by Sean Platt
Mary nodded, then collapsed into a minute-long fit of coughing.
John and Jimmy were back, standing a few feet away while waiting for their cue. “John, I want you to comb every corner of the first-floor offices. Bathrooms, office stalls, under the cushions, everywhere. Leave nothing out.” He turned to Jimmy. “I need you to check the rooms.”
“I already did,” he said. “Twice, she’s not in her room, or any of ours.”
“No,” Desmond said. “I want you to check every room on the first floor. The locks are off so the doors should open. If they don’t open, make a list of rooms we need to check. We’ll go back and kick those doors in one by one.”
“Mary,” his face softened, “You should check the restaurant area. Go through the dining room and kitchen. Maybe Paola got hungry, went to find something to eat, and fell asleep. She was awfully tired, and the kitchen is the one area on the first floor where she might not have been able to hear us, even with all the screaming.”
“I’ll check the exits, inside and outside, and we’ll all meet back here as soon as we can.”
More words weren’t needed. The men went off, each hunter going to gather on his own, hoping he’d be the one to return a happy girl to her panicked mother and likely praying he wouldn’t find something that would haunt her forever.
Mary examined the dining area. The end of the world must have happened pretty early in the morning, because the entire first floor of the hotel had few signs of life. Tables were cleared, chairs pushed in, and not a single item of clothing draped the furniture. She turned around and gave the dining area a final glance, waved to John who caught her eye from the other side of the lobby, then pushed the kitchen doors open to a powerful gust of her daughter’s emotional scent.
She inched through the kitchen. Paola had been here. Mary took another step and was nearly knocked sideways by a powerful, unexpected wave of emotion featuring her ex-husband.
Her throat closed, and her head pounded. Her knees started to shake.
Why do I feel Ryan in here? I can almost hear his voice and smell the sweat on his collar. But that’s not possible.
A lone butcher knife resting on the counter sent an arctic chill through Mary. She picked it up, the chill grew colder. Paola had held the knife, maybe for a while.
She shuddered, tossed the butcher knife on the counter with an angry clatter, then traded the cool, stale air of the kitchen for the crisp, early morning Missouri air.
Desmond was also outside, 30 feet away, inspecting an exit. “Any luck?” he called.
Mary shook her head.
“Let’s head back inside,” Desmond said, walking toward her. “I don’t think Paola is in the hotel, but we need to know for sure before we split up and look out here.”
Mary felt like she was on the edge, about to fall.
Demond said, “It’s going to be okay.”
Mary nodded.
Inside, everyone echoed the same report — they’d all seen more of the same — nothing.
“There are five floors in the hotel,” Desmond said. “John, you take the second. Mary takes the third. And I’ll take four and five. Jimmy stays down here in case Paola slips in or out. When we’re done, we meet back here. If we find nothing, then we clear out immediately.”
Desmond handed each of them a flashlight.
They headed up the stairwell, which was dimly lit by emergency lights just as the hallways were. Mary got off on the 3rd floor, and started with the first door on the right. Desmond was right. It was smart to search the hotel first, but hard to do when every molecule inside her wanted to run from the hotel on a hunt to pick up Paola’s scent and trail. Because if there was one thing Mary knew in this moment full of unknowns, it was this — her daughter was not in the Drury.
All the rooms in the first and second hallways were vacant, as were most of the rooms in the third. Then she opened the door to something so terrifying it managed to nudge a new thought in front of her missing daughter.
Lying on the floor in the middle of two queen-sized beds was another of the charred-looking creatures they’d found twitching on the side of the road the day before. Though it looked different — the creature from the day before had been mostly still, quietly vibrating until Desmond and a pair of bullets stopped it forever.
This one was alive, animated, waiting.
Mary had no time to measure the differences between the nightmares before the one at her feet was off the floor and lurching toward her. She screamed, then ran, but not before kicking the creature in its torso, knocking a piece of its flesh to the floor where it splattered in wet chunks.
