Briggs was appalled at the thought that, when they'd seemingly held the advantage of the moment, the reanimated dead had somehow managed to out maneuver them. She said as much to Cowboy as they slowly made their way through their half of the huts that had been built to accommodate the resort guests in lieu of a traditional hotel room.
"Kenny, just be happy that we only lost one person today. Your harebrained little scheme worked, more or less."
"Don't hold back Charlie, tell me how you really feel," she told him angrily. When all he offered in reply was a smirk, she continued. "Maybe you think I should be happy that we only lost Cook, but we shouldn't have lost any, not when we did. We had the upper hand."
"I hate that we lost a good man just as much as you do, but let's face it, we're within reach of finally having a place to ditch the civilians. Then we can get back to our duties," he told her. "Besides, I really don't think there is any such thing as an 'upper hand' these days."
"We had the upper hand," she said again, firmly. "If this is the way our future ground offensives are going to go, then the human race is destined to be fucked one person at a time. You might want to think about that before we 'ditch the civilians and get back to our duties' as you put it so eloquently."
"Future offensives? Ditching civilians? Just what in the hell are you two talking about up here anyhow?" demanded Peter, reaching out to grasp Briggs' arm and draw her to a halt. "Once we clear this island, our fighting days are over."
Raising an eyebrow at the hand grasping her upper arm for about a half a second, Briggs turned away and broke free of his grip. "Your fighting days are over Peter, not ours. So, let's just forget about any talk of the future for now and focus on the business at hand," she told him. "We can fight about the rest later."
The team moved forward again, inspecting the first hut. They all appeared to have the same format, each hut containing two rooms or suites, depending upon the size. Briggs was willing to guess that they all had adjoining doors that could be opened and turn a single hut into one giant two bedroom suite. Most of the huts were locked up tight, and a glimpse through the windows revealed rooms prepared and waiting for guests who would never arrive. The furnishings were simple, yet immaculately done up, right down to the mint that rested upon the pillows.
"It's kind of eerie isn't it?" asked Terry, gesturing to one such hut.
"What do you mean?" Peter asked as he paused beside Terry and looked through the window.
"That room, it's like time just stopped," the teen answered as they started moving towards the next hut. One of the doors stood ajar, and they watched as Briggs slowly moved into the room with her weapon raised and ready.
"You're wrong Terry," she called out. "This room definitely takes the prize for overall creepiness." The others advanced into the room to see what she was talking about. She walked out from the bathroom, having determined the room was indeed vacant, as the others took in their first sights of the what she was talking about.
"Oh Jesus," exclaimed Terry, turning himself in a slow circle and looking all about him. There was a half-made bed along one wall, the linens trailing away from it, giving the impression that the task had been abandoned in haste. The end of the linen trail lead almost to the wall nearest the entry way, the ends resting in a pool of dried blood. The wall itself revealed a set of bloody hand prints where one of those things had obviously used it for support as it staggered its way from the room.
"Looks like the cleaning crew has been kinda laying down on the job here," quipped Cowboy, breaking the silence that had engulfed the room following Terry's outburst.
"Yea, well, I guess good help is hard to find. Even with the plethora of vacancies brought on by the apocalypse," Briggs commented, moving towards the door.
"I can't believe you two," Terry said angrily. "These people were slaughtered, and you guys just stand around making jokes about it! Cook, we just watched him die, one of our own..." he broke off, choking up and unable to finish.
"It's okay kid," Peter said, placing a hand on the his shoulder. "They're just coping with things the best they can, they don't really mean anything by it." As he spoke, the two people in question left the room, apparently moving through the other room of the hut, judging from the sounds they were making.
"That doesn't make it right," mumbled Terry, still staring at the wall with the hand prints.
"No it doesn't. But there's a lot of things those two do that probably isn't right, it's just the way of their world. Now what do you say we go catch up with them," Peter asked. When Terry didn't respond, Peter reminded him, "What they're doing making jokes is no worse than our making up games like Hollywood Squares. You didn't seem to have a problem with that."
Instead of answering, Terry hefted his weapon more securely in his hands and walked out the door, leaving Peter to follow. They made quick work of searching the rest of the huts, only a small handful of rooms were unlocked, all appearing to have been hastily abandoned in the act of being made up. None were in as bad a state of disrepair as the room with the hand prints though.
"Looks like the infection hit them without any sort of warning," commented Briggs.
