Plan romantic getaways. Or just getaways.

One thing I can say about the Sea King Hotel and Casino is that they had far nicer rooms than I’d expected when we walked in the door hours before. They weren’t great, don’t get me wrong, but I had some really low expectations based on the shitty appearance of the lower level. Now that we were in a room, I couldn’t complain much. It was clean with two queen-sized beds and a little desk by the window.

Unfortunately, at the moment, those rooms were our prison, so I had less appreciation for them than I would have if we’d just come to stay for a weekend excursion.

Dave handed over a cracker and a slice of cheese that he was forced to hack off with a plastic knife. Yeah, our cult-y captors had given us food, but they’d decided we couldn’t even be trusted with a steak knife. It was like the airlines, but without the instructions for what to do in an emergency. Right now, we could have used them.

I crunched on the cracker as I cast a side glance at the hotel door. I had already checked through the peephole a couple of times since some of William and Melissa’s minions had tossed us into a room (not even a suite, the cheapskates).

What I’d seen every time I checked were guards standing outside. And not just any guards, but two of the biggest followers in the group armed with wicked machetes that they held like they’d been training for this moment. The worst part was… maybe they had.

I wasn’t about to tangle with them one way or another, especially without any weapons of our own.

“Okay, are we going to talk about this?” Dave sighed.

“Talk about what?” I asked before I chugged some water from the mini-bar. “There’s so much to cover here.”

He laughed softly. “Yeah, but I meant talk about them.”

“You mean asshole and assholette?” When David nodded, I shook my head. “We never should have saved that shithead. We could have let the zombies in the kitchen get him.”

He grinned, but it was tense. “I admit the idea of watching him get eaten alive is pretty pleasant right now, but there was no way we could have known that at the time.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, you hardly ever come face to face with a genuine —” I dropped my voice to a whisper, in case they were listening outside to report back to William and Melissa about what we were saying, “— cult.”

“Yeah,” he said with a frown.

I nodded. “I guess we’ve got to figure out what to do next, as much as I’d like to pretend like none of this is happening. But we are in the middle of a zombie outbreak, we’re trying to get another hundred miles plus to your sister’s… and we’ve just been taken hostage by a crazy-ass cult that thinks this zombie thing is the hand of God. Ignoring the problem — er, problems — is clearly not going to fix them.”

“Nice summary,” Dave said as he got to his feet and brushed cracker bits from his pants. “Right now I think the zombies are the least of our worries.”

“I never thought we’d say that,” I said with a shake of my head. “But you’re right, at least for now.”

I shivered as I thought of the dead eyes of Blackwell’s followers. They were such a stark contrast to the bright intelligence of his and his wife’s. Unlike the zombies, those two knew exactly what they were doing. And if we got in the way, we wouldn’t make it. They would make sure of that.

“We have to get out of here.” I rubbed my eyes. “As soon as we possibly can.”

“I think tonight is our best chance.” Dave paced the room to the window and turned back. His hands were clenched at his sides. “I saw how he looked at you when he talked about repopulating the earth.”

I shrugged. “Isn’t that typical cult behavior? From all the documentaries I’ve ever watched on the subject, it seems like the leaders always manipulate the women into marrying them or sleeping with them or whatever.”

Dave spun around and I could see how pissed he was from the way his shoulders and back hunched. I have to admit, I kind of liked this chest-banging-woman-mine thing that was going on with him. It was sort of a new experience from Mr. Laid Back, Play a Videogame Dude.

“Well, I’m not letting that happen to you,” he said without looking at me.

I shook my head as I thought about the cult again. “The thing that bothers me is how in the world did these people get so crazy so fast? This outbreak only started yesterday.”

He shrugged, still not looking at me, but outside. “They were already crazy. I mean, you saw that sign outside the ballroom! ‘Blackwell Truth Church’… these people were already spouting nonsense. This whole situation just gives them the excuse they were looking for to carry out some kind of manifesto. It’s like Jonestown or those comet people from a few years ago.”

I swallowed. All those people in the cults he was talking about had ended up dead. And they hadn’t had an imminent threat of zombies right outside their doors to ramp up their mass hysteria.

“Well, how do we get away?” I asked. “There are guards at the door. And there’s no reasoning with good old Bill and Mel, down there.”

He turned slowly. “We aren’t going to reason. We’re just going to run.”

“How?” I asked, then looked toward the door and lowered my voice again.

He jerked his thumb toward the window and arched a brow. I hurried over to his side and looked out. The sun was pretty much down now and the world was frighteningly dark outside, but there were still some parking lot and exterior lights. In their glow, I could see that our room was just above the awning that hung over the casino entrance.

I turned back toward him with wide eyes and my first feeling of hope since our capture. “Holy shit, Dave! It’s only about what… ten feet down from here to there?”

He nodded. “And another short drop to the ground after that. I think we can make it. William took the keys to the Escalade, but I’ll bet at least one of these cars in the lot has keys in the ignition from when the owner was attacked. If we’re lucky, we’ll spot one right away and we can make a break for it.”

I shivered. “But… but there are zombies out there,” I whispered as I stared again into the looming darkness where real monsters roamed looking for flesh.

He put his arm around me as we stared out into the unknown abyss. “Yes, that’s very true. And it’s going to be dangerous, I won’t lie to you. But I’m pretty sure if we stay here that these crazy people are going to hurt us just as badly as any zombie could. In fact, maybe worse. I’ll take my chances on the open road.”

I nodded. His words were creeping past my fears. Worming into my brain. I had argued with him about a lot of things and a lot of decisions, but this time there was nothing to say. He was right.

“You know, I almost feel sorry for the zombies,” I mused as we stared out at the parking lot that could mean our freedom. “They kill for food… for base needs. They’re like an animal. They have no choice.”

Dave shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d go so far as pity. But you can’t blame them.”

“But this guy… this William and his wife… they know what they’re doing… they know the consequences of their threats and their teachings… but they do it anyway. And you’re right, that’s scarier than the dark. It’s scarier than any zombie.”

“So you’ll do it?” he asked, looking down at me.

I turned toward him and nodded up. “I will.”

He touched my cheek and for a minute I think we both lost ourselves. The moment felt tender and real and it broke up the horror of everything we’d been through over the last forty-eight hours.

But reality had to set back in and I was the one who backed away. “Okay, so we need some kind of rope to get down to the awning.”

I looked around for something that would serve the purpose and my gaze fell on the two beds.

“What about the sheets?”

Dave looked at the bed with worried eyes. “Um, didn’t Mythbusters once do an episode about how you couldn’t use sheets as a way out of prison?”

I laughed. “I don’t remember if they busted it or not. But I guess we’ll have to field test it again for them. There isn’t anything else and I think the drop without any kind of way to slow it might get us hurt.”

He shrugged, but I could see he was nervous. Have I mentioned Dave is a little afraid of heights? When my Mom came to visit and we took her to the Space Needle a year ago, he wouldn’t look out the window. He just stood in the shop in the middle of the dome, pretending to check out postcards. So the fact that he’d recommended climbing out a window… well, it meant our situation was pretty bad.

“I’ll go first,” I promised as I started stripping the bed. “And catch you if you fall.”

“Great,” he laughed as he threw the pillows on the floor on the other side of the bed. “I’ll remember you said that when I land on you.”