by Eric Baker
Jackson drug himself to his feet. He hadn’t been able to get enough sleep. And what sleep he had gotten had been troubled and unsatisfying. He had almost nodded off again when the shriek happened. Not sure where it came from, he had his suspicions. He recognized the shriek as coming from one of those creatures. The zombies. Only this time it came from inside, from nearby.
Looking to the front door, he verified that everything there was still secure. For whatever reason, the shriek hadn’t riled up the zombies at the door. Maybe they, too, recognized one of their own.
Two more screams, more muffled than the first, this time obviously coming from terrified women.
Everyone in the room jerked their attention toward the screams. Now everyone knew exactly where they came from. The sitting room where all the sick had been closed off.
A heavy mass hit the front doors, creating an even louder cracking sound from the doors and frame. The men there turned and pushed against the barricade. After a moment, the push from outside subsided. The men inside stopped pushing but didn’t let go of the barricade. Fear and sweat covered their faces.
Jackson was still trying to fight off the grogginess in his head, while trying to come up with something to say. He knew they couldn’t open the door to the sitting room. Not now. Not with one of them, a zombie, inside. Most likely there was more than one. Before he could act, though, the matter was taken out of his hands.
From beyond the door to the sitting room, there came a loud, animal growl. Then the screams. Screams for help and of pain. The lobby was silent in the shock of it all. Before anyone could even think to move, the screams and growls faded. Moans and small cries of pain could still be heard, but nothing like before.
Standing to the side of the door was a man that looked as if he was also being attacked. Claude Metzer had been through more emotional upheaval than just about anybody else in town. His wife, Mildred, had been attacked in the kitchen and bitten by one of the zombies. His son had volunteered to run across the rooftops on a crazy suicide mission without his even knowing about it until he got back. And now the room his wife was inside, the room that was to keep them safe, sounded like a slaughterhouse.
With every scream, every thud, Claude’s body jerked. His hands were in his hair, pulling so hard that it was hard to believe he hadn’t ripped all of it off his head. When the cries inside the sitting room subsided, he let out his own cry of pain and terror. He rushed to the door and fumbled with the lock.
“NO! Stop!” The fog of sleep left Jackson in a moment. There was no way he would get to the man in time to stop him from releasing the horror on the other side. For a moment, he even considered pulling his weapon and shooting the man in the back. Then the moment was gone.
The door was flung open to reveal a flickering shadow in the doorway. Claude gasped and took a step back, the realization of what he had done hitting him. The figure in the doorway shuffled forward into the brighter light in the lobby.
“M... Milly?” Claude’s voice was a whisper, terror choking his voice. Then he realized that the figure before him was indeed his wife. His shoulders slumped down in relief as he let out his pent-up breath, not even realizing until that moment he had stopped breathing. He smiled and stepped forward, holding a hand out to her.
“Milly? What in the world happ…” Mildred looked up and stepped even further into the light at the sound of his voice. Claude stopped speaking. He stopped moving. To him, the entire world stopped when he saw her face.
Mildred Metzer was no more. In her place was, as best as Claude could reconcile it in his overloaded mind, a demon. Her eyes were the first thing he noticed. Two blackish red orbs where his wife’s hazel eyes used to be. Then he noticed the blood. Almost as if her face had been painted red. Dripping down her face, her lips pulled back revealing an even brighter red on the whiteness of her teeth. Her mouth opened, then her teeth clacked together, just missing her flicking tongue. She leaped.
Claude never moved. Mildred was only a few feet away, and she covered that space in an instant. Her hands grabbed his shoulders as her mouth came down on his neck. Claude never put up his hands, he never made a motion. Then it was over. She let go, and he fell to the floor.
Before the body had completed the fall, multiple screams sounded around the lobby. Mildred looked wildly around, trying to pinpoint each one. Blood shook from her face as she turned back and forth. Then a deafening roar accompanied the disappearance of her head, as a dozen pistols fired at almost the same time.
The entire roomful of people looked on in disbelief as the body that was once Mildred Metzer fell to the floor, her legs giving way and her lifeless body dropping. Echoes of the gunfire was slow to fade. The hearing of all present was even slower to return. It was almost half of a minute before they heard the sounds coming from the sitting room and outside.
The sitting room doorway was a dark hole in the wall. The sounds that emanated from the room only emphasized the horror of it all. Moans and groans, growls and ghastly screeches, all combined to reaffirm the notion that this room came straight from the pits of the devil himself.
Outside the front door, the sounds were even worse. There was no telling how many zombies were out there. But it sounded as if every single zombie was trying to get into the hotel. Pounding and crashing against the doors and windows, the barricades crumbled. Only hastily put up and not well made, the men manning them were only moments from being overwhelmed.
“Everyone! Up the stairs! Move!” Jackson didn’t think twice about the order. He knew there was no chance of them living if they stayed. Their only hope was to get up the stairs and make a stand.
The women were the first to go, trying to get out of the way of the men. It was the way of the west. Everyone knew their place, and the women that could handle a gun would cover the men as they came up last. At least, that was the plan.
