Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (155 page)

“Congratulations, we’ve solved the energy crisis,” Gelbaugh said, drawing a snicker from Cappie. “While I have you here, can you give me some tips on the stock market?”

Amelia’s response was drowned out by the roar of the furnace, which vomited a wave of flames toward the group. The heat wafted across Wayne’s face, not hot enough to burn but plenty enough to get his attention.

A couple of people shouted, and someone dropped a camera to the dirt. Most of the group headed toward the stairs, but the flames were already rolling back upon themselves, like a tidal wave that had smashed against a cliff, and the fire drew back into the furnace.

It glowed almost white for a moment, condensing into a shrinking globe, and then winked out, leaving the basement pitch black.

Chapter 41

“Okay,” Kendra said, more bravely than she felt, kneeling over Cody. “Come on out.”

She shined the light around the attic. Dust swirled from all the activity, and something fluttered in the distant eaves, a disturbed bat or bird. Cody’s breathing was heavy but even, so he wasn’t too seriously injured. But she’d have to lead him out of the attic before the Brat Pack played any more of its games.

“That boy,” Cody wheezed. “He’s the leader.”

“Rochester,” she called out. “Are you a scaredy cat?”

He appeared three feet in front of her, smirking, his hands behind his back. “Cat? I thought I was a rat.”

He brought her sketch pad out from behind his back and opened it to her drawing of him as the Rat-Faced Boy. “Not bad, but I think my whiskers are a little longer in real life.”

She blinked, as his face seemed to sharpen for a moment, drawing his nose to a point and exaggerating the size of his two front teeth.

“Cody,” she said. “Are you seeing this?”

“Be cool,” Cody replied, still too weak to stand. “Demonic haunting.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, trying to remember Dad’s lessons on the various classifications of paranormal activity. She had tuned them out as yet more Digger blabber, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that “demonic” was not good.

If I live through this, I’ve got one hell of an idea for my next character. How would Emily Dee handle this?

Well, Emily Dee wasn’t a ghostbuster or a priest, more of a ninja Goth, and this situation didn’t really call for a flying skull kick. And she’d already tried screaming for help. That left relying on smarts. She stood and faced Rochester, figuring that the best approach was to show no fear.

“Help me out here, Cody,” she said. “What do demons want, exactly?”

“Different things,” he said.

“Like my soul?”

“Maybe.”

“Hey, Stick Figure, why don’t you ask
me
?” Rochester said.

“Because you’re acting childish,” she said.

“I
am
a child. I just happen to be dead, so I’ve been one for a long time.”

“I liked you better when you were sneaking around and playing pranks,” she said. “I’d think a demon would find a better host to possess. That one looks like it has worms.”

Rochester’s face narrowed and his teeth grew sharp again, his nose twitching in rage.

Oops. Maybe I better get a clue from Cody about how to handle this before I get my face bitten off
.

“So, Mr. Future of Horror, what’s the next move?” she asked.

Cody raised himself to a sitting position, still rubbing his neck. “Well, a demon only has power over you if you invite it in,” he said.

“You invited us just by coming here,” Rochester said. “So bow down.”

Kendra’s feet flew out from under her and she banged hard on her knees, kneeling beside Cody as if the two of them were repentant sinners seeking forgiveness. Kendra had not been raised in the church, but she was offended both by this mockery of religion and the ease with which she could be manipulated. She tried to rise, but a great weight had settled on her.

“So,” Kendra asked Cody. “What does the book say about how to handle this?”

“There’s no book.”

“I don’t suppose I can all of a sudden ask Jesus into my heart?” she asked Rochester, planning to do the exact opposite of whatever he said.

“Be my guest,” he replied. “Jesus and me, we’re on the same team. Working for the Man, putting in time until time’s up.”

His delivery had changed, voice older and almost weary. She glanced toward the direction of the access door, but it now seemed impossibly far away.

“Where are Bruce and Dorrie?” Kendra asked.

Rochester shrugged. “Around.”

“We already knew the hotel was active,” Cody said. “If you’re a demon, why do you hang around with all these ghosts? Are you a scaredy cat like she said? Maybe you’re afraid of the dark.”

