by Drew Brown
He glanced over the banister, intent on watching Andy’s progress, but instead his eyes were drawn to something else, something only three floors lower down.
A man stood with his back pressed to the banister and a metal pole clasped in his hands. He swung his makeshift weapon from side to side, trying to fight off a mass of zombies that had him surrounded.
The situation was hopeless; the zombies, a mixture of ex-staff and guests, soaked up the blows and kept coming, clawing at the man, overcoming his efforts.
Powered by desperation, he struggled free but his fate was sealed: there was nowhere to go.
He hurled himself over the banister.
The man tumbled down the central shaft, a terrible scream rising back up in his wake. Budd turned away from the sight of the man’s descent, his eyes going back to the landing. The zombies had already started to climb the stairs, rushing up in frenzy.
The horde was composed entirely of fast-movers.
“Andy, Carl, it’s too late,” Budd shouted at the top of his voice. “It’s too late.”
Whatever was happening, I didn’t like it one bit. All of the things storming up the staircase were doing so at a run—not like the B-movie zombies we’d had relative success in dismembering. These were the fast, deadly kind.
It was like witnessing a weight-loss class being told that the free buffet on the other side of the room was a brand new kind of non-fat food that tasted like cakes.
You get the idea.
A stampede…
46
Frank reacted first, turning and darting back up the stairs. Budd hesitated, denying his initial urge to run because he wanted to make sure that there would be enough time to get inside the staff room and shut the door. He knew they could not fight what was coming.
There were too many and they were too fast.
His eyes focused on the half-landing below. Carl and Sam reappeared, running upwards. Andy was only a fraction behind.
Having seen them, Budd fled the landing and went through the staff room door. A small group, consisting of Reginald, Caroline and several of the newcomers had gathered inside, all cautiously gazing outward. He pushed them back, clearing a space around the doorway. Carl and Sam stumbled into the room and crashed to the ground, exhausted.
Budd held his breath, waiting, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps above the chaotic noises outside. He risked a glance around the doorframe.
Andy was at the top of the stairs, sprinting.
Only a few steps behind him were the fastest of the beasts, and their arms were stretched forwards, grasping after him.
Okay, I know that up till, what, thirty-odd hours before they’d been real, normal people, but as I looked over Andy’s shoulder at their distorted faces it was hard to believe. They were uglier than a messy divorce hearing—you know the type, when you run off with your wife’s younger, sexier sister—and even more likely to extract blood from a stone.
It made me think back to my earlier question—could they remember their previous life? Was there any part of their old personality left?
I think I had my answer right then, no need for further evidence. The case was closed.
The answer was no.
The people they’d been were dead, and whatever was occupying their bodies now was definitely something else. And, for some reason—although I can’t think why, as we’ve always been so good to this planet—they didn’t like humans…
Andy jumped through the doorway.
Budd closed the door with all the power he could muster, but the tip was still inches from the jamb when a hand jutted inside, stopping the door with bones that shattered under the impact. He pushed his shoulder against the wood, desperately trying to close it, but the smashed hand was stuck fast. Carl attacked with his long-bladed kitchen knife, severing the fingers with desperate hacks.
Realizing that the hand was trapped, Budd released the pressure on the door and what was left of the bloody, swollen appendage vanished out of the gap.
It was to no avail, however.
Already other hands and arms, some plunging in up to their elbows, were inside the room, the fingers clawing at the empty air, blindly searching for flesh. Budd felt a press of bodies, far too many for him to hold off, shoving against the other side of door. He dug in his heels.
Carl abandoned his efforts with his knife and used his strength against the door, easing Budd out of the way. “Get outta here, people,” the Caribbean man said through gritted teeth.
Budd stepped back as others stepped forward.
Sam, Frank and Andy, as well as one of the newcomers, a thin man with glasses, all tried to help Carl seal the opening, having reorganized after the initial shock. Many of the others in the room ran down the corridor, heading for the kitchen.
Juliette was not among them. She waited at the far side of the staff room, her cleaver held at the ready. Budd rushed over and took her by the hand. “Come on, sweetheart, it’s time to leave.”
“I want to stay here,” Juliette said stubbornly. Her lips were narrow as she spoke.
“For the great company?”
“Did you not see who came in?”
“Elvis?”
“Jack,” Juliette answered in a voice that was an even mixture of sorrow and anger. “And he was with two blonde women. They went to the kitchen.”
“Then, even if he is an idiot, he does have the right idea. We gotta get our groove on.”
“But, Monsieur Ashby,” Juliette said, nodding towards Andy. “What of the others?”
“They’ll be appetizers,” Budd answered, without any hint of humor. He pulled Juliette’s hand and led her down the corridor. “And if we don’t get outta here, we’ll be the main course.”
Juliette glanced back over her shoulder as she was dragged away.
Budd did the same.
Frank, Sam, Carl and the bespectacled newcomer were fighting to close the door. Despite their efforts, the wooden obstacle kept shuddering. It was a losing battle. Behind them, Andy attempted to maneuver one of the filing cabinets back into position.
