were running out of time. Both of them had done well in beating back the infected with either headshots or such spirited hits that the infected would act as a sort of 'human bowling ball,' falling over backwards & knocking over other infected people.
Lenny took a quick peek down the center of the spiraling staircase & couldn't help but produce a quick, little grin.
"I think these guys are it," he nearly shouted as he swung at an infected person missing more fingers then he currently had still attached to his hands. the swing was off the mark, hitting him on top of his sternum. The impact caused him to topple backwards but the infected person behind him aggressive pushed the infected obstacle out of his way. A quick smack from Amanda at that person was a direct hit, a violent splash of blood gushing out of the top of his head signaling that his devouring days were done.
"Let's make a stand here," Lenny shouted, "You take that side of the stairs & I'll take this side."
"OK," Amanda said, making an awkward swing at an obese woman. The swing caught the woman in the neck, causing her knees to buckle & to fall backwards. The sheer weight of the woman was too much for even two other infected people behind her to manage & they toppled backwards as well.
Lenny produced a quick flurry of swings that resulted in the final demise of a man still wearing a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses, a buxom woman wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt that read, "Stop Reading This," a man wearing janitorial overalls & a twelve-year old girl with only one arm.
Suddenly, to Amanda's amazement, no one was left to beat back. Nearly twenty seconds after the last infected person had been hit, Amanda still retained the pose as though to viciously swing at an opponent that would have to come out of thin air. Lenny looked on in similar amazement, smiling at the prospect of having lived through the ordeal.
"We've got to close that door below," Lenny suddenly said in a sober voice, "If it's not closed, there's no telling how many more will come into the staircase."
Amanda looked to see Lenny begin to race down the stairs as delicately as he could. Whenever he could, he stepped on an actual stair but he had no qualms with stepping on the fallen bodies of the infected that they had beaten.
Amanda was nowhere near as brave as Lenny was. Looking down at herself, she realized that she had become nearly covered in blood. Everything she wore would have to be discarded & probably burned.
As Amanda finally began a slow descent down the staircase, she wondered if their massacre had produced what they had really hoped for - A master key for the hotel or just a variety of dead bodies.
She was never going to learn that answer.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 18, 2011 4:13:26 GMT -6
PART LI
It was the sight that Lenny despaired.
Only two floors removed from where they had opened the door to the staircase, Lenny could see a smattering of infected slowly amble up the corpse-covered staircase as best they could. In any other situation, Lenny would have seen the humor in watching the occasional infected person stumbling over their fallen brethren or slipping on the brethren's own blood.
Lenny looked back up through the middle of the spiraling staircase. He could see that Amanda was still several floors above him, taking a more cautious approach towards descending towards the staircase. He couldn't blame her; The staircase was littered with corpses, slick with their own blood or the blood from others.
Lenny turned his attention back to the smattering of infected who continued their perilous trek up the littered staircase & towards Lenny.
"There's only a few of them," Lenny mumbled to himself while watching the progress made by the infected to reach him, "I can handle this myself."
Lenny tensed up as he swung & struck the first infected person. The man was dressed like one of the dozens of bus drivers who deposited countless tourists to the casino every day. Lenny, in the scant two seconds he used to examine the man, could find no obvious injuries on him. A moment later, Lenny added an injury to whatever led the man to becoming infected in the first place - A walloping blow to the skull that sent the man careening down the staircase.
Carefully, Lenny made his way down the staircase, his weapon delivering a crushing undercut to some poor woman who would never realize that her final moments would be spent wandering around with half of her face missing.
Now just a single flight of stairs away from reaching the door where the infected had been pouring through, Lenny smirked with confidence as he saw only two remaining infected people.
Then, in a moment of carelessness that would never have happened in the normal world, Lenny slipped on some ill-placed blood. The handrail he so desperately wanted to rely upon to stop his fall was also slick with blood & did little to stop him careening down the staircase. Surprised completely by this unfortunate turn of events, he unconsciously let go of his weapon which was flung harmlessly by the physics of his fall aside.
The cruelest twist of his accident was just that - A twist. Careening awkwardly down the staircase, his body contorted for a moment to press down unnaturally onto his neck. The spine, needing no further excuse to do so, snapped & rendered him forever a quadriplegic from the neck down. Forever, though, would not last for long. Two infected people did not fail to notice Lenny's predictament or, for that matter, to act upon it.
Amanda, knowing nothing of what had just transpired, kept travelling down the staircase.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Three!"
The corpse sailed through the loading bay door into the throng of infected people waiting outside. Their arms were still outstretched towards Eddie & Charlie in a still futile attempt to grab at them despite all evidence that it was never to be.
Behind the first throng of infected whose attention was unswayingly devoted towards Eddie & Charlie, though, the next wave was more eager to receive the corpse thrown it's way. Eddie & Charlie did not even bother watching as the carnivorous mob tore the corpse to shreds with it's hands & teeth shortly after it had touched the ground.
"This is so much better," Charlie remarked to Eddie, "I think we can clear fifty in an hour if we continue this pace."
Eddie turned to Veronica who was perched by a phone.
"Any luck?" Eddie asked, trying to cram as much positive tone in his voice as he could while still sounding sincere.
"Nothing yet," Veronica replied, "It's either busy signals or no signals."
Eddie & Charlie walked away, Veronica eying them discreetly as they did so.
Looking up at the ceiling hatch, she knew now what her escape plan would have to be. She also knew when she would have to do it.
Looking out the loading bay door, she could tell that dusk was arriving.
Soon, Veronica thought, I'll make my move.
====================
PART LII
Homogenity had it's advantages. Mark had learned that first-hand.
Those who were infected almost seemingly had a one-track mind - Food. Food from other infected but now inactive corpses. Food from still living, unaffected humans.
Is there food here? No? Then travel elsewhere. If yes, then stay there & get the food. Is there a wall between you & the food? Then attempt to knock the wall down. Is the wall broken down yet? Then keep punching at the wall. Otherwise, walk through & get the food.
A single infected person was no match for a healthy, unaffected person. The infected moved slower, reacted slower & had an IQ that would make the average dog seem talented by comparison.
A mob of infected, though, was a death sentence to a lone target. It was a blockade of outstretched arms, each arm possessing a hand whose sole, remaining purpose in life was to grab you. If they grabbed you, their next feat would be to bite or tear the flesh from your body.
Throughout history, it had always been the single-minded aggressor who had won the fight. Cleverness so rarely swayed human events. The Nazis had better boats, better planes, better guns & better-trained armies but they lost. The British fought against a band of colonials with a poor excuse for an army & an even poorer excuse for a nation - They lost. Betamax was a better brand of videotape then VHS on every account; It lost.
Arguments could be made, of course, to refute such a claim. Nazi leadership was sorely lacking in priorities. The British were engaged in a 1700's "World War," of which America was only one small theatre that royalty increasingly became disinterested in. Betamax never addressed their Achille's Heel in time - That VHS tapes could run longer, regardless of their abysmal recording quality.
Homogenity's main weakness, though, was also it's strength. A group of people were only as good as their strategy &, even then, how well they implemented it. A secret code's greatest strength is always it's complexity in being solved; Once it is solved, though, all other messages encrypted with it are solved in mere moments. Any little flaw in a strategy could reduce a steel wall into a house of cards.
The infected's untiring desire to kill had been turned against them. Goaded into a trap, they were killed & disposed of without so much as a modicum of threat.
Mark had stopped counting how many of the infected he had let pass through their special "L"-shaped door. Charlie & Eddie had gotten so experienced with it that Mark was letting in two to three infected people at a time every five minutes. By now, they had to have disposed of no fewer then two hundred infected.
As Mark was signalled to allow more infected into the hallway, he learned that homogenity's weakness could just as quickly outweigh it's strength.
What Mark was soon to learn was that diversity, for all of it's heralded attributes, had it's shortcomings as well...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They couldn't be.
Could they?
Amanda looked at the scene, a mere flight of stairs away, of two infected people hunched over a third body. The infected held no shame in grasping raw, slimy flesh in their hands, bodily fluids drenching clothes that their former consciousness held in such high regard that they wore it out in public. Blood dripping from chins & blood smeared on their faces were of no more consequence to them then a person sneezing in private.
Lenny was nowhere to be found. A quick look down the hallway that Amanda originally encountered Lenny was vacant & silent.
"Lenny?" Amanda whispered into the hallway as she poked her head into it.
Only grim silence met her.
Turning her attention back to the cannibalizing infected people, she shouted out "Hey!"
No response. The two infected people continued to feast unabated.
Then, she saw it - Lenny's weapon, strewn onto the bottom of the staircase. It was finally exposed only when one of the infected had shifted his position so as to better feast on Lenny's remains.
Not a single healthy person heard Amanda's scream nor heard her subsequent breakdown into tears. Those tears would be short-lived, though, as she would be pressed into action sooner then expected...
========================
PART LIII
Now, Amanda thought, she really was alone. For all she knew, she was the last remaining human left amongst hordes of infected cannibals in the sprawling casino / hotel / entertainment complex.
It was such an irrational thought when calmly dissected. Amanda had been alone when confronted with infected in the cafeteria. She was equally alone when she ran into the elevator after a brief struggle with an infected. She was also alone when she made her painful barefoot journey across the roof to the hotel.
What was different between being alone then & being alone now, though, was that there had been hope earlier. Hope that, around the next corner, help would be there in the form of a police officer, a firearm, a secure room or a helicopter to magically appear to take her away from all of this madness. Hope had helped her escape the cafeteria, get into the elevator & across the rooftop.
Now, though, with Lenny dead not yards away with the infected feasting upon his still warm flesh, Amanda couldn't feel even the slightest shred of hope. Only yards away, Lenny's final contribution to Amanda's survival was being an easy meal to two hungry infected people. Nothing but the act of traversing a simple staircase prevented the infected from attacking Amanda.
Between her irrational sobbing, she wondered why she cried for a man whom she had known for only a short period of time. Had there been a sexual attraction between them? An emotional attachment? A bond forged only through the warped events that had transpired only in the past twenty-four hours?
Blinded by trying to answer such a question & distracted by her emotional sobbing, she failed to notice that her former partner had lost his appeal with his cannibalizing diners. Slowly, the two infected worked their way up the staircase one ominous step at a time.
Amanda looked up, not by clarity of thought but because one of the infected slipped on the staircase & fell all the way back down. The ruckus in falling snapped Amanda back into reality - A miserable reality in which the still half-naked waitress was surrounded by dead, bloody corpses in a stinking staircase. Her only defense from joining those cadavers was a length of pipe in one hand & the lack of speed from her potential attackers.
As bottomless as her sorrow had been a moment before, her rage was now equally insurmountable. Rather then wait for the two infected to reach the top of the obstacle-strewn staircase, she took the fight to them in a rare moment of bravado that would have been unthinkable only hours before.
An angry, blinded swing crushed the skull of the first infected.
Quickly navigating her way down a few more steps, three mercilessly violent swings caved in the skull of the second infected.
Instantly, the entire staircase became silent as gravity both pulled & stopped the corpses into their final resting places. There were no more infected people to worry about. No noise, either ominous or hopeful, to accentuate the scene before her.
Amanda found herself at the bottom of the staircase, next to the door that had been the floodgate that the infected had come through. She closed the door with the simplest of motions, an anti-climactic finale to the orgy of violence that had followed prior.
Looking down the hallway that had been a never-ending source of invading infected, she could see even more beginning to stream down it. Either guided by the smell of normal human flesh or simply exploring their hard-fought domain, Amanda didn't care what their reasoning was for being there.
Tired, depressed & blood-soaked, Amanda stared one last time at the remains of her former companion before resigning herself to the next phase of her survival - Retreat.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mark couldn't believe it - The hallway was empty.
"Guys," he shouted out, "That's it. No more."
Mark heard Charlie get down from above the ceiling & Eddie walked over to where Mark was.
"Open it," Eddie said, motioning to Mark to open the door. Mark released the peg & Eddie quickly opened the "L"-shaped door enough to walk through it.
Eddie noticed that Charlie quickly joined him in observing a sight that had seemed improbable only an hour or two ago. They both looked at one another for a moment, lost in thought as to what to do next.
"Should we start locking down more areas?" Mark asked innocently.
After a momentary pause, Eddie replied, "Might as well."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A flashlight. A few bags of chips. A metal tube that felt like it could hurt someone when swung.
Charlie & Eddie had been so busy with their massacre that it had given Veronica almost a free reign in squirelling away items she had found in the shipping & receiving area for her escape. Already, she had climbed the ladder to place these items onto the roof. The next phase would be to place herself up there & then take her chances with fate.
Now, she thought, she just needed an opportunity for when she could leave without being noticed as missing.
Darkness was falling fast & night time was approaching. It was now or never for Veronica to take her chances in escaping.
======================
PART LIV
"Are you sure?" Charlie asked.
"Look," Veronica explained, "The area's locked down & all you're doing is just locking up more of the casino. I'll be fine here. Honest."
Charlie nodded his head slowly but affirmatively.
"OK," he replied, "Well, just remember, if you need us, we'll just be locking up doors from beyond that L-shaped door, OK?"
"OK," Veronica replied.
Charlie walked away & over towards the two other men.
"Looks like we're a trio," Mark observed to Eddie before Charlie came within earshot range.
"Let's go lock some doors," Charlie declared, "Veronica will be holding down the fort while we're gone."
The three of them left & closed the door behind them. Veronica couldn't help but release a little smirk from her lips after the door closed.
'Finally,' she thought, 'Now I can blow this place once & for all.'
Veronica looked up at the hatch in the ceiling & beamed a smile.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Amanda jiggled the handle of the hotel room door to see if it was open. She was running out of rooms to try before heading to the next floor up.
She walked carefully in shoes about one size too large to be comfortable. They had been Lenny's shoes before he had been killed. Overall, they were a nice upgrade from her tissue-box sandals with a wad of tissues as it's sole.
Since Lenny had said that he had found a hotel room, she figured that he didn't have the key for it. Therefore, she didn't even bother with entertaining the notion of searching what was left of his remains. In fact, she hadn't bothered with anyone else's remains, either.
Amanda's first order of business was to find Lenny's open hotel room & pray that there were some clean clothes in there that could fit her halfway decently. While she was at Lenny's remains to get his shoes, Amanda also took the opportunity to ditch her blood-soaked towel skirt. The abomination slopped to the floor & had left a red stain from her waist down to just below her knees.
In her soiled bra, ruined panties & borrowed shoes too large for her feet, Amanda walked down an otherwise quiet & undisturbed hallway looking for the lone open hotel door to travel through.
Suddenly, Amanda turned a handle & it twisted open. Amanda's eyes lit up as she raised her weapon to potentially strike anyone even remotely thinking of jumping through the doorway.
Quickly, Amanda pushed the door open. She ignored the door hitting the wall guard as she quickly lunged into each room of the hotel suite, checking to see if anyone infected had invited themselves in.
No one. Nothing. All was silent.
Amanda went back to the entrance & closed the door, locking it with the deadbolt. Tossing the pipe aside with a light flip of her wrist, she instinctively walked towards the shower.
Fatalistically, she thought that if she was to die later on, she would at least be fairly clean when it happened.
=========================
PART LV
'Hot water,' Amanda thought instinctually, standing directly underneath the shower head, 'Feels so nice.'
Amanda stood under the water for so long that she feared that her skin would begin to prune. She smirked to herself, not believing that she had just placed 'pruned skin' over other such concerns like 'life' & 'food.'
With her bra & panties permanently thrown into the first wastebasket that she could find, Amanda cared little for modesty as she walked around the hotel suite after drying off. Fortunately for her, the hotel suite had been opened because it had also been hastily abandoned by it's occupants.
Whomever it was who abandoned the hotel suite was single, male & obese. A drawer with four or five long-sleeved shirts were large enough to serve as night gowns. A pair of pants partially underneath the bed were spacious enough to be a sleeping bag.
Amanda found no cash, no identification as to who the man might have been, no food except for a complimentary mint on the nightstand next to the bed. She rolled her eyes as she discovered a Bible in the nightstand drawer. She wondered just how effective preaching to the infected people on the sins of cannibalism might be. If worse came to worse, the Good Book could be used as a weapon as it had a sturdy hardcover to it.
Almost completely ignored in Amanda's search of the hotel suite was the twenty-four inch television set. Only after Amanda had taken a shower, gotten dressed in the mystery man's ridiculously huge clothes, cleaned off her weapon as best she could with a spare shower towel & searched the suite for anything that might be of value did she bother with turning on the television.
Oddly, Amanda found the world inside the television set to be far from fascinating. One television reporter, who looked for all the world to be one of the infected people himself without his stage make-up on, rambled on for a few minutes about shelters that people could go to. A cable news network broadcasted reports that Moscow had been overrun by infected people. Paris was overrun as well as Berlin. Chinese troops were shooting pretty much everything that weren't other Chinese troops, including three Western reporters. To Amanda's amazement, there was actually a re-run of the show "Gilligan's Island" on one of the channels but most of the other channels were either blank, static or had the infamous TV transmission bars across them.
Amanda quickly turned the television off, knowing that salvation wasn't going to come from watching a news reporter saying things like, "Riverfront Hospital is no longer a shelter. I repeat, Riverfront Hospital in Jerrysville is no longer a shelter."
If Amanda was going to survive, she would need to eat. In order to eat, she would need to get through the mobs of infected still roaming the casino.
Taking her weapon along with her, Amanda set out to find some food. Maybe, just maybe, she thought to herself, she might also find a little salvation along the way.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Veronica didn't feel the slightest tinge of regret in her mind.
The boys had made the decision to fight off the infected. They were over the age of eighteen & they weren't related to her. If they wanted to commit suicide by going toe-to-toe with the infected, they didn't need her permission to do so. She, in turn, didn't need their permission to flee - Either from the infected or from them.
She sarcastically waved to the crowd of infected who were still gathered at the open mouth of the loading bay truck door. Never once had they flinched or lost interest in getting into the chest-high entrance although never gaining the intellect to defeat it. Instead, their arms were always outstretched, their mouths always opened & emitting some moan or groan or gurgle.
Climbing up the ladder & closing the hatch behind her, she gathered her materials & began to walk along the roof. She hoped that she could get close enough to the parking garage so that she could get to her car easily. Once in her car, she thought, she would be able to flee not only the casino but also this entire situation for good.
As dusk became dark enough to become night, Veronica turned on her flashlight. She'd need it to spot doors, hatches & ladders leading off of the roof.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 18, 2011 4:16:42 GMT -6
PART LVI
It was dark &, on the roof where nothing stopped the wind except for your skin or whatever was covering it, it was breezy. Veronica walked a little faster along the expansive rooftop of the casino, guided only by the yellow circular blot of light emitted from her flashlight.
Her journey across the rooftop so far had been anything but eventful. She had climbed a few ladders & nearly stumbled over a locked roof hatch.
She couldn't help but think that, even after his affair, her newly-minted ex-husband was still causing her problems. After all, the only reason why she was at the casino was to confront him. She would never be stupid enough to gamble although stupidity was never a trait that stopped HIM from doing anything - Like having sex with someone who looked all the world to be sixteen years old.
All Veronica could care about was going home. She wanted to get away from the casino. She wanted to get away from the memory of him... Of the little tramp that she so desperately wanted to smack so hard she'd be happy if she broke a finger doing it... Of all the misery & suffering she had seen... Of the...
Veronica put her hand up to her eyes & could feel them beginning to water. It wasn't fair... Life JUST wasn't fair. She DESERVED a loving husband. She had worked hard to make the relationship last. She had done everything right.
What was wrong with HER? Immediately, she shook the thought from her mind. There was nothing, she determined, wrong with her.
What was wrong were men. Men were wrong about everything. Men thought only with their genitals & nothing else.
She couldn't believe that a few men... No, THREE men, thought that they could vanquish an entire casino full of infected people. She couldn't believe that she had been holed up for as long as she was with them.
Cops vanquished infected people. The military vanquished infected people. Yet every single man always thought that they could do everything simultaneously. They think that they can change the oil, re-build a kitchen, make the sale, plan a vacation, & land that job where it'll be nothing but "easy money" from now until retirement. Men, she thought with particular venom, already had an infection... An overabundance of self-confidence.
As Veronica marched forward along the rooftop, she was determined not to let three ordinary men ruin her life. A man had already shattered one of her dreams; She wasn't about to let three other men shatter the rest with their stupid little "macho" plan at defeating the infected.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Death was everywhere.
Amanda gingerly walked down the stairs to the door where the infected had originally come in. She walked over bodies, around bodies &, when she absolutely couldn't help it, on top of the remains of bodies. Ironically enough, she felt more concerned with how her feet were faring then over the fact that she was stepping on dead, infected bodies.
At the doorway, she peered through the glass to see a light smattering of infected aimlessly walking around. If they had seen her, they weren't acknowledging it as their walking pattern was no different before then when she was at the window of the door.
With a sigh, Amanda steadied herself & looked down at her weapon.
'Us or them,' she thought to herself, knowing that there'd be no true rest until one side was defeated.
With conviction, she opened the door & began to walk into the hallway. The infected took notice immediately but Amanda didn't care. She WANTED them to attack her; To her, the only good infected person would be a dead one.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Food!"
Eddie couldn't run over to the large bag of chips fast enough. He quickly took a large handful & began shoving as many of the chips into his mouth.
The other two grinned at Eddie's single-minded determination but admitted their own mounting hunger by joining in. They brought the bag out to the hallway to ensure that no infected would sneak up on them.
"Holy crap," Eddie mentioned, "This thing is practically full. Like the guy had just opened it or something."
Charlie suddenly flinched & put his chips back into the bag.
"What if the guy who opened this up was infected? You know, he sneezed on it or something?" Charlie asked loudly, clearly concerned.
"Charlie," Mark reasoned, "We've been handling the infected all day! We've dragged them, hit them, tossed them off the roof, I've sat next to them for hours & you guys have been the one throwing them to other infected. If we're going to get infected, we've already done that long before these chips."
Charlie paused for a moment, then nodded sheepishly. He grabbed a bunch of the chips he had originally thrown back into the bag.
"Crap," he conceded, "You're right. If this thing is like the common cold or something, we're dead already."
"Might as well be dead on a full stomach," Eddie mentioned before suddenly turning around.
Everyone else turned around to see what had startled Eddie.
Sure enough, there they were - More infected people stumbling down the hallway.
"Time to go," Mark said.
"Maybe not," Charlie replied, the other two looking at Charlie.
=====================
PART LVII
"Charlie, what are you doing?!" An incredulous Mark asked, trying to restrain his tone so that it didn't sound so demanding.
Charlie just kept walking forward for an extra moment or so, then stopped about twenty feet shy of the ambling infected. Raising his weapon, Charlie waited for the infected to come to him.
Eddie & Mark watched as Charlie swung, struck & killed five infected people without so much as moving his feet. After a moment to see if any additional infected might happen their way, Charlie lowered his weapon & walked back to the others.
"Less to kill later on," Charlie said with conviction, quickly grabbing at more chips & eating them. Mark & Eddie merely shrugged at one another. Charlie was oblivious to the inaudible shrug between the two.
"You know," Mark confessed, "We have to at least bring some of these chips back to Veronica. I bet she's probably starving by now."
"Yeah," Eddie agreed, "We should at least go back so we can show her that we're OK."
As they began to walk back, Charlie said, "I think we may need walkie-talkies in the future, you know? Not that we need them now but in the future."
Both Mark & Eddie nodded to the suggestion. Walkie-talkies, though, were nothing more then rubies in the wilderness - Pretty to look at but virtually worthless in their current environment.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amanda was now more tired then angry.
Seven infected attacked her in the hallway; Seven infected met a grisly demise, blunt trauma to the head of the most serious kind.
For now, the hallway was cleared except for bodies strewn in all various fashions on the floor. Blood accentuated the grisly sight & the smell of decaying flesh punctuated a scene already devoid of civilization.
Keeping one eye on the other end of the hallway & one eye on all those permanently residing on the ground, she scanned the fallen to see if any were hotel staff members. Room cleaners wore dark blue uniforms with burnt orange belts & black shoes. "Courtesy Representatives" (otherwise known as "Bellboys") wore light brown uniforms with black belts & black shoes. Managerial & office staff simply wore the normal suit & ties associated with any boring, ordinary office job.
None of the corpses Amanda saw in the hallway matched the description of what the hotel staff members wore. Sighing in frustration, she resigned herself to search the stairway to see if any of those corpses might have once worked in the hotel. Otherwise, she would have to make a trip down to the front lobby which was sure to be occupied by dozens of the infected.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A ladder.
Veronica peered down the side of the building with her flashlight & saw scores of infected roaming around the sides of the building. Going down the ladder would be certain suicide; Already, the beam was attracting the attention of the infected.
As the infected began to cluster around both the flashlight beam & the ladder, Veronica struck upon an idea.
If used properly, Veronica would be able to use her idea to get to her car with absolute safety. She pondered it's use as the mob of infected grew around the ladder.
========================
PART LVIII
'Just like men,' Veronica thought with a cynical smirk across her face.
Drawn to the beam of light like moths to an open flame, the infected swarmed wherever the light was shown. If she moved the beam to the left, then the mob of infected eventually moved to the left. Shifting the beam of light in the other direction meant shuffling the infected in that direction.
Veronica briefly turned off the flashlight, resulting in the mob of infected to briefly disperse.
Turning the flashlight back towards the rooftop, Veronica now knew what she had to do - Find the ladder closest to where her car would be & then herd the infected away from that ladder with the flashlight. It wouldn't be perfect but it would be better then facing an entire mob.
'Once I get back to my car,' Veronica thought, 'Everything will be alright.'
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Nope.
Nope.
Ewww...But nope.
Amanda gingerly turned over what appeared to be an infected corpse still dressed in a sports jacket. Once flipped over onto his back, though, it was clear the man was not an employee.
Halfway up the stairwell, Amanda had not seen a single infected corpse that was once an employee. Sadly, she had seen just about everything else. People without jaws? Check. People without one or more of their hands? Check. People without one or more of their arms? Check.
Amanda couldn't help but be a little surprised seeing an infected male corpse with neither pants or underwear lying in the stairwell.
