Good Night.

He stood on the roof of the Hotel Malaga, staring down upon Avenida Presidente Vargas in the direction Guanabara Bay. A coastal breeze found it's way inside Leo's dirty ADIDAS hoodie and he welcomed it. The Italian allowed his brown eyes to fall down onto the avenida and to the scattered cars below. He could spot shambling figures occasionally, but no large groups of the creatures had appeared. Yet.


In the distance, he spotted a set of tail-lights moving up the mountain. The lights suddenly stopped. They had not moved since. Too bad. Dismissing the sobering thoughts, Leo fired up a cigarette lazily. Marlboro. Before the change, before the death and chaos, Leo had successfully kicked the habit. Alatea Delago had got him smoking again, nagging him to relax a little. He was relaxed now. She was dead.


The drag scorched his throat, and he fished in his hooded-sweatshirt's center pocket upon exhaling the stale smoke. Producing a colorful can of Schin Guarana, he gave it a blank stare. The cigarette hung from his lip. Leonard cracked open the soda and took a few long swills.


He had spent eight months in this place. Survived eight months in hell. To get nowhere. To be squatting in a dirty motel, or migrating uselessly from structure to structure just to be stuck once again. Removing his hood in the gusty wind sent his untidy dark hair dancing around his head. Leo placed the can of soda atop the handrail, then burped quietly as he watched the sun sink into Western Rio's cityscape and the moutains. He hit the cigarette again. Calm. Rio was dead. His parents were dead. His friends were dead. His lover was dead. And he was alone.


As if to contradict him, a wail echoed up from the streets below. One of the shambling creatures stumbled around a smashed Land Rover and cried out again. It was about time to be heading inside. Up here was safe from the shamblers. Hunters, however, would have little problem entering his makeshift dwelling had they know for certain he was inside. Dropping the cigarette and crushing it under his boot, Leo snatched the can once again and finished the Schin guarana soda. He tossed it across the roof as he descended the concrete and stucco stairwell.





Leo entered the hallway, careful to lock the steel door behind him. Chance of an attack from the rooftop was minimal if anything, but he had learned to play it safe in the devil's playground. The building manager's keys had been easy enough to find. The image of his bloated corpse, however, had been a hard thing to lose. Closing the steel gate behind him slowly, the ragged young man smirked. He had sprayed every hinge with WD-40 yesterday. The gate closed as quietly as the day it had been installed.


Moving down the hallway and into the hotel, Leo adjusted his vestpack and the revolver cradeled in it. He stepped over a broken picture frame and glass, he turned left and found "his" room. Unlocking the door with the Manager's key, the young man stepped into the familiar suite and allowed the door to close behind him quietly.


The Hotel Malaga currently had no power. Well, most of Rio was without power. Or running water. So Leonard's room was bathed in the dull light of the sun's final glow. Stepping around piles of clothes ( some new and some dirty, ) he found his way to the kitchen. Striking a match and lighting a tall candle, Leo suddenly snorted in frustration. Shit. He had scrounged supplies this morning, and made it back with plenty of time. Enough time to scout search the basement, set a new lock on the side door, and to continue reading Dante's Inferno for the second time. He had "accomplished" much today. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to retrieve them from the Hotel's staff lounge.






Without power, elevators are useless. After descending the spiral corridor with a green glowstick, Leo emerged onto the ground floor of the hotel, near the kitchen and dining area of the hotel. He slowed as he rounded the hall, noticing a door ajar. Was that open before I went upstairs? Maybe it had been, but Leo could not be certain. And that bothered him.


After quickly looking around the janitor's supply room, Leo replaced the revolver in his vest. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but then again he didn't know what he was looking for. Picking up a broom, he decided he should sweep his suite's kitchen. There had not been a broom in the top floor's janitor closet.


Exiting the room and making his way to the staff lounge, Leo fumbled for the correct key using only his free hand. Unlocking the room and snagging two plastic bags from near the door, he left the dark room quickly. As he once again found himself in the staff hall, he headed in the direction of the stairs. As he turned the last corner, Leonard ran into one of the creatures.


