This Broken City Sky

Dylan, Kat, Lily, and Johnny found themselves back in the lobby of the hotel. They had already carefully checked the rest of the eleventh floor rooms and both the pool and the gym and found that it was clear of all infected. Now, all they had left to check was the restaurant and kitchen, which were conveniently connected to one another. They could hear movement and the sound of moans and groans coming from just past the front doors of the lobby, yet no sound of banging or bumping against the glass. It scared Dylan and Lily to say the least, since they were already wary of the doors in the first place. Johnny caught them staring at each other nervously then looked over to Kat who was glancing up the staircases with a furrowed brow.

“So…where to now?” He asked softly, hoping to create some movement so they wouldn’t just be standing there.

“The restaurant,” Lily said softly, glancing over to the young boy.

“What are we going to do about those doors?” Dylan asked, catching the other three’s attention.

“There’s got to be some way to enforce them so nothing can get in. The rest of the doors are metal, so it’s impossible for them to get into those without a key or an axe, but those are glass…” Lily let her voice die off as she glanced between her cousin and the two siblings. Kat’s eyes were fixed on the doors at Johnny merely stared up at her. He could see her thinking hard about it and knew that she was intelligent, despite the typical blonde stereotypes. Kat suddenly looked over to Lily and drew in a deep breath of air.

“What are the frames of the beds made of here?” She asked in a steady voice. Lily looked up at her and furrowed her brow in curiosity and thought.

“Wood,” she replied simply. Kat mere nodded and looked back up to the doors.

“And there are nails and hammers in the maintenance closet?” Kat continued, scratching a bit at the wrappings on her injured arms.

“I…think so, yeah,” Lily replied, looking over at Dylan who had a skeptical expression on her face. Kat merely hummed and nodded a bit, eyes tracing around the doors and the area around them.

“What are you thinking of, Kat?” Johnny asking, trying to get her to voice her thoughts.

“See how there’s a bit of ceiling that hangs over the doors a few feet before opening up into the lobby?” She started nodding toward the doors. Johnny, Lily, and Dylan all looked to the doors and Kat didn’t wait to continue to speak. “Well…if we take apart…say, eight or nine beds and use the wood from it, we could build sort of a fence from ceiling to floor. It would block the light and we wouldn’t necessarily be able to see what was out there…but we’d hear it if the glass broke, for sure, and we’d have enough time to either prepare or find a way out of the building.”

The other three exchanged looks before Johnny looked over at Kat with a proud smile.

“Damn, your brain works fast,” he said, causing Kat to laugh and shake her head.

“Of course it does,” she replied with a wily smirk. “For a college dropout, I’m not too bad.” Dylan glanced to the siblings with an unenthusiastic look before shaking her head a bit. She didn’t feel like hearing any banter at the moment.

“Let’s just go clear out the kitchen and restaurant before you go making any other plans,” she said before beginning to walk in the direction of the restaurant, Lily following behind her. Johnny and Kat exchanged a look before following after them.

“You’re the one who asked about the doors, bitch,” Kat hissed, causing Johnny to stifle a laugh behind his hand.

After the four of them had deemed both the kitchen and restaurant free of infected, as they had expected it to be, they sat in the lobby, staring at the doors. Kat wondered what the guys were up to or if this was some elaborate plan of their’s to get away from them. She shook her head as she took a drag of her cigarette, staring up at the staircases as she expelled the smoke. Well…if that is the case, she thought bitterly, good riddance to the fuckers. She tossed the cigarette butt to the ground and stomped it out with her boot.

“Could I have the key to the maintenance closet?” She asked Lily, who quickly passed her the key ring and watched as the blonde walked out of the lobby. Johnny watched as she walked away before letting out a heavy sigh and biting his bottom lip as he sat in one of the comfortable velvet chairs of the lobby.

“What do you think she’s doing?” Dylan asked the young boy who merely looked back at her for a moment.

“She’s getting the shit she needs to start building a fence,” he replied plainly, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back further into the chair.

“And I suppose she knows what she’s doing to make it safe?” Dylan asked with a raised brow, feeling awfully skeptical about the whole thing. Johnny stared at her with a harsh look, biting back the caustic remark he had toward the woman.

