Day: 1
It was probably around 5:00 AM in the morning, the highway is pretty much empty seeing how it's so early. Fog is rolling in from the ocean making Soul Field ever more unappealing the closer I was. Suddenly, a figure of a girl appeared through the mist. I slowed down and pulled over next to her, you know, thinking she might want a ride. "Hello miss? You need a ride?" I asked. She seemed distracted by the town. After a good minute, she looked over to me, her hair was rumpled and a small cut on her cheek. Her clothes was that of a city teen. She was pretty cute, probably seventeen or eighteen years old. I asked again " You need a ride?". Another minute went by until she spoke in a slow, tired voice "I don't think so..." I was sort of suspicious, just that she wasn't really into the program. "You sure? It's kind of chilly out here and you don't seem to have a pack or anything. And to be honest, you don't look so good. Don't worry! I won't rape you or anything..." She hesitated than accepted the offer. She went around the car and sat in the passenger seat. "Thanks" she said in the same slow, exhausted voice. "No problem" I replied.
I turned off the radio to give her some silence. I looked in the rear view mirror and spotted something unnatural. At first I thought it was a goose or something crossing the road, but as it approached, A horrid form of what looked like a person wrapped in a strait jacket. I freaked out at the sight of what I thought it was and whipped my head to look at it myself, only to see nothing. The girl also freaked out, just because of my sudden jolt of movement. "What?" she asked, eyes wide, showing redness. "Nothing, It's nothing..." I tapped the gas and we were off to Soul Field.
As the car approached the street, we noticed empty cars parked and abandoned, broken windows and rust were easily visible. The streets were covered with dead vegetation and pieces of newspaper. I slowly maneuvered around the obstacles, questions in my mind of what happened here. After clearing the blockade, we continued down Faith Ave. to a small hotel at the end of the street. "Do you have a place to stay?" I asked the girl. She shook her head, still silent for some reason, probably the sight of the deserted cars. Seeing how my father practically made me rich I asked "I don't think you might mind so much but maybe I can rent you a room, I got a ton of money so your welcome to anything you might like." She looked at me and gave a small smile, than she looked out the window again.
I parked the car in front of the hotel, shut it off and we both entered the building. It was pretty much empty outside as well as it was on the inside. The marble floor was full of dust, cobwebs formed in the corners as well as the lobby's balcony. The lobby chairs were torn with the cushion stuffing hanging out. As the little girl and I approached the front counter I noticed a painting of the town in it's recent years, on the bottom, the plaque Soul Field 1876 was branded. It depicted a street full of people greeting and working. "It looked so pleasant..." I said to myself. "What?" the girl asked. I motioned toward the painting and she to looked. "I wonder what happened..." she said. I found a bell on the counter and I rang it. A tall fat man came out from what looked like a closet. "Why hello there! I'm Gerald, I'll be your clerk, room service, and cook, how may I help you?" the man greeted. "What brings you here? Oh, don't mind me, it's not my business! We have plenty of rooms for you to choose from! We have one good one with a great view of the town!" The girl turned toward me and whispered "there isn't much to see..." The man broke in on the conversation, seeming not to notice her comment. "The room will cost you a little extra, but we may be able to work something out!"
"No need to bother, I have plenty of money." I replied to him. The tall man was sort of taken back by my confidence in money, he looked to the girl and asked "Is she with you?" I shook my head but I asked her "Do you have a place to go?" She shook her head in silence. "well you can stay if you want, do you want separate rooms or do you want to share?" she looked at me for a moment and replied "Share". I turned toward the clerk and said "Me and the little miss will share a room". At first Gerald raised an eye brow, than he surprised us with another burst of energy. "Ok! Your rooms are right this way..." He lead us up a few flights of stairs to the thirteenth floor. Usually, hotels don't list a thirteenth floor but strangely, this one did. We entered a dark hallway with some floorboards pried off leaving visible view of the floor below. Others were rotting with dust on them and cracks. Gerald doesn't seem to notice or even mind the damages of the hotel. There were no doors in this long hallway except two, one is the our room while the other is the emergency exit that we came through. The girl asked "You wouldn't happen to have an elevator would you?" Gerald just waved a hand and said "The only elevator we have is the service elevator, that is where you place an order, I cook what you want, than I send it up to you! This place is to old for fancy elevators or things like that. The only thing fancy are the key cards for the doors!" As he said this, he whipped out a card key from his pocket and inserted it into the door room lock.
Gerald opened the door to a nicely air conditioned suite. It was a big suite, 2 bathrooms, a living room, 2 bedrooms, and a small kitchen. In the living room was a very large window with a view of the foggy town. Gerald bade us goodbye and walked off toward the emergency exit. I turned toward the teen who was looking out at the deserted streets below, I gave her a few moments of her time and instead walked around the suites. The fridge was empty as well as the freezer, there was nothing in the cabinets. There were no plates, or even silverware. It was kind of irritating that just when it started to look good, we still don't have what we needed. "Do you want to come with me and get some food and things? Because to be frank with you, you look like you need some clothes." She looked at me with a smile and walked toward me. "Sure!" was her reply. We both headed toward the exit when suddenly, she looked down the hallway at nothing. "What is it?" I asked. She shook her head and kept on walking. I shrugged and followed her downstairs. Entering the lobby wasn't as creepy as we first entered, the only surprise was that Gerald is absent from the front desk. We left for the truck and we headed deeper into town. As usual it was pretty empty in the streets. We pulled up to what appeared to be an avenue lined with deserted stores. I parked the car and We both got out, the air was cool and still foggy. The sun was setting but we still had enough light to see inside the stores. "I'm going to get some clothes at that store." The girl said, pointing at Nancy's Closet. I was fine with it as I headed for the grocery store right across the street. "just meet back here in like 5 min ok?" she nodded and entered the store. I headed for Sill's food market which was actually a corner store.
Upon entering the store, I was caught right off guard, the food and merchandise was all over the floor, judging by the complete mess, this place was broken into and robbed. Suddenly a man from behind the corner popped out and pointed a gun at me. "Who goes there?! Who are you?!" I was to busy ducking behind a tipped over shelf to answer his question. "Who are you?!" he screamed again. "I'm Alphonse Greyson! Don't shoot1 I'm unarmed". He withdrew his gun, then he lunged out at me, pinning me to the floor. "Listen to me, and listen good, get out of here! This place is crawling with them! Crawling!" I didn't know what he was getting at, so I did what anyone would do... ask. "Who? Whose "crawling" around?" He didn't answer me, instead he got off me and ran behind the counter. "Just get out of here, save yourself!". Than he went into a trap door under the counter. I waited for a good while before I picked myself off from the floor, shaking off the recent assault. Seeing how the guy just bolted downstairs I don't think he minds much if I took a few things from here.
So I just went around and picked up anything I though useful like canned foods, cereal, milk, cokes, flashlights, matches, chips, anything I can find. I made a few trips to the truck to drop things off. On my last trip, I saw the girl leaving the store across from me. I waved her down and I made my last trip. On my way out, I grabbed all of the rolls of scratch tickets and left. "So... how was your shopping experience?" I asked the girl. "It was kind of strange, no one was inside... But look at all these clothes!" She dropped a whole bundle in back, I put the back cover on to stop anything from flying out. "Before we go, I'm gonna check something..." I ran back inside, the cash register was open so I grabbed as much as I could and stuffed the bills into my wallet. "thanks man.." And I left.
As the Truck pulled away, a faint scream cracked through the silent air, a sound of pain. "What was that?" the girl asked. I shrugged, wondering what it was also.