Finally, Juliette’s resistance to Budd’s attempt to flee eroded.
Together, they sprinted away.
47
By the time Budd and Juliette reached the kitchen, it was clear that those who’d fled the staff room had no leadership and had simply run from the danger. Now, behind the perceived safety of another door, they had stopped running and were looking around at each other, searching for ideas. Budd recognized some, Reginald and Caroline, Father McGee, who was drinking from his flask, and Chris, on the far side of the room, the furthest from danger.
Others in the room were new to him. There was the middle-aged woman from the landing, and another woman, perhaps in her twenties, dressed in a grey track suit and running shoes. Her dark hair was cut short and shaped in what was, in Budd’s opinion, an almost masculine style, something that even the most staid, old-fashioned barber would’ve had no problem achieving. Standing next to her was a third female, who wore a pair of jeans and a blue sweatshirt, and had her dull blonde hair hanging loose around her narrow but pretty face.
Finally, there was the cozy group of three that he’d seen before, Jack and the two blonde women from the elevator. He was still wearing his black pants, white shirt and curved sunglasses, and one of the women was still dressed as Budd remembered, with cream knee-length boots and a revealing black dress. The second woman had changed into a mid-length silver dress and carried a pair of matching high-heeled shoes at her sides. Despite any ordeal they had been through, both of the women still had neatly combed hair and immaculately applied make-up.
Next to Budd, Juliette’s body tensed and her arms tightened around him. Looking down at her face, he caught sight of her gaze as it crossed the kitchen to stab at her old boyfriend’s current lovers.
“Budd, what will we do?” Reginald asked.
“Lock the door. Where’s the key?”
“Andy has it,” the
doctor answered.
“Something else, then. But it has to be fast. We need to be ready as soon as the rest make a break for it. Any suggestions?”
“That cooker,” said the woman with short hair. She nodded at a triple-length stainless steel oven and top hotplate. “If you lend a hand, we could move it.”
Budd eyed the appliance, shaking his head. “Any sensible suggestions? That’s far too heavy.”
The woman unzipped her jacket and removed it to reveal a black crop top. She was only of average size for a woman, Budd guessed around five-five and 110 pounds, but the muscles of her shoulders and upper arms were well defined. On her left arm was a large and colorful tattoo of a dragon, its red tail curling all the way down to her wrist. She handed her top to the woman next to her.
They exchanged brief, but knowing, smiles.
If I had any money, which I didn’t, I would’ve bet that neither of those two women had a nice boyfriend waiting for ’em somewhere…
“I can shift it, if you help,” the woman with short hair repeated as she walked over to the appliance. Before she reached it there was a commotion from the door to the offices and all of the kitchen’s occupants spun to face it.
Frank appeared, carrying a blood-covered carving knife in his good hand. “We can’t shut the door, we have to be ready to secure this one,” he said, but then his breathless voice changed from one of authority into one tainted with worry. “Hey,” he called, pointing his knife across the large kitchen. “Get away from there.”
Budd turned to look where Frank was pointing.
Chris was inside the freight elevator, with a flashlight in one hand and a knife tucked into the belt of his pants. He was already sliding the outer door shut. “I’m getting out of here,” he shouted, engaging the first latch. “You fucking people can rot in hell.”
There could only be a couple of seconds until the inner door was also closed and locked, allowing the elevator to accept its downward command, but Budd tried to get there first anyway. He scrambled over the slippery worktops. “Wait, you coward,” he yelled, but long before he, or any of the others managed to get there, he heard the sound of the motor starting.
All he could do was beat his hands against the canvas-covered doors. “At least send it back up for us,” he shouted, trying to appeal to Chris’s goodwill.
For some reason, I’m not sure why, I doubted there was much to appeal to…
“I hope those things are still down there, jackass!”
Frank poked his head back through the open door to the offices. “Andy, we need to take down the other barricade,” he shouted.
“Take down the barricade?” Jack said in amazement. “We need to put one up across that door now, not starting taking one down.”
“People are still out there,” Frank said firmly. “And if we don’t take the other one down we’ll have nowhere to run if something goes wrong. We’ll be trapped.”
“Nothing can go wrong if we barricade this fucking door now,” Jack countered.
That spiky-haired Romeo had all the self-assuredness of a young man who’d attained wealth and fame at an early age, without every really having to do anything worthwhile. You know the type, the tabloids are filled with their exploits, and they love it when things go well and bleat like shorn sheep in January when they don’t.
It was clear that Jack thought his own hard work and determination were the reasons for his success—you could tell it from the way he carried himself—instead of just being lucky enough to be born looking like a schoolgirl’s wet dream and possessing a competent sense of rhythm. I haven’t heard any of his music, but I can pretty much guarantee it sucked.
Yeah, yeah, I’m probably just jealous that at his age I had an underpaid job, was getting shot at regularly and was married to a woman who was often mistaken for my brother. But, hey, I still think the guy was a first class ass-wipe…
Jack disentangled himself from the arms of the two blonde women and walked over to the door. “We need to shut it now, close it up. The majority of us are in here, fuck those outside.”
