Tala carefully scouted both ends of the corridor, walking quietly outside, listening, looking to see if all the doors to rooms were closed. She expected at least one to be open with the zombie inside, eating its victim.

There was some distant noise, some muffled commotion, and when she oriented herself better she realized it was coming from behind the emergency door. She carefully approached it, the hammer ready in her hand, looking through its window to see if the zombie somehow did not end up there.

But when she opened it, she could only hear human voices. She was certain. Could not make out what they were saying, but it was not zombie shrieking. To hear better, she walked on her tiptoes, trying not to make any sound, going down a whole floor.

But the voices and the words they pronounced did not get any clearer.

She thought about going down another floor, but then her eye caught a scene through the window with a bunch of police cars and an ambulance pulling up to the hotel front entrance.

“Shit!” she muttered.

Suddenly, then there was a loud knocking from somewhere above her, maybe her own floor, and she ran back up to see what it was, opening the emergency door just enough to peek through.

There were two security officers, knocking on her door, and it seemed they were not getting any response from Chitto.

Poor, Chitto, he must be shitting his pants now, she thought and belted her hammer in the back of her pants and covered it up with her sweater, and then casually opened the emergency door.

“Did you guys hear all the screaming?” she asked, playing dummy, pretending not to know any better.

“Yes, Ma'ma. There was an accident. But we're dealing with it now. Miss, sorry to bother you, but we’d like you to return to your apartment. We are checking in with all the residents, but you did not answer your telephone call, so they sent us up here to check on you. And let you know to go back inside until we deal with this... emergency.”

“Why? What happened?”

“We do not know yet,”

“Come on. I heard screaming.”

“Yeah, it seems one of the guests had a little bit of advantage with some... illegal substances, shall we say, and… made him hallucinate a bit, and now..."

“Okay,” the other security officer bumped him a bit, probably indicating that the guy should stop offering explanations.

“Sorry, we cannot give you more details at this time. Just stay inside your room and we’ll let you know when everything is dealt with. Police and First Response units are here, and the person who has been acting up... has been dealt with, and they are taking him away.”

“Okay…” Tala said, staring at him, standing in front of him, trying to cover the splash of blood on the wall that the zombie head must have sprayed out when she hit him. She wanted to ask him if the person acting up had a big bump on his head, white eyes, and acted like a zombie, but, she could not find a way to put that into words.

Besides, she was in no mood to describe how she actually hit the guy, who was supposedly just a guy on a bad drug trip. They would never believe her. Not until they got bitten by a zombie. She saw it in their eyes.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe, We’ll post people around just to make sure this does not happen again. Sorry for your bother.”

“Okay. Just let us know when things… go to normal,” she said and watched them go down the corridor, waiting to hear one of them who said, “I think they said there is someone else in Room 1055.”

She watched them go to the far side of the corridor, knock on the room there, and only then knocked on the door and said, “Chitto, it’s me. Open up.”

“Who?”

“Chitto. Fast.”

He opened the door fast and she got in, taking first the hammer out of the back of her pants.

“What happened?”

“Shit. Nothing. Really. Nothing.”

“You did not get it?”

“No. I think the zombie got up and ran down the stairs. And security guards got him down. Shit, I should have paid attention to their hands. See if they were bitten. But how it can do that? Go out through the fire exit like that?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you. These zombie fuckers are smart. They can open doors and shit.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good to know.”

“You think that zombie bit somebody?”

“Hard to know. I did not see any blood on their white security shirts. I'm pretty sure of it. They seemed like huge guys. Probably could handle him with no problem.”

“Good... So… what do we do now?”

“We wait… and watch. And relax. Compose ourselves, you know. And hope we won’t have to answer too many stupid questions. Damn, I hope they did not see the blood in the hallway. Although, how could they not? It was covering part of the wall and the carpet too.”

“Do you think we should have told them?”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Nope. Those guys... They were huge. Looked really mean. I did not want to go into explaining anything to them, do you understand?”

She looked at all the trepidation that was displayed on his face and decided to withhold the information about seeing all the police cars that came to the hotel.

“At least we got a good view from here, no?” Tala said, looking through the huge window to the city outside. From its angle, she could not see the front entrance, but at least she was glad to see that no more police cars were heading their way.

After a few minutes of just calming down and watching, she turned around to see him sitting in the chair, fidgeting against his knee, looking upset. “What’s up?” she asked, thinking that she could talk the nervousness out of him, as long as he wanted to talk about it.

“You still did not answer my questions. Where did you go? It was not for a run. You came back with a rucksack.”

“Yeah, I went to the bank,” she said and backed away from the window, going to the rucksack she threw by the door when she went outside to deal with the zombie.

“And what did you find there?”

“You would not believe it,” Tala said and then told him about the vault, opening up the rucksack in the meantime and turning it around, dropping everything on the round table.

“Shit, I wish I could have seen it. I always miss the best part,” he said and then froze, staring at the gun.

“Okay… That might not be true. You got to enjoy a swimming pool. How was it?”

“Shit… I left my cell phone and my bag there.”

“Where?”

“In the locker. In the swimming pool.”

“Don’t worry. When things settle down, we’ll go up there.”

“You promise.”

“Yes.”

“It is so cool. It’s like being in a Roman bathhouse, not a swimming pool. You have to see it. And I bet at night, it looks even better.”

“I’m just wondering where did that zombie come from.”

“You know… now that I think about it… it had the same maintenance suit as the other guy.”

“Okay, now the plot thickens. Do you think you remember the name of the company? It had to be written on his uniform”

“No. But... can I have that gun?”