'How did I miss that during the fight?' She thought to herself, scorning herself for the wry smirk on her face as she unsuccessfully avoided taking more then just one glance at the man's genitals. What was even weirder was that he had both shoes on. Amanda shook her head & finally afforded herself a laugh, even if it meant laughing at the man's expense.
Taking not four steps away, though, something caught her eye.
Just a few feet from where 'shorty' was exposing himself for the rest of history, Amanda caught sight of an orange belt. Briskly climbing the steps so that she could get a better look at the corpse, it was indeed an orange belt - An orange belt with a dark blue uniform attached to it.
Hurriedly, Amanda flipped the corpse over to reveal an obese, middle-aged hispanic woman. Searching the woman's pockets, she discovered a keyring attached to the belt. Amanda detached the keyring from the belt & lifted the keyring into the air.
'One of these keys,' Amanda thought, 'Opens all the doors.'
Maybe, Amanda expressed to herself as an afterthought, one of those keys even gave her access to the high-stakes casino on the top floor of the hotel.
Amanda looked upwards at the spiraling stairwell. She was already more then halfway up to the casino; Why not find out if it did? After all, there HAD to be some sort of food in there...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Unlock it," Charlie suggested to Mark. Mark fumbled through the keyring & eventually produced the correct key.
Three minutes of futile pounding on the door had reduced their achievements into fears; Their self-confidence into a cascade of worst-case scenarios.
The moment that Mark unlocked the door, Charlie & Eddie stepped into the shipping & receiving area, weapons drawn & nerves frayed.
"Veronica?" Charlie yelled, "Veronica? Are you OK? We're back!"
Eddie drew nearer to where the open loading bay door was. Initially, he saw a strange sight; Infected ambling about, their routines & patterns obscure to those who still held their senses. Upon seeing Eddie, though, they waddled quickly back over towards the opening to assume the ever-grabbing, ever-needing position that Eddie knew all too well.
"Where could she be?" Eddie mused to himself, a wave of dread beginning to sweep over him.
==========================
PART LIX
A few moments of tense searching of the shipping & receiving area quickly dropped off to frantic confusion. No longer concerned (and relieved) with finding a stray infected wandering towards, pursuing or even munching on Veronica, the three men turned their attention to the mystery of her disappearance.
Eddie continued to peer out the loading dock door, his feet & ankles perilously close to the grabbing hands of the infected. Only the rudimentary intellect of the infected prevented them from lifting themselves up to the elevated floor of the shipping & receiving area. Eddie could see nothing unusual amongst the mob of infected that swarmed the loading dock door; No remnants of clothes that Veronica wore, no bodily remains of the woman that they knew for only the better part of one stress-filled day that seemed destined to never end.
Eddie found it peculiar that the infected, no longer possessed of the higher intellectual skills of restraint & reasoning, also no longer had the blink reflex for their eyes. Eddie shined the beam of his flashlight right into the eyes of a few infected but found their stance & gaze unyielding. They neither blinked nor looked away in pain & Eddie found this lack of a trait most unnerving, unconsciously taking a few steps backwards upon learning of it.
To Eddie, these humans - Young & old, tall & short, Caucasian or of other descent - Had truly been reduced to a single, infantile mind... That of the wolves in the forest & the snakes in the desert. Although each once had a unique face & personality that made them special to humanity, their plight now made them as worthless & expendable as goldfish in a local pet store.
All doubt, if any had ever existed in Eddie's mind before, was erased as to the morality of what the three of them had been doing. Murdering humans? No. Saving humanity? Perhaps.
For now, though, Eddie turned away from the mob of infected. He turned around just long enough to see Mark climb up the ladder on the odd chance that, for some strange reason, Veronica was on the roof.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A hotel was such a transparent display of how the caste system had never died, even in the birthplace of democracy. Crappy, two-room suites packed the bottom of the hotel. Above them were the standard three- & four-room suites. Above them were the apartment-like suites reserved for high-rollers. Finally, there were the penthouses which were large enough to be actual houses. Above even that was a small casino dedicated solely for the wealthiest.
Even in a stairwell designed chiefly to funnel people out of the building in case of a disaster, the caste system still existed. Amanda, having walked as high up the stairwell as she could go, found herself confronted by a fire door that blocked access to the part of the stairwell that led to the upper floors.
Taking out the keyring that she had found earlier, Amanda began cycling through the keys to see if any of the keys unlocked the door. Her delight was genuine when, after only five minutes of trying, she actually found the key.
Stepping through the now unlocked door, Amanda shivered uncontrollably for a moment. Even in a crisis, she found it hard not to think that she had artificially broken through a barrier she was never meant to see or appreciate. Her meager bank account would never allow her to honestly be admist such regal surroundings.
Her intentions, though, were not to sight-see; Perhaps, at this level of luxury, she could acquire a modest meal & some much deserved rest in relative safety.
If only she knew what lay ahead then the door behind her she would never have opened...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
'Found it,' Veronica thought with a smile.
The entrance to the parking garage lay just two-hundred some odd feet away from her & at least sixty feet to the ground below.
In less complicated times, Veronica would be able to merely climb down the ladder, walk into the parking garage, locate her car & drive away uninhibited.
In these times, her hazards included more then merely being careful to not fall off the ladder or stumble while walking along the ground. The infected wandered everywhere & even in the darkness she could tell that there were over four dozen in the immediate local area.
'Now for the plan...,' she though, a smile creeping onto her lips as she eyed the infected from afar.
============================
PART LX
Ronald J. Sherikes followed it.
Emikia Washington followed it, too.
Thomas Wiley, Ahmed Moussetou, Roland R. Kessinger III & Yolanda Smith were just a few of the infected who followed the oval yellow circle as it calmly swept along the ground.
Veronica had 'herded' the infected over towards the next closest ladder to the parking garage. The procedure was, by no means, definitive - Roughly a dozen or so infected still wandered aimlessly about despite her best attempts at corralling them with the beam from her flashlight.
For a moment, she felt uneasy having attracted so much attention to herself with the beam. Only the height of the building separated her from what appeared to be a solid mob of the infected. A few of the infected tried to climb the ladder but their intellect prevented them from even getting above the first step. One fell backwards off the ladder, colliding into others & causing a "domino"-like effect that would have been amusing if the 'dominoes' themselves weren't so deadly & determined to separate Veronica's spirit from her flesh.
Quickly, Veronica knelt down & began to unlace one of her shoes with one hand & pointing the beam of light at the mob below with the other. The increasingly frigid night air, combined with the fear of failure & the allure of success propelled her to accomplish the goal within moments.
Taking the shoestring in hand, she tied a quick & primative knot around the flashlight & the top of the ladder. She made certain to tie the flashlight so that the beam would continue to point down onto the mob of infected, unaided by her hand.
Veronica stepped back slowly to see if her knot-tying was adequate. It was - The flashlight held steady, continuing to shower the mob with it's circular cone of light.
She wasted no time, running fast to the other ladder to enact the second & more dangerous part of her plan. She would need to hurry - Already, unbeknownst to her, the knot was slipping.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It was not until Mark had opened up the hatch & actually climbed out onto the roof that the gravity of his situation took on a new meaning.
No longer was Mark an employee of a casino or a citizen of a country. Mark was now merely a survivor of a disaster, the breadth of which Mark could only imagine for there would never be a way of measuring it for certain. The thought caused Mark to pause for a moment, the chilling night air accentuating his deep thought all the more.
"Veronica?" Mark shouted, trying not to shiver but relenting to it nonetheless.
"Veronica?!" Mark shouted again. He paused to listen if he could hear a response but didn't.
'Veronica is gone,' a mean voice whispered into Mark's ear, 'Leave her. Save yourself.'
Under any other circumstance, Mark would have ignored such selfish advice. Veronica, he reasoned, had to have been injured or incapacitated. Maybe, he thought, someone had found her alone & she followed them back to another point of resistance. Certainly, Mark, Eddie & Charlie couldn't be the only ones left in the casino. Could they?
Mark, though, went back to the hatch & began to climb back down. He needed to report that Veronica was definitely not on the roof & had definitely not answered his calls.
He was a part of a team - A team that was now missing a member for some reason that they didn't have the time to explore.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
'Cool,' Amanda thought to herself instinctually as she looked around the posh hallway that connected four penthouses in the hotel. The walls were lined with wood paneling, the carpet felt as though it belonged in a home & not a place of business.
The hallway itself was unoccupied, Amanda having scouted it the moment she was able to enter it. The hallway was like one large square, each side being it's own penthouse with two of the penthouses sacrificing a modicum of space to allow for the hallway which jutted out to the stairwell.
"Is anybody here?" Amanda shouted. There was no response.
"Hello?" Amanda shouted again. Again, no response.
Amanda didn't know whether to celebrate or be afraid at the lack of a response. On the one hand, she had the entire floor (and all of it's resources, including food & security) to herself. On the other hand, the lack of response was continued evidence of the total devastation that was laid forth by the infected.
As Amanda began to dig out the keyring to begin trying the keys on the penthouse doors, she thought that she had heard something. It sounded like a door opening at the opposite end of the hallway.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 19, 2011 17:56:19 GMT -6
PART LXI
"Who's there?" Amanda heard a feminine voice call out. The voice was that of a young woman & slightly trembled. Had Amanda been more perceptive, she would have detected the faintest hint of pleading in the voice as well.
"I'm an employee here," Amanda blurted out, caught flat-footed that someone else was on the floor, someone other then an infected, "I'm not sick...Infected. That kind of thing."
By the acoustics, Amanda knew that the voice had come from the opposite corner of the square hallway. Amanda began to walk over towards the corner so she could peer down the hallway that the voice, hopefully, was coming from.
"I'm walking towards you," Amanda said out loud, "Don't be afraid."
"You're not with him, are you?" The feminine voice asked, adding as an afterthought, "I mean, he's not near you, is he?"
'With him?' Amanda thought to herself, puzzled. After thinking for a moment, she stumbled upon the only candidate that 'he' might have been.
Was it Lenny? She thought, some shock emerging on her face.
"I'm alone," Amanda replied, "No one is here with me."
Amanda's face slowly peered around the corner to spy a face in a similar position - Peering from out behind a door. Amanda's first impressions were that this young woman may well have been a teenager for she already sounded like one & her face had all the trappings of an uncomplicated youth that had yet to experience the stress & aging of even young adulthood.
Amanda revealed her weapon & displayed it prominently for the other woman to see. The other woman nodded & finally opened the door fully for Amanda to enter.
Unconsciously, Amanda prayed that there was a decent meal beyond a doorway opened only through the grace of trust alone.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"We need some sleep," Charlie resigned.
Charlie's face certainly looked tired & his voice was far from fresh with vigor. Charlie looked back at two similar faces that each bore the similar traits of having endured unfathomable stress & uncertainty for far longer then either of them could endure.
The other two nodded in agreement knowing that, despite their best efforts, the casino had been 'saved' by their efforts. Indeed, their achievements beyond merely living had been few - A couple of hallways had been nominally protected from the infected by locking their doors. Two hundred or more infected had been killed but it felt as though they were draining an olympic-sized pool with a thimble rather then a bucket. They had lost a team member as mysteriously as fate had placed them together.
"Let's close the large door," Mark suggested, motioning over to where rows of infected still stood, unwavering, arms outstretched for a meal that was hardly eager to be eaten.
It was bedtime for the shipping & receiving department.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Veronica was halfway down the ladder when she saw that a few infected were beginning to walk towards the bottom of the ladder. Instinctually she paused but knew that any delay would only increase the liklihood of her demise.
At a furious pace, she descended the ladder & landed with only a few yards to spare between herself & three infected who's only intent was to greet their new visitor with open arms & equally open mouths.
Hesitation would have meant death; Hesitation would have meant an increasingly closing wall of infected attempting to grab at her. Even an attempt to scramble back up the ladder would have been fraught with peril as countless hands attempted to grab her off of the rungs of the ladder.
Instead, she shoved the closest infected to her down to the ground & began running towards the entrance of the parking garage.
About sixty feet above her and a few hundred feet away, physics prevailed; The weight of the flashlight became too much for the knot. The flashlight & it's corralling beam of light fell to the earth. The trance that it held on over two hundred infected...
Broken.
============================
PART LXII
She felt, for the moment, like the comic book superhero 'The Flash.'
She had an incredible ability to zip between & past infected people who wanted nothing more then to kill her. With their stilted walking & lethargic responsiveness, Veronica could virtually run towards an infected, run right past them & continue running before the infected could even have a chance to grab at her. If the reality of the experience weren't so harrowing, it would've almost seemed a little fun for her.
Getting to the entrance of the parking garage, Veronica afforded herself the briefest of rests. She finally looked behind her to see a grim prospect - Dozens of infected slowly ambling away from where she had tied the flashlight to the ladder. Some of those infected had spotted her & had begun their slow, deliberate pursuit of her.
Her prospects of survival were surprisingly more cheerful inside the parking garage. She hardly saw any infected except for a few of them off in the distance.
'I'm going to make it,' she thought with a smile. Quickly she began running into the parking garage & up the levels to where her car was parked.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It wasn't inhumane; After all, none of the three considered the infected as 'human' anymore.
After a few futile attempts to push the infecteds' arms away from the closing loading bay door, Eddie merely closed the loading bay door right on top of their arms. To their genuine surprise, none of the infected howled in pain as a result of the nearly half-ton door slamming down on assorted forearms, elbows or biceps. Only Charlie saw that, once the door came down, many of the hands from the infected who were caught by the door went limp. Charlie even poked one of the limp hands for amusement.
"Maybe this is our time to go out & do some killing?" Mark asked in amusement. His attempt at humor went unappreciated, a reaction that Mark was quick to note.
"Just kidding," Mark meekly apologized, the comment being met with tired but genuine laughter from the other two.
"I've got dibs on this office here," Charlie said, pointing to a small, enclosed supervisor's office, "Good night."
Charlie walked into the supervisor's office & locked the door behind him.
"Want some bubble wrap as bedding?" Eddie asked Mark as Mark spied a counter that was long enough to sleep on.
"Sure," replied Mark & the two walked over to an area where there was surplus bubble wrap sheets.
"Maybe one of us should keep watch in case they somehow get through," Mark suggested.
"Fantastic thought," Eddie replied flatly, "You first. I'm hitting the sack."
Eddie soon found a spot on the loading dock to sleep & promptly went to sleep. Mark, though, could not go to sleep even though he was physically tired. He couldn't imagine how he could go to sleep when, only yards away, were dozens of murderers wanting nothing more then to eat them alive.
Slowly, eventually, Mark succumbed to a paltry slumber; Bubble wrap being a poor substitute for bedding, blankets & a pillow. A shipping & receiving area a poor substitute for his home. A dream a poor respite from the misery that would end his day & start it as well.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Her name was Ivana. She was twenty.
She had long discarded her high-rollers waitress outfit but one could clearly figure out why she had been placed into one in the first place. In another universe, she was on the cover of a magazine in skimpy bikini bottoms no larger then a small napkin & a bikini top that covered less then what a pair of postage stamps would.
As Amanda eagerly ate some fruit, Ivana spoke.
"We can't go back up there," Ivana said, somewhat distantly, "Not if he's up there."
"Is he sick?" Amanda asked, "This person?"
"I don't know," she replied, "But he had a gun. He started getting loud. Started shooting people."
Amanda didn't ask how someone had gotten into the high-rollers casino with a firearm. Unless the man had been a high-roller or an employee, it would have been near-impossible to enter the high-rollers' only elevator or walk onto the casino floor itself. There were, after all, only so many people with so much money who were willing to gamble it away.
"Are there innocent people still up there?" Amanda asked. Ivana's silence & a glance away from Amanda was as complete an answer as any verbally conveyed. Ivana, though, spoke anyway through an increasing wavering voice that eventually turned into sobbing.
"He just started firing everywhere," she began to say, "People were getting shot & he was screaming about dead people & I didn't know what to do. Betty got shot & I tried to drag her behind the bar & then she got shot again & all the blood just exploded everywhere & I shrieked & ran behind the bar & I panicked & I heard more shots & the next thing I knew I was running for the elevator..."
"Ivana," Amanda asked politely & delicately, "Are there still people up there?"
Ivana just shook her head affirmatively, then went back to sobbing.
It was one thing to go up against an infected person; Their single-mindedness was their handicap. It was another thing to fight a normal person who was armed with a gun.
Amanda now had to make a choice between whether she wanted to be a survivor or a savior.
==========================
PART LXIII
Mark couldn't sleep.
He felt a little refreshed as he slowly got off the counter, not due to his physical condition but so that the involuntary popping of bubbles on the bubble wrap would be kept to a minimum.
Looking down at the row of arms caught underneath the closed loading bay door, he had noted that all of them were now completely limp & lifeless. He was tempted to poke at one, just to see if it would flinch alive & attempt to grab him - Just like it would occur in some cheesy, cheap horror movie. Mark decided against such a useless act; He had greater concerns & duties then to waste his time confirming the obvious or goading fate to prove him wrong.
Eddie & Charlie were still fast asleep; It was abundantly clear that being surrounded by swarms of infected people affected their rest not in the slightest. Neither influencing their ability of slumber was resting in awkward positions (Charlie in a chair, Eddie on some cardboard boxes, blunted only by a few sheets of bubble wrap) or in locations completely alien to rest.
Looking over at a wall clock, Mark realized that he had not even slept for thirty solid minutes.
Knowing that he could not face the infected alone, at least not safely, Mark racked his brains for something productive to do that would not disturb the others. Calling telephone numbers in the hopes that help would arrive? Useless. Scrounging around the shipping & receiving area for anything useful for their continuing fight against the infected? Pointless unless he could do so silently, which he knew he couldn't.
Mark then glanced up at the hatch in the ceiling. Immediately, he was struck upon a mischievous idea that was hardly productive. He had always wondered what it would be like to wander around on top of the roof of the casino. There was no real danger to it; He wouldn't run & there were no infected up there (That he knew of). Also, he would be able to leave his two remaining companions resting in peace without making the slightest bit of noise.
Mark smiled to himself as he quickly scribbled a note for the others, telling them what he was going to do & where he was going to be doing it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
'Finally,' Veronica thought, standing next to a large rendition of the number three, painted bright yellow onto the concrete wall inside the parking garage.
Her journey up to the third level of the parking garage had hardly been uneventful. She had needed to push quite a few infected out of her way, often times straight to the ground. She had only been grabbed once - An obese woman grabbed the corner of her shirt but she had managed to shrug it off before the infected's grip had become any tighter.
She began scanning the rows of cars to find her own, knowing she had parked on this level.
It was comforting for her to note that only a few infected had wandered up this high in the parking garage. Perhaps the wanderings of the infected weren't so random or mysterious after all; Perhaps even they could sense when an area simply had no readily available supply of healthy humans to feed off of.
All she had to do was to get to her car, Veronica thought.
Safety, for Veronica, was virtually in sight.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The high rollers floor in the hotel was barely the size of a modest house.
Twenty slot machines, each pull priced at no less then one thousand dollars, sat along side a few tables for poker, one or two for blackjack & a roulette table. There was an "open bar," meaning that the gamblers were more then welcome to drink themselves under the tables for free - After all, what was the price of a good bottle of vodka when your clients were spending five thousand dollars a hand at blackjack? A bartender poured the drinks and the skimpy-dressed waitresses served them.
Off in a corner was a lounge with a large television set for those who wanted to watch horse racing, football, baseball, the news or whatever else they so desired. There was also a pair of bathrooms, men & women.
The elevator was the only means of formal entry into the casino. Only the stairway that Amanda was in now provided both an alternate means of entry as well as the sole method of escape should disaster ever strike.
Peering through the exit door into the casino, Amanda could see just who it was who had went on the shooting spree.
He was able to see the exit door to the stairwell.
He was able to see the entrance to the elevator.
Amanda would need to use deception if she was even going to be able to enter the high rollers casino without being shot at.
==========================
PART LXIV
Mark gently closed the hatch that connected the rooftop to the shipping & receiving area ladder. Standing back up, he turned on his flashlight. In his other hand he wielded an anonymous length of metal, it's original purpose forever lost with time.
Carefully walking over to the edge of the roof, Mark could clearly see the infected whose arms they had trapped when they closed the loading bay door. Some were moving while others weren't. It was obvious that these weren't the only infected in the area; Scores of infected still wandered nearby. Some walked into the walls of the casino &, like a pinball, simply moved in another direction. Others pounded at the wall, refusing to be diverted from their original path.
Eager to explore his surroundings beyond what had become intimately familiar to him over the past twenty-four hours, Mark walked away from the edge & began to explore outward, towards the center of the casino. He took careful steps, knowing full well that the light from his flashlight was the only light he could possibly depend on. With no one else around to help him, a twisted ankle was as much a threat as would be an improbable rooftop meeting with an infected.
Unlike Veronica, Mark fully intended to make his exploration of the rooftop a diversion. His full attention was, of course, the eradication of the infected, so far as much to ensure his own safety & the safety of those he knew were still alive.
Intentions & results, though, so rarely ended up being synonymous with one another...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Her car...It was her car.
Her ordeal made it feel as though it had been forever since she had parked her car & gotten out of it. She knew better then that - She knew that she had yet to see the first full day where infected fought with the healthy for dominance as the main species on this planet.
Quickly looking around her, she saw only a few infected in the entire area. Most were too far away to deal with, even if she had wielded the bloodlust to incapacitate them for one last time. The others would simply be too slow to stop her. For all she would know, her car would be long gone by the time they could even walk up to where the car was parked.
Hurriedly, she rushed over to her car, her hands fumbling to produce the correct key. She produced her own suspense, dropping the keys & cursing profusely as she scrambled to pick them back up. The tension was only in her own mind for even the closest infected was still too far away to do much more then be intimidating through reputation alone.
Thrilled at unlocking the front driver's side door, Veronica slammed the door shut & shoved the key into the car's ignition. She turned the key with such vigor that, for a moment, she feared she would snap the key in two, twisting the head of the key off.
Once more, her fears were unfounded; The engine uneventfully turned over, just like it had so many countless times before. Veronica's eyes began to water with joy as she heard the motor running.
Taking the car out of park, she quickly threw the car into reverse, backing out of her parking spot with a tenacity reserved only for the reckless.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Ivana," Amanda said while back in the hotel suite, "I need your help."
"I'm not going back up there," Ivana quickly said, fear jumping back into her voice.
"I don't want you to go up there," Amanda quickly responded, anticipating Ivana's reaction, "I just want you to do one thing for me. After that, you can go back here & lock the door."
Ivana paused for a moment, looking at Amanda before finally asking, "What do you need?"
"I need to get the elevator up to the casino," Amanda stated. Ivana immediately shook her head negatively.
"No," she blurted out loudly, "There's no way he's coming down here. No way."
"He's not coming down here," Amanda clarified, "I need to trick him, Ivana. I need to distract him... Confuse him."
"You need to operate the elevator from inside," Ivana stated matter-of-factly, "It won't just go up by itself. You need to turn a key in there once you choose the casino. Otherwise, it won't go up."
"Once the key is turned, though," Amanda asked, "The elevator goes up. Right?"
"You push the button for the casino, then turn the key. Then it goes up," Ivana stated.
"What about going down?" Amanda suddenly asked, "Do you need the key for that, too?"
Ivana was confused but could see the light in Amanda's eyes.
========================
PART LXV
Cold. Dark. Windy.
That was how walking on the rooftop of the casino felt like for Mark as he slowly made his way across it. It was hardly scenic as the only thing he could see was what the flashlight illuminated ahead of him.
Mark glanced over the side of the edge to see more infected wandering around. He should have realized that the infected, already indifferent to the loss of their limbs, also paid no attention to the drastic dip in the nighttime temperature. He was amazed at how the infected could simply wander about in the nighttime with only t-shirts or no shirts on at all.
It was only then that Mark realized the impossible scope of their dreams - That the eradication of the infected from the casino was little more then youthful folly, naive optimism that one could squeeze a sponge dry while submerged at the bottom of a pool.
The lack of sleep, the lack of proper nutrition & their lack of genuine progress at curbing the infected invasion gave Mark such despair that he turned away from the edge in complete disgust. He was disgusted with himself for having bothered to show up to work admist a crisis. He was disgusted that all he had done was facilitate an extraordinarily slow means of siphoning out the infected from the casino.
Mark determined that he would figure out a genuine method for securing the casino before he went back to the shipping & receiving area.
First, though, he would continue to search the rooftop of the casino, if only to clear his mind temporarily from the crisis at hand.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The good news was that the infected ignored vehicles, especially if they weren't given time to actually see into them.
The bad news, though, was that infected ignored vehicles, especially if they weren't given time to actually see into them.
The same benefit that Veronica enjoyed driving while not in pursuit of the infected was hampered when the infected merely stood in the driving lane, oblivious to an oncoming car, horn blaring or otherwise.
At first, Veronica slowed nearly to a stop, horn blaring & lights flashing. Upon the realization that the infected weren't so dense as to not pursue her once they spotted her in a car, driving slowly & pushing their bodies out of the way with the front of her car was no longer taboo.
With only one level left to go before exiting the parking garage, Veronica was feeling genuinely giddy, nearly to the point of turning on the car radio. She resisted, feeling it best to have all of her senses focused on vacating the casino grounds.
Then, she saw it, stopping her breath cold & causing her to stop the car entirely.
In front of her was a wall of infected, right near the exit, congregating for no specified reason. Her perfect escape marred, Veronica would have to think fast or risk driving through a swarm.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Each employee that worked in the high-rollers casino was given a key to the elevator that allowed them access to it. It only made sense; Employees weren't allowed to eat or go to the bathroom there. Unofficially, though, no one ever complained when a waitress had to use the ladies' room.
Ivana was no different, placing her key into the slot designated in the elevator for special access to the upper floors & the casino.
Carefully, she pressed the button for the casino & then turned the key.
Quickly, she jumped out of the elevator car, allowing the doors to close to carry up an empty car.
The plan, as explained to her by Amanda, was risky. It was Amanda, though, who was taking all of the risk.
Ivana asked herself if that was right for Amanda to follow through with it by herself. Ivana, in a fit of guilt, paused for a moment to reflect on what others would do if they were in her position.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 19, 2011 17:59:56 GMT -6
PART LXVI
Eddie briefly awoke from his slumber.
