spending more and more time hiding; venturing out only when the pangs of hunger could no longer be tricked by sucking on small pebbles or snatching insects from the rubble, the human race had slowed to a crawl. As silent as the dead who hunted them, they crouched and trembled, dreaming of some miracle that would descend from the heavens and deliver them from this nightmarish new reality.
Corporal J.T. Washington, however, was not one to sit idly by and simply wait for things to happen. During his seven year career in the former U.S. Army, he’d garnered a reputation among his peers as being somewhat impulsive. No one would have went as far as calling him reckless; however it was a well known fact that patience was not ranked high on his list of virtues. What others failed to realize, though, was that what seemed to be nothing more than spur of the moment decisions were actually well thought out plans. Even as a child, he’d had a gift for recognizing the consequences of cause and effect. It was almost as if all the conceivable outcomes for a suggested course of action played out in his mind simultaneously. In the amount of time it took to blink twice, he’d instinctively considered and computed every variable until the undertaking with the highest probability of success stood out among all the others. This talent had led him to capture the presidency of the chess club despite the fact that he was only a freshman; it had guided him through maneuvers both in the field and in training. And, now, it was responsible for keeping his ass alive in an undead world.
He knew for example, that he needed to get off the streets. And quick. Even though he slipped through the shadows with the stealth of a trained killer, the world had become as silent as a tomb. The slightest rustle could draw unwanted attention as effectively as a shout and the light of the full moon only complicated matters further. It caused the buildings of the city to be silhouetted against the sky like a series of black monoliths and cast pools of shadow on the land below; but, at the same time, crossing streets would put him right out in the open. Bathed in moonlight, he would be as clearly visible as if the lamps lining either side of the sidewalks were still functioning. No, in this situation, traveling by daylight would be better; plus, his body and mind were beginning to show the first signs of fatigue. It had been close to thirty-six hours since he’d been able to capture more than a few minutes of sleep at a time. His muscles were rubbery and sore and his thoughts had the feeling of existing somewhere deep within the recesses of his brain; they seemed to bleed out slowly from fissures cracked open by weariness and struggled for substance and rationality. At this rate, it would only be a matter of time before he made a stupid mistake: kicking a tin can that he should have clearly seen, knocking over a pile of rubble, or even simply yawning a little too loudly.
Currently, he was crouched behind an overturned dumpster at the mouth of an alley. His eyes scanned the street for signs of movement, but this sector — for the time being — seemed clear. He had no doubt that the undead were near… it seemed as if they always were; but if he was going to get moving, now would be the time.
Across the four lane was a tall building that had the look of an upscale hotel or highrise apartment complex. The side of the building was lined with these little wrought iron balconies and he could just make out the fluttering of curtains where the sliding doors behind some of them had either been left open or broken out. The building looked to be between twenty to thirty stories, but his gaze focused on the second floor: it was still close enough to the ground that he could leap from a window to the street in the event that he found himself flanked by a battalion of staggering corpses. Any higher and he’d run the risk of breaking a leg or twisting an ankle as his body absorbed the shock of the concrete below. Furthermore, he should be able to find a room facing the east so that the rising sun would stream through the window and awaken him once the sun had decided to grace the world with its presence again.
“Alright, Washington, deploy. Move, move, move!”
The gruff voice that rattled through his memory belonged to Sargent Wilcox and for a moment an image of the man appeared like a ghost in the street: fatigues spattered with blood, his round jaw slack, and his skin paler than the moon overhead; where his throat had once been was now only a jagged hole with ribbons of flesh that flapped softly like banners in the breeze.
Forcing the specter back into the brig of imagination, Julius abandoned his cover. He moved across the street in a half-crouch with the textured grip of his Desert Eagle clutched firmly in his right hand while his left braced his wrist. Every movement was carefully calculated as he zigzagged between wrecked cars and the bodies of fallen zombies that had been left to rot on the streets; his eyes swept the perimeter like sentry cameras, panning and tilting as every detail was captured in brief glances.
Within seconds, he’d crossed the road and was standing before what used to be a large, plate glass window. Now, however, it was nothing more than a gaping hole in the side of the building with only the sparkle of little nuggets of glass on the sidewalk to prove that it had ever been anything different. His combat boots crunched through the remnants of the window as he eased his way through the opening, taking care that none of the tooth- like shards still remaining in the sill had an opportunity to bite him.
It was much darker inside the building than it had been on the streets and he took a moment to give his eyes time to adjust to the gloom. The floor of the lobby was polished marble and reflected the columns lining the room, giving the impression that the Greco-Roman features simply descended into a lower floor that was a mirror image of this one. He could make out a long wooden desk directly across from him with reams of paper scattered about; to his left was what appeared to be a restaurant of sorts with tables and chairs toppled in the darkness. A coffee shop, wide stairs curling up to the second level, a bank of elevators to the right… bodies littered about the floor like discarded rag dolls in pools of blood that had dried black.
If he thought it had been quiet outside, it was nothing compared to the interior of the hotel. Here the silence was so complete that he heard a high-pitched ring in his ears and his own, controlled breathing sounded like the pneumatics of some machine hidden within the bluish walls.
Once he was confident that he was alone in the lobby, Washington crossed the expanse and worked his way behind the front desk. Luckily, this was an old-school hotel: the keys to the rooms hung on little pegs behind the desk with brown, leather fobs embossed with gold numbers. If the establishment had bowed to the trends of technology, there would’ve been nothing more than encoded cards to swipe through the readers attached to the rooms. Utterly useless in a world where electricity had gone the way of the dodo and dinosaurs.
He plucked one down that had the number 207B imprinted on the tag and was making his way toward the stairs when a set of double doors that he’d previously overlooked captured his attention. Above the doors was a wooden plaque with intricate scrollwork depicting flora and fauna; carved into this piece of wood in elegant script were the words
The doors below were just as ornate as the sign. They were highly polished and carved with what appeared to be laurel leaves and vines with an occasional rosebud unfurling its petals. The handles were shiny brass and someone had thrust a long, slender pipe through them at some point, forming a crude but effective lock.
Placing his ear against the cool wood, Washington could just make out muffled sounds from the other side. Not voices, but what sounded like furtive movements. A thud, something that sounded like papers shuffling, a shuffling sound that may or may not have been footsteps. Whoever had placed the pipe across the doors had obviously been locking something in. And it wasn’t hard to imagine what.
Washington knew that he should just walk away. That he should leave the doors secured, find his room, and bed down for the night. Get some shut eye and try to regroup with another regiment in the morning.
But another part of him wanted to know exactly what lay on the other side. Maybe it was some sort of morbid curiosity; perhaps exhaustion was beginning to take its toll on his lightning quick decision making abilities. Whatever the reason, this portion of his mind saw the room on the other side of the doors as a mystery that had to be investigated, a riddle in search of a solution.
He glanced below the door handles, hoping to see a keyhole through which he could spy. No suck luck. Furthermore, the doors were nearly flush with the marble floor: no chance of peeking through there.
Lying next to the door was a black marquee with white block letters spelling out
Now, he was definitely intrigued. Besides, what if this wasn’t the only way out? What if the other side of the room had a doppelganger of these doors that weren’t barricaded as well? If he wanted to make it through this night alive, he would have to understand the enemies position… wouldn’t he? Wasn’t recognizance among a soldier’s most valued weapons? As Sun Tzu wrote, a hundred battles could be won without a single loss by knowing both
