by Nick Randall
Thirty floors. Maybe sixty rooms per floor, at a guess. Sam really had no idea how many rooms there were, but he knew it had to be a lot. More than a dozen entrances. It was a massive building, and as Sam covered the remaining blocks, he tried to guess where a focused band of looters like the ones operating out of the Helios Tavern would target. The kitchen? Most likely, but every room probably had a mini bar with water, snacks, soda, and alcohol. They might be combing the place floor by floor, grabbing everything. Unless Sam went through the hotel shouting for them, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
Sam reached the hotel with no concrete plan and slipped through a broken window into the lobby. The area was dark and lifeless. For all he knew, Ricky had already left to go back to the tavern, and he'd missed his chance. At the far end of the lobby, past a few toppled stuffed chairs, he could just make out the check-in counter. Beyond that, a bank of steel elevator doors glimmered slightly in the ambient moonlight. The lobby was deathly quiet...and then came the tinkle of glass hitting the concrete outside, and a burst of gunfire.
Sam raced back through the broken window and looked up, up the towering side of the building. A muzzle flash strobed through the night, followed closely by the boom of the gunshot. Somebody yelled, then laughed.
Sam counted windows quickly. Fourteenth floor. That's where the muzzle flash had been. He sprinted back inside and angled toward the back of the lobby, bursting through the stairway door that stood just beside the elevators. He took the stairs two at a time, racing up the stairs in pitch black, using his intuition as much as the handrail to guide him through the darkness, , his metabolism feeding off the maggot-riddled half burger he'd eaten, burning energy. He was close, so close. Someone was joy-shooting out the window of a high-rise hotel. That kind of brazen behavior only fit a single profile he'd seen this side of the EMP: a Sundog.
Fourth floor. Fifth. Sixth. Sam pushed through the pain in his side, pushed through the burning in his lungs. Ninth. Tenth. He had to be right about this. Had to be. In another twenty-four hours, he'd be shriveling up from the inside out from dehydration. His kidneys would start to shut down. He'd begin the long, slow process of dying. So he couldn't be wrong about this.
Thirteenth floor.
Fourteenth.
Sam finally stopped at the stairwell door, his breathing coming out in quick, pained gasps. He pulled the necklace from his pocket, then Jeremy's ratty, crumpled baseball card that wasn't worth ten cents, and yet the boy treasured it like a shipful of Cortez's lost gold. Sam brought each one to his dry, flaking lips and kissed them, first the cheap, fau-gold of the necklace, then Ken Griffey Jr.'s faded, smiling face. If he made it out of here alive, perhaps some small part of their souls would be laid to rest.
Sam put his hand on the doorknob. He turned it, pulled open the door…
…and found himself face to face with blinding light.
Chapter 9
Sam was temporarily blinded by the light on the other side of the door, but his training kicked in immediately and he spun away from the doorway. Just in time, because a gunshot roared through the stairwell, almost drowning the surprised shout that accompanied it.
Sam blinked rapidly, seeing dark blue spots, and pulled the trigger on his M16. His shoulder jerked with the recoil, and a three-round burst slammed into the wall beside the door.
“Someone's here!” a voice shouted beyond the stairwell door.
Sam dove to the floor and slid across the polished concrete up to the open door. On the other side, three feet away, he saw a pair of legs looming over him. He pulled the trigger again, aiming just above the legs, and was rewarded with a spray of blood. The man went down in a heap, gripping his crotch and screaming. The gas lantern he'd been holding clattered to the carpeted floor. Sam used the light to switch his rifle from three-round-burst to single fire, and then put a single round into the man's head. It wasn't Ricky.
Sam raised himself to his knees, then stood up in a crouch, swiveling from side to side. The stairwell entered the middle of the hallway, and the pool of light from the lantern faded equally on both sides of him where the hallway stretched away into darkness.
