Autumn: Disintegration (38 page)

“Shut that bloody dog up!” Ginnie screamed. Howard’s dog was standing in the middle of reception, barking furiously at the glass. He reached down for her collar and tried to pull her away, but she stood her ground and refused to move, eyes fixed forward. He looked up and saw that the bodies had advanced all the way along the side of the hotel and had now begun to spread across the front. Through the gaps between upturned pieces of furniture he could see them moving continually, steadily surrounding the entire building. The steps leading up to the main entrance held them back temporarily until the weight of flesh still surging forward forced the leading cadavers to climb. Howard let go of the dog and helped barricade the doors with whatever he could lay his hands on. Rotting faces stared back at him through the glass and the bodies slammed their bony hands against the window continually. For a moment he thought he saw one of them grab the handle and try to pull the door open.

“Is that gonna hold them?” Harte asked, wiping sweat from his eyes.

“Going to have to, isn’t it?” Lorna answered. Her voice echoed around the now almost pitch-black reception area. As well as shutting out the final shards of fading light, the haphazard blockade had changed the acoustics of the room, muffling the sounds outside and amplifying the noise indoors. “What now?”

Gordon and Hollis moved closer.

“Where will we be safest?” Gordon wondered.

“Right in the middle of the building?” Lorna suggested. “Either that or we should head up?”

“There’s no way out if we go up,” Harte said ominously.

“Don’t think we have a lot of choice.”

“We need to get out of sight,” Hollis said. “A room big enough for all of us where they won’t see us.”

“We could try—” Harte began to say before being interrupted by a horrific scream from the other end of the hotel. It was Caron. He froze with terror, not wanting to know what she’d found. Around him others began to run toward the source of the sound. Even from a distance he could hear what was happening.

“They’re inside,” Caron cried, running down the west-wing corridor.

“How?” Hollis demanded.

“Swimming pool,” Jas said, his voice full of desperation and disappointment. “Fucking things must have got in through the doors into the pool.”

“Then block the bloody corridor off!” Gordon yelled, pushing past Caron and hurtling toward the pool and gym.

It was too late. By the time he’d got there the creatures were already swarming out into the open, steadily filling the marble-floored area in front of the restaurant, bar, and the Steelbrooke Suite. The dead moved with renewed speed, their progress helped by the pressure of others moving up through the narrow corridor behind them, forcing them forward. Within seconds their numbers were such that they burst through the doors into the courtyard and began to spill down the glass-fronted corridors on either side. In places the decorative glazing began to crack and give way under the pressure. The noise of the shattering glass seemed to excite the dead still further as they spread through the building.

“Up!” Jas shouted, loud enough for all of them to hear. “First floor, middle room. Trust me!”

With no other option, Lorna, Ginnie, and Howard began to climb the staircase at the reception end of the west-wing corridor. Caron and Gordon ran back down the hallway toward them, glancing back over their shoulders at the steadily advancing tide of corpses which washed after them. Hollis shoved them up the staircase, then turned to face Harte and Jas.

“What about Webb and Martin?” he asked, the nearest bodies now less than thirty meters away.

“Fuck them,” Jas immediately replied. “We left them in the restaurant. With a bit of luck they’ll have managed to block the door before they got in.”

“All of this is Webb’s fault,” Harte seethed. “He doesn’t deserve to survive.”

“What about Driver?” Hollis demanded, the nearest bodies now close enough for them to be able to see the horrific detail in their dead faces. “We can’t just leave him, can we?”

“He’s probably dead already,” Jas snapped. “Now come on, get upstairs.”

Hollis didn’t move, struggling with his conscience.

“Which room was he in?”

Harte was struggling too.

“East wing, top floor,” he replied. “Can’t remember which number…”

“Leave him,” Jas said again, grabbing both men’s arms and trying to drag them up.

“Oh, fuck it,” Harte snapped, squirming free from Jas’s grip and running down to reception, then back across and up the corridor on the other side.

