unprofessional.”
Max blushed and looked away, “Ah, well that does not happen every day to me, you know? It kinda shook my image of what a nurse was supposed to be.”
“Well I am a nurse and should have known better. Anyway can you make it to the john or do you want me get you a bed pan? We do have them. Plus the doctor said you can get some underwear on and maybe a loose shirt, though he would rather you just slept the way you are for the night.”
Max looked at Beth and said, “The john, definitely.” Not elaborating on the number two that was starting to give him urgent pangs. It didn’t matter as he was too weak to sit down on the toilet himself anyway and when it came to clean up, well, he got to experience Beth’s expertise there too. ‘How fucking humiliating is this?’ he thought to himself as she cleaned him up and helped him step into a pair of normal size thirty six boxers Steve had put in the bag under the larger size he had displayed to Max earlier. He opted out of the shirt and fell into a deep sleep soon after his head hit the pillow in the examination room. While he slept his phone had small, spasmodic fits of vibrating, once at midnight, then again at one thirty in the morning and finally at four sixteen in the morning, all made from his home phone number.
is your plan then?”
Chapter 39
“Stop here Amelia, the lights are attracting too much attention.” said Diane.
“We are so close though, the Arvada exits start at Ward Road, just another few miles!”
“Deary, another few miles with every zombie in the world coming down towards us on the highway could mean we don’t make it at all, pull up here. The Solar Research Lab? Hm, a Marriott though, try that, I mean what can it hurt?”
Pulling into the exit, navigating around three wrecks that looked like they happened when the drivers were going the wrong way on the off ramp, Amelia turned left, drove across the overpass and pulled her car into the parking lot of the Marriott hotel. Huge, the hotel was huge. Amelia drove up to the valet service area and kept on moving slightly past it, then put the car in reverse and backed it right up to the front door, stopping about five feet shy of them. She killed the engine and they looked around for any movement. Nothing. Nothing inside, nothing outside, nothing anywhere. The lights for the parking lot came on abruptly, creating not only pools of light across an acre of concrete, but also pools of darkness on the outer fringes. There were some lights on in the hotel too, various rooms at different levels were lit. Amelia caught a face looking out of one of the windows, a movement by a curtain and the face and light were gone.
“Did you see that?” she asked Diane, who shook her head no. “It was up there on the, one, two, third, fourth floor there, maybe, what eight rooms from the end? It looked like a person there, a living guy, not a zombie.”
Diane gave her a skeptical look, but nodded, “It could still be a zombie you know.”
“No, no it looked like a little kid, not a zombie, we should go up there and see.”
Diane thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Yeah, yeah we should, heck we need a room anyway and I doubt there will be anyone here that can give us a key now. Are you ready to go in?”
Amelia scanned their surroundings again and then slipped out of the car, making sure to take the keys with her. Diane followed suit and when the doors were shut Amelia used the remote to lock them. Together they moved to the main doors, pressing on them they found them locked. There were two side doors as well, one for both Amelia and Diane to try. Amelia’s would not budge, but Diane pressed the handicap button and her door swung open with an automated noise. Both women went in and emerged in the lobby of the hotel. The place was dark, apparently no one had turned on the lights and they were not automated. Using the light cast off by the parking area Amelia could see the front desk, and signs indicating the way to the restaurants, pool, hair salon, massage therapist and gift shop. She grabbed Diane’s arm and pointed to the sign, indicating they should follow the sign to the gift shop.
Puzzled Diane nodded and both women set off down a dark corridor and arrived in front of the closed down gift shop. The doors were locked. Amelia looked around and spotted a bench, she said, “I am going to break the lower door window so we can get in there.”
She took the bench and, trying not to flinch, shoved it hard into the lower section of glass on the door. It made a loud thumping sound, but did not break. Amelia was amazed, she had not gone all out with her push, but had expected the glass to give away easier than that. She pulled the bench back and lifted it up off the ground for a stronger push, more like a battering ram this time. The bench struck the glass with another thumping sound the glass starred, but did not give in.
“Jesus wept.” She said, “How hard do I have to hit it? Diane I don’t think I would make a good burglar. You better help me this time.”
Diane replied, “Amelia, why are we breaking into the gift shop?” as she picked up the end of the bench.
“Flashlights, I bet they have flashlights and batteries in here, it looks like we will need them.”
Together their third attempt still did not shatter the glass, but it did push the edge of one corner out of the frame and Amelia used her foot to force it down into the store so the women could crawl through. The problem was it was very, very dark. Amelia cold just make out the cash register and made her way towards it, hoping for a key chain light that most places had as ‘last minute’ purchases situated around their cash registers. She was in luck and found an entire plastic container full of them, she pressed one and tossed another to Diane before turning and filling one of her pockets with them. Diane grabbed three or four, looking for the red ones, even switching out the blue one Amelia had given her for a red one from the canister. She caught Amelia watching her and shrugged, “I like the red ones.” The women then scanned the rest of the store, there was a battery rack and on top of it a half a dozen packs that included flashlights. Both women grabbed three, split the packages open and loaded the flashlights up.
“These are pretty good flashlights, very bright.” said Amelia.
“Yeah you cannot beat these new LED bulbs, they are hard to break and last forever. I got my husband a wind up one, it was a piece of junk. Oh sure it was bright while you were cranking the thing, but once you stopped it dimmed down pretty quickly. Still no batteries required.” As she was saying this she was scanning the store with her light looking around. There were no other doors to the place, no stock room, no bathroom, but there was a sink near the coffee maker. Amelia went over to the prominent Pepsi cooler and slide a door open, the machine was off but the drinks were cold. Looking around it she saw that the machine was unplugged from the wall.
“Hey Diane, someone unplugged the pop cooler.” Bending over Amelia plugged it back in and the machine chugged to life, including a built in light, which cast a thin glow into the shop. “Who would do that, do you think?”
“I don’t know, come here and get a candy bar, I know you have to be hungry we have not had anything to eat all day. What's your poison?”
“Snickers. And a nut roll. Least bad of all the candy bars. Oh heck give me a packet of the cashews too, protein and salt, almost everything I need. A bathroom is next though.” The last time the women had a chance to go had been a stop about three hours ago when they refueled the car at a deserted seven eleven store, Amelia had an ex-boyfriend who had worked at a seven eleven when she was sixteen, he had shown her how to turn the pumps on and off on one of the many times she had sat through his shift with him.
“Okay now a bathroom, then lets go check out the fourth floor.” The women crawled through the broken door with their loot, stopped at the lobby bathroom and headed over to the far wing of the hotel. Once there Diane was unsure of how far to go up, from the outside she had thought it was the fourth floor, however the hotel had rooms on the ground floor, which she thought were obscured from her vision when she counted. She opted for the fifth floor and they made their way slowly up the stairs until they were outside the door leading into the hallway to the rooms.
“Ready? I mean, not to sound scary or anything, but the kid was probably locked up in the room for a reason, so I am expecting the worst.” said Amelia. Both women had makeshift weapons, Diane had a novelty walking stick from the gift shop and Amelia had opted for a fire poker from the fireplace in the lobby.
Amelia slowly opened the door and they peered down the corridor beyond, it was a straight shot and while