“They risked their lives to save you, Jack,” Juliette said from across the room.
Jack turned his head to the familiar voice, as if noticing Juliette for the first time. “No one asked them to,” he answered, reaching the door and shutting it. “You,” he called to the woman with short hair, “move that cooker here.”
Jack’s voice trailed off as the cold blade of Frank’s knife touched his neck. The hotel worker had come from behind him, stepping forward unnoticed.
The group watched silently.
“You either back off, or I’ll kill you,” Frank explained. He flicked the knife up and knocked the sunglasses from Jack’s face so that they fell to the tiled floor. The knife was back against Jack’s neck in an instant. “No one is left to die. You understand?”
“Yes,” Jack hissed.
Frank lowered the knife and gave Jack a shove in his back, sending him reeling away. The hotel worker then raised his foot and deliberately stamped on the sunglasses, breaking them apart. He ground the shattered lenses against the tiles with the sole of his shoe. Jack stumbled over to lean against the wall, cursing quietly.
The two blonde women went straight to his aid.
Andy and Sam came through the door from the offices. The maintenance man’s hammer was back on his tool-belt and he was clutching his set of keys; one of them already singled out between his thumb and forefinger. He gave the bunch to Frank. “We got a filing cabinet across t’door. In thirty seconds, Carl an’ t’other guy are going to make a run for it. Once they’re in, lock this door.”
Frank nodded at his instructions but Andy was already on the move. He and Sam ran off towards the restaurant. They’d barely reached the swing-doors when a shout of warning echoed out from the offices. The voice was unmistakably Carl’s, powerful and strong, but it was also brimming with fear.
Standing with the door open, Frank waited.
All he could see was the small room inside, with its desk and empty first-aid cabinet, but not down the corridor from where the last two men would arrive. Nevertheless, he could hear their approaching feet, and beyond them the terror-inducing sound of splintering wood.
A man with brown corduroy pants and a checkered shirt burst around the corner. He looked as if he was going to keep running up the next corridor until Frank shouted for his attention, drawing the man to his voice. The man threw himself through the door and his thin glasses dropped from his face.
Frank waited a fraction of a second, but there was no sign of Carl. He turned to the man in the checkered shirt. “Where’s Carl?”
The man didn’t answer; he simply searched the floor for his spectacles, frantically patting his hands down on the cold tiles.
“Where’s Carl?” Frank asked again, this time stepping away from the door to land a gentle kick on the other man’s leg, trying to make him respond.
From Budd’s position halfway across the kitchen, where he was working his way back from the freight elevator, he realized what could happen and shouted a warning.
It was too late.
Frank darted back to the door to try and close it, but already the beasts were there. The first one squeezed its way through the doorway and dived upon the man in the checkered shirt.
There was a scream as the beast tore at his body.
Frank plunged his knife into the back of the beast; a female dressed in the mauve suit of the hotel staff. She howled and released her grip, but already two more of the fast-movers were through the door.
Frank was bundled to the ground.
Screams of fear erupted around the kitchen as all of those who could raced towards the line of swing-doors. No one chose to offer any resistance to the fast-movers rushing inwards.
Budd waited until Juliette reached him and then together they ran down one of the central paths between the worktops.
Behind them, the beasts were clambering over other work surfaces, fanning out ac
ross the kitchen. In the corner of this eye, Budd watched the middle-aged woman from the landing stumble and fall from view beneath one of the counters, her sense of balance lost to her fright. Before she could get back up, several of the beasts had leapt on top of her. They extracted chilling screams from her body.
Budd and Juliette launched themselves through a gap in the hotplate at the edge of the kitchen. He pushed open the nearest swing-door and let Juliette pass through ahead of him. Glancing back across the kitchen, it dawned on him that the axe had slipped from his hand.
Not that it mattered.
One look at the snarling, bloodthirsty horde convinced me that the usefulness of the axe had long gone. There were no more of the slow-moving, easily killed zombies we’d first encountered. Now they were all fast and powerful, relentless in their desire to kill and, I saw, eat the living.
They couldn’t be fought. Even one would pose a danger to a group of armed men, and so the only thing left to do was run. Nowhere was safe…
Not everyone had yet reached the edge of the kitchen; Father McGee, Reginald and Caroline, as well as the woman with short hair and her companion, were still running for the doors, searching for routes that kept them away from the swarm of beasts that was cascading into the room.
Blood shot into the air where Frank and the man in the checkered shirt had fallen, and Budd saw the shoeless foot of the middle-aged woman tossed up to land on a worktop. One of the attackers, a little girl of perhaps eight or nine years of age dressed in pink pajamas with her hair in bunches, jumped onto the counter and tore at the severed foot with her teeth.
The sight brought vomit up into Budd’s mouth. Some of the fast-movers were giving chase, skirting those already on the floor and heading straight for the restaurant.