“What the hell are you doing?” Hollis gasped as he disappeared down. Jas shoved him again and they began to climb the stairs, stopping on the first landing where they could still just about see down to reception and over to the staircase on the other side of the building.

“Fucking idiot,” Jas cursed. “Waste of fucking time.”

*   *   *

Harte threw himself up the staircase at the end of the east wing, tripping on the final step in the dark and stumbling into the wall. He picked himself up and, ignoring the pain, ran along the top-floor corridor, opening every door he passed, still unable to remember where he’d left Driver and equally unsure as to why he’d bothered coming back for him. It was a stupid, spur-of-the-moment mistake but it was too late now. This was it. He’d found it. Room 39. He recognized a patch of torn wallpaper and a scratch just to the left of the door. He grabbed the handle, pulled it open and burst inside.

“Come on,” he gasped, fighting for air. “We need to get out before…”

The room was empty. It was definitely the right one—there were trays of food and empty bottles of water and the bedding was dirty—but no Driver. Stunned, for a few dangerous moments Harte almost forgot the mayhem which was engulfing the rest of the hotel. He looked in the bathroom, under the bed, in the wardrobe … Driver wasn’t there. Where the hell had he gone?

The sound of more glass shattering elsewhere brought Harte crashing back to reality. He raced back along the corridor and down the staircase again. Down below he could see the courtyard, rammed full of corpses, with still more trying to force their way in. They were at the bottom of the staircase too, and they were beginning to climb. With no other option he closed his eyes and accelerated, wincing with disgust as he crashed into the first cadavers. Shoulder down, he kept moving, battering his way through the surging crowd until he reached the reception area. A momentary respite and he was deep among the dead again, head down, this time racing toward the foot of the stairs leading up to the rooms on the west wing. Soaked with gore and gagging with the horrific, overpowering stench of decay, he began to force his way up, step by step. A hand grabbed his shoulder. Fired full of adrenaline, he clenched his fist and pulled it back to strike.

“Don’t hit me, you fucking idiot,” Jas cursed as he pulled him up by the scruff of his neck. “No good?”

“Not there,” he wheezed breathlessly as they climbed to the first floor. Hollis and Lorna were standing on the landing waiting for them.

“What do you mean, not there?” Lorna demanded.

“He’s cleared out,” Harte answered. “Clever bastard’s pulled a fast one on us. I bet there was never anything wrong with him.”

“Clever bugger,” Hollis muttered. “Had more brains than we gave him credit for. Just because someone’s not talking all the time, doesn’t mean they’re not thinking.”

He peered down the staircase. The bodies were climbing.

“What now?” Harte asked.

“Block it up,” Jas replied. “Gordon and Howard are already doing the stairs at the other end. Just get what you can out of the bedrooms and throw it down. Those fuckers will never be able to get up here.”

55

Webb had heard Harte moving around.

The sudden surge of bodies as they’d dragged themselves into the main part of the hotel from the swimming pool had snapped him out of his exhausted catharsis. With the rest of the survivors running around like headless chickens, devoid of any apparent aim or direction, he seized his chance to move. As the first corpses had appeared in the door of the restaurant he’d pushed past them, smashing them to the side before they’d even realized he was there. He left Martin behind, sobbing and wailing for help pathetically. When he looked back he’d disappeared, swallowed up by an unstoppable mass of decaying flesh.

Pursued by a surging stream of deadly corpses, Webb had fought his way to the nearest east-wing staircase. For a few anxious seconds he’d stopped at the top of the first flight and looked back down, watching the courtyard outside fill with an incalculable mass of rancid skin and bone, and then watching the bodies begin to drag themselves up after him. He knew they’d make it all the way upstairs eventually, it was inevitable. He breathlessly crawled up to the first floor and peered out of a small window overlooking the back of the hotel. The sun had disappeared, but just enough light remained for him to be able to see the massive scale of what was happening outside. Every inch of space around the hotel was filling with corpses, from the walls of the building right the way back to the boundary fence. And still they came! He craned his neck and saw that more of the tireless grotesques were continuing to force their way into the hotel grounds, ripping and tearing at others around them, desperate to keep moving.