To the left, a door squeaked on its hinges. Sam scooped up the lantern and lobbed it toward the sound. Rifle fire immediately filled the hallway, sparks crackling off the flying lantern. Sam shot down the hallway after it, rifle pressed against his shoulder, moving low. The lantern thumped to the ground in front of an open door. Sam saw the toe of a boot protruding through the doorway. He fired one shot at the foot, then raised the barrel and put another round through the wall four feet off the ground. A body fell into the hallway, blood streaming from the chest. The man's head thumped against the lantern.
Sam had been counting the shots as he went. Nine shots fired. Twenty-one remaining in the magazine. He liked his odds.
“Axel? Mario? Who's out there?” someone yelled from inside the open room. The voice had a hint of panic. Sam froze. He'd heard that voice before. Baritone, but whiny at the same time.
“Ricky?” Sam called from the hallway.
Silence. Then, “Who's that?”
“Your friends are dead,” Sam answered.
“Who's out there?” the voice repeated.
“I want you to say something for me,” Sam said. “I wan't you to say 'Skags had it coming.'”
Another silence. This one seemed to stretch into infinity.
Finally: “Jesus, you're that guy. It can't be. You're dead. I saw you die.”
“That's right,” Sam said. “You saw me die. And then you saw my wife die. And then you saw my son die.”
“No, no, no. That wasn't me, man. I swear. Zeke shot the kid. I told him not to. I swear. I wasn't even up there in the room.”
“Then how do you know Zeke shot my son?” Sam asked calmly.
Silence again. Sam didn't wait for it to end.
“Tell me one thing, Ricky, and I'll go easy on you. Are you right handed or left handed?”
“R-r-r-right.”
“Good.”
Sam swung around the doorway. A bullet embedded in the plaster over his right shoulder. Sam ignored it and walked into the dark hotel room. Another bullet thudded the wall even farther away from him. Sam saw the muzzle flash that time and aimed at the floor below it.
BLAM.
Ricky screamed. Across the room, bed hinges squeaked. Sam let his legs buckle and dropped to the floor, and this time he heard a bullet whiz passed his ear. Sam thumped to the carpet and rolled away from the doorway, straining his side as he did it. Ricky was still screaming, covering the sound of whoever was over by the bed.
Why couldn't anything be easy?
Sam had rolled into a small kitchenette by the feel of the linoleum underneath him, and he bunched his legs under him and rocked to his knees. He fired two rounds toward where he'd heard the bedsprings, then ducked and rolled again.
Three rounds answered his gunfire, the bullets biting into the wall behind him. Then he heard running footsteps, a pause, and something slammed into him. He fell onto his back, arms up, and a hailstorm of punches whacked into his forearms.
“Get him, Jace,” Ricky's voice screamed. “Get that bastard!”
A fist hit Sam's face, and he replied with a wild jab in the dark. It crunched into something solid, and Sam immediately whipped his knee up against his attacker's back. The angle was wrong. His thigh just pressed against the man’s lower back. Another fist whaled against Sam's forehead, casting a kaleidoscope of shooting stars over his vision. Then another fist. And another.
Sam's eyes were failing. He couldn't see anything. He felt his nose implode, felt hot blood stream over his lips. He dug his hand into his pocket. Another blow landed on his mouth, spraying blood and splitting his lip. The assault rifle hung uselessly at his side. The man's knees were pressed against the strap, keeping him from lifting it.
“Kill him, Jace! Kill him!” screamed Ricky's voice.
Sam felt hard metal in his pocket. He
pulled it out. Another fist crashed against his already broken nose, sending pain knifing into Sam's brain. Sam gasped and tasted coppery blood rolling down his throat from his broken nose, filling his sinuses. He was going to choke on his own blood. He was going to drown in it. He tried to flail against his attacker, but his side was burning with pain, and his arm would barely move. Another blow, crushing his forehead. He just wanted to curl up into a ball and make it end.
He imagined his arm going up, slapping the man's neck. And then...
