FSE

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I woke the next morning to a dark, chilly hotel room. My entire body was stiff, it was partly from the cold, but mostly from haven driven for sixteen hours the night before. I stretched out a little bit before I sat up, looking around the dark room. The sun was just barely beginning to peek in though the window, which had been covered in a layer of frost, signaling to me that it had snowed last night. The entire room was filled with an ambient blue light, due to the ice on the tinted window. I pushed aside my covers and was hit by a cold blast of air that made my hair stand on end and gave me goosebumps all over my bare arms and legs. I slipped out of bed and dressed as quickly as I could, just wanting to cover up and get out of the cold.

Raf's teeth were chattering, so I grabbed the thickest blanket on my bed and lay it over him so the cold wouldn't wake him up. He needed the sleep. I pulled on my boots and plate carrier before removing the couch from the door, grabbing my rifle and walking down stairs. I was worried about how much it may have snowed last night. Maine always had a lot of snowfall, compared to Texas anyways. I'd had problems with snow in the past because even All Wheel Drive can only take you so far when there's three feet of snow on the roads, with an inch of ice underneath.

I walked down the five spiraling flights of stairs and back down into the lobby. It was considerably darker, and colder, down here than it was upstairs, I even felt the cold biting me through my jacket and pants. I went up to the door, before I even tried it I could see that there was a ton of snow on the ground.

"This not look promising",I said to myself as I swung the door open.

It was like a frozen wasteland outside. There was no fewer than four feet of hard, slick snow on the ground and it was still actively coming down. The skies were a dark grey and the wind was gusting hard, there was a blizzard coming, no doubt in my mind. As I glanced over at my truck, the idea of even attempting to go anywhere went right out the window. My truck's rear axle was covered in ice and the exhaust pipe was frozen closed.

"That's just great",I said aloud as I began trudging through the snow to my Chevy,"it's like mother nature sits around all day and thinks of way to screw with me."

Upon bending down and inspecting my pickup, I discovered that the AWD, RWD and FWD interface was frozen solid and that the drive shaft was covered in thick ice. Further more, the cold of the air had likely frozen the fuel in the tank, which met I couldn't even start it, let alone drive it. The doors were iced shut as well and the handles didn't budge when I tried them. I couldn't know without pulling them off, but I bet everything I had that the hydraulic fluid in my brakes and shocks was also nothing but ice. My pick up may as well have been a giant ice cube, there wasn't any way we were going anywhere today.

"Well that's just wonderful", I said standing and looking into the sky.

Lightning was flashing on and off in the distant sky while the wind and snow was getting more intense. I'd say it was probably about five or six degrees out, but it felt like I was back in the Arctic with the windchill.

"Probably for the best", I said blowing into my hands to warm them up, "need to get inside before I freeze to death."

I quickly went back inside and closed the door behind me. I had to wonder how long the snow would last. I'd heard of blizzards lasting for weeks or more. I wasn't on any kind of schedule by any stretch of the imagination, but every day we stayed in the same spot put us in danger of catching Agent Six from some contaminated source or simply running out of food and water. I climbed back up the long flights of stairs, walked down the long hallway with our room at the end and reentered it, where I found Raf awake, but still laying in bed, trying to keep warm by my guess.

"Where did you go?", Raf asked.

"I went out to see how bad the snow was", I answered.

"And?", Raf asked.

"Well the truck is basically an ice cube", I replied setting my rifle in the corner, "there's also a blizzard moving in fast."

A loud crack of thunder suddenly rang through the air, shaking the entire room and rattling the windows. Both Raf and jumped at the sudden crack.

"You mean that blizzard?", Raf asked somewhat scared, not taking his eyes off the window.

"Yeah", I answered back, a little scared myself, "that blizzard."

Raf turned and faced me, his green eyes glowing brightly in the dark room, "so were stuck here?"

"It would seem that way", I replied, "at least for the time being."

Raf sighed and sat up, "so what are we gonna do while we wait out the storm?"

"We need to search the hotel for anything we can use, food, water, ammo and the like", I replied.

