Free Earth: Population 2 (Paradise Lost Book 1) by Aubrie Dionne Page B

and off.
    The front door opened without protest. Guess some hotels stayed open at all hours of the night. I shone my flashlight inside. A white marble floor with a pattern of black diamonds at even intervals stretched out before a large reception desk. Not one, but three crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. I half expected some snobby receptionist to tell me I didn’t have a reservation.
    As if. That would mean people still lived in the world.
    I walked behind the front desk and found a bunch of keycards in a basket. I grabbed a few of them, hoping one would work, and took the stairs to the third level. It was high enough to be away from the street but low enough to run down the stairs to escape. Lush pink carpet cushioned my feet. I selected a random room and tried all the key cards. One after another failed. I thought about firing my gun again, but I didn’t want to draw them close with any sound. I’d already taken that chance twice. At about the fiftieth try, the green light came on, and the door opened.
    I raised my gun in my right hand and the flashlight in the other. The air hung cool and sterile, as if the room hadn’t been touched since the last cleaning service. A massive bed with a floral comforter sprawled against the far wall. On the near side, a TV cabinet stood next to a desk with a lamp.
    I tried the faucet in the bathroom and water gushed out. The shower wouldn’t be hot, but I’d taken my fair share of cold showers when the complex water heater went dead or everyone else used all the hot water up. I swung my backpack off my shoulder, locked the door with the deadbolt, and closed the heavy drapes, overlapping them to make sure no light could get through the window. I stuck my flashlight upright in the lampshade so it cast a glow across the room.
    Perfect. Nice hotel, fancy bedspread, and tons of SpaghettiOs. If only I had Mom or Hailey to share it with. Jeez, I’d even settle for Mike. My words from the campfire laughed ironically in my face I wouldn’t go out with him if he was the last guy on Earth. Well, in this case, I might make an exception.
    I found a plastic spoon above the mini fridge and opened a can of SpaghettiOs.
    Wait a second. A mini fridge. I opened the fridge. Three cans of Mountain Dew sat inside, along with a whole bunch of Twix bars and some M&Ms. I saved the Mountain Dew for the next day, but a crispy, chocolaty Twix would go well with SpaghettiOs.
    As I ate, the weight of the day pressed on my shoulders. The loneliness crept in along with a terrible doubt. What if I couldn’t bring everyone back? Was I doomed to scavenge the world forever?
    I looked at the expiration date on the bottom of the can. What would I do when the food all went bad? It wasn’t like I could plant crops with the Sparkies running around.
    Besides, would I want to live that long alone?
    How would I end the eternal solitude? Jump off a building? Crazy talk. But, I didn’t have a lot of options. I had to figure out what happened to everyone. I had to outsmart the Sparkies by figuring out what they wanted with my planet and stopping them. I couldn’t fathom the alternative.
    I pulled my laptop out of my bag and booted it up. Of course, the Internet didn’t work. But, I wasn’t expecting it to. Instead, I opened a file, and the opening credits of Pirate Crusader flashed on the screen along with some Irish fiddle music. The view panned from the mast of a ship to a sparkling blue ocean.
    It was silly, childish behavior. I only had a few hours of battery left, but I needed something familiar to ground me. I needed a way of escape, at least for a little while.
    “What have we got here, my friends?” I spoke the words along with the captain. He stood at the end of the dock wearing his sexy, tight leather pants and billowy cotton shirt. From his neck hung a skull with rubies for eyes, like the one on his feathered hat.
    “Oh, it’s just a shipment of rum for the queen.” Spoteye, the grubby pirate