Last Hope, Book One: Onslaught (10 page)

There was blood on the palm, which left a smeared print on the pane.

Near to Andy, who still battled with the rope, the greyness parted and the male honeymooner staggered into the Tropical Walkway. He collapsed to his hands and knees. His face and blue shirt were covered in blood. The doctor rushed to kneel beside him and Juliette did the same.

Budd remained still, but realized that Sam was looking at him. “You said zombies, right?”

“Yeah, dude. Zombies.”

Okay, so, right ’bout then, the zombie theory didn’t seem quite so far-fetched…

Mentally, Budd weighed what he thought were their options. “Juliette,” he called. When she looked back at him, he pointed with his thumb over his left shoulder. “Time to, er, you know, make haste.”

He turned around, intent on heading back into the hotel, but stopped immediately.

At the far end of the Tropical Walkway, a mauve-suited hotel worker was tottering slowly from the reception foyer. His arms were extended forward, grasping at thin air. His head was tilted to the side and his mouth was wide open. Each step he took threatened to topple him because his movement was unstable, like a baby’s first steps, but still, onward he walked, resolutely approaching the group. His pace, however, was extremely slow, and Budd estimated it would take at least a minute before he was even close.

“That’s a fucking zombie,” Sam said, “and you people all, like, owe me an apology.”

“Do you want it in writing?” Budd asked.

“Pull… in… not… safe… monsters…” came Frank’s voice, deadened by the fog. Andy started to reel in the rope, keeping it as taut as he could so that Frank could retrace his steps.

After ten long seconds, Frank tumbled in, his arm over the shoulders of another person. The two fell to the ground, landing almost beside the male honeymooner, who was sobbing into the doctor’s chest. Frank had found Chris, the black-haired leader of the group that ventured out.

Budd spun around carefully, trying to watch the events unfolding by the doorway, but also keep his eyes on the approaching hotel worker. He was the first to see the shapes moving in the grey clouds, darker objects cutting their way through the murky air. There were three figures he was sure of, perhaps a few more a bit further away. “Boss,” he said, pointing out into the fog as it stretched around the approaching shapes.

A little beyond the doorway, the darkness was ready to part.

Andy turned to look and Frank’s eyes went with him to the shapes. The younger man immediately recoiled, untying the rope from his waist. “They’re not people,” he said, his voice quivering as he dropped the end of the rope to the carpet. “They’re monsters.”

Dumbstruck by what Frank had said, the group edged away from the open doors, retreating along the Tropical Walkway, their eyes locked on the shapes that formed outside. The doctor’s wife, alone because her husband was still tending to the male honeymooner, started to scream. Inside the fog, the shadowy figures adjusted their direction and moved towards the shrill sound.

“Everybody, get moving,” Andy commanded, and he ushered with his arms for the others to go faster. He was the rearmost member of the group.

The figures began to emerge from obscurity.

The first one was wearing the uniform of a police officer, and he came stumbling forward with blood across his face and his arms outstretched. His hands were concealed in black leather gloves, but the material was dripping, wet with gore.

Entrails hung from his fingertips.

The next to step out of the fog, erratically shuffling forward in Gucci lace-up shoes, was a man in a smart blue suit. His arms were also extended, and his bloody hands opened and closed as if he were reaching for something a little beyond his grasp. At his side came a middle-aged woman, casually dressed in black pants and a purple top, her dark hair hanging loosely around her face. Her gait was the same as the others, like that of someone inebriated, and her mouth was surrounded in blood that dripped down from her small chin to splash into her cleavage.

Budd counted at least half a dozen more shadowy specters still striving to enter the Tropical Walkway. He watched as Andy took the hammer from his tool belt, but judging from the speed at which these things were moving, Budd was sure that the group would be safe. The monsters were impossibly slow, measuring every short footstep as they advanced. There was no chance they could keep up.

“Quickly now,” Andy encouraged, putting one arm around the doctor’s wife and guiding her away from the danger. “We have to keep moving.”

The closest monster was only fifteen feet away, and it let out a long groan, its fingers snatching at the empty air.

At the other end of the group, with Juliette and Sam behind him, Budd led the way back to the lobby. The hotel worker still approached them, his open-mouthed expression unchanged as they drew nearer. There was still a clear hundred feet between them.

“What are we gonna do with this guy?” Sam asked.

Budd looked over his shoulder as he walked. “What do you suggest?”

“You, like, go and lop his head off, dude.”

“Why me?”

“You’ve got the axe.”

Sam had hit on something I hadn’t considered: while I carried the axe, I’d be expected to take a starring role in any fighting that took place. That wasn’t exactly how I planned to spend my day…

“Good point,” Budd said. He stopped and thrust the axe into the younger man’s path. “You have it, and you deal with it.”

“No way, man,” Sam exclaimed, but he took hold of the weapon, a gleeful smile on his face.

Budd smiled back at him. “Now, go and play with the nice zombie.”

“Oh, thanks a lot, dude,” Sam replied, his voice laced with sarcasm, but with the axe in his hands he jogged on, leaving behind the rest of the party. Nearing the hotel worker, he slowed his pace until he was standing still.

The mauve-suited thing kept coming, lurching onwards.

“Stay where you are, man.” Sam called out. “Please, man, I, like, don’t wanna hurt you.”

The hotel worker continued on.

“Kill it, kill it,” Frank shouted. His voice warbled hysterically.

Sam raised the axe above his head, the shaft trembling in his grip. “Dude, please, stay there.”

The hotel worker didn’t stop.

