DISEASE: A Zombie Novel (24 page)

“Are you stupid?”

“Smoke is filling the place!”

“What about the room with the gas storage?”

“I can’t go back outside again! The Risen!”

Lot drifts away from the concerns of her followers and thinks instead about Danny, locked in the kitchen cooler with no way to escape, the ungrateful shit writhing in agony as he is cooked alive—her own form of the Brazen Bull. And Alex, choking on smoke and collapsing, trying to crawl further as he slowly asphyxiates, she hopes he understands he’s dying. It lifts her spirits slightly and she raises a hand to the growing crowd around her. They need guidance, they need
her
.

“Calm down. Calm down, please.”

They ignore her.

***

Danny creeps through the hallway, holding Casey’s bat at the ready, every step taxing his will to endure. Alex follows cautiously, a few feet behind. The smell of burning insulation and carpeting floats in the air around them. Shouting comes from far away and there is screaming. They carry on.

Danny’s hyperaware ears pick up on shuffling footstep just about to round the corner and he pulls Alex into a bathroom that opens off the hallway. He hopes the owner of the footsteps didn’t notice the light from their lantern.

When Danny and the others first took over the hotel they had the removed the main door of this bathroom and appropriated as barricade material. Despite that, the room still serves its original function and buckets hang on the outside of every stall, their doors also removed. A barrel of dirty water nearly blocks the way in, its life as wash water long since passed. It now carries waste down the pipes, into the unattended sewer system below.

Danny stands near the doorway, bat in hand, just holding it up is exhausting. The pain in his head and side are excruciating. He is swollen and stiff where Davis crushed his shoulder with the hammer and his face aches with a broken nose. He’d gladly cut off a finger, hell two fingers, if someone could offer him a handful of ibuprofen to dull the pain. Behind him he can hear Alex fiddling around with the faucets of the sink and prays the kid can focus long enough to get out of this hellhole.

The footsteps stop and the only sound Danny hears come from the other hallways. After a long minute of waiting he peeks his head around the door jam. Staring back at him is a face with pair of bulging eyes, and lips peeled back exposing blood-blackened teeth.

Danny gasps. “Jamal?”

The creature that was Jamal lurches forward. Danny swings the bat pathetically, his side screaming and to his plain surprise, Jamal blocks the hit then rips the weapon from Danny’s hands, throwing it to the floor.

There were stories of this, random creatures that hold on to something a little human. They have the capacity to react, are just a little smarter, it was said. He thought the stories were just old wives’ tales.

The creature eyes Danny, hunger glaring in its swollen orbs. It screams demonically and its bulging belly jiggles like some sort of fucked up Santa Claus. Fresh blood drips from its jowls and it stands there, watching its prey as though assessing options. Danny feels for Alex by his side.

No longer hampered by the constraining effects of rigor mortis, the creature springs without warning. It slams Danny into the wall behind them, the mirror that hangs there cracks and Danny almost crumbles to the ground in pain.

The thing bares its teeth and snaps at Danny’s face. Danny swerves his head to the side, just avoiding a deadly bite. He shoves it away, into the barrel near the doorway, which tips, sloshing water everywhere. The creature and Danny struggle, slipping and sliding in the flood.

Fighting the unbearable pain in his side, Danny runs the ghoul into a toilet stall. The creature grabs at his arms, trying to drag him down as it trips back, over the toilet. Danny grabs its head and smashes it into the metal flushing mechanism that juts up from the back.

The ghoul struggles, trying to get a grip on Danny as chrome piping breaks off with the force of the blows, its jagged edges begging for more. Danny jams the creature’s head down on the broken pipes. One of its eyes swells and bursts from its socket as metal spikes through its temple.

Wounds screaming, Danny hits a wall and his strength abandons him. He stumbles back, falling to his knees in a puddle of dirty water. The creature howls and flails. It rips the seat off the toilet and whips it at Danny. The seat bounces hard, bruising Danny’s already battered chest, but the ghoul is held fast by the pipe through the side of its face.

Still trying to catch his breath, Danny looks over at Alex. The boy has barely moved, he just stands in the same place and watches everything, holding the lantern. Danny motions for him to come close and uses a stall side to pull himself to his feet. The creature screams.

