After finishing up in the gym, the pair headed back toward the lobby to find Jerry waiting. He'd settled himself near the corner of the room along with a medium-sized suitcase, a pillow, and what appeared to be a violin case.

Ah. That explains the musician tag.

The well-dressed guy perked up at their approach. "Ah! You're back. I'm glad to see you've found a fresh pair of clothes, as well."

"Yup!" Chad plucked at his shirt. "Good thing I brought an extra. Though my jacket didn't make it…"

As much as he loved that thing, it was beyond saving. Between the holes, rips, stains, and ill-fitting nature of his newly strengthened arm, it was time to retire the poor piece of leather. Still, it had done its job. Who knew how much worse his injuries might've been without its protection? Not to mention the nastiness he'd had to clean off.

"So." Jerry clapped his hands together. "What's the plan? When do we leave?"

Squawkers perked up at the mention of a plan, but Chad took the lead in responding. "Well, we'll probably have to stay here for the night. No way I'm driving in the dark, much less walking with all the stuff out there."

Between getting into the hotel, cleaning up, and visiting the gym, it was well past sundown. A glance past the obscured front entrance revealed nothing but pitch black. Chad had been hopeful that they'd make better time and get out of the city before nightfall, but all of his little detours had seemingly added up. Though they'd been worth it.

A twinge of loss shot through his chest as he thought about Ol' Bessie. At this point, it was unlikely he'd see her again. Leaving her for a few hours was one thing, but overnight? Who knew what might happen to that checkpoint? She probably wouldn't be stolen, considering he'd kept the keys, but what if some big beastie smashed into her? The mental image of his beloved bike as a mangled hunk of useless metal made him wince. Just wait, girl. We'll make it out tomorrow.

Chad came back to the present as Jerry gaped. "Really? Are things out there as bad as they say on the news?

"Yeah. You didn't see the fighting?" Chad jerked a thumb toward the impromptu barricades. "I figured you guys got attacked with how the entrance looks."

"Ah… yes." Jerry bobbed his head. "We did, earlier in the day. However, I was taking a nap and missed out on the events. By the time I awoke and came downstairs, things were already like this."

"Damn," he remarked. "How heavy do you sleep, kid? Were you hibernating or something?"

"I'm not a bear!" Jerry sounded affronted. "I was jet-lagged. I had quite the harrowing flight from New York!"

Chad frowned. "Isn't that, like, a one-hour time difference?"

"Well yes, but… It was an early flight, ok?" He huffed, the breath ruffling a few strands of his hair. "Anyway. Then if we'll be staying here overnight, will we plan to leave tomorrow?"

"Yeah, as soon as we can." Chad agreed. "I need to get back to my gramma. Your sister is plenty capable, but I don't want to leave them alone any longer than I have to. Though that means we'll have to deal with those damn birds…"

"Right, they've been arguing about those." Jerry nodded sagely. "Donna and Rick, I mean. Donna is the on-duty manager of the hotel, so she's naturally the one most of the workers answer to. Though Rick apparently coordinated much of the defense around here, so he's become a bit of a de-facto leader."

"Right." Chad nodded. That made sense, considering the brief interactions he'd seen between the two. "Is Rick on board with busting out of here?"

Jerry shrugged. "You'd have to ask him. I know that Donna wants to wait here for rescue, however. And considering what you said about the stuff out there, I'm almost inclined to agree…"

"Pal, the main fighting is further in, and I don't think anyone's gonna worry about this place anytime soon. We're kind of on our own here. "The arm wrestler shook his head. "I told her the same thing. I dunno how long it'll take for them to send a rescue or anything. And even if they do, it's like I said. Even if you guys might survive, I can't wait around twiddling my thumbs."

"Well, if there is an opportunity for us to disentangle ourselves from this mess safely, I'll gladly take it." Jerry ran a hand through his dark hair. "Best talk to Rick then. Whatever you decide to do, I expect he'll be a part of it. Just let me know when I should prepare to leave and I'll pack my things."

Chad nodded and turned to go, then hesitated. "Annie was really worried about you, you know."

The younger man let out a long-suffering sigh. "I am aware. She has made that abundantly clear through her ceaseless texts and calls…"

The idea of Annie acting like an overprotective mother hen made Chad chuckle involuntarily. "You've been talking, then?"

