Chapter Twenty -Five

At the hospital, Moria, George, and Lissa, tried to figure out the best place to go, since the floors security was clearly compromised. 

“They could easily be elsewhere, or they could come back. Imagine if they come back. Search the floors. The radio keeps saying they are hunting, they could come back here.” George said, worriedly eying the door they had barricaded. 

After they had slept in short bursts, the three of them had begun to worry again. The Zeds were starting to take shelter around town, and the storm was starting to kick up…Now would be a good time to figure out a safe place to go, and go there, before the storm stopped, and the Zeds decided to come back to the hospital. 

“I wish we had keys.” Moria sighed, sitting on the edge of her desk. “I mean, it would be tricky to get there, but…if we had keys, we could get up to the executive floor.”

George eyed Lissa, who smiled and began to dig in her back. “I thought the executive floor was a myth?”

“No, they just don’t talk about it, they don’t want us anywhere in it.” Moria said with a sigh. “It’s got a fireplace, if the power goes, backup water supplies as well as a ton of medical supplies, some computers if the power stays on, TV, beds, couches…it’s like a luxury apartment almost, but also a conference room. It would house the three of us, comfortably.”

“Hows the internet?” Lissa said with a smile. 

“You can hardwire in, assuming the power stays” Moria chuckled. “But I don’t have keys to that.”

“We do.” Lissa smiled. “We got these from a janitor zombie, and they have to have the master key.”

Moria smiled. “Passcode too, likely.”

George frowned. He hadn’t considered them needing a passcode. 

Lissa smiled, once more. “I grabbed this,” Lissa said, removing a clipboard. “It had room assignments, and I bet, a passcode, if they had to check the floor.” Lissa flipped the pages, and revealed a roster of tasks to be done by the hospitality lady assigned to the cart Lissa had taken it from. 

“How did you think of that?” Asked George, who if he hadn’t already been secretly in love with Lissa, would have fallen for her then. 

“Seemed like a good idea.” Lissa shrugged. “Was right after we got the keys and I thought, ‘hey, good idea’.”

“Whoa.” George said, thoroughly impressed. Lissa smiled, blushing a little. 

“Yeah, that was a crazy good call.” 

“Well, it has a map too. I know we all know the hospital but…”

Moria and George nodded.

“So the next question is how to get whatever we will need, upstairs. And how to get into the room.”

“Should be empty. None of the people with access were in town, other than a couple of janitors, but I don’t think anyone thought to go up there.”

“How would they get to it?” Asked Moria. I barely made it here alive, making it further would have been tough.”

“Well, I mean, someone could have.” Lissa said. “But frankly, most the custodial staff have families, I think they would have made a break for the doors, not the top floor.”

“Probably.” Said George. “If not, we have keys, and we can get in, even if they pushed something against the door or something, we are strong.”

So the three got to work getting their supplies sorted into bags. “I think we should take the elevator.” Lissa said, finally, when they surveyed the amount of stuff they had.”

“Well, we could leave supplies behind.” George said. 

“Sure, and when this lasts for months, not weeks, we will be starving a lot sooner.” Lissa replied. 

Moria shrugged. “It does seem likely that we may be here for a long while. If not at the hospital, in Flake, and we have no idea how long they will leave us here. So far our only help has been a reporter who seriously sucks at his job.”

Moria paused. “I don’t mean to talk shit about him it’s just…c’mon. The radio station is giving us more information, and this is all the government can give us? Some reporter?”

“I figured they were putting a plan together, you know, we report the rules of how these zombies work, they brief the military, they come in all world war z style, and we get liberated.” George shrugged.

“I think if they spend any money at all it will only be to blow Flake City up.”

“Nah,” Lissa said. “If they were going to blow us up, they would have done it already. The government, and the R & D place, they all have interests in this spot, not just the city, but the land, the mountains, so they won’t blow it up.”

“You think?” Asked Moria, having not considered this. 

“Absolutely.” Lissa confirmed. “I watched some of George’s old videos about what to do in an apocalypse, and he mentioned some government plan. Part of that involves blowing us up if they can’t contain it, and, they have managed to contain it. So, you don’t want to blow it up, innocent people could be there, sure, but, anyone remember the people from the R & D corporate office coming to Flake? Trying to buy up parts of the city, parts of the mountains, trying to get the mountain tribes to sign over proprietary rights to magic and shit. THAT is why they won’t blow us up, I think.”

“Wait, what?” Asked George. 

Moria smiled, listening. 

“They have come for a long time, the suits from the R & D Corporate offices. They have asked, begged, and threatened, all in efforts to buy property, and to get the tribes to sign some contract that tries to govern stuff that doesn’t exist…which doesn’t work well, not with the tribes in the mountains…those people, they see things differently. The same people who live and survive in the storms when they stall out in the mountains, gathering energy and force, those are some special people, and, yeah…” Lissa lit a cigarette in the bathroom doorway. “Yeah, maybe magic is a little real up there. I didn’t want to believe half of this crap, but, zombies are walking so, here we are. They tried to buy and secure the rights to magic, and to the mountains, which, are ancient. Those mountains have been a place of peace, tons of various tribes took refuge there, and lived in peace for years, centuries, and of course they don’t take kindly to outsiders.” Lissa was omitting, admittedly, a lot if stuff, but, she also didn’t know how much she could trust Moria and George…or herself, now that she thought of it. 

“What do I even know anymore.” Lissa thought to herself as she exhaled smoke. “I just need to get somewhere safe so I can process what the fuck happened down in the morgue.”