He awoke long enough to look at his watch & to figure out that he had not slept for as long as he thought he had slept.
Glancing around the area without getting up, his mind had not registered that Mark had left. Perhaps his mind was too delirious from suddenly awakening to realize that the counter where Mark had once slept was now vacant.
Eddie's eyelids felt as though they each weighed one ton. His very last thought before resuming his slumber was that all was quiet & that quiet meant safety.
How wrong he was going to be...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Veronica backed up the car & turned it around in an empty parking spot.
The infected were still, thankfully, ignoring the car. She had gotten used to nudging the infected out of the way with the use of her front bumper through careful & slow driving.
Veronica steered her car for the other parking garage exit.
Block or not blocked, it would be the exit she would have to use if she was to make it out at all.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There was enough alcohol in the high-rollers casino to last him forever.
Forever, though, might not be long enough to wait out the riot he had escaped down below.
Samuel looked around & couldn't help but snicker at all the dead bodies lying on the floor.
"Hey," Samuel spoke to the corpses, "You guys want some money? I'll give you some money."
Walking over to a blackjack table, he fumbled into his hand a $5,000 dollar playing chip. He threw it down at the ground towards some corpses who, naturally enough, had other priorities then to catch it. He watched as the chip bounced off of someone's stomach & roll harmlessly to a stop on the floor.
"You were supposed to catch that," Samuel replied, pointing to where the chip had stopped rolling, "I thought all you rich b**tards liked money... Or pissing it away. One or the other."
Samuel glanced all around the small casino with alcohol-soaked eyes. He saw dead card dealers. He saw dead gamblers. He saw dead waitresses. He saw dead security guards. Death was all around Samuel.
All of the death wasn't his fault, of course. If they had just quietly gone down the stairwell or the elevator, he wouldn't have had to fire off a single shot.
No, the rich pricks just couldn't find it in themselves to obey orders. After all, they were wealthy. They were POWERFUL. How dare they be commanded by someone who made less then a few chips at any one of the tables he now leaned on! His kind was below them! His kind was inferior!
When he had ordered everyone out, they were playing games like nothing was wrong. The world was descending into chaos & all these rich little f**ks could think about was how to win that next hand of blackjack, of what the next number would be on the roulette wheel. What did they care about the suffering? Everything they owned was insured, re-insured & super-insured just for safe measure. Not even the television was turned to the news - It was on some closed-circuit television station following the horse races. Horse races!
If anything, Samuel thought of himself as a hero... A Hero for the People! Getting rid of these wealthy f**kers was just the start. After he'd wait out whatever cluster f**k was going on with all the people who were sick, he'd go off & start raiding the homes of the wealthy. He'd give the poor all that the wealthy had.
Before Samuel could continue his train of thought, though, he heard a noise. Wheeling around, he noticed the oddest thing - The elevator doors were opening.
With all his attention on the elevator, he completely forgot about the stairwell exit door.
=====================
PART LXVII
Money. Money had always gotten Pauline in trouble.
'Whatever you make in tips today,' she remembered hearing some guy from the casino on the other end say, 'I'll double it. Guaranteed...IF you come in & work.'
Double the tips. DOUBLE. Who could resist that?
These were no ordinary tips, though. It wasn't some random tourist trying to drunkedly throw a five-dollar chip down her blouse or the World's Most Crumpled Up One-Dollar Bill that would take her more time to uncrumple then it would be to spend it.
As a high-rollers waitress, her tips started at the one-hundred dollar chip & simply went up. On her very first night as a high-rollers waitress, she made over two thousand dollars in tips. TWO-THOUSAND DOLLARS! It wasn't until later that she learnt of the "tradition" - That the gamblers always heavily tipped the new waitress on her very first day on the job.
All of that tip money wasn't going to help her now, though. Her ample figure wasn't going to help her now. Her skimpy one-piece waitressing uniform wasn't going to help her now. Security wasn't going to help & the three security guards who were stationed in the high-rollers casino were no longer in a position to do anything but decay on the floor.
Money... Money was the reason why she was in this mess.
If her mother had waited for Mr. Right to come along instead of Mr. "Let me pop this pill into your drink," Pauline wouldn't have been born into near poverty. The near-poverty wouldn't have driven an especially young, single mother insane & gotten her locked up. Seeing her mother locked up wouldn't have caused her to always stress over money. Not stressing over money would have meant more time for friends, more time for school work, more time to be the kid that she should have been.
Instead, all of her decisions starting at the age of six was always about money. How much money could she make with a lemonade stand? How much money for acting in a school play? How much money for a new dress? A used dress? A used stuff animal?
Being attractive made you money. Being attractive in an industry that awarded attractiveness made you money. Being friendly with certain people in an industry that awarded attractiveness made you money.
Crouched on top of a toilet in the women's bathroom, Pauline was afraid to even chatter her teeth in fear. Money wouldn't stop a crazed man from hearing her teeth chatter. It wouldn't stop him from shooting her; There had been several more attractive waitresses that he had gunned down.
Pauline's legs were cramping up by crouching on top of the toilet seat. Her mascara had long since run all the way down her face as she had done her best not to cry but still had nonetheless.
She prayed that, if she ever got out of this alive, she would quit making money forever.
Concentrating so hard on not making a sound, Pauline had completely ignored the muffled "ding" that the elevator made whenever it's doors opened up.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
'This roof is huge,' Mark thought.
While Mark walked the length of the roof, he had tried to envision a number of different schemes to eliminate more of the infected.
One idea was to lead them up an "up" escalator, kill them & then send them down a "down" escalator. Of course, that was all dependant on how coordinated the infected could even manuever onto an escalator in the first place.
Another idea was goading them into an elevator car, trapping them into it & then killing them there. Then, they could move the elevator down to a "safe floor" for them to dispose of the bodies.
Mark then imagined himself as a barbarian, slashing through the infected in a frenzy. The comic image of him with a huge, heavy sword almost brought a smile to his face.
The smile was short-lived as he heard something both oddly familiar & yet, completely alien. To Mark, it sounded as though it was an automobile. All his life, he had heard the engine of an automobile & yet, in this environment, he was completely flustered over why he was hearing one now.
========================
PART LXVIII
"Who's there?" Samuel asked to no one in particular, paying attention to the open elevator doors. He pointed the gun at the empty elevator car & slowly walked towards it.
For Amanda, it truly was now or never. She opened the stairwell door as quietly as she could & snuck in.
Samuel inspected the elevator car & found it to be exactly what it was - An elevator car. In his drunken state, though, nothing was entirely what it seemed.
"What did you do?" He asked the elevator car, "Just come up here by yourself?"
Samuel gazed at the elevator buttons inside the elevator car. The elevator car truly was an accessory for the wealthy - It only had buttons for the suites in the hotel, the casino itself & then finally for a hallway that the wealthy could enter & exit from the main lobby of the hotel below.
Samuel awkwardly turned & pulled the key out of it's socket, transfixed by it. In his alcohol-laden brain, he just couldn't figure out how the car could have moved on it's own. Did one of the infected do this? How would they have been able to? Have they gotten smarter somehow?
It was at this moment that Amanda should have struck. With Samuel's attention so diverted, he would have been an easy target for at least one clear blow to the head. Instead, Samuel just stared & began to laugh at the key that he held up in his hand.
"Dude," he laughed, holding the key up, "This is so weird!"
Just then, Samuel heard a noise that came from neither Amanda nor Pauline. It snapped him immediately back to attention, his face going stern & his gun pointed back from the elevator.
Amanda's blood turned ice cold, quickly scrambling behind a gaming table & lying face down on the ground as Samuel turned to where the noise came from.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They were on top of her hood. They were beside the driver's side door. They were directly behind her.
Nothing, though, was going to stop Veronica from leaving the parking garage. Not a horde of infected milling about aimlessly. Not a bunch of men determined to play amateur exterminators. Not a cheating fiancee. No one.
Veronica pushed her car through the crowd, going no faster then five miles an hour. At that speed & constantly weaving back & forth, she was able to push a majority of the infected out of her way without running them over.
Bliss arrived in the form of seeing the outside of the parking garage & only a few dozen infected in front of her. Finally, she was out on an open road heading towards the exit of the property.
Veronica was so happy that she burst into screams of delight as she slowly slalomed her way around the infected. Most ignored her, with one or two offering a token chase that proved no serious bodily harm to either herself or her car.
Victory was hers.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mark couldn't believe it - It was a car. A car trying to drive off of the property.
Were there other people still alive at the casino? There had to be! One was driving away right now!
Mark waved his arms & flashlight at the car but to no avail. The car was too far away & the flashlight nowhere near powerful enough to act as a signal.
"Hey!" Mark shouted as the car slowly weaved it's way past the infected, waving his arms, "Hey!"
It was no use - The car was leaving without him.
Never once did he think that it was Veronica in the car. Veronica, of course, would never have left the group, thought Mark.
After all, Mark consoled himself as the car faded from view, why would Veronica leave them here to die?
Mark turned his attention to the far end of the casino, where a massive hotel jutted up from the casino building. He would walk to the hotel & then back to the shipping & receiving area.
He wondered if he should mention seeing the car to Charlie & Eddie or if that would bring their hopes up too much.
=======================
PART LXIX
The open road. Veronica couldn't believe it.
No infected behind her. No infected in front of her.
Veronica slowed the car down to a crawl for a moment. She leaned over & turned on the car radio. Static - All she was receiving was static.
Veronica's smile was so wide that the corners of her mouth hurt.
As Veronica sped the car back up, she couldn't help but laugh - Laugh & celebrate that she was alive.
She was determined to celebrate the very first chance she got.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mark couldn't understand what he was seeing at first.
The window appeared to be broken, so thoroughly that only tiny little edges remained where the pane of glass used to be, but he couldn't find any shattered glass anywhere on the rooftop.
It took him a moment to realize, though, that the shattered glass wasn't on the rooftop but inside the room.
Someone had broken into, not out of, the room that merged with the rooftop. An examination of the room, from where Mark could stand, indicated that it wasn't a hotel room at all but some sort of office space. Broken glass glittered on a nearby desk with spots of blood dotting both sides of where the window was.
Mark wondered for a moment if Veronica had been here. Maybe, perhaps, she had gone up to the rooftop for some fresh air & was... Was...
Mark panned the flashlight around back towards the rooftop area. There were no infected anywhere in sight. There was nowhere that they could suddenly jump out from. There were no hidden corners, air vents or other machinery reserved for the rooftop. He saw nothing more then empty, open space.
If Veronica had smashed in the window to gain entry to the room, why was she already bleeding? How bad were her injuries? Why didn't she try to get back to the shipping & receiving department?
Mark needed to decide immediately just how extensive his search was going to be. On the rooftop, he knew he was safe; He hadn't seen any infected around & they didn't have the ability to make it to the rooftop (that he knew of). Going back into the casino & especially in an area that he hadn't been in previously, he would be subjected to every type of surprise that could be thrown at him. He would either be one man against emptiness or one man against an entire, sudden horde of infected.
If Mark didn't make it back to the shipping & receiving area, though, whatever he found would be all for naught. Charlie & Eddie would have a hastily-scribbled note from him & that would be it.
Mark made up his mind - He would investigate but immediately report back to the others if he saw anything of any significance.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"No one's allowed up here!" Samuel screamed, his voice so shrill that it cracked.
Amanda, even with her head down, could tell what the sound was - It was the sound of the exit door opening.
Suddenly, a gun shot went off & Amanda flinched violently, trying hard to do anything but scream in reaction. The gun shot was loud, like a firecracker going off right beside her ear. She wondered how people could fire guns like that all day long & not get permanent hearing loss.
Amanda heard running & peeked up to see Samuel run towards the exit door. Flinging it open quickly, he yelled as loud as he could, "I'm going to kill you, you f**king b**ch!"
Samuel immediately ran through the exit door, cursing & firing another shot. Amanda stood up as soon as she realized Samuel was gone.
Confused, Amanda tried to sort together what had just happened. Then, it dawned on her - Ivana. Ivana must have followed her up to the casino.
Now, though, Ivana was in danger.
Amanda immediately ran towards the exit door, trying to think of something - Anything - That she would be able to do to help Ivana evade a drunk & rampaging man.
=============================
PART LXX
How stupid of me, Ivana thought to herself. How truly, TRULY stupid of me!
Ivana ran down the flight of stairs so fast that she didn't even have time to look back. All she could hear was some yelling, followed by a gunshot. The slug ricocheted off the walls a few times before harmlessly falling to the ground. She felt as though someone was stomping down the stairs behind her.
The fastest plan that Ivana could think of was to simply keep descending the stairs until she got to the floor of the suite that she had been in previously. Then, she'd go in there, deadbolt the door & hope that the crazed man would either lose track of her or be unable to break the door down.
Suddenly, another gunshot rang out. Something hot & hard hit Ivana's leg. She shrieked in panic, losing her balance & falling the last few stairs down to the fire exit from one of the suite levels.
Her left shoulder ached. Her back ached. The back of her head ached. However, Ivana still realized that she was alive & in one piece. Instinctually feeling the back of her leg, she felt a sore bruise but nothing else. No blood or entry wound at all.
Ivana could hear the crazed man continuing to run down the stairs & then, suddenly stop.
Amanda was yelling something from on top of the stairwell, a few floors up. Ivana couldn't quite hear it but, whatever she was saying, it had caused the crazed man to stop in his tracks.
Ivana knew she would have only one chance to get back into the suite. With some luck, maybe she could even get in there without being followed by him.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mark turned the light on after determining that the room was safe.
It was an office of some time, shaped like the letter "U." He noted a drawer that had been pulled to be used as some sort of...sink? Basin? From what he could tell, the water in the drawer was slightly murky.
He also noticed that a tissue box had been ripped up. Some tissues were lying around near the ripped up tissue box. Some of the tissues had blood on them.
Mark cautiously ventured towards the exit of the office. Maybe the person who was here before was injured. Maybe that person was even dead. Mark needed to find out - If the person truly was injured, Mark thought, perhaps he could be of assistance to him.
In this world &, especially, in this casino, any help was better then receiving no help at all.
Mark cautiously opened the door to the hotel hallway to begin his search.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Eddie couldn't hear it.
Charlie couldn't hear it.
However, it was happening & an infected man by the name of Kevin was more then willing to do the work.
A mere twenty-hours earlier, Kevin was a thirty-year old retired police officer. His retirement was due to an injury that had left him partially deaf. The injury & forced retirement caused him to become dependant on drugs & financially unstable. Financial instability led him to the world of high-risk, high-yield investments - In other words, gambling.
In his last few fleeting moments of consciousness, Kevin had thought that his police training would help him contain (or, at least, survive) the ever-growing mob fight that was emerging throughout the casino.
What occurred, though, was that Kevin's partial deafness proved to be his downfall. Two infected had snuck up on him & feasted on his shoulder & neck before he could do anything about it. At that moment, Kevin stopped being Kevin forever & became the barely conscious, barely alive abomination he was now.
The infected formerly known as Kevin, though, now had a new goal - Food.
Food was behind the weird door. He could smell the food.
His delusional perception failed to notice his progress while he pounded on the weird door. Nails were getting bent, bolts were being strained.
His pounding went unnoticed by the only two people who were capable of doing anything about it...
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 19, 2011 18:02:05 GMT -6
PART LXXI
"Hey, A***ole!" Amanda screamed down the stairwell, "How are you going to get back in here?!"
Amanda slammed the exit door shut as hard as she could.
A moment later, she heard someone running up the stairs. By the cadence of the running, she could tell that it had to be someone other then Ivana. She was correct; It was the crazed man.
She heard the crazed man pound on the door a few times.
"Let me in, you little f***! You little, cheap f***! I swear to God, let me in or I'll kill you!" She could hear the crazed man scream, his voice getting hoarse.
Amanda resisted the temptation to reply with 'Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin.' Instead, she merely listened to the crazed man hit the door a few more times, each one harder then the last. After hearing an exasperated growl from the crazed man, Amanda heard the man go back down the stairwell.
As the man went back down the stairwell, Amanda wondered if Ivana was still alive &, if so, if she had used the distraction to save herself.
Glancing over at the elevator, Amanda began to walk towards it when she heard a noise from inside the casino.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dead bodies were everywhere.
Mark hadn't walked into a stairwell - He had walked into a mortuary.
An inspection of just a few bodies revealed what he had thought - That someone had caved in their skulls or they were as caved in as someone had needed to cave them in.
Mark looked up the staircase & noticed that bodies were strewn all the way up it.
"Hey!" Mark yelled, "Anyone alive?"
There was no answer.
Maybe, Mark thought, this was the result of some resistance that eventually failed, where the infected got the upper hand & had themselves a buffet.
Mark decided to climb the stairwell & see just how far up the corpses went before they stopped. He figured that seeing how far up they went would give him a clue if this display of defiance against the infected was ongoing or if he had already missed the party.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ivana jiggled the handle but the door wouldn't budge.
She realized too late that the door to the stairwell must have locked when she went through it.
Without a key to get back into the suites that she had hid at earlier, Ivana could only go further down the staircase. Quickly, she collected herself & began to run down the staircase, just in time to hear another set of footsteps begin to stomp down the staircase just a few floors above her.
The chase, once delayed, now began anew.
=========================
PART LXXII
They defied him. They DEFIED him! DEFIED!
For Samuel, it was one thing for the wealthy & powerful to resist. They were USED to being powerful, they were USED to being in control. Of course those who thought they could do no wrong, who were above the law, were going to defend their power over their own domain. He had no problem with slaughtering them because they were irreversibly drunk with power. Brainwashed for all eternity into believing in their false superiority, a quick death was a blessing for those wealthy individuals.
Yet, now he had to deal with the 'bottom-feeders' of those powerful & wealthy individuals. These unfortunate souls had been corrupted by the wealthy, spoiled by their money. They were slaves of the Almighty Dollar Bill, no different then the slaves of yesteryear who were forced to work on plantations & endure untold hardships from malevolent masters.
Samuel had been hoping to be received as a liberator but knew, deep in his heart, that the majority of the working class were of fragile constitution & had an equally fragile resolve. Even when educated, these brainwashed fools would gravitate towards 'the devil they knew' rather then 'the devil they didn't know' merely out of routine. To Samuel, such undeserved loyalty equated them to being nothing more then dogs - Animals of no consciousness or rational thought.
What Samuel knew in his heart was that he would need to demonstrate, above all reproach, that these hopelessly brainwashed fools really were nothing compared to him; That he could take their lives away in a heartbeat if he so choose for whatever reason he so choose.
As Samuel ran down the staircase, he figured that a demonstration to the occupier of the high-rollers casino would be in order. If he could demonstrate to her that all life underneath him was worthless, that all life needed to be validated by his approval, then she would understand that opposition to him would be useless.
Samuel needed a subject to demonstrate on & he could find no one better then the one who tricked him into leaving his turf. Currently, based on the sound of her footsteps racing down the stairwell, he was gaining on her.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ivana rushed down to the end of the stairwell, where a door separated her from the rest of the stairwell. She couldn't figure out why there was suddenly a door inbetween floors of the stairwell; Maybe, she thought, it had something to do with fire safety.
She had no time to figure it out, pushing through the door at no less a pace as she did when running down the stairs. Beyond the door, though, was a grisly sight - A stairwell full of dead bodies, carpeting almost every single square inch of ground she saw. The sheer expanse of the carnage made her pause, the door closing behind her automatically.
Snapping back into reality, she began to walk gingerly down the staircase as best she could, trying to avoid stepping on top of bodies.
Her carefulness was short-lived; Samuel, the crazed man, burst through the doorway not one-half minute later. Ivana, now beside herself in fear, abandoned all efforts to remain pristine amongst the carnage. She stepped on bodies while trying her best to hold onto the guardrail.
To her surprise, Samuel said nothing as he began to doggedly pursue her. He also abandoned any effort at avoiding bodies, slipping on top of them & even using them to buffer any stumbles he had while climbing down the stairs.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Suddenly, Kevin heard a loud, metallic 'pop.' Then, something hard & heavy fell on top of Kevin. In his infected state, he had neither the intellect nor the reflexes to dodge the object.
His hands scarred & shredded beyond repair, Kevin was toppled by the weirdly-shaped door that he had been pounding on. The door fell right on top of him, smacking his skull onto the tiled floor with an impact that would have sent a healthy man to the hospital & an unlucky healthy man to the grave.
Kevin groaned, making an abysmally poor effort to stand back up. Whatever efforts he had attempted to make were for naught; Other infected were now walking through the open door, walking on top of & over Kevin. For Kevin, a damaged skull & mutilated hands were now the least of his worries.
In his final moments before the effects of being trampled snuffed out his life completely, he watched as dozens of infected began walking down a hallway that smelled of food. To the very end, he yearned for that food, too.
=======================
PART LXXIII
It didn't make sense but, in Charlie's dream world, it made perfect sense.
In clothes that he wouldn't be able to afford, in a bar far too ritzy for his tastes, Charlie sauntered in as though he had always been the establishment's favorite patron.
Leaning against the bar, he waved towards the bartender. It didn't bother Charlie that the bartender was missing an arm & was as pale as a sheet of white paper.
"Give me the usual," Charlie said, looking over the crowd that had gathered into the bar.
All of them excluding Charlie were infected. Some were missing limbs, some had gaping wounds, most were paler then a cloud & all of them conversed in a strange, garbled language that made no sense at all. It didn't faze Charlie in the slightest that he was amongst a mob of infected more interested in chatting then chewing.
The bartender pushed forward a drink & Charlie slurped it down as though it was water. It was tasty, colored water, though & just as quickly it had been pushed at him, Charlie pushed the glass back empty.
Charlie mingled amongst the crowd, nodding at people as though he had known them all of his adult life. They continued to talk in that garbled, nonsensical language of theirs but Charlie hardly had another thought about it.
Suddenly, he bumped into an elegantly dressed woman from behind.
"I'm sorry," Charlie apologized, "I didn't see you there."
The woman turned around, half of her face mauled beyond description. Three of her fingers was missing from one hand & the arm attached to the other dangled as though broken. Her appearance didn't faze Charlie in the least.
"Have I seen you before?" Charlie asked, faux sincerity dripping from every sylabble, "You look like you're not from around here."
"I was just about to ask you the same thing," the woman replied back in a stereotypical sweet, feminine voice.
Charlie had no idea what compelled him to say, "Would you care to dance?" But he said it anyway. She agreed to dance & the two walked out onto a generally deserted dance floor.
The two began to dance, Charlie not paying attention to the grime & blood that caked the woman's hands as she held onto him. They danced not to music but to a strange, rhythmic thumping noise as the lights in his dream slowly began to dim...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amanda heard it; Something falling inside the ladies' rest room. If it wasn't something falling, then it was something that had made a loud noise.
Slowly walking over to the ladies' room door, Amanda called out, "Is anyone in there?"
No answer.
"I'm armed," Amanda lied, hastily looking around for something that looked even remotely intimidating. She picked up an empty bottle of some hard liquor, the glass container feeling hard enough to survive at least a modest swing at a human skull.
Pushing open the ladies' room door slowly, she began to hear quiet sobbing. Amanda walked in quickly, noticing a waitress sitting up on the ground, her legs curled into her chest. The woman's face was as red as a stop sign, wet with tears.
"Oh my God," Amanda said in reaction, quickly putting the bottle down onto the ground, "Are you OK?"
"My...my legs...," Pauline stammered out, "Please don't kill me. Please, please don't kill me."
"I'm not going to kill you," Amanda quickly replied, "I'm not going to kill you."
Amanda realized that the woman must have successfully hidden from the crazed man inside the one place he customarily wouldn't walk into - The ladies' room. Judging by the woman's curled-up legs, Amanda also figured that she had stood on the toilet to avoid easy detection inside the stalls.
Amanda knew that she needed to get this woman to safety as quickly as possible. Safety, though, was not synonymous with being inside a room that was filled with corpses & the target of a crazed man.
"Do you have a key to the elevator?" Amanda asked Pauline.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mark heard it.
Was it an air conditioning unit kicking in?
Was it a large helicopter flying overhead?
Then, he realized what it might be - Footsteps, coming from the many flights of stairs still above him. Judging by the speed, he determined that it couldn't possibly be the infected that was descending the stairwell.
"Hey!" He yelled upwards, "Are you alive? Are you hurt? I'm not injured or sick!"
Instead of a response, Mark continued to hear the noise as it increased with every flight of stairs. Slowly, he began to worry that whatever was coming down the stairs was going to be something other then a welcoming party.
=========================
PART LXXIV
"Mom!"
Eddie thrusted his game controller down onto the carpeted floor, turning around so quickly that he didn't even see it slightly bounce off of the carpet.
Stomping over to his bedroom door, he quickly & loudly opened it up.
To his surprise, no one was there. The hallway leading away from his room was not only dark but also eerily silent as well.
"Hey," his friend said, not even bothering to turn around from the game, "We still need to keep playing."
Eddie pushed his bedroom door shut, more disappointed then angry. He walked back over to where his friend was, sitting in front of the television screen with another game controlled firmly in his hands.
It never phased Eddie that he was back in his old bedroom before his parents moved, before his parents divorced & before he became such a "hot potato" during the custody hearings that he had to stay at his grandparents to shield him from all the dung that was being flung as a result of it.
It never phased Eddie that he couldn't see his friend's face, that the television set always emitted a solid off-green color or that the game console looked completely unfamiliar to him.
"I'm sorry for my Mom," Eddie mumbled to his friend, "I don't know why she keeps disturbing us."
"That's OK," his friend quickly replied, "As long as she doesn't disturb the game."
"Yeah," Eddie replied with a sheepish grin, "Hey, want to play two-player?"
"Sure," his friend replied, always staring at the screen.
Just before Eddie picked up the controller, though, there was a thunderous pounding at the door again. the door rattled so hard that Eddie swore it was going to come off of it's hinges.
"Goddamnit!" Eddie screamed at the top of his lungs, "What the f**k is it now?!!"
Eddie ran over to the door & threw it open, only to find more darkness & more silence from the empty hallway that greeted him before.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Eddie's eyes flickered open, adjusting to the lights still on in the shipping & receiving department.