"Yea, but why? Those corpses out on the beach still moved pretty fast, they couldn't have been reanimated that long. Maybe four weeks tops I'd guess," Peter added.
"But wouldn't they have seen something about it on the television?" asked Terry.
"Maybe," Cowboy drawled. "It would all depend on when their televisions went off the air around here."
"If they had them,"Briggs added.
"What do you mean if?" asked Terry. "You saw the guest rooms, they all had tv's in them."
"Right, they had tv's in the guest rooms,and we don't know about the main public areas," Briggs told him. "But that doesn't mean they had a signal, this place was still sorta under construction, television was probably the last thing on their minds."
"So?"
"So it stands to reason that nobody was following the news. They're pretty well isolated out here, I don't see any satellite dishes or something that would indicate they even had access to what was going on out there in the world. Believe it or not, not everyone in the world wants to watch CNN twenty-four/ seven. And if the employees lived here like I figure they did, they really wouldn't have had much contact with the outside world."
"But that whole idea is just messed up," Terry pressed. "Why wouldn't they know about it? Wouldn't they be making arrangements with guests? Or at least trying to?"
"Kid, in case you haven't noticed it, life is kind of fucked up right now," Cowboy told him. "And opening day here, I think they would have practiced on college kids and low income types who wouldn't be as likely to be calling and finalizing shit. This was the test group, if there were even reservations made."
"The reservations woulda been handled over the internet, and why are we even discussing this like it matters? Can we just focus on getting the helipads checked out so we can get the last of our people here?" asked Briggs.
As the search teams worked through the huts, CJ's group made their way through the main building, looking for survivors.
"Didn't you guys say there was some guy standing on the roof when you did your fly-by," demanded Sanchez.
"Yea, that's right," CJ said as they reached the stairwell leading down to the first floor. They'd searched through the second floor area finding no signs of life. Most of the second level had been taken up by a deserted restaurant area, it's balconies overlooking the beach. The remaining space was occupied with the kitchen area and a couple of offices.
"Well, where are the people then?" Sanchez said. "I'm not seeing anyone, with all the gunfire out front, you'd think that would have brought them out of hiding. At least one person would be investigating anyway."
"Or scared them into hiding," Steele said, joining them at the top of the steps. Together they made their way down the steps. "I wouldn't be surprised if they were too scared to come out yet. They'd have no way of knowing who came out on top in that battle, if those things managed to penetrate their defenses, nothing. I'd hide too."
"Still, it doesn't seem right to me," grumbled Sanchez.
Midway down the stairs, they paused, taking in the view. On the ground floor, the stairwell opened up to reveal the reception desk and lobby and what was probably a pretty nice view of the ocean when the barricade wasn't in place. As it stood now, it appeared that somebody had taken tables from the dining room and probably the coffee and end tables from the reception area, knocked the legs off and used them to nail over the windows. All types of furniture had been piled up behind that, sofas, bar stools, even some vending machines.
"Someone has to be in here, a couple of someones judging from the looks of that," Steele said, gesturing to the barricade. Sanchez ignored her, going on his own the rest way the down the steps and walking towards the front desk. Behind the desk was a closed door to the manager's office, at least that's what the little sign bolted to the door read. Making his way around the desk, Sanchez reached out and grasped the door handle.
"Sanchez, wait till we get down there to cover you," CJ said loudly as he hurried down the stairs, Steele following behind.
"Gotta news flash for you two brainiacs, if there was something behind this door it'd be trying to break it down right about now, what with all the noise you two is making," the soldier responded. He turned his attention back to the door, grasping the knob firmly this time, he gave it a twist and pushed it open. The creature came hurtling through the door at him like a shot. He screamed, spasmodically squeezing the trigger of his weapon and firing a few rounds into the air.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" hollered Steele. "It's just a goddamn cat Sanchez, hold your fire!"
The ball of speeding black fur leapt atop one of the vending machines helping to hold the barricades in place. CJ moved to join Sanchez by the reception desk. "Office is clear," the soldier said weakly, causing CJ to laugh.
"Hey there fella," cooed Steele, slinging her rifle and slowly outstretching her hand towards the cat. "Here kitty, come here big guy. We're not going to hurt you." The cat just snarled at her, snaking out a paw and raking its claws across the back of her hand.
"Steele, this really is a bad time to be trying to make new friends," Sanchez said, glaring at the cat.
"You're just pissed off 'cause this little guy damn near made you piss your pants," she retorted.
