Goddammit, goddammit, goddammit. Why did trouble always seem to follow me about? I hadn't even been doing anything illegal this time, unless that included gambling. Here I was in the middle of fucking redneck city central, covered in blood and no doubt about to be arrested for murder. Goddammit. I was staying at the Vannah hotel, down in Savannah living the good life. I'd spent the whole night gambling away, on a good winning streak as of late, and it wasn't until late this morning that I was woken to groaning.
At first I'd thought nothing of it, neighbors having kinky sex? Good for them. Until it got louder and I banged on the wall telling them to shut the fuck up, their response was an animalistic growl that jolted me wide awake. leaving my room to investigate had been my first mistake, i'd come face to face with a growling woman. We'd stared each other down momentarily and let me tell you, she wasn't a pretty sight: graying skin, covered in blood, reeking of decaying flesh. Don't ask how I know that.
It was with a shriek of rage that she'd lunged at me and to my shock begun trying to bite me. Crazy bitch! One wrestling match later and I'd been able to fish my magnum out from under the bed while simultaneously keeping her from taking a chomp out of me. The shot rang out loud in the now quiet room, dark blood pooling on the floor and soaking the pale carpet. I'd panicked, surely someone had heard that and was now calling the police? With my track record there was no way they'd believe my story. So i'd jumped up, scrambling into my best suit, shoving my gun under my belt and throwing my winnings into a bag before bailing.
I'd now spent the last twenty minutes wandering the hotel, thoroughly getting lost in the twisting corridors, finding no other sane person. I had met three more crazies though, giving them similar treatment to the first. Maybe there was some kind of sickness going around? I'm sure shooting them in the head wasn't exactly the approved method of dealing with them, but I didn't plan on sticking around to reap the repercussions of my actions. I mean, they were trying to eat me and well, better them than me.
It would be nice to find another sane person though and find out what was going on. Plus I only had four bullets left… Scratch that, three, I had missed a shot on the second nut. As if to answer my prayers -not that I believe in any of that bull- I found someone. Or ran straight into their chest to be precise. First instinct told me to put the gun to their head, but what stopped me from pulling the trigger was the lack of ashen skin.
"Boy, y'all better remove that gun from my face if you know what's good fo' ya." I followed his advice, but only because I didn't want to waste the bullet.
"Whatever. You want to tell me what the fuck is going on?"
"Din' ya see any of the broadcasts on the TV yesterday evening? Some kind of sickness going 'round and they asked that everyone stay in doors. Not that anyone listened, now everyones gone crazy tryin' to eat each other." Christ. A sickness? It didn't look like any sickness I'd even seen, hell they practically looked dead. If there was going to be more of those things I'd need more bullets. At least I wasn't the only one who thought killing them was the best course of action, my fellow survivor had hold of a baseball bat and it wasn't exactly clean… He caught my puzzled look and finally continued.
"Well the last broadcast said we should try and make it to one of the evacs going on in town, one is at this here hotel and the other was down at the mall. I think it'd prolly be more safe to stick together and mak-" He was cut by the sound of maniacal laughter filling the air, as if these guys weren't creepy enough. We both paused and stared down the corridor. The laughter grew louder, and louder, until finally it appeared. A small hunched over figure that came scuttling around the corner, ugh, let me tell you it was pretty freaky looking.
It was about waist height, stick thin arms and legs working to propel itself towards us. It'd gnawed its lips away by the looks of things, blood covering sharp teeth and oozing from its wild grin. Truly the stuff of nightmares. I took quick aim and fired a shot, the thing swerved out of the way at the last minute, another bout of startled laughter leaving it. It seemed to be smarter than the other, although also ten times as crazy. And now it was leaping at me. Fuck.
"Watch out!" But it was too late. Clammy legs wrapped tight around my neck and sharp hands grabbed at my face. The smell from this close was almost enough to make me vomit, the only thing that stopped me was the thought of opening my mouth when those hands were on my face. I didn't even want to think about what the cool liquid that was dripping down my neck was. Not that it was hard, I was preoccupied with trying to stay on my feet as the creature shifted its weight and sent me teetering down the corridor.
Because I was a fucking moron I had let my gun drop from my hand in favor of trying to tear the thing off of me, surprisingly hard to do.
"Hold still boy!" Was yelled from my fellow survivor, I'd expected he'd have taken the chance to run, I knew I would have. But no, he was still there, saving my ass apparently as I felt the impact of two shots hit the thing riding me. Unfortunately that was the final straw when it came to my balance, and I went tumbling to the ground, face first into freak crotch. Thankfully the thing had gone limp, so I could tear myself away with a disgusted gag.
"Fucking fuck, ugh, why does the world hate me." I griped, catching my gun as it was tossed at me, not that it was going to be any use now.
"You sticking with me boy? 'cos we should move befo' any more of those things appear." Well he was the only one with a working weapon… Then again I could just smacking around the head with my gun and take off with the bat, but he at least seemed to know his way around.
"Sure, lead the way big guy." He did not seem amused in the slightest, but turned away anyway, leading us down the hall.
A few twists and turns later and he navigated us into a high spiraling stairwell, thankfully we were about halfway up already, considering we needed to get onto the roof.
"So what, helicopters up on the roof picking people up?" I asked, smirking sideways at him when I noticed how heavily he was breathing.
"Yeah, when Ceda realised the infection was worse than they expected they told people to start evacing instead… Lord how many flights of stairs do they need." He grumbled. I was fully prepared to retort with what would have been the epitome of sarcasm but he held up a hand to stop me. I gave him an annoyed grunt but then I caught on, there was a murmur of voices. He wasted no time in ambling over to the edge to peer up the center of the stair to try and see the floors above us.
"Hello? Somebody up there?" He bellowed, sound traveling up and echoing off of the walls.
"Hey! Are you trying to give us away to the freaks?" I snapped but he paid me no mind, face breaking into a smile when there was a softer response.
"Oh thank god, I thought we were the only ones left." A woman. I was quick to join coach in peering upwards. A dark skinned woman in a sharply contrasting pink shirt was looking back down at us from somewhere near the top, smiling fainting.
"Hey cupcake, mind telling the helicopter to wait for us when you get to the top?" I called up, my previous scolding for coach forgotten. A second face appeared next to the women's, a young man whose face was mostly shadowed by a cap.
"Yea' sure thing! An' the names Ellis by the way, not cupcake." He guffawed back, before ducking back out of view. Great, another hick. The woman chuckled too before she followed after him. As if that hadn't annoyed me enough, I could hear him gabbering away to her all the way up.
"Not that I dislike cupcakes or nothin' 'm 'specially fond of the ones with bananas in 'em. Gotta be careful though, eat too many bananas and yuh can get sick wit' potassium poisonin' happened to muh buddy Keith this one time. See he thought that if yuh-"
"Godammit shut up already." I yelled up, glaring at the steps above my head as if he would see it. Annoying hicks… And what was worse, when we got to the top, no goddamn helicopters.
