Maxwell Armando

At the Neptune Shores Beach Resort, Maxwell Armando considers everything that's transpired. He knows Electra Draco will face harsh criticism when the Interplanetary Federation learns of the demise of the space station resort. Having lost communications with Earth over twelve hours ago, officials might begin to suspect something is dreadfully wrong. Something more than downed comm arrays. If the same fate is happening aboard the space cruise ship, the Celestial Sea, the Space Venture Corporation will be in dire straits.

Armando wags his head.

No. They'll be finished and he'll be looking for another job.

If the virus has made it to the cruise ship, Draco could be dead, or worse, an infected zombie. He wonders how HQ is handling the crisis. He's certain a spokesperson from the corporation's headquarters in San Diego will release a statement and maybe even ask for help from the Federation. But to begin with, to save face HQ will probably play it soft, deny any problems besides a communication issue and assure everyone that everything is okay. They'll say the problem should be resolved in a timely manner. But as time ticks on, their stance will change and they might make a plea to the elected chancellor of the Federation. The chancellor may call an emergency meeting with her cabinet to approve a measure for a search and rescue mission. Any such operation would be conducted by a specialized branch of the Interstellar Navy, called the Black Mambas. Armando has heard of the Mambas. The small tactical unit is known for their quick strike ability, fierceness in combat and commitment to duty.

When the chancellor is asked why she thinks it's necessary to dispatch a black ops unit like the Mambas, she'll decline comment, which will lead everyone to believe she has classified information that might shed light on what exactly has befallen the space station resort and possibly even the ship. He can picture the news story and the music jingle as it hits the data stream on the Interplanetary News.

But any rescue may come too late to save Armando or anyone else at Neptune Shores.

He hasn't heard from his security team, let alone anyone else for hours, except for the brief conversation with Dr. Jett Mintaka. And who knows what happened to the doctor? Watching through his hologram screen, the last thing he remembers is seeing the doctor running for his life from one of the infected hotel guests. Another good reason why he didn't let Mintaka inside the security office. If he had let him in, both of them would have been on the infected flesh eating menu.

Armando sits at his desk and activates the holo screen. It's a twenty inch, empty chrome frame with a flat round base. When he says, "Play the security feed of the debarkation bay," the air within the thin frame pixelates into a 3D image of the large area right around the corner from his office. The view is a real time feed of what's occurring at this precise moment. He swipes his finger to the left and rewinds the footage back to when Mintaka gave up on getting inside his office and fled to the main airlock, the same one the Celestial Sea docked at upon arrival at the resort.

In the replay, the infected hoarde chases Mintaka into the airlock where for a few moments he must have thought he was safe. As the footage plays, Armando places his hand over his open mouth and watches as the infected people crowd around the clear polycarbonate airlock door. The throng of mindless men and women—parents, grandparents, teenagers and an adolescent boy—press against the air hatch, swatting and behaving like animals. Then Armando sees something that freezes the blood in his veins. He feels a frigid wave of recognition wash over him. His hand falls to the desk. There, in the hologram, he sees someone he knows other than the doctor...Nassan Jondu, the tour guide supervisor. Jondu snarls and bites at the air, desperate to reach Mintaka.

Finally, Armando witnesses a strange twist of fate. He watches as Jondu pounds his fist into the airlock control panel. The screen comes alive.

Armando pauses the feed and zooms in on Mintaka's petrified face, eyes large and round, mouth sagging open in horror. The doctor knows what is about to happen. And then Jondu inadvertently pounds his fist into the control panel screen and hits the tab selection that opens the rear door of the airlock.

Armando gasps as Mintaka flies out of the airlock, sucked into the vacuum of space. A weight of guilt crushes his chest. He should've allowed the doctor to come inside his office. He shouldn't have turned him away.

Unable to watch any longer, he deactivates the hologram and rises from his chair.

He doesn't have food or water in his office. He can't stay here forever. He can survive without eating for days, maybe a week, but he can't go without water for more than a day or two, three tops. He'll dehydrate and die like a lonely soul wandering the Sahara Desert on Earth. The thought dries his mouth. He hasn't drank anything since this morning. He won't die in the next few minutes, but he knows he can't stay barricaded in his office. He has to leave and he needs to do it while he has strength, not when he's weak and dehydrated. If he waits too long, he'll be easy prey for the infected hotel guests.

He paces back and forth in front of his desk, scratching his head. For whatever reason, he hasn't been infected yet, and he wants to keep it that way. But what can he do? He won't be able to convince Grayson Flux to allow him into his office. Armando knows the resort manager's plush office is stocked with at least some food and water. He sighs. Flux also has a stash of whiskey and cigars. They're in the middle of what can only be described as a zombie apocalypse and Flux is going out in style. No. He'll never let him in, just like Flux wouldn't allow Mintaka inside. Armando witnessed that on the video as well.

