Chapter 40: Bottom Shelf

Fred shone his flashlight at my feet instead of blinding me, which was nice, “Hey Boss, we’re bringing food and refreshments to the living room. Join us? Or are you still thinking?”

Ave and Dylan were standing with him, each carrying four plates, two in each hand, of food. Fred, of course, had two wine bottles in each of his big hands, and the flashlight.

“Yeah, let’s have a sit down. I have some ideas I want to run by everyone.”

Marci opened the sliding glass door from the balcony, rushing in with Bent just behind, “It needs to be quick! More and more of them are running in by the second.”

“Yeah. They’re running double lines to the entrance,” said Bentley, hands in the air, palms up. “It’s not good.”

Fred headed off to the living room, taking the light with him, “Hurry up then, guys! This might be the last food we have.”

Avery, made a face, saying, “Fred! That’s a little morbid.”

“Like, uhm, I don’t know if sitting down for dinner is a wise choice,” Marci gave me a look. “They’re pouring into the hotel at a pretty fast pace.”

Fred looked at Marci, “Five minutes tops. Also, barbarians gain stats when,” he winked at Ave, “they’re full.”

“And drunk,” said Ave, nodding. “We get stat bonuses. For real.”

I sighed and shook my head, thinking he might be right that we need to eat and worse, that it might be our last, but also wishing my last meal wasn’t going to be salted meats, hard cheese and dried fruits. Not an awful selection, though, but I’d rather have steak and lobster. “Ok, quick break while we discuss strategy. I mean it, two minutes, tops.”

As I sat down, and Fred was pouring everyone wine, I pulled my glass away, saying, “Fred, now is not the time to get inebriated. Two minutes!” I turned to Ave, “Are you serious about the stat bonuses?” Maybe it was a good thing to get your barbs drunk. Fred and Ave certainly weren’t like this before.

“Entirely,” she finished the better part of a glass.

I asked Fred, “Did you bring an anything but wine?”

“Sure, there’s plenty of gin.”

I gave him a look.

“Joking, Boss. Uh, plenty of water, I think. Tea, too. I’ll go find something for you.” He got up, heading for the kitchen.

“It better be already prepared tea! We are seriously leaving in two minutes!”

“Boss,” said Ave, reaching for the bottle to refill, “you’ve given us two minutes three times now.”

“I’m with River,” said Marci, pushing her wine glass toward Fred’s seat. “Tea would be better, if we’re going to fight for our lives.”

“More for me then,” said Ave, tossing back her glass in one go. She winked at me, “Barbarians, Boss, we fight better drunk.”

“Right. I hope you aim better drunk, too. To business. Marci, Bent, how fast are they coming in? What about the large ones? Still the same make up, one for every twenty little ones?”

“No change in ratio that we noticed,” said Marci. “But, they are bringing out the zombies now. It takes about six of the little ones to drag an adult body. Like before, the big ones aren’t interested in helping them. That they’re gathering, ah, food, is a good thing.”

“Oh?”

“Well, it may not be, too. We still don’t know how smart they are.”

“Right, and?”

“They’re focusing on food. If they’re like ants, they might have forgotten about us. They might only be worried if we’re in their vicinity. But,” she went on, “I wouldn’t count on them being as dumb as ants. They certainly have larger brains, so they must have more complex behavior, probably including memory.”

“Alright, so we should assume they know we’re in the building. That likely means they’re searching for us. Aside from directly observing us run up the stairs, they can probably smell very well. They probably have a pretty good idea of, if not where we are now, the path we took to get here. We need a plan and we need it fast.”

“Well,” said Bentley, “they might see us as competitors instead of food. Maybe they think we’re after the zombies, too.”

“Uh, I’m not sure that matters,” I said. “They’d be after us either way.”

Marci shook her head, “No. If they can eat the zombies, they can eat us. We might be competition, but we’re definitely on their menu. The thing is, if they’re accurately modeled after ants – and keep in mind, the nanotech might do something like this regardless of brain size – they’ll ignore us until we get into their vicinity again. We won’t know until we get close again.”

“Damn, ok. That’s not something we can work out until later. Let’s move on. I only see a couple solutions here. We have two staircases and one elevator shaft. We-”

“There might be another stairwell on the side of the hotel we haven’t been on. We’ve largely stayed on the staff side. But there’s probably secondary stairs for guests on the opposite side,” said Dylan.

“Right. Three stairways, one elevator shaft. The staff one is locked, except for those floors the zombies broke into. Hence, that’s probably our best bet. Or, climbing down the side of the hotel.” Marci was about to speak, so I put my hand up to keep talking, “But that means we’d have to somehow get into the hallway leading out of the cavern. And I don’t see how we can, except through the hotel, given that it,” I shook my head, “tunnels through the mountain. Marci?”

