ER: 28 Days Later…

At the time when Romano boarded up the lounge it seemed like a selfish act, they should have been out there helping the people who were infected. At the time they didn’t know that there was no saving anyone with the virus that had been brought over from the Congo in a shipment of lab animals. Romano had herded everyone that he could think of into the room and then proceeded to barricade every possible entrance. The disease was not air born, you could only get it if the blood of the infected got into your blood stream some how and so far the seven of them had been lucky enough to avoid it. They had now spent a total of three days locked up in the lounge, the soul survivors, Amber McKay, Kerry Weaver, Robert Romano, Elizabeth Corday, Mark Greene, John Carter, and Abby Lockhart. What follows is an account of how they coped with being the last few people in the city…and how they planned to start their lives over.

Day 4

“Okay enough is enough we can’t just sit here and wait to starve to death, some one has to go out there and see if there is anything left.” Amber finally said looking up from her spot on the floor, where she had been trying to get some sleep, Romano had quickly commandeered both of the couches for himself as if he need them both. Every once in a while some one would look out of the window to the lounge, there was nothing out there, nothing living anyway. There were bodies everywhere laying on top of each other, on empty gurneys and slumped against walls. Some of the people out there were too weak to handle the infections and some had been attacked so horribly by the infected that they had died. Amber knew there had to be at least another person out there who was smart enough to go into hiding much like they did.

“No, if one goes we all go…you’ve seen how fast those things can run.” Abby said as she shakily lit another cigarette. They had all given up on trying to stop her from smoking in there, in fact a few of them had picked up the habit again themselves. Amber reached out to Abby and she handed her a cigarette and a lighter, she lit it and then tossed the lighter back to Abby.

“We have no defense against them…what if there is one of them out there?” Corday said she was sitting in the corner with Mark her head was on his shoulder and his arm was around her protectively. Mark sighed and started to stroke her hair softly, they all knew that Amber was right about leaving it’s just none of them wanted to take that chance.

“No defense? Are you people insane?” Romano finally spoke up, he walked over to the door and looked out of the window before violently tipping the table over and breaking off one of the wooden legs, “Now we have defense.”

“You are really willing to beat one of them in the head with that?” Weaver groaned, she was extremely tired and still half asleep which was amazing to her because she was laying on the cold hard floor. She pushed herself to a sitting position and leaned against the wall rubbing her eyes, “Some of the infected are children.”

“Well it’s either kill them or we die.” He violently ripped another arm from the table and tossed it in Carter’s direction. Carter caught it, and then eyed Romano wondering if this was the right thing to do. Greene gently pulled away from Corday and walked to the overturned table breaking off a wooden leg for himself.

“We have to get out of here and find some help we can’t be the last people alive now can we?” He said taking a few practice swings with impromptu club in his hands, “We can’t worry about morals now, our lives have quickly become survival of the fittest.”

“He’s right,” Carter said looking at Weaver and then to Corday, they couldn’t live the rest of their days in that room, pretty soon they would be out of food and water and would end up starving to death when they could easily do something to keep themselves alive. “It’s daylight and as we know they don’t tend to move around when it’s light out.”

“They don’t tend to…” Abby muttered grimly as she exhaled a cloud of smoke, rubbed her eyes and then pushed her hands through her hair being careful not to catch any of it in the end of her cigarettes, “But I guess we have no choice, I’m in.”

“So am I.” Amber said getting to her feet and stretching slightly, she was never the kind of person to just sit around and do nothing when things got bad, there had to be a way to fix this but they were going to need a plan. “First we need a plan as to what we are going to do.”

“I say we raid everything, any supplies and food that we can find.” Weaver said as she too struggled to get up from the floor. “That way if anything happens we will be prepared.” The six of them who were standing and ready to go looked over at Corday who was huddled in the corner she wasn’t willing to do this at all, but then the looked to Mark and she knew he was serious about it.

“Come on Lizzie we aren’t going to let anything happen to you or anyone else.” Mark said, he walked over to her and held out a hand, she glared up at him for a moment and then reached out and took her hand in his. She pulled herself to her feet and brushed some of the dirt from her clothes, it was worth a shot they were going to have to leave the hospital sooner or later.

