Scarlet Memories (Book 1) (7 page)

As they pulled up to the hotel, they had already spotted a few of the undead walking around. Their stares seemed aimless and simple. But, they all had the same look in their eyes. The look of hunger and pure rage. A lot of the ones that they were seeing also looked like they had recently turned. So, more than likely they were guest from the hotel. Ian knew that he wasn’t the only worried that Jaime hadn’t made it. Susan wore the expression of complete and utter fear. She rushed their vehicle to a stop and jumped out.

‘Wait!’ Ian said to Susan.

He tried to keep his voice at an inside level. He didn’t want those
things
catching up with them. They also needed to get out quickly. And if they heard them they would get closer.

‘We have to be quiet. We still need to leave her too ok?’ He asked her.

Holding his hands up beside his elbows. Susan calmed down a little bit. She allowed herself to go back into her almost comotose state She didn’t seem to react to much.

‘Let’s go. Everyone be quiet!’ Ian whispered to the group.

He looked around at them. They were all worried about the undead getting closer to the hotel. No one wanted to have to defend themselves against them. They still seemed human in a way. And made it hard for other people to recognize that their humanity was completely gone. Or atleast that is how they seemed when they attacked.

The group headed towards the double doors of the hotel. Luckily, the they were already open. Next to the doors was a bit of broken glass from a nearby window. Much of the bushes and flowers had been stomped on and decorations strown about. As the group walked through the doors they felt a sense of quietness. There was no movement or noise coming from the lobby. There was not a familiar ding coming from the elevators. Everything just seemed
dead
. He decided that they would take the elevators if they worked.

‘What room are you in?’ He asked Susan.

‘I’m in room 353. Third floor.’

She pointed up to the hotel. There were quite a few floors. At least they only had to go up three levels.

‘Alright, let’s get on the elevator. Susan,’ He pointed at her. ‘You work the elevator. You know it better than anyone and you know your way around here too. Lead the way.’ Ian said motioning to the elevators.

Susan grabbed her key card out of her back pocket.

‘Follow me.’ She said rushing to the elevator. She was very anxious to get up there. They watched as the elevator numbers one by one from the third floor lit up.

‘Someone must have already gone up to the third floor…’ Eddy pointed out to the others.

No one wanted to address what he said though. They didn’t want to upset Susan more than she already was. The elevators popped open and they scooted inside quickly. As the doors closed they could see an undead stumbeling into the hotel’s front doors. It had just noticed them as the doors clicked shut. They could see it’s head snap towards them and begin to sprint after the elevators.

‘Oh my god!’ They cried.

They all felt lucky that they had skimmed by with out really being noticed. The elevator rose steadily up. They watched the lights that signled each new floor come on one by one. As they finally reached floor three, a loud shriek came from behind the doors. Ian quickly hit the button that would hold the doors shut. They didn’t open. One of those
things
must surely be on the other side. The noise they heard sounded very similar to the sound Allison made.

‘Ok,’ Ian said clutching at his metal staff. ‘We are going to have to take one of them on. I’ll go first. But, everyone needs to have their weapons at the ready.’

He waited for them all to get situated and then he slowly reached down and hit the open door button. The doors slid open and they peered out. The lights were a little dim so, it was hard to see too far down the hallway.

Ian pushed himself to step out of the elevator. His nerves were shot and he was afraid. The hair on his arms was even standing up. He walked slowly down the hallway. As a moment passes, the others step out of the elevator and follow him. Susan’s face seemed much more worried now. Ian stopped as he got to a door on his left side. He quickly looked over to see what number it was.

‘349.’ He whispered. He looked over to Susan. He watched as she pointed down to the far left hand side of the hallway.

‘I’m down there.’ She voiced.

Ian pressed on. He was still clutching at his staff. He couldn’t see any of them in the hall.  Maybe one of them were in a room somewhere. For now they would be ok. They neared Susans door. She walked out in front of them and swiped her keycard. The door opened slightly and the group quickly came in and shut the door behind them.

‘Jaime?’ Susan called. She rushed into the room that they shared.

‘Jaime are you here?’ She frantically sounded off.

The others searched for him in the living room and kitchen. There was no sign of him. He had just disappeared. His things were still there. And it didn’t seem like there had been a struggle. Susan walked back ito the kitchen and raised her hands beside her.

‘I have no idea where he could be. We don’t really talk to anyone here.’ Susan lowered her head.

‘And.. I didn’t want to tell you before but, Jaime has a condition.

Ian piped in,’What kind of condition?’

‘He has Aspergers. It’s a social disorder. It’s harder for him to communicate with other people. And he has anxiety. So, it can get pretty bad if I am not there. I am pretty much the only one that can calm him down.’ She told them.

‘I was afraid you wouldn’t come if I told you this. I mean it would make it difficult to survive out there. Especially now.’ Susan put her hands over her face. She silently cried into them. Tiny streaks of tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘He has to be here. I’m not going to give up. He probably got scared and went to a neighbor or something. Let’s go check around.’

Ian walked up to Susan and hugged her. He couldn’t just stop looking for this boy. If he did, it would be the end of her. And he wasn’t willing to let that be on his conscious. 

‘We need all of the food and water that you have here though. Before we go looking. That ok?’ He asked squeezing her lightly. He felt her breath out steadily.

‘Of course!’ She told him.

She immediately broke into a jog and began loading supplies into one of her bags. I have a whole case of water over there.’ She pointed to the corner of the kitchen. Ian walked over there and picked up the case of water. He counted out 6 bottles for each of them. That would make a total of 10 bottles that he would have. Later, they could ration out what was left when they got back to the school. Should be a fair amount.

