Fractured (20 page)

“Rodney?” she rasped to the darkness. “Rodney?”

There was no answer.

Frantic, Bash redoubled her efforts to find him, gingerly moving through the ruins of the vent. There were plenty of sharp pieces they had fallen on. She feared the worst. When her hands touched wet, sticky flesh, and she felt the sharp, pointy end of metal protruding from his chest, she knew that the worst had indeed happened.

“Rodney’s dead!” she yelled up flatly. Before all this had happened, being so close to a dead body would have frightened her. Now, she only felt a numbness taking hold.

“Shit,” the man behind Neil exclaimed, somewhat muffled by the echo in the ducts.

“Bash!” Seth’s voice reverberated through the room. It sounded like he was trying to talk around the girl in front of him. “Bash!”

“I’m here!” she yelled up, although she didn’t know where “here” was. “I’m hurt,” she added. At that, she touched the gouge in her arm—it was bad.

“Hang on,” Seth assured, “we’ll come get you!” His voice lowered, sounding irritated and scared as he directed the girl in front of him. “Lindsay, you’ve got to just go. Leap of faith.”

Hurry,
she wanted to say. She didn’t like being down here. Wherever she was.

“Can you tell me where I am?” she asked. Maybe that would help ease her fears. She also knew she was running out of time.

“It looks...” Seth hesitated. “It looks like you’re in the hotel’s laundry room.”

Bash could only imagine the shapes of the laundry machines she knew and then super-sized them. Was that where she was, some sort of huge laundromat?

“We’ll come get you,” Seth said.

“Okay,” Bash said. She winced as her arm throbbed. “Hurry!”

There was scuffling above her head. Maybe they were going to untie Scott, then use the makeshift rope to pull her up? She could kind of tie a knot, but since she was by herself, they would have to direct her. Plus, she didn’t know if Abyzou would give her enough time.

Something deep inside her warned that she was running out of time. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prick up, as if in warning.

“Hurry!” she hissed again.

Then she felt the hot breath on the back of her neck, and she knew she wasn’t alone anymore. Her heart pounding, she closed her eyes.

“Rodney?” she squeaked.

The presence at her back smacked her with such force, she hit one of the open washing machine doors, closing it with her body weight. She clutched her knees to her chest, fighting the urge to pass out. Why were all of the people who came back to life so strong? Rodney had come back to life much faster than the others. Was Abyzou targeting her alone?

“Trying to run?”
Rodney’s otherworldly voice taunted. She heard scuttling coming towards her.
“Didn’t I tell you, Bathsheba, that you’ll never be able to escape?”

“Abyzou,” she said through gritted teeth. “Why? Why can’t we leave?”

“Because I won’t let you.”
Rodney’s voice took on a bitter note. “
Because you have someone who belongs to me. I won’t let you take him away from me.
”

“Why?” she asked. “What did we ever do to you?”

“You,”
Rodney corrected.
“You tormented me all our lives, sister...
”

Bash’s blood ran cold. “What?” she whispered.

She heard the movement and reacted to it before she had time to process it. She swerved her head out of the punch that landed on the wall behind her, letting out a loud clanging noise. She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her arm, which hung limply at her side.

“Fuck!” Seth was yelling. “Bash!”

She couldn’t respond. She backed up, hearing the corpse that was once Rodney move about in the darkness. She was alone against this thing.

Rodney laughed, a malicious chuckle that echoed off all the walls.
“You think you can run
,” he taunted.
“You think you can hide. But you’ll never escape.”

Bash felt her whole body press up against the wall. No...not a wall. Her good hand snaked its way around and felt a door knob. Out of all the possible places she could back up, she was at the door. There could be a wall of fire on the other side. Or it could be the escape she needed to get away from Rodney.

“Bash!” Seth yelled again. “Bash, I’m coming down!”

“Stay where you are!” she yelled up. Her throat was dry, and while she had no idea what was beyond that door, she was at least going to try. Her concern was that Seth and Scott would get out all right. “I’m fine, Seth. Just get out. I’ll be with you when I can.”
Please, run.

“Bash—there’s...” he started, but he stopped.

Her hand twisted the door knob and she fell backwards, out of the laundry room. No raging wall of fire consumed her; she fell onto cold tile. Rodney let out an inhuman shriek, and she heard him rush the door, but she kicked it closed. She felt the door tremble under his attacks, threatening to give at any moment.

How was she going to lock it, when she didn’t have a key or any way of seeing how to lock it? She got to her knees, desperately trying to block it with her body. She could hear Rodney’s screeches on the other side, while the handle started to jiggle. She grabbed it with her good hand, using her whole body weight to keep the door closed. How long would that last?

Her foot touched something, and she willed enough strength in her bad arm to reach out and feel what it was. A chair. There was a chair right next to her, probably just a chair for someone to rest in the hallway. Would she be able to block the door with it? Lily used to do that to block the door to their room when she was mad at their parents. The door splintered under Rod Zombie’s angry blows. Even if she could block it, how long would it last?

She didn’t wait to figure it out. Only action mattered now.

She hooked the chair leg with her foot and pulled it to her. She shoved the back of it against the door, making sure it was under the handle. She backed up, her heart pounding in her ears. It held, even with the door buckling and the knob turning erratically.

Run
, her mind told her. She was losing blood from the gash on her arm, and if she stayed any longer, Rodney was going to break through and she had idea of what was going to happen then.

Bash turned and fled.