"Maybe he just doesn't know how to handle his pussy," quipped CJ, earning him a dark look from both of his companions. "Oh come on kids, let's finish clearing this place out. We'll see if we can't find our mystery survivor and then when we're done you guys can slug this out."
The radio crackled to life just than, "Who's firing? Repeat, who's firing? Do you need assistance?"
Steele dealt with the radio, then moved her team towards the rear portion of the building. The sweep of the rest of the ground floor went quickly. There was a small handful of businesses there including a novelty shop, a clothes shop featuring a variety of tacky Hawaiian shirts and a convenience store.
"Kind of an interesting selection," commented Steele as she peered through one of the shop windows at a display of liquor and cigarettes sitting along side glow sticks and suntan lotion.
Adjoining the shops was a small coffee bar that reminded CJ of Hallowed Grounds, the coffee shop from the mall. He was finding it hard to remember what that place had been like, Terry's endless attempts at making the perfect latte. It was even harder to remember his endless morning coffee breaks there after his night shift ended, all those years, now it was like something that had happened to someone else entirely. Lost in these thoughts, he didn't even notice Sanchez walking past him into what appeared to be a large dance club that spanned the entire rear portion of the building.
"Now we're talking," said Sanchez, looking around the club.
"Yea, nice bar. But in case you haven't noticed, we still have a little problem here," said CJ.
"What do you mean problem?" demanded Sanchez. "This here is our own personal little paradise. We got wine, women and song all at our fingertips," he exaggerated.
"But no people. That's what he's talking about Sanchez," Steele retorted. "Where's the guy from the roof? The people who barricaded things up so tight around here?"
"Exactly. I know what we saw earlier, me and Briggs didn't just imagine some guy jumping around on the roof like that," CJ told them.
"Maybe you both were just lying to us. Maybe this whole thing is some kind of act for our benefit," Sanchez insisted skeptically.
"For what reason? Huh, asshole? What's our motive?"
"Your girlfriend told you to say it for all I know," the soldier said defensively.
"Can it Sanchez," Steele told him, sounding remarkably like Briggs. "We would've come here whether they said they saw someone on the roof or not. There's no where else for us to go, no where else for us to hide. This is it."
"There's other secure bases out there where we could go," he answered belligerently. "We didn't have to come here."
"Oh for the love of God, we're not going to go through all this bullshit again," muttered CJ. "Let's just finish this up and let the others in, we'll worry about the missing mystery survivors later." They moved through the club, finding a small storage cellar filled with refrigerators behind the bar area, and a hallway leading to the restrooms, but nothing more.
"I think I know where the survivors might be hiding out," Steele said suddenly.
"Where?"
"This is a fairly big resort, but all we've seen in the way of storerooms is that little rinky dink cellar," she told them.
"And they'd need enough food to feed the employees and guests," said CJ, catching on.
"Plus additional stuff for restocking the stores," Steele said.
"We haven't seen anything like that around here though," Sanchez said.
"Bingo. When we find the storage area, I bet we find any survivors."
"Good thinking," CJ told her. "That just leaves us with one question remaining. Do we take the barricade down first or look for the storage space?"
"Barricade," suggested Sanchez. "By the time we get through tearing that shit down the others oughta be about ready to join us, they can pitch in with the search."
"Not a bad plan really," admitted CJ.
"All right then, let's make it happen," Steele agreed. "Just stay alert, we don't know if whoever it is in here is a friendly or not."
Michael's team had had similar findings as Briggs' group, a couple of unlocked rooms scattered here and there among the buildings, but otherwise nothing. Spatters of blood along doors, congealed and dried blood dotting portions of the walkway were the lone evidence that those creatures had ever been through this part of the resort.
As they were making their way around the far end of the buildings, moving around back towards where Briggs had declared the helipad to be located, they heard shots firing from the direction of the main building.
"Damn, it's those things again," moaned Jones. The pivoted about, peering around the perimeter of their position as if one of the zombies was going to leap out at them any moment. "They're fuckin' gonna pick us off one at a time," he muttered.
"Get a hold of yourself Jones," ordered Kenneth. "That was just a little burst, if there were more of those things our people wouldn't have gone down without a bigger fight than that."
"He's right," Walker said, reaching for his radio. "Who's firing? Repeat, who's firing, do you need assistance?"
"False alarm," Steele's voice came over the radio filled with static. "Accidental discharge, the area is almost secured. We're finishing our sweep of the ground floor, then we'll begin removal of the barricades."