In a flash of red paint and steel, Sam brought down the axe, the weight of the heavy blade adding speed to the descent. The blow landed in the center of the hotel worker’s skull, and cleft it open like a nut. Blood oozed out of the wound as the man sunk to his knees, his arms still reaching for Sam, grabbing at his clothes.

Sam heaved the axe from its slot in the hotel-worker’s head and then kicked him in his chest. The hotel worker toppled backwards onto the red carpet. His arms and legs shuddered as parts of his brain slipped onto the floor.

Spots of blood stained Sam’s smiling face when he turned back around.

“Good shot, kid,” Budd shouted.

“Come on,” Sam replied, enthused by his successful act of violence. He hurried off to lead the way with the gruesome axe still clutched in his hands.

Budd looked to the back of the tightly packed group and was pleased to find a gap of nearly sixty feet had developed between Andy and the first of the monsters from outside.

They were escaping.

Very quickly, the group was out of the Tropical Walkway and inside the reception foyer. Sam had waited for them. Their progress slowed as they tried to decide which direction to take. At least two dozen bodies were sprawled across the immense tiled floor, and every last one of them was now moving. A few of them even seemed to be sliding themselves across the polished black and white tiles toward the group.

“Which way?” Budd said.

He received a crescendo of different suggestions, all of which he ignored. A hand came to rest on his shoulder and he turned to see Andy, his hammer still at the ready. “I think we should head back to t’bar. It’s easy to lock down.”

While Budd listened, he watched one of the twitching corpses, a female in her early thirties, push her way up onto her knees and then rise upon stiff legs. She was midway between the group and the bank of lifts, and dressed in a beige skirt suit. After a few small, wobbly steps, the woman fell and knocked her head against the tiled floor. She made no attempt to break her fall. Immediately, she started to rise up again, blood leaking from a crack in the side of her skull.

Budd looked to the door by the reception counter and the route seemed clear. “I think you’re right.”

Sam led the way as the group neared the entrance to the section of employee-only corridors and rooms. Andy was a few paces behind and covered the young Californian with the beam of his flashlight, ready to guide the way. Frank took up the position at the rear, while the rest of the group strung out between.

As they went through the door and started down the passageway, entering the blackness and merely following the beams of light ahead of them, Budd looked to Juliette and tried to offer her a reassuring smile.

She turned away. “I cannot believe you gave the American the axe. It was cowardly,
Monsieur
Ashby.”

“Hey, I couldn’t stand in the way of his boyish enthusiasm,” Budd said with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. “Anyway, I’ve got this rucksack to lug around. I can’t do everything, can I?”

Juliette ignored the question and posed one of her own. “Do you think those who went outside are dead?”

“I haven’t a clue, but one thing’s for sure: I won’t be searching for them. Not today, not ever.”

The debate of whispers that raced up and down the group was silenced by a noise ahead of them. Another of the walking bodies had been spotted, and Sam and Andy went forward to dispatch it. In the meantime, the rest of the party stopped.

Somewhere behind them, a knocking noise, like the beating of a fist against a door, started up. It echoed along the empty passages, steady and repetitive. At the behest of some of those in front of him, including Budd, Frank used his torch to shine back the way they’d come.

Nothing they saw could explain the sound.

Juliette’s hand entwined around Budd’s fingers and the shadowy outline of her body edged closer to him. He squeezed her hand back, just as a thud came from up ahead. The sound of gurgling followed.

Andy’s light reappeared from around the next bend. “Come on,” he said, “it’s clear to t’stairs.”

The group moved off again.

They continued to the staircase, which they climbed without incident before entering the new, much wider, corridor. The open double doors and welcoming glow of the candle-lit bar were only a short distance further.

As soon as Frank, still bringing up the rear, was inside, Andy closed the doors and locked them with a key he took from his tool-belt.

“What about the bodies?” Frank asked, gesturing to one of the enclosures around the outer rim of the bar.

Andy sighed. “I forgot about those. We’ll have to take them out.”

While most of the group headed for the comfort of the central table, Andy beckoned for Sam and Budd to come to him. Reluctantly, Budd separated his hand from Juliette’s and crossed the barroom. “What’s up?” he asked when he neared the gathering men.

“Earlier, when we cleared this place, we put all of t’bodies into one of t’private rooms. I guess now we need to remove them properly.”

Budd raised his Stetson and ran his hand through his hair. “How many?”

“Maybe twenty.”

Frank appeared from the open doorway to one of the private enclosures, a flashlight in his hand. “They’re twitching, that’s all.”

Well, that’s good news! Only twitching—no bitin’ or walkin’—so that’s nothing you wouldn’t expect to see in a room full of dead bodies…

“Good,” Andy said. “I’ll open this door an’ stand guard. You three drag t’corpses out.”

Budd didn’t relish the thought of removing the bodies, one by one, but there was little choice; he certainly didn’t favor the idea of them remaining in the bar. He watched Sam take hold of a female hotel worker’s body and then drag her across the barroom by her arms.

Her legs twitched and her shoes left scuffs on the floor.

Frank was next. He selected a male guest and then dragged him away in the same fashion.

Budd entered the private enclosure, examining the pile of carcasses by the ambient candlelight. The nearest one was a male, dressed in the mauve suit of a hotel employee. His legs jerked about. Other than these scant details, Budd made out nothing more until he’d pulled the body out into the bar, where the candles were closer and stronger. The body belonged to the barman who’d served him earlier.

Budd cringed as the flickering eyes settled upon him. He looked away, pulling the barman’s fidgeting carcass through the doors and into the hallway.

The first two bodies had been taken ten yards to the left and Andy guided the way with his flashlight beam. From somewhere off in the dark expanse of the rest of the hotel, more knocking had started; Budd was sure that it was too steady and unending to be made by a human hand.