Hollowland Read online

  I gave up on waiting for her and went downstairs. Blue made a fire in the sink and held a skillet over it, cooking meat-type patties. It was the first almost cooked food I’d had in ages, so I ate happily.

  Harlow came downstairs wearing another skirt and strappy tank top, pairing it with her usual combat boots. Her hair was pulled back nicely, accented with some diamond clips she’d found in the jewelry box.

  “I have fantastic news,” Blue grinned. “I poked around the house this morning, and I found an SUV in the garage. The keys were on the key rack, it’s gassed up, and ready to go.”

  “You mean we don’t have to walk?” Harlow’s eyes sparkled. “And we can actually take stuff with us?”

  “Honest?” I asked, fighting to contain my happiness. I thought I was going to spend the next month walking to Wyoming. “Did you test drive it and everything?”

  “Well, I started it to make sure it ran,” Blue said.

  “It purred like a kitten,” Lazlo added.

  “It’s in the garage?” I asked, already backing away.

  Before Blue could say anything more, I rushed out to the garage. It was dark, but I could still see the bulky shape of a massive gas-guzzling SUV.

  I hit my hand against the garage door opener, which naturally didn’t work since there wasn’t any power. But I didn’t care. I was too excited. I had to pry the garage door open myself, but my happiness empowered me.

  With the sunlight shining in, I got my first good look at it. It was black and damn near brand new. Cupping my hands, I peered in and admired how spacious the interior was. There was even plenty of room in the back for Ripley.

  “It is pretty exciting,” Lazlo smiled, coming out to the garage to inspect it with me.

  “No, it’s more than exciting. This is life changing. This…” I was on the verge of tears I was so happy. In the months before Max and I had gone to quarantine, we had found exactly two running vehicles with keys, and they both sustained traumatic injury. “When are we leaving?”

  “As soon as we’re ready, I guess,” Lazlo shrugged.

  “If I had known about this, I wouldn’t have slept last night.”

  “Wow.” He looked at me with awe. “I don’t think you’re kidding.”

  “I’m really not,” I admitted.

  I ran back into the house, hurrying to gather up all my stuff so we could get out of here. I even packed Harlow’s stuff to speed the process along. Our messenger bags were filled with essentials. If we had to leave things behind, we’d still have everything in a carry-on size.

  We loaded up the SUV, and I felt almost optimistic. Sure, I still didn’t know where my little brother was, or even if he was alive, and man-eating zombies still roamed the hollow shell of the earth, but god dammit, we had a car!

  It took some cajoling to get Ripley into the back, but I did not want to leave her behind. She’d be an invaluable resource against the infected, but more than that, I kind of liked her.

  Thanks to a can of tuna, she eventually got in, and once she settled in amongst the bags and realized she was free to sleep, she seemed okay with it.

  I called shotgun, and Lazlo scowled. Blue got to drive because he found it, but he promised me that I’d drive the next leg.

  When he started the SUV, and I heard the rumble of the engine, my heart soared. We backed out of the driveway, turned on the road, and drove away from the abandoned house.

  “How about some driving tunes?” Lazlo suggested.

  “There aren’t radio stations anymore,” Blue said, but he fiddled with the radio.

  Static blared out. The GPS kicked in and told us it couldn’t locate the satellite, but Blue hit another button and shut it off. He hit something else and smiled.

  “Eureka! A CD player!”

  Bon Jovi wafted out of the speakers, and we all exchanged a look.

  “I don’t know. That’s kind of really unexpected,” I said.

  “Not bad, but really unexpected,” Blue agreed.

  “I think it’s kind of bad,” Lazlo said. “But it could be worse.”

  “Yeah, it could be your CD,” I said, and Blue laughed.

  “Ha ha.” Lazlo rolled his eyes and sunk lower in the seat.

  “Who is this?” Harlow asked.

  “Somebody who’s probably dead,” I said and looked out the window.

  The burgeoning development started giving way to more established homes, and the houses got older and less nice. It wasn’t until we’d been driving for a while, and houses turned into buildings looking sad in the desert sun that it dawned on me where we were.