Mary slammed the door behind her and screamed, hoping she’d draw attention from the others. The creature hit the door with a hard thud, then wailed in what sounded like a cruel attempt at human agony.
It’s in pain.
The thought gave Mary a chill. What if the creatures are victims, fallout from whatever atrocity had obliterated the world? Not that it mattered. Sympathy wouldn’t keep her or Paola alive, and though she felt certain the creature had nothing to do with her daughter’s disappearance, it was a threat.
Mary opened the door to the stairwell and took the stairs two at a time. She could hear the creature behind her on the other side of the stairwell door. She had a daughter to find and a team to protect; she couldn’t very well lead the creature to them, which is exactly what she’d be doing if she ran to the ground floor.
The door opened one flight above, and the creature writhed into the stairwell. It looked down, saw Mary, then stepped on the first step. She opened the door to the second floor, ran into the hallway, and slammed the door behind her.
“John!” she yelled. No answer, the floor felt empty. Mary ducked into the first door across from the stairwell — a moderately-sized supply closet with shelves stocked full with tiny soaps, shampoos, and conditioners. But unless she planned on stabbing the creature with a sewing kit, nothing was useful as a weapon.
Three rolling carts were there, however, each fully stocked for a fresh day of cleanup. Mary stepped inside, flicked off her flashlight, and shoved the closest cart against the door.
Just in time.
THUD ... THUD ... THUD ...
The creature threw its body repeatedly against the door, pushing the cart, and Mary, back.
THUD ... THUD ... THUD ...
The door inched open, edging the supply cart forward and spilling a seam of warm light into the dark supply room. Mary fell back against the rear wall of the supply closet, and pressed her legs against the cart closest to her, attempting to leverage them against the door to keep the monster out.
She closed her eyes and thought of Paola.
If you’re dead it’s all my fault.
THUD ... THUD ... THUD ...
The door opened and closed again, pushing the carts forward before Mary kicked them back, forcing the door shut again.
THUD ... THUD ... And then nothing.
For a moment, silence filled the air as Mary dared to hope the monster went on its way. She held her breath, trying to listen beyond the sound of her thumping heart.
And then she heard a terrible clicking sound.
THUD!
The door smashed open, the carts rolled forward, banging into Mary, as the creature fell into the supply closet screaming and making that God-awful clicking sound. Its head swung back and forth, as if it were searching for Mary, then froze, its black eyes narrowing on her.
Fuck.
She screamed, gripping the handle of the cart closest to her, and thrust the cart forward repeatedly against a second cart, which slammed into the creature.
The thing screamed, as Mary kept slamming the carts forward, until the creature stopped thrashing and fell forward onto the first cart, injured and squirming.
Mary gripped the flashlight, and swung down, slamming it into the thing’s skull over and over, warm blood spraying her.
It screamed. Terror, anger, agony as it pulled back, head half
caved in, mouth still intact.
The creature’s wail sent Mary three steps back, just as a hunk of its face fell to the floor. Mary swallowed the bile in her throat, then launched a second assault at the creature’s head, bashing it repeatedly until the thing stopped screaming, clicking, and squirming, and collapsed to the ground.
Mary didn’t know if the creature was dead, or even if it could die, but it was down for a moment and that was enough. She swallowed again, keeping the bile in her belly, then squeezed past the carts and creature, and out into the hall. She dropped the bloodied light and raced through the stairwell door and down to the lobby where Jimmy, John, and Desmond were standing.
The terror on her face sent the men to her side in seconds. “You okay?” Jimmy asked.
Mary swallowed, unable to talk at first, staring back at the stairwell door in shock, and amazed that she’d gotten away.
“What happened?” John asked, eyes wide and fearful.
“I just saw another one of those things, you know, like the dead thing we saw on the highway. The thing Desmond shot.” She looked at Desmond with a weak smile, then down at her shaking hands and the front of her shirt, covered in black blood. “I’m fine. I think I killed it.”