Which room was it? Webb ran down the corridor, peeling off layers of sodden, stinking clothing as he moved. East wing, first floor … it had to be one of these. Something must have happened to stop Jas bringing the others up here, he thought as he yanked door after door open. Empty. Empty. Empty. He began to doubt himself. Was it definitely on this floor? Jas wouldn’t have used the ground floor, would he?

Jesus Christ, they were already here! The corpses at the front of the crowd had already managed to drag themselves up onto the first floor. Had the sound of doors being pulled open and slammed shut made them move even faster? Struggling to contain his panic and soaked through with a desperate, nervous sweat, Webb watched as the first cadaver slowly hauled itself around and began to move down the corridor toward him, followed by an incalculable number of similarly decayed creatures. Had these things ever been human? In the disappearing light the lead creature looked like little more than a skeleton covered with the most meager layer of dripping flesh. It was naked save for a few scraps of cloth which hung around its neck and waist; every awkward, lethargic step it took forward seemed to cause it more damage. And yet it stared at him with cold, black eyes and moved toward him with unquestionable intent.

Room 18—empty.

Room 19—empty.

Webb looked up again and saw that the dead were coming along the corridor from both directions now. That meant that both staircases were blocked solid with bodies now. That meant there was no way out.

Room 20—empty.

Room 21—empty.

A sudden increase in the speed of the dead to his right distracted him. He turned and saw that the cadaver leading the pack had fallen. It immediately tried to get up again but was trampled and crushed by the feet of the many others following close behind.

Room 24. Found it.

With huge relief as he pulled the door open he saw a pile of boxes stacked at the far end of the room. He’d found Jas’s secret store and, incredibly, he was the only one there. He waited out in the corridor for a few more seconds before shutting himself inside, knowing that it might be weeks before he emerged from this small and cramped hotel bedroom again. With the nearest bodies just a few meters away on either side, he took a deep breath and went in, immediately slamming, locking, and dead-bolting the door behind him. They were outside within seconds, hammering and scratching, baying for his blood. His heart racing, he dragged a heavy wardrobe in front of the door and pushed it over to wedge it shut. He knew that would be enough to stop the dead, or anyone else, from getting in.

Webb leaned back against the wall and began to weep with relief.
Thank God no one else can see me
, he thought as he wiped his face dry. He started to sob, but then put his hand over his mouth to stop the noise.

Can’t let them hear me. Have to be completely silent. If I sit here and wait in silence, they’ll start to disappear. Can’t let them hear me.

Webb finally stood up straight and looked around the L-shaped hotel room. Where was the rest of the food? He walked farther in and saw that the initial pile of three boxes he’d seen was, in fact, the only pile. But Jas had stashed loads of stuff up here, hadn’t he? So where was it? He’d seen him carrying several loads and when he’d crept inside between trips there had been much more than this …

He opened the top box—trying to be quiet, cringing at the noise of rustling cardboard—and looked inside. Food, drink, some clothing … he wished the dead out in the corridor would shut up so he could concentrate. All he could hear was their relentless banging on the door and the muffled sounds of fighting as even more of them filled the first floor and tried to force their way closer to him. There was maybe two weeks’ worth of food here, perhaps a little more. What the hell was going on?

Confused and disoriented, Webb stepped back and tried to make sense of what he’d found. Was this the wrong room? Should he have looked in room 25? There was a piece of paper stuck to the front of the top box. He picked it up and carried it over to the window, struggling to make it out in the early evening gloom. A simple message was written in Jas’s scrawled handwriting:

Webb, the stuff in the boxes is your share. I put the rest somewhere else.

He sank to the floor under the window and covered his head with his hands. The damn banging outside was getting louder …

*   *   *

“Can’t get anything else down there,” Gordon announced breathlessly. Jas peered down the stairwell, which had been almost completely filled with furniture.

“Good,” he said, satisfied that they were about as safe as they were going to be for now. “We’ll keep checking, just to be sure they can’t get through.”