In writing for the others, my name is Nick. I am just your average guy, wearing a white tux, killing zombies. What else is new?

It's been several days since we've been rescued, 'we' being Ellis, a southern kid, age unknown, Rochelle, the only female survivor to my knowledge, and Frank, or Coach, as he likes to be called. We're the only survivors in this region of the United States. This virus that has been ravaging the Earth is a mutated strain of rabies, which affects the victim's thinking, motor skills and, rarely, physical form. We're often transported from place to place, looking for others, or just kinda dropped off, usually from the pilot being infected and jumping us.

Anyways, there's this one place that really sticks out in my mind. It was at this hotel, near a mall, which we could use to find supplies and contact any remaining survivors in the area.

"Come back! Hey! HEY! Come back! Come BACK! Ugh, damn it!"

We've just been shoved out of a helicopter, onto a tall building, that was swarming with these zombies! The pilot had been acting weird, and with a strange, somewhat sympathetic look in his eye, shoved all of us out of the chopper, on this hotel. He then flew the copter away, later crashing it into a nearby gas station.

"Did ya see that? He just... dumped us here!" exclaimed Ellis, shocked.

"I'm right here, yes I saw it! We're stranded here, on this godforsaken building in the middle of a zombie-infested city!" I shouted.

"I'm sure we can get to the ground through this hotel, guys." said Rochelle, always weirdly calm.

"I'm sure we can all get ourselves slaughtered going through this hotel!" said Coach. Regaining his composure, he said, "We need guns, weapons, and first aid. Let's take a look around."

I did as I was told. I quickly scanned the top of the hotel. My eye caught something shiny, poking out from under a pile of wooden boards. "Hey, what's that over there?" I pointed to the shiny object I was looking at.

Ellis walked over to the pile of wood, lifted it up and picked up the object. "Well I'd be damned! It's an assault rifle, if I'd ever seen one!"

"On this rooftop?" I was kinda bewildered. "Why would there guns on random rooftops?"

"The world is a mysterious place, son. What else is under there, Ellis?" said Coach.

"Looks like... 3 SMG's... some med packs... a defib unit... ooh! There's also axes here!"

"Give me the SMG and one of those med packs. I'll keep my pistol. Can't carry too much." I looked around some more, and seeing nothing, glanced at the door, leading to the stairwell. "We gotta go through there. It's the only way."

"...Okay, fine. I'm ready. You?" said Ellis to Rochelle.

"Ready. Coach?"

"All said and done. Let's kill some zombies," said Coach.

He walked over to the door and, with a grunt, kicked the door open. We walked into the stairwell together – if we went by ourselves, we'd be screwed.

Walking down the stairs, I heard some weird noises, almost human, almost not. I paused, trying to define what I was hearing in my mind.

Then I felt a thump, painful, but not terrible. I snapped around on the spot, and saw my first zombie. With a bloodied mouth and blood-stained shirt, it wasn't a pretty sight. I pulled the trigger, felt the recoil, heard the bang, and saw the exploding zombie head.

"Damn! Those things are scary as Hell!"

"You're telling me," said Coach, whom had just killed a zombie of his own, with an axe.

I heard many more strange sounds, which I now mentally defined as zombies. Walking down the dark, musty hallway, we walked in a room, blasted another zombie and saw a table with a few goods on it.

"What is this?" I said, holding the strange looking cylindrical object with multiple wires.

"Pipe-bomb. It has an alarm wired to it, so it'll attract zombies when thrown. Then it'll explode, killing 'em," explained Ellis.

"How'd you know?" I asked, curious.

"I know things. C'mon, we got killing to do."

I shrugged, stuck the bomb in my pocket, and followed the group. After entering another room, I felt a strange, gagging sensation around my neck. I immediately reached for my neck, and felt this... thing, slimy and squishy. I was also being dragged away from the group. "Argh! Something's got me!"

Rochelle quickly turned around and shot whatever was choking me. The grip released and I ran forward to the group. Then I looked at my offender. "What the hell is that? That thing that was choking me... a... tongue!" I was just being strangled by some zombie's extended tongue! "*Cough* Ugh, and this smoke! That... zombie released it!"