For a moment, he couldn't comprehend what he was hearing - Raindrops? Someone slamming a basketball against the side of the wall outside? Someone driving a nail through a piece of wood with a hammer?
Eddie slowly got up into a standing position & stretched right in front of the note that Mark had scribbled for Eddie & Charlie to read. Sleepily walking towards the door that led to the L-shaped door, he completely ignored the note.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amanda wasn't strong enough to carry her over the corpses. She also couldn't drag her across or over the corpses, short of also dragging her through a lot of blood & other muck.
"How are you doing?" Amanda asked Pauline, who had managed to uncurl one of her legs & make it straight. The other leg was still curled up but was slowly straightening out.
"I can feel my left leg a little bit but not my right one," Pauline stated.
"The moment you feel like you can move, tell me," Amanda said. She looked around the room for anything that resembled anything useful for her. Ideally, she would have loved the use of a wheelbarrow but knew that one would not be available to her.
There was nothing else that Amanda hadn't already done. She had told Pauline that Ivana was still alive, which had given Pauline some comfort. Pauline had also seen some of the corpses from where she was sitting down. Amanda noticed that Pauline was not as upset as she thought she'd be but maybe, Amanda figured, Pauline was still in some state of shock.
As Amanda began regretting that there wasn't more she could do for Ivana or Pauline, she spied a long piece of pipe as part of some of the interior decorating of the high roller's casino.
"Hmmmmm," Amanda thought to herself.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Help!" Ivana begged as she ran down the stairs, Samuel in close pursuit. She prayed that the voice she heard would be friendly. Anyone, she figured, had to be friendlier
By now, she had abandoned all prejudices when descending the stairwell. She walked on corpses, slipped on corpses & fell on top of them whenever she needed to stay ahead of Samuel.
Behind her, Samuel's pace had been slowed only by his intoxication. Slower reflexes had meant more tumbling down a particular flight of stairs & recovery thereafter, along with navigating the stairs.
Samuel knew that he was falling behind. She was at least two levels below her & probably gaining. At some point, she'd have enough of a lead to where she could slip into one of the floors of the hotel & he wouldn't be able to hear the door open or close.
'It's time,' Samuel thought, 'To end this.'
He raised his gun up & looked down the center of the stairwell.
=======================
PART LXXV
"Alright...Alright," Eddie mumbled, more to himself then to placate whomever was banging on the door.
Eddie presumed that it had to be Mark at the door. A brief glance over to where Mark had been sleeping was now vacant.
Eddie, his eyes still hazy from just awakening, saw nothing more then a shape at the door that led to the hallway with their "L"-shaped door.
Just as Eddie was about to grab the handle of the door, though, he heard a loud & sharp voice from behind him.
"STOP!" Charlie screamed, the concrete interior of the shipping & receiving area amplifying his voice. Eddie turned around to see Charlie sprinting over to Eddie, weapon in hand.
"Huh?" Eddie reacted sleepily, "Wha...?"
Charlie slammed up against the door, pushing Eddie's hand away from it.
"It's the infected!" Charlie continued to shout, "Get away from the door!"
Eddie paused for a moment, rubbing his eyes as he took a few steps back. Everything was happening so fast for him & it was all so weird.
"It's Mark," Eddie said, the sleep finally fading from his voice, "Just let him in."
"It's not Mark," Charlie angrily replied, causing Eddie pause, "It's the infected! They've managed to break through the f**king door! Look!"
Eddie, his mind finally beginning to awaken, looked at the door. Charlie could see Eddie's jaw slowly begin to drop as he alternated between looking at the door & at Charlie.
"Oh my God," Eddie said softly, "Do you think...? I mean...?"
"I don't know," Charlie quickly stated, "I just woke up myself. Did Mark leave a note or anything? Is he up top on the roof?"
As Eddie hastily turned around to begin searching to see if Mark left anything, he heard glass shattering. Turning back around, he witnessed what was driving Charlie towards the ladder : That the infected had broken through the glass of the door.
Infected arms outstretched through the glass, Charlie knew what Eddie would realize only a moment later - Invasion was inevitable.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Just hang on & balance yourself," Amanda stated.
It was going to leave a mark on the carpeting but, at this point, the casino could sue her.
Taking the long piece of pipe that she had spied earlier, Amanda had gotten Pauline to balance herself on the pole as through she was crawling across it, laying down on it with her body. It was by no means an adequate substitute for a stretcher but Amanda had no choice - If she was going to take Pauline out of the casino, it would have to be like this.
Amanda hoisted up her end of the pipe & began to pull it. She could hear the telltale scrapping of metal against carpet & saw the inevitable trail she was leaving as the edge of the pipe dug it's way through the carpet.
As Amanda dragged the pipe towards the open elevator car, she was already thinking to herself what she was going to do about Ivana...If she was still alive.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As far as Samuel was concerned, he needed to set an example - An example of what would happen if the brainwashed minions of the wealthy tried to usurp his self-acquired authority.
In a way, he thought, there was a silver lining to his current situation. He had entrapped one of the minions in her tower of decadence & was chasing another. Dispatching the one that was fleeing, he could display her corpse for all to see.
'This,' he would scrawl next to her lifeless body, 'Is what you will become if you defy me.'
As Samuel aimed his firearm down the middle of the stairwell, he waited for the panicked Ivana to continue running down it at her current pace. He knew that she wouldn't be paying attention. He knew that she wouldn't be looking up.
Then, suddenly, he saw her.
He fired off a round.
He heard a yelp, followed by something tumbling.
He smiled as he began to casually making his way down the staircase.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It didn't make any sense to Mark.
Two healthy people were shooting at each other from above. He had heard a yelp but nothing further. As he continued to ascend the staircase, he began to wonder if his own life was in danger.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 19, 2011 18:08:49 GMT -6
PART LXXVI
Charlie was halfway up the ladder when he stopped. Eddie, behind him, wondered what the delay was.
"Get down off the ladder for a moment," Charlie said.
"What?" Eddie replied, "Charlie, we've got to..."
"Just hear me out," Charlie said, "Get off the ladder."
Eddie backed down the ladder & got off. Charlie was close behind him. When both of them were off the ladder, Charlie spoke.
"We can take these guys," Charlie stated, a nervous smile creeping onto his face.
"What?!!" Eddie exclaimed, "Are you nuts! Charlie, there's at least..."
"We can't keep running," Charlie interrupted, reasoning, "And just because we've suffered a setback doesn't mean we should run away in defeat. We can do this, Eddie. There's only a dozen or two out there at the most."
Eddie was silent for a moment, looking at Charlie. Finally, Eddie spoke.
"Charlie," Eddie stated slowly, "I'm leaving. There's got to be at least five dozen infected just outside that doorway. Mark wrote that he was exploring the roof & I'm going up there myself."
Eddie began to walk towards the ladder in silence but the silence didn't last long.
"You're not taking the keys," Charlie spat out, catching Eddie off-guard. Eddie turned around, a puzzled glance scrawled across his face. He was met by a stone-faced glare from Charlie.
"Are you serious?" Eddie asked, "What are you going to need keys for after they kill you?"
"You start taking those keys up that ladder, I'll kill you myself," Charlie demanded, "If you're going to run, you're leaving the keys here with me."
"Charlie...," Eddie began to say, still looking at the new, more aggressive Charlie. Eddie knew that Charlie was larger then he was &, odds were, he'd never win a fight against him.
The keys fell from Eddie's hand as he dropped them unceremoniously in front of him. Eddie didn't even bother to say anything, merely scurrying up the ladder & blowing through the hatch as though he was being chased. Charlie saw the lid slam shut not a moment later.
Charlie glanced from the roof hatch back down to the door.
It was time for him to clean house...Starting with his uninvited guests.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pauline's legs just didn't hurt - They stung. They stung every time they were jostled. They stung every time she bent her knees. They stung as blood began flowing regularly through stressed muscles & tired tendons.
Both Pauline & Amanda heard the elevator 'ding' & the doors slide open. Amanda put her foot next to the door so that the elevator door wouldn't close as it normally would.
"Come on," Amanda said, "Time to get out. We don't need the pipe for this."
It was the moment that Pauline had been dreading - Getting out of the elevator that she had been dragged into. About the only consolation with moving again & causing her legs to "sting" her more was that she was finally in a fairly safe area.
Amanda grabbed Pauline by the armpits as Pauline was seated on the ground. Then, she began to drag Pauline with her.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Her ankle was shot. Was it? Ivana didn't know.
All that Ivana knew was that it hurt tremendously. Even the slightest movement caused her to grit her teeth in genuine anguish & let out a grunt that left nothing to the imagination as to how she felt.
Ivana also knew, though, that she had no time to waste. She had to keep moving. Somehow, someway, she needed to avoid the crazed man before he caught up to her or, worse still, was in range again to be fired at.
As painful as it was, Ivana began crawling over the dead bodies on the stairwell to keep going down the stairs.
Her pain was so great that she completely ignored one body that was lying on the stairs. The clothes were fairly clean & the head area was bloodless.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ivana moved past him without even an afterthought.
Mark glanced downward as Ivana painfully made her slow trek down the stairwell. Closing in on Ivana was a man that Mark could hear whistling.
The man was whistling an unfamiliar but happy tune as he calmly navigated the corpses littering the stairwell, descending them with such dexterity that Mark knew he only had seconds before their two paths crossed.
Mark laid still on the ground, the whistling growing louder & louder...
=======================
PART LXXVII
How many arms were there? Eight? Nine? Twelve?
Charlie experienced a surreal moment as he stared through the scene of the infected as they blindly thrusted their arms through the glass portion of the door, hands madly grabbing at little else but air.
Charlie had reached an epiphany & had finally realized now what all those scientists & other "great men" felt like when they had reached theirs.
In his very own mind, Charlie realized that he, like the scientists & other "great men," were superior to everyone else. He had to be; He was the only one left in the shipping & receiving department.
Were not, he asked himself, the winners of all those stupid reality television shows the last ones on the program? Of course they were. The last ones to still be on those shows were the winners.
That meant he, Charlie, temporary employee of the casino, was the winner - The winner of THIS reality show which, of course, was as real as it could get because this WAS reality.
Veronica? Fled & probably dead.
Mark? Fled under the guise of "Exploring the roof top" (Which in Charlie's mind, was the lamest excuse for a retreat ever). Might be dead for all that Charlie cared.
Eddie? Fled because he couldn't face the reality of the situation. Charlie figured that maybe his superiority got to Eddie or the fact that he knew the infected were too much for him.
Charlie asked himself what he had won. The answer, to Charlie, was simple - The entire casino. The whole building, as far as Charlie was concerned, was his to do with as he pleased.
It was a win-win situation for Charlie - If mankind really did get back onto it's feet, he could always claim that it was him who cleared out the casino all by himself. That way, he'd get a nice fat paycheck for his invaluable services. If mankind really did collapse, he would be fortified inside a huge, extravagant structure that could feed, warm & cloth him for months before even thinking about acquiring additional resources.
Charlie began to laugh to himself as to how great his life had become within the past twenty-four hours. He had gone from scraping by financially to suddenly having the unrestricted resources of an entire casino at his finger tips. Now, though, he just had to wrestle control of the casino back from an army of invalids intent on killing him.
Charlie began to walk towards the door so that he could open it, intent on claiming the grand prize to the greatest reality television show that there ever was.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ivana knew she was dead.
The crazed man was closing in & nothing that she could do would be enough to avoid him.
He was now in shouting range of her which meant that he was also in shooting range of her as well.
The pain coming from her ankle was unbearable. The pain was hot & searing, although she had realized by now that it hadn't been shot. In all likelihood, she had twisted it in the confusion of being shot at by him.
Ivana wondered if she should just stop crawling down the stairwell, to stop crawling over dead, grimy infected bodies. Maybe, she figured, she'd crawl so much that she'd arrive at still mobile infected bodies who would torture her more then a healthy but crazed man. Which doomed fate, she wondered, was worse?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For a moment, Samuel could claim victory.
He had caught up to his prey, the brainwashed slave to the wealthy. She was lying on the stairwell, lying on top of dead infected bodies. He smirked at how her grimy, dirty physical exterior now finally matched her grimy, dirty mental interior. Poetic justice, he mused to himself.
In the end, of course, her fate was for the best. It was like putting a dog with rabies to sleep. There was just no point in allowing her to live. Those who defied him once would be tempted to do so again. They were like a drug-resistant disease that finally needed to be stamped out with an overwhelming amount of anti-biotics. No more sympathy, no more compromise - She would be the example that others would see.
Defy me, Samuel thought to himself as he raised his gun towards her, & this will be your fate.
For a moment, Samuel was the king of his world & the actual world around him.
Only for a moment.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mark slowly rose from lying on the ground face down, praying that the crazed man hadn't noticed him.
The plan had not been perfect; The crazed man had continued to walk past Mark unabated, intent on closing in on the injured woman until the two were practically next to each other.
Still, though, the crazed man walked as though in a trance, ignoring all things behind him regardless of sight or sound.
As the crazed man finally raised his gun towards the injured woman, Mark knew there could be only one solution to this event. There was no time for negotiation. Only enough time for an overhead swing that at worst delayed a lethal confrontation or, at best, ended it before it would ever happen.
From behind, Mark swung his pipe down onto the crazed man's skull & let fate settle the rest.
=========================
PART LXXVIII
As long as Charlie faced the infected one at a time, Charlie was invincible for he would always have the upper hand. He would be faster, stronger & smarter then they would ever be again.
'One at a time,' Charlie thought to himself as he opened the door. Quickly, he backed away the moment he felt the door begin to swing open. Then, upon seeing the stream of infected begin to come in, he raced forward to greet them with weapon in hand.
Smack! Lead pipe - 1, Infected older man in tattered business suit - 0.
Pow! Lead pipe - 2, Armless infected woman missing half of her face - 0.
Crack! Lead pipe - 3, Infected Asian child, too young for Charlie to tell if it was a boy or a girl.
With each swing, Charlie destroyed the hollow shell that once housed a human soul. He made sure to pace his swings so that he would not get tired.
As Charlie swung away, he began feeling bolder & mightier. The anemic, antiseptic former method of extermination - Allowing only a few infected in at a time with special doorways & such, felt so...Synthetic. This method, Charlie swore, allowed him to truly make a difference... To be both an artist & a warrior at the same time. Each infected was different so each swing would be different. No longer did Charlie feel like he was in a factory making widgets - Now he was hand-sculpting each kill in his own image.
Charlie glanced over the shoulder of an infected & saw that the flood of infected entering the shipping & receiving department had slowed to a trickle.
Charlie smiled as he realized that he was going to win this initial battle with the infected. He was going to win it all by himself, without help from inferior people or using inferior tactics.
The casino, Charlie thought, was truly his for the taking... One swing of his lead pipe at a time.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It had been a haul to drag Pauline into the hotel suite that Ivana had previously occupied. Pauline's legs, whenever outstretched or otherwise not bent in the position that they were contorted for over twenty-four hours in, felt as though they were on fire with thousands of invisible needles pricking at them.
Amanda eventually did get Pauline set up on a couch, though.
"Do you want me to see if I can find you dome other clothes?" Amanda asked. Pauline firmly shook her head 'no,' augmenting that by saying, "No, thanks."
"Look," Amanda said, "I've got to go find out what happened to Ivana, OK? Are you cool with that?"
Pauline nodded, adding, "I'll be OK. My legs are feeling a little better." It was a lie; Her legs felt like s**t &, short of a miracle, they'd probably still be feeling like s**t a week from now.
"OK," Amanda said, "I'll be right back."
Amanda quickly ran out the door, hoping against hope that somehow, someway, Ivana was still alive & the crazed man was dead. In all likelihood, she feared, it was going to be reversed.
Just how Amanda was going to resolve the issue with the crazed man was something she had no idea of accomplishing as she entered the stairwell.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Eddie had no choice but to slowly make his way across the rooftop of the casino.
Was he dressed for the cold early morning? No.
Was he equipped with a flashlight? No.
Was he petrified over the prospect of being stranded on top of a rooftop with the very real realization that Mark, like veronica, had either fled or been killed by the infected? Yes.
Eddie kept looking behind him, wondering if a rabid Charlie was going to burst through the roof hatch, weapon in hand, ready to chase him down & kill him. With all that had happened recently, anything could happen & Eddie needed to start being prepared for anything.
"Mark?" Eddie yelled out, "Mark?"
Silence.
"Goddamnit, Mark!" Eddie yelled, "Where the f**k are you?!!"
More silence.
Without a flashlight, Eddie's progress was reduced to a slow shuffle at best. Even one misstep would mean tripping over some other hatch or air vent or falling off a section of the roof & landing on a lower section of the roof.
All Eddie could do now was continue onward & pray that better times lied ahead.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Samuel never knew what hit him.
The swing was so fast & struck so hard that his body didn't even have time to register the pain. All Samuel experience was a total & sudden loss of all of his senses.
Samuel was dead before his gun fell to the ground, bouncing & sliding down the stairwell on the limbs of the dead infected littering it.
Gravity grabbed & threw Samuel's body down the stairs, his body eventually resting up against the likes of the dead infected. Samuel's corpse blended in seamlessly with all the other corpses.
All Mark could hear was Ivana uncontrollably sobbing as she began to struggle back up the stairs.
"How bad are you hurt?" Mark asked her, as he began to walk towards her.
For now, eradicating the infected & informing Charlie & Eddie of this new survivor needed to take a back seat to more pressing matters.
Was he ever going to get even a full hour of uninterrupted sleep?
======================
PART LXXIX
Forty-seven.
Forty-seven was the number that Charlie had stopped counting at when killing the infected that had flowed into the shipping & receiving department.
Charlie looked around to see if there were any more infected that were left standing. All he could see, though, was a sea of bodies & blood lying on the concrete floor. No further infected were coming through the doorway; No infected were moving while lying on the ground.
Instinctively, he raised his arms into the air, smiling & hollering in delight.
He was alive... ALIVE! Alive & unharmed!
Charlie looked at all he had accomplished & couldn't stop grinning to save his life. How many, he asked himself as he surveyed his great accomplishment, could have done what he did?
Calming down from his celebrations, he knew that he could not rest on his laurels. There were far more infected out in the casino that Charlie would have to get rid of before he could lay claim to the entire building.
Charlie's newfound enthusiasm propelled him towards exiting the shipping & receiving department. The sooner he could eradicate the infected plague, the sooner he could reap the bottomless rewards that the casino had to offer him.
Charlie's newfound enthusiasm, though, also blinded him into leaving behind the keyring that he had intimidated Eddie into dropping.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Aaarrrgh!"
It felt, to Ivana, as though someone was pressing a red-hot poker right onto her ankle. The pain was so great that she didn't even have time to suppress her discomfort, as most adults tried to do when dealing with pain in front of others.
"OK," Mark humbly responded, partially to himself, "Moving you without doing something about your ankle is out of the question."
Mark knew that he couldn't leave the injured woman unattended, especially while she was incapable of defending herself. Never aspiring to be a paramedic, even Mark knew that the ankle would need to be immobilized before there was even the slightest chance of moving the woman to a safer location.
Looking around him, he could find nothing that was long enough or straight enough to use as a splint for the woman's ankle. His search did locate the crazed man's firearm, though. Awkwardly, he set the firearm aside, making a mental note of where it was so that he could retrieve it later.
Just as soon as he was about to give up hope on finding anything for a splint, he looked down at his hand to find the perfect splint that was right under his nose the entire time - His length of pipe that he had been using as his weapon.
Could he really afford to use his only available weapon, though, as a splint? Mark knew that he had no other choice. Being defenseless was about to become a risk that he was going to have to take... Unless he carried the crazed man's firearm.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amanda could hear nothing, having just emerged into the hotel's stairwell.
Cautiously, she began to walk down the stairwell praying for the best but also expecting the worst.
=============================
PART LXXX
Eddie looked up at the stars & knew that it would be another two to three hours before the first hints of sunrise would be visible.
Hugging himself with his arms in a desperate bid to keep as warm as possible, Eddie knew that he could not remain on the rooftop for much longer without suffering some sort of injury because of the cold. He had heard that the injury "hypothermia" had something to do with the cold but his ignorance of it made the possibility of acquiring it all the more ominous. He had heard of people having toes & fingers cut off because of having hypothermia & he didn't want that.
Deep inside, Eddie knew that he had to go back to the shipping & receiving department. He had to at least make an attempt to reason with Charlie if he was still alive. If he wasn't alive (which meant that Charlie had overestimated his abilities combatting the infected), Eddie figured he could hang onto the ladder so he could simply be in a room warmer then the outdoors currently was.
Eddie began to turn around to go back to the hatch leading to the shipping & receiving department. Returning would be the lesser of two evils - Either take a chance & get killed by Charlie or freeze to death for certain on the rooftop.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If this doesn't earn me a merit badge, Mark thought humorously to himself, nothing will.
Using his lead pipe as a splint, he managed to rip a nearby shirt (which a dead infected no longer felt persuaded to keep) into enough lengths of fabric to tie Ivana's leg & ankle to the pipe.
"Too tight?" Mark asked, looking at Ivana's face to gauge her reaction.
"Fine," Ivana replied, happy to merely live through the ordeal long enough to have the luxury of the tightness of a splint become her most immediate & pressing concern. In reality, it was a little too tight but, Ivana reasoned, better for it be too tight then too loose. Ivana certainly knew how painful her ankle could be when unrestricted by anything.
"OK," Mark said, standing up, "Let's see how well you can stand."
Mark lifted Ivana up, making sure that her leg with the injured ankle never touched the ground. He could see, from Ivana's facial expression, some amount of discomfort but there were no involuntary shrieks or moans from her as she stood on one leg, the other slightly raised in front of her.
"No offense," Mark stated, "But I can't see myself carrying you up all those flights of stairs. How about we take an elevator up?"
Ivana nodded, slightly smiling & saying, "Good idea."
Just as Mark was about to assist Ivana up the stairs, he reached over & picked up Samuel's gun. Putting it in his front left pocket, he returned to assist Ivana so that they could enter the closest floor & find the first elevator.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For all Amanda knew, her voice vaporized about five floors down. With soundwaves bouncing off of walls, she'd have little chance to shout down to where Ivana might be... If she was even still alive.
All Amanda could do was to continue to descend the stairwell, one level at a time, in hopes that she saw or heard Ivana alive. The same opportunity to witness firsthand an alive Ivana was also the same opportunity, though, to witness the excruciatingly possible reality of her demise or of the crazed man's continued existance.
Amanda would have to be prepared to deal with anything she would encounter on her descent of the stairwell. It was a feeling she was getting most tired of & was more then willing to give to someone else.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 21, 2011 17:51:30 GMT -6
PART LXXXI
It had never occurred to Charlie just how stark & lifeless any empty building could possibly be. It was like watching a modern-day movie without sound - No matter how nice the visuals were, the movie would always feel flat & boring. Sound gave any scene it's third dimension...It's life.
Charlie had pounded his fist upon every new door he walked past & shouted down every intersection he came upon. The results of his commotions were predictable; The infected would stumble towards him. Sometimes only one at a time, other times in groups of five or more.
As long as Charlie could funnel them down into a fairly narrow hallway, the infected were assured to be on the losing end of any confrontation that they had with him. He had gotten so proficient with his swing that he began regretting that there would be only so many infected to kill; His specialty in killing the infected would become obsolete.
Just as Charlie had dispatched a few more infected to clear yet another employees-only hallway, he remembered that he had forgotten to bring along the set of keys that he had 'persuaded' Eddie to leave behind. He smirked at recalling the incident, at how Eddie had been so intimidated by a simple stare-down. Charlie shook his head & stifled a chuckle, noting to himself at how real men stood up for what they believed in & how wimps were always the first to make compromises. 'If you have to compromise,' Charlie recalled his father once saying to him, 'Then you never should have entered into the deal in the first place.'
Charlie figured that he could go back for the keys in a little while after he had completely cleared out the area. He didn't want to backtrack too soon to get the keys as he felt he was making too much progress to stop & go back.
Continuing onward, Charlie only heard the grunts & wheezes of the infected, the smacks & cracking of the pipe onto the infected's skulls & the sounds of the infected bodies as they fell to the floor.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Eddie slowly lifted up the hatch to peer back down into the shipping & receiving department. He half-expected to see Charlie still standing in there, glaring up at the hatch. What Eddie did see, though, was something much more disturbing.
When Eddie peered through the hatchway, he saw the shipping & receiving department littered with dead, bloodied bodies. Bodies were stacked on top of each other, strewn about in every position imaginable. Those few areas left undecorated by a dead infected was infested with splattered blood or some other horrible but necessary bodily fluid not meant to be outside the human body & certainly not meant to be smeared onto a wall or the floor.
If the sight wasn't horrific enough, the smell gave the scene an indelible punch that Eddie would likely not forget for a long while. Reflexively, Eddie lowered the hatch back down & took a moment to catch his breath.
For Eddie, the realities of his despair had deepened with a single glance into what was once considered his only refuge from the horrors that had surrounded him. As long as the shipping & receiving department, his retreat into normalcy, had been left undisturbed then this entire episode only had an abstract meaning to him.
Yet now, Eddie had no sanctuary for either his mind or his body to wander off into. No area, as far as Eddie was concerned, was off-limits to the mindless shells of humanity now wandering around both outside & inside the casino.
Eddie took a moment to ask himself if it was worth descending into a place that was now closer to Hell then of his former shipping & receiving department for the chance of finding a set of keys whose worth was now being placed into question.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"So, uh," Mark awkwardly tried to break the silence as they walked up the steps to the nearest doorway, "I didn't catch your name earlier...?"
"Ivana," Ivana simply said, concentrating more on her pain then on Mark's questions.
"A pleasure to meet you, Ivana," Mark tried to say as cheerfully as the situation would allow, "I'm Mark."
They reached the last step & Mark opened the door so that they could get out of the stairwell. Peering into the hotel hallway, Mark kept a steady grip on Ivana as he guided her into it.
"So, uh, Ivana," Mark asked, his head on a swivel as he slowly guided a hobbling Ivana down the hallway, "What do you do for a living?"
