The Remnants of Yesterday (9 page)

26

THE PINELAND COURT MOTEL looked like it hadn’t received a fresh coat of paint in thirty years. The rooms, arranged in three blocks around a central parking lot, looked drab and old, with ugly under window air conditioners and walkways enclosed with rusted railings. Several of the bedroom doors stood open to various degrees, revealing black, murky interiors. A neon sign, now dark, sat atop a long metal pole next to the road. I wondered if it would work even if there were any power, which there clearly was not. It seemed like the whole state was out.

Next to the motel, attached by a short connecting corridor, was a restaurant as dilapidated as the rest of the place. A painted sign mounted on the roof identified the place as Donny G’s Steakhouse and Diner – open 24 hours seven days a week. Faded posters in the window advertised such fare as $6.99 steaks, Meatloaf Tuesdays and a $3.99 cheeseburger. Ordinarily I avoided places like this, but right now, a cheap steak from a greasy spoon sounded like heaven on earth.

The buildings appeared to be deserted. Apart from a couple of cars in the parking lot, and another with its front end crumpled into a lamppost in front of the restaurant, there was no sign of life. As we walked closer however, it became clear that something bad must have gone down at some point over the last two days.

“Is that what I think it is?” Emily was the first to see the dark red smears on the glass doors of the registration area. Beneath them, on the concrete, a long wide streak led into the road and abruptly ended. A lone tennis shoe, once white but now stained crimson, lay on its side in silent testimony to the violent place the world had become in just forty-eight short hours.

“I think so.” I hoped that whoever owned the shoe didn’t suffer much, but I had a feeling that they probably did. An image of Rob flashed into my mind, and his agonizing screams as he was torn limb from limb by the Crazies in the college quad.

“It might not be safe here.” Clara looked around, nervous.

“The blood’s not fresh, this happened a while ago,” I said. “And anyway whoever wrote that message on the roof might still be around.”

“Or they could be the owner of that blood.”

“A distinct possibility.” She had a point. Still, it seemed that we should at least try and find out. Besides, there was a restaurant next door, and that meant we could stock up on food and water, which we desperately needed. I stepped past the abandoned shoe and pulled on the office door. It rattled but didn’t open. “Locked.”

“We should just take what we need and move on,” Clara said. “There’s no one here.”

“Maybe.” I cupped my hands to the glass and peered through, careful to avoid the smeared blood, but the interior was so dark I could make out very little. I turned away from the door, disappointed. “Let’s check out the restaurant.”

“Finally,” Emily said. “I’m starving.”

The three of us made our way past the lobby parking area and across a rectangle of patchy grass to the restaurant.

Clara immediately pulled on the double doors, shaking them. “These are locked too.”

“We’ll have to find another way in,” I said. Maybe there was a service entrance, or even an open window.

“No need.” Clara hoisted the tire iron and slipped it into the gap between the doors, just above the lock, and pushed sideways. The doors parted just a little but remained steadfast.

She pushed again, grunting with the effort.

For a moment I thought the doors would hold, but then they emitted a mighty creak, followed by a sharp crack, and swung inward.

Clara grinned. “Voila.”

“Wow.” I looked at her with newfound admiration. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“My father taught me. He used to jack jewelry stores when he was younger. Now he mostly does bank jobs.”

“Really?”

“No, of course not. God you’re gullible.” She punched my arm. “My father is an engineer in Boca Raton.”

“Oh.”

“Come on.” She stepped across the threshold into the restaurant.

Emily followed suit, glancing sideways as she passed me. “So gullible.”

I stood there for a moment, bemused.

Clara turned to me. “Well, are you coming or not?”

“Yes. Of course.” I hurried inside, and instantly recoiled.

The smell was pungent, a combination of decomposing meat and rotten vegetables. Some of the odor was surely coming from a salad bar on the back wall, still stocked with a selection of lettuce, tomatoes, and several tubs of dressing, though the fare was past edible. Even if it had been in any condition to consume, the swarm of buzzing flies that hovered around it would have been more than enough to put me off. More flies circled a few half-eaten dinner plates on a table near the door behind the hostess stand.

“Ew.” Emily wrinkled her nose. “It smells like ass in here.”

“Better get used to it,” I said. “With the power out, any food that isn’t pre-packaged will be going rotten, and it will only get worse. We’ll run into this more and more.”