"And there's our answer," Michael said, relief tingeing his voice.
Pressing forward around the building, Kenneth took point and told the others, "Let's just stick with the plan and meet up with the others out by the helipad."
As they neared the rendezvous point, Kenneth caught sight of Briggs group. They were situated at the far side of the pad, their attention directed towards another building, concealed within the lush foliage of the jungle that covered the central portion of the island. "Now what?" he asked himself quietly.
As the two teams gathered together, they could hear the sounds of snarling and pounding emanating form the building before them.
"Doesn't sound like there's very many of them," Michael announced, breaking the silence.
"Nah, but it looks like somebody went through a lot of effort to barricade them inside," Briggs replied, noting the boards across the outside of some of the windows.
"Why lock up some of them and not all of them?" asked Terry.
"Who knows. Maybe they thought they had, maybe they didn't realize how it spread any better than the rest of the world did," she told him.
"So what's the plan?" asked Cowboy.
"Well,someone's gonna have to go up and open that door," Briggs said, looking at the others. "Any volunteers?"
"Oh hell no lady," Jones declared. "Why don't you just walk your happy ass up there and get eaten. What's the other options?"
"We figure out how to get up on the roof and access it through that vent there," she said, pointing. "You sure you don't want to volunteer Jones?"
"Fuck you," he said, flipping her off.
"Okay then, I'll take that as a no," she said, looking the building over. "Cowboy, with me, the rest of you are on watch."
As she and Cowboy moved away, Kenneth called out, "Just what the hell do you have in mind?"
"We'll either clear the building or end up as zombie chow," Briggs replied distractedly. She and Cowboy reached the building, pausing as the pounding and snarling from within grew louder.
"They know we're out here," she said.
"I guess so," Cowboy commented. "Doesn't sound like that many though, two, maybe three tops."
"If that's the case, this should be a piece of cake," she told him. "So let's hope you're right."
The two of them inspected a small overhang above the main door, directly below the vent in question. Getting a boost from Cowboy, Briggs pulled herself up onto the overhang. As she inspected the vent, a portion of the overhang gave way beneath her foot. Barely catching herself, she adjusted her position so that her feet were solidly balanced on the frame. At last, she unslung her rifle and used the butt to break out the vent. Peering inside, she called down to Cowboy, "Looks like it leads into a crawl space above the ceiling."
Focusing her attention before her once more, Briggs carefully entered the building, taking care to stand on the cross beams of the ceiling. Behind her, she could here Cowboy pulling himself up onto the overhang. Her radio crackled to life.
"Briggs, how you doing in there?" Michael's voice came over the earpiece.
"We're in a crawl space right now," she said as Cowboy joined her. "I'm going radio silent now, we'll let you know if we're successful." Turning off the radio, she made eye contact with her brother. "So what do you think?"
"There's gotta be a way down into the main building somewhere."
Outside, the time seemed to crawl by slowly for those waiting. Glancing down at his watch, Michael was shocked to see that only ten minutes had passed since his last radio contact with Briggs. A single shot suddenly echoed from within the building.
"At least we know they made it in there anyway," commented Peter.
"Yea, but it's awful quiet in there," Kenneth said. "Aside from those things pounding on the door."
Nobody said anything to that, they just waited and watched. Moments later, gunfire broke out from inside the structure once more, three shots, in rapid succession.
Michael tried the radio, "Briggs? Briggs, what's going on in there?" Nothing but static greeted him in reply.
Minutes dragged by slowly before they saw Cowboy emerging from the broken vent, swiftly climbing down, followed closely by Briggs. When they reached the ground, instead of joining the others, they went to work trying to pry the boards from the door. Succeeding at last, they opened the door, standing back some as the corpse of one of the creatures fell through the open portal. Briggs knelt down beside it, looking intently at the thing's face.
"It's Mike," she said softly to Cowboy.
"We'll give him a proper burial," he said as the others walked up. Nodding, Briggs rose to her feet.
"CJ," she called over the radio. "How's the main building looking?"
"It's clear, we've got most of the barricades to the front of the building down, but there's no sign of survivors. Steele thinks they may be hiding out in a storage area or something that we just haven't located yet."
"I'm on my way inside to help search." Looking at the others she said, "Jones, get on the horn to the choppers, give them the all clear to land. Contact the Stallion and get the last of the civilians on their way." With a long last look at the corpse in the doorway, she strode away, her brother trailing after her.