“Wake up!” Desiree said loudly poking John in the side hard enough to make him grunt with pain. He tried to go back to sleep but something in her voice told him that’d be a bad idea. He opened his eyes and saw the clock beside the bed showed they’d slept the morning away. So much for his itinerary.
“Good morning beautiful. Do you – “ He started to ask her if she wanted some breakfast. He was trying to remember if he’d drank all the champagne the night before or if maybe they had enough for him to whip up some mimosas.
“Shut up. I think we’re under attack or something.” Desiree said pointing at the TV. A well-rested John rubbed the last bit of sleep out of his eyes and stared at the TV. It was showing aerial views of chaos in the streets. A commentator was saying that there must’ve been some sort of biological weapon unleashed on the city. Desiree grabbed John by the shirt and pointed him at the balcony.
John walked with Desiree over to the balcony where the curtain had been shut tight. He slid it to the side and looked out in horror at the city burning unchecked across the river. Here and there firetrucks and police cars moved along the street but other than that there didn’t seem to be a lot of motion. The TV was blaring an emergency signal now with a message in a foreign language scrolling along the bottom. Much to his wife’s amusement John squealed like a scared little girl when someone knocked on their door.
Feeling a bit silly John went to the door and opened it. The hotel employee on the other side told them that it appeared the city may have suffered a terrorist incident of some sort. Officials were working on an appropriate response but for now all citizens and tourists were ordered to shelter in place and keep their windows and doors tightly closed. The bellhop pulled out a roll of duct tape and quickly sealed up the slider going to the balcony.
“That’s supposed to protect us from biological weapons?” Desiree asked the man in a panicked voice.
“It will ma’am and sir. You will be fine here. Just don’t leave the room. You’re very safe here. If there any other orders, we’ll ring your phone and let you know. Is there anything else I can get you?” The man asked.
They asked for some bottled water and food to be sent up and the man assured them it’d be on the way soon. Once the bellhop left the room, they worked on getting their phones connected to the hotel WIFI. They immediately began searching the headlines on Google and Yahoo to see what was going on. The searches didn’t help to calm their nerves. Raw video uploaded to different social media sites showed scenes of chaos in the streets. People were being attacked in broad daylight for no apparent reason.
“Can we get to the airport?” Desiree asked.
“I doubt it. Not if we’re on lockdown. We’d have to cross the bridge and drive through all that mess to get to the airport. I doubt they’re even flying right now with all this going on.” John replied scrolling through a long list of videos that’d just been uploaded. He clicked and watched multiple scenes of rioters breaking windows to get into buildings. The people going in the buildings had no regard for their own skin. They leapt headfirst through windows with jagged pieces of sharp glass still sticking out in every direction. Videos showed bodies lying in the street. One video showed a little girl with her face covered in blood chewing on the arm of an old man lying face down in the street.
“That one’s got to be fake.” Desiree pronounced with a shaky voice.
“Agreed. Someone’s trying to make this look like Dawn of the Dead. I guess we can’t really expect a ton of truth from the internet.” John answered. His words didn’t come out sounding as confident as he’d wanted them to.
Desiree walked over to the balcony and began peeling back the tape holding the curtain to the window. The bellhop had run tape all over the parts of the door that gas could leak in then taped the curtains to the walls for good measure. John stopped her saying that might let in the gas. They sat down in the bed to watch the TV while constantly checking their cell phones. They sent texts back and forth with their parents and friends back in the US. All of them were freaking out and telling them to get out of Egypt the first chance they got. The worldwide news coverage was leaning towards some sort of terrorist attack. The videos being posted hinted at something even more sinister.
One of John’s friends texted him to get the hell out of there no matter what it took. John picked up the hotel phone and hit zero to speak to the front desk. The calm voice on the other end of the line assured him the hotel was safe.
Automatic weapons fire could be clearly heard less than an hour later. They sat on the bed with the lights turned off and the TV volume turned all the way down lost as to what they should do next. A call to the receptionist downstairs reassured them that rioters hadn’t been able to get on the island. They should remain in their
