Arisen, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  “They’re coming,” shouted Colley, who now stood at the top of the steps, axe ready in his hands.

  But Hackworth knew the axe wouldn’t count for much if the gang caught them. They outnumbered the Tunnelers two to one, and had at least one gun.

  He glanced around, for the first time in two years on the verge of panic, but then he saw some large open gates in the side of a building just twenty yards away, and a broken sign hanging down from the wall that read Marriott Hotel. The choice was simple – into the hotel, or over the bridge.

  There was nowhere else they could hide.

  “This way!” he shouted, and ran for the entrance, hearing the sounds of the pursuers behind them as the group surged toward the arched gateway. Hackworth hadn’t a clue where he was leading them, but he had no choice.

  The entrance to the hotel wasn’t what he’d expected, and in fact wasn’t an entrance at all. Instead, a long arched tunnel led into a courtyard, which was built around a circular, stepped landscape feature consisting entirely of dirt and dead grass. Hackworth presumed this had once been picturesque, but now it was just more evidence of decline and decay. He cast around frantically, trying to decide which way to go.

  He eyed some nearby smashed windows, then looked past them and spotted the real entrance, across the courtyard and up a set of steps.

  A shot rang out, echoing down the archway, and a surviving window a few feet away shattered. Hackworth spun around and looked back along the tunnel as several of his people moved away, ducking for cover. The man with the gun was outside the archway on the street, standing between the huge metal gates, the rest of his heavily reinforced gang gathered behind him. He lifted the weapon again and aimed, but Hackworth ducked aside and ran for the entrance up the stairs.

  “Move it!” he shouted, and plunged through the open doors into the dim light of the hotel.

  The Marriott, once one of the most plush hotels in the city, was clearly now terminally run-down. The expensive carpets were worn and dirty, and most of the furniture and wood wall paneling had been torn out for firewood.

  Hackworth and the others entered the lobby to find a firepit in the center of what had once been the reception area. Bare walls surrounded scattered bits of burnt wood, which lay in a pile Hackworth guessed had once been a carved wooden reception desk. And that wasn’t nearly the worst of it.

  Lying in the corner was another body. As Hackworth raced past, he saw the man had been dead a long time. The features were almost unrecognizable, emaciated and withered away.

  They kept moving, fleeing deeper into the huge stone building, down a long corridor Hackworth hoped would lead them back outside and away from the river.

  And maybe even closer to something like safety.

  Cursed I Tell You!

  London - The Marriott Hotel

  The young boy watched them from behind the dirty window at the front of the hotel as they stood at the foot of the London Eye, staring up at the executed zombie clown. He sat there, in the darkness of his room, peering out and wondering who these strange and obviously stupid people were, that they would venture south of the river. And the way they looked up at that body – which the boy had watched being strung up there six months ago – told him much of what he needed to know. These were not people used to the streets of the South Bank, and they weren’t used to seeing dead bodies.

  They didn’t belong here at all.

  Oh well, the boy thought. They’ll either get run in by a gang, or they’ll leave.

  Then he heard the shot from across the park.

  Lewis and his crew, thought the boy, knowing that few of the local gangs had guns, but Lewis did. Didn’t think they’d take long to home in, but that was fast.

  The people started running then, heading for the foot of the bridge. Go on, thought the boy. Go across the bridge. Get out of here. They might not even shoot you.

  But he knew better. The soldiers on the wall at the other side of Westminster Bridge were never forgiving, and he had seen a few people killed trying to go across. Why folks didn’t just go along the bank and over a different bridge was beyond him. Some people were just stupid.

  He continued to follow the newcomers from inside the hotel, moving from window to window and room to room, and he watched. He didn’t have a cruel heart like a lot of the other people living in the area – and he hoped this group of strangers would somehow escape, even if he doubted the likelihood of that.