For some odd reason, Ivana began to find the whole situation funny. The pain in her ankle prevented her from laughing out loud but she began an infectious giggle that worked it's way to Mark.
"Just trying to make conversation," Mark sheepishly replied as he continued to help the hobbling Ivana as they turned a corner.
Little did she know that her humor would be short-lived...
=========================
PART LXXXII
The smell, to Eddie, was just HORRIBLE. The shipping & receiving department now smelled, as far as Eddie was concerned, like he had been thrown into a pile of still-fresh dung that was topped off with a thick layer of right-out-of-the-stomach puke.
Eddie tried to break down his mission into easily remembered sections so that he would be less distracted by both the sight & smell of the newly-redecorated shipping & receiving department. For instance he remembered to leave the hatch open, both to let some fresh air in (also to let the stink out) as well as provide a quicker escape in case that Charlie was still breathing & still angry at Eddie.
Eddie climbed down off of the ladder & began to search for the keys. With all of his might, he tried to pretend that he was on the set of some horror movie, that the mauled & mutilated bodies lying before him were all fake. Somehow, he figured, if all of this was make-believe, that it would somehow make wading through it easier on both his mind as well as his stomach.
There was no avoiding either stepping on part of a dead body or stepping on some bodily fluid that once belonged to a now dead body. As Eddie's eyes scanned for any possible sign of the keys, he was also scanning the carnage as well. He wanted to ensure that each step he took into this sea of mangled corpses wouldn't cause him to slip & dive face-first into the carnage that he was now managing to walk on top of like Jesus walking on top of a body of water.
Then, from afar & out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something glimmer. Spinning his head around quickly, he witnessed firsthand how the light of joy could penetrate even the most dismal of settings.
He had spotted the large keyring, partially buried underneath a fallen infected.
'That moron,' Eddie thought instinctively, wondering what Charlie was doing outside the shipping & receiving department without the keyring.
Something then began to build up inside of Eddie. It was an emotion that, to Eddie's surprise, had been quite absent throughout the majority of this entire affair. That emotion was anger - Anger at Charlie who had threatened Eddie into leaving behind the keyring in the first place. Anger that for all the intimidation to keep the keyring, here it lied only yards away from Eddie with Charlie nowhere to be seen.
'Stick to task,' the rational part of Eddie's mind cried out, snapping Eddie back into reality.
Eddie began to gingerly walk over to the keyring, determined to evade Charlie at all costs.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It was a small victory but, for Pauline, it was a victory nonetheless.
Pauline could almost extend one of her legs without feeling any pain. The absense of any painful sensation in her leg caused waves of joy to ripple across her face. Until this moment, a part of her secretly feared, an irrational fear but a fear nonetheless, that she would forever remain crippled as a result of her pose while hiding.
Maybe, Pauline thought to herself, I won't be such a cripple to Amanda after all. She had felt so guilty about being a complete invalid while Amanda was doing all of the hard & dangerous work.
Pauline began to think of what she could do to help out Amanda in any way that she could.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Mark was more disgusted with himself then anything else.
'She is GORGEOUS!' a part of him screamed out, 'Do something other then being a flesh-covered crutch for her!'
'She is INJURED!' another part of him screamed out, 'How low would that make you if you tried to flirt with her, in the middle of a crisis...Just after she was almost shot & killed!'
It wasn't fair. The most beautiful woman he had ever gotten this close to & the most exciting thing he could say to her was...
"Push the button, please," he quietly stated, nodding over to the elevator button on the wall next to the elevator doors.
Ivana pushed the button & both of them were pleased when the elevator immediately began sounding as though the doors were going to open up.
Their enthusiasm would not go unpunished.
=========================
PART LXXXIII
"You've got to be kidding me."
Standing before both Mark & Ivana, inside the elevator car, stood an infected. So oblivious was this now empty shell of a person that, for a full moment, the infected didn't even both to turn around when the elevator doors opened.
Mark, numbed by all the events in the past twenty-four hours, found no moral struggle to take the firearm out of his pocket. A quick pull of the trigger, once reserved to be the death knell of Ivana, ended whatever mortal danger the two of them might have felt.
The two of them watched as the infected slumped to the ground uneventfully. No emotion flickered across their faces as dead silence returned to the hallway that it had dominated for several hours earlier.
Mark was uneasy with sticking a firearm back in his pocket with the barrel of it still smouldering. The last thing he needed was for his pants to catch on fire.
"Here," Mark said, handing the firearm over to Ivana. She fumbled to awkwardly hold the firearm as Mark quickly pulled the now deceased infected out of the elevator car. Mark pulled the infected out of the elevator car only as far as he needed to, stopping as soon as the infected's body no longer kept the elevator door from closing.
Mark grabbed the firearm back from Ivana, who was only too happy to give back what was once to be the murder weapon of her. Helping her into the elevator, Ivana instructed Mark to push the highest numbered floor button.
"If only the rest of them were that easy," Mark muttered to himself, half to break the silence & half to lighten an already dismal setting - A setting that wouldn't get better all by itself.
The elevator doors closed, sending the two of them upwards - Hopefully to safety &, at the very least, some rest for Ivana.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It sounded like a shot, but Amanda couldn't be certain.
Whatever it was, Amanda knew that it hadn't come from inside the stairwell. If anything, it sounded as though it had come from one of the floors that she could enter into nearby.
Amanda didn't have time to decide, she chose the first floor that she could run into.
The hotel hallway was silent, lit as though nothing had ever happened. Amanda was cautious but quick in her scouting of the entire floor. There were no dead bodies on the floor, no doors that were opened or even unlocked.
'Wrong floor,' she thought to herself, a bit angry at herself for making a wrong guess.
Just then, she noticed a moving light out of the corner of her eye. Turning towards it, her jaw immediately began to drop as she recognized what it was.
The elevator was moving...It was moving up.
'Oh God,' she thought to herself, 'He's trying to get back up to the casino.'
Amanda ran out of the hallway & back into the stairwell. At the very least, she had to get back to Pauline who would be a sitting duck if the crazed man ever found his way back into the restricted upper levels of the hotel.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The keyring was filthy. There was a...'goo' all over it that made Eddie instantly wrinkle his nose in sheer disgust.
Taking a nearby wooden ruler, Eddie speared the keyring & lifted it up with the ruler. Looking around, he quickly noticed some bubble wrap & a pair of scissors. Instinctively, he walked over to the bubble wrap, plopped the keyring down onto it & began to cut out a healthy plot of bubble wrap. Cutting around the keyring, he bundled the keyring into the bubble wrap, using a liberal use of ordinary tape to tape the bubble wrap up into a ball.
With the keyring located & wrapped up so he wouldn't be covered in slime while carrying it, Eddie began to look for other things he would need for an extended escapade up on the rooftop. A nearby flashlight was quickly snatched up & a cursory search of the locker room yielded a jacket that would give Eddie some additional protection from the cold & maybe even from an infected.
With each passing moment, Eddie knew that the chances of Charlie coming back would grow greater. As Eddie began to walk back towards the ladder, though, his worst fears became reality - The telltale footsteps of someone walking down the hallway, towards the shipping & receiving department.
Eddie was too far away from the ladder to make a sprint for it. Even if he could, Charlie would more then likely see him on the ladder & give chase.
Hiding amongst the bodies was just...disgusting. A horrid a death at the hands of Charlie sounded, lying amongst the dead infected sounded even worse.
Eddie needed to think quickly if he was to avoid Charlie's wrath AND escape from the shipping & receiving department intact. His time was running out as the footsteps grew louder.
======================
PART LXXXIV
It went against everything Eddie knew but he had to do it anyway.
There could be no hiding from Charlie; At least, not for any great length of time. For three or four minutes, scurrying behind a pallet would work. It would just be a matter of time, though, before Charlie heard or saw something to make him suspicious. With everyone, especially Charlie, on edge about the infected, all it would take would be the slightest sound or view from the corner of his eye to arouse suspicion. If Charlie wanted to look for something inside the shipping & receiving department, there was nowhere that Eddie would be safe for longer then ten minutes.
What Eddie needed was a distraction for Charlie. Something to occupy Charlie's attention while Eddie, hopefully, made a run for it.
The plan was risky but Eddie embarked on completing it anyway.
Hurriedly, Eddie ran over to the door leading to the outside. It was the same door that they had pulled Charlie through when he banged on it, demanding to be let in.
Eddie opened it up, kicking part of an infected's body into the path of the door so that it would be propped open. Then, Eddie ran across the sea of dead infecteds to the farthest point away from the doorway.
At best, the distraction would be enough for Eddie to escape.
At worst, Eddie had just inadvertantly signed his own death sentence.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amanda pushed herself to climb the staircase as fast as she could. She leaped over bodies & held no qualms about stepping directly on top of them.
Already knowing that the elevator would be faster then she could possibly climb, her best bet would be to wind up being only a floor or two below where the elevator stopped. If it was the crazed man in the elevator, he would stop on the last floor before he needed the special key to keep the elevator going. Then, he would go into the staircase.
Amanda heaved huge breaths as her quick ascent took it's toll rapidly. It was not just the sudden activity that was causing her discomfort but a variety of factors had been slowly eroding away at her. A lack of a proper meal, lack of proper rest, the stress of surviving, the stress of knowing that, most likely, someone she either cared about or knew was dead because of all that was happening.
The gulf between Amanda's abilities & her desires had become too great to reconcile. Against her will, Amanda slowed her ascent to a mere walk. As she did so, she conceded the race to the elevator & prayed that her physical inadequacies would not be the downfall of both Ivana & Pauline.
In the back of her mind, Amanda began to wonder if playing 'hero' had doomed her into a struggle against a crazy man that she couldn't possibly win. She didn't see the irony that, at this point, the infected were playing only an ancilliary role in her ultimate fate & the fate of others around her.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Charlie didn't know what he was hearing. It sounded like rustling in the shipping & receiving department. Being only yards away from re-entering the area, Charlie had a fairly good idea of whom it might be.
'Eddie,' Charlie thought with disgust, stopping for a moment to collect his thoughts on the matter.
If it truly was Eddie that was back, Charlie wondered if he should kill him now or string him along. He smirked about the scenario of pretending to accept Eddie back & then beaning him in the head when he wasn't looking.
Charlie dismissed any subterfuge, though, figuring that Eddie might do the same to him what he would be planning on doing to Eddie. If it truly was Eddie inside the shipping & reciving department, it would be best to just go after him, kill him & continue on with what he was doing.
With all the carnage that these weird events were producing, the cops would never be able to figure out whom killed whom or what any particular person died of. Eddie, Charlie figured, would be just another anonymous dead guy for the coroners to deal with.
When Charlie peered through the broken window of the door entering the shipping & receiving area, though, he stopped cold in his tracks, dumbfounded.
Shuffling around sloppily were no less then seven infected, falling over dead infected & some even trying to eat the flesh of dead infected.
This was a problem that Charlie would need to solve in a hurry if he was to continue living, as now there was no safe haven for him at all without locking more doors...locks that could only be locked using a keyring that he didn't have.
=========================
PART LXXXV
'How the Hell did they open the door?' Charlie thought to himself, briefly looking at the opened door before turning all his attention to the infected who had stumbled into the shipping & receiving department.
There would be time for questions later, Charlie thought to himself, as his first priority was ensuring his own safety. Quickly, he swung back his weapon so that he could deliver a fatal blow to an infected woman missing an eye, part of her jaw & both of her arms.
Eddie, hiding behind a few full pallets of unwrapped boxes, couldn't believe his eyes. To Eddie's chagrin, Charlie was highly proficient in subduing the artificially-created infected invasion. No sooner had Charlie walked back into the area then three infected were felled with three swings of his weapon. At that pace, Charlie would re-clear the entire area in less then a minute.
Even to an optimist, it was clear that Eddie had failed in creating a distraction. At best, it was evident that Eddie had created an annoyance of which Charlie was more then capable of dealing with.
Any thoughts of making a dash to the ladder were rendered moot as the last of the infected fell before Charlie pushed the door to the outside closed. Two infected were still struggling to walk amongst their fallen brethren but they, too, fell to Charlie's quick & decisive hits to their skulls.
The incursion, if it could even had been called that, was over.
Eddie's fate now hinged on the investigative whims of Charlie.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Oh my God!" Ivana called out, seeing Pauline on the couch. A healthy Ivana would have run over & hugged Pauline but all she could manage to do was hobble over at a speed no greater then that of the infected. Mark assisted Ivana as best he could.
As soon as both of them were on the couch, they hugged, tears streaming down both their cheeks.
"Are you OK?" Ivana began to spit out at a rapid pace, "Is anyone else alive? I mean, I ran out, but..."
"Um, well, I hid in the ladies' room & my legs really hurt because I was squating on the toilet the entire time but they're getting better..." Pauline replied, unintentionally interrupting Ivana who did not notice it.
Even Mark, having never been accused of being a social creature & thus was not equipped with that creature's knack of conversation, knew that he was in an awkward situation. Feeling like an outsider looking in, he thought it best to interrupt the both of them to avoid their priorities of going awry.
"Look," Mark chimed in, the two women suddenly turning to face him, "I don't mean to interrupt, but Ivana here has a broken or injured ankle. Are you," pointing to Pauline, "OK? Can you walk?"
"Um," Pauline replied, trying hard to contain her joy, "I still can't walk but I'm beginning to stretch my legs out."
"OK," Mark slowly said, "Look, my name is Mark. If it's OK with the two of you, I know of some survivors in the shipping & receiving area who'd love to relocate someplace other then there. Is it OK if I go get them & bring them back here?"
"You came all the way from shipping & receiving?" Pauline asked, genuinely surprised, "Are all the infected really gone?"
"No," Mark replied, "I used the rooftop to get here."
"Oh my God," Pauline replied, "That's so clever."
Just then, Ivana's eyes lit up & her entire body twitched. She blurted out what both Ivana & Mark should have already said.
"Pauline," Ivana blurt out, "the crazy man, he's dead!"
"He's dead?" Pauline asked, both shock & joy mixing into her tone.
"Yeah," Ivana elaborated, replaying the entire event in her mind. Tears began to well up as she started to speak.
"He, um, he was going to shoot me on the staircase but then Mark here, he snuck up behind him & hit him in the skull & killed him," Ivana elaborated, a rogue tear running down her cheek as she relived the event in her mind.
"That is so terrible," Pauline sympathized, "Oh, hey, did you see Amanda while you were down there? She went down there looking for you."
"Who's Amanda?" Mark asked.
"I'm Amanda," Amanda said, standing behind them, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mark."
All three of them turned around to face Amanda who looked absolutely fatigued as she leaned on the doorway. Sweat dripped off her brow & her face was flush, still recovering by attempting to run up the stairwell.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 21, 2011 17:53:18 GMT -6
PART LXXXVI
There was nothing wrong with the door, as far as Charlie could tell. The door closed normally & it also opened normally.
Within a moment of inspecting the door, Charlie knew that it hadn't been opened by an infected. It hadn't been pried or broken open. It had been opened by someone still healthy...Someone who KNEW that opening the door would be hazardous to Charlie's health.
Was it Mark? Probably not. For all Charlie knew, Mark was dead & if he wasn't dead then he was a coward.
Was it Veronica? That was as likely as it being the Pope. Veronica was in the same boat as Mark was, a boat that Charlie wouldn't mind sinking.
Was it someone he didn't know? Maybe but probably not.
Was it Eddie? Charlie smirked to himself. It would be like Eddie to try & get back at him in such a low & cowardly way. Any remorse that Charlie had about Eddie instantly vaporized in that moment. From that moment forth, Eddie was no longer a 'human' in Charlie's eyes - He was no different then one of the infected. He was something deserving of being killed.
Charlie sighed to himself, looking around the room now that the area had been secured.
That's when he noticed the opened hatch up on the roof. Instantly, Charlie's face turned stoic, a brief scowl beginning to form.
Now it all made sense to Charlie. The little s**t sabotaged the integrity of the area & escaped back onto the rooftop. For all Charlie knew, Eddie may well still be hiding nearby on the roof, waiting for the next time he could strike.
'Not this time,' Charlie thought to himself, running over to the ladder & beginning to climb up it furiously.
Eddie watched incredulously as Charlie climbed up the ladder quickly, climbing out on top & closing the hatch behind him.
Eddie didn't know whether to be happy or frightened; Happy that Charlie was gone or frightened that his one sure avenue of retreat had now been blocked. His only other way out was through the casino itself - Not even an option by Eddie's standards but one he now had to consider nonetheless.
Eddie did know one thing for certain, though; Charlie was more then capable of coming back &, when he did, Eddie would have to be long gone from the area. Eddie began thinking about what his next move was going to be in a game of cat-&-mouse that was turning ever deadlier with each move.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"I have to go back," Mark told the other three in the room, "There are other survivors who'd love to be able to get some sleep on actual beds. Maybe even know that they have some security while sleeping, too."
"Alone?" Amanda replied, "What if you get hurt? Who'd know where to look for you or when to even start searching?"
"Well I can't take you," Mark tried to reason, "Because that would leave these two behind. Ivana's got some sort of broken or twisted ankle & Pauline's legs are still recovering. I can't take the other two because they're, obviously, not capable of fully walking."
"Look," Pauline chimed in, "We're not going to get into any further danger up here. Now that the crazy man's dead, we can wait up here for at least another couple of days. The two of you should go if it means getting more survivors up here."
"What about communications?" Ivana interrupted, "So what if two of them go out or even one? What if BOTH of them are injured? What if something happens up here where they might need to come back?"
They all quieted down for a moment to think. Then, Amanda spoke up.
"Walkie-talkies," she blurted out, looking at the other three to gauge their reaction, "We all carry walkie-talkies from here on out. We'll all be in constant contact."
"Holy s**t!" Ivana erupted, "You're right! The whole casino is wired for interior walkie-talkies! I forgot all about it!"
"Wait," Mark said, "How's the signal going to get through the walls? Over such a long distance between one end of the casino & the other?"
"Ever major area of the casino has a receiver for handheld communications," Amanda explained, finally glad that her years on the casino floor could be put to good use, "Otherwise, the walkie-talkies wouldn't be worth a damn. It's like a cellphone - There are receivers everywhere in the building for the walkie-talkies. The walkie-talkies don't just go to one another, the signal actually goes to the nearest receiver & it's broadcast out from them as well."
"OK," Mark agreed quickly, knowing that time was wasting & he still had to get back to the shipping & receiving area, "Where do we get the walkie-talkies?"
"High roller's casino," Ivana blurted out, "Security up there should still have them on their belts."
Amanda & Mark just looked at each other.
=============================
PART LXXXVII
"F**king punk," Charlie mumbled to himself, pacing back-&-forth around the closed hatch on the roof.
Charlie had prayed that Eddie would be hanging out in the immediate area of the hatchway. He had dreamed of Eddie cowering nearby, so stunned at the sight of a suddenly emerging Charlie appearing through the hatchway that all thought of escape would elude him.
"I'm going to get you, a***ole!" Charlie yelled, so loud that his throat stung. Only silence & the slightest of echoes replied to Charlie's outburst.
Slowly, Charlie began his march across the roof. He was determined to leave no stone unturned in an ever-increasingly obsessive hunt for one of the few remaining humans still inside the casino.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They were now 'things.'
Never mind that Thomas Goromon, age 41, had a wife of 7 years. Never mind that his favorite hobby was fishing in a small paddle boat, in the middle of a silent lake while sunlight began peeking above the horizon. Never mind that no one would ever know that he had turned down four very serious offers to cheat on his wife in the last year alone, due to his chiseled physique & easy-going personality.
Thomas Goromon, like all of the other dead bodies in the high roller's casino, was now a 'thing.' A slab of decaying flesh of which Amanda effortlessly unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt. It had never crossed Amanda's mind that she picked the walkie-talkie off of Thomas' dead body with no more of an effort as picking an apple off of a tree.
"Here," she unceremoniously droned, thrusting the walkie-talkie into Mark's hands, adding, "Get as many as you can, in case we need extras."
Mark began to cautiously poke through the crowd of dead bodies, searching for walkie-talkies while Amanda did the same.
For a moment, he suspected nothing, his mind focused on figuring out which employees were important enough to have carried walkie-talkies & then figuring out how to get them with the least amount of bodily contact with them.
Then, Mark heard it. Faint but distinct, increasing in volume until it was unmistakable. It was somebody sobbing. That somebody, as he turned in the direction of the sobbing, was Amanda.
Amanda could no longer help it. She was tired - Tired of seeing dead bodies, tired of playing superhero, tired of looking over her shoulder to ensure she'd live for another moment. Her body was fatigued past the point of no return. As she sat down to concentrate on her sobbing, she felt as though her legs had no more energy left to move. Her arms were leaden, with barely enough strength in a meager attempt to cover her face. Cover it in shame? Cover it in fear? Embarassment?
'I don't WANT to be strong anymore, OK?!' A part of her yelled at her inner feminist, who obviously disproved the outpouring of emotion.
Her nerves were so fraid that she slightly jumped when she realized that Mark was sitting beside her.
"I won't talk if you don't want me to," he said softly. He was met with sobbing.
"Let's go back downstairs, OK?" Mark proposed, "We have enough walkie-talkies. We can always get more."
Amanda didn't resist when Mark pulled her up into a standing position. Her sobbing was all that stood in her body's way of completely collapsing in exhaustion.
Exhaustion, though, would soon be the least of any of their worries - Mark's, Amanda's, Ivana's, Eddie's or Pauline's.
==============================
PART LXXXVIII
"I'll be alright," Mark told Amanda, "I promise."
Amanda could do nothing more then nod affirmatively. Her entire body felt old & tired, with Amanda thinking to herself that if this was what it was like to be old, then perhaps dying young wasn't as horrible as she'd originally thought.
"I'm going to stay on the walkie-talkie the entire time. Don't be afraid to call. If I run into danger, I'm going to come straight back here. OK?" Mark said in a calm voice.
"Just be careful," Amanda merely replied, her words slightly slurred.
Mark left the hotel room & Amanda could hear the door shut behind him. A wall of silence was all that he left in his wake, silence that continued until Pauline spoke up in front of both Amanda & Ivana.
"We need to think of something to do," she stated simply, "Something productive. We're not damsels in distress. Suggestions?"
Ivana thought for a moment. What could a woman who was exhausted, a woman with a twisted (possibly broken) ankle & a woman still regaining the use of her legs possibly do in a situation like this?
Then, Ivana had a suggestion that made Amanda & Pauline turn towards her incredulously.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The roof was boring.
There were no infected up here to kill, or re-kill, or whatever the proper, technical term was to keep these people from ever getting up off the ground ever again.
Eddie wasn't up here to kill & neither was Mark or Veronica.
As Charlie walked around, he paid close attention to any sounds on the roof in case Eddie or someone was hiding behind an air vent or the miscellaneous machinery that occasionally pock-marked the roof like mechanical acne on the roof's face. To his disappointment, most of the noise was either the wind whistling past him or the infected milling about on the ground below.
Charlie began to approach yet another roof access hatch, just one of many that he had already passed. Up until this point, all of the hatches had been locked. Charlie could have probably smashed a few of them in to see if Eddie was hiding just behind them. However, he figured that, regardless of where Eddie was, Charlie would eventually find him. The cowering types always eventually revealed themselves for who they were.
Somewhat flippantly, Charlie poked at the hatch to see if it rattled. All of the other hatches were tightly locked.
Much to Charlie's surprise, the hatch rattled loosely.
'Maybe,' Charlie thought to himself, grabbing the hatch & opening it quickly.
Charlie smiled as he stared into the darkness of an open roof hatch.
=========================
PART LXXXIX
It would do... For now.
Eddie slipped the piece of metal through the hole where a lock would normally lock the ceiling hatch from opening. It was by no means a perfect solution - A lot of shaking from the outside would probably cause the piece of metal to fall out. However, it was the best solution that he could think of inside of ten minutes.
The trip up the ladder had been far from perilous, with multiple worst case scenarios running through Eddie's mind with every rung. Charlie could have come back as Eddie was halfway up the ladder. More infected could have streamed into the shipping & receiving area as Eddie was on the ladder.
Now that Eddie's task was finished, those fears were mirrored for his trip back down to the ground. Charlie could run into the shipping & receiving area, trapping Eddie onto the ladder. Infected could enter in as well, forcing Eddie to retreat to risky prospects onto the roof.
Eddie, though, had a mercifully uneventful trip down the ladder. Although he could hardly call what he was standing on as 'terra firma' (it more resembled 'terror grossa'), he had now prevented Charlie from coming back from the roof.
'Now what?' Eddie asked to himself.
The answer that Eddie received neither comforted or delighted him. In fact, it was quite the opposite of what he had wanted to do.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"You've got to be kidding me," Amanda replied.
"We don't really have much of a choice," Ivana defended, adding, "Even if Mark comes back with two other people, that leaves us with six people. Six people against how many infected?"
"We can't just go around advertising that we're alive, though," Pauline stated, "What if we attract another psycho with a gun? We're just begging for something like that to occur."
"Odds are," Ivana continued, "There's no one left. From what everyone's been saying about these crazy people, they won't care what we say. Only normal people will understand what we say."
There was a pregnant pause, in which Ivana looked towards both Pauline & Amanda for input. When she received only silence, Ivana continued.
"Look," she simply stated, "If you can convince me that we can somehow make it out of this alive being an exclusive club, fill me in on the plan. Otherwise, we need more people. Needing more people means advertising. Advertising means we might run into danger. It's a risk, though, that we have to take."
There was another pause, with Amanda finally chiming in. "You're right," Amanda admitted, "It's been 'us versus them' from the start but they've been united from the start. It's time that we united, too."
"So," Pauline asked, "Just how are we going to do all of this?"
==========================
PART XC
Mark was halfway down the stairwell when he thought of calling the shipping & receiving department.
'Cripes,' he thought to himself, 'I can just call Charlie & Eddie. I don't actually have to walk back there.'
Frustrated that he had been so dense as to forget about such an obvious solution, he began to walk down the stairwell even faster. The level with the "U"-shaped office had to have had some telephone directory of the entire building. Mark would just search for that & then dial the extension.