...the man fell off of him. Sam felt like a three-ton weight had been removed from his chest. He sucked in air, metallic and sweet, then gagged He rolled over and spit out a glob of blood from his throat.
Sam pushed the man all the way off of him, seeing the glint of his multitool jammed into his neck. Sam tugged it out, and realized that he hadn't even pulled open the knife tool – it was the corkscrew that had punctured the man's neck.
Sam grabbed his rifle from the kitchenette floor and struggled to his feet. Ricky was still moaning on the other side of the room. Sam staggered to the hallway, grabbed the lantern from the floor, and walked back into the hotel room. He shut the door behind him. Walked across the room to where Ricky was lying on the floor.
Shortish, but thick. All muscle and no brain. Ricky saw Sam coming and whipped up a handgun in his left hand. The shot went wide, and Sam kicked the gun out of his hand. Righties never could shoot southpaw. Ricky was wearing a tank-top, and a thick swathe of bandages were wrapped around his right bicep, where Sam had shot him in the yard the night before. His right hand was useless.
“You're alive,” Ricky said in awe when he finally saw Sam's face.
“And you killed my family.” Sam said. He shot Ricky's other foot. The man doubled up in pain.
“Zeke! Zeke did it! You gotta believe me” Ricky wailed.
Sam pointed the barrel of his rifle at Ricky's face. “What does Zeke look like?”
“He got a eating problem. Real skinny. Got a dumbass Mohawk, like it's the '80s.”
Creamed corn. Sam nodded. “Where's Zeke now?”
“Helios. It's this bar, over on...”
“Shut up. I know where it is. And what about the other person?” Sam asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You and Zeke, and I killed two. There was a fifth person. Who was it?”
“Fuck you, man. Wasn't nobody else there.”
Sam raised the rifle to the right and shot out the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the street. He dragged Ricky over and raked him across the shards of glass until the entire upper half of his body was hanging out the gap. He knelt at the gap beside Ricky's legs. Wind whipped Sam's hair.
“Who was the fifth man?” Sam shouted.
“NO fifth man, man,” Ricky screamed.
“Who was he?” Sam slid Ricky farther out the window, gripping the collar of his shirt. A hundred and forty feet below, the asphalt waited in darkness.
“You're crazy!” Ricky's eyes were red-rimmed in fear. “Just us four.”
Sam held onto Ricky's collar and leaned back into the hotel room to grab the rifle. Holding it with one hand, he put four rounds directly into Ricky's left shin. The rifle roared against the wailing wind. Ricky's eyes went glassy, then refocused and stared into Sam's face.
“He'll kill me worse than this if I talk,” Ricky whispered, then grabbed Sam's wrist tightly and ripped his hand off his collar. Unsupported, Ricky's body flipped backwards and fell into the night.
Six seconds later, Sam heard his body smack the pavement below. He winced. Then he let himself fall gently back onto the carpet of the hotel room. Shards of glass nipped his back through his shirt, but he didn't care. He was exhausted.
After maybe twenty minutes, he rolled away from the open window, grabbed the lantern, and stumbled back to the kitchenette. The other man's body was sprawld across the floor. Sam nudged it aside with his foot and opened the mini-fridge.
He sank to his knees.
It was beautiful.
M&Ms, Kit-Kats, and Pringles filled the bottom shelf. Above that, seemingly endless bottles of water and orange juice. And on the shelf above that, half pints of Absolut vodka, J&B scotch, and six bottles of Heineken.
Sam ate candy and chips until his stomach couldn't hold any more, then drank three bottles of water and a bottle of orange juice. The taste was amazing, and even better, none of it harbored a single maggot. After his meal, he sat with his back against the bed, Linda's necklace in one hand and the small green bottle of J&B in the other.
One of the monsters who'd killed his family was dead, but there were two more out there roaming the streets.
Well, not for long, Sam thought, taking a swig of the whiskey.
TO BE CONTINUED…