“Okay we go in packs of three and she stays here,” Romano said automatically pointing at Weaver. Kerry didn’t look to happy about this decree and she advanced on him.

“Why am I staying here?” She said through her clenched teeth feeling like she was about three seconds away from hitting him. It wasn’t just this comment that had pissed her off, the past 15 hours stuck in a room with Romano was certainly not anything remotely fun.

“Cause if we have to run you’ll slow us down.” He said without blinking, he then turned to couch that was blocking the door and started to move it away, Carter glanced at Weaver but didn’t say anything in her defense as he helped Romano move the couch away from the door.

“You know what? I wouldn’t want you to wait for me or to save me besides I have my weapon.” She said tapping her crutch on the ground a few times, Romano rolled his eyes and slowly opened the door to the lounge to look outside.

“Good then don’t expect me to give a damn about you when we are running.” And with that he slipped out of the door into the hallway, the smell was overpowering he was basically stepping into a mass grave of rotting over heated corpses. The whole thing had happened in summer and when the electricity finally gave out so did their air conditioning system it caused the bodies to decay a lot faster.

“I got your back.” Amber said to Weaver who turned and smiled at her thankfully, Carter followed Robert out into the hall with the leg of table held like a bat and Greene followed him. Corday squealed a little as he stepped merely a foot away from her and then leaped out into the hall to hold onto his arm. Weaver followed them into the hall fearless just like the men and Amber looked at Abby.

“After you,” Abby said, Amber hesitated and she wanted to just push Abby out of the door before her, “It was your idea.” That was true it was Amber’s idea to leave the lounge and so instead of starting an argument she took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway. They all stood there for a moment once they were out just taking in the horror of it all. The bodies were everywhere, and none of them looked like they had died peacefully. All of their eyes were blood shot and there was blood on the walls and on the floor, mouths of the dead were frozen in screams of terror and the smell was incredible. There was a moment of silence as the group took time to compose their emotions and their stomachs.

“Okay I say we split up and go in groups of two…one will obviously be a group of three because there is seven of us,” Romano declared like some one had made him in charge of everything, it was just as well that way because no one else was trying to be diplomatic and they desperately needed some one to tell them what to do or they would have never moved, “And if I were you I wouldn’t be in the group with the cripple.”

“OH SHUT UP ROMANO!” Amber finally screamed at him, “Do you think that any one of us wouldn’t be MORE then happy to see you get eaten by one of the stupid zombie people!?” She was breathing hard after spazzing out like that, her whole body was shaking and her face was now red. No one knew it yet but Amber had one hell of a crush on Kerry and she didn’t want him to be making fun of her anymore.

“I guess we know who is going to be in Weaver’s group.” Romano said like he didn’t even care that Amber had just flipped out on him. “Lets go people we don’t have much time.” The silently broke into groups and started to leave in different directions, Romano and Carter forged ahead with Abby walking close behind and of course Mark and Elizabeth took off together. Amber groaned softly, not because she was stuck with Weaver, they got along very well, it’s just she couldn’t believe how selfish and petty these people were being.

“Thanks, but you don’t need to yell at him.” Weaver said with a small smile as they both headed down the hall in the opposite direction that Romano had taken, “Do you have a bag in your locker?”

“Yeah I do.” Amber replied, Weaver nodded and pushed the door to the lounge open again and headed over to her locker.

“Okay so do I…do you mind emptying it out so we have a place to put our stuff?” Weaver asked as she took a rather large black back pack from her locker, it was an emergency bag just incase she had to leave in a hurry. She turned it over after unzipping it and dumped it out onto the floor along with some money and her wallet. Amber looked at her and pulled her bag from her locker, it was very similar to Weaver’s except it was gray and the straps were more padded. She looked inside of it and then dumped the contents of it onto the floor figuring that they weren’t going to need money anytime soon. “Good, now I’m going to tell you this and either you are with me or you aren’t.”

“What?”

“My plan is to get everything that I can possibly carry and still move quickly but I’m not going to tell the others exactly what I have…that way I can sort of be prepared if worse comes to worse.” She said to Amber softly, Amber smiled because she was thinking about doing the same thing.

