He put it in drive, then back to reverse. No luck. Still stuck.
Then he remembered that you couldn’t disengage the parking brake by depressing the accelerator without a fastened seat belt.
So, he disengaged the parking brake and finally started to back up, but he had to stop abruptly because then there was a stationary car in the way behind him. He honked for it to get out of the way. It didn’t move. So he honked again, and then a third time. It still didn’t move.
He put the car back in park and got out to see that the car blocking him in was waiting for a car ahead to extricate itself out of a parking spot.
He looked around, exasperated. He needed to get out of there! They all did!
And then suddenly, he saw three zombies, or whatever they were, coming out the front entrance of the hotel.
Alexander fled into the side entrance near his car, abandoning any hope of fleeing in his car. He was running for his hotel room at the opposite end of the hotel, hoping to shelter in place. It was at the opposite end of the hotel, so he’d have to run the entire width, dodging any zombies he encountered.
And he knew they were faster than him. He only hoped that any zombies he came across would distract themselves while chowing on victims, or running toward them.
He ran down the hallway past hotel room doors on his left and right. Up ahead, the corridor turned slightly to the right, and then a loud thump sounded from that direction. He slowed and then stopped against the wall. Another thump. He peered around the corner.
A zombie was violently and repeatedly throwing its body against a hotel room door, about every few seconds. Finally, the zombie broke through and a woman screamed from within.
So much for sheltering in place.
He remembered there was a gondola near the other side entrance near his hotel room door. It led right to the center of town. He had a vague recollection that there was a police station and grocery store near the terminal.
More screams from the hotel room.
The zombie wouldn’t be preoccupied for long, so he turned the corner and ran as fast as he could, blowing by the door behind which he had stopped hearing screams.
He made it to the lobby where a zombie, a man wearing a blood-stained Chernobog Disney t-shirt, was busy putting back together the skull of the dead concierge. Even from five to ten feet away, the zombie smelled like a combination of sulfur and roadkill.
From the direction of the front desk, Alexander heard a gun fire. Alexander wished he had brought his own gun, but he didn’t have a license to carry in Colorado. He turned to see a woman holding a .22, firing round after round at Chernobog-man.
Spinning rapidly, he turned back to face Chernobog-man, who didn’t react to being shot at. At first, Alexander thought the woman had missed him completely, but then he saw a bullet strike at the head.
He was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he realized that the bullet hadn’t stopped the zombie for more than two or three seconds.
Bullet-wound in the head, the zombie snarled and rushed at the woman, who betrayed a look of horror as she managed to get one more shot off, what little good it did her. The zombie leapt over the desk and bit the woman on the neck. She cried out and gave Alexander a pleading look of horror.
But there was nothing he could do for her.
And the concierge would come back to life soon enough.
So Alexander ran.
Chapter Three
Day Two
George moved with tremendous speed and bit Jocelyn on the neck. He landed a few punches to her jaw and face before she mustered strength she didn’t know she had. She stood up and slammed his much larger body into the side wall.
He tightened his grip and continued to chomp on her neck, and she guessed he was going for her jugular vein. She flicked her neck back and crushed his skull into the wall, and his hold on her loosened. Using her arm as leverage, she broke away from him and ran out into the hall.
George was dead! Or had been. How could this be? Why attack her?
George followed and lunged after her, fresh blood running off his teeth down his chin. She backed away, unsheathed her sword, and struck him with a clumsy swing.
The sword skimmed his flesh, a thin line of blood appearing on his forearm below his shirtsleeves. She took several swift steps back and readied her weapon. He leaped at her again, and this time she plunged her blade into his stomach, acting on instinct—she didn’t want to kill him.
She watched in horror as he betrayed no sign of pain and continued to move, pushing himself forward along the sword, and then lunged and flailed, his arms struggling for purchase.
Only a small amount of blood surrounded the sword. There should have been much more.
Am I hallucinating? This can’t be real.
She stepped back, avoiding him, but he had stopped. She couldn’t fathom why.
He grabbed the blade with both hands, pulled himself off, and took several steps backward. She matched him step-for-step and drove the sword into his right shoulder, just below the collarbone. She pulled it out and backed away. Instead of crying out, or showing any sign of pain, he snarled. Just as with the abdomen, there was not as much blood on his shoulder as there should have been.
They eyed each other. George had been dead, she was sure. Yet here he was, attacking her with superhuman strength.
Could he be on powerful drugs? Like PCP? How would that explain a lack of pulse and breathing?
Whichever was the case, it was clear her sword thrusts were useless. But it suddenly occurred
