Chapter 26: The Loud Stairwell

Marci, her silvery armor barely glinting in the slight light we had – none from my sword, I happily noted – placed a large white bowl filled with red and yellow and orange pasta, chicken and mushrooms in a tomato sauce, in front of me.

“How on earth did you make pasta?”

“Not a good breakfast choice?”

“It’s great! The very best in breakfast! I’m just shocked you could make it. I’ve never seen pasta this colorful before.” Long noodles in a red tomato sauce, chicken pieces throughout, “Where’d you get the chicken?”

“The pantry here has all kinds of canned goods.”

“Canned chicken?”

“It was actually canned yakitori. That’s the Japanese-style BBQ chicken.”

“They can that stuff?”

“You’re about to eat it! Well, I rinsed it first to get the BBQ flavor off, most of it anyway, then you know, just boiled some pasta and added tomato sauce from more cans, and spices. Pasta’s dry so it stores well. Same with the herbs. Everything else is from a can. Wait just a moment, I have an even bigger surprise.” After setting her bowl beside me, she got up, heading back to the kitchen.

The others were eating in pairs, too. It seemed strange to me, since we were all in the same room, but I didn’t get up and move toward them, either. Just sat there waiting for Marci to return.

When she was halfway across the room, the seductive, dark scent filled the air. “Coffee! That’s wonderful! Beyond wonderful – where did you find it?”

She set two cups down. “Lots and lots of coffee packages back there. If we’re not coming back, I’m filling up my backpack.” Marci flashed a devious smile at me, “You think it’ll hide the coke from the dogs?”

I lifted the hot cup up and breathed it in, “Oh, we are definitely coming back. Coke?”

“Also in cans!”

“I don’t think the dogs will mind about that kind. It might be wise to take some coffee in any case.” After a sip, then breathing on it, then another sip, and another, I finally let it go, setting it back down in favor of the pasta. “How long do you think we can live on this pantry? Uh, how much food is in it?”

“Probably enough for a couple weeks, maybe a month, depending.”

“Depending on?”

Pushing her hair back, she picked up her own cup, “Whether we can hunt down here,” and drank more deeply.

“Underground? Uh, what lives underground . . . worms?”

“I was thinking more like the giant centipedes Fred and Ave killed. Perhaps there’s large insects down here, too.”

“Marci, let’s uh,” I moved my fork around the bowl, “let’s talk about that later. After breakfast.”

She smiled, set down her coffee, touched my shoulder, then went back to eating.

I’d say it was the best pasta I’d had, but it was really the best pasta I’d had since landing on this god forsaken planet. The yakitori flavor added a smokiness, which was nice. “It’s good, thank you. I’m really liking this.”

“You’re thinking about something else.”

“Yeah. I was wondering . . . Dylan’s the fighter of our group. For his class. And swords are his weapon of choice. For me, it’s strangely this bullwhip, sword to a lesser extent, and I guess a gun, but I don’t have the right gun. Well, one that fits properly and actually kills stuff.” The leather holster on my right hip was made for a six-shooter, but currently held my handgun, forced in. And it was useless against our current undead problem.

“You’re thinking to give Dylan the sword we found?”

“It’d be more effective in his hands.”

“But if we get separated again and it’s just you and me.”

“Right. That’s the problem. It kept us alive. The choice is either to help the group out a lot or raise me to a somewhat competent swordsman. If I can figure out how to put points into sword.”

“Given the danger, I think you should keep it. Maybe he’ll find his own. Plus, you know, I feel like that sword should be close to this armor, since it’s Elvish. And they were together.”

“Oh. Good point. You really don’t want it, considering?”

“Keep it. What do you think we should do with the guns anyways? I’m tempted to leave mine here. These things are heavy.” Her submachine gun lay on the ground near her bed.

“We may not be coming back here. I’ve attached mine to my backpack, to keep it out of the way. Except,” I patted the side arm, “for this one. It’s a strange feeling, though, not going for the gun when attacked, drawing a sword instead. Who would have thought we’d be using archaic weapons in this day and age?”

“Who knows? Maybe the guns’ll come in handy again. If we come across anymore giant insects or bandits or whatnot. Perhaps bullets simply don’t affect zombies.”

“That’s all were facing in this hotel, so far. But we’ll see when we, I can’t believe I’m saying this, finish this quest. And tackle other monsters.”

After breakfast, Marci took my empty bowl, set it in hers, and headed for the kitchen. I relaxed, coffee in hand, and considered all that we had seen so far, trying to come up with a plan.