“How about we do this together that way there will always be someone to look out for the other.” She slung the empty pack over her shoulder leaving the zipper open and headed towards the door, she was finally beginning to see that she was going to get a chance to be with Weaver, especially since she knew she was the last lesbian left in the general area, and they were already close friends. Weaver nodded and headed back out of the door with Amber, Weaver took a set of keys from her pocket and opened the door to the first storage room they came across.

“Okay be diplomatic about this, don’t take too much of one thing and leave room for food.” Weaver said quietly to Amber, neither of them had any idea why they were keeping their voices down probably because they didn’t want to attract attention to themselves if one of the infected were around. Amber nodded and started to toss things in her bag, about two of everything including a few drugs that she hid in a small zipper compartment.

“When it comes to food I’m holding out on all of them, because hell it’s food and with the way they have been treating you why should we have to share?” Amber said zipping up her bag which was now half full of medical supplies, probably thousands of dollars worth of medical supplies. Weaver smiled at her sort of liking the idea that they were going to go in league with each other, Amber blushed and looked down at the floor.

“Good…it’s you an me…screw the rest.” Weaver replied as she zipped up her bag, “Now lets go find us some food.”

Romano was strolling ahead of John and Abby like everything was perfectly fine, he showed absolutely no fear in this situation. John on the other hand was clutching his wooden club in a death grip and holding Abby’s hand with the other. They stepped into the cafeteria where things didn’t look much better there were probably more bodies in here then anywhere else in the hospital, it even looked like some people had been trampled to death during a raid.

“Look for anything that hasn’t been opened.” Romano said John and Abby nodded when they heard something moving behind them. There was some heavy breathing and a slight gagging sound, Romano turned around to check it out and John hesitated not wanting to see what it was but he forced himself to turn and raise the weapon he was holding. Standing in the doorway were two of the infected, they could tell by the blood shot sunken in eyes and the way they were standing, Carter bit his bottom lip just waiting for something to happen. The two infected took a step forward and then started to run at Romano and Carter, Carter closed his eyes and swung the table leg as hard as he could, it met the attackers head with a sickening smack. It was obvious that the virus also cause premature decomposer almost like gangrene or leprosy. He hit the thing in the head one more time for good measure and it finally stopped moving it’s brain oozing out onto the floor. Romano had apparently made fast work of killing the other one and if Abby hadn’t been screaming and panicking Carter probably would have vomited. Instead he turned to her and took her in his arms gently letting her cry.

“We don’t have much time lets go.” Romano said as he walked back into the kitchen, Carter kissed Abby’s head softly and looked down at her. Robert was right they didn’t have much time, and Abby was going to have to calm down if they expected to get anything accomplished.

About an hour later they all met up and announced the things they had found, then they headed outside carefully deciding it was best to take two different cars just incase something happened to the first. Amber had managed to hot wire two of the big supply vans they had outside, everyone was extremely amazed that she actually knew how to do it but she explained to them that it was basically just touching the right wires together. They had been driving for about three hours, Amber, Weaver, and Abby were in one van and they followed the others with Romano driving. Amber hated how he drove he was going way to fast and taking way to many turns, she guess that he figured that all bets were off since they were the only two people on the road but she wasn’t sure if he knew how close she had come to crashing into him a few different times.

They were on an empty country road, farm houses lined either side of them and farm animals roamed freely throughout the fields. Finally Romano pulled off to the side and Amber followed feeling glad to get a chance to stretch her legs after all of that. It seemed to her that there wouldn’t be much of the infected around because they were in the country and the few that were there wouldn’t be a match for the seven of them. Amber grabbed her bag from the back seat of the van and shut the door behind her after Abby climbed out. Corday took the time to lay a blanket out on the grass and sit down, she looked pale and tired but finally she didn’t seem like she was physically joined to her husband.

“Does Amber sing when she’s driving?” Carter asked Abby after sitting down next to her on the blanket, she looked at him for a moment wondering why he would ask that.

“No…but she did hook her CD player up in the car and we listened to some Bon Jovi, why do you ask?” She reached into the plastic garbage bag she was holding and pulled out a diet coke and opened it taking a very long drink.