“I’m only afraid of one thing,” Rochester said. “And if you can figure it out, I might—” he gave a rodent grin—”
might
—let you live.”

“There are worse things than being dead,” Cody said, leading Kendra to wonder what those things were and how he knew.

“Suppose we don’t want to play your guessing game?” Kendra said. “What if we just walk out of here and pretend you don’t exist?”

“Free your spirit and your feet will follow?” Rochester adjusted the collar of his plush jacket and thrust out the sketch pad. “I don’t think you could leave without this.”

She propelled herself forward, but it was difficult to launch from a kneeling position, and she fell into the shredded paper that served as insulation. She was reminded of a rat’s nest her dad had found in the garden shed behind their house, and how much of it had been paper nibbled from Digger’s comic-book collection. The nest had smelled of old hair and pee, and this insulation was almost as bad.

A hand latched onto her, squeezing hard enough to hurt, and she figured Rat-Face was digging his creepy little paws into her, but when she glanced up, it was Cody stooping over her. The gypsum beneath her cracked, and she was reminded of Cody’s warning:
Be careful, or you’ll step straight through to the floor below.

Sounded like a good idea.

“Okay, Rochester,” she said, as Cody helped her rise. She gave her best Emily Dee leap into the air, and landed squarely on the spot where she had been lying. The gypsum splintered and bent, but didn’t collapse. She glanced at Cody, who caught on, and he jumped beside her, their combined weight too much for the ceiling material.

She just had time to hear Rochester’s squeal before she was flying through the air, weightless, seeming to hang forever, or at least long enough to grab Cody, and then she struck the wooden floor ten feet below, and all was black.

Chapter 42

“Shit,” Burton said.

The lights had blinked just as his group was settling into Room 318, then the power dimmed and went out after one final surge.

“Flashlights, everybody,” he said.

As the individual lights clicked on, throwing erratic dots of orange around the walls, Burton paged the other SSI members on his walkie-talkie. No answer.

Cody, Kendra, and The Roach out, and Digger on the ropes. Jonathan out of contact, too.

He tried the walkie-talkie again. Outside the window, the lawn was dark, the only illumination cast by the half moon stitched behind a gauze of fog. The hunters in Room 318 didn’t seem alarmed by the power outage, talking in occasional low whispers and enjoying the gloomy atmosphere.

Burton felt his way along the wall to the door. “Be right back,” he said to the group before slipping out of the room. He dreaded having to deal with the vacant-eyed Violet, but maybe the manager had turned up.

Yet another person gone AWOL
…
what is it with this place? Is it eating the guests?

With the lack of power, the ambient noises of the hotel—televisions, elevator, bar—had given way to almost complete silence. Those few guests not on the hunts were likely reluctant to leave their rooms. The creak of his footsteps was magnified, and only when his beam glanced against a mirror could he see more than five feet in front of him. He debated checking in at the control room, but the equipment there would be useless even if someone were manning it.

Burton turned the corner and headed for the stairwell. The woman stood there with her arms folded, and he almost bumped into her. She would have seen the flashlight approaching, but she hadn’t called out. He recognized her from one of the earlier panel discussions, where she had sat in the back and cracked her knuckles, a sour expression on her face as if she had eaten bad eggs and they had given her gas.

Her onyx pupils absorbed the flashlight beam and there was no glint reflecting from her eyes. She was a stolid statue, carved from rock by a civilization long gone, except her full lips lifted in a grin that showed most of her teeth. Her breath washed over him in a sulfuric wave.

“Power’s out,” he said, in an excuse to move past her, lowering the beam from her face.

“Power’s
in
,” she said in a taunting voice.

“Excuse me?” One of Digger’s rules was that every guest should be treated with respect, no matter how odd or flaky, because the paranormal community was small. The customer was always right, even the psychotic alien love child.

“I took it,” she said.

He aimed the light at her name badge. Eloise Lanier. He tried humor. “Do you mind giving it back?”

Her smile dropped. “I’m not finished with it yet.”