***

No zombies outside our barrier. Looks like we’d cleared them off this floor, excepting of course, their unmoving bodies. Destroyed, I suppose. I wondered why no more were wandering down – or up, but we didn’t see any in the lobby. And the next floor up was the staff’s, and locked, so no zombies there, either. Perhaps two floors was out of their hearing range, and they just didn’t come down. Perhaps the hotel was running out of them. I rather hoped that was the reason.

We stood by the wooden paneled elevator doors. “Fred, you feeling ok?”

He looked much better. If you ignored that his skin was light green. Still walking with a touch of a limp, though. But, standing, walking, and he had breakfast. “Yeah, Boss. Ready to kick some zombie butt! Get a little payback.”

“Excellent. I’m going to have Ave take point today, though. But you’ll be guarding our rear if you’re up for it.”

“Absolutely.”

I put my hand on his shoulder, “And Fred, next time you’re hurt, don’t hide it from us. I know you want to protect the group, but we’re also here for you.”

“Yeah, for sure. Boss,” he looked around, leaned in, “it’s this class. I don’t feel pain like I used to. Like I can fight through injuries now.”

“Barbarian, right?”

“Yeah. Eve and I both.”

“Huh. That’s potentially dangerous. It seems like that’d come in handy, but I don’t want you dying so we can win a single fight. Or getting permanently injured.”

He looked at the ground, “I’ll be as careful as I can, Boss.”

“Hey,” said Bent, cutting in, “with the power on, I tried the elevators. Still not working. We’ll have to climb up.”

***

Eve and Dylan went up the ladders first, then me, Marci, Bent and Fred. I hadn’t thought about it earlier, but climbing floor after floor on a ladder is tiring. That’s probably why elevators were invented. And stairs before them. Hand on another rung, foot up one, I dragged my body up another. Hollow metallic sounds echoed inside the ladder.

“It’s drier in here,” said Ave from up above. “Less dusty, too.”

“Probably the doors being shut most of the time.”

“Boss,” she called down, “you have any plan for when we get there?”

I pulled myself up another rung, scabbard swinging into the metal of the ladder, making dull thunking sounds, trying as quickly as I could to come up with something, anything. “Uh, you and Dylan will pull the doors open. I’ll take a peak.”

Dylan paused above me, saying, “I hope nothing’s waiting there for your head to show up.”

“You think they’d be waiting by the doors?”

“I don’t know.” He looked down, “Are they waiting for us near the altar?”

“They weren’t downstairs.”

“If it were me, my altars growing my power, I’d guard them.”

“That makes sense. It wasn’t really guarded downstairs. The hallway to it had a trap, though, so we should be cautious when we get to the floor. Well, the zombies were in the rooms before the altar. Maybe that counts as guarding it.”

“Boss,” said Ave. “We got a problem.”

I looked up. The rectangular bottom of the elevator itself was just above her. She tapped its darkened metal with her flashlight.

“Shit. About what floor do you think we’re on.”

“Next one is eight. I think.”

Dylan said, “We can go down to seven, move across to the stairs, walk up to nine, then get back in.”

“If the floors are filled with zombies, we’ll be in trouble.” This was not good. I had to come up with an alternative.

“Well,” said Ave, “I can try to cut the cable. Drop the elevator down the shaft and then we’d have free reign here.”

“Even if you could cut through a steel cable, which we don’t have the tools for, the elevator has brakes. It’ll just stop permanently.”

I drew my sword part way. It was lightly glowing. “We can check each floor, see if there are zombies. This glows brighter in their presence. If there’s zombies on each, we’ll head down to level three. That floor is clear, the entrances are locked. So, we’ll cross there to the staff stairwell and climb up. On the way down, let’s bang the doors at every floor. We want to draw as many zombies as we can to the elevator shaft to keep them away from the service stairwell we’ll be heading up.”

***

I don’t know why I didn’t pull my sword out on the climb up, but it glowed more at level seven. “Lots of zombies here. We’d have to fight them to get above the elevator.”

“You want I open this?” asked Eve.

“Let’s draw them to the doors. Bang on it.”

She pulled out a hammer, pounded it against the doors for a few seconds. Pretty soon, it resonated with knocks from the other side. More joined in, then more, and some scraping. My sword grew brighter.

“Hey Fred! We’ll head back down to the third floor. It should be free of them, but I’ll only know when we get there.”

“On it, Boss!”

We climbed our way down, Ave hitting each door as we went. Soon, the elevator shaft resonated with out-of-sequence drumming, a cacophony of the hungry undead.

The sword remained bright until we got to level three, where it dimmed.

***

“This is where you guys found the first altar?” asked Bentley as we headed toward the staff stairwell.

“That was in the basement. This place is simply free of zombies. There’s a staffroom and an office, but nothing really of note. Downstairs, where we need to go after destroying these altars,” I cringed inwardly at the thought of playing this game, “has the security room. Hopefully, they have video of the nanotech attack.”

