Chapter 4 - Guinea Pigs Playing Poker
Jill searched the rooms of the mansion, peering under beds, opening drawers, and lifting up paintings from the walls. All this searching, and still nothing. Whoever was the mastermind behind marooning them here had done his homework. There had to be devices out there that were spawning the zombies. She wondered who the mastermind was. An agent of Umbrella, probably, but who? Was it someone she knew? Also, where was he hiding out? Was he right there on the island? Or did he have some kind of remote-control technology that allowed him to unleash the zombies from afar, perhaps from a boat or maybe even from the mainland.
She finished searching the room she was in and moved on to the next with a sigh. Suddenly, she heard Laura shout from the top floor. "Hey, everybody, I've found something!" Jill rushed upstairs as fast as she could. A few moments later, the others came running up. "In here," said Laura, waving from one of the unoccupied third-floor bedrooms. They all hurried into the room. One of the paintings had been removed from the wall. Behind it, a secret compartment was revealed. "There are weapons in here," Laura said.
Jill eagerly peered into the compartment and began removing the items from it. The others crowded around behind her. There was one M1 rifle, one 12 gauge shotgun, one .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and one .357 magnum revolver. There was also a box containing ten grenades, and boxes of ammunition. She frowned as she looked through the ammo boxes and saw how little of it there was. Then she nodded in understanding. "Of course."
"What? What are you 'of-coursing' about?" asked Chuck.
"The people who brought us here," said Jill. "This is some sort of twisted game to them. They hid this stuff here for us, but they only gave us a little ammo. It's enough to prolong our ordeal, but not enough to fight our way out of here."
"See!" said Benny. "I'm not the only one who believes in this stuff!" Jill managed a smile, then began passing out the weapons based on who had experience with them. She handed the M1 to Chuck, the .45 to Monica, and the revolver to Laura. She kept the shotgun for herself. Zeke, of course, still had the rifle he had brought with him. Jill then passed out one grenade to each person (after, of course, carefully instructing everyone on how to use them properly). "Conserve your ammo," she said. "Only shoot at something that's a direct threat."
Monica peered out the window, staring at the growing number of zombies that were converging on the house. "Why are they all coming here?" she asked. "Why don't they just go roaming around the island at random?"
"The zombies are attracted to the smell of our flesh," replied Jill. "They'll be trying to break in. We'll have to be on our toes." She continued, "It'll probably be safer if we stay on the upper floors of the house and only go down when we have to get something from the refrigerator. If they start breaching the barricades, we can shoot at them from the windows up here. And at least two of us should be awake at all times, day or night."
Jennifer stared out the window at the mob of zombies, chewing on her nails nervously. "So what do we do now?" she asked. "We can't swim in the pool, go to the beach, or go for a hike. And there aren't any TVs or anything in the house. How are we supposed to entertain ourselves?"
"I brought a deck of cards," said Benny, holding them up. "I guess we can play poker or something."
"Why not?" said Laura. "It'll be good to take our minds off of our imminent deaths for a while." The others nodded in agreement and sat down in a circle on the floor of the large bedroom. Benny shuffled and dealt the cards. Even the game couldn't take Jill's mind off of their predicament, although it seemed to be working fairly well for the others. They played for a while, then took a brief break for lunch, racing down to the kitchen and racing back upstairs with the food, trying to ignore the zombies roaming around outside. The zombies, although they had surrounded the mansion, did not seem to be eager to try to break in. The guests continued playing poker in the third-floor bedroom as they ate.
Jill sighed. She might be talented at shooting, lock-picking, and playing the piano, but she was definitely not good at poker. Ooh, finally, a good hand, she thought to herself. When it was her turn to lay down her cards, she said with a grin, "Three aces."
"That's pretty good," said Zeke. "Almost as good as my flush." He grinned back as he displayed five diamonds. Jill let out a low growl. Suddenly, a bunch of much louder growls was heard from downstairs, followed by crashing and banging sounds. "They're breaking in!" shouted Chuck. Everyone rushed to the window and looked out excitedly, only to realize that the zombies were breaking in from the other side of the house (which caused Jill to let out another growl). They hurried to the rooms on that side. Sure enough, a large group of zombies was trying to break in. Zeke, Chuck, and Laura fired at the undead from one room, while Jill and Monica fired from the room next door. Some of the monsters fell, but there was a large crowd to deal with.
Jennifer opened another window and leaned out, waving a grenade. "Eat this, you slimeballs!" she shouted. She leaned out and dropped the grenade on a pile of zombies. Unfortunately, she leaned out too far and tumbled out with a scream of "AAAHHHHGGGHHHH!" She hit the ground with a THUMP. A second later, the grenade exploded, sending zombie parts (and Jennifer's parts) flying everywhere.
The others stared at the scene in horror, then continued firing at the undead. Soon, it appeared that the zombies had all fallen or disappeared back into the trees. "Come on," said Jill, leading the way downstairs. "We have to fix the barricade." She descended the stairs cautiously, weapon at the ready, the others just behind her. The barricade of furniture they had set up was partly smashed through in the place where the zombies had attacked. A few dead zombies had fallen onto the barricade. More of them were visible lying on the ground outside.
The guests began dragging more chairs, tables, and cabinets to the window to rebuild the barricade. Jill, a wooden chair in her hands, was just approaching the shattered window when, out of nowhere, a zombie popped up right in front of her and growled. She swung the chair, hitting the monster in the head and knocking it to the floor. It began getting up again, but by then Jill had readied and aimed her shotgun. She fired with a loud BANG and the zombie's head exploded.
"Are you all right?" asked Monica. Jill nodded her head. Zeke raised his rifle. "Maybe we should put a few bullets into these guys to make sure they're all dead," he said.
"No," said Jill. "Don't waste ammunition. Let's have two of us keep our guns ready and cover the others while they move the furniture. That way, we'll be ready if any of the others are still alive."
After they had fixed the barricade, they gathered some more food from the kitchen so they wouldn't have to come downstairs again at dinnertime. The guests then hurried back upstairs. Benny gathered up the playing cards. It didn't seem right to keep playing after what had happened to Jennifer.
"We're all going to die," said Benny. "Look, we're dying off one by one. We're all going to die."
"Stop being so negative," said Jill, trying to put on a brave face even though more and more of her was starting to agree with him. "We can outsmart whoever's doing this to us."
"We can't hold out for much longer," said Chuck, after inspecting the guns. "We've used up almost one-third of our ammo. And the barricades won't hold forever. We have to break out somehow. Make a run for the beach. Maybe we can build a raft and float away."
"We don't have any tools for building a raft," said Monica. "And even if we did manage to build one, it's at least fifty miles to the nearest land. I doubt it'd stay together for that long. Besides, the zombies are attracted to human flesh and they'd follow us. Out there in the open, we'd never be able to hold them off long enough to build a raft."
"Looks like it's a choice between a quick death and a slow one," said Benny. He was about to say something more when Laura held up her hand. "Listen!" she said. They all became quiet and listened. For a second, there was nothing, then a faint but distinctive sound was heard. It was the sound of a motorboat.