Danny drops any effort at concealment, he and Alex beeline from the bathroom. On their way out he searches the floor for Casey’s bat but its nowhere to be found. Alex holds up the light, refusing to leave, his eyes scouring the ground too. The creature in the bathroom will be free quickly and they don’t have time to worry about the loss of a bat. Danny grabs Alex by the arm and drags him down the hallway.

Opie is in the library, avoiding the big search for the bitten boy. At first he dismisses the smell, sure he’s imagining it, but soon it’s hard not to recognize. Smoke and heat suck into the room as he opens the door to the hallway and he’s stunned to see the glow of flames.

Odette and the children leap into his mind. This evening’s events exhausted them and she wanted to forget about it all, meaning they are upstairs and possibly asleep with no way to tell what’s happening down here.

Opie sprints to stairwell and looks up at flames that eat their way out of an open door at the top. He can feel the blistering heat from where he stands. He runs around to the second stairwell and it’s filled with smoke, too but he dashes up it anyway. Halfway he’s choking and his eyes sting so badly he can’t see. Unable to breath he stumbles back to the bottom in a coughing fit.

It’s difficult, standing at the bottom of those stairs. Physically he’s capable of running up them, can possibly even get to the top if he holds his breath, and maybe into the next hallway, but what if that hallway is also filled with smoke? It seems likely, and it would be a death sentence. He wouldn’t be able to last long enough to get back down the stairs.

Opie has spent his life doing things only for himself and every decision he ever made was one that would somehow benefit him. It’s why he survives while others don’t. Leaving Odette and the children behind is a hard decision, but one that has a well-worn path.

Years ago when he met a young and amazingly charismatic Lot he knew he could go far with her, and he did. They ran her crazy “religion” together, and it provided them both with a comfortable existence. Opie always knew it for what it was: a cult, a racket, to separate people not only from everything valuable they owned, but from their lives, to inspire their devotion and servitude. There were days when it seemed as though Lot bought into her own bullshit, but still he was well looked after, and that made him happy.

When the outbreaks began, he thought that everything, all of his hard work, would be squandered. He had been living high, a loyal advisor with all the perks. People panicked, people abandoned, people died, but some believers remained true, and he was surprised to find things got even better for him after. Lot’s people were willing to follow her to the grave, and Opie by proxy.

He can’t understand that way of thinking. He isn’t willing to sacrifice his life for anyone, it’s all he has that truly matters to him. If circumstances come down to him or someone else, it’s always someone else, and in the days and months following the downfall of society he proved this time and again.

He is, he fondly likes to think, a self-preservationist.

Now, standing at the bottom of the stairs, the Gods of doubt and guilt smile down on Opie for the first time. He thinks of Odette and the kids. The only time he’s ever considered risking his life for someone else is this moment. He envisions their peaceful heads resting on crisp, clean pillowcases, lying in the fluffy well-lined beds that he provided for them. He knows that even if they’re awake, they are most likely doomed.

Bile foams in his belly, slowly eating away at the lining of his stomach as he turns his back on the stairwell. Such a shame, he thinks, he really enjoyed having a family.

Opie runs through the hallway, ignoring the many people shouting and pleading for help. Smoke hangs thickly in the air, burning his nostrils and making it hard to see, but he knows these hallways like the back of his hand.

When he reaches the lobby, it’s filled with a sizeable crowd and his heart grows hopeful as he scans it, looking for Odette and the children. They are nowhere to be found and his hopes are dashed; he’ll truly miss them.

Thick Marge startles Opie from his thoughts. Her sooty face tells him that she has already proven herself a hero this night.

“Have you seen Odette?” he asks. “The children?”

She shakes her head grimly and his eyes water, just a little bit. He can’t remember the last time he got emotional like this, probably when he was just a boy.

Thick Marge leads him to a small group huddled in the corner where Lot sits facing a still blazing hearthside, her petite frame nearly engulfed by a large chair. She’s surrounded by a few other advisors who wring their hands, waiting on their leader for word about what they should do. They welcome Opie, relieved to see him and the wall of advisors recedes, allowing him to approach.