  The boy knew the only place these people could escape to was into the river, or maybe into his hotel. Everyone else left the hotel alone after the horrors it had been used for last year. They were all afraid to go near it, but he knew the cult was gone now – all dead. He’d been there that night, and seen them killed by the soldiers who came as he watched, hidden behind a pile of stacked-up furniture that had been put aside for firewood. There were none of them left, and the unholy mess they had created on the top floor had all been cleaned out or burned.

  But even after the last of the cult was dead, no one went near the hotel, and that was why he used it sometimes, sneaking across the bridge and making his way through the tunnels and arches to the back of the building, where he could get in via a broken window. No one used the hotel because they were superstitious and stupid. More stupid people. But he wasn’t, so the huge place was all his.

  Until now – because the group of people outside didn’t flee over the bridge, but instead turned and ran into the entrance, where he couldn’t see them, into the entrance of his hotel. They may have been naive to the dangers south of the river, but that also meant they weren’t aware that the hotel was “cursed.”

  He watched as they appeared in the courtyard, and smiled as he saw the gang – that was definitely Lewis with the gun – stopping outside the arch. They wouldn’t follow them in here. Fools think the ghosts will get them.

  The new crowd of people went inside and headed along the main corridor which led to the front of the building, where the boy knew the rest of Lewis’s gang would be, if they stayed where he’d seen them earlier.

  Damn it, he thought. Why me? Can’t people just leave me alone?

  He stood there, watching the group move further inside, and spotted, for the second time, the woman with the little girl pressed up against her. They hadn’t seen him, at least none of the adults had, but the little girl’s bright eyes stared out at him from over her mother’s shoulder, and the boy watched as a tiny hand poked out of the bundle of cloth and waved. She looked frightened, he thought, but her perfect innocence somehow allowed her to wave at a complete stranger.

  Damn it, he thought again, and stepped out from his hiding place, taking off at a slow jog through the rotting labyrinth of the hotel, circling around the group and heading to the front. He knew every inch of the place, and was certain he could get to the entrance before they did.

  * * *

  “You don’t wanna go out that way,” said the voice.

  Hackworth’s heart jolted in his chest. From Colley’s reaction, and that of a few of the others in the group, they were just as surprised as he.

  They were alone. Hackworth had been sure of that, and they’d checked all the exits from this room, and the corridor, several times before crouching down in a huddle near the dirty but unbroken window that faced the street on the opposite side of the hotel, away from the river. The voice had come from just a few feet away, and yet he couldn’t see who had spoken. It was a young voice, not that of an adult, that much he could tell.

  “They’ll be waiting out there for you,” said the voice. “I already saw some of them.”

  Hackworth was silent for a moment, and looked around at the others, not knowing what to say. Colley just shrugged.

  “Who are you?” Hackworth asked.

  “No one,” came the reply. “At least no one who wants to kill you like them lot. Look out that window, over at the car just across the way. Near the bins. See ’em?”

  Hackworth turned, crouched, and peered through the dir
ty glass and out to the street. He spotted the burnt-out car, and the bins piled up nearby, but couldn’t see what— there. Something had moved, and as he watched, the figure moved again. As he scanned the darkness, he finally made out three shapes crouched behind the bins.

  Damn, he thought. I’d never have seen them.

  “They’ll have the whole place surrounded by now,” said the voice.

  Hackworth backed away from the window and stood up with his back against the wall.

  “Who are you?” he asked again. “And… can you help us get out of here? We don’t want any trouble. We just need a place to rest up for a while and then to get the hell out.”

  Silence for a moment.

  “Where is it you’re going?”

  “Wandsworth,” said Hackworth, thinking there was no point in trying to hide that much. “The old prison.”

  “The new military place?”

  “Yes,” said Hackworth. “We need to get there.”

  There was a laugh. “Fat chance of you getting in there. It’s all locked up, like it is over the bridge.”

  “We still need to get there,” said Hackworth.

  “I figured you shouldn’t be here,” said the voice. And then a shadow moved above them, and Hackworth looked up to see a small, dirty face poking out from a hole in the ceiling, where a water leak had worn the plaster away.