“Well then I’m riding with you guys, Romano sings.” Carter laughed and reached into the bag taking out another diet coke. Amber laid out a separate blanket a few feet away from them and sat down on it with Weaver to the rest of the group the two of them seemed quite happy to just keep to themselves. Amber opened a can of preserved peaches and took one out eating it slowly savoring the sweet taste, she always liked to watch her food intake but it was going to get really hard to do that over the next few days. She held the open can out to Weaver who turned the fruit down and laid on the blanket looking up at the clear blue sky. For a moment everything seemed okay like it was just a nice picnic on the country side there was no virus and not threat of attack, but just for a moment.

“All those poor people back there…they had no idea.” Corday said as she laid down resting her head on Mark’s lap. He reached down and started to stroke her hair softly as he bit into the candy bar he had taken from the lounge.

“I think the important thing is that we escaped and we still have each other.” He replied chewing the candy with his mouth open.

“Oh god…” Romano muttered at the comment, “Could you be any more sappy Mark?”

“He’s just mad because he’s the only one with out a romantic partner.” Abby said with a slight smile as she looked over to Carter, he put his arm around her slowly and kissed her cheek. Romano glared at the two couples for a moment and then looked past them over to Amber and Weaver.

“McKay and Weaver don’t have anyone…” He said finally sitting down and folding his arms in frustration, it was true if they were the only people left in the country or the world he would have no one that would be willing to have sex with him. He decided not to worry about that possibility there was no way they were the only ones left in the world. He grabbed a can of coke from the bag and opened it, then he looked back in Amber and Weaver’s direction, then he spit out his coke but luckily none of it got on the blanket.

“What the hell?” Carter snapped turning his head to see what had surprised Romano so much, he silently prayed that he didn’t react that way because there were some of the infected approaching. What he did see actually made him smile, Amber and Kerry were snuggled up close to each other dozing softly looking like they were totally at peace with themselves.

“I guess I really don’t have anyone…oh well I have my hand.” Romano said not sounding like he was all too disappointed. Abby groaned in disgust not even wanting to think about Robert getting himself off especially not when she was around.

“Was that comment necessary?” Corday said looking sitting up slightly to look at Romano, she had to admit that she did feel a little bit sorry for him but maybe if he wasn’t such and ass to everyone he would have a romantic interest.

“Don’t they make a cute couple?” Abby whispered to Carter setting her can of coke down carefully in the grass. Carter pulled her into his lap and kissed her neck softly, he was glad that she had made it through everything he didn’t think he’d want to spend the rest of his days with any other woman. Lizzie rolled onto her side and looked over to the women along with Mark, they both smiled and sighed, it was certainly a rare site to see Kerry so content with her arm around some one in such a loving way. Romano was just about the only one who didn’t think it was cute, in fact he thought it was absolutely disgusting, he stood up from the blanket and finished off his coke tossing the can into the field behind him.

“I need a walk before I overdose on all this love.” He growled as he started to walk away from them, Carter kept his eye on Robert just incase something were to happen and he needed help they didn’t have their weapons there with them and surprisingly no one had thought to steal a gun from one of the man dead security guards that lined the halls, probably because they were all too scared to touch one of the bodies. It was getting late and some one was going to need to start a fire it was probably best to travel during the day since the infected didn’t seem to come out then, but that would mean some one would have to stay awake at night to keep watch.

Carter moved back from Abby after kissing her neck once more and then stood up looking for something they could use to start and fuel a fire. Abby sighed and stood up next to him wondering what he was doing.

“The sun is going to set soon I think we should make a fire.” Carter said to her, he wasn’t the only one who thought that it was a good idea. Mark gently moved a sleeping Lizzie off of his lap and joined the two who were getting ready to scout for firewood.

“Do you even know how to make a fire?” Abby joked before she hit Carter playfully in the arm, he laughed and moved to get her back when she took off running. Mark rolled his eyes but smiled he was happy to see that they could take the time to mess around even with the serious situation that they were in. He walked a few feet away and started to collect firewood as he watched Kerry and Amber snuggle closer together on the blanket.

Day 10

It had been about ten days and they were almost completely out of food, not once stopping to think that they could break into a drug or grocery store along the way it seemed that even though society had crumbled their moral standards had not. They had been doing okay with gas siphoning it from other cars and stealing what they could from gas stations, as of right now they were in Cleveland and they looked even worse then Chicago. Once again there were dead bodies in the streets but only in what would qualify as the bad area’s of town, they were standing outside of a huge building with a sign on it that said “Tower City.”

