Free Plague: Death was only the beginning! by Donald Franck, Francine Franck Page A

flight of stairs in the dark, he said the hell with it and made his way back down. Searching behind the front desk, he finally found a big red metal flashlight that still worked and tried again. The other thing he found was a master key card that could unlock all of the electronic doors. Someone had even marked it with magic marker so that it stood out in the drawer of used key cards.
    Now climbing the stairs with a flashlight and master key card, he thought of how far up he should go. Should he get the penthouse? Very nice, but that was more than twenty stories up. No way was he walking that! Maybe the Embassy Suite would do. He had seen that it was a corner suite on the seventh floor that overlooked the park. Perfect!
    Opening the fire door to the seventh floor, he stuck his head out and took a big whiff of air. Not too bad, he had smelled worse to be sure over the last month. He stepped out into the hallway and tried to find the right door. He had turned around so many times on the stairs that he had lost all sense of direction, but a sign ahead pointed him in the right way. Soon he was standing in front of the ornate double doors and putting his passkey in the lock. Green! He turned the door handle and opened the door.
    In front of him was a vast open corner suite that opened out into a balcony that overlooked the park. To his right was a massive fireplace and living room set that must have cost more than he could even think of. To his left was a glass and gold bar with bottles of liqueur of every size, shape, and flavor imaginable.
    Walking to the right, he approached the huge double doors leading to the bedroom. He stopped; for some reason the smell was stronger. Finally, he brushed it off as just the stale air and opened the door. A wave of death and decay filled his senses as the horror of what he was seeing overwhelmed him.
    Stretched before him on the massive oak bed were two bodies. One had platinum blonde hair that rolled in waves down her chest. The other was an old man who sported a $45,000 diamond Rolex watch and nothing else. Blood and vomit now covered the woman’s oversized breasts, fake no doubt, and a black stinking mass of something covered her hips and lower legs. As he approached the bed, his eyes drawn toward the man’s watch, he stopped. Something wasn’t right. But, greed overcame caution, and he stepped right up to the dead man and pulled at the watchband. It was stuck! He pulled harder and the skin tore open. Black blood pooled on the man’s chest and began to run down the side of his chest. Chevy followed it with his eyes and stopped. The man’s eyes were open, and he was looking right at him from only inches away! Chevy screamed as the man vomited up a mass of black blood that covered Chevy’s face and arms.
    He struggled to break free as the man reached out to him. Alive, the bastard was still alive! Falling backward, he began crawling quickly away from the bed, still screaming in his horror of it all. Finally making his way to his feet by the double doors, he looked behind him. The shrunken old man was somehow on his feet and moving toward him. How could this be! Chevy screamed again and ran for the door and freedom. He slammed the still open hallway door and ran, right into the darkness. He had forgotten his flashlight. It was only the start of a very bad day.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
    “Darkness, only darkness reflects the soul.”
    -Thoughts from the Author.
     
    Chapter 21
    Worldwide Deaths: 72,900,000 est.
     
    Chevy struggled for more than an hour before he could find the fire escape door and make his way back to the ground. Fear and sickness had emptied his stomach on the floors above, and he was weak and shaking as he reached the street again. He had never seen anything like that! His skin still crawled from where the vomited mass had covered his face and hands. God, the smell! It was horrible, and he searched for somewhere to clean up. An upscale clothiers filled