Night of the Living Trekkies (11 page)

“It’s hopeless,” he replied. “They’re everywhere. They’ll kill us no matter what we do.”

“But they don’t have to kill us
right now
!” Leia shouted. “We can hole up someplace, figure something out. Or maybe just die on our own terms. Wouldn’t that be better than suffocating in this box?”

Jim thought about it. The woman made sense.

The zombie mound was almost to the top of the Plexiglas. Another minute and the first creature would thump down onto the top of the elevator.

“Let’s go to seven,” Jim said. “I hear it’s nice.”

“Anywhere,” Leia said as she stared down at the floor. “Anywhere but here.”

Jim pressed the appropriate code into the control panel and left the zombies behind. Leia shuddered as they cleared the writhing mass.

“I have a thing about enclosed spaces,” she finally said. “Especially spaces enclosed by zombies.”

The elevator stopped at seven, dinging to announce its arrival. The doors, at Jim’s instruction, didn’t open. They soon heard pounding and moaning from the other side.

“Sounds like a par-tay out there,” Jim said.

“Par-tay?” Leia said, still trembling. “Who says ‘par-tay’ anymore?”

“You’d be surprised.”

Jim tried to get the lay of the land by looking out the blood-streaked windows. With nothing to stimulate their appetites, the zombies in the lobby settled into a round of listless pacing. And the ones in the hotel rooms—the ones staring down at the atrium—also seemed calmer. The mess on the elevator glass made it nearly impossible for Jim and Leia to be seen.

“I think we’re okay for the moment,” Jim said. “But there’s no way we can open these doors.”

He picked up the Glock and ejected its empty magazine. He unzipped his bag, drew out the fresh clip, and slammed it home.

“Seventeen rounds left,” he said as he looked down at the sea of undead. “I don’t think that’s going to be enough bullets for all of them.”

“What the hell happened to you down there?” Leia asked.

Jim pushed himself into the corner of the elevator next to the control panel. He crossed his arms and stared off into the middle distance.

“What happened was, I made a mistake. I put someone in a situation that they clearly couldn’t handle. And she died. She died because I was stupid.”

“Save your existential crisis for later,” Leia said. “Right now, we have to survive. We need a Plan B.”

“Really?” Jim said. “I didn’t realize there was a Plan A.”

“There was,” Leia said. “You thought it up. Go down to the lobby and fetch what’s-her-name, then go upstairs and find your sister.”

“What’s-her-name was named Janice Bohica,’” Jim said. “She liked to play golf, she was pathologically afraid of spiders, and for some reason she followed the Astros. We didn’t like each other very much. But she deserved better than this. And better from me.”

“
No one
deserves this,” Leia said, gesturing at the elevator’s grimy windows. “But that woman is dead and nothing can undo it. Getting your drawers in a knot won’t help you or me or your sister.”

“Rayna’s dead,” Jim said. “I left her, too, and now she’s dead. She was eaten alive in a hallway somewhere while I was nowhere in sight. That’s how it works.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Leia said impatiently.

Jim looked at her with true anger.

“How’s this for a Plan B?” he said. “How about I put the barrel of this pistol in my mouth and pull the trigger? You can take the passkeys and the stuff in the bag and go your own way. Trust me, you’ll live longer.”

Leia stalked up to Jim and looked him in the eye.

“You have no idea how much I want to go my own way,” she said. “But I can’t do this alone. You know the layout of this dump, you know how to handle weapons, and you know how to fight. As much as I hate to say it, I
need
you.”

“I’ll get you killed,” Jim said.

“I’ll take the chance,” Leia replied. “Now let’s put aside your personal baggage and try to think about how Kirk would handle this.”

“Who?” Jim said.

“James T. Kirk, commander of the USS
Enterprise
.”

Jim shook his head.

“I get it now,” he said. “I’m dead and in Hell, trapped for all eternity with a Star Trek nerd. We’re going to spend the next thousand years debating whether the Squire of Gothos was actually Q in disguise.”

“Just bear with me,” Leia said. “Think this through for a minute. Do you remember the Kobayashi Maru test?”

“From
Wrath of Khan
,” Jim said, nodding. “It’s a Starfleet training exercise that always results in the ‘death’ of the test subject. It gauges a cadet’s reaction to a no-win situation.”

