Sam felt a dull throbbing pain in the back of his head.
He felt as if he were swimming through a dark void, his limbs flying over and over in untraceable directions. He felt light as air. He didn't know where he was and maybe he didn't care.
And then the pain came and the vision went translucent and he felt ground underneath him and cold air above him and throb throb throb in his head.
When Sam slowly came to his senses, it took a second before the panic lit up inside him.
His eyes flew open. He jerked his head up, and then gasped at the pain that exploded from it. He fell back down, squinting his eyes shut with agony.
The pain eventually faded back down to a throb. Opening his eyes again slowly, Sam tentatively turned his head from side to side and scanned around the area.
He was inside, somewhere, in a room, alone. There was a bed, which he sadly wasn’t laying on, with a nightstand and a dresser.
It was a bedroom, but the area was too sterile. No paintings or memoires or signs of a human life within the furniture.
Sterile like a hotel room.
Sam strained to remember what had happened. He remembered facing the zombies. He remembered the child zombie, with its empty blue eyes, and he remembered going unconscious.
And for some reason he wasn’t dead.
The zombies must have carried him here. For some reason.
His mind came up with a million different scenarios, a million different kinds of torture, and the panic flared up and nearly engulfed him.
Okay, okay, no thinking about that. Sam was trembling on the floor. Don’t think about that.
Sam tentatively pushed himself up. His bag was missing, along with his machete. He was helpless and unarmed. His ankles were in their constant state of agony. He had no idea where he or any of his friends were. Sam felt dread crawl up his spine.
In that moment, an explosion moved the floor and shuddered the furniture. The noise blew into Sam’s ears and his eyes widened. He stood up on his knees and stumbled over to the window.
Sam could see the light reflected around the building. He was facing the wrong way; he could see the empty parking lot, and fields of snow behind. The back of the hotel was relatively empty, except for the few zombies jogging towards the explosion at the front.
Sam watched as military airplanes shot across the dark sky towards them, in a V formation, like migrating geese. The crescent moon shone behind them like a dim spotlight.
Fear was a background noise; always there in the corners and creeping up into Sam’s consciousness. It was a constant battle to keep it suppressed.
After a few seconds, the floor shook again roughly with a second explosion. The tremors ran up Sam’s legs and he kneeled forwards in pain.
Many things happened at once. A second before kneeling over, Sam noticed a figure streaking across the pavement. It was so sudden and unexpected that Sam shot back up and started hard into the darkness.
There were no streetlights, but Sam saw the familiar grey coat and head of hair and rifle and his stomach clenched with hope.
At the same time, a small scream echoed through the wall, ending in a whimper. A scream that was unmistakably human.
When the figure, who he hoped was Brendan, disappeared, and the second explosion faded away, Sam walked on his knees over to the wall and sat beside it.