  We turned on the strip, which should’ve been glittering with garish bright lights but instead looked like a dusty ghost town.

  A reproduction of the Eiffel Tower had fallen on its side. Cars were crashed or simply left deserted up and down the road. A massive fountain was filled with stagnant water and floating bodies. Trees on the boulevard were wilted and dead. Several rotting corpses lined the sidewalks, and carrion birds circled in the sky.

  “Oh my gosh.” I leaned forward, looking at the broken marquees that hung in front of towering hotels. “This is Las Vegas.”

  “Yeah. Where did you think we were?” Lazlo asked.

  “I didn’t know. I just knew desert.” I had spent so much time isolated in the quarantine that it never occurred to me how near we were to a city. “We should stop.”

  “What for? You in the mood to gamble?” Lazlo asked.

  “These are really nice hotels. I’m sure the suites and kitchens are loaded with non-perishable food,” I said.

  Blue slowed down. He rolled up over the curb, driving around the deteriorating decorative features to pull right in front of the doors.

  “We won’t be able to get up to the suites because they’re on the top floors and the elevators are broken, but there has to be stuff on the main floor,” Blue said and turned off the SUV.

  “So we just started on this road trip, and we’re stopping?” Harlow raised an eyebrow at us.

  “We should stock up while we can,” I opened the door and hopped out. “We don’t know when we’ll be able to again.”

  I went around the back and opened the door so Ripley could get out, and I grabbed the handgun from Harlow’s bag and shoved it in my waistband. The sun was blinding and hot, making me even more thankful for the vehicle and its air conditioning.

  Blue and I walked into the casino first, with Lazlo and Harlow following. I didn’t like the idea of them being together, because Harlow froze and Lazlo was an idiot. I wanted to get in and out of here as quickly as possible.

  “I’ve been here before,” Lazlo said to no one in particular. “I played at the Hard Rock, and we partied it up in Vegas for like three days after.”

  “Yeah, great.” I did my best to ignore him as I stepped through the broken glass and squinted in the darkness of the casino. “Does anybody have a light or something?”

  Casinos were built without windows so people can’t keep track of how long they’ve been there. That’s fine when it’s full of bright lights, but with the power out, the casino was a pitch black tomb. We were left feeling around broken chairs, upended slot machines, and lots of dead bodies.

  “It smells horrible in here,” Lazlo grimaced after he’d made it a few feet inside. It smelled pretty rank, but I was getting used to the smell of death, as much as anyone could get used to it.

  “You should’ve smelled the truck I was in yesterday.” Harlow gagged at the thought.

  “Blue, can you see anything?” I walked farther into the darkness. Blue was ahead of me, and I couldn’t see him anymore

  “Not really. I’m trying to find security. They should have flashlights.” He started to say something else, but he grunted and I heard a bang. “I’m okay. I just tripped.”

  “You know, I saw a flashlight in the car,” Lazlo said. He waited just inside the doors, rubbing his arm and looking around in the dark. “Should I go get it?”

  “Yeah, that mi
ght be helpful,” I said dryly.

  He came back a few minutes later with a flashlight, and I took it from him. I had deemed him too stupid to even handle a light. After that, we were able to find the security area and two working flashlights. I gave one to Blue and one to Harlow.

  Lazlo made some kind of complaint, but I ignored him. Blue went to the right to look for food, and I went to the left, thinking it’d be quicker if we split up. I left Harlow and Lazlo with the instruction to look for food but not to stray too far away.

  “Is she always like this?” Lazlo said to Harlow as I walked away.

  “Usually,” Harlow replied, and I sighed to myself.

  I held the flashlight up over my head, shining as much light as I could, and made my way through smashed slots and broken tables, looking for a kitchen or bar.

  Without air conditioning or windows, it was suffocating. By the time I found the kitchen, I was drenched in sweat and finding it hard to breathe. The air was filled with dust, heat, and death.