Speed, though, had its dangers & nothing was more dangerous then quickly walking down a staircase slick with blood, other bodiy fluids & dead bodies. Mark found out about these dangers the hard way, by tripping over an arm & nearly tumbling down half a flight of stairs. Only by quickly grabbing onto the guardrail did Mark avoid an even more terrible spill.
For a moment, Mark paused as he slowly stood back up, staring down at the next corner where the stairway turned. He stared at a dead body, facing upwards, jaw open but face all bloodied beyond recognition.
'That's you,' his conscience told him, 'That's you in an alternate world where you tripped & died.'
Mark nodded to himself, forcing himself to be reminded that he was in a new world where death was everywhere. Death was in a wandering infected, it was in a slick staircase, it was in a crazy 'normal' person. One bad moment was all it took & those bad moments, nowadays, were everywhere.
Mark slowly began to walk down the staircase, being much more cautious then before. His goal, he figured, was to rescue Eddie & Charlie from the shipping & receiving department. He'd have a hard time rescuing them if he couldn't even make it down a staircase.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Charlie was no longer thinking; He was reacting. Bolting down the ladder of the open hatchway, he found himself on top of an elevator car. Dark, dusty & smelly, Charlie couldn't help but snicker as he called out, "Hey, Eddie, you down here?"
A peek into the elevator car revealed that it was empty, a sight that partially bemused Charlie as well as disappointed him. By now, his 'Hunt for Eddie' had grown tiresome & non-productive. There were infected to kill & every moment that Charlie had to hunt that little prick down was a moment he wasn't teeing off on some infected & keeping the property legitamitely safe.
Charlie carefully dropped into the elevator car & looked around. For a moment, he thought about releasing the emergency stop that someone had clearly pushed but decided against it. A stopped elevator was as good anyplace for a new, temporary base of operations. At worst, it was a little sanctuary that he could fall back on in case he ran up against a band of infected that even he couldn't deal with.
With a smirk, Charlie began to look around to see how he could manually open the elevator doors. It was as good a place to start as any towards confronting the infected.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 21, 2011 17:54:57 GMT -6
PART XCI
The impulse, of course, was to run.
Run to a safe spot & let someone big & tough sort all of the chaos out. Let someone with lots of bullets & courage take on the infected. Let someone with no sense of smell & an iron stomach clean up a massacre. Let someone photogenic & charismatic go in front of the cameras to take all of the glory for saving mankind from the infected.
'Someone other then me,' Eddie thought to himself instinctively before he caught himself.
'Why not me?' Eddie's conscience replied back, 'Why can't I control the situation for once? Why can't I be in charge?'
All of his life, Eddie had 'run' from challenges & responsibilities. Obviously, as he had grown older, he couldn't help but be obligated to fulfill some responsibilities. For instance, he had a job & paid his taxes. How many grown men his age DIDN'T do that? How many grown men avoided using drugs, cigarettes & alcohol like Eddie had?
Yet Eddie knew exactly what his response meant. All of his life, he had avoided BIG challenges & BIG responsibilities. At nearly every opportunity, he had taken the safe way out of life, the easy way out that would satisfy just about everyone in his life except for himself.
Eddie worked in the Shipping & Receiving department. As complicated as the job was, his job amounted to pushing boxes around. He took boxes from Point A & delivered them to Point B. Given four weeks of training, just about any competent person could perform a serviceable equivalent of what Eddie had been doing for... How many years was it now? A decade? Longer? The answer to that question stung. It struck a chord with him.
So, what was Eddie about to do again? Run. Run away. Run away from the Infected. Run away from Charlie. Run away from the casino. Run, run, run. The legacy of Eddie up until that exact moment amounted to walking away from true adversity & true challenge.
Eddie slowly nodded his head, looking around at the shipping & receiving department. He was surrounded with stinking, disgusting corpses. Charlie returning at any moment was a very real possibility, along with the fact that Charlie would undoubtedly try & kill Eddie.
This was EDDIE'S Shipping & Receiving department. This was EDDIE's turf. Why should HE run? Why should HE hide? Technically, he was probably the most senior employee that was probably left in the casino. Even if he wasn't, the Shipping & Receiving department was within the Operations division of the casino heirarchy which had direct responsibility in the event of a crisis.
Eddie decided to himself that he was staying. The Infected weren't going to push him out of the shipping & receiving department & neither was Charlie.
Now, Eddie had to figure out just how to make the shipping & receiving department habitable again...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Damn," Ivana muttered to herself, hanging up the phone in the hotel suite, "We don't have access to the employee voice mail options with these phones."
"They're customer phones," Amanda said, sucking down some bottled water, regaining just enough energy to foolishly think that she could continue to forego sleep, "It's probably a good thing that they wouldn't be able to access it."
After a moment of thought, Pauline piped up, saying, "The high-roller casino upstairs."
Everyone looked over towards Pauline as she continued, "We can just go up there & use the phones from up there."
There was another pause, with Amanda looking over at Ivana & Pauline. Finally, she heaved a sigh & put down her water bottle.
"I'll go," Amanda said, straining to get up.
"No," interrupted Pauline, "I'll go."
============================
PART XCII
Mark rifled through the desk & found it's contents disappointing but unremarkable. He found pens that didn't work, a calendar from last year, enough scratch paper to write a short novel with, a picture of some woman who could've been either a daughter, a wife, a sister or a girlfriend.
What Mark hadn't found, though, was a phone directory so that he could dial the extension to the shipping & receiving department. He had already gone through all of the other desks in the "U"-shaped office area which he had entered through the window previously.
A quick glance out of one of the office's windows revealed that sunrise was on it's way. 'Sunrise,' Mark thought to himself, shaking his head in disbelief, 'Where has the time gone?'
The prospect of a new day meant that he needed to get in touch with Eddie & Charlie all the sooner. The sooner that they all got some decent rest, the sooner they could better confront the problem. The better they could confront the problem... The more likely they might live through all of this.
Mark reached for the nearest phone & dialed for the automated directory. He hoped that someone would pick up on the other end... If he could even work his way through the automated system.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It had taken Charlie a while to open up the elevator doors. After finding the mechanical switch to override the automated door closing system, Charlie pried both the elevator doors open as well as the doors to the floor that the elevator had been going up to.
As he had suspected, the hallway was only sparsely populated with a few infected people, milling about aimlessly. Climbing out of the elevator, Charlie casually walked over to one of the infected & clobbered it with one swing from his weapon.
Charlie made quick work of all the other infected in the immediate vicinity. A young man still wearing his baseball cap but not his right arm, left eye or part of his chin? Smack! An older, obese woman whose arms looked all scratched up? Crack!
As Charlie inspected the hallway to see if any more infected were going to sneak up on him, he couldn't help but notice a curious trend. As opposed to earlier in the crisis, the infected didn't seem as... Lively. They weren't lunging at Charlie like they had in the past. Even the three infected that Charlie had killed in the hallway were almost completely oblivious to Charlie's presence until Charlie was right next to him.
For a moment, Charlie caught himself reacting sadly to this possible revelation. Shaking himself back into reality, Charlie began searching for more infected people to kill.
==============================
PART XCIII
As the large bay door rolled up & open, Eddie saw the infected milling about outside. They looked no different then before &, at first, Eddie thought that they acted no different.
Something was amiss, though, as Eddie watched the infected walk around as aimlessly as they had before. Eddie couldn't quite figure it out but the infected just seemed... Different. Were they less energetic then before? Were they less interested in the normal, healthy humans?
Eddie, shop broom in hand, began pushing the closest corpses lying in the shipping & receiving department towards the open bay door. The first corpse flopped over the side & onto the pavement below. Eddie watched as some of the infected reacted to the inclusion of the corpse in their terrain while others wandered about oblivious to the addition.
"Not interested in us anymore?" Eddie rhetorically asked the group of infected outside, adding, "Well, I'm not too interested in you, either."
Eddie pushed a few more corpses out of the shipping & receiving department. Just like the first, they flopped down onto the pavement with little ceremony or fanfare. Only the closest infected bothered to display any interest, a mere handful of them slowly picking through the corpses for whatever they considered to be nourishment.
Already, Eddie had learnt that the shop broom was a poor instrument for pushing the corpses. He pushed a few more out so that he could make a somewhat clearer path to sturdier tools.
Just before the telephone rang, Eddie had envisioned that it could take him the rest of the day before the shipping & receiving department would be back in order.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Her legs were weak. Really weak.
Pauline knew, though, that she had to keep walking. Walking up stairs, walking across rooms, stretching her legs, flexing her legs, whatever it took to keep her legs moving.
As long as there was a handrail or a wall, Pauline could get away with a reasonable substitute for a walk. Without something to hold onto, though, she was no different then a toddler; Each step precarious in its unpredictability. How small children managed through this phase of their life was beyond her.
As she walked towards the high-roller casino, she knew she was going to cry. She would see dead friends who had been both co-workers & players. She knew that she would have to concentrate on the goal - The goal to make an announcement with the P.A. system that survivors were here & that re-grouping was the best alternative.
She thought about where the nearest employee phone was. She thought about the extension that she was going to dial. She thought about what she was going to say, where she was going to look, how many steps it was going to be.
She also knew that, regardless of all of her mental preparations, she was going to relive a nightmare wrapped inside an apocalypse. This, though, was what she needed to do.
'You're just visiting friends,' she thought to herself as she climbed the stairs, 'You're visiting friends & the only way you can help them now is to send for more help.'
Already, the tears were beginning to well up.
==============================
PART XCIV
"Answer the damn phone," Mark muttered to himself, "Come on... Answer it. Answer it."
The phone rang about five times before the voice mail system picked up.
"This is the shipping & receiving department," an unknown male voice said, "No one is available to take your call right now but, if you leave your name, number & a brief message after the beep, we'll get back to you."
The voice mail beeped, Mark rolling his eyes in disappointment.
"Charlie, Eddie, this is Mark," Mark said, "I've found survivors. I repeat, I've found survivors inside the casino. Get up onto the roof, go across the roof to the hotel & find the open window to the hotel. Go up the staircase until you get to a door that you can't open. Knock on... You know what? I'm coming to you guys. I'm going to walk across the roof to meet with you guys. I hope to see you guys on the rooftop. Start walking towards me, OK? 'Cause I'm going to start walking towards you."
Mark hung up the phone, his own words beginning to sink in. What if Charlie & Eddie weren't there? What if they weren't able to get to a phone? What if...? Mark wasn't their parents or their best friends but he needed to give them as much a chance as possible to find safety & also some genuine rest.
A walk across the roof wouldn't hurt, Mark figured as he went over towards the open window in the office.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Charlie wasn't getting sloppy; He was just getting bored.
Aside from one or two infected that still showed some zip in their walk or some eagerness to grab at his flesh, Charlie was smacking infected as though they were stationary department store mannequins.
"Line drive," Charlie muttered to himself, nearly decapitating a former mother of three who no longer had to deal with a gambling addiction or the stigma of walking on a broken foot.
Charlie smacked a portly infected man in the stomach on his first swing so that, upon the man falling, he could crush the man's skull on his second.
"God," he said, almost out loud, "Don't tell me the party's over already."
Charlie's thoughts briefly turned towards a more practical matter - Escape. As much as he knew that the casino was becoming safer because of him (He could only imagine that Eddie was still cowering in some corner), Charlie also liked money. The casino had money.
Charlie imagined himself draining the casino dry, then getting paid by the casino's owners for protecting the casino. The thought made Charlie grin - The prospect of becoming a millionaire was, for the first time in his entire life, tangible.
A door up ahead had a sign on it that read "Security - Authorized personnel only."
Charlie deputized himself a split moment before trying the handle on the door.
===========================
PART XCV
'It's a trick,' Eddie thought to himself as he heard the phone ring.
Eddie could just picture Charlie, at the first available service phone, dialing the extension to the shipping & receiving department just to see if Eddie was stupid enough to pick up.
How Charlie had figured out that he had been duped by Eddie would remain a mystery. Maybe Charlie had very slowly tried to lift the hatch on the roof open & couldn't. Maybe he had leaned over the side & saw that the shipping bay door was open.
Eddie continued to push bodies out of the shipping & receiving department as the phone rang. He knew that the phone wouldn't ring for long, as the voice mail system would pick up. After five or so rings, the phone went dead.
A part of Eddie wanted to go over to the phone & listen to what Charlie had to say. It'd probably be something stupid & macho, like "I'm coming to get you!" or "You're gonna die!"
However, Eddie had larger issues to worry about. He still had to clear the shipping & receiving department of dead bodies. Either the smell had slightly improved or Eddie was finally getting used to it.
As Eddie continued to push the dead bodies onto the pavement, he noticed that the infected were beginning to become a little more lively again. By no means were they back to their usual aggressive, fanatically-determined selves but Eddie couldn't help that a few were beginning to stretch their decayed arms out at Eddie whenever he needed to push another dead body onto the pavement.
"I've got fans again," Eddie said with a smirk, in spite of himself.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
She could hear the noise. She could hear the voices.
"Hey, Paulini!" the ghost of Hank, one of the security guards, said, "Guess you didn't want to be in the poor house tonight..."
A momentary smirk tried but failed to creep onto her face. Hank always tried to say something ridiculous to her whenever he first saw her. It was no secret that Hank had tried his hand at being a stand-up comedian earlier in his life & had failed miserably. Unfortunately, there was a very good reason why he had failed.
"Hi, Hank," Pauline nearly whispered, her voice quivering as she saw a few flies walking unimpeded on Hank's now very-deceased body.
"If I was thirty years younger," the ghost of Mr. Thaddeus Ruckmin said, complete with a little pause as he took the cigar out of his mouth temporarily, "I'd give you a reason why that body & my bed would be synonymous."
Mr. Ruckmin was as harmless as an older, wealthy gentleman could get. Always laughing, always making some thinly-veiled flirting, his attitudes from an earlier generation were blunted by the fact that he never truly meant what he said. He was a lonely old man whose wife passed away decades earlier because of an illness. He treated the waitresses as the daughters he would never have, playing the role of a parent he knew he'd never be.
"Good evening, Mr. Ruckmin," Pauline tried to say, her voice not even a whisper. She could feel the tears streaming down her cheeks as she replayed in her mind his gentle smile, a smile he displayed whether he had just lost one thousand dollars or just won twenty grand.
Pauline closed her eyes for a moment & knew that she had to concentrate on getting to the telephone. She knew that the sooner she got to the telephone & made the announcement, the better it would be for everyone... Including those who were lying on the floor in front of her.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 21, 2011 17:57:01 GMT -6
PART XCVI
With each passing moment, the Sun was rising a little higher into the sky. In another hour, darkness would vanish & give way to the morning. Already, there was enough light for Mark not to use a flashlight as he slowly made his way across the rooftop towards the shipping & receiving hatchway.
About a minute into the walk, Mark paused to use his walkie-talkie & check in on the women in the hotel.
"This is Mark, over," Mark awkwardly said into the walkie-talkie. He couldn't help but feel a slight tinge of absurdity about using the device, as it evoked the feeling that he was on some cheesy TV movie.
Only static replied to Mark's request. Mark spoke into the walkie-talkie another two times before figuring out that static would be his only response.
"Beautiful," he muttered, "A billion dollar casino & we're stuck with bargain bin walkie-talkies that can't transmit from the roof."
Mark sighed to himself & continued to walk across the roof. Not walking near the edge, he couldn't see how the infected had slowed in their walking activities... Nor could he see a few of them resume their activities with their usual zeal.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Security guards in the casino, by law, weren't allowed to carry firearms. In fact, it had taken a specific state law just so that they were allowed to carry billy clubs & pepper spray. Most security guards, though, usually only wore a menacing stare & walkie-talkie as their weapons.
Therefore, it was up to the thirty state police officers permanently assigned to the casino to carry the firearms. Most of them were in full uniform, their firearms in full view. Such a display was intentional; The casino wanted to send the message without sending the message that, should things turn ugly, they could contain it.
Of course, up until this disaster, not a single shot had ever been fired on the premises by a police officer. Unlike the urban legends of the Las Vegas or Atlantic City casinos, there were no "back rooms" here where card counters were taken to be beaten up or legs broken to encourage debts to be collected. The worst that had ever occurred was that a cop had to unholster his weapon when a fight broke out between five people over the controversial ending of a basketball game that they were watching on a big screen in one of the betting rooms. The sight of an unholstered firearm was enough to quash the potential melee.
This didn't mean that the cops didn't have a stash of ammo or weapons in the casino; In fact, they secretly had two caches strategically located within the building.
One of the caches was behind an unmarked door at the main security center.
The other was right in front of Charlie. Naturally, the handle was locked.
Charlie grunted in disappointment as he made a game but not serious kick at the handle. He wasn't expecting the handle to be kicked in & it wasn't; The door didn't even budge, not in the slightest.
That's when Charlie remembered that he had the keyring back at the shipping & receiving department.
Charlie smirked & turned around, walking away.
============================
PART XCVII
"Charlie, Eddie, this is Mark," the voice mail played back, "I've found survivors. I repeat, I've found survivors inside the casino. Get up onto the roof, go across the roof to the hotel & find the open window to the hotel. Go up the staircase until you get to a door that you can't open. Knock on... You know what? I'm coming to you guys. I'm going to walk across the roof to meet with you guys. I hope to see you guys on the rooftop. Start walking towards me, OK? 'Cause I'm going to start walking towards you."
Eddie slowly put the receiver back down onto the phone.
Mark, Eddie realized, didn't know about Charlie. He didn't know that Charlie had gone mad & that anyone who didn't subscribe to his 'scorched earth' policy would be targeted no different then an infected.
Mark also didn't realize, Eddie suspected, that Charlie could still be on the roof. For all Eddie knew, Charlie was right outside the hatch, waiting to pounce on Eddie.
Breathing quick & trying to find a 'right' decision amongst a dozen or so actions, Eddie knew that he had to trust Mark. Mark hadn't abandoned them; If anything, he had probably done more then either Eddie or Charlie had. Maybe he had even found a way out of the casino & towards true safety.
Eddie owed it to Mark to warn him about Charlie. Eddie owed it to himself to get a few hours of decent sleep, even if it was now on the cusp of daytime.
Eddie remembered to grab the keyring & began to run towards the ladder.
What Eddie had forgotten, though, was to cover his tracks.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"They're not really dead," Pauline told herself softly, between poorly-suppressed sobs, "They're just resting. They're not... They're not..."
Pauline leaned on the bar, both arms shaking, trying to think of anything else other then seeing half of her friend Katie's skull splattered against a wall. Katie, who was hoping that her boyfriend Jeff would pop the question. Katie, who couldn't wait for her first child. Katie, who always wanted to be the Mom that her own Mom wasn't...
Pauline saw the service phone & grabbed the receiver, her hand trembling fiercely. Dialing into the employee phone service menu, Pauline began to wind her way through the voice mail options so that she could put out a casino-wide public announcement that there were survivors.
=========================
PART XCVIII
Everyone who invested in the casino knew it would be profitable. Otherwise, the investors never would have sunk over one hundred million dollars into designing, building, opening & operating it. The daily operating expenses for the place was nearly one & one-half million dollars per day.
What no one had anticipated, though, was that the casino would not just be successful but become a local phenomenon. People were lined up ten to fifteen deep for each cashier window. Every slot machine was occupied nearly every hour of the day. Every gaming table was jammed with people.
Expansions & renovations were hastily approved & also hastily built. These expansions & renovations had little consideration for how they would look down the hallways where patrons would never go. Would patrons care of the jagged skyline that these expansions & renovations produced? No. Their attention were on cards, dice, dials, wheels & horses - The building blocks of any profitable casino.
On his travels towards the shipping & receiving department across the rooftop, Mark had to step down, step up, jump down, jump up & use ladders to access the multitude of roofs that the casino had at its various points. The rooftop was, by no means, a safe way to traverse - In an area where even unionized workers would rarely need to go, handrails & guardrails were virtually non-existant.
To complicate matters, the roof was far from barren in its unique landscape. Air vents, A/C units, heating units & all sorts of odd bits of machinery stuck out from the roof to populate it as though it should have been a mechanized version of a forest.
Mark navigated this mechanized forest as he traveled towards the shipping & receiving department. Having not seen anyone, though, he began to get nervous that something drastic had happened to Mark & Eddie. Certainly, he would have seen them by now had they received his message. Why wouldn't they pick up an incoming call? They certainly would have earlier in this crisis. Were they injured? Were they dead or, for that matter, "undead"?
Suddenly, Mark paused as he heard what sounded like rapid running across the rooftop. In a moment, Mark saw that it was Eddie. Eddie, though, carried not an expression of relief or happiness on his face. Instead, Mark was puzzled as Eddie, his eyes now locked onto Mark's, kept motioning with his right hand as though to decapitate his head from his neck.
Mark understood what Eddie's hand motion meant - To keep silent. Mark's puzzlement, though, was precisely why they needed to be silent on a rooftop deserted of infected & where their only opponent was in the landscape itself.
What Mark had failed to appreciate is that he had walked past a certain open hatch... And that Eddie had yet to walk past it himself.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yolanda Rodriguez, mother of two & expecting one more, stumbled towards Charlie slowly. Both of her arms were broken, her right one dangling as her right shoulder had been severely dislocated. She felt no pain, though, as all she could think about was the moving buffet that she would never know was called "Charlie."
Charlie raised his weapon & hacked at the woman's skull. In an instant, Yolanda's post-injury existance was over.
For a moment, Charlie thought about trying to close off the section of hallways that he was in. It was clear to him that the hallways were re-filling with the infected but from where & how many was anyone's guess. He secretly enjoyed the confrontations, as they were still confined to one-on-one battles that heavily favored Charlie.
Charlie, though, wanted that keyring with him so that every locked door wouldn't remain a mystery. He especially wanted to see if the keyring could open the security door that he had run into earlier.
Just as Charlie re-entered the elevator, though, to get back onto the rooftop to go to the shipping & receiving department, he thought that he had heard something. Something faint. Something that sounded like... An announcement.
==========================
PART XCIX
Eddie knew that he had to keep running. As Mark kept looking puzzled, Eddie swiftly ran past him.
"Eddie...!" Mark tried to quietly 'yell' to Eddie.
Mark rolled his eyes & sighed heavily as Eddie continued to run. Eddie had figured that, if Mark had gotten this far, it would be safe to continue past him. Eddie looked back to see if Mark would follow.
Reluctantly, Mark began to jog back to Eddie. He was hoping that, when he reached him, he'd have a very good excuse for the abnormal behavior.
As they ran, they unknowingly ran past the open hatchway to the elevator.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Ladies & Gentlemen," Pauline slowly said into the phone, "If there is anyone left alive in the casino who can understand this announcement, I would like for you to safely & calmly travel to the entrance of the eighth floor of our hotel. If you feel that you can not travel to the eighth floor of our hotel safely, then please dial extension x256 at the nearest service phone. I repeat, if you are able to do so safely, please travel to the entrance of the eighth floor of our hotel. Thank you."
Pauline hung up the phone. Quickly, she brought the walkie-talkie up to her mouth & spoke into it.
"How was that? Over," Pauline said, her voice trembling.
"Good job," Amanda simply replied, "Come on back down. Over."
"OK," Pauline squeaked out, nearly too emotional to talk in a normal tone.
"I'm sorry," Pauline began to say to the decaying, silent occupants of the high-roller casino, "I'm sorry I was a coward. I'm so, so sorry. I'm such a f**king failure. I'm sorry."
Pauline couldn't hold it in anymore & just started weeping. She wept for a solid minute before finally beginning to move towards the exit. With each step, she emotionally said her farewells to her former co-workers. She said goodbye to the loyal customers.
As Pauline gripped the handle to the exit, a part of her realized that it would be the last time she ever stepped foot in the high-rollers casino ever again. It had to be; It needed to be.
The room had become as unfamiliar, as cold as a foreign land, as an unexplored landscape. The room had turned empty, with mannequins gracing the floor in unspeakable positions.
Her co-workers were gone. The gamblers were gone. This part of her life, the part where she walked around in a skimpy little uniform, passing out drinks & making small talk to people who placed more money on a single bet then she could hope to make in a week had vanished forever.
As though touching the handle had magically began to dry up her tears & fortify her constitution, she turned to the room one finaly time as she began to open the door.
"Goodbye," she muttered, walking through the door.
=========================
PART C
"Eddie..." Mark said, gamely chasing after Eddie. Mark noticed that Eddie would look back at Mark every five yards or so as he jogged.
"Eddie..." Mark repeated, being more assertive as he began to catch up to Eddie.
After another moment of running after Eddie, Mark snapped. Stopping suddenly, Mark yelled, "Eddie! Stop!"
Eddie stopped in mid-stride turning around. Eddie saw Mark, shrugging & staring at him in disbelief. Eddie quickly walked back over to Mark.
"Charlie's gone insane," Eddie quietly said, "And when he left, he left through the rooftop hatch. He hasn't been back since. He could be anywhere on this roof. Anywhere!"
"Oh," Mark meekly replied, the reality of the situation sinking in. As it sank in, Eddie turned back around to run.
Mark knew that he hadn't seen Charlie on his way across the rooftop. Based on what Eddie had just said, Eddie hadn't seen Charlie either. That meant that Charlie was either hiding somewhere on the roof or had somehow gotten off of it.
Knowing that Charlie was a large man who could certainly take care of himself, Mark didn't like the prospect of facing an 'insane' Charlie. An 'insane' Charlie could very easily take care of either Mark or Eddie. Having already faced one insane person, Mark doubted that a second confrontation with another insane person would end as well.
Mark began to run after Eddie. He would need to hear the rest of the story... When both of them were safely back at the hotel.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Something about a 'hotel.' That was all that Charlie could hear as he had quickly scrambled out of the elevator & down the hallway where the announcement was the loudest.
Employee hallways were rarely equipped with speakers hooked into the public announcement system. That system was to address the public & not employees. As a result, Charlie had been lucky that he had heard anything at all. What he had heard was mostly soft & mostly muffled.
Was it a recording? Possibly. For all he knew, it might have been a timed, pre-set recording. With all the crap that had happened at the casino, who knows why it would go off now?
A locked security door, a muffled message about the hotel, cowards like Eddie & Mark hindering his progress in bringing the chaos in the casino under his control, never-ending zombies... Charlie just frowned as the little annoyances began to pile up without adequate resolution.