Desmond raced into the stairwell, grabbing a pistol from his waistband.
“What about Paola? Anyone find anything?” Mary asked.
Mary could read the NO written on their empty faces. She was right, at least about Paola. No one found a trace. But John had seen one of the twitching creatures lying on the floor in one of the rooms. Almost pissed himself when he saw it, but the beast was either sleeping or dead so he closed the door and counted himself lucky.
“I need to know which rooms the creatures are in,” Desmond said returning to them, “So we can make sure they’re dead. And then we move out and search outside for Paola.”
“Someone needs to stay here and wait in case she comes back,” Mary said.
“Mary, I understand how you feel right now,” Desmond said, “but we have to stick together. We can’t afford for our numbers to get split. We’ll be able to help Paola better together, so let’s go outside and look. If we don’t find anything, we’ll come back.”
“No. Somebody needs to stay here,” she said.
Jimmy and John seemed willing, but both were looking to Desmond.
Desmond sighed. “Please, Mary. Let’s stick together and canvas the area. Chances are, she’s close. If not, we’ll be back in a few minutes. It’s what’s best, not just for all of us, but for Paola, too. I promise.”
“And what if we’re all out there looking for her and she comes back and, whoops, there’s another monster in the hotel and nobody here to protect her?”
“I’ll stay,” Jimmy offered, “As long as you give me a gun.”
Twenty-Nine
Boricio Wolfe
Somewhere in Alabama
Boricio gnashed his teeth at the injustice of his blindfolded captivity.
Unfortunately for his captors, the beast had already freed himself from his chains, breaking out of the plastic restraints which had bound his wrists behind his back. His blood was boiling, kinetic violence waiting to crackle, holding for the time when no movement would be wasted on his return to the rotting corpse of the world outside.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but figured he hadn’t lost more than a day already. Still, that was a day longer than anyone had ever held Boricio. Unfortunately, he would have to lie on the burlap mat a bit longer, until he’d sussed out the situation.
Danger was in the room, and dangers were outside. Outside was probably worse. Much worse. Difference was, outside Boricio made some of the rules. He was busting out one way or another. Question was how many fuckers would have to die before he was rolling down the highway, windows down, and dialing into the latest on Boricio FM.
Way he smelled it, he had six ways to end everyone in the room, and three of ‘em made a helluva lot of sense. One wouldn’t work, at least not until he could get a clearer picture of the distances between the last body and the wall, and the first body and the door. Of the remaining two, one was as easy as tenderizing a few pounds of meat.
None of the prisoners was armed, Boricio figured. He’d need to rip off his blindfold, survey the room, then get clear to his far right within the first second. He had no way of knowing for certain whether the four “prisoners” were friendly or not, but he’d have to assume they were all cozy with Testosterone and the Big Nipple Bitch, because as Boricio had learned long ago, you never take anything as a given.
He’d start with the prisoner on the far right, snap his neck before anyone in the room knew what was happening. He’d move straight in a row, ending each of the blindfolded pigeons until he hit Silent Bob at the end.
Bitch of it was, the strategy would have to flip a bitch in a second if any of the four prisoners were instead a guard. He’d still start with the guy on the far right, but would have to immediately grab the second guy so he could use his body as a shield while he figured out what to do with the other two fucktards.
It wouldn’t be quiet, and that meant just seconds until Testosterone and Big Nipple Bitch came busting in with their Superdome-sized home court advantage and whatever weapons they carried.
Much as he hated to soak in the saltwater suck on this that came with murdering time, it was college cool to play the room until the right time. It would happen, and when it did, he’d let everyone in the room, dead and alive, know he was their new lord and savior, least for the six or so seconds they had the chance to swear allegiance. They were already on their knees at the end of the world; ain’t no better time than that to switch up deities.
Boricio would’ve already snapped a whole lot of spinal cords, but the shit that came falling from Silent Bob’s mouth a few minutes earlier had tripped him way the fuck out.