"More than I would like," came the dry response. "She seems to be under the impression that a failure to respond within ten minutes means I've been eaten by some vile monster. I did let her know that you had arrived, though."

Ah, yeah. I probably should have done that. Whoops. "Thanks for that. Don't be too hard on her, she's had a pretty rough day. Anyway, we're gonna go talk to Rick."

"I know. Let me know if you need anything."

A quick glance around the room revealed that the man stood guard near the hallway they'd entered through. He seemed to be in the middle of a conversation with another guard. As they headed for the guy, Chad spared a look at Squawkers. "You ok, buddy?"

The bird blinked. "Huh?"

"You've been awfully quiet."

"Ah. Well…" Squawkers shifted slightly on his shoulder. "It's nothing."

"You sure? Is it about all the kids pointing at you? You can ignore them, they don't mean anything by it."

"No, no. It's not that."

"Well, alright." The arm wrestler shrugged. "Well, then we should start talking about a plan."

At that, the bird's plumage seemed to droop. "Yeah. Ok. What's the plan?"

That made Chad stop dead. "What're you asking me for? You're the brains, remember?"

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"Yeah but… you didn't like my plans last time." The parrot sighed dejectedly. "And you were right. They… they kind of sucked."

"Awww, Squawk." He scratched the parrot under his chin. "They didn't suck."

"They did!" Squawkers lamented. "They were way too complicated and took too much time and… and… what if I'm not a smart bird? What if I'm actually dumb?!"

"There, there." Chad comforted the distressed parrot. "Just because they were complicated doesn't mean they sucked. Some of them might have actually worked, if we had the time to pull them off. And materials. And…" He glanced at his companion's drooping head and switched tactics. "Anyway, the point is that they weren't bad plans. They were just too big-brained!"

"But… but your plan worked so well, even though it was stupid…"

Chad shrugged. "Eh, I wouldn't say that. It got us in, sure, but by the skin of our teeth. I think we could have done better."

"R-really?"

"Of course!" He shot the bird a thumbs up. "Here, why not give it another shot? Let's see what you can come up with to deal with the Ghoultures out there. We can even get Rick's feedback if you want a second opinion."

After a moment of thought, Squawkers straightened and preened. "Of course! Leave it to me. I'm the brains, here, after all!"

"That's the spirit," he chuckled. "Now, what should we do first, brains?"

"Hmmmm." Squawkers looked around the room. "Let's talk to Rick about what we're working with. Maybe he can tell us more about the birds, too."

Chad nodded along. "Let's do it."

They continued forward until they reached the man in question. He was just finishing up his own conversation as the pair approached. "Chadwick, was it? Glad to see you're doing better. What can I help with?"

"Hey Rick," he gestured to his shoulder. "My parrot has a few questions for you."

The man raised a dark eyebrow. "Does he now?"

Squawkers bobbed his head. "Yep! We're making a plan to get outta here."

"Ah, I see." Rick crossed his arms, rifle slung across his back. "Well, I'd love to help with that. But I'm honestly not sure how much we can do, friends. Those birds are no joke. You saw how many rounds it took to down a single one. I don't expect we could take out more than a half-dozen more with our supplies, if that. Not counting what you packed, of course."

Chad whistled. "Damn. Are you that low on ammo?"

"Despite what you may think, this hotel did not come equipped with a full armory." A smile played across Rick's lips. "All the weapons that you see here are owned by a handful of its occupants, myself included. The larger firearms belong to my friends and I. We also used a fair amount of our ammo during the initial assault."

Chad glanced up at the Hunter (Lvl 4) tag above the man's head. Yep. That story checks out.

Squawkers chittered to himself softly as he thought. "How many fighters do we have? Any people who can actually take on these things?"

"Seven. Three with rifles, four with handguns. We would have more, but… some were injured badly or outright killed earlier." A shadow darkened the man's expression at that.

"Hmmmmm… Do you know anything else about the birds out there?"

"Only that they're ravenous. They consume the dead – both theirs and ours – and seem to become stronger in doing so. The remaining ones are far more powerful than what we originally encountered."

"Hey, looks like you were right about that part." Chad nudged Squawkers.

