Survivors

Chapter Fourteen: The First Raid

The van crashed straight into the building and we were stuck between a rock and a hard place: outside with the Communist bombers and with the very unstable, earthquake-ravaged building. Between the two, we chose the hard place. Since the van was all bruised up, it kinda looked as if we might have been killed in the crash. This was some pretty good luck.

"Okay guys, we need to split up. After a complete search of the building, everyone needs to meet back here. Gigi and Helayna: I need you to search for food. Any food that can be consumed, take it. Bring back as much as you can." They nodded and were off. "Ali, Tyler, and Adrian: go search for survivors. Look throughout the whole building if you have to. Every life counts." Understood, they left in the opposite direction Gigi and Helayna took. "Liora, you're with me. We need to find a power cord to replace the computers at base camp."

We left the rendezvous headed toward the front desk. I looked underneath the broken computers. All the computers were connected to the same power cord just like the one's at base camp. This one too had been severed. We just needed to keep looking. Liora had, however, found a secret stash of candies and other sweets in a drawer and we decided to search in the other drawers too. It was all the same: a neat supply of food able to last our group two weeks. Not all of it was candy but quite a lot of it consisted of sweets. We stashed the cashes of food into our backpacks without a sound.

We headed toward the Employees Only part of the casino. Those sorts of places are filled with electrical wires for the taking. When we arrived, we found exactly what we needed: the power cord to replace the slashed one back at base camp. That part of our journey was a success. We journeyed back toward the rendezvous point to wait for the others.

"They're not coming back anytime soon," Liora said after ten minutes. "We got what we needed but it's gonna take some time for everyone else to find what they need." So we left once again in search for more food and survivors.

"I don't really want to climb like thirty-two sets of stairs. Why don't we check the elevator?" I asked.

"Probably not a good idea. This place was as good as wrecked by an earthquake. The elevator won't be in good condition."

"Whatever. Fine. Let's take the stairs." And so we did. At least up until the fifth floor where the staircase was destroyed by a falling chunk of stone that we stepped over on the last flight of steps. "I'm not jumping this gap."

"Well what do you want to do, Sierra? Find another stairwell?" Liora asked me.

"No. I want to take the elevator."

"But it's probably broken."

"We don't know that. Besides, no chems were used here; that's a fact."

"We tried your way and that didn't work so it's my turn," I smiled smugly.

We climbed down the stairs and found an elevator near one of the many food courts the former casino contained. I pushed the button carefully. We waited a few minutes before Liora decided we needed to find a new staircase when the doors dinged open. It was just wonderful luck.

"Uh, where do you want to start?" I asked unsure of what each floor might present in terms of dangerous debris.

"Why don't we start with the floor directly above the lobby?" she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Good point."

I pressed the "2" button on the elevator's door and the doors slowly closed. Going up one floor was like waiting for molasses to drain itself from a bottle. When we finally got to the second floor, we were greeted with the unpleasant sight of the dead lying in front of us. Piles of bodies littered the ground in front of us. Just as we were about to head to another floor, the elevator dinged shut and slowly (and creakily) left us to service probably Ali, Tyler, and Adrian's group but who knows: it could've been for Gigi and Helayna or even a group of Communist foot soldiers. Anyway, we continued ahead even though the lifeless corpses lay all around us. If you think the sight must've been terrible, you're lucky you couldn't smell them! There is a reason why the dead are either buried or burned. We walked quietly into one of the nearest, opened hotel rooms. We scavenged the place but there was nothing usable in there save a pair of sunglasses, a small matchbook, and a granola bar. We took all three.

The next rooms were of little improvement over the first; the main difference was the smell. Most of the dead were closest to elevators so it didn't smell bad where people (still alive) had been running away from.

"Anything we find here is going to be of poor quality if it's anything other than snack-types of foods," Liora said by about the fifth room.

"Then we can eat snack-type foods for the rest of our days," I replied. "I won't leave anyone to die because all we could eat were snacky foods."

We continued on until we had searched the whole second floor and decided to go back downstairs to the rendezvous point where the others might be waiting. We went back the way we came, took the slow-as-molasses elevator and met up with everyone at the rendezvous point. Everyone was there but we hadn't found any survivors. All we had were some snack-type foods, a much-needed power cord, a few mismatched articles of clothing/accessories, and a few miscellaneous items. We all climbed into the van with no problems, then headed back towards base camp.