If he thought it had been quiet outside, it was nothing compared to the interior of the hotel. Here the silence was so complete that he heard a high-pitched ring in his ears and his own, controlled breathing sounded like the pneumatics of some machine hidden within the bluish walls.
Once he was confident that he was alone in the lobby, Washington crossed the expanse and worked his way behind the front desk. Luckily, this was an old-school hoteclass="underline" the keys to the rooms hung on little pegs behind the desk with brown, leather fobs embossed with gold numbers. If the establishment had bowed to the trends of technology, there would’ve been nothing more than encoded cards to swipe through the readers attached to the rooms. Utterly useless in a world where electricity had gone the way of the dodo and dinosaurs.
He plucked one down that had the number 207B imprinted on the tag and was making his way toward the stairs when a set of double doors that he’d previously overlooked captured his attention. Above the doors was a wooden plaque with intricate scrollwork depicting flora and fauna; carved into this piece of wood in elegant script were the words McDonough Conference and Ball Room.
The doors below were just as ornate as the sign. They were highly polished and carved with what appeared to be laurel leaves and vines with an occasional rosebud unfurling its petals. The handles were shiny brass and someone had thrust a long, slender pipe through them at some point, forming a crude but effective lock.
Placing his ear against the cool wood, Washington could just make out muffled sounds from the other side. Not voices, but what sounded like furtive movements. A thud, something that sounded like papers shuffling, a shuffling sound that may or may not have been footsteps. Whoever had placed the pipe across the doors had obviously been locking something in. And it wasn’t hard to imagine what.
Washington knew that he should just walk away. That he should leave the doors secured, find his room, and bed down for the night. Get some shut eye and try to regroup with another regiment in the morning.
But another part of him wanted to know exactly what lay on the other side. Maybe it was some sort of morbid curiosity; perhaps exhaustion was beginning to take its toll on his lightning quick decision making abilities. Whatever the reason, this portion of his mind saw the room on the other side of the doors as a mystery that had to be investigated, a riddle in search of a solution.
He glanced below the door handles, hoping to see a keyhole through which he could spy. No suck luck. Furthermore, the doors were nearly flush with the marble floor: no chance of peeking through there.
Lying next to the door was a black marquee with white block letters spelling out URRY CONVENTION. Other letters were scattered about the floor like alphabetic shrapnel around a disk that looked somewhat like a shiny, silver landmine. So that was it then: the rod fortifying the doors had once been the support for this placard. But what kind of convention had the sign been announcing? Washington’s mind ticked off the possibilities: curry, hurry, blurry, scurry… none of them made any sense.
Now, he was definitely intrigued. Besides, what if this wasn’t the only way out? What if the other side of the room had a doppelganger of these doors that weren’t barricaded as well? If he wanted to make it through this night alive, he would have to understand the enemies position… wouldn’t he? Wasn’t recognizance among a soldier’s most valued weapons? As Sun Tzu wrote, a hundred battles could be won without a single loss by knowing both yourself and your opponent.
Washington holstered his weapon and took a slow breath through his nostrils. A quiver of apprehension caused the muscles in his stomach to tremor, but he pushed the fear aside as his hands gripped either side of the rod that barred the doors. He lifted it so slowly than a casual observer might have assumed it was wired to some sort of IED. Taking care that the metal didn’t scrape against the wood and brass of the doors, he began sliding the pipe free.
Next he laid the rod against the floor so gingerly that there wasn’t so much as even the smallest clang. He paused and listened at the door again. This time all seemed quiet on the other side. If anything was rushing toward the door, it was doing so with a stealth that the undead simply didn’t possess.
With his ear pressed against the door, Washington studied the hinges on either side. All of them looked fairly new. Shouldn’t be any issues with them creaking.
He placed one hand on the stock of his pistol and the other on one of the door handles. Holding his breath, he depressed the little lever with his thumb slowly. The bolt slid out of the catch as silently as a cat in the darkness, without even a soft click to announce that the doors could now be thrown wide open.
Washington opened the door as if in slow motion. Every muscle in his body had tensed and his heart hammered within his chest so hard that he was surprised his dog tags didn’t jingle in response.
Finally, there was a crack just large enough to allow him to peek through. Squinting one eye, he leaned his head forward and peered into the room that had so captured his imagination.
For a moment, he felt as though he had nodded off and slipped into some kind of dream.
Moonlight streamed through the skylights and he could see tables and folding chairs in the room, most of them overturned on the plush carpet amid scattered pamphlets, books, and papers. Broken glass seemed to be everywhere and the toile wallpaper was streaked with what had to be blood. All of this, though, had been expected; what caused all of his thoughts to stop as abruptly as a car slamming into a brick wall were the occupants of the room.
There had to be between thirty to forty of them stumbling about the convention hall. They bumped into one another like bit actors in some silent comedy, tripped over their own feet, and shuffled aimlessly back and forth. But these didn’t appear to be people. No, they were all… animals?
Six foot tall rabbits with glossy, plastic eyes brushed against bushy tailed skunks; what appeared to be a Panda ran its paws over the far wall as if it could somehow scratch its way through the other side while a red fox lost its footing on some loose paper and tumbled to the floor. Squirrels, dogs, and even what looked to be a giant jack-a-lope, of all things: all walking upright, all seeming confused and lost. Most of them had fur matted with blood and large, dark gashes around their necks and stomachs.
It was like catching a glimpse of cartoon Hell.
On the far side of the room, a woman in a form-fitting, leopard print leotard pushed her way through the crowd. Round, furry ears peeked out through a tangle of dark hair and a long tail hung limply from her hind side. Unlike the others, her face looked as if it had been painted to resemble the features of a jungle cat: the tip of her nose was as dark as coal and a thin line connected it to lips that, even in death, looked full and pouty against the dark spots that covered her face. Washington knew that red smears on her chin, however, had not been part of the original costume.
For some reason, he found it nearly impossible to take his eyes off this woman. Maybe it was the way the tights clung to the shape of her body, perfectly contouring to the swells of her breasts and the soft curves of her hips and ass. She had to be completely naked beneath them, as there wasn’t even the slightest hint of pantyline around her camel toe.