“If the power lasts.”

“Right. If the power lasts. Still, clearing out the altars will stop the zombies from working. Moving? I don’t know what the word for it is, but anyways, this is the safest choice.”

“Yeah,” said the wizard, “it’ll remove whatever force animates them.”

“That.” Soon, we arrived at the locked stairwell. I faced everyone. Drew my sword, which was glowing faintly. “Alright, there’s at least one zombie in here. Ave, Fred, get ready. I’ll open the door. It opens into the stair well.”

“Ready.” Ave hefted her two war hammers.

Fred, sword in hand, said, “Ready.”

Marci smiled at me, passing me the keys, “You’re going to need these.”

“Thanks!” I thought to slide the key into the door slowly and quietly, but the first one didn’t go in. Nor the second. By the time I’d found the proper key on the ring, I just jammed it in, turned the handle and pushed the door open with my shoulder.

Ave and Fred jumped in, weapons raised. But no zombies were on this landing. The one from before must have wandered off.

“Not here, Boss.”

“Be quiet a sec.” I cupped my ears, listening first up the stairwell. Then downward. Faint shuffling sounds above and below. In a quiet voice, I said to the group, “There must be more of them. Let’s be as quiet as possible heading up.”

Nods all around.

Compared to the main stairwell, the guest stairwell, I guess, this was stark. No marble here, it was all concrete. The railings were simple iron with a vinyl overlay to hold onto. Pipes exposed along the ceiling. Darker, too, with only the emergency lights working on the landings, leaving the stairs themselves in shadow. Some of the lights flickered off and on.

This stairwell was nowhere near as wide, perhaps two meters. Enough for Ave and Dylan to walk side by side. Fred, again, at the rear. I hoped he was ok with that because we needed someone behind us if zombies came up to investigate the noise.

None of the others were quiet. Ave and Fred, heel striking with each step, almost stomping. Dylan’s walk had a slight slip to it, as if sliding his feet before putting weight on them. Bent’s footsteps were lighter than his, and Marci’s, quick and even, lighter still. Why could I tell each of them apart, from their gait alone? I shook my head. This class, perhaps.

As we passed the landing on the eighth floor, my sword grew brighter. “Guys!” I said, a little louder than I wanted, “They’re close.”

Everyone stopped, Ave and Dylan looking back at me.

I jumped as the door beside me thumped loudly, “Jesus!”

“It’s ok,” said Marci. “They’re on the other side of the door. The sword’s reading them through it.”

Bentley pointed up, shouting, “Dylan! Behind you!”

The fighter wheeled around, faster than I could, cutting right across the zombie’s neck, then pushing it into the wall with his left hand, he forced his blade through to the other side, and its body fell, head attached by some skin.

“Incoming!” said Ave, jumping past Dylan, hammers already swinging. Moving forward and out of my sight, she tossed a zombie backward and Dylan stabbed through its face, let it fall, stepping over it and into the fray.

Fred pushed past me, running up the stairs.

“Fred!” I yelled at him, “We need you back here!”

He didn’t listen, jumping over the rail at the top and out of my vision. A body was tossed over into our direction, then another down the stairs.

Dylan’s echoed down, “There’s a lot here!”

The banging on the eight-floor door increased, the door itself pushing into the hallway with each hit.

“Damnit. Guys, move up the stairs. I’ll hold this as long as I can, then sprint up.” The door cleared the frame a bit, the bolt bending, handle bulging outward. I didn’t know how much longer it would last. Nothing in the hallway to brace it, I slammed my body against it, pushing and pushing, shoes sliding along the floor. The door bounced against me in waves.

“You’ll never hold it!” shouted Bentley. “They’ve got enough force to bend metal, there’s too many!”

“Switch places with me!”

“What? I can’t hold that!”

“Just for a sec!”

He did, Marci joined him, I threw my backpack on the ground, opened it, tore out my rope. I tossed it over pipes along the ceiling, then braced my foot against the door. The zombies slammed the door over and over while I worked, quickly wrapping the rope around the handle, pulling it tight with all my strength, I tied the ends together.

Bent said, “That might hold for a bit. But we have to get out of here.”

I pushed against their backs lightly, “Ok, up, let’s go!”

“I wish,” said Marci, racing us up the stairs, “I wish we’d brought a door stop!”

The three of us made it up the first flight, to the landing between floors, stepping over the fallen zombies. Above us, crunching sounds as bones were crushed, Ave roaring, then a body falling past us – zombie thank god – then Fred yelling out, “Ready? Go!”

Drawing my sword, I braced myself for combat.