I unzipped my backpack and pulled out two small Motorola radios.

"We can use these to stay in touch",I said,"it's a big hotel, so you take the upper two floors and I'll take the lower three."

"Sounds good to me",Raf replied taking the radio from me.

He pulled on socks, cargo pants and a jean jacket before grabbing his rifle and boots.

"Just radio me if you find something",I said,"do you remember how I taught you to work these?"

"Yes",Raf said,"press the button on the side to talk, release after I'm done."

"Channel one",I said flipping mine on.

I grabbed my gear and exited the room. I walked down the long hallway and entered the stairwell. It was like any stairwell you might find in a taller building. It had the long spiral stair case with doors leading to each floor with a grate on the back wall to service the elevator. I walked down one of the flights of stairs and came to a door that read "Floor 3".

As old training kicked in, I found myself clicking the chamber of my assault rifle closed and raising it as I placed my back against the wall and pushed the door open. I knew there wasn't anyone here, but it had been so deeply seared into my brain by my Dad and Delta training to do this that it was almost like an instinct.

"Clear",I said to myself,"move up."

I quickly turned into the doorway, hugging the wall to make myself a smaller target, side-strafing to the right of it once I entered the open hallway. It was about three hundred or so feet long with doors on either side. I could see the elevator entrance at the end of hall that yellow tape on it and sign that read, "Out Of Order".

"Looks like no one's using that",I said to myself.

My eyes were darting back and fourth as I combed the hallway.

"Clear",I whispered to myself.

With the hallway cleared, I turned my attention to the first door, which was slightly cracked open. I raised my rifle and pushed the door open, finding nothing but an empty room. I stepped further in, finding nothing of interest except a medical box on a coffee table. I flipped it open, it contained a few rolls of gauze and a bottle of aspirin.

"Not much of a medical kit",I said stuffing it's contents into the blow out kit on my vest,"but I'll take it."

I exited the room and walked to the one across the hall. The door was shut tightly, but unlocked. I put my guard up a little as I entered the room. Like the one before it, empty. The one after it? Empty. As I went from room to room, working my way down the hallway, I caught sight of a secondary hall way that went down about a hundred feet and branched off into two more. I started down the hallway, coming to the first door on the right, shut completely. Keeping my rifle ready to go, I tried the knob. The door slowly opened, revealing another seemingly empty room. I stepped inside, checking my corners and listening for any noises that could give away the position of someone who was hiding out. I flipped on my flashlight, shining it around the room. As I did, a faint glimmer pierced my eye, causing me to shine the light back in that direction.

It came from an unzipped suitcase.

Inside, was a black and silver military watch. It was the exact same one that I had worn in Delta Force and the time I spent with the National guard. I lifted the watch out of the suitcase, turning it over in my hand. It seemed to be made mostly of titanium and the strap was wide nylon with two plastic buckles.

"Nice piece",I said clasping it around my wrist and resuming my scan of the room, but coming up empty handed.

I exited the hotel room and began searching the others, again, finding nothing of any particular value. I walked out of the last room on the second floor and returned to the stair well, going back to the ground floor. This was a luxury hotel, so there weren't any rooms on the ground floor. Instead, the kitchen, dining room and a ball room took their places. I doubted that the dining and ball room would have anything of value to me, such as food water or even alcohol, so the kitchen was my primary interest. I walked through the main lobby and into the dining room.

The room was maybe twenty or so feet up. In the middle of the room was a large, long table, maybe thirty or more feet long. It was covered in a white cloth and had tags at every seat that held a different name, guests to some kind of political dinner or maybe a rich faimlie's reunion by my guess. The floor was made of hard oak and was beautifully stained and splatted. The ceiling had an extravagant crystal chandelier that was maybe five feet across. I always wondered who could afford stuff like this.

"Man",I whispered,"I wish I could have afforded shit like this."

At the back of the room were two double doors. Upon pushing them open, I entered the kitchen. Right off the bat, I made out four huge freezers and a set of gas fired stoves and ovens as well as a large brick oven. There was also a large stainless steel table that was brimming with metal boxes.