'Keyring,' he reminded himself, trying to get himself back on track. As he walked back towards the elevator again, he also reminded himself that, after getting the keyring, he'd go to the hotel.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 24, 2011 8:09:03 GMT -6
PART CI
The closer that Eddie got to the hotel, the calmer he began to get.
Finally breaking his silence while he was jogging, Eddie asked, "So, who'd you find? What'd you find?"
"There were some people lodged up in the high-rollers casino," Mark summarized, keeping pace with him, "Three women."
Mark quickly asked, "So, what happened with Charlie?"
"He's crazy," Eddie replied, "He thinks I'm a coward because I wouldn't help him beat back all these zombies that had gotten into the shipping & receiving department. He thinks we're all cowards. He forced me to give him the keyring when I left."
Mark, clearly hearing the keys on the keyring jangle as Eddie carried them, looked back over to Eddie. Eddie, seeing his glance, replied.
"I stole it back," Eddie replied with a grin, "Not just that, but he thinks I escaped onto the rooftop."
"We ARE on the rooftop," Mark clarified.
"Yeah," Eddie said, "But that was a while back. And we haven't seen him since. If we can get up to the high rollers area, what are the chances that he'll find us there? We could stay up there for a week before he finds us."
Mark realized that Eddie had a point - Once hidden behind locked doors that no one else could get through, they would be virtually invisible. They could then confront Charlie, if they even wanted to, at their leisure.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pauline merely sat in the chair, her face staring upwards at the tan & well-lit ceiling. If her face couldn't convey her emotional exhaustion to the impartial observer, then her body could absolutely display her physical exhaustion.
"So," Amanda summarized, "Now we wait."
"What are the chances that anyone even heard that?" Pauline asked, "Not to be negative."
"We'll find out," Ivana blurted, trying to keep the leg where she had injured her ankle straight.
"Has anyone heard from Mark yet?" Pauline asked.
"Static," Amanda replied, quickly adding, "It's probably the roof. I don't think the walkie-talkies are any good on the roof."
"We need to get rid of all the dead people in the stairwell," Ivana suggested, "If not for smell, then for safety & sanitation."
"That was my fault," Amanda said with a brief smile, the smile vaporizing as quickly as it had appeared, "My fault and... Well, my fault."
Amanda slowly got up out of her chair to stretch her legs.
"Well," Amanda started to say, "Someone has to wait for the survivors to show up. There's no point in mentioning a location if we're not going to be there. Make sure..."
Suddenly, the telephone rang. All three women looked at it incredulously for a moment.
========================
PART CII
Mark, from inside the office, watched as Eddie slowly & carefully climbed through the window. Unlike Mark, Eddie's larger girth made the window a more challenging obstacle. As soon as Eddie's waist had passed through the window frame, Mark turned to the walkie-talkie.
"Amanda," Mark said into the walkie-talkie, "This is Mark. Do you copy? Over."
A moment later, Mark heard Amanda reply, "Mark, this is Amanda. How are you?"
"I'm in the office downstairs," Mark reported, watching Eddie get down off of the desk from where he climbed into the office, "I've brought back one survivor. Repeat, just one survivor. We might also think about lying low for awhile. We probably have another insane person running around inside the casino. Over."
There was a pause, then Amanda said, "Ummm, it might be too late for that."
Mark's facial expression changed to concern as he quickly responded, "What do you mean?"
"You know what?" Amanda said, "Why don't you stay down there for a moment. Pauline & I are coming down. You're in the office, right?"
"Yeah," Mark said plainly, confused.
"OK, Pauline & I will be down in a moment," Amanda said, quickly adding, "Out." The walkie-talkie then fell silent.
Mark just shrugged as he tried to answer Eddie's confused expression. Even though the Sun was now out, both Mark & Eddie felt very much in the dark.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Did he leave the hatch open? Charlie couldn't be sure as he slowly walked closer towards it. As much as he knew that he probably wouldn't be ambushed by Eddie, Charlie couldn't take the chance. A forty foot shove off the side of the building was one punch that Charlie knew he wouldn't be able to take.
Sure enough, his path to the shipping & receiving hatchway was free from ambush. Peering down inside the hatchway, though, Charlie was in for another surprise.
'Again,' he thought, not sure whether to frown or smile at the sight of a hastily cleaned up shipping & receiving department. The floor had been mostly cleared of dead bodies, with a modest amount of 'red smear' on the floor that was most likely blood & other icky bodily fluids. The shipping bay door was wide open while infected people, with no one to lunge after, simply milling about just outside of it.
For a split moment, Charlie thought about yelling down something nasty to Eddie on the chance that he was down there as well. However, the infected wouldn't simply be bumbling around if Eddie was anywhere in there. The obsessive one-track minds of the infected would have pointed him out by hopelessly grabbing in his general direction.
As Charlie began to descend the ladder, he began to dread a very disturbing possibility. If Eddie had been here long enough to clean up, perhaps he had been here long enough to get the keyring. It was a prospect that Charlie did not want to see pan out.
==========================
PART CIII
"You'll do fine," Jackie remembered Tocot telling her.
"Look," Tocot continued, "We'll just put a 'soft alarm' on the door. Don't worry, you'll be able to leave in case of an emergency..."
'A**hole,' Jackie muttered under her breath.
It was called "Count Room Two," the second in three rooms where all the paper currency was gathered to be sorted & counted. The room was hardly decorative - A cement grey ceiling was littered with domed cameras & microphone stalks that snaked from the ceiling like thin stalagtites. Cement grey walls with dull blue metal cabinets that were about an inch away from the walls. The cabinets were bolted onto stands that stood about two inches off the ground.
The entire room was designed for one purpose & one purpose only - So that the counters couldn't steal any of the money that they counted. The coverall that Jackie wore had no pockets & had to be given back to the wardrobe department every day. She was allowed to wear panties & a bra underneath the coverall. No short-sleeved shirts, no shorts. The bra had to be "conventional" & not a sports bra as sports bras, management revealed, had too much cloth material for someone to slip a few bills into. Your coverall had to stay buttoned up to the top button at ALL times unless you went to the bathroom. Bathroom breaks were monitored by camera & microphone but the footage would only be viewed if money ever went missing. Soft, rubbery shoes that the casino provided had to be worn without socks. Hairstyles couldn't be "frizzy," like an afro. No facial hair of any kind & no hair longer then eighteen inches starting from it's origin point on your head.
Jackie jumped through all of the hoops that she needed to jump through so that, everyday, she could have a heart condition as their ending count would be off by five to five hundred dollars. Most of the time, it was new bills that were sticking together or a simple miscount. As soon as the money was counted, verified & wrapped up, the money would then be taken away in large, metal boxes that rolled.
Jackie didn't like her job but it was money & she liked the health benefits. Although she had no ancestry to it, Jackie had always been enthralled with ancient South American cultures. Had she had the money, she would've gone to college to become an archeologist so that she could sleep right next to the Mayan pyramids.
It was money that also had gotten her into trouble.
"Triple," William Tocot had told her, "Triple your pay now & I'll guarantee you a 10% pay raise when all of this is over."
How could you beat that? Could you beat that? Jackie had a cousin squandering her future at a supermarket, sitting behind a customer service desk making nearly half of what she made.
'Your cousin isn't behind a locked door right now,' her conscience told her, 'How's all that money going to buy your way out of this?'
The door had two settings - A "soft" alarm & a "hard" alarm. A "soft" alarm meant that anyone could open the door but all sorts of bells & whistles would go off in security unless they approved it. A "hard" alarm meant that it was electromagnetically sealed & that only security could open the door by "buzzing" it open.
"Look," Tocot continued, Jackie replaying it over in her mind, "We'll just put a 'soft alarm' on the door. Don't worry, you'll be able to leave in case of an emergency..."
Jackie knew that something truly awful had to have happened in the casino. No one would have left her alone with nearly two and a half million dollars without someone to come & pick it up. Security hadn't answered their phone. No one had answered their phone. Jackie couldn't even access the locker room to put on her regular clothes; Only the bathroom was available for her to use.
Hunger had made Jackie desperate & angry. She had screamed into the microphones snaking from the ceiling to no avail. With no bed, Jackie had to make do sleeping on a layer of twenty dollar bills. To accentuate her anger at security (And to also make a rather saucy surveillance tape), she decided to do so in the buff.
It was only through a complete fluke of construction that she may ever be rescued at all. Outside the count room, a P.A. speaker had been wired into the obviously employee hallway. This was because, back in the initial blueprints, the area was supposed to be for recreational use & those parts of the prints never changed.
When Jackie heard the announcement, she ran to the phone.
What she heard once she dialed the number, though, disheartened her. It was explained to her that the only normal people left in the entire casino were two high-stakes waitress, a normal casino waitress & an accounting geek.
Still, a little help would be better then no help at all.
As Jackie looked over at stacks of bills, she couldn't help but note the irony of it all - She was trapped with all the money she'd ever need... And she couldn't do a thing with it.
===============================
PART CIV
"You cool with this?" Amanda asked Ivana as both Pauline & herself got up to walk out the door.
"I'll be fine," Ivana said with a smile, adding in her thoughts, 'Mother.'
"OK," Amanda replied, "If you need anything, see anything, hear anything, just let us know on the walkie-talkie. Let's test them out to make sure they work."
Amanda spoke into the walkie-talkie, "OK, Ivana. Stay safe."
Ivana, hearing the words through the walkie-talkie that Amanda, only yards away, replied back into the walkie-talkie, "Got it."
Amanda & Pauline looked at each other briefly & then back at Ivana.
"We'll be back," Amanda said. With that, the two disappeared.
As soon as the two left, Ivana hobbled over to another seat & turned on the television. A momentary glance at the major news channels turned out to be a grim reminder of the precarious situation humanity had been drawn into. News anchors were without make-up, the sets were haphazard in their upkeep & practically every word from their mouths were improvised as new news items happened with such frequency that a teleprompter had become cumbersome to use.
Parts of New York City were overrun with infected. Police stations, hospitals, schools, fire stations... Places of evacuation were either being invaded by too many refugees or too many infected; Both equally detrimental to that location's viability as an evacuation center. Vigilante groups had sprung up across the country like weeds in a garden after a Summer rain, killing anything that moved - Infected or normal.
As Ivana sat there, she couldn't help but feel depressed about their plight. What point would there be of escaping the casino if the rest of the world was in equal peril?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The keyring wasn't here. At least, Charlie hadn't found it yet after a few moments of frantic searching.
"Shut up," he spat at the groaning, gurgling mass of infected that had gathered at the mouth of the open bay door. Charlie had half a mind to bean every single infected who had gathered there, regardless to his risk of them grabbing at his ankles. He couldn't believe that they could still be so stupid as to not pull themselves up from the pavement below to the floor of the department.
Charlie shook his head in utter frustration as he walked briskly to & fro over the department for the keyring in a futile search for the keyring. His search had yielded everything but the keyring.
Deciding that he needed a few moments to contemplate his next move, Charlie walked into the office to sit & think. Once inside, something caught his eye.
=========================
PART CV
"That's a lot of dead bodies," Eddie commented.
Eddie viewed the hotel stairwell where Amanda & Lenny had created a spiraling tower of carange with the infected. The scene had changed little from when the infected were freshly slaughtered but the smell had grown considerably worse. Even to Mark, who had dealt with the stairwell prior in saving Ivana from the gun-wielding lunatic, the stairwell had acquired a pugnancy that would have made such a rescue effort all the more difficult now.
"Smells like the shipping & receiving department," Eddie dryly stated, "Charlie went crazy & killed who knows how many infected in there."
Eddie had filled Mark in on the events after Mark had left the shipping & receiving department - That their 'L'-shaped door must have been broken & that the infected had gotten through. Charlie, having wanted to confront the infected, intimidated Eddie into giving him the massive keyring that could open or lock virtually every door in the casino. Eddie told Mark how he escaped through the roof hatch only to go back to the department a short time later to find the department deserted. Charlie, it had appeared, had continued his rampaging against the infected beyond the department. Eddie described how he had found the keyring but was unable to escape through the hatchway in time so he let the infected inside the department in an effort to distract Charlie but the plan failed & Eddie was trapped inside the department. Fortunately, Eddie explained, Charlie thought that he had escaped through the hatch & went up it. Once that occurred, Eddie shut the hatch & began to clean up the department until Mark made his phone call about survivors.
"So Charlie's gone off the deep end, huh?" Mark asked.
"Maybe he's found the parking garage & is having himself a blast with killing infected," Eddie speculated, "But he could just as well be walking towards the hotel right now. I don't know."
"What do you think he's going to do if he find out that we have the keyring?" Mark asked.
"Here's to hoping that we don't have to find that out for real," Eddie mused.
Just then, they heard two sets of footsteps slowly coming down the stairwell. Mark could tell that it was Amanda & Pauline.
"So what's so big that they have to come down all this way for without telling us anything?" Eddie asked.
"We'll find out," Mark replied, his tone filled with uncertainty.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
'Ivana the Injured,' Ivana thought to herself, adding, 'Ivana the Useless.'
Even the slightest amount of pressure on her ankle caused her to have fits, gritting her teeth suddenly & sucking in her breath to avoid yelping out in sheer pain. If the ankle wasn't broken, she figured, then she had done the next worst possible thing to it.
She hated to be reduced to a secretary, sitting by a phone that probably wasn't going to ring. Odds were that there was only one other survivor in the casino & that was a count room person named 'Jackie' that she had talked to only moments after Pauline had made the announcement.
With a few idle moments to herself, Ivana thought about the safety of her family & her friends. Were they alive? Were they safe? Were they one of these 'Infected' that now walked around, lifeless caskets of flesh whose only signs of life were chasing after the normal people so that they could kill them?
With no other noise in the room, Ivana slowly felt her eyelids get heavier. Catching herself, she forced herself awake but knew that she hadn't had a sufficient amount of sleep since... When? Yesterday? The day before that?
As Ivana strained to keep herself awake, she struggled to find something more useful & productive to do then just merely sitting beside a phone.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 24, 2011 8:11:24 GMT -6
PART CVI
Mark & Eddie listened as Amanda & Pauline told them that they had made an announcement over the P.A. system in order to contact any survivors still in the casino. He was also told about Jackie, who had called in response to the announcement. In a heartbeat, Mark's near-perfect plan of getting some badly-needed rest went up in smoke.
There was no point in yelling, shouting or expressing any amount of disappointment.
"OK," Mark said with a heavy sigh, "Well, one of the survivors who was with me & Eddie has since gone insane. He could've heard that announcement."
"Yeah," Amanda said, her tone dripping with apologies.
"Well," Mark admitted, "I don't have a plan. This guy is huge &... Well, I give up. If he finds us, we're going to have to confront him."
"Maybe not," Eddie suggested, "Look, he only knows about us two," pointing to himself & Mark. "You two," Eddie pointed towards Amanda & Pauline, "He may be cool with. I don't know."
"Look," Pauline said, "I've got to go to the rendezvous spot in the announcement. For all we know, there could be some genuine survivors there."
"And then we've got to go find Jackie. She's supposedly locked in one of the count rooms," Amanda stated.
Mark rubbed the temples on his forehead for a moment. In only a few moments, he had gone from expecting rest to taking part in a rescue mission & figuring out how they were now going to avoid Charlie, who already knew where they were.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The light was on.
Charlie glanced at the phone & noticed that one of the lights on the phone was on. Next to the light was a little sticker labelled "Mail."
Charlie smirked to himself, wondering what sort of messages there might be on the voice mail system. It'd be an interesting listen, to be certain, if Charlie thought that he'd have the time.
'Help!' Charlie thought one imaginary voice mail message might sound like, 'We're getting eaten by infecteds! Send reinforcements!' Charlie openly snickered when he substituted the voice for either Mark or Eddie. How appropriate, he thought. How very, very appropriate would that be.
Beginning to get up out of the chair to get out of the office, Charlie paused & looked back at the phone. He knew that all of these voice mail message boxes would probably be password protected so that no one could just open them up. Yet Charlie was curious what was on this particular phone's voice mail.
'It wouldn't hurt,' Charlie thought to himself, picking up the receiver, 'Just to try.'
========================
PART CVII
"Who's got the gun?" Mark asked Amanda & Pauline.
"Ivana," Amanda replied, "I figured I'd give it to her because she's, you know, disabled & alone."
Mark nodded, looking around the room where Pauline was going to stay to wait for any survivors. An awkward pause caused Pauline to break the silence.
"I'll be fine here," Pauline admitted, "If I see something I can't handle, I'll run. I'm not afraid of being a wimp."
"OK," Mark said to both Pauline & Amanda, "Any questions on what Charlie looks like in case you spot him & you're alone?"
"Big," Pauline blurted out, "Insane, egotistical, angry, irrational... Typical male. Got it." Pauline added quickly with a smirk, "Present company excluded, of course."
Mark figured he wouldn't say anything, as it was just a light-hearted attempt at some much needed humor in their dreary situation.
"Hey," Eddie overacted, pointing his finger dramatically, "Who are you calling 'egotistical'?" Eddie paused but then broke out into a huge grin & chuckled. The reactionary laughter was desperately needed but it only delayed their inevitable departure.
"Let's go," Mark said to the rest of the group. They began to walk away from Pauline.
"Keep in touch," Mark said, waving his walkie-talkie in the air at Pauline. Pauline nodded & thrusted her walkie-talkie into the air as well.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"They're on their way," Ivana stated to Jackie over the phone.
"They're not here yet," Jackie replied.
"I know," Ivana tried to reply in a calm, neutral voice, "But you have to give them time. These infected people are probably slowing them down. Even without that, they have to go to this main security station that you talked about to buzz you out."
"Yeah," Jackie admitted, "I know. I'm just, I don't know, I'm just... I just want out. You know?"
"We all do," Ivana replied, "You just stay calm & they'll arrive shortly."
"OK," Jackie plainly said, "Thanks."
"Yup," Ivana responded, hanging up the phone. As soon as Ivana hung up the phone, she began to look around.
'If only...' she began to think to herself.
==============================
PART CVIII
There was no way to get to the main security room without going through some of the patron areas of the casino. Unless they could magically travel through walls, Mark & the gang would have to face the infected 'en masse'. It was a prospect that no one was enjoying.
"Remember," Mark said flatly to everyone else, "We move quickly, we stay moving, we strike only when we have to."
Mark turned to Amanda, asking, "You know where you're going?" Amanda nodded silently, having been to the main security center once before during her years as a waitress. She had been requested up there because she had unknowingly served drinks to a known mafia hitman & the cops wanted to know if she had overheard anything.
"Let's just all be clear about this before we go out there. We're going down part of the hallway here until we come to a bank of elevators on our right. We move into that stairwell & go up to the top floor," Mark stated, "The back-up plan, God forbid we actually need it, is that we head straight back to here."
"Questions, comments, opinions?" Mark asked. He was only met with four eyes, all staring back at him.
"OK," Mark sighed, "Let's do it."
Mark didn't see his hands slightly tremble as he reached over to open the door. Just beyond the door were dozens of infected, slowly milling about in a long, expansive walkway that was lined with stores & restaurants. It was the casino's version of a mall but, in light of recent events, it had gone from mall to mausoleum &, if Mark & the gang weren't careful, it'd quickly go from mall to cemetary.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One hundred thousand possible combinations.
Charlie knew it would be a sucker bet to devote a lot of time to finding out the password (technically, the "passnumber") to the shipping & receiving department's voice mail system. If the number had been randomly assigned, there would be little hope in guessing it correctly.
Charlie's only hope was that the number was really simple (like "55555") or that someone had scribbled down the number nearby so that they didn't forget it.
Charlie's hopes that the number would be simple were quickly dashed as he went through all of the obvious number combinations.
Swiftly, he began to look around the general area to see if a number had been written anywhere. Was it underneath the desk? No. Written on the walls nearby? No. Underneath the phone? No. On the chair? No. On the shelf nearby? No.
Underneath the desk blotter?
Bingo.
Charlie grinned as he spied a five-digit number, written in pencil, on the backside of the desk blotter.
========================
PART CIX
Jennifer Roshanda didn't have to worry about her knees anymore. The thirty-four year old, mother of one, gambling addict had learnt all too late that ignoring a growing melee while playing blackjack was lethal. Bitten on the neck, both arms, both legs & even on her stomach, Roshanda now gimply shuffled about in a delerium.
Her head wobbling without reason, she had begun to smell food about a moment ago. With fuzzy eyesight, she had to rely only on her smell to get to the food.
The food, though, was already ten yards away & the smell was beginning to disappear. Roshanda's stomach would not give up, forcing her to shuffle a little faster. The increase in speed would be in vain - Roshanda would lose the smell entirely only moments later.
So it went for dozens of infected, whose heads had turned around briefly in a lethargic attempt at grabbing the source of the elusive food smell. Some infected were fast enough to manage the speed of a normal walk. Others had the benefit of location but not the fortune at holding onto the smelly food source.
For the first one hundred feet, Mark & the gang passed the infected like Roshanda as they quickly but carefully made their way down the mall area of stores to the first bank of elevators. Mark wielded his weapon economically, pushing back the infected only when needed & swinging at them only when necessary. Eddie was a bit more aggressive, taking potshots wherever he could. Amanda kept her weapon at the ready but was the most cautious of all, using her speed & agility to try & avoid any confrontation outright.
For the first one hundred feet, Mark & the gang had thought that the escapade into a patron area of the casino would be effortless, if a bit tense.
Then, they began to hear an audible increase in the moaning.
Then, they began to see the infected shift & move together as one large mass - A many-armed, slowly-moving, single-minded creature.
Mark & the gang now had to make a decision - Make a stand & start swinging away or make a run for it & hope for the best.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pauline knew that no one was going to show up. How could they? The infected were everywhere in the patron areas of the casino & scattered even throughout those areas that, in normal times, would be for employees only.
Pauline looked around & saw that the hallway was empty. In fact, the entire eighth floor of the hotel was so silent that Pauline could hear the ever-so-faint hum of the flourescent lights overhead. The smell of corpses, unfortunately, had wafted in through the stairwell but it wasn't as overpowering as she had thought. Either the stench wasn't overpowering, she cynically thought, or she had just gotten used to the nauseating odor.
With little else to do but sit & wait, Pauline began to think of things that she could do. What could she possibly do that would also keep her out of trouble?
========================
PART CX
"Charlie, Eddie, this is Mark," the voice mail played back, "I've found survivors. I repeat, I've found survivors inside the casino. Get up onto the roof, go across the roof to the hotel & find the open window to the hotel. Go up the staircase until you get to a door that you can't open. Knock on... You know what? I'm coming to you guys. I'm going to walk across the roof to meet with you guys. I hope to see you guys on the rooftop. Start walking towards me, OK? 'Cause I'm going to start walking towards you."
Charlie couldn't help but snicker as he placed the receiver back onto the phone.
Mark, Charlie figured, hadn't turned out to be such a bad guy after all. In all likelihood, though, Eddie was now with Mark. If that were so, then Eddie more then likely had already pissed & moaned about how 'Charlie' was so evil or violent or some crap like that to Mark.
'If only I had caught up to Mark first...,' Charlie thought to himself, shaking his head.
Thinking for a moment, he realized that any survivor he now encountered would probably be against him. It was a shame; Being able to claim that he had helped survivors out would've been great for a book deal. After all, with the way Charlie was slaughtering these infected, how could they possibly take over the Earth? Maybe, he thought for a moment, this casino is one of the last areas left that the military hasn't cleaned up yet.
Charlie walked out of the office, watching the infected as they reached for him at the mouth of the shipping area's entrance. At least twenty were there with arms (or remained of their arms) outstretched.
Walking over to the shipping area door button, he pushed it, watching the retractable door come down onto no less then twenty arms that were outstretched. The infected didn't make a single sound as a huge, heavy door, for all intents & purposes, crushed their arms from their bodies. To be certain, it hadn't cut off their limbs but the door had done everything but. The door had crushed the bones in the arms, it had torn the ligaments of those arms... Those arms were now useless to the infected forever.
He watched as some of the arms wiggled & some of the arms instantly fell limp. Then, Charlie walked towards the ladder that ascended to the ceiling hatch.
His next stop - The hotel.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The first thirty infected to challenge them, Mark figured, would be dead. It'd be reminiscent of those old Revolutionary War battles where soldiers all stood in a line shooting at one each other. Mark, Eddie & Amanda would probably have the upper-hand for the first minute as their desperate swings would connect with unprotected skulls.
For one minute, Mark, Eddie & Amanda would probably feel invulnerable to any sort of infected onslaught. Then, Mark figured, the numerical superiority of the infected would simply overwhelm them. With twenty hands or more reaching out, even the most physically fit & experienced fighter could swing a club or a lead pipe so many times before one of those hands grabbed a shoulder, grabbed a leg or an arm.
It wasn't worth it; They would have to take their chances & make a run for it. As thick as the infected were now, it'd only get worse in the next minute & even more worse in the minute after that. Forging ahead through the infected, a scary enough proposition, was nowhere near as bad as standing your ground & being swarmed.
"Keep moving!" Mark shouted, swinging & hitting the shoulder of an infected hard, causing that one & two other infected to fall to the ground, "Head for the door!"
As swiftly as they could, they hugged the wall while swinging wildly at the amassing infected swarm. An uppercut swing from Eddie's weapon caused an infected woman to fall backwards & knock down a few infected. A baseball swing from Amanda caused an infected to fall down, making three other infected trip over & fall down as well.
They weren't even at the elevators yet & Mark was already dreading that they had inadvertantly walked into a no-win situation. At this point, was it even possible for them to reach the doorway near the elevators? They had no choice now but to find out.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 24, 2011 8:14:22 GMT -6
PART CXI
It was a more violent, more desperate version of 'Rubbing your tummy while patting your head.' Mark, Eddie & Amanda had to fend off an ever-thickening swarm of infected, violent people all while moving closer towards a stairway door near a bank of elevators.
Like fog rolling in, the mass of infected began to block Mark's view of the doorway that they needed to get to. Mark's economical but determined swings from his weapon had given the group forward momentum towards the door. They were not necessarily killing blows to the infected, as Mark had little time to aim for their heads. Instead, a swing that pushed the infected back or caused others to fall back as well was just as good for him.