Ian watched as Susan  walked around with her full bag of snacks. She had a ten year old boy so, she had a wide variety of things to choose from. Each person reached in and grabbed about 5 things each. Ian waited until everything was packed up and they were ready to go.

‘Alright. Let’s get out of here.’ He opened her front door and walked out.

They followed behind him. Ian could hear  someone talking in a room that was close to Susan’s. Maybe only a few doors down.

‘Come on.’ He said. ‘I hear something down there.’

They slowly made their way down the hall until they rest in front of room 359. Susan recognized this room. It belonged to a young blonde girl. She had been here before them.

‘I know who lives here.’ Susan told Ian.

He knocked on the door lightly. He didn’t want to make too much noise. He waited for a response. They could hear rustleing around. It sounded like there was someone running around inside.

‘Is somebody there?’ Susan called through the door.

As Susan said this they heard a very loud shriek. Ian cringed at the sound. He knew one of the undead was behind that door. But, what if the kid was trapped inside. At that moment the door swings open suddenly. Ian sees a women step out from behind it.

‘Oh my god! Help me!’ She cried.

The girl let go of the door and ran passed the group into the hall. Ian stepped forward into the room and raised his staff. He spots the undead. It was a short heavy-set woman who smelled horrible. Almost smelled like infection. It moved towards Ian. He watched as foam fell down her face.  Ian readied his staff.

The undead ran at him full of rage. You could hear her making noises under her breath that sounded like anger. Ian swung his staff at her neck. It stunned her for a moment but she kept coming after him. He reached for the pocket knife in he pants. Once he found it he pulled it free and opened it quickly. He watched the
thing
run into a coffee table trying to get at him. She got up and pressed towards him. Ian held the knife out and jammed it into her temple. The undead’s body fell over immediately. It knocked over an inn table with it’s enormus leg as it fell.

‘It’s ok. You can come in now.’ Ian spoke to the group.

Susan’s neighbor rushed in and ran to the back room. She came back with a little boy. He looked very upset. Like he had been crying for hours.

‘Mom!’ He cried running to Susan.

‘Jaime! Oh, thank you God!’ She cried throwing her arms into the air to accept his embrace.

The two wrapped their arms around each other and squeezed hard.

‘I thought you were dead Mom!’ The boy told her. He had tears in his eyes.

‘I would be if it wasn’t for their help.’ Susan told him.

‘Are you ok? Did one of those things touch you?’ She frantically pulled up his shirt and turned him around.

She was searching for any scratches or bite marks. Once she was satisfied that he had not been hurt she let him go.

‘He is fine!’ Susan’s neighbor told her.

‘He came to my door worried about you. He showed me a video of those things out there. I knew I had to keep him safe.’ She said, her eyes wandered to the ground.

‘Thank god you guys showed up when you did. I was a goner for sure.’ She walked up to Ian.

‘I’m Sam.’ She told him extending her hand out. He took it and shook gently.

‘Ian. And it was no problem. We were looking for him.’ He said pointing over at Jaime.

Ian introduced the rest of the group to Sam. They all said their hello’s and sat down to catch their breath. Ian had no idea how tired he was until he saw them relaxing a little.

They sat around her living room and began to talk about what had led them to the hotel. Jaime and Susan went to her Sam’s room to clean up. So, they were able to speak freely. They talked about Allison and how she had turned. And about the video that everyone seemed to have seen. And they talked about the school.

‘So, Sam.. What are your plans after this?’ Ian  asked her.

She had a surprised look on her face.

‘I hadn’t really thought about it. Jaime was my number one priority. I’ve tried calling everyone that I know. I can’t get through. And the one that I did…..’ She trailed off.

‘Why don’t you come with us? There will be plenty of room. We need to start taking care of one another.’ Ian stared at her.

Sam got up and walked to the kitchen to pour herself a drink. She laid her glass out and filled it with orange juice.

‘I suppose I have no where else to go. And if you say this school is safe, then I have no reason not to. Just let me get some things together and we can get out of here.’ Sam told them as she gulped down her drink.

Ian got up and walked over to her in the kitchen.

‘If you have any extra supplies that you can spare we could use them. Especially water.’

He set his bag down onto the counter top.

‘Yeah, I’ve got some waters in the cabinets up there. ‘ She pointed to above her microwave.

‘And there are snack cakes, bars and any kind of goody you can think of down there.’ She told Ian.

He thanked her and watched as she walked to her room. He told the rest to come and help him with the food and water as the others got ready. Ian noticed the light coming from Sam’s hotel window was dimming. They didn’t have much light left. They had no idea what those
things
were capable of at night.

Sam, Jaime and Susan finally came back to the living room equiped with bags and backpacks. The group had finished gathering supplies and was ready to go.

‘Sam if you have anything we can use as weapons we could really use them.’

Sam walked over to her kitchen sink. She grabbed all of her butcher knives and table knives and placed them into her bag. She walked back to her room and came back with a bat.

‘This is all that I have. If anyone wants a knife I have plenty!’ She told them. Eddy and Susan raise their hands. She opened her bag and let them choose from her inventory. Susan chose a filet knife, while Eddy chose a large butcher knife.

‘I’m going to keep the bat. I’m not good with knives.’ She said with a smile.

The group left her hotel room with Jaime in the middle of them. His mother close behind him. Now that she had him back, there was a different auora about her. They followed the hall back to the elevators.  As they made it to the elevators the group heard noises coming from the stair case a few doors down. It sounded like someone was stomping up the stairs.