Two women ran past the open door to the sitting room and up the stairs with no problems. Then another woman running past the open doorway felt a hand on her arm. Without warning, she disappeared into the room, never even making a cry.
The women who saw what had happened more than made up for the lack of a scream by the abducted woman. Every person in the place heard them and turned to the open door. Two faces, dark and demonic, edged forward as if unsure of themselves. Once again, revolvers were drawn, and the faces were shot at.
Before anything else could come out of the room, a woman on the stairs pushed the door shut from her side. As it was swinging closed, a body from the room attempted to jump through the diminishing gap. Halfway in and halfway out, the door slammed into the man’s chest. He may have been an old man in life, but now he was pushing back with a much greater strength than he had held for many a year. A few of the other ladies pushed on the door, keeping him wedged into place.
Jackson had seen the woman disappear into the room, almost as if by magic. He was still standing there, stunned, watching the ladies fight the recently created zombie from the sitting room when a crash from the front door brought him back to reality.
Bodies were pushing through the door. Men were shooting them, aiming for their heads but mostly missing.
Running to the sitting-room door, Jackson made his shot count. He put his pistol to the man’s head and pulled the trigger. At almost the same time, he leaned back and raised his right foot. He kicked the man in the side as hard as he could. The women let up on the door just as he kicked, and the zombie went flying.
Jackson had kicked so hard that his boot was in the way when the door was once again pushed on by the women. The heel caught, and then a hand reached out, grabbing the toe of his boot. Jackson was startled by the hand and jerked back, causing him to lose his balance. His heel slid out and the door shut, severing two fingers that fell to the floor at the same time as Jackson. The lock was turned, and the door secured.
Shots behind him caused Jackson to turn and jump back to his feet. More zombies were coming through the ever-widening gap in the barricade. T
he window barricades were also failing.
“Everybody up the stairs, now! Don’t look back, just go!” Jackson set his feet and aimed. He planned to make each shot count.
Men turned and ran for the stairs, but one wasn’t quick enough. A zombie lurched over the barricade, somehow avoiding the chairs, and grabbed the man’s shirt from behind. The man screamed in terror, frantically trying to get away.
A shot sounded, and the zombie slumped down, letting go of the man, who ran for the stairs. Jackson aimed at the next zombie and then the next. His last four shots put three bodies down. And there were a lot more coming through the door. Jackson holstered his empty pistol, turned, and ran for the stairs.
Jackson noticed that he would be the last one up the stairs. That was fine with him, as long as he made it. And that was becoming less and less sure by the second. The barricade behind him tumbled over with a loud crash. As if in response, the door to the sitting room fractured in half just as he passed it, bowing outward.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he heard the door and frame fall. The growls, moans, and shrieks sounded like they were right behind him. Almost to the top of the stairs, Jackson heard a frantic voice ahead of him.
“Get down!”
Jackson dove forward onto the landing at the top of the stairs just as a large chair went flying over his head. He rolled to the side as two more men tumbled a dresser down the stairwell. He watched as the dresser knocked several zombies back into the growing mass of screaming and growling inhumanity below. Looking at the two men who had thrown the dresser over his head, he realized that one of them was Josh Rickborn, the head deputy.
Sitting up on the landing, Jackson took a moment to catch his breath. He watched the faces below him in morbid fascination. He found it almost impossible to believe things had gotten so out of hand so fast. If only the Tibbs brothers were here to watch his back, to give him time to plan. He’d give them an earful and then some when they got back. No doubt they were lollygagging at the mine, enjoying their little power trip. Well, enjoy it while it lasted. It would be the last time they did that if he had anything to say about it.
After a few more minutes and a few more pieces of furniture down the stairwell, Jackson felt better about the whole situation. Standing, he called Josh and a few other men over and laid out a plan.
“Gentlemen, the sun will be up soon, and things will get a lot easier for us. Right now, we need to keep everyone calm. I know we’ve had a setback, but…”
A loud pounding noise began at the far end of the hallway. Every man standing there pulled a pistol. Jackson reflexively pulled his, but then looked at it with a mixture of disgust and resignation. He set to reloading while the men cautiously walked to the end of the hallway.
Looking around, Jackson caught the eye of the hotel manager.
“What’s down there?” Jackson nodded toward the pounding. The noise was having the added effect of riling up the horde downstairs.
“It’s uh, a stair backwell, I mean, b… back st… stairwell, f… f… for the st… staff.” The man was scared nearly witless.
Jackson had to think for a second to decipher the man’s rambling, then his eyes opened wide.
“Does it connect to the kitchen?”
The manager just nodded.
Turning to the men headed toward the pounding, he called out.
“Don’t open that door! It’s connected to the kitchen!”
The men shrank back from the door. Jackson’s voice must have been heard in the stairwell since the pounding increased. Cracks appeared in the door. Jackson turned back to the crowd of people behind him.
“Everybody! Into the rooms, lock yourself in. We’re about to be overrun!”
“Mr. Mayor, sir? What if we jump to the other rooftop like I did earlier?” The young boy surprised everyone by speaking up. Even more surprising was that he was still functioning after what had happened earlier to his parents.