He’s taken aback with how sickly Lot looks. She stares silently at the glowing embers in the fireplace, a thin sheen of sweat standing out on her brow. Her eyes are bloodshot, her skin faded and grey. Even though she’s sitting, he can see she trembles slightly.

Opie shuts out the lingering thoughts of his momentary family and puts on his most reassuring face. He moves into Lot’s field of vision and her gaze, still acute, hones in on him immediately.

“The people are frightened, Lot.”

She blinks but does not respond and de isn’t sure she’s hearing him. It doesn’t matter though. Speaking to her now is only a show for those around him and if he plays his cards right she’ll be tossed aside like the senile old bat he’ll make her out to be.

“You must make an announcement. You must reassure them, and we must get organized,” Opie says.

Lot’s face shrivels with disdain.

“Of what exactly shall I reassure them?”

He pushes down his shock and delight at Lot’s uncharacteristic outburst. Her breakdown will ease his quiet seizure of power. He will be like a knife in the gut that slides in so perfectly she doesn’t feel it until the blade is removed.

“Reassure them that with a calm and orderly exit everything will be okay.”

Several people around Opie nod, agreeing with him.

“Tell them we have enough weapons to keep them safe, tell them that—”

“Nonsense. These people will be lucky to survive the fire and those that do will be left to fend for themselves.”

Thick Marge leans in closer to Lot, squinting in the dim, smoky light. “Are you feeling okay?”

Lot waves her off with an annoyed flick of the wrist. Opie can hear people coughing as smoke streams even faster than before, “Lot, the calmer the people are the better chance we all have for survival.”

A dry, humorless laugh breaks away from Lot’s throat. Her lips peel back from her teeth exposing the darkened and necrotic gums beneath them and her raspy laughter dances with the thickening haze.

Screaming from the other side of the lobby draws attention away from Lot and the tenuous peace preventing panic is suddenly shattered. People are beginning to run in all directions. They trip over each other scrambling away from a bedraggled and blood-drenched Danny, who limps into the room. He hauls Alex behind him, holding tightly onto one arm. The boy looks back, into the hallway, looking for something.

Lot bolts to her feet. “Them…”

The creature that was once Jamal tracks Danny, only a few seconds behind him. Half its face is falling away and its skull has been pulverized in places, exposing the black, gelatinous brain that clings to the inside. Its one remaining eye never leaves its prey as he pushes through the crowd.

Pandemonium takes hold. The armory has already been emptied, and with a flesh-hungry monster in their midst, those without weapons are now willing to fight for one. A brawl breaks out over a small hunting knife. People begin to push and shove their way toward the only exit in the building. The tanktop wearing woman tries desperately to protect her fallen child from a stampede of people.

A terror-gripped man, who isn’t watching where he’s going, knocks the woman over. She tries to get up, but someone else steps on her. Feet rain down on her body, barely aware they’ve trampled a living being. A blow to the chest, another to the back, to the head, and more, until she stops struggling. There is no comfort for the child that sits on the floor and cries next to her mother’s broken body.

Men and women claw at the foyer cage and the barricaded coverings of the windows. Only a few people at a time can funnel through the single door that opens out onto the warm summer night.

Danny drags Alex toward an area where the concierge used to sit. In recent years the area has been used for many different things, but Poppy’s desk is still there, overturned by the stampede.

Danny shakes Alex by the shoulders, the boy’s hair flopping back and forth.

“You stay here until I can come to get you. Do you understand me? Forget about the damn bat and stay here. DO. NOT. MOVE.”

Danny doesn’t have time to drive home the point. He shoves Alex under the desk and dodges an attack from the Jamal-creature, then sprints away, drawing the enemy far from Alex. With every step his pain gets worse and he worries he might black out. The thing behind him doesn’t miss a beat.

A deafening explosion reverberates off the walls. Drums of gasoline, horded in another room, launch metal and plastic through the air. Thick smoke and fire belches from the hallway nearest to Danny. The force from the explosion rocks the entire building, throwing a few people from their feet. Danny nearly loses his footing and the creature chasing him sprawls onto the floor, buying him a little more time.

Outside, the reinforced windows of a ground floor hotel room blows out with the explosion. The fire sucks in oxygen, feeding off it, and growing instantly bigger. A huge swell of flame spews from the window and into the night sky, illuminating the mob of pusillanimous people gathering outside the front of the hotel.