  I found an empty black trash bag, and I rummaged around. Most of the food had spoiled, and a body lying on the stove had burned to a crisp some time ago. I pushed past it and hunted around the shelves.

  There were many jars of maraschino cherries and olives for drinks, and I tossed them in the bag. The best thing I found were cases of bottled of water, and I was filling the bag with them when I heard a shaky groan behind me.

  A solitary zombie stood in the door to the kitchen. It was so far into the end stages of the disease, I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Most of its hair had fallen out, and it was emaciated and pale. It looked like a reanimated corpse.

  Part of its bottom lip was gone, as well as most of its teeth. Yellowish drool dripped down from its mouth, and it just stood there, staring at me. A younger, healthier zombie would’ve already sprung on me, but this one was almost dead.

  I didn’t want to waste a bullet on it, but I couldn’t leave it alive either. I scanned the kitchen, hoping for something less personal than a butcher knife but more dangerous than a ladle.

  The zombie walked towards me, hobbling and bumping into everything. I grabbed the thing nearest to me – a super long meat thermometer. I worked with what I had.

  I stepped forward, and before it could react, I jammed the thermometer in its eye, right through its brain. The zombie stopped moving, but it took a second before it collapsed back on the ground.

  When it fell, my flashlight picked up the bigger problem.

  – 6 –

  Waiting outside the kitchen door were three young, hungry zombies, but I hadn’t heard them over the dying zombie’s labored breaths. I had been too busy concentrating on the wrong zombie.

  “It was a fucking decoy,” I said, feeling confused.

  The other zombies charged towards me. I grabbed a metal pan and chucked it at the charging zombie’s head. It didn’t kill him, but it bought me a second to think of a better plan.

  I dropped my flashlight on the counter and dove across a stainless steel island, sending pans flying as I slid out of reach of another zombie’s grasp. I slammed into the stove across from it, knocking a spoon, a salt shaker, and box of matches down onto my lap when I fell to the floor.

  A zombie dove across the island, and I dropped to my belly, sliding in the gap underneath it. I barely fit. The zombie crashed onto its head, falling onto the floor next to where I lay hidden under the island.

  The box of matches was within my reach, so I grabbed for it. As the zombie struggled to get up, its foot slid under the island, almost kicking me in the face, and I struck a match. I pressed the flame against his pants.

  Unfortunately, zombies aren’t very flammable, and it went out instantly. It still seemed like a brilliant idea, and I slid out the other side of the island.

  Two of the zombies were on the opposite side of the kitchen from me. The third one, a very fat balding man who looked disturbingly like Paul Giamatti, crouched down to eat the carcass of the zombie I’d just killed. The meat thermometer was still in its eyes as the Paul Giamatti zombie ate its face.

  “God, you’re gross,” I grimaced as I stood up. He looked up at me, excited over fresh meat, and I was already grabbing a bottle of tequila off the counter.

  He stood up, and I hit the bottle over his head. While it did smash, breaking a bottle over someone’s head requires a lot more force than movies had led me to believe. My wrist screamed painfully as shards of glass and alcohol splattered everywhere.

  Zombie Paul Giamatti howled as blood and tequila dripped into his eyes. I tried to strike another match, which didn’t work, and he reached for me.

  I stepped backward, nearly running right into the arms of one of his infected comrades, but I ducked down just before he grabbed me. I leaned back, rolling into the zombie’s legs and knocking him down, and then somersaulted back onto my feet.

  I finally lit a stupid match, and I flicked it onto the alcohol-drenched Paul Giamatti zombie. This time, he caught on fire, and it quickly spread. He even managed to light the zombie next to him on fire.

  This was good, except that now I had two crazed, burning zombies standing between me and the exit, plus another one that wasn’t on fire. I had not thought this plan through at all.

  The flaming zombies stood on one side of the kitchen, and they seemed too preoccupied by the fact that they were on fire to really care about me. The other one blocked the only open aisle, and I figured that I had a better chance of getting by him.

  I grabbed my garbage bag with one hand, and with the other, I picked up a ladle. Holding onto the spoon end, I waited until the zombie stepped towards me, then I swiped it across his neck.

