Forget The Zombies (Book 3): Forget America by R.J. Spears

along.
    Clint guided me to a room halfway down the hall. I took a glance into one room and saw Mo sprawled across a twin bed, fully dressed with his boots still on, and I could swear he was snoring.
    My room was eight by six would be considered Spartan in how it was equipped. It had a twin bed with clean, crisp sheets and a night stand with a small metal lamp on it. The light from the lamp gave the room and, more specifically, the bed a warm and inviting feel.
    “There’s a communal bathroom down the hall if you want to clean up before you settle in,” Clint said. “Sorry we can’t give you all private bathrooms.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m just happy to have a place to lay my head.”
    “Well, let us know if you need anything,” Clint said.
    “I will,” I said, then added, “Thanks for everything.”
    “Don’t mention it,” he said making a dismissive gesture with his hands and he disappeared from the doorway. I sat on the bed and discovered pulling off my boots took a Herculean effort as my eyelids felt like they would slam down at any second. I stumbled up, shut the door, and nearly fell on the floor as I tottered backwards, but maintained enough balance to end up on the bed. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. My last thought was that I hoped I wouldn’t snore as loudly as Mo.

    My head felt heavy and thick when I awoke the next day. I wasn’t sure how long I had slept, but it wasn’t nearly enough. My eyelids felt pasted together with glue and it took an enormous effort of will to even open them.
    When I finally opened them, I saw a shadowy figure just inches from my face. Despite the cloudiness in my head, I jerked back and bounced my head off the wall, sending dull waves of slowly radiating pain around in my skull. I shot out hand to push the figure away, but I seemed like I was moving in slow motion.
    The figure moved out of the shadows and I could see it was Robbie as he grabbed my weak jab. He was down on one knee next to my bed. His expression was etched with concern.
    “Shhhhh,” he sounded as he put his index finger to his lips in the universal ‘be quiet’ sign.
    Through my grogginess, I managed to right myself to a sitting position with his help.
    “Grant, we need to talk,” he said in a half whisper.
    “Wha?” I mushed out of mouth.
    “Something’s going on here,” he said leaning in close to me.
    “Wha?” I asked again.
    “Are you on drugs? he asked.
    While the answer should have been ‘yes,’ but I didn’t know what was going on, so instead, I just said “Wha?” again.
    “Snap out of it, Grant,” Robbie said. “While we slept, Jeb’s people came into our rooms and took our weapons.”
    That woke me up. Not fully, but I was nowhere close to being in the land of the comatose. I looked to my night stand and saw that my pistol was missing. I marshalled all my strength and slowly tried to sit up. It was a multi-step process with some ground gained and some lost, but I finally made it up.
    Past Robbie’s shoulder, I saw someone move and Jay’s face appeared.
    “Hey Grant dude, I’ve never seen you this mellow,” Jay said with a conspiratorial wink.
    I started to say “Wha?” again, but knew that wasn’t helping matters. I closed my eyes, mustered my senses, opened them, and very deliberately asked, “What - did - you - see?”
    “At first, I heard doors opening and closing,” Robbie said. “The noise seemed to be moving from room to room, getting closer to me. They talked in whispers. I didn’t know what to do, but just hide some of my stuff under my mattress and acted like I was asleep.”
    He paused for a moment and looked over his shoulder to the hallway, then turned back to me and started up again, “They came in and the first thing they took was my two guns. Then they took some of my gadgets including my solar chargers. My phone was under the mattress.”
    “So, you didn’t put one of your guns under the