Attracted by the commotion and flames, creatures from the forest and surrounding field emerge one after another. Rotting bodies snake through the grass, preceded by the rancid odor from the flesh of their victims, decomposing in their bloated stomachs and smeared across their bodies. They snarl and gnar like the demonically possessed, their sights set on the huddled mass shivering in fright under the light of the moon.

BBQ TIME.

Cries of terror erupt and people begin to push back into the building, fighting through those trying to get out. The Risen swarm, attacking the weak and defenseless, chasing after those who retreat back inside.

Fire eats away at the walls of the lobby. The hotel is like a tinderbox being greedily shoved into the open maw of flame. Paint and varnish bubbles and flakes away with the extreme heat. Wood paneling and support beams beg to be noticed by the growing inferno. Everything the fire touches is devoured, nothing escapes.

Danny dodges another attack from Jamal, too occupied to notice that the room fills with fire, or that a surge of The Risen from outside is pouring in. He frantically puts a table between him and his aggressor, trying to buy some time, searching for a weapon.

Jamal’s gaze, aware and bloodthirsty, curdles what blood is left in Danny’s veins. He fumbles around the table, staying just out of reach. The creature screams, as though in frustration and whips the table out of its way. Now nothing stands between them and it lunges at Danny. Danny steps clumsily backward and trips, spilling to the floor.

The thing jumps for him. Danny rolls out of the way and his blackened eyes spy a bright flash, light on metal. A hunting knife, dropped by someone during the panic.

Jamal pounces on Danny and Danny deflects with a weak kick, screaming as pain rips up his side. He reaches for the weapon and wraps his fingers around it but the ghoul is instantly on top of him. It grabs Danny by the neck and pulls him toward its teeth. Danny jams his knife in the creature’s temple and twists. Blade scrapes against bone, teeth clack together, and with a jerk the ghoul stops moving.

Danny falls back, crying out in pain, tears spilling from his eyes. He rips he hunting knife from the ghoul’s head and pulls himself out from under the corpse, crawling to his feet.

Across the room, Lot can’t take her eyes off of the scene. She watches as the blond man drags himself toward an overturned desk, holding his side. She steps forward and Opie offers Lot a helping hand, always keeping up appearances.

“Get out of my way, you fool,” she spits.

Opie and a few other advisors step back, parting like the red sea. Lot shoves her way through them, her feverish face set with determination. She tears her sling off and throws it to the ground and her arm complains loudly. She doesn’t care, it’s not like she’ll need it where she’s going.

Lot grabs Thick Marge by the lapel. “Give me your weapon.”

“W-W-Why?” Thick Marge stutters. Lot’s hand is already at her belt, drawing her machete and with the weapon in hand she storms away without answering. As she leaves, Thick Marge and the others turn to Opie, seeking guidance.

“She’s lost to us, my friends. The best we can hope to do now is to escape with our own lives.”

Julie, surrounded by her three sons, is the first to agree. After that people fold like cards. The consensus is clear, if they can make it out of here, they’ll have a fighting chance at survival. Opie leads the way toward the exit with one final glance back at Lot and Danny.

Danny reaches under the overturned desk to pull Alex out. Just as he grips the boy, Alex yanks, pulling Danny forward and to the side with surprising strength, almost bringing the injured man to the floor. A split second later Lot’s machete misses Danny by only a few inches and embeds in the wood of the desk.

Danny hitches away from Lot, dragging Alex with him. He shoves the boy behind him and readies his own, much smaller knife. Lot wrenches her blade from the desk’s grip and turns to meet Danny.

Danny is surprised by how horrible she looks. Sickness assails her body and her face holds the sheen of the dying. Her ashen skin is thin, allowing dark veins to create spider webs across the surface. Her eyelids have trouble blinking around her bloated, red eyes and her entire body quavers.

Lot hacks at him with her blade, missing. Danny wobbles away a step and she swings at him again, forcing him back, feeding off his weakness.

She advances and Danny raises his knife, scarcely blocking her with a counter-blow. It’s just enough to force Lot’s weapon to the side. He winces and thrusts his blade toward her mid-section, but she sidesteps, and chops at him again. He jumps back, groaning in pain.