“Nothing. That’s what I was going to point out. We don’t know if we can get into that hallway. It might not be the only way out, though, but we just don’t know.” The little elf shrunk a bit, her voice a touch softer, “I don’t think going deeper into this cave system will get us closer to the surface.”

Yeah, she needed to get out, so we’d make that happen. I continued, “Let’s say we take the staff stairwell. What do we do when we reach the bottom? Shooting our way out seems unlikely.”

Fred returned at that point with a tray full of glasses, a water jug and a teapot. “Here you go, you teetotalers.”

Dylan, Bent, Marci and I all said our thank yous as Fred poured each of us our requested beverage. Water for Dylan, tea for the rest of us. Then, he sat down and got into his wine.

Taking the wine bottle, Ave poured herself a new glass, saying, “We have almost a thousand rounds between us in the submachine guns. Another,” she paused for a moment, “five hundred forty for the Glocks. We can make it through them.”

Chewing his food, Fred said, “Five hundred, thirty-six. River shot four at the necromancers.”

“Ah, yeah,” Ave actually sipped instead of downing the glass. “You were twenty five percent effective on that shooting, since three of the bullets did nothing.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I turned my hands over, palms up, fighting the urge to throw something, “Ok. Right. That many bullets, less mine. I’m not sure trusting only our guns is a good idea. Anyone have any other ideas? Can we distract them somehow or get them to vacate the lobby?”

“I really wish we had grenades,” Fred said, between chewing.

Marci blew on her tea, saying, “We know that they don’t like noxious fumes. We know they rush toward sounds, maybe smells. A distraction outside would be difficult. Maybe dumping zombie bodies off the side would get a few to investigate, start moving them away, but I don’t think we can dump enough to keep them occupied for long. But we do have plenty of alcohol. And those awful candles for the altar. Maybe we can use those to set up a distraction?”

“Inside the lobby? Won’t that be a problem for us, too?” I wondered, then, if we could wrap damp cloths over our faces and make a run for it. Maybe the ants would ignore us in favor of dealing with the smoke.

“Oh! I got it!” said Fred, “I see where you’re going with this!”

She cocked her head, asking, “Where, Fred?”

“Let’s dump a bunch of furniture in front of the hotel doors and set them on fire!”

“Huh.” I sat back, stroking the stubble on my chin, and said, “Huh,” again. “That’s a really good idea, Fred.”

Marci nodded, “Better than setting a fire inside the hotel, yeah. I can see them trying to put out a fire just like they stopped the diesel exhaust.”

“So,” Ave asked, “we need to go downstairs and get some diesel?”

“No, diesel won’t burn like that,” said Dylan. “It only works in engines because of the high pressure. It will burn, but we can’t produce temperatures to get it to immediately. Maybe if we rest a torch or something in it for a minute or so, but that might be problematic if the ants attack.”

“We’re going to have to use the alcohol.” Marci picked up some dried meat. “Sorry, Fred.”

He nodded, gravely, “It’s a loss.”

“Not the wine, though, Ave,” Marci patted her on the shoulder.

Avery smiled back, “Ah, that’s great news.”

“Sounds like we have a plan. Ok, guys, this is what we’ll do. Ave and Fred, you’re on furniture tossing duty. Stick with the most burnable things. Beds, dressers, that sort of thing. Your goal is to toss them into a pile in front of the doors. Dylan, Bent, round up as much alcohol as you can and make some Molotov cocktails. Marci and I will gather up whatever smaller stuff, like candles and towels and soaps. Whatever burns. Now, we’re not going to do this ad hoc. We’re going to gather it all up in one room, a room over the entrance doors, then toss it all down at once, as fast as we can, and light it up.”

“This, this will be fun,” said Fred. “I’ve never been a rockstar, but I know why they do it. Trashing a hotel room will be a pleasure.”

Ave picked up the wine bottle again, nodding. “Definitely need more fuel for lifting.”

“That’s a good plan,” said Dylan. “It’ll draw them out.”

Bent looked at me, asking, “And after that?”

“Then we race down the staff stairs, hope there’s no baddies in the lobby, and get the hell out of here.”

Marci’s nod and smile warmed me up. “Oh, I can’t wait to get outside again!”

“And if there are,” asked Bent, brushing his hair back, “baddies in the lobby?”

Ave leaned forward, patted the submachine gun hanging off her shoulder, “We open fire.”

Fred said, “Guys, start with the cheap stuff first, ok? Bottom shelf only.” We all looked at him. He shrugged, “Who knows? We may come back one day.”