His first instinct was to shove her. Clawing for his forearm and nearly catching him with her broken nails, she stumbled backwards over a bench and toppled over it with a thunk. The creature rose from the floor almost immediately, and Leo quickly stomped down on the end of the broom, snapping the head off. The monster approached him quickly, and he stumbled backwards into the adjacent hallway. As the creature appeared out of the gloom and into the light of Leonard's glowstick, he used the broken handle as a spear.


The wooden pole pierced her eye socket and lodged deep in her skull. Leo quickly released the handle and backed away, allowing the corpse to collapse for, hopefully, the last time. As he breathed heavily, another creature emerged from the darkness. Failing to draw the revolver in time, he booted the former traffic worker in the stomach, sending the creature stumbling backwards. When it came again, Leonard was acting on instinct. Had he remained calm, things might have went differently.


The Python let out a mighty bang, removing the greater portion of the former city worker's skull. As a small trail of smoke emerged from the weapon's barrel and the corpse collapsed heavily to the floor. Leo groaned. As if in respone, wails and growls began to echo from outside the Hotel.

Lay sprawled out on the sofa, her foot tapped to a rhythm in her head. A samba tune she'd heard playing in last years carnival. She'd missed this year's, the infection had occurred just while plans were underway. It would've been the biggest to date, too - it came upon the eve of the World Cup after all, while Brazil celebrated its hostage of the Olympic Games too. She'd miss the floats, the dancing, the women in skimpy dresses...

A smile bore across her face, then as quickly as it came from her thoughts it was struck aside by the roar of no mere infected. But one who was alive. She sat bolt upright and turned around to the doorway. A man stood there, the front door was shut. How had he... She'd checked the apartment, it was safe.

She noticed he'd shouted in English - discerning that he was American. She knew a bit of English from her time working with the UN, enough to understand what he'd said but that he knew Portugeuse was helpful too. She raised her hand from her own gun, he hadn't shot her already - he could be reasoned with. "My name is Maria." She said at first in English, then moved into Portuguese, "I apologise, my English isn't great. You speak Portuguese? I don't mean you any harm, I don't live here I was just staying here for the night."

She paused, looking to the gun at her belt. "We have no need for these," she continued, "I'm sure we don't want anyone getting hurt, we can both stay here." Her eyes gazed up to him, and in a superbly practiced move she gave him a hint of suggestive prolonged eye contact. "The company would be nice." she added innocently.

She was lying with her suggestive glance, of course. But she knew the many ways to disarm a man.

     Leo hissed in frustration as he replaced his weapon, then snatched the two bags from the floor and jumped over the woman's corpse. Fuck. He knew the sun had already fell, and the creatures were becoming more active. The gunshot had been loud. Soon they would be swarming the Hotel Malaga in growing numbers. Running down the dark hallway he swiftly turned the corner, passing a window that would soon be smashed in by one of the hungry creatures. Leo shouldered open the door to the stairwell and froze in the doorway. The glow stick swayed from his neck lazily.

     If he ascended the stairs to his makeshift apartment and hid inside, there was a slim chance the creatures wouldn't find him. Then again, there was the likely chance that he would end up stuck in a building full of the damn things. Or worse yet, the horde would attract some hunters, and the nightmares would hunt Leonard down in his hotel room fort and slaughter him with ease before the sunrise.

     Shit. The man patted himself down, doing a frantic inventory check as the growls came closer to the door. There was no time to collect his belongings left in his room. He had to move quickly. Throwing the plastic bags over his left shoulder, Leo began to quickly descend the steps that would take him to the parking garage. Rounding the first turn, he knocked over a pot containing a dead plant and nearly tripped.

     Leo figured he would either find his way to a back alley and lose the crowd, or find himself surrounded in the garage with a fight on his hands. Both sounded better than certain death on the thirteenth floor, however. He would miss his stash of stuff, but he needed to leave the hotel behind as soon as possible tonight.