  The face grinned.

  “Come on,” said the boy, dropping down into the room. “Follow me.”

  Hackworth sighed – and then motioned the group to get up and move out. He knew he might really come to regret this. But, once again, he was out of good options, and simply had to pick from among bad ones. And maybe I need to try to have a little faith, he thought.

  The boy led them all further into the building, and up a flight of stairs, and Hackworth wondered where the hell he was taking them. They turned down corridors, and stepped around piles of folding chairs and ruined furniture, and eventually reached a large room that Hackworth thought may once have been a meeting room, or a function room of sorts. There was a bar at one end, still intact, and littered around the room were stacks of cardboard boxes, tables, and piles of mold-stained bed sheets.

  “You can stay here,” said the boy. “They won’t come into the place… stupid idiots believe it’s cursed.”

  Hackworth stopped, frowning at the boy. “Cursed?”

  “Yeah,” said the boy. “Because of some weird cult that used to live here. They used to make a lot of noise and stuff. But the soldiers killed them all in the end.”

  “Jesus,” said Hackworth, not sure what to say, not even sure how to deal with the thought.

  “That gang out there,” said Colley. “You think they won’t come in because of that?”

  “Nope,” said the boy, as he hauled himself up onto the bar and sat watching the rest of the Tunnelers file into the room. “Too scared, they are. They keep away because it’s supposed to be cursed.”

  Colley smiled at that. “Some people actually believe in curses around here?”

  The boy grinned. “As much as they believe in zombies,” he said, and that took the smile from Colley’s face.

  “And will you help us get out of here?” asked Hackworth.

  The boy nodded. “No problem. You wanna go now? I figured since it’s dark you’d want to stay inside where it’s safe. Go in the morning, like. It’s not good anywhere out there at night.”

  Hackworth nodded. He knew the group was exhausted from their escape, and if some crazy superstition was enough to keep them safe inside the building, that was good enough for him. But he was still concerned about the boy’s motives.

  “Why help us?” he asked.

  The boy shrugged. “Why not? Just don’t expect me to find you food or any other stuff.”

  “Of course,” said Hackworth. “We’re okay for food.”

  The boy’s eyes lit up at this. “You’ve got some grub?”

  Hackworth took the pack from his back, opened it, and pulled out a packet of dry biscuits, then threw it to the boy, who caught it and had it open in seconds.

  “’Course, it don’t matter when we go, day or night,” said the boy, through mouthfuls of biscuit. “It’s dark where we need to go anyway.”

  Hackworth peered at the boy. “And where is that?”

  The boy grinned. “Way down. Into the tunnels.”

  Great, thought Hackworth. More damned tunnels.

  Their Fate, Her Fate

  London - The Marriott Hotel

  The boy sat watching them sleep. Over in the corner of what had once been a lavish reception room, but now was a clutter of broken furniture and debris, the woman who held the little girl was asleep. But the little girl wasn’t. Instead, those tiny eyes watched him intently.

  Only three others in the group remained awake – the big black guy, the fat man the boy thought was in charge, and the woman with the two small boys of her own, who sat protectively and watched over them as they slept with their heads in her lap – and her hand in her purse. But none of these had noticed him return.

  He wasn’t sure if they had even seen him leave.

  The two men were standing at the remains of the bar, talking in hushed tones about what had happened to them, and where they were headed next. But the boy soon tuned out the conversation. Instead, he sat there in the dark corner, looking at the tiny girl and trying to decide what to do.

  “You bring them out the south entrance,” Lewis had said, just fifteen minutes before. “We’ll be waiting, and there’ll be something in it for you.” The gang leader had been leaning on the windowsill, smoking a cigarette and looking like he hadn’t a care. At his waist, in the holster, was the gun.

