Gunslingers #1: Jace and the Hotel
A small, nearly unnoticeable breeze rolls in through the broken window of the hotel room. I didn’t break the window; it was probably its former resident, the one who harvested it of anything salvageable. But that’s not why I’m here. Shelter is the only thing that can be borrowed from these broken buildings now. That seems to be all I’ve been able to find. Shelter and a hell of a lot of bodies.
Laid out beside me is the large brown hiking backpack that I’ve carried with me since the beginning and the contents that I’ve gathered since. When laid out, it doesn’t look like much…
1 hunting knife
2 boxes of rifle ammo
1 box of assorted bandages (seven remaining)
3 sticks of beef jerky
1 half-litre canteen of water (full)
1 map of Toronto
…no it doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough to get me by. I put everything away, each item its own specific place, and use the back-pack as a pillow. I take off my green military-style jacket and lay it over top of me. The wind is still blowing through the broken window. It’s going to be a cold night.
A scraping at the door to the hotel room wakes me and instantly I know that I’ve overstayed my welcome. The lock has held out, but if more than one infected start piling onto that door, it can only hold for so long. That’s assuming that they don’t attract a-
Bang. Something smashes into the door and breaks a massive hole into it. A red, blood-soaked arm lunges through the hole and reaches for anything beyond it. Fucking Ragers, always getting in the god damn way.
I fling my bag, my safety pack, my life force, over my shoulder and grab the rifle I left lying on the floor. I know for a fact that it has five shots loaded into it. I always keep it full. The door way is blocked, that’s obvious. I could open the door and lunge with my combat knife, take out the Rager and avoid the infected, but there could be more Ragers out there. It’s too risky. I take a deep breath, button up my jacket, and jump out the window.
The cold steel of the fire escape meets my face as I land on the metal contraption. Luckily for me, It goes all the way down to the second floor. Stair after stair after stair I run as fast as I can down the fire escape, praying that the Ragers don’t follow me. I run past a room full of infected but they don’t notice the man almost literally flying down the fire escape. I know I’m going to fast, I can feel my hard pounding in my chest; bump, bump, bumping in my chest. So heavy, like a brick in my chest. My vision’s blurring. I reach into the bag and find the one thing I forgot to list. My inhaler.
As I pull it from an easy-access pocket, my foot gets caught, and I sail ass-over-tea-kettle into the last floor of the fire-escape. I watch as the inhaler dislodges from my hand and falls into the alleyway bellow. I don’t see if it breaks or not, my vision is already blurring, I feel tired…so tired. The world is all sinking into darkness, I can hear the deep breathing of the infected everywhere. A dark symphony lulling me to sleep. Goodnight Toronto.
No! I don’t let the darkness take me. I take deep, slow breaths, bringing myself back up. I’m fine. I know I’m fine, I can do this.
I pick myself up and take several deep breaths. My vision returns to me and I can see that, yes, my inhaler has shattered on the hard blacktop below. That’s fine. It was almost empty anyways. I walk over to the ladder and drop it down into the alleyway below. The sound is uncomfortably loud, but I try to ignore it. When I get to the bottom of the ladder I check for any infected, but the coast seems clear. I grab my knife from out of my bag and hold it close. My rifle is still attached to my bag, but it’s too loud. A gunshot in the middle of the street would attract Ragers all around.
The street at the end of the alleyway appears to be empty of the infected also, but every abandoned car could be housing one of those gross bastards.
Something across the street catches my eye and then I see it…Bob’s Butchery. The thought of real, juicy meat fills my head and I make the decision to make camp there for the rest of the night. I step into the street and an infected stumbles out from behind a Buick, his hands reached towards my neck. I flip my knife forward and plant it securely in the freak’s head. It drops to its knees and falls to the ground.
The butcher’s shop is bleach white with the words Bob’s Butchery written in red letters across the top. The letters are in a fancy, cursive font, but they still look like blood. I take one step onto the landing in front of the store and feel a small tap on my shoulder. I tighten my grip on my knife and start to turn quickly.
“Whoa, friend. Slow it down.” There’s another tap on my shoulder and I slowly creep around. “That’s better.” The man says, his burly beard shaking with every word. He stand’s slightly shorter than me, maybe five eleven or six feet. He’s wearing a wrinkled suit that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in weeks and he has a pair of thick black glasses. The only part of him that seems tended is his slicked back brown hair that looks as if it’s cut regularly. Then I see what he was tapping me with; a two foot long sawed off shotgun with the word “Annabelle” written across the barrel in white paint. He points the maw of the gun at my forehead and smiles.
“Nice to see another mouth-breather, eh? How about handing over that backpack now.” His smile seems so fake all of a sudden.
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