“Of course not."

He looked at her upset, so she sighed and asked him, "Well, do you plan to shoot yourself?”

“No.”

"Then no. Don't be stupid."

She raised her hand to give him a back head smack but then thought better off. With her Blacksmith Strike ability, she might have just knocked him out.

Chitto scratched his head, glad at least he did not get smacked, then said, "At least now we know for sure."

"Yeah, well, let's better put all of that away in a safe place," Tala said not liking how Chitto kept staring at the holsted gun. "What if the security knocks on the door and wants to come inside?”

“Yeah, you have an extra backpack. We could all fit it inside.”

“Yes. That's a good idea, Chitto. Why don't you grab it?”

Noticing how fast he grabbed the gun and how carefully he placed it inside the backup rucksack, Tala sighed and decided to say, "We need to get you a weapon.”

“Yeah, I know,” Chitto said, suddenly excited. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“You were good at sword fighting. Master Kenji always complimented you. It seems I can't keep you safe, but at least I can get you stuff to be able to protect yourself."

"But we have a gun."

"Shit, Chitto, don't you know? Who has not seen enough of zombie shows now? I mean, come on. there are like what... eight bullets there... and you go, bang, bang, bang... and then what?"

"Bang, bang, bang..." Chitto said, making his fingers into a gun and firing away. "Didn't you say, eight bullets."

“Yeah, and then what?"

"Okay... but I can have a spare magazine..."

Do we have a spare magazine?"

"Maybe we can buy it."

"You think it's easy to buy weapons and ammo here?' "

"Yes. We're in the most perfect country to do just that."

"I do not know. You're underage, and I do not look much older than you."

"Yeah, but you have a passport to show your age."

"You do not even know how to shoot."

"Well, fine. Let's go to a firing range someplace and learn. That can be done. That can't be that difficult to learn. You always comment about the stupid people who have guns and shoot people around."

Just as Tala was going to say how going to a firing range was the stupidest idea she ever heard, there was a new mission update.

“New Missions, huh?” she said aloud.

“Yes, it could be new missions...” Chitto said, thinking she was talking to him.

But the system activated itself and displayed.

[Mission: Learn how to use a firearm

Mission: Obtain more than one firearm

Mission Obtain at least 1,000 rounds of ammunition for the obtained firearm]

“Yeah, one or a whole bunch of them,” Tala said, very much surprised that the system went from 'Just stay inside your room' to 'Let's go full Lethal Weapon thing.' And it did it just at the time Chitto suggested it. She could not understand it, but.. at least it meant she should consider it.

“Let me think about it,” she said, zipping up the backpack and going to a refrigerator for a cold can of soda.

“Come on, sis. We can get a driver and he takes us over there, and it would be so good to get away from the hotel now.”

“Okay,” Tala heard herself whisper it out, not sure why she did it, so quietly Chitto did not even hear it She was so anti-gun, but deep down, she knew it was the right call.

Things were just going to get harder. And there was no way of knowing how bad it was going to get. Maybe that's why the system wanted them to learn how to handle firearms.

"Shit, Howey was right, this really will blow up into a major shitstorm."

“I told you so."

"Please, don't do that."

"What."

"I told you so thing. I hate it."

"But it's true.

"It's also true when you saw a zombie for the first time, you said it must be a theater play, specially done for us, okay? You also said what will Santa eat if we don't leave him cookies, okay?"

"Buzz off!" he yelled at her, then ran to the bedroom and slammed the door shut.

Tala would not have it. She went after him right away.

In a commanding voice, she called him, "Come on, we need to go. Can't argue at times like this. Besides, if we are to shoot some guns, better be right now. Maybe at the range, they can sell us some ammo."

"So, then, what do you say about this?" he came out, holding his phone up and a second later shoved it in front of her eyes, showing the picture of some firing range. "It says it's only 25 minutes from here."

"Okay, we can do that. That is a good idea, I guess."

"It's a wonderful idea. Besides, what are we going to do, wait for zombies to come here and then learn how to shoot?"

"Okay, but you're getting a sword too. Won't risk you being without a weapon, understand?"

"Fine, But I want a gun too. I mean, if you can be Thor, I can be John Wick, you know."

"Shit. the only thing in common with John Wick you would ever.. have... is... well, maybe I can get you a dog."

"Really? You mean it?"

"Sure. I have nothing better to do. Need a dog to take care of it as well."

Chitto was going to argue, but then he counted his victories and running to put his shoes on said, "We'll talk about that later."

They walked out quietly, Chitto getting nervous as they made it through the corridor.

At first, they did not even notice a security guard who stood silent as death next to the elevators, his hand resting on the firearm he held on his right hip.

When they did notice him, they got so startled they jumped back. “Sorry, Mister,” Tala said as they realized he was staring them down. “Did not see you standing there. Scared us a bit, I guess.”

“Sorry that happened, Ma'am.”

“Ah... are elevators working?” Tala asked.

'Yes, they are.”

“Well, we need to go... it's an emergency.”

“I understand,” he said and then unexpectedly entered the elevator that just opened up. “Please follow me.”

As he was entering the elevator, Tala paid his face close attention and noticed an earpiece plugging his ear. It made her wonder what kind of hotel security was carrying that kind of live communication device. It looked to fit a Special Services agent better than a hotel security.

She felt even more nervous when the security guard pressed the L-2 button instead of the 'L' for the lobby, her hand automatically moving backward and feeling the hard iron side of her hammer resting in her backpack. One side was still sticky with blood.