"Almost there!" Mark yelled, "Keep swinging & moving!"
With a final, determined push, Mark swung wildly & rapidly to create enough space for himself to move to the door's edge. The door, to Mark's glee, had a door handle where you had to open the door by pressing a level down with your thumb. Such a door, Mark had learned, was too technically complex for the infected to figure out.
Mark pushed an infected out of the way & quickly opened the door. Some infected were going to wander through the door before Eddie & Amanda were going to arrive. There were just too many infected not to have that occur.
"In!" Mark yelled, smacking an infected in the chest that had dared enter walk through the doorway. He felt two people behind him rush past, the second one grabbing the back of Mark's shirt & pulling ferociously. For a split second, Mark thought that he was about to become the victim of an infected & yelped. Tumbling backwards, all he could see was a kaleidoscope of industrial stairwell & concrete floor, followed by a loud bang.
Mark got up as quickly as he could from off the ground, wincing instinctively. He looked around, though, to find no other infected around. Instead, he found Eddie & Amanda both looking at him. It took Mark a moment to realize that he was still in a combat stance, waiting to fend off the infected who would never arrive. Sheepishly, he straightened up into a normal position.
"Is everyone else alright?" Mark asked, "No cuts, bites, scratches or anything like that?"
Both Eddie & Amanda looked at themselves briefly, checking their legs, torsos & arms.
"Just some goo," Eddie said disgustingly, wrinkling his nose, "That smells to high Heaven."
"Like my first boyfriend," Amanda quipped, "All hands but no action."
"No penetration, though?" Mark said, practically covering his mouth as soon as he said it. He quickly added, "Sorry."
Amanda understood the double-meaning by unwillingly producing a grin & saying through gritted teeth, "No. I'm fine."
"I'm really sorry," Mark tried to say sincerely but his wide grin nullified it's sincerity. Eddie began to snicker as Mark added, "You're not going to report me to human resources, are you?"
"Let's just get to the security room first, shall we?" Amanda suggested, beginning to walk up the stairs, adding wryly, "After we free Jackie, we can talk of 'penetrations' later."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Using a coat rack as a heavy & clumsy crutch, Ivana hobbled her way around the suite. Hobbling her way into the suite's main bedroom, Ivana found the telephone. Looking at the telephone, she saw that it's telephone number extension was different then the telephone she had been using in the suite's living room.
As Ivana thought, the suite had more then one phone line.
Now, Ivana thought to herself, she could call outside phone numbers while still reserving the living room's phone in case Jackie or someone else called.
Just then, she received a call on the walkie-talkie.
=====================
PART CXII
"Ivana, this is Amanda, over," Amanda spoke into the walkie-talkie.
"Ivana here," Amanda heard over the walkie-talkie.
"Ivana," Amanda reported, watching Eddie rip open the packaging that was wrapped around the keyring that he had recovered from the shipping & receiving department, "We've made it past the infected in the mall area. We're in a stairwell. Door to the level with the security room is locked & we're trying to get the door open now."
"OK," Ivana replied, "There's a second phone line here in the suite. Any objections over calling outside numbers to see if we can get some help?"
Eddie & Mark heard Ivana's statement over the walkie-talkie. Both looked over at Amanda & shook their heads briefly as Amanda looked at them.
Amanda spoke into the walkie-talkie, "No. Go ahead & try."
"Order a pizza," Eddie joked, trying the first key into the lock, "No anchovies, though. They're gross."
"Eddie would like a pizza," Amanda quipped into the walkie-talkie, "Extra anchovies."
Ivana laughed into the walkie-talkie, replying, "I don't think anyone is delivering anymore, but I'll check."
"Tell Ivana to check in with Pauline," Mark said, "And give Jackie an update so she doesn't go crazy wondering what's going on."
"Ivana," Amanda said, "Call Pauline & ask her how she's doing. Also, call Jackie & tell her that we're still alive. OK?"
"Will do," Ivana replied, "Anything else?"
Amanda looked over at Eddie, who was gingerly sorting through the keys to find a key that would probably fit the lock.
"No," Amanda answered, "Amanda out."
"Ivana out," Ivana replied.
No sooner had Amanda stopped talking to Ivana then all three of them heard a loud, metallic sound from below. Mark quickly ran down a level to see what had caused the sound.
"Holy s**t!" Mark yelled, "Eddie, open that G***amn door now! We've got company!"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pauline had gone from scared to bored to scared.
The sudden call from Ivana startled her so much that she had dropped the walkie-talkie on the floor.
"Damn it!" Pauline said, flustered, "You scared the s**t out of me."
"Sorry," Ivana replied, "How are things down there?"
"Boring," Pauline reported, trying not to whine but failing, "No one's coming. It's too quiet. With my luck, I'm probably going to be ambushed by one of these things. I'm coming back up in a few."
"OK," Ivana replied, "Just call in to Amanda. They're at the level with security but they're trying to unlock some door."
"Cool," Pauline said, "OK."
"Yup," Ivana replied, "Bye."
In the midst of their talk, Pauline had failed to hear a door open.
======================
PART CXIII
They had gotten in. Somehow, someway, the infected had managed to push down on the thumb lever hard enough & pull the door open at the same time to open the door. Perhaps one infected was pulling on the door handle while the other had inadvertantly pushed down on the thumb lever.
Mark stared incredulously at the sight of fifteen infected stumbling slowly up the first staircase with several more staggering in behind them. At their pace, Mark, Eddie & Amanda would have three minutes or less to get the door to the security level open & re-locked before the infected got to them.
Mark acted instinctually, racing down the stairs until he was no less then one-half of a staircase above the infected.
"Get that damn door open now!" Mark yelled, winding up to start swinging his weapon at the infected.
Just before he took his first swing, he heard Eddie yell back, "I'm trying! I'm trying!"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Charlie saw the open window as he had finished crossing the rooftop to where the hotel intersected with the roof of the casino.
Crawling through the window was a tight squeeze for Charlie's large frame. A self-inspection after he had crawled through it revealed a small tear in one of his pants legs.
As Charlie stepped out of the U-shaped office & into the hotel proper, he wondered to himself how he would act in front of whomever greeted him. Should he act dumb? Smart? Should he try to give his own side of the story?
Obviously, Charlie figured he wouldn't walk up to the guy & say, "Hey, how are you? I'm the creep that Mark & Eddie talked about."
For all that Charlie knew, everyone was now primed to kill him. Maybe they would kill him on sight. Maybe they would lure him into a false sense of security & then kill him or trap him.
Charlie snuck into the hotel hallway & quickly took a look around the floor. It was empty & silent. Loosening up, Charlie walked over to the stairwell entrance & opened it up. The smell staggered Charlie for one moment & the sight staggered Charlie for another. The stairwell was a massacre of bodies, in some areas three on top of one another.
With the eighth floor still above him, Charlie began to ascend the stairs to the eighth floor to rendezvous with whatever survivors would be there. He had little hope of the encounter being bloodless but, as Charlie well knew, all bets had long since been called off.
In a world of "Kill or Be Killed," Charlie was determined to put himself into the position where he could swing first & swing hard.
=======================
PART CXIV
He wasn't going to die like Lenny. Not in a staircase. Not if Amanda could help it.
As Amanda ran down the stairs, she could see that Mark was beginning to become overwhelmed. With each swing, he was eliminating one infected but two were replacing them. The infected were constantly trying to flank him on both sides &, it appeared that any moment, they may just succeed.
"Step aside," Amanda yelled, finally joining him by hauling off & belting an infected with an uppercut from her weapon. The swing was so hard that the infected's jaw shattered, the head flying back so quickly that even Mark could hear the 'pop' as the spine snapped backwards from the neck.
Mark quickly focused on the infected that were constantly walking up the staircase on his side. An overhead swing shattered the skull of an overweight woman that was missing both forearms. Another swing smacked into a tall, skinny infected so hard that his entire body twisted around, limbs flailing.
Together, Mark & Amanda had stemmed the advance of the infected coming up the staircase. They both knew, though, that their valor would only amount to a delaying tactic. The infected were still streaming into the stairwell from below, the crush of the tide forcing the infected currently confronting Mark & Amanda into a suicidal march towards two swinging pieces of metal that had yet to miss their mark.
"Hurry up! Dammit!" Mark nearly screamed in the direction of Eddie, taking a step backwards as he tried desperately to keep the infected at bay. Even with Amanda now helping him, the infected were still pushing them farther & farther up the staircase.
Amidst the noise & chaos of the situation, no one could hear the walkie-talkie that was clipped onto Amanda's belt & no one would ever know what it was that was spoken from it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Eddie knew that it was a certain type of key. He raced through each type of that key he could find.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Eddie ignored the cold, sticky goo that covered the keyring. The goo was disgusting & it more then likely came from an internal organ that should never be seen or touched except by a trained surgeon wearing protective gloves.
Eddie could hear yelling from Mark but he didn't know whether or not it was good yelling or bad yelling. Maybe Mark had been bitten. Maybe Mark was saying how the infected were being beaten back. Maybe Mark was saying that Amanda was now Infected chow.
Eddie tried another key. No. Another key. No. Another key. No. Another key.
The key turned. Eddie froze, amazed that he had finally found the key. He ignored the small 'click' that the lock had made while unlocking.
"Guys!" Eddie screamed, "I did it!"
Eddie began to look through the door's small window as he began to open it. His expression immediately changed.
"Oh no," he muttered.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Amanda?" Pauline spoke into the walkie-talkie, "Amanda?"
Pauline sighed & rolled her eyes. Maybe Amanda's walkie-talkie was broken. Maybe they were out of range.
'Maybe they're dead,' a nasty little voice inside her head mused.
"Amanda," Pauline spoke into the walkie-talkie, "No one is here. I'm going back up to Ivana. OK? Let me know what you think. Out."
Pauline began to walk towards the stairwell door. As she rounded the corner to get to the door, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar.
How the door became slightly ajar, though, escaped her thoughts entirely as she concentrated on walking back up to Ivana.
==========================
PART CXV
She never knew what hit her. She never would.
Pauline's final thoughts were to go upstairs to Ivana & relax. Maybe, just maybe, get a little rest.
She had never organized her thoughts about the success of their broadcast for survivors. She was glad that they were going to free Jackie. She was relieved that she hadn't seen the 'crazy guy' that Mark & Eddie had talked about.
As with all human thought, the optimistic viewpoint that she was going to escape injury from such a disaster was the predominant outlook that she had taken. In the final seconds of her life, she thought that Mark was cute & Eddie was nice but not 'doable.' She had a thought about telling her grandkids about what had happened on this cursed event.
She never heard the downswing of Charlie's weapon.
The hit to the back of her neck was so hard that death was instantaneous. For the briefest of moments, her brain reacted as though she was in the first stages of tripping over her own feet. There was no bright light. There was no vision or hearing that would become irreversibly fuzzier until any sight or sound became incomprehensible.
In the blink of an eye, Pauline's life ended. She was dead before her body hit the ground.
Charlie stood silent for a moment, watching Pauline's lifeless body to ensure that all he had needed was one shot. Then, he picked up the walkie-talkie that had been flung capriciously from Pauline's hands when Pauline had been struck.
Stepping over Pauline, Charlie made his way to the stairwell door. Walking into the stairwell, Charlie looked up at the spiraling staircase as he began to climb up the stairs.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It sounded to Mark as though Eddie had screamed, "I did it!"
Mark couldn't afford the opportunity to look behind him to where Eddie might be. Furiously, Mark continued to swing away at the infected, committed in a suicide march up the staircase towards the walking buffet called Mark, Amanda & Eddie.
It wasn't until Mark had heard something like a shout from behind him that Mark became concerned.
The briefest of glances behind him yielded a nightmare scenario - Eddie was rapidly losing a battle to keep the upstairs door closed to three infected trying to push their way into the stairwell.
In a moment, the three of them were going to be surrounded by infected - At least three infected from the top & an imposing number still streaming in from the stairwell entrance below.
"Come on!" Mark yelled, grabbing the back of Amanda's shirt & pulling. In Mark's mind, fighting a battle on two fronts was pointless if they couldn't hope to achieve victory in at least one. There was no further hope in fighting the infected marching up the staircase; Mark knew from his first swing that it was just a delaying tactic for Eddie to get the upper door open. Now, they just needed enough time to beat back the infected who were trying to get in from the top & go through that entrance before the infected caught them from the bottom.
Mark & Amanda raced up the stairs just as Eddie was pushed backwards by the invading infected. The infected were not met warmly, though, as Mark & Amanda made swift work of them.
Amanda peered back down the staircase to see that the infected, now unencumbered by Mark & Amanda's resistance, marched headlong towards the top of the stairwell. No more then ten seconds separated Amanda's life & the never-ending sea of death that flooded upwards towards her & her two companions.
Grabbing Eddie, Mark & Eddie ran through the doorway with Amanda quickly behind them.
"Lock it!" Mark ordered to Eddie, pointing towards the stairwell door. As Eddie quickly fumbled with the keys, Mark & Amanda looked in both directions of the hallway to find a smattering of infected roaming it.
The infected in the hallway had noticed the three survivors & began walking towards them.
The infected coming up from the stairwell were practically at the doorway.
In another moment, Mark would know whether or not they would free Jackie or if they would die in the hallway.
|
|
|
Post by steve on Sept 24, 2011 8:17:43 GMT -6
PART CXVI
"Pauline?" Ivana spoke into the walkie-talkie, "Pauline? Hello?"
There was no response from Pauline. Ivana sighed heavily as she hopped cautiously around on the suite's balcony.
The balcony for the suite was huge, easily matching the size of her apartment's living room. The balcony came standard with it's own barbeque grill, it's own table & chairs, flowers pots on the guardrails & canopy to keep out the Sun or the rain. How many gamblers actually used or even appreciated all of it was up for debate.
As Ivana peered down to the ground way below, she could see the infected, no larger then ants from that distance, amble around aimlessly. The infected weren't packed in shoulder-to-shoulder but there was no mistaking that someone could walk out there without being swarmed by those things almost instantly.
Ivana hopped back off of the balcony & back into the suite itself. She decided to leave the door to the balcony open, to allow for some 'fresher' air in. She figured that the air outside, even though the infected were out there, couldn't possibly be any worse then inside, where the infected also were.
Ivana hopped back over to the telephone with the second outside line. With one ear, she listened for Pauline to walk in. With the other ear, she listened for something other then a busy signal or a dial tone.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Ha!" Eddie shouted with glee, locking the stairwell door just before the infected could attempt to open it.
Turning around, Edie stood up & said loudly with satisfaction, "Door is locked!"
'There is a god,' Mark thought to himself as no less then five infected shuffled towards him from his side of the hallway.
"Eddie," Mark replied back, "Help Amanda out on her side of the hallway, please."
Mark watched as the five infected continued to walk towards him. They mumbled, groaned, gurgled & howled as they slowly made their way towards Mark. With less then fifteen feet separating them, Mark steeled himself for yet another face-to-face confrontation. His arms already felt heavy & tired, adrenaline that had helped in previously completely gone from his body. Had he the opportunity to fall asleep on the spot, Mark would have done so without hesitation.
Suddenly, a body flashed before his face, running headlong at the infected. It took Mark a moment or two to realize that it was Eddie who had sprang from behind Mark to pummel the infected into submission. Mark watched, befuddled, as Eddie swung at the infected with reckless abandon. In mere moments, Eddie stood near five fallen infected.
Mark looked behind him to where Amanda was, catching the final seconds of her walloping the last of the infected from her side of the hallway.
Mark instinctively sat down right where he stood, his weapon becoming limp in his hand.
"Would it be wrong to ask for a five minute break?" He asked the two of them. Looking over at each of them from where he sat, the other two looked at each other, then walked over to Mark & sat down beside him.
For now, they were safe. In her leisure, Amanda didn't realize what she had left behind in the stairwell.
=====================
PART CXVII
Their moment of rest over, Amanda, Mark & Eddie slowly got back up into a standing position. With no infected in the immediate area, they proceeded down the hallway.
"S**t," Amanda cursed, reaching down to her waist but finding only emptiness where a walkie-talkie should have been. Patting herself down, she not only came upon the realization that the walkie-talkie was missing but she also had a good idea of where it had been left.
"Guys," Amanda confessed, "I did something stupid. I think I dropped the walkie-talkie back inside the stairwell."
Mark & Eddie stopped for a moment, with Mark looking over at Amanda.
"I think we'll find a spare in the main security area," Mark replied, his voice & face so tired that his tone might have been mistaken as being casual.
Mark & Eddie resumed walking, with Amanda walking closely behind them. After their initial fight with infected after the stairwell, they were met with few additional infected. Those few infected that they did cross paths with were soon dispatched, rather eagerly, by Eddie.
"Thank God," Mark muttered somewhat loudly, seeing a small sign reading 'Security' on it up ahead.
Mark cursed himself for walking so slowly towards the security area but he had no choice; With little sleep, little food & more physical activity that he'd ever thought possible within the past forty-eight hours, he was starting to feel like the infected. For a split moment, the very distant thought that how he felt might have been the onset of becoming an infected shook him awake & forced him to be more aware.
"Eddie," Mark said as soon as they reached the main door of the security area, his speech slightly slurred, "Would you care to unlock the door?"
Eddie reached for the doorknob. To his surprise, the doorknob twisted effortlessly.
The door was unlocked.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Channel 8, Action News," a tired, older male voice stated over the telephone.
"Um," Ivana stammered, totally flustered that she had actually gotten through to anyone else, "OK. We're trapped here in the casino. Uh, what do we do?"
"Casino," the male voice repeated, "You mean the one in this state? The huge one?"
"Yeah," Ivana replied, her pulse quickening, "We've been trapped here since all the people became sick yesterday. Can you send the cops or the military or someone over here?"
"Crap, lady," the man said slowly, "You mean to tell me that the casino's been overrun by the zombie guys? Since yesterday?"
"Yeah," Ivana replied slowly, not liking the implications of the man's slow speech delivery.
"We've had you guys listed on the screen here as a shelter since this whole thing started," the man replied, "We thought it'd be the last place to go under from all of this."
"OK, look," Ivana said, her voice suddenly becoming sharp & direct, "We need help here. Can you send the cops or the military over here? We need to be evacuated."
"You & everyone else in the state," the man said, adding, "Look, the only thing I can tell you is that the National Guard may or may not be getting a handle on the situation, depending on who you talk to. But it's first come, first served. Just sit tight & they'll get to you eventually. If they call in asking for advice on where to go to next, I'll put you on the list. OK?"
The phone hung up before Ivana could respond. Ivana slowly placed the phone back down onto the hook.
Rescue was no longer an option, at least to Ivana's mind.
=======================
PART CXVIII
Mark had never been inside the main security area before. He had always envisioned it as a serious, efficient, technologically-advanced department staffed by competent employees. After all, they 'were' the surveillance cameras.
The security area, of course, was more then just a large room filled with television screens. It was an entire section of the floor, with it's own offices & hallways. It startled Mark slightly that just anyone could waltz into the nerve center of the entire casino unannounced. Of course, perhaps in all of the chaos & the confusion, people just forgot to lock the door on their way out.
"Hello?" Mark announced as soon as they entered, "Is anyone home?"
They were confronted with an eerily quiet waiting room that branched off into two hallways. As Mark passed the secretary's desk, he noticed that the desk had a small black & white monitor on it. The monitor displayed the outside of the hallway where they had entered the security area.
"Cripes," Eddie commented, "They're paranoid. They can even tell who's just outside of their department."
"Cameras," Mark commented wistfully to himself. For a moment, he was lost in thought as he leaned against the desk. Being so tired & so hungry, he was faced with puzzle pieces that, ordinarily, he would easily be able to put together in a matter of moments.
Seeing as Amanda & Eddie had moved forward in front of him, it was Mark who suddenly needed to keep pace with them for fear of being left behind. Snapping back into reality, Mark followed along as the three of them continued to look for the surveillance room that would release Jackie from the 'Count Room' that she was in.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Pauline," Ivana said into the walkie-talkie, "Answer me. What's going on?"
Ivana waited for another moment for Pauline to answer. When she was met with only silence, Ivana spoke again.
"If you can hear me," Ivana said, "Just stay where you are. I'm coming down for you. Just stay where you are. I'll be right down."
Ivana couldn't believe that she had just said that but it was too late to take it back. Looking around, Ivana eyed a small wooden chair that she could use a make-shift walker.
"Perfect," Ivana muttered to herself, as she looked around for the firearm that Amanda had left for her.
=========================
PART CXIX
In the lexicon of those who worked there, it was simply called 'The Room.' That was how frequently, how important & how essential this one room was to the operations of the entire casino.
'The Room,' of course, was actually more then just one room. One wall of the room was devoted entirely to branching off into a series of small offices. Another wall was dedicated towards the largest computer monitor that Mark, Eddie or Amanda had ever seen in their life.
There were separate desks that had their own monitors & Mark couldn't help but think to himself at how similar these desks resembled that of television editing stations. A small joystick embedded into a console was meant to move around any camera that the controller could gain access to. Various buttons & knobs augmented the consoles, their functions as alien to the three survivors as a foreign tongue.
"Great," Amanda muttered out loud, her eyes sweeping nervously over the expanse of the entire room, "Why couldn't this button be huge, red & in the center of the room?"
"That's the self-destruct button," Eddie tried to quip, an unsuccessful attempt given as to how tired even he was.
"Let's make sure this room doesn't contain any surprises in it before we start getting leisurely," Mark suggested. The suggestion was met with nods of acceptance by Mark's companions. Silently, they began to sweep through the entire room.
Their caution, while prudent, was ultimately unnecessary. No infected sprang up surprisingly from underneath a desk or behind a hidden corner. No corpses of those having been fed on the infected were hidden or carelessly left out on display to horrify others.
'The Room,' for which Mark, Amanda & Eddie had risked their lives to arrive at to free another, was quiet & deserted. Yet what any of them failed to realize that the end of this one quest was about lead into another that none of them had ever anticipated...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Charlie hesitated.
Someone was going to be coming down the staircase. The voice on the walkie-talkie sounded female.
Clearly, the woman on the walkie-talkie suspected something wrong. Otherwise, they wouldn't be going through all the trouble to meet up with the other person.
Charlie wondered for a moment whether or not he should have killed the woman he had ambushed a few floors below. She could have been useful, a voice inside Charlie reasoned. She could have been an ally against Eddie, Mark & the others.
No, Charlie thought to himself, by killing that other woman, he was now setting a trap for another. By killing THAT woman, he may as well be setting a trap for Mark, Charlie or anyone else.
All Charlie wanted, for the moment, was money. Money meant freedom & freedom meant happiness. Mark, Eddie & everyone else wanted to prevent him from acquiring money. They were cowards, not helping him fight off the infected. The infected were preventing them from taking the money in the casino, money that was rightfully theirs for suffering through this miserable nightmare.
Once the cowards were eliminated & Charlie had his keyring back, Charlie thought to himself, the casino would be his for the taking. No infected could stand up to him & it would only be a matter of time before he could clear out the casino by locking rooms & forcing small groups of infected to confront him.
Charlie lowered himself on the stairwell, trying to hide himself as he anticipated the woman to come down the stairwell.
========================
PART CXX
Mark found himself falling asleep as he sat at one of the desks inside the surveillance room. As though his sleep-deprived, over-exercised, over-stressed body needed any further persuation to slumber, the surveillance room's conditions made the temptation to sleep as desirable as it could without affording Mark the luxury of a bed. The lights in the room were purposefully set low. Mark reasoned the low level of lighting was to reduce the glare on the many computer monitors in the room or to sharpen the image on the monitors. The room was warm, quiet & secure - A trifecta that made sleep nearly irresistable.
"Hey," Eddie announced, his voice shaking Mark awake from his semi-conscious state, "I think I found out how the cameras work. Check it out."
Eddie pointed towards the gigantic computer monitor that filled one of the walls in the room. Mark & Amanda watched as one small portion of the monitor began changing scenes rapidly, in coordination with Eddie pushing a button from a console placed at one of the numerous desks in the room.
"It's sort of cool," Eddie continued, "These buttons at the desks are multi-use buttons. I had a game controller once that had this number grid &, depending on the game you played, the numbers on the number grid did various things. Well, I think it's the same concept. When you go into a new menu on these monitors, the buttons on the console let you do different things."
"Have you found out which menu we need to free Jackie yet?" Amanda asked, looking at the both of them.
Eddie quickly said "No." Mark shook his head.
"I can't believe there isn't a single walkie-talkie in this room," Amanda commented, "I'm going to some of the other rooms here to see if I can find one."
Mark opened his mouth to object but, already being too tired to stand up, too tired to speak in a normal voice & too tired to figure out which sub-menu of a sub-menu of a sub-menu at the surveillance console might have the function of unlocking the door that Jackie was behind, Mark improvised his statement.
"Be careful," Mark merely replied, watching Amanda walk out of the room.
Mark looked over at Eddie, who was busy with trying to crack the "Surveillance Monitor" code. Mark looked back at his own monitor & began going through menus & sub-menus.
Somewhere, in the spaghetti web of menus & commands, they had to find the function that would allow them to free Jackie from the count room.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ivana would place the small chair forward, lean on it & then hop towards the chair. Place the chair another foot or so forward, lean on it & then hop towards it.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
She had 'inchworm'ed her way in this fashion from the suite all the way to the elevator. Along for the ride, in a most inconvenient resting place, was the firearm Mark had salvaged from the crazy man who had killed so many in the high-stakes casino. Women's front pants pockets, Ivana had quickly noticed, were a poro substitute for a holster. Barrel down in her pants pocket, the handle of the firearm clumsily flopped about.
As she 'inchworm'ed her way into the elevator, she pressed the button for the floor that Pauline was on... Should have been on... Was hopefully on.
Ivana awkwardly took the firearm out of her pocket & examined it for a moment as the elevator began it's descent. Knowing neither how many bullets were still left in the ghastly device, whether it had a safety lever or not, whether the firearm was even cocked to fire a bullet at all or how to handle a firearm so that it's kickback didn't nullify any aiming she did, Ivana wondered just how bad a situation she would need to be in before she felt the need to use it.
She would find out all too soon...
|
|