by Archer Gibbs
Ring, ring.
“Hello,” Jacob said.
“Yeah, hello Jacob. I need you to go to the Imperial Hotel on the other side of town,” the police chief said. “I’ve brought in some new people and I want you to lead them.”
“Okay,” Jacob replied. He hung up the phone and turned on the radio.
A deadly infection has begun on the other side of town.
Jacob turned up the volume. He sat down to listen.
We recommend you stay indoors or suffer. Police chief Kale Williams is sending a trained team to investigate this virus.
Jacob jumped up, put on his blue police jacket, ran outside to his police car, and drove away as fast as he could. Soon, he arrived at the Imperial Hotel. There were six police standing out the front of the tall gates, ready to go in.
“Hi, I’m Rider,” said one of the police, a tall man with bright pink hair. “This is Emily, Rachel, Lily and Riley.”
As they stepped through the gate, a strange thing happened. Every single police officer fell to the ground and passed out.
They all woke, much later, inside the hotel lobby. It was dark outside.
“What happened?” said Emily, looking around.
Rider was checking the doors. “They’re all locked with padlocks,” he said. “And look, the padlocks are all different colours and sizes. Okay, everyone split up and look for the keys.”
They all went separate ways, except for Riley and Jacob, who stuck together. “Hi,” said Jacob, introducing himself. “I think we’re going to be good friends.”
Behind the hotel counter, tucked away in a drawer, there was a green key.
“Look what I found,” cried Jacob, holding up the key.
He looked around and finally found a door with a matching green padlock. He pushed the key into the lock and twisted it … click!
The door opened.
The room was dark. Riley walked in first. He was feeling around to make sure he didn’t run into anything. Crash! He tripped over a coffee table and bashed his head on the wall, right against the light switch. The lights flick- ered on.
“Look, a keycard,” whispered Jacob. “Where?” asked Emily, looking around. “Over there on the desk,” said Jacob. He
helped Riley up. “You okay?” he asked.
Riley rubbed his head. “Yeah,” he replied.
Thud, thud!
“What’s that?” Jacob asked, nervously.
A soldier burst into the room. His eyes were bloodshot, and he seemed to be growing taller. He was the biggest person Jacob had ever seen. There were other soldiers with red eyes shambling along behind him. The first soldier seemed to be the boss.
“Stay very still,” Jacob said. They were all standing, frozen, behind the desk. The soldier stopped and sniffed the air. He grunted and then moved on.
“Follow me,” whispered Jacob. He ran out the door and down the hall. When he reached the door with the blue padlock, he pushed the blue keycard into the slot.
The door opened, and inside the room they found a hammer. They ran back out into the corridor and saw some steps leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. The trapdoor was boarded up.
“This must lead to the attic,” said Jacob.
He tried to tear down the boards, but the space was too tight and he couldn’t get the nails loose.
“Let me try,” called Riley, from below.
Jacob climbed down and handed Riley the hammer.
Riley threw it at the door.
Crash! The boards splintered and broke.
They all climbed up into the attic. It was filled with a bright light. One of the walls was tilted for the roof and, right there, was a door with a padlock. The door was boarded up.
“I guess we use the hammer for this, too,” said Jacob. He pulled out the nails and took down the boards. Behind the door was a tiny room with a cabinet inside. On top of the cab- inet was a plank of wood and a small red fire extinguisher.
Jacob grabbed the plank and Riley picked up the fire extinguisher.
“I can smell smoke,” cried Emily.
“There must be a fire in the kitchen,” said Riley. “Hurry!”
Riley ran down the hall to the kitchen. There were flames everywhere. He pulled the handle on the fire extinguisher and put out the fire. Hanging on the wall over the kitchen sink was a blue key. He grabbed the key and put it in his pocket. Dumping the fire extinguisher, he walked through the double doors into the hotel diner.
The dessert trolley beside the window tipped over with a loud crash! Plates fell from the shelves. Glasses flew from the tables and smashed on the floor. The whole room was shaking.
He ran back into the kitchen. He could smell burnt wood and smoke and singed fur. He looked down and saw a dead rat. “Ugh,” he said.
The room was shaking all around him. Pots and pans were smashing to the ground. A large barrel fell over and a trail of poisonous acid snaked across the floor, sizzling and bub- bling, cutting him off from the doorway. Riley tried to lay his plank across it.
“Riley! There you are!” cried Emily. She stepped forward to help him with the plank. There was another massive shake.
“No!” Riley reached out to stop her, but it was too late. Emily lost her balance and landed in the river of acid. She screamed. Her body dissolved.
There was nothing left of her at all.
Riley stared at the acid. “Well, she’s dead,” he said. “And there’s no way out of here, so I guess I’m dead, too.”
There was another shake. He threw down the plank and turned back to the window. As he turned, a sinkhole opened in the ground, right beneath his feet. Smash! The floorboards splintered. He was falling.
Everything went silent.
Jacob was lying in the darkness, all beat up. He heard a moan beside him, and someone whispered his name.
“Is that you, Riley?” he asked.
Jacob and Riley climbed out of the hole. They were on the other side of the hotel. Riley pointed at some stairs at the end of the corri- dor, leading down. On the top step, there was a large silver spanner.
“Look,” said Riley. He grabbed the spanner and they both ran down the stairs. At the bot- tom, there was a doorway, with burning red lasers running across it from top to bottom.
Riley looked around for the circuit board and smashed it with the spanner. The lasers disappeared.
They ran through the doorway into a large room. The only thing in the room was a small brown table, right in the middle, with a glass
bottle sitting on it. Riley picked up the bottle. Inside was a green ooze that looked like slime. “Look! Is this the antidote?” he asked.
“Let’s see,” said Jacob. “I’m not infected, so if I take it, it will infect me.”
Riley handed him the bottle. Jacob un- screwed the lid and took a sip. His eyes turned red and he began to grow taller, just like the soldiers. He was turning into a monster!
Riley snatched the bottle from Jacob and splashed a drop of the green ooze onto Jacob’s skin. Jacob’s eyes turned back to blue. He shrank back to his normal height. He was all better.
“We did it!” he yelled. “We found the antidote.”
They ran out of the hotel and down the road to the hospital, where they found Rachel, Lily and Rider waiting for them with cuts and bruises and lots of broken bones.
Jacob and Riley sold the antidote to the hospital, became rich, and retired from the police force.
