it’ll heal before your wedding,” Andy said. “Is that the Russian expression?”
She smiled. “The doctor said there won’t be any scars left once the stitches are removed. Though, I have to look like Chucky the Killer Doll for a couple of weeks.”
Andy sighed. “It’s a miracle we’ve survived this nightmare.”
He flashbacked to the moment, when mutilated corpses started slamming against the main door, foaming at their mouths, and felt a snake of terror uncurling in his stomach.
Two big guys wearing camouflage uniforms sat in the front row. One of them had a snub-nosed Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. Cash messengers. They were in the lounge removing the money from the ATM when the chaos broke loose, and they sealed the main entrance in time before the crazies could rush inside the hotel.
Andy looked at his Piaget watch. 10:10 a.m. He glanced around the room, which contained two hundred seats. It was the best conference hall in Chelyabinsk, and it was packed with all modern high-tech equipment. A large LED screen was installed above the stage. It could even boast a simultaneous interpretation booth. The only one in the city.
He had tried to contact the owner of the hotel who resided in Vienna but failed because there was no phone and Internet connection. Now it was up to him to make all the decisions.
Not all the seats were taken in the hall.
Less than a third here, Andy thought. Maybe even less than a quarter. The rest are in their rooms, asleep or afraid to go out.
The Arkaim Hotel could accommodate up to four hundred guests and it had been ninety percent filled before the zombie crisis. Some people had checked out on that harrowing Saturday morning and gone to the airport or the railway station. Some of them had gone outside and never returned. Or they had come back as frenzied cannibals and shredded both of the doormen into pieces of bloody flesh. Half of the staff had escaped from the building.
Andy was looking at the people entering the hall and doing his mental calculations. There were about two hundred people in the hotel all in all. The item on Andy’s current to-do list was the headcount.
The people talked quietly, coughed, shuffled their feet, or sat silently. A man with disheveled hair had brought sandwiches and a thermos flask and was eating, looking thoughtfully through the window at the morning sky.
Andy looked at the gathering audience. In a span of two days, they became not just his customers and employees. He was feeling a personal responsibility for all these people.
When everyone was seated, Andy came up to the front of the stage. Diana stood next to him to interpret his speech into Russian.
“Please put up your hand if you don’t understand Russian at all,” Andy said in English.
Four hands were raised. An old bearded man, a young man with Nordic features and the Chinese man, and the teenage girl, apparently his daughter.
“Khorosho. That means I can risk speaking Russian instead. Hello everyone,” Andy said in Russian. Diana was taken aback a little, as she was ready to interpret from English to Russian and not vice versa. “My name is Andrew Thomas. I am the General Manager of this hotel. Er … I can’t find the right words now, firstly, because Russian is not my native language. Please excuse me. And, secondly, the situation we’re presently in is very dire.
“But I’m happy to see all of you here. Safe and alive. Hopefully, everything is going to be all right with you and with your relatives and friends.”
He paused and scanned the hall. He saw despair and hope in people’s faces.
“As you see,” he went on, “the hotel is officially closed at the moment. We accept no check-ins.”
He tried to smile. Some of the guests chuckled nervously.
He dug out a piece of paper out of his pocket and looked at it. “We have two issues of primary concern on the agenda today: protection and food supply.”
One of the two cash messengers, a big guy with a round face, rose from his seat to be seen and said, “The garage entrance is not going to hold for long. It’s giving way. Maybe a couple more hours. Give or take.”
“Thanks,” Andy said. “We’ll reinforce the barricades. What’s your name?”
“Marcel.”
“Okay, Marcel. We’ll talk about it.”
The cash messenger sat down.
“Can you tell us what’s going on?” said a woman with a little boy sitting in her lap.
“I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling right now,” Andy said. “What exacerbates everything is the fact that we know nothing about what is really happening in this city. It could be a war or a coup. It could be anything. Our main goal here is to survive till the government and the army restore order in the city. So that we’ll be able to see our loved ones. I realize you all have families out there. And I hope they’re safe and sound. The same your families would wish for you – to save your lives, to be able to see you, to be able to hug you again someday.”
The woman with the little boy started crying and left the hall. Andy asked one of the security guards to accompany them to their room.
“And we’ll survive only if we pool our forces together,” Andy went on. “We have safety in numbers. We have people of different occupations, qualifications, and expertise here. Well, I honestly hope you did not come to this town as a delegation for a stockbroker convention.”
People laughed in the audience. Diana looked at Andy and smiled.
“I hope we have medical doctors here, engineers, mechanics, electricians.” Andy made a pause. “Who else will we need? Athletes, welders, hunters, cooks … Hopefully, an assassin or two is present among you.”
More people laughing.
“With your knowledge, you can survive and help others to survive.”
Andy picked up a big book with the green cover from the desk. “I’m asking all of you now to come up and check in again. In this log book. It’s a paper book, as I anticipate power outages.”
“That’s a good idea,” Marcel said. His partner nodded in agreement.
Andy took a pen out of his breast pocket and invited everyone including the staff to go through registration.
“Please state your name, the number of your room and your useful skills. As of now, you’re free of charge. Let’s stay together and let this place really be your home away from home.”
People started clapping their hands.
Diana whispered to Andy, “You’re making progress in Russian.”
Andy rolled his eyes.
Goran stood up and roared with laughter. “Nice speech, William Wallace!”
Andy thanked everyone for their support.