"Well what do we have here?",I asked myself as I shouldered my rifle.

The boxes were about a foot wide and a foot long with handles on the sides, boxes from the freezers perhaps. The had latches on the front to hold them closed and it looked like they could also be locked if they needed to. My curiosity spiked as I undid the latch and lifted the lid, empty. I moved on to the next one, empty. I was on the third box when I noticed something about this one felt...different, I couldn't put a finger on it, but I felt it. I undid the latch and pryed open the lid. Inside of this box, were Magpull P Mags. I felt my face widen with a smile as I tried to contain my excitement, but failed.

"Life is good!",I said in a joyful tone as I pulled the magazines out of the box.

They were in great shape, even having ranger plates on the end instead of normal end plates. There were ten of them, enough to replace all of the mags I currently had in my vest. I scooped them into my drop pouch and proceeded with searching the kitchen. There were a few bags of dried rice at the end of the table along with five or six cans of chicken, boxes of Alfredo noddles and a few jars of Alfredo sauce. Over the stoves were a few bags of Spanish rice along with a bottle of wine.

"I think someone was hiding out here",I thought to myself as I piled all of the food into one of the metal boxes.

With the food altogether, I now turned my attention to the meat locker. If it was full, and assuming the generator's had come on line the day the grid had gone down, the meat in here may still be good. I unlatched the door and swung the freezer open, coming face to face with the most disturbing thing I'd ever seen.

The frezzer was packed full of dead bodies.

They were hanging from meat hooks and piled on top of each other. Most of them were wrapped in white plastic, but other's were not. I could see the collapsed skulls and skin legions on some of the bodies that weren't warped up, sure signs of Agent Six infection. I found myself being overtaken by a absolutely putrid odor and quickly exited the meat locker, shuting it behind me and latching it closed. I found myself shivering.

"That's gonna be a nightmare",I said grabbing the food and walking back up stairs.

I found Raf sitting on the couch playing my old PS Vita when I came back to the room.

"I hope you had better luck than me",Raf said.

I set the box on the coffee table and popped it open, revealing it's contents to Raf, who went wide eyed.

"Yes you obviously had better luck than me",he said,"I found a whole lot of nothing."

"Well it's Alfredo for dinner tonight",I said.

"With the...",Raf started but I stopped him.

"Chunks of chicken like Mom used to do it?",I asked smiling,"hell yeah."

Raf smiled and went back to his game as I set some water to boil and then lay down on the bed. A large clasp of thunder rolled over the hotel, rattling the windows and making both Raf and myself jump.

"Oh I hate thunder",Raf said.

"Likewise",I replied.

"When do you think the storm will let up?",Raf asked.

"Not any clue",I replied,"may or may not be a stretch to say up to four weeks, maybe more."

Raf moaned,"three weeks?"

"Is what it is",I replied.

Raf and I enjoyed the Alfredo, more than we should have in all honesty. How would I put it? It was like some semblance of normal had returned to our lives. Mom used to make it when I was little and had bad days at school, often running dinner plans she had made with friends, simply because she knew I liked it. Raf and I were both addicted to the stuff and to be honest, it was far to late to help either of us.

"You know your addicted to this right?",Raf asked.

"So are you",I replied.

"I'm only nine",Raf smirked,"I can still be conditioned out of it, there's no hope for you."

I slurped up one of the long noddles.

"There's no hope for either of us",I said,"accept this basic fact and your life will get easier."

Raf smiled but didn't answer. I felt a twinge of anger when I went back to the pot for more and found it empty. I glanced back at Raf who had an evil smirk on his face.

"Watch yourself little brother",I said glaring through my smile,"I may kill ya in your sleep tonight."

"What crime have I committed to deserve such a fate?",Raf asked.

"Grand theft Alfredo",I said trying to hold back my laughter.

"What evidence have you of this?",Raf asked.

"The sauce all over your mouth",I replied,"the prosecution rests."