  Of course, he knew Lewis would be waiting for him. Ever since he’d first sent the boy into the hotel to spy on the cultists, Lewis had always waited at that time, right in the alleyway, for the boy to arrive. The rest of Lewis’s gang wouldn’t go inside. No, they were all too scared, but not him. Lewis knew the truth – but used it to his advantage, spreading rumors about the place so that everyone would believe it was cursed.

  As the boy sat in the big hall, watching the group of tired refugees sleeping off their exhaustion, he thought hard about what he was going to do.

  It shouldn’t rest on his shoulders, not something like this. Lewis had always used him to spy on others, and the boy knew what the gang got up to out in the streets, but to expect him to deliver these people into their hands? That was more than he wanted to be involved with.

  “You’ll let them go?” he had asked Lewis, as they stood opposite each other in the darkness at the back of the alleyway.

  “I’ll try,” Lewis had said.

  “You’ll just take their gear and let them go?”

  Lewis glared at him. “You don’t make demands of me, boy.”

  “You should let them go,” the boy had insisted, knowing that if he pushed it too far it would be his ass getting a beating. “They don’t want your territory. They just wanna go. They done nothing to you.”

  “I’ll try not to get any of them killed,” Lewis had said. “But if they get rowdy, and the boys wanna fight…”

  Now, sitting at the back of the big function room, unable to unlock eyes with the little girl, he somehow knew what he would have to do. He just couldn’t bring himself to make the decision. If he led them away, down into the cellars, he could take them through the old tunnels and out at the hospital. Lewis and his men might never find them.

  But, no. That didn’t work. If he led them away, Lewis would not forget. He’d have double-crossed him, and wouldn’t ever be able to come back to the hotel again. And he didn’t have anyplace else safe to go, not unless you included the farmhouse, but that was miles outside London.

  And yet he couldn’t hand them over. If they killed them, if they murdered everyone, then what about the little girl? Could they kill her too? A voice at the back of his mind said they wouldn’t, and that even Lewis’s men wouldn’t be that evil. B
ut the bodies he’d seen in the alleyways and in buildings, left to rot, told him otherwise.

  He couldn’t let it happen. He just had to accept that he was about to lose his older brother forever. Lewis would never forgive him. He took a deep breath, jumped down from his perch at the back of the room, and walked over to the two men standing at the bar. The fat man turned to him.

  “I’ve got something I need to tell you,” said the boy.

  Zulus in Battalion Strength

  JFK - Bridge

  Drake exited the Captain’s Ready Room, which let off the very rear of the bridge. He’d decided at the last second to go there instead of the briefing room upstairs. He knew it was the one place on the ship where he was guaranteed total privacy.

  No one dared go in there – ever.

  As far as Drake knew, no one had been in it since the Captain had last been in command of the boat. Maybe there’s something about this job, he thought to himself, that drives a man over the edge…

  But what he hadn’t paused to consider was what kind of message him going in there was likely to send to the bridge crew. Or the rest of the crew, for that matter.

  Now, as he threaded his way through the stations and officers on watch, he pretended not to be aware that half the men and women there were watching him out of the corners of their eyes.

  Only half were watching him because the other half were involved in various high-stress activities. The Kennedy was now managing a lot of barely controlled chaos, most of it simultaneous. Luckily, a lot of the load – the shore mission, the CSAR mission, and much of the high-stakes lethal chess game with the Admiral Nakhimov – was the province of Campbell and her people down in CIC. Drake worked out that Abrams was on the phone with them now.

  He took a seat, looked around, and waited for him to get off the line. Maybe this had been a damned poor moment for him to schedule his alone time – in the middle of at least three emergencies. On the other hand, they all seemed to be coping without him. But he believed in his heart that this was an illusion. He didn’t doubt that he was still needed to make the big calls. Moreover, he was the only person on this ship who knew how everything worked at this point. In order to stay alive, floating, and mission-capable, they’d had to implement an enormous number of hacks – to their procedures, their electronics and engineering, their aircraft and small boats, to the very body of the supercarrier itself. And Drake had been the single point of approval for all of them.