Then he remembers the Chinese Cafe. The woman wouldn't let Mintaka in, but she doesn't have to let Armando in because he's the security chief. He has a key to unlock the pull down metal curtain that keeps her restaurant secure during the late night hours.

Armando marches to the video screen next to his door and uses it to scan the area outside his office. The last he saw, the hoarde of infected people led by Nassan Jondu had disbanded and gone their separate ways in search of more people to satisfy their insatiable hunger for flesh.

Outside his office, a man and woman, both infected, wander about in the wide corridor of the concourse. There might be more he can't see? But he feels certain he can handle a few of the infected guests while he unlocks the steel curtain.

Inside the restaurant he'll find running water, enough to last him until help arrives. Again, he can only conceive that help will eventually come. But can he stay alive until then?

Armando opens the door and peeks into the corridor. The infected man loiters near the escalator, back turned to him. The woman has ventured further down the concourse past the Chinese Cafe.

He seizes the moment and sprints from his office, down the concourse, shock stick in hand ready to defend himself.

He makes it to the cafe in seconds but the sound of his shoes clacking on the dark tile draws the attention of the infected man at the escalator. Down at the end of the hall, the woman turns and starts his way.

Armando jangles the keys and finds the right one to unlock the metal curtain. With today's technology, he would have thought they'd have more advanced ways to secure a restaurant, and they do, but the shops and restaurants in the resort are independently owned and operated under contract with Neptune Shores. That means the owners must fend for themselves. And Grayson Flux doesn't care how the owners lock their shops. Unfortunately, the elderly woman who owns the cafe doesn't want to spend the ebills to buy anything more than a regular lock and key.

Fortunately for Armando, the cafe owner had to supply him with a spare key since he's in charge of security. He inserts the key into the slit in the floor and turns it. He grins with satisfaction and yanks on the steel curtain, but it doesn't budge. It rattles in place, still locked.

At the sound of the metal curtain clinking against its links, the two infected guests emit a series of irritated and raspy noises. They increase their pace, closing in on Armando's position. He shoots a glance in both directions—behind each of the two infected guests—more sick people fall in line. The hoarde that chased Mintaka to his death is hemming him in. He has to get inside the cafe. The concourse is blocked no matter which way he goes.

He turns the key the other way, thinking he went the wrong direction on the first try. But still, the grated curtain won't budge.

"Nooo," he says. "It can't be." Then he looks on the other side, into the cafe and sees why his key hasn't opened the curtain. The owner, that elderly woman has outsmarted him. She put a padlock at the base of the curtain, ran it through a steel loop in the floor and locked the gate from the inside.

Armando rattles the curtain and shouts, "Open up! Let me in...now. I'm the security chief. You have to let me inside, now."

The woman stands in the back of the cafe. She shakes her head and disappears into a room or a closet.

The sounds of fleshly hunger intensify.

The infected rush toward him.

Armando raises the shock stick with one hand and bangs on the curtain with the other. The man who had been hanging out near the escalator gets to him first.

Armando jabs the stick into his chest and watches the man quake as fifty thousand volts of electricity surge through his body. When he pulls the stick back, the man falls to the floor, quivering.

The woman comes next. Armando spins and lights her up with the stick like he did the man. She collapses in a trembling fit, arms and legs rocking with spasms.

He has only one other option. Grayson Flux.

Armando shocks another infected person and drops him like a fly. Then he races over to Flux's door. He taps the comm screen and tries to hail Flux, but gets nothing in return. The resort manager isn't going to give him the courtesy of telling him 'no' to his face.

Clusters of the infected block his escape route in both directions.

Then a gap opens up in the line of infected guests...in the direction of his office. He has only one choice. He'll have to go back to his office and lock himself inside and if he dies of dehydration or starvation so be it. It'll be better than getting ripped to shreds.

Armando turns sideways and tries to slip through the gap in the line of infected people. They twist and reach for him, clawing at his arms and shoulders. He feels a sliver of hope and adrenaline pushing him forward.

He's almost through the gap when Nassan Jondu snags his sleeve and jerks him into a tight embrace. Armando tries to free himself but Jondu is too strong. The tour guide supervisor throws him to the floor and jumps on top of him. The rest of the infected guests pour in like an angry river swallowing him whole. Pain erupts all over his body as the hoarde sinks their teeth into his skin and eats him alive.

Armando screams in agony...until Jondu chomps down on his throat and rips out his larynx. He chokes and gargles, vision fading. The last image he sees is his blood running like streams in the grooves between the tiles on the floor. And then his world turns to the blackness of night.