“Okay you pansies, we are hungry and I’m not going to worry about breaking and entering.” Romano finally said, he walked over to the door and tugged at it expecting it to be locked but instead it opened for him, “This is great it’s a mall.” Amber and Weaver looked at each other and smiled along with Abby and Corday they had all been traveling in the same clothes for a little over a week now it would be fun to go in there and look the stores.

“You know he’s right…no one is going to miss these clothes or the food…lets go have some fun.” Carter suggested before following Romano into the mall, the rest of the group smiled with excitement and rushed in after them. They still decided to split off into groups except for Romano who was feeling sorry for himself, he went alone. There were almost no bodies in the mall that they could see and despite the obvious chaos that the virus had caused most of the stores looked pretty intact. Corday and Greene headed towards Saks Fifth Avenue and Abby and Carter headed towards foot locker because their shoes had gotten terrible and they had been complaining about it the past few days.

When Amber was sure that the others were completely out of sight she pulled Kerry into Victoria’s Secret. Weaver looked at her oddly, the only really close physical interactions they had over the past few days were sleeping next to each other she had no idea that Amber was actually interested in her romantically, mostly because Amber never showed any signs of being attracted to other women. Amber went over to probably the most expensive display of bras and started to look through them the one she was wearing was way too small but it was laundry day and she certainly hadn’t expected to be locked in a room.

“This bra is killing me.” Amber said and without wasting any time she pulled her grungy black sweater over her head and unsnapped her bra. Her breasts were perfect and her stomach and waist line were too it was like she had stepped out of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue herself. Kerry felt her face flush and she turned away from Amber not exactly sure if this was an appropriate reaction to be having to her co-worker. “It’s okay Kerry…” Amber grinned, “I think you’re hot too.” She pulled on another black lace bra except this time it actually fit and didn’t push her boobs up to her chin. She sighed in relief and ripped the tags off of it pulling her black sweater back into place, she was definitely going to need to get more clothes but while she was there she thought she would get a few sexy things too. Just because the world was desolate didn’t mean she couldn’t feel sexy.

“You what?” Weaver was just sort of standing in the store not exactly looking at anything in particular, she kicked at the red carpeting with her foot for a moment not exactly sure what to think about that. Amber grabbed a few more bras off of the rack, choosing a bunch of different colors before she made her way to the teddy’s and negligees. She looked at Weaver once more, and smiled slightly before setting her bras down on a near by table and walking over to her.

“Forgive me because well you know how hard it’s been to keep up proper hygiene although I would say that I’ve been doing a good job…”

“Forgive you for wha…” before she could even finish that sentence Amber was all over her like a bad suit kissing her passionately, they had worked together for over two years now and every single day Amber promised herself she would make a move but she always lost her nerve, she was so afraid of being rejected by Kerry and she didn’t want to make things awkward because they worked together but now things were different, a lot different. Kerry didn’t pull away, in fact she kissed back with equal passion her hands roaming Amber’s body just the same, she let go of her crutch and Amber pushed her back against the nearest wall.

“I’m going to make you scream…” Amber said before dropping to her knees in front of the trembling woman. Kerry groaned trying to steady herself against the wall, she had wanted Amber for years too but now finally their passions for each other were giving in.

“What do you think of this suit?” Corday said as she came out of the dressing room in a black suit and skirt with black heels. Mark was still in his lime green scrubs figuring he could wait to get his clothes considering the fact that all he really wanted were jeans and T-shirts with the occasional sweatshirt. He did like it on her at first he tried to protest telling her that she didn’t need any of these things but then he realized that if they took them and she never wore them ever again it wouldn’t matter, they wouldn’t have spent any money.

“Sexy business woman on the go.” He smiled at her and she came over to him and kissed him passionately straddling his lap. He had never actually had sex in a department store, but he guessed there was always a first time for everything.