Jackson looked at the windows in the front lobby. The faintest glimmer of morning light was coming through. Or possibly moonlight. He wasn’t sure what time it was. At this point, any light was better than nothing.
“OK, everyone, new plan: follow young Mr. Metzer here, and he’ll get you across to the other rooftop. We’ll figure the rest out from there.”
Everyone was trying to cram into the one bedroom at the end of the hallway. Tommy got ahead of them and sailed across the small divide, showing how easy it was, especially in the predawn light. A few of the more able men leaped after him to help those coming behind. Some women hesitated, but the sounds from the lobby spurred them on.
As people were continuing to crowd into the bedroom, the noise they created got louder. Women squealed in fear as they realized they would need to jump across the gap. They squealed again as they were hauled in on the other side by a few men that had made the jump first.
The louder they got, the more the noise from below grew. Jackson looked over the railing and was sickened at the sight. So many people below, now just mindless beasts, wanting nothing more than to kill.
A cracking noise to his left caught his attention just in time to see a hand come through the door to the stairwell. A man standing nearby shot at the face belonging to the hand, and it pulled back. But then the door seemed to explode outward, a mass of bodies falling to the floor, while others walked over them. The zombies had reached the top floor.
All three men in the hallway opened fire. Jackson aimed and fired a few shots past the men until another sound behind him caused him to look back. The assorted dressers, chairs, bed frames and mattresses that were blocking the main stairway were no longer holding. Zombies were attempting to climb over it all, which had the added effect of dislodging a few of the more precariously placed items.
As he watched, Jackson saw one zombie attempt to stand on top of a dresser and run forward, only to fall to the side and crash to the floor. A few chairs rained down after him. More zombies were already taking his place.
“Men! We have to leave this hallway. The main stairs are lost!”
Jackson glanced back at the three men. They were fighting a losing battle, backing away from the oncoming mass still pouring through the door. Jackson fired his remaining rounds as best he could, then he headed for the bedroom at the end of the hall.
“Let’s go!”
No sooner had he finished calling for them, the man closest to the zombies ran out of bullets and turned to run. A nearby zombie leaped forward and raked a hand down his back, catching on his belt. They both fell to the floor in a heap. Josh and the other man fired at the zombie until their weapons ran dry. Then they had no choice but to abandon their friend to his fate, turning and running as fast as possible to the bedroom.
Jackson made it to the bedroom and held the door. He could feel the tension of the others behind him as they watched through the doorway. The zombies were right on the two men. They were still fifteen feet away from the door when Jackson glanced back, reading the room in an instant.
It was full of frightened women, a few bewildered children, and a few determined men. Looking back at the two men, now only ten feet away, he knew what he had to do.
Josh was in front. As he passed the main stairwell, he had to dodge a zombie that had made it to the top. He pistol-whipped it in the face, knocking it back. The zombie pirouetted on the top of the stairs, its hand slapping the man behind Josh in the face. He pushed it away, causing the zombie to fall into the barricade below, knocking more of them down the stairs. The man bounced off the wall and kept running. The impact had slowed him, and the zombies coming behind were even closer.
Looking toward the doorway where everyone else was gathered, Josh saw the look in Jackson’s eyes. Resignation and regret. As much as he hated it, Josh knew what was about to happen, and he respected the decision. He was ready for it, and as the door shut, only feet away from him, he launched himself left into a side bedroom, blowing the door off the hinges.
The man behind Josh was caug
ht completely off guard. When Jackson closed the bedroom door, he faltered. Then he saw Josh disappear into a doorway that wasn’t there the moment before. And before he could comprehend what all of this meant, he was hit from behind. Slamming into the door that held the rest of the people in town, his last thought was that somehow, he had made a mistake. And that he hoped they would forgive him.
Josh burst through the doorway of the other bedroom, hit the ground and rolled to his feet. He never looked back. He didn’t want to see what he suspected was going to happen. Grabbing the sheets off the bed as he went by, he headed for the window leading to the front of the hotel.
He hit the window hard with the sheets covering his face and arms. The glass gave way, and he fell forward over the window sill, reaching back for the window, for anything, to keep from going over the edge. He knew there was a small ledge going all the way around the hotel. But if he couldn’t stop his forward motion, he would go right off the edge and into the street below.
His left arm caught the window frame, still tangled in the sheet. His shoulder popped as his body flipped over, almost a full somersault. He came down hard on his bottom, almost wrenching the shoulder out of its socket. Ignoring the pain, he twisted himself around. His goal was to edge around the hotel and meet up with the others.
Standing, he came face-to-face with a zombie in the window. The face leaned forward, and teeth snapped the air only an inch from his nose. Reflexively leaning backward, he lost his balance. Without thinking, he reached forward and grabbed at the zombie. His hand latched onto the tattered shirt.
Josh yanked himself forward, using the shirt for leverage, which had the opposite effect on the zombie. Josh regained his balance while pulling the startled zombie through the window. The sheet came out even more with the zombie, ripping it as he fell. The ends of the sheet hung over the front edge of the hotel, lazily flapping in the morning’s dry and dusty breeze.