“Correct,” Leia said. “But what did Kirk say about no-win situations?”

“He doesn’t believe in them.”

“So hopefully you see the relevance. To paraphrase Kirk, even when you think things are hopeless, they aren’t. You’re just missing something.”

Jim didn’t see the harm in playing along for just a minute.

“Okay, let’s review,” he said. “We’re trapped in the elevator of a hotel that’s filled with flesh-eating zombies. We can assume, based on the police being a total no-show, that we’re in the middle of an entire city, maybe an entire nation, that’s likewise afflicted. We have minimal weapons, no food or water, and no way to open these doors without being immediately attacked by an enemy with crushing numerical superiority. Correct?”

“Right,” Leia said.

“So what have I missed?”

“Among a great many other things, you’ve overlooked the fact that the zombies are morons. You’re ready to throw in the towel to creatures who can be outsmarted by doorknobs.”

“Valid,” Jim said.

“And it’s not like they’re invincible. We already know three ways to stop them. Bullet to the head, bullet to the third eye, Taser shot.”

“Affirmative,” Jim said.

“And here’s the most important thing. You’re clumsy, you’re slow, and you don’t seem terribly smart.”

“Right,” Jim said. “Wait,
what?
”

“I mean that we’re nothing special. If we made it this far, others must have, too. They’re out there, and your sister could be one of them. We won’t know until you get it in gear.”

Jim uncrossed his arms, pushed away from the elevator’s corner, and stood on his own two feet.

“I still think you’d be better off if you ran away,” he said.

“You’re the one who wants to run away,” Leia replied. “But it isn’t going to happen. People need you, and they don’t stop needing you just because you wish they didn’t.”

“Well, I’ll try not to disappoint.”

“Do, or do not,” she said. “There is no try.”

Jim placed his right hand on Leia’s bare shoulder.

“What did I say about the movie talk?”

Leia brushed his hand away.

“I’m not movie-talking anything. I’m trying to get us out of this situation, and you’re the one who keeps bringing up . . .”

The elevator’s emergency phone rang.

They both looked at it, too stunned to move. When it rang again, Leia lunged for the receiver and put it to her ear.

“Hello?” she asked breathlessly.

She listened for a moment, then, with a trembling hand, gave the phone to Jim.

“It’s for you,” she said.

Jim took the phone.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“This is Lieutenant Thellina, helmsman of the USS
Stockard
.”

“Rayna!” Jim exclaimed. “You’re okay?”

“I haven’t been eaten yet, if that’s what you mean. How are you and the princess?”

“You can
see
us?”

“Barely, with all that zombie blood and goo stuck to the elevator. Look out the panel to your right.”

Jim gazed through the glass at the bank of seventh-floor windows, peering from room to room. Zombies in the first. Zombies in the second. Zombies in the third and the fourth and the fifth—and then two very-much-alive Trekkies waving frantically for his attention.

“I see you,” Jim exclaimed, waving back. “Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone except T’Poc. She’s dead, Jim. A bunch of those . . . creatures . . . it happened so fast, like a stampede. They trampled her. Matt saw the whole thing. He said it was awful.”

“Just hang in there. I’m coming to your room.”

“Then you better talk to Gary. He’s getting ready to barricade our door. Let me put him on.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Jim promised.

“Right,” Rayna said, though it wasn’t entirely clear that she believed him.

A moment later, Gary was on the line.

“Where’d you find the princess?” he asked.

Jim ignored the question. “Is your room secure?”

“It seems to be. There’s no immediate threat now that we’re behind locked doors. The only problem now is that we can’t get out. The hallway is absolutely crawling with. . . . with. . . .”

“We’ve decided to go ahead and call them zombies,” Jim said.

“You nailed it, buddy. I’ll never doubt your weird hunches again.”

“Is anyone else with you?”

“Matt.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Gary replied glumly. “Go figure.”

“How did you find us?” Jim asked.

“Rayna noticed that woman standing at the front entrance, so I tried to call her. I was dialing the desk number when we spotted you down there. Which was really ballsy, by the way. We all kneel down before your mighty and monumental sack.”

“That’s possibly the grossest compliment I’ve ever received,” Jim said.