He didn’t understand the dude’s words, but his tone was all wrong — sent an arrow straight into the bull’s-eye of Boricio’s terror like few things he’d ever heard.
The Chinese had a weird ass ching chong ramma lamma ding dong of a language, but there was shit about it that just made good sense, way it was once explained to Boricio. Like the way they used the same words to mean different things, difference being in tone.
“Tiger” “four” and “death” were all the same exact fucking word in Chinese, just the tone the chinks said it that made the difference. Most people in America would be too stupid to hear that shit; everyone would end up confusing one another all the time. But if a fucker can learn how to listen over there, then they can do it over here. Boricio knew everything he needed to know 99 percent of the time, and he got there with his ears and his eyes, and sometimes his nose. That’s what instincts were: listening to the music of the world around and never missing a note. When it came to hearing the fear in another man’s throat, Boricio had perfect pitch.
Silent Bob was scared as fuck about something.
He saw something out there that he don’t know how to explain. His mind is turning it over and trying to measure it, but there’s too much and not enough and he can’t stir that shit up enough to make no sorta sense. And it’s mixed with the kinda fear a man gets when there ain’t no way he’s got more than 100 breaths left inside him.
Whatever he saw, there was a chance it wasn’t human. A week ago that would’ve sounded like some science fiction bullshit to Boricio, but not anymore. Something soured the planet to memory — had to be global, otherwise some sort of cavalry would’ve been rolling in by now.
Something pointed the barrel at humanity. And it forgot to empty the chamber, or ran out of bullets. Either way, aliens, government, who-the-fuck ever — someone let the fires burn. And Boricio had a feeling that something was being done to clean up the mess. That something is probably what Silent Bob saw. It was something that Boricio had sensed more than knew, as a predator senses when a new breed has risen to the top of the food chain.
Whatever Silent Bob saw, must’
ve fucked with his head big-time. Made sense. Boricio’s head was fucked with, above and beyond his usual internal bullshit transmissions. It felt real, sure, but he sure as shit knew a Boricio FM wasn’t broadcasting his name across all hours of fuck all.
If that were all true, and Boricio figured it was, he was safer in this room, even if it meant staying on his knees a little longer. He was a king now; this was his kingdom. It just might take a bit longer to claim the throne.
Another click and whine from the door, followed by a fresh gust of warm, stale air. A new scent entered the room. This scent had teeth. Boricio could smell it, under the sweat: mean, sadistic, and cruel. If Testosterone reeked of asshole, this guy was steeped in the scent of pain and misery. He was cock of the walk, and was all too happy to strut his stuff.
“Time to eat,” Boricio heard the voice a split second before something was forced into his mouth. Earthy and unfamiliar.
Boricio spit it out, then heard the sticky THWAP!! as it hit the man’s face. “Not hungry,” Boricio said.
It was nice to hear the guard’s laughter, good to know a nice kitty cat was there who wanted to play.
A sudden slap at the side of each of Boricio’s ears rolled thunder through his head.
“You dropped something from your cockhole,” the voice said. “Good thing I’m a generous teacher willing to help you learn more control.”
Boricio’s lips and jaw exploded in pain as the asshole took a cheap shot, and for a moment he wasn’t sure whether or not he’d have to swallow a tooth. Between his nose and lips, he probably looked like Halloween. Not good. Boricio gave exactly two shits and a half a tinkle about his good looks, but knew the value of an effective weapon and a convincing disguise. His looks were both, and in a dead world, a pretty face looked like an angel.
Boricio laughed. A crazy, cracked, drunken alligator of a laugh.
Dead Guard Walking, that’s what I’ll call this special breed of fucker. Bag of shit won’t just be any old corpse either. I’ll be taking as much of my sweet time as I can afford. Won’t have the minutes I need to make it biblical, but I’m gonna get creative, believe it, bitch. That’s all I need, one minute to make this bag of shit wish he’d died as a child.