“Oh look a candy store.” Abby said as she walked out of the Foot Locker with Carter, they were both carrying two bags of shoes and other apparel, she set her bag down on a bench by the display that used to be a fountain and ran inside. He could hardly contain his excitement considering that they really hadn’t eaten anything but cold soup and soda for the past week, he couldn’t even believe how much he missed chocolate. He set his bags down next to hers and followed in close behind her, she had opened one of the chocolate pretzel bins, and after deeming them okay to eat chowed down. Carter stepped up behind her and put his arms around her waist pulling her into him.

“Hey slow down you don’t want to get a stomach ache.” He smiled at her and turned her around in his arms she had a smear of chocolate on her face right above her lips and he leaned in slowly and kissed her getting it away, “Mmmm Abby yummy.”

“Shut up Carter…” She giggled and then leaned in and kissed him back, he slowly put his hands to her head and laced them into her hair, it seemed as if everyone was getting it on except Romano.

Romano was walking down a very empty hall by himself, he had found a rather large metal pipe and he was swinging it around aimlessly just basically destroying anything that came in his path. He stepped into the Abercrombie store for a moment when he thought her heard a noise, he was angry about a lot of things now and he was ready to kill any zombies that might present themselves.

“All right come and get me you bastards.” He taunted slamming the pipe into his other hand in a menacing fashion, “I got a lead pipe and I’m gonna bash in your head.”

“Well I got a gun and a tazer.” came a sweet female voice from directly behind him, he spun around quickly not recognizing the tone. There was a young woman standing there she was about five foot nine with long brown hair and stunning green eyes her body was perfect and she looked like she could be an angel or even a hallucination. “You wanna bash my head in now?” Her shirt was ripped and she had a pretty bad gash on her shoulder right above her breast, the blood a seeped into her shirt although it was apparent that she wasn’t bleeding any more and the gash looked like it might have possibly been burned.

“Who the hell are you?” Was the first thing that Romano could think to say, she was absolutely stunning and not to mention being a smart ass. She smiled at him and headed into the store farther sifting through some clothes before pulling off her shirt and putting another one on, right in front of him, luckily she was wearing a bra.

“My name is Monica…I thought I was the only one left in this god forsaken world.” She took out a cigarette and lit it, then she held out the pack and offered him one. He looked at her oddly wondering hold old she really was and put his hand up to politely declined the offer. She shrugged and put the pack and the lighter in her pocket before picking up a big bag that looked like it was about to burst open at any moment.

“No you aren’t, in fact there are six more of us here.” He watched her as she passed by him and exhaled smoke in his direction. He waved it away with his hand for a moment and then started to follow her down the hall amazed with the fact that she wasn’t overly excited to see that there was another human around.

“What’s your name pops?” She asked without turning back to look at him, she flicked her cigarette ashes and took another long drag, it was great now that cigarettes were absolutely free. He started to become irritated with her, especially since she called him pops, he maybe older then her but he couldn’t be that much older.

“Dr. Robert Romano, how old are you?”

“25.” She turned and exhaled her smoke at him again but didn’t stop walking to wherever she was going. He waved the smoke away from his face again and ran a few steps to catch up to her, she didn’t seem to really even care that he was there. “I’m a doctor.”

“Good for you, I’m an FBI agent.” She pulled one of the guns from her holster and showed it to him before sliding it back into place. She took one last hit from her cigarette and flicked it off to the side where it landed and rolled for a few feet on the empty marble tile. She walked into the CD store and started to cram batteries into her bag before heading back over to the music selection, as long as she had a walkman she was going to listen to music and no one was going to stop her from taking things.

“I can get some one to look at that cut for you.” He said trying to keep his cool, her attitude was certainly not the best and he was getting so irritated…it was almost like…she completely reminded him of himself and the way he acted most of the time, but it was different now because he was receiving it not dishing it out.

“Oh really?” She popped a piece of gum into her mouth and started to chew it loudly, “Are all the other people you are with doctors too?”

“Actually…well Abby is a nurse.”

“Great…I got a nurse, five doctors, and a man that looks like a giant penis.” She smiled at him slyly and struggled to close her bag. If looks could kill Monica would have been laying on the floor because the stare he gave her next was as cold as death itself.