“Normally, I can do a lot worse,” Gary replied. “But I’m preoccupied right now.”

“Have you been able to reach the outside world?”

“I’ve tried, but so far, no dice. Nothing but snow on the TV. Phones are toast. And no Internet, which is really strange. It was originally designed to serve as a fail-safe communications mode during a nuclear war, so it’s very, very resilient. To lock it down this tight, you’d have to have someone very smart and powerful actively denying service.”

“Or maybe it’s gone,” Jim said.

For a moment the line was silent.

“What?” Gary finally said. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe it doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe it suffered some sort of catastrophic, worldwide failure.”

“Oh, no,” Gary said with disturbingly brittle finality. “That’s not possible. Somebody’s keeping us from getting to the Internet, but the Internet is still there. It will always be there.”

Jim decided to back off. Given the stress that Gary already faced, implying that the Internet was dead might do him in. Besides, there were more urgent things to worry about.

Five minutes earlier, Jim’s “plan” had been to put a gun in his mouth and surrender to the undead. But now that Rayna was safe, the gears in his head once more started to turn.

“You’re in Matt’s suite, right?” Jim asked. “Room 754?”

“You can’t miss it,” Gary said. “It’s the room with all the zombies out front.”

“Are they banging on your door?”

“Not really. They’re just walking around in the hallway. It’s like they sense that we’re close, but they’re not sure how to find us.”

“Good,” Jim said. “Then don’t build any barricades because I need to get in your room. When you hear a knock, look through the peephole to make sure it’s us, then let us in.”

“Uh-huh,” Gary replied skeptically. “And when do you see this happening?”

“We’re getting ready to start right now,” Jim said as he pressed buttons on the elevator’s console. “Expect us in twenty minutes if things go well. If things don’t go well . . . just keep somebody by the door until we get there.”

“Rayna will do it,” Gary said.

“Good choice,” Jim replied. “Do you have any weapons?”

“Nothing yet, but I do have the walkie-talkies from the
Stockard
.”

“That’s even better,” Jim said, and he gave Gary instructions for using the hotel frequency. “See if you can reach me.”

The almost-forgotten walkie-talkie in Jim’s jacket pocket beeped for attention. He fished it out and clicked it on.

“Dead Meat Two, this is Dead Meat One. Come in,” Gary said.

“Excellent,” Jim said as he hung up the phone. “Now we can contact you anytime. But for the time being, don’t try to contact
us
. We might be sneaking up behind a lot of zombies so we don’t need you spoiling our surprise. We’ll check in when we can. Got it?”

“Got it,” Gary replied. “Oh, hey, Matt wants to say something. You got a minute?”

The walkie-talkie changed hands before Jim could answer.

“Hey Jim, brother of Rayna,” Matt said. “This shit’s like
Resident Evil
, know what I’m saying?”

“This isn’t a game,” Jim said. “Your friend T’Poc is dead.”

“I did everything I could to help that girl,” Matt said. “But when you’re facing down a dozen enemy combatants, there’s not a lot of options.
You
know how it is.”

Jim let the remark slide. He was pretty confident that Matt had never faced any adversaries outside of a Play Station game, but there was no point in challenging him.

“Is there something important you wanted to tell me?”

“Just that we’ve got everything nailed down in here. Your sister’s in good hands.
Really
good hands.”

Jim felt his neck muscles tense.

“We’ll talk about it when we get there,” he said. “And don’t get too comfortable. We’re not staying.”

“Says who? The minibar’s got a couple days’ worth of snacks and booze. By that time, the National Guard or the Marines or the Texas Rangers or whoever’s in charge of quelling zombie outbreaks will have fumigated the place. Meanwhile, we’ll sit tight and par-tay.”

Leia shot Jim a look. “Par-tay?” she whispered.

“I don’t think we can count on other people helping us,” Jim reasoned. “If help is on the way, they’re not going to prioritize the Botany Bay over hospitals, schools, government buildings—”

“Sorry dude, but this is my crew, and the decision’s been made. You’re welcome to come aboard for a visit, as long as you respect my orders. And those orders are to abandon the saucer section, raise shields to maximum, and wait for help. Now talk to Horta.”

The walkie-talkie changed hands again, and Gary was back.