"Right, right." Squawkers nodded excitedly. "Great – er, not the eating people part. Ok, what about other supplies…"

They went back and forth for a while as Chad listened. Squawkers seemed content to lead this conversation himself, so why not let him? It wasn't like Chad himself wanted to plan this stuff out. Besides, Rick seemed capable enough to guide the parrot's lines of thought in a more productive and less overcomplicated direction. So he simply let his mind wander.

Eventually, as the conversation moved from information gathering to brainstorming to making a real plan, Chad began to yawn. Checking the time revealed that it was nearly midnight. Glancing around, most of the lobby's other occupants had either disappeared elsewhere or spread out pillows and blankets right there on the floor.

"Hey, I'm getting pretty tired here." Chad offered at a lull in the conversation. "Think we can pick this back up tomorrow?"

"Agreed," Rick nodded. "Though I believe we've made a quite reasonable framework for a plan already. We can finalize things once everyone has had some sleep."

With that, they headed off. Evidently, one of the large ballrooms had been converted into an emergency sleeping area by the hotel staff, so Chad and Squawkers found an empty spot for themselves on the floor. After the day's events, even the hard ground and thin sheet felt blessedly comfortable. With a grateful sigh and a few last twinges of pain, Chad laid down and drifted off to sleep.

***

A small part of Chad hoped and yet also feared that when he woke up, he'd find that the previous day's events had all been a dream. But sure enough, he came back to consciousness among the rest of the hotel guests.

He sat up groggily and stretched. At least, he tried to. The motion sent a lance of fresh pain through his shoulder and neck.

Ow. Geez, that feels even worse than yesterday. Gingerly, he brought his arms back to his sides. Guess sleeping on the floor didn't do me any favors…

He tried to put the soreness to the back of his mind. It was nothing that Annie couldn't fix. After he got back, of course.

A quick check also revealed that his bandages had survived the night. Prodding at them still hurt, suggesting that the wounds would take a while to heal fully. But they were further along than they should have been. Probably something related to the Nurse class.

Glancing around revealed that both Jerry and Squawkers still were asleep. The former lay sprawled in a rather undignified manner across his own section of floor, while the latter had taken up a position sitting on the back of a nearby chair. Not wanting to disturb them, Chad decided to get an early start on the day.

Outside of the ballroom, hotel workers bustled about carrying large metal trays to a nearby counter. Chad recognized the beginnings of a standard breakfast buffet complete with muffins, sausage, scrambled eggs, bacon, and even a waffle maker. The spread was all too familiar, yet felt completely out of place given the situation.

I guess some things didn't change, even in the apocalypse. Seems like Donna's really committing to the "staying here" thing, though. But I ain't gonna complain about the food.

As he stepped toward the buffet, he saw a few other people wielding firearms keeping watch around the lobby. A few of them also stepped toward the smell of fresh food, their eyes bleary.

"Morning, Chadwick." Rick greeted him with a yawn.

"Morning, Rick." He passed the man a plate. "You all been up all night?"

"Mostly. We took shifts to get some sleep, so we're not entirely exhausted."

"You should've said something! I could have helped if you needed more guys on watch." Chad chided the man as he began filling his plate.

"That's quite alright. You were in pretty bad shape, there. You needed the rest." Rick followed suit, grabbing a muffin and a few sausages. "Besides, you didn't miss anything. The night was blessedly uneventful."

"Yeah? Any changes?"

"It appears not." He nodded toward one of the lobby TV's. "The portal appears to have remained, though. And the newsfeed, somehow."

Checking the feed, the hole in reality did indeed still swirl ominously above the city. The flow of monsters had slowed more noticeably by this point, but was nowhere near stopping. The things still poured through in gouts of writhing flesh.

"Guess that means another long day ahead…" Chad sighed.

"As expected. Though it hopefully bodes well for our chances if we escape the hotel."

"Not if, Rick." Chad's eyes sparkled. "When. We're gonna make it out today or die trying."

The man chuckled darkly. "I appreciate your vote of confidence, friend, but that still sounds like quite an 'if' to me. Also, given the context it hits a little too close to home."

"Oh. Whoops." Chad apologized. "Then… We're gonna make it out today or… not?"

"Better, but still lacking." Rick gestured toward a table. "How about we just eat? We'll need the energy."

With that, they sat down and dug in. Soon, it would be time to see how good Squawkers's plan really was.