4 Staying in the Hotel

"Are you fine with staying in a hotel?" William asked.

Gloria raised her head and tilted it to the side. "Do I have a choice?"

Well, technically no.

William chose not to think too much and walked to the door that was heading down. There were still a lot of infected people around the area, but they shouldn't move again from this place. There were only a few more buildings that was staying close to this place by now.

And even if they went down, the street was in chaos. William only had a few more bullets left in his gun, so he wouldn't be able to help much even if he was there. Worse, he might even get killed when he was trying to help the others.

"Don't you need to call people to inform about this situation?"

"There's no one who can answer," William replied and pointed to the capital city's direction as he worked on the door's key. The headquarters for the military was in the capital city and by this time, it was already destroyed. There shouldn't be any way for him to talk with them anymore.

Besides, his phone weirdly couldn't connect anymore. The telephone pole might have been destroyed, thus making it impossible for them to call others.

Gloria blinked her eyes and nodded in understanding. Silently, she took out a small black device from her pocket, a simple walkie talkie.

"How about this?"

William was stunned. He moved away from the door and picked the walkie talkie from Gloria. "How did you get this?"

"I pick it up in the store back then."

Hearing that, William was speechless. He only told her to bring some food, but she still had the time to search for something like this. Not wanting to think too much, he turned it on and set it to the frequency that he usually used with his teammates.

"Lucky calls to the post."

William could only hear bzzt and so on. He furrowed his brows and put it inside his pocket while setting the sound to be transmitted. Probably, there was no one who could pick their walkie talkie right now.

"Thank you, Gloria."

"En."

After putting the walkie talkie away, William worked on the door again. It took him some time before he could open the door and walked inside. His eyes narrowed when he heard the sound of banging. Looking down from the stairs, he could see several people were walking there.

"Gloria, hurry."

"Y..yes!"

The two of them walked down one floor and William worked on the door once more. The infected people downstairs might have already smelled them by now, but there was nothing that they could possibly do anymore. After a few seconds, William succeeded in unlocking the door and pushed it open.

He pushed Gloria inside then locked the door once again. A few seconds afterwards, banging sound could be heard from the other side of the door.

"Who are you?" A man peeked out from one of the door. He was wearing suit and from his large built, it was easy to see that he must be a bodyguard of someone important there. The top floor only had several rooms and each of them must be important guests.

William furrowed his brows and chose to take out his badge first. Even though the world was changing, many of them didn't know about it yet. This should come in handy right now.

"I'm an officer," William replied. "Is there any empty room here?"

The man was stunned. He pointed to the one at the edge. "That one has been empty for some time."

"Good."

William strode to the door with Gloria trailing behind him. He was still thinking about what he was supposed to do now. It was important to stay alive, but he also knew that he wouldn't be able to survive if he stayed in this accursed city for a long period of time. He needed to get out of here one way or another.

He tampered with the door and pushed it open. "Get in."

Gloria nodded and walked inside.

After making sure the door was locked back, William looked around the room. The hotel was only three stars' hotel, but the top floor was quite luxurious. It was only one room, but there were four bedrooms along with several other rooms inside. It seemed that the last empty room was actually a room for several guests.

William sat down in the living room while Gloria was roaming around the room, looking perplexed. He saw the internal telephone and chose to make a call to the manager to make inquiry about the situation.

"Hello, Sir, please stay inside your room. There's…."

"I'm a soldier. Please tell me what you know."

"That's…."

"I'm in room 410. For the time being, I'll be borrowing this room, but I need to know the overall situation."

The receptionist was still afraid, but he started to reply. "There are several crazy people roaming at the first floor. They managed to destroy the door to the stairs…."

It took some time, but William realized what had happened. There were more than one hospital in the area that was destroyed due to the bomb, so the infected managed to get out. They bite other people and eat those who had died while destroying everything on their path depending on their way.

Thanks to the wounded along the way and others who were still alive, their number increased exponentially. By now, the hotel personnel couldn't do anything but told everyone to lock their door and prevent anyone from coming close to their place.

"Tell them to kill the people who attack them," William said after a while.

"But that's…"

"It's the only method to survive."

"Yes."

William sighed and then turned his head to look at Gloria, who had returned from exploring the spacious room. "Block the door with the tables and chairs to prevent the infected from going inside. If you ever get bitten, it's better to kill yourself before you completely lose your mind."

The manager nearly choked when he heard what William said. He was about to protest but William already cut off the connection. Afterwards, there were numerous calls from other people who were staying in the hotel.

"Is it that bad?" Gloria asked.

"Yes. How many people is this city's population?"

"There should be a few millions," Gloria replied. Since the capital city was full, they had to settled on the area outside the capital city, which was these small cities around them. After decades, there were already millions of people who were living in this place.

"if they all turn into the infected, there's no telling how far they can reach," William said after a while. "The world will change."

There were several other cities outside of the capital city. He couldn't imagine what would happen to those cities once the infected spread to those areas.

"I see."

"Have you calmed down?" William noticed that Gloria looked calmer than before. She no longer looked like someone who wanted to brace danger no matter what happen.

Gloria nodded. "I just want to live."

Live.

A simple word but it was the reason that allowed many people to fight. They were going to enter a strange world, different from what they knew before. However, they still wanted to live, so they had to fight for their survival.

"Help me move the table."

"En."

The two of them moved the furniture in the living room to the door in order to block the place. There were still banging sound from a distance that they could hear, but the door was quite sturdy, so it should take some time.

Still, they were not completely safe in this place.

Imagining millions of people turned into these infected, William felt a headache because he knew that it wouldn't be easy for him to pave a way out for himself. Not to mention, there might be other survivors who were trying to make their way out at the same time as himself.

It would be another chaos once more.

Bzzt

"Lucky, you're there?"