  This ladle had a hook at the end of the handle so it could be hung up, and the hook caught his throat, tearing it completely open. His blood was too thick to spray out, but it startled gurgling. He put his hands over the wound and leaned onto the counter.

  I slid past him, moving as quickly as I could. I thought once I got out of the kitchen, I would be home free, but since I was running, the burning zombies decided to give chase.

  Carrying a bag filled with heavy water bottles and jars, I found myself jumping and diving over tables as fast balls of fire tore after me. If I tripped on a single fallen chair, I was totally screwed.

  Because they were on fire, they at least provided me with enough light to see about a foot in front of me. That was good since I had left the flashlight in the kitchen.

  I had a gun, but by the time I got it out and tried to aim, it would be too late. In retrospect, I should’ve pulled it out in the kitchen, but I’m always conserving ammunition. If there were other weapons available, I wanted to use them first.

  One of the zombies got tripped up on something or simply just gave up. When I looked back over my shoulder, he was lying on the ground, burning to death the way he was meant to.

  That damn Paul Giamatti was persistent, and he should’ve been dead by now, but he only seemed to be gaining speed.

  When I rounded a corner and leapt over a slot machine, I saw sunlight shining in, meaning I was getting close to the doorway. That also meant that I was probably getting closer to innocent bystanders, and I didn’t have a plan on how to stop the burning zombie when I got there.

  “Run!” I shouted, in case anyone was standing in the entrance.

  “Remy?” Harlow asked. I was close enough to where I could see her, and she wasn’t running. She just stood there, staring at me.

  “Run, god dammit!” I growled, and she finally darted towards the door.

  Lazlo appeared out of nowhere, seemingly stepping from the shadows. He looked surprised, but instead of running, he raised a bulky looking gun, pointing it right at me.

  “Wait to get down until I tell you!” Lazlo said, and I didn’t know why, except he was a bad shot and needed us to get really close. I was nearly to him, when he yelled, “Get down!”

  I complied, diving at the ground and landing almost at his feet. I heard a weird clacking
sound, but it wasn’t like a gun going off.

  I closed my eyes tightly, waiting to feel the burning death grip from a zombie, but it never came. Finally, I lifted my head and looked around. The zombie lay a few feet behind me, writhing on the floor and groaning. I got up and watched as he stopped moving.

  “What’d you do?” I asked, looking at Lazlo.

  “I tased him,” Lazlo nodded to the square gun lying on the carpet. Two cords went from it, connecting it to the burning corpse. “I grabbed a taser off a security guard. What happened to the zombie, anyway? Why is he on fire?”

  “Cause I lit him on fire,” I shrugged and brushed dust from my pants.

  “Why didn’t you just shoot him? That’s why you have a gun,” Lazlo said, pushing his dark bangs out of his eyes.

  “I was saving bullets.” I rubbed the back of my neck and avoided his gaze. “We might not have any for a long time, and… I mean, the zombie looked like Paul Giamatti! How the hell was I supposed to know he’d be so flipping fast?”

  “Who’s Paul Giamatti?” Harlow asked.

  “Never mind.” I looked over at her. “Why didn’t you run when I told you to?”

  “Cause Lazlo was here, and he wasn’t running.” Harlow said it like it made complete sense. As if Lazlo was the voice of reason.

  “When I say run, just run! I don’t care what anybody else is doing! You could’ve been killed!”

  “If you’re so worried about my safety, maybe you shouldn’t light zombies on fire and then lead them to me,” Harlow shot back.

  “I wouldn’t have led him to you if you’d run,” I muttered.

  “Is everyone okay?” Blue asked, and I saw the bobbing glow of his flashlight as he rushed towards us from the other side of the casino.

  “Yeah, we’re fine,” Lazlo told him, grinning broadly. “Thanks to me.”

  “I heard yelling. What happened?” Blue slowed down when he came into the light of the entrance, carrying his own garbage bag full of stuff, and clicked off his flashlight.