“Well…she was going to college to be an architect and she’s worked in construction for a few years now. So, yes, she does,” he replied plainly. The sound of Kat’s boots echoed down the hallway as she stepped back into the room, hearing it go oddly quiet as she set down a toolbox beside her and a scrap of paper she had managed to find in the room. Her eyes glanced from Johnny, to Dylan, then to Lily before she spread the paper out on the cool, marble floor and pulled a pencil out from behind her ear.

“You guys can go do whatever you want,” she replied in a voice that let them know that she had heard the conversation. “Fucking go get trashed at that bar in the restaurant for all I care,” she added venomously as she pulled a measuring tape out from the tool box as well as a small ruler that she laid on the piece of paper.

Dylan didn’t have to be told twice. She merely stood from the chair she had been sitting and made her way up the staircases, having no interest in helping Kat build anything. Lily, however, watched her cousin leave before walking over to Kat and watching her measure the height from the floor to the top of the small alcove the doors were located in before timidly clearing her throat.

“Is there anything I could do to help?” She asked softly and Kat looked over her shoulder at her for a moment before letting the tape retract and she clipped it into her pocket.

“Well…you could see if some of the guys would be willing to pull a few beds from the first floor rooms and break them down. I can do all the building and what-not. However, I obviously am not capable of lifting the frame of a bed by myself.” Lily merely nodded and sped up the stairs without another word. Kat wrote down the dimensions on the piece of paper as Johnny stood up from the chair and walked over to her.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said before he had a chance to speak. Her eyes remained on the piece of paper as she began to use the ruler and pencil to mark perfectly straight lines. Johnny merely sighed and shook his head before sitting beside Kat, watching her work. A few minutes passed and she had a design for the door that would be the absolute safest. She pushed her bangs back off her forehead before looking up at the door way and shook her head.

“I’m going to need a nice cool beer once I’m finished,” she grumbled before looking over at Johnny before cracking a crooked grin. “Maybe I’ll even let you drink,” she added as she reached out and ruffled his hair, causing him to scowl playfully at her.

Once the guys finally got the bed frames for Kat to build with, she worked for hours straight on building the protective fence. Occasionally, a few guys would stop by and see if she needed help, which she quickly declined, saying that they’d just be in the way, and they’d be off again doing other things around the hotel like scrounging about rooms or finding things to eat. Johnny didn’t move from the lobby however, until Kat told him to get something to eat and that she’d be fine for an hour or two without him.

It was late that evening when Kat finished and she stepped away from the fence. She sighed heavily and tossed the hammer aside, staring up at it in the dim light that the lobby provided. She had reinforced the wood a few times over and used steel bars she had found in the maintenance closet to support the structure. All in all, she knew that they wouldn’t be completely safe from the infected, should they break through, but knew they’d have enough time to think of a way out if the doors should falter.

She tucked her gun into the back of her pants, flush against her skin so she’d know it was there, and pushed the tool box over to the side before making her way back up to the rooms, pleased with what she had accomplished within the span of a few hours. When she finally got to the rooms, she heard talking within and knocked tentatively on the door labeled ‘413’. The door was immediately opened by Johnny and she stepped into the room, hearing her brother lock it behind her.

“Well?” Frank asked when she walked further into the room. She raised a brow and placed her gun on the bedside table.

“Well what?” She asked, watching him carefully.

“Did you get the fence finished?” He asked, watching her as she sat down on the bed and nodded. She let out a heavy sigh and ran her fingers through her hair before cracking her knuckles a bit.

“Will it hold?” Dylan asked from her spot on a couch in the room, her arms crossed over her chest. Kat’s eyes flicked to hers darkly as she nearly sneered at the girl.

“No…it won’t,” she spat sarcastically before pulling off her boots and tossing them to the side. She winced as she glanced to the bandage on her left arm and sighed when she saw red blood flooding to the surface of gauzy fabric. She had managed to lift a board a certain way while she was working and reopen some of the already healed wounds. “Fuck,” she hissed before picking up a first aid kit in the room, irritated, and walking into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her. She at least wanted a little bit of peace while she changed her bandages.