“Perfect.” She wafted a lone fly away from her face. “Suddenly I’m not hungry anymore.”

“The kitchen must be through here.” I stepped toward a set of double swing doors inset with two small round windows. “If there’s anything useable it will be in there.”

“We should be careful what we take,” Clara said. “We can only carry so much.”

“We can ditch most of the snack food we took from the gas station. It’s all sugar anyway.”

“Not all of it though,” Emily said. “Sugar is good if we need a sudden burst of energy. I watched a documentary on TV last year that said chocolate is a good emergency ration. Soldiers use it as part of their survival kit.”

“We’ll keep the chocolate then.”

“And the beef jerky.” Clara chimed in. “Easy source of protein.”

“Fine, the jerky stays too,” I said pushing through the doors. They swung back in place after us. “But the chips are history.”

“Suits me.” Clara shrugged. “Too fattening.”

“Really? You’re worrying about your weight at a time like this?”

“Hey, I’m still a girl.” Clara replied, wandering deeper into the kitchen. “Even if I can jimmy a lock better than you.”

“Funny. Real funny.” I saw a long bladed carving knife on one of the prep counters and picked it up, then decided that it was too much trouble to carry safely. I put it down again next to a cluster of yellowed and odorous raw chicken breasts that never made it as far as the skillet. “There must be a pantry or something around here somewhere.”

“What about that?” Emily pointed to a heavy silver door set into the wall next to a row of shelves that held commercial sized tins of tomato sauce, mayonnaise, cooking oils, and all manner of salad dressings.

“That should do it.” A heavy-duty latch secured the door, keeping it closed. I gripped it, depressed the button on the underside of the mechanism, and pulled.

The door opened easily, swinging outward to reveal an oversized walk-in with metal racks lining both sides. The racks contained an assortment of foods. Fresh produce, vegetables and fruits packed into open top cardboard boxes, occupied one section. Next to that were several blocks of cheese and a large package of grated cheddar, while on the other side meats filled the shelves. Hamburgers separated by small grease paper sheets, steaks in tubs labeled Rib Eye, Sirloin and Flank.

This was not a pantry, but rather a walk in cooler. The food was in better shape than the stuff left out on the counters, but without electricity to keep the room chilled, it was already starting to go bad.

However, it was not the food that held my attention. It was the woman crouched in the corner between the racks.

27

“HEY, THERE’S SOMEONE back here,” I said, approaching the figure.

“What?” Clara pushed up next to me. “Oh my God. Is she alive?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell.” Her back was turned to us, making it almost impossible to see if she was breathing. “She isn’t moving. I wonder how long she’s been stuck in here.”

“Maybe she’s the person who wrote that message on the roof.” Emily craned to see past us.

“What would she be doing in a cooler though?” Something didn’t seem right. The woman still hadn’t moved, but a sense of unease was settling over me.

“She could have taken refuge in here when things went wrong,” Clara said, then bending close, she spoke to the woman. “Hello? Can you hear me? Are you hurt?”

Still there was no movement.

“She might be dead,” I said. “If she came in here while the power was still on this room would be freezing.”

“We need to make sure.” Clara crept forward and reached out, touching the woman on the shoulder.

The woman spun sharply around, glaring at us with red, bloodshot eyes. Gobs of thick spittle frothed at the corners of her mouth and trickled down her chin.

“Oh shit.” Clara squealed and pulled her hand back, half falling out of the cooler.

The woman pulled herself up, mouth open, baring bloodstained teeth. She made odd grunting sounds, deep and guttural, inhuman. A badge attached to her soiled uniform sported the name Alice.

And then she lunged.

Alice shot forward so fast it took me a moment to realize what was happening. Her hands flailed at me, her nails grazing the skin of my cheeks, fingers clutching for the collar of my shirt.

I twisted free, leaving a ripped clump of material in Alice’s possession. I stumbled backward, at the same time reaching for the cooler door, and slammed it closed with all my might.

It almost worked. At the last second an arm shot through the gap. The door bounced off with a sickening crunch of bone, preventing it from closing.

Emily screamed.

I put my shoulder to the door and pushed back, holding it in place, ignoring the slightly rubbery resistance provided by the trapped arm.