*****

Seth watched in horror as his blind fiancée fell through the door and away from Rodney’s reanimated corpse. After she had left the room, the Rodney-thing beat against the door for a few minutes with a ferocity the ski instructor had never exhibited when he was alive. Miraculously, the door held.

Thank you
, Seth prayed. Bash was safe, gone from the horrors of that room. And she was resourceful. He had to believe that they’d find her again.

Scott groaned next to him, making his blood run cold. “Kids...here...”

The young woman, Lindsay, in front of them had only just made her way across the hole in the duct by shimmying her way and stretching along what remained of the sides. She had almost fallen through herself and was understandably shaken by her trek across the rift. Seth honestly had no idea how they were going to get Scott across the hole in the duct while he was out of it. His little brother was looking worse and worse, and Seth was beginning to question whether or not it had been good idea to bring him along. And Bash had fallen through the ceiling and had gotten hurt.

Seth was acutely aware of a growling noise below him. Rodney had turned his head around 180 degrees on his neck to look behind him to see the group huddled up in the ceiling.

“Shit,” Seth cursed.

Three feet of open space separated Seth and Scott from the rest of the duct. It was going to be difficult for even Seth. But Scott? They weren’t going to be able to get him across. Not in his condition, and not with that thing down below them.

The rift separated them from the rest of their group. Their only option was to go back, or go to the laundry room to face the thing beneath them. While that was tempting for Seth since Bash was somewhere out there, he didn’t think they could defeat Rodney with his sick brother in tow.

The thing that was Rodney was looking up at them like he could take a bite of out of him.

“
Fresh meat,
” the creature growled up at him. It took a running jump and leaped up at the hole in the ceiling, catching it with its fingers. It started hauling itself up, its mouth open.

Seth instantly reacted by slamming the palm of his hand on the fingers, smashing most of them. The thing crashed on the floor below, imbedding some more metal through its chest. It got up slowly to its feet, glaring up at Seth.

“You’re going to pay for that,
” it told him. Then, it threw back its head and laughed, a cold chilling laugh.

Seth didn’t answer. Instead, he backpedaled, bringing Scott with him.

“Seth?” Lindsay shrieked. Her face was white with horror as she watched him leave the other way. “Don’t leave us!”

“Keep going until you find a way out!” Seth gritted at her. “Just keep going.”

The thing jumped up again, this time pulling its head through the hole. Lindsay screamed. Seth maneuvered around in the duct, giving him enough clearance to jam his foot right in Rodney’s face.

The thing fell below again with a supernatural scream that reverberated through the ducts. The ducts started shaking as the thing hit it with a barrage of punches, threatening to knock everyone into the room below.

It was going to keep trying and trying. And when it did come up through the hole, Seth hoped he was ready for it.

They could only go back the way they came. Seth hoped they’d be able to find a turn off. He started pushing Scott back through the ducts. He saw where Bash had left. If they went in that direction, hopefully they would find her.

He had to hope so, at least.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Even though it hadn’t been that long since the group left through the ventilation duct, the tension in the break room could be cut with a knife.

With the absence of seven people, the once-crowded room seemed eerily empty with only another seven people left. It was like everyone could sense that their impending doom was just around the corner. The mood in the room was tense, depressed. Without hope.

Maria sat off by herself watching the others. They were people who were mostly unlikely to be able to crawl through a ventilation system. There was an elderly man and woman, a girl who was too terrified to move, a middle-aged woman who was grossly out of shape, and a pair of men who didn’t talk much.

And then there was Maria herself. Her cheeks felt damp and sticky. It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t believed in soul mates until she had met Rick, and without him, she was lost. That’s why she was waiting for him. He was her everything.

Her head hurt still, and her heart was aching.

She couldn’t separate the facts from her fear about Lily and Bash. She truly believed that they had something to do with all of this. Seth had mentioned that demon, whatever her name was, and hadn’t wanted to believe. However, Maria could feel the truth in her bones.

Even knowing that, she wanted to get as far away from the twins as possible. She didn’t want to go in the ventilation duct. She was glad that Lily had disappeared, even if Rick was with her too.

Rick
...

The tears fell unbidden from her eyes. To get her mind off it, she watched the faces of the people in the room around her. They were shells of human beings, as shocked as she was. Even if something terrible didn’t get them first, they were all already zombies.

She shivered just thinking about it and closed her eyes to wipe the thought from her memory. All she could see in her mind’s eye was Rick’s face, charred and blackened. No fingers. No lips. His eyes were the creepiest part. If eyes were the window to the soul, then Rick didn’t have a soul when he had looked at her. He was just a puppet now.

“
Mi corazón
,” Maria whispered.

She could feel him here, in the walls. He was around her. How could she leave when he was so damned close?

“I can’t take it anymore,” a girl opposite her said. Maria opened her eyes to examine her. She was the girl who had been next to Naomi when she died. The girl was just as shaken up as Maria was herself.

“I...
can’t
...” the girl said between her tears.

Movement in Maria’s peripheral vision caused her to whip her head to the right, towards the door that led outside. Darius’ dead body was moving underneath the jacket they’d laid over him. His bound hands were snaking around as one unit, erratically twitching. He was coming back to life, as something like Rick.

Fear gripped her heart as she watched the spectacle, too stunned to move.

The body sat up, and the jacket slid off slowly, revealing Darius’ dead face. Only, he wasn’t entirely dead. He had come back. He was a part of the demon’s terrible world.