Chapter Three

Eastpointe, Present Day

Her ‘week-after’ chat with Leon left her feeling awkward most of the day. She eventually finished the breakfast he had brought, but still felt hungry. She tried re-reading one of her Harlequin romance novels, even skimming ahead to the parts that she liked, but it was all just too fake. She wasn’t sure if the world ever worked like it did in one of those books, let alone now that all the survivors of the apocalypse were living in the same town together. She knew some people were pairing up simply because they didn’t have too much of a choice. Romance had nothing to do with it.

Ergo, her decision to consummate with Leon Wolfe.

She popped Beauty and the Beast into the VCR and tried sitting through it, but the cheery songs just weren’t sinking in. She then sifted through her collection of James Spader movies, but most of them were the risqué type and she really didn’t want to be put in that kind of mood. After all, her favorite man in Hollywood probably wasn’t even alive anymore. She didn’t want to be reminded of that.

She decided to make do playing some music on the stereo while picking up the pigsty she was living in. She had never had anyone over before Leon and she didn’t much like the thought of him knowing she lived in a messy house. He would probably go around telling people she wasn’t as content as she claimed to be—that she just liked putting on a show. Well, now she would have a clean house to prove that she was just fine and dandy. It was like fitting the last piece of a puzzle into place.

It took her most of the day and she still didn’t get entirely finished.

But by five o’clock her stomach was growling again, which meant it was time to make her daily trip to the hotel cafeteria. She took a shower, then put on her bathing suit and slipped her clothes on over it in case she felt like taking a dive in the pool afterwards. After all, nothing at home seemed to hold her interest that day.

She then ventured outside. Her neighbors had finished their game of badminton, much to her relief, and she hadn’t heard ‘shuttlecock’ being shouted since that morning.

—They were so immature.

Her golf cart was sitting there, shiny and new-looking just as she left it. She plopped down on the seat, pushed the ignition button, and put her foot on the accelerator. The quiet vroom sound of the engine was nice and steady as she headed down the road.

The air in Rhode Island was never as warm as it was in Florida, even in the middle of the summer. She still had not gotten entirely used to it. She still half expected to feel a skin-scorching breeze every time she opened her front door, but it never came. She had thoughts that maybe someday, in another five years or so, she could return to the coast.

But for now, Eastpointe would have to do.

She exited the streets of the main housing area off Sunrise Avenue and passed by the farms, trying to stay far enough away that the smell of manure would not burn into her nostrils. The road furthest from the farms was the main stretch near the high concrete walls, so this was the one she was forced to take.

The wall itself—probably ten feet high—cast a long shadow across most of South Street. However, it was still not able to mute the sound of the occasional breathless moan originating on the other side. Sometimes she could even hear something trying to claw away at the concrete stones in an attempt to get through.

She was used to it. So was everyone else.

She passed the armory on her right, (which at one time had been a roller rink,) and proceeded past the big garage where all of the larger gas-powered vehicles were stored.

The road ended at the main gate. There were a couple men with rifles positioned here, along with a little rottweiler resting lazily between them and serving no purpose whatsoever. The men were sitting back in lawn chairs and exchanging half-assed ideas for starting a football league of some sort. Courtney didn’t know their names.

There were two sets of gates that had to open in order for someone to get in or out. The middle area where the abandoned guard shack rested acted as sort of a decontamination zone.

Beyond that at the outermost gate, a lone zombie was standing with its icky fingers wrapped around the wire links, gazing longingly at the two men and the dog that were ignoring it. It wore a dark business suit with the sleeves ripped off at the elbows. Its skin was almost a pale blue color, all blood having long coagulated and pooled in its lower extremities. It remained silent, though it was most definitely still hungry.

On the wall next to the gate someone had posted a sign that read:

BEWARE THE JABBERWOCK

THE JAWS THAT BITE

THE CLAWS THAT CATCH

To which she mused, Beware the Jubjub bird and shun the frumious Bandersnatch. Yeah, I get it.

Next to that sign was another:

Be careful out there.

If you come back dead,

then no cake for you.

That sign was there every time she passed through. She figured someone should have taken it down a long time ago. Nobody went out the gate anymore—not since the Committees had sent her and the rest of the Strike Team on the last retrieval mission over two years ago.

Courtney turned away from the gate and took the road heading toward the hotel parking lot. The men sitting in the lawn chairs stopped talking long enough to wave at her, so she smiled and waved back.

It wasn’t too hard.

She crossed the parking lot and maneuvered her cart between the yellow lines next to six or seven other carts, where she stopped and cut the engine. She hopped out and stepped into the large shadow of the Eastpointe Hotel.

It was a big building, but not humongously big. It had a shiny stonewashed color about it. There were five floors not including the basement and sub-basement, (which she had never had a reason to visit), with the lavish rooms reserved for committee members to live in during their terms and the penthouse given to the acting Superintendent.

She wasn’t even sure who exactly the acting Superintendent was. She missed out on the last four elections.

She opened one of the glass doors and stepped inside.

There was a lot of noise coming from the cafeteria to her left, which was to be expected at that time of day, and after smelling roast beef in the air she knew there would be long line at the buffet.

Her eyes drifted away, passing the doors leading to the swimming pool and the conference room and eventually focusing on the door opposite the cafeteria. She’d never been through that door before.

Despite her growling stomach, food didn’t seem all that appealing just then. There was too much on her mind to be solved with a simple helping of roast beef. Somehow she knew that before she even left her house.

That day she had a hankering to venture through the other door.

So she did.