Coach ran to us, "What happened? Why was there some smoke just now?" The smoke had cleared up, and I finally saw what my attacker looked like. It's face was all swollen and puffy, had only one eye, and had this huge, long, bloodied tongue.

"This zombie just attacked me. It had this long tongue, like a chameleon, and released this smoke when it was killed. Let's call it a Smoker. There may just be more of these."

"Damn. You know there are others that are others mutated like this as well. C'mon, let's keep moving." said Coach.

We caught up to Ellis, who was grinning. "This is kinda fun, guys. You never get a chance to kill zombies with a katana." He twirled his katana around in his hand and sheathed it.

"You're one crazy son of a bitch, Ellis," I said. "This is real life, not some video game!"

"Yeah, I know 'n all, but, hey, better make the best of it! Let's go!"

I sighed and kept walking through the rooms. There was a patio opening to the outside, right of it was a 2-foot wide walkway leading around the perimeter of the hotel. "Let's take this walkway. We should end up at a different section of the hotel, past those locked doors."

Coach looked over the edge of the railing, down to the ground 18 stories below. His face flushed and he stumbled backwards. "Aw, man. I'm afraid of heights. I was ever since I was a kid, during a freak airplane incident," Coach said wearily.

"We're going to die if we don't get out of this hotel. Be a man and follow us," said Ellis, coldly, actually being much younger than Coach.

"..." Coach grimaced and pressed his back against the wall, and very carefully inched his way after us.

After getting to the neighboring patio, we opened the door and went inside. There was trash and dead bodies scattered all over the place. We looked around the room, seeing if there was anything we could use. "Hey, I found some pain pills!" The others ran over to me and I handed each of them a bottle.

"Good find, Nick," said Rochelle. "If any of us get hurt, but don't have time to heal ourselves with med packs, these pills will help."

We didn't find anything else interesting, so we left the room and continued down the hallway. I went ahead to look for anything interesting for myself, as I was losing interest in my pistol.

When I turned into another room, I ran into the ugliest, biggest zombie I have ever seen. It was a huge, fat, puffy, bloody zombie that looked like it hurt for it to move. "Ahhh!" I yelled, and instinctively brought up my pistol and shot the zombie. Big mistake.

As soon as I pulled the trigger, the zombie exploded in a shower of blood, guts, and... vomit? I was blinded and completely soaked to the bone in this shit, and shortly after the thing exploded, I was swarmed with zombies. I tried to get them off, but there was too many of them! I was hit, bit, slashed and torn, then I realized that they were not there anymore.

"Holy shit! What happened to you? Those zombies completely swarmed you! And you're covered in zombie puke!" exclaimed Ellis.

"I shot this zombie... a really, really fat one... ugh... I'm hurt. Help me up." I said, painfully.

Rochelle got me up and treated me with the contents of one of the med packs. "There you go. Feel better?"

"Yes, thank you." I breathed, exhausted. "I'm gonna call those big fat zombies Boomers, 'cause they explode when shot."

"C'mon, we gotta keep moving," said Coach impatiently.

We found another stairwell and went down the few stories it would take us. I saw a zombie and shot it before it noticed us, which attracted several more. We took the others down fairly quick. After leaving the stairwell, I heard a faint, barely audible explosion, coming from many floors below. "I may be wrong, but that explosion probably means this building is gonna burn to the ground. We gotta move. Fast," I said.

"Don't have to tell me twice," said Coach.

Shortly after the explosion, we found an elevator. "Ah, here we go! This'll take us all the way to the bottom floor!" exclaimed Ellis.

I called the elevator and got inside with the others. I pressed the "1st Floor" button and the elevator made its decent. "When we reach the bottom, we have to get out of the hotel as fast as we can. Be ready to run, and run fast," said Coach.

Then, the elevator suddenly shuddered and stopped, grinding to a halt. Then the elevator started getting warm, and filled with smoke.

We were trapped in the elevator shaft.