Issue #134

I looked out the window, down at the courtyard, and at the park across the way. I can’t see any of them, but I know they’re out there. They might be the only ones left, shambling around, killing everything they come across.

And here we sit, here in our temporary castle.

We had started hearing the news reports a few days before coming out here. Emergency rooms were seeing increased traffic, more people dying from violent trauma, with wounds looking like bites. Hospitals overrun with some kind of flu-like illness, fever and vomiting, and people just dying for no clear reason. No idea where or how it had started.

It wasn’t until we checked into our hotel that word got out about the dead coming back to life, attacking people. Or course we thought it was all bullshit at first, I mean, what don’t you see on the Internet anymore these days? But we figured out before too long that it was all real.

Things went downhill pretty fast

Our hotel lost power the next morning. Cell phones got no signal. For a while, we heard sirens and gunfire, but after a while, that stopped and we were all alone up here.

There are only seven of us left. No power means no elevators coming up here, and as for the stairs, we took as much furniture as we could and barricaded them as well as we could, so that it’s pretty much blocked off. Someone thought to break into each room, and filled all the bathtubs with water before we lost it completely. So that got taken care of, at least for a little while.

Now we’re just waiting.

For what? I have no idea. Maybe one of these guys think we’ll be rescued. Maybe everything will just get better. I doubt it, but you never know. I suppose nothing is really impossible, but there are plenty of things that are pretty fucking well unlikely.

One of the others made some signs, written on extra bed sheets and hung them from the balconies, as if there were helicopters, hovering around and picking people up out of high-rise buildings.

We had to crack down on the food consumption fast, since that’s probably going to run out first. We have a few vending machines on our floor, plus whatever snack items people brought with them. Now all the food is being kept in one room and rationing is pretty important. I had a pretzel this morning.

There’s a lady named Jennifer in one of the other rooms, I guess she’s about in her 40s. She came to our room last night and had sex with us, first me and then my brother. I think she just needed a distraction. At some point, when she was still doing it with him she just started crying. Neither one of us really said anything, or really knew what to do. I guess there’s not much point. She went back to her room, and I thought she was okay. Actually I was kind of hoping she would need to be cheered up again, but tonight when we went to her room it looked like she had jumped off her balcony. I can see her body down there on the basketball court, all busted and broken up.

Anyway, that’s why there’s seven of us, left up here, instead of eight.

I’ve been sitting out here in the hallway, waiting on one of the guys. Braidon. He volunteered to go down to the lobby and search for supplies. I guess he’s a climber, so he’s in pretty good shape. All I know is that I’m not going to hoof it down and up 30 flights of stairs.

Someone tapped on the door just now. I opened it slowly, but it was only Braidon. He walked through, and past me, dropping three pillowcases onto the floor as he did so.

“Any trouble?” I asked. He paused, and for second I thought he was going to ignore me, but he answered.

“There’s blood all over the place down there,” he said “I don’t know what happened, but it was bad. The place stinks too, like rotting meat.”

“What did you get?”

“There was still some stuff in the store in the lobby, and I found more in the storeroom. Some bottles of water, snack food, some aspirin.”

“Nice.”

“I think we’re the only ones left alive in the hotel. I checked out a few of the other floors, but I think everyone else tried to run.”

“Yeah.”

He turned before pausing, turning back. “You know this was supposed to be a fucking vacation. My girlfriend was out shopping when this all went down.”

I hadn’t known that. I thought he’d been alone, and I wondered why he hadn’t tried to look for her.

“How do you really deal with the end of the world?” he asked, “What the fuck are you really supposed to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, I guess this is what it feels like when your species is about to be wiped off the face of the planet,” he said. He shook his head and resumed walking. “Good riddance to us, I guess.” He stopped, looked like he was again uncertain about speaking, and finally went on. “I had to take care of one of those things down there.” His voice cracked as he said this last, as if he was going to start crying. He turned and walked away towards his room.

It was then that I noticed it.

He was limping.

I looked down at his ankle and spotted the blood, now soaking through the sock, where he had been bitten.

“God dammit,” I muttered. I went into our room and nodded to Davey. “There’s a problem.” I grabbed one of the towel rods that we had filed down into weapons of a sort. Davey stood up, wiped off his pants, preparing to join me.

I guess there’s only six of us now.

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