I gritted my teeth and set my feet, determined not to let her out, but unsure exactly what to do next. If I eased up on the pressure, she would slip through the gap, but I couldn’t latch the door again with Alice’s arm pinned the way it was. I looked around, frantic, for something to wedge the heavy door in place, thus freeing me to make my escape, but there didn’t seem to be anything suitable.

“What now?” I said to Clara, hoping she would have some idea what to do next.

The door shuddered as Alice threw herself against it, determined to escape her impromptu cell.

“I don’t know.” She looked confused.

“Well we need to come up with something. I’m not sure how long I can hold on here.” I could feel my shoulder going numb.

“Why don’t we cut the arm off,” Emily said, eyeing a nasty looking meat cleaver hanging from a hook above a prep station. “That would fix it.”

“What?” Both Clara and I looked at her.

“If we chop it off, we can close the door. Problem solved.” 

“And who’s going to do that, you?” I retorted, bracing as Alice slammed her body against the door again with a bellow of rage. “Because I sure as hell have no intention of cutting anyone’s arm off.”

“Well–” Emily bit her bottom lip.

“Exactly.”

“We’re going to have to let her out,” Clara said, summing the situation up. “We don’t have a choice.”

“There must be another way.” I was being stubborn, I knew, but the last thing I wanted to do was let this madwoman loose. I still remembered the run-in with Walter back at the gas station, and somehow Alice seemed even more insane.

“You can’t stay there forever. Eventually you will get too tired to hold her back.”

“I know.” The same thought had occurred to me.

“Forget the door. Leave it.” Clara pleaded. “We need to get out of here. We need to run. It’s our only chance.”

“Fine. When I say run, we run.” I wished I had never opened the cooler, but it was too late for that. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Clara gripped my arm.

“Me too.” I could sense the fear in Emily’s voice. 

“Okay then,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on Alice. “On three. One, two, three- Run.”

I jumped away from the door just as Alice hit it once again. She flew through, stumbling to stay on her feet, seemingly oblivious to the way her mangled arm now hung at the wrong angle. The pain should have been incredible, but she ignored the damaged limb and fixed her gaze upon us instead.

Not waiting to see what she did next, I turned and fled, following the girls, who were already racing back the way we’d come, toward the swing doors that opened into the dining room.

Alice let out a shriek of anger and gave chase, her flailing arms sending food and plates and bowls crashing to the ground.

I caught up with Clara and Emily just as they reached the doors. Alice was coming up fast from behind, running with a weird lopsided gait. She was gaining on us with a speed that was as shocking as it was surprising given her age. Under other circumstances, she probably would have given an Olympic sprinter a run for their money.

We barreled into the dining room and sprinted toward the front door, with the crazed waitress right behind us. Just as we were about to reach the door a voice called out to us.

“Not that way.” I turned to see a tubby kid in his late teens waving at us from a set of doors at the far end of the restaurant. A sign on the wall next to the doors read,
To Hotel Lobby.

“Over here. Quick.” The kid was practically jumping up and down. “This way.”

Clara and Emily had seen him too. They veered to the left, barely avoiding the manic Alice, and ran in his direction. I was not so lucky.

Alice flew toward me, screeching and growling.

If she caught me I would be dead, of that there seemed no doubt. Even though she was probably forty pounds lighter, and thirty years older than me, the sheer scale of her rage gave her the advantage. I plucked a chair from the nearest table and rushed forward. The legs caught her square in the chest, sending her reeling backward. She lost her balance and fell.

Clara and Emily were already at the door. They hovered there, waiting for me to catch up.

“Come on.” Clara motioned for me to run. “Quickly, before she gets back up.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I darted forward, leaping clear over the stricken Alice. She reached upward to grab ahold of me, but her hands closed on the empty air where I had been a second before.

I ran toward the door, dodging tables and chairs along the way. When I reached the girls, I practically pushed them through.

No sooner were we clear, than the tubby kid slammed the doors shut and rammed what looked like a piece of old pipe through the handles.

Just in the nick of time.

The doors shuddered and flexed inward as Alice, somehow back on her feet, crashed into them in an attempt to follow us. The makeshift barricade held tight, much to her obvious displeasure.

“That was too close.” I drew huge gulps of air, trying to catch my breath, and leaned against the wall, thankful to be alive.