“Aren’t you glad to know there are people left in the world?” He pressed the issue as he continued to follow her around the completely deserted mall. She just went on ignoring him as she pulled the other strap to the bag over her other shoulder, being careful to avoid her injury. He decided that he was going to stop talking to her and go find the others when they both heard rapid footsteps, Monica sighed and pulled her gun from her holster as one of the infected rounded the corner and into their site. She aimed it expertly and squeezed the trigger, the force of the gun nearly blew the mutant’s head off. Romano didn’t know why but he found her actions to be incredibly sexy and his breathing increased. She holstered the gun like it was no big deal and continued to walk down the hall, Romano sort of smiled and followed behind her, maybe she wasn’t so bad after all.

It was probably a matter of hours before they all met up again, each of them holding as many bags as the could and still walk. Monica, who had lived in Cleveland for a few years, told them there was a hotel connected to the mall and that’s where she had been living for the past few days. It was quite a nice hotel and very clean there were absolutely no bodies anywhere, Monica explained that no one was at the hotel because they had all evacuated and then closed the hotel down she had gotten in there by prying open one of the doors and then locking it with a padlock once she was inside. All the comforts of home were there and there was still enough hot water for them all to take a shower, which was something they thought they would never be able to do again.

They all carried their stuff up many flights of stairs after Monica told them it would be safer to be at the top because the infected would get tired and stop trying after a while. She explained that once they got up there she could hook up the generator that she had stolen and they could probably use the elevators. Her room was decked out with candles, in fact the whole room looked like it was paid for by bath and body works.

“You guys won’t need keys they are all electronic and there is no electricity to power them, all the rooms on this floor are suites so knock yourself out.” Monica said as she sat down on her bed, the group looked around amazed at how nice this place was, they had never once stopped to think about breaking into a posh hotel and staying there, it just wasn’t on their mind.

“I’m totally gonna get the biggest suite here!” Carter announced running out of the room, Abby giggled and followed him knowing that she was going to end up sleeping with him in the long run.

“No I’m going to get the biggest one…lets go Lizzie.” They took off behind Carter and Abby in the race to get the best room. Amber laughed softly and then looked to Weaver, as far as everyone else knew, they weren’t an item yet. Without saying anything they both left the room just glad that they were going to have an actual bed to sleep on tonight. Romano took the chance to sit in one of the lovely white leather chairs that were across from Monica’s bed. Monica lit another cigarette and moved so she was sitting on the bed leaning against the headboard.

“Jokes on them, I got the biggest suite.” She said to Romano, she opened the drawer to the table that was right next to her bed and pulled out two small bottles, ones that looked like they probably belonged to a mini bar at one point. She tossed one in Romano’s direction, he caught it and looked at it, it was just a bottle of vodka but it was certainly better then nothing and he knew it would really make him feel more relaxed. “So…wanna take a look at my cut?”

“Yeah why not?” He opened the bottle and took a sip and then set it down letting the warm feeling fill his chest and stomach, then he sat down on the bed next to her and she pulled off her shirt while trying to hold her cigarette at the same time. “Hang on I have some medical supplies.” He got off of the bed taking a deep breath trying to ignore the fact that a girl who was young enough to be his daughter was sitting on the bed in her bra, and to make matters worse she was actually very sexy. He came back over to her and started to clean the wound with peroxide wondering why it seemed like the flesh was burned.

“It was bleeding really bad so I burned it…cauterizing the wound right?” She pushed her hair back behind her shoulders to get it out of his way as he cleaned up the dried blood, the good news was that it didn’t look infected but she was probably going to have some scarring from the burn tissue. He nodded to her comment feeling like if he actually tried to say anything it would come out as mean or sexual harassing. He carefully covered it with a bandage and pulled off his gloves tossing them into the nearest trash can, she sighed and pulled her shirt on before taking another hit of her smoke. “I did it the split second it happened to avoid getting any of the virus in me…I couldn’t risk that.”

“Normally I would say that you were stupid but we aren’t in a normal situation.” He took a deep breath and went back to sit in his chair, he grabbed the small bottle of vodka and drank it down and then tossed it into the trashcan.

“So what’s your story?” She said leaning back on the bed, Romano sighed glad that he finally had someone to talk to who didn’t already hate him.

“We are all from Chicago…”

End Of Part 1