“Okay, Miss Lanier. Did you lose your group?”

“They’re down there.” She rolled her eyes toward the floor.

“Yeah, that’s where I’m headed. Do you have a flashlight?”

She reached out and snatched his away before he could react. “Now I do.”

She held the flashlight over her head like it was a chunk of meat and she expected him to leap for it like a dog. Her face was steeped in shadows.

“Ma’am, this is an emergency,” he said, biting back his irritation.

“More than you know.” She brought the flashlight down in an arc, crashing it on top of Burton’s skull. He grunted and staggered away, stunned by the blow, sparks of purple and electric lime jumping across the backs of his eyelids. He touched his head and felt the wetness of blood.

As he recovered, anger surged through him, joining the pain to give him a burst of energy. “What the hell was that all about?”

“Bad attitude,” she said.

He tried to place her, wondering if she were one of the unstable drama queens Digger had warned SSI about. He recalled her name from the program as one of the speakers on a panel he hadn’t attended. If she were an aspiring para-celeb, going psycho at a paranormal conference might get her some infamy and the ensuing Internet hits.

He decided to give professional tact one more chance. “I’m sorry you’re not enjoying your stay—”

The flashlight swung again but this time he was ready. His experience as a rock ‘n’ roll roadie paid off as he ducked the blow and came underneath, jabbing his fist toward her elbow. He’d been raised never to hit women, but preservation instinct overrode it and he smacked her hard enough to force her to drop the flashlight. As it hit the carpet, its batteries jostled free and the hall went utterly dark.

And she was on him, sour breath oozing across his face. She was six inches shorter than he, but in her dark fury she seemed to have grown two feet. She knocked him back against the wall, and her weight bore him down.

“Christ, lady,” he yelled, but he no longer had any restraint. As she pressed him against the floor, he wriggled to escape, feeling along her shoulders until he found her face. He’d claw her eyes out—

“
Yarggg
,” he squealed, as she bit one of his fingers hard enough for a tendon to pop. He yanked his hand free and balled it into a fist, then pounded it against her back. It was like beating a sack of sand.

Her hair scratched Burton’s face. Her smell was metallic and smoky, as if she’d been sweating in a foundry all day. Her weight crushed his lungs. He fought for breathe, still startled by the suddenness of the assault.

“Get off, bitch,” he said, throwing an elbow against her. He’d been in a few bar brawls, but rolling around in the neon-lighted beer and piss seemed almost normal compared to this struggle in the dark.

“I’ll make you
my
bitch,” she said, and her voice seemed far too large and distant to have come from her foul mouth.

He gave a twist and felt her body shift, and then he rolled the opposite way, using her momentum to toss her aside. He shoved her away with his feet, drawing sick satisfaction from the cracking of her skull against the wall. He rose to his knees, not sure whether to look for the flashlight or find the stair banister and flee. Before he could act, cold rivers of pain sluiced along the length of his left arm.

He touched the wound and his fingers came away wet.
Blood? Did the lunatic have a knife?

Then she was on him again, only now she seemed heavier, more solid. He raked at her, caught the turgid tendons of a flexing wrist, but her strength had grown. Barroom bad-asses sometimes freaked out on meth or angel dust, taking on the strength of ten in their panic. But Eloise Lanier had gone from zero to eighty without even hitting the pedal.

He grabbed her face again, but her skin was slick and scaly, not like flesh at all. As he gouged for her eyes, his fingers stung as if he’d grabbed a fistful of barbwire. He wrapped his bleeding hand around a hank of her tangled hair, tugging at it to pull her filthy mouth away from his. But he was weakening, and her cracked, grimy lips pressed against his. He tried to scream, but she bit his tongue.

Commotion and lights down the hall....

“What’s going on?” someone shouted, but the words sounded as if they’d poured through a wall of cotton. The agony in his mouth was indescribable—mostly because he could no longer form words.

A flashlight beam swept over and past him, and he turned to see Eloise—no, not Eloise, not a human, but something scaly and lumpy wearing her clothes—skitter away and down the stairs, trailing a reptilian tail behind it.