JACK KILBORN ~ ENDURANCE (33 page)

“
Kelly!” Letti yelled again. She took a step forward, toward a particularly ugly statue of George Washington in colonial dress, but someone held her back.

“
Hold on,” Maria said, easing
in front of her. She held up a scalpel she’d taken from the operating room, and whispered in Letti’s ear, “I’ve seen this trick before.”

Moving quickly, Maria
stuck the scalpel into Washington’s belly.

The statue—which wasn’t a statue at all—howled and lashed out at her.

Four other statues followed suit, coming to life and closing in. Maria backed up, bumping into Letti, and they both high-tailed it out the door they’d come in, slamming it behind them. Letti braced her shoulder against the wood.

“
Check the other doors! We have to get out of here!”

Mal opened the one on the right. “It’s dark. I can’t see anything.”

The door shuddered.
Letti removed the cannula—a large, sharp metal tube she’d grabbed from the instrument cart—from her back pocket and speared it into the door jamb like a deadbolt. It wouldn’t hold for long.

Maria checked the far door. “There’s a ladder. Come on!”

The trio ran to the ladder. It was made of metal ba
rs, old and rusty, ascending into darkness. Mal went up first, moving damn quick for a man with only one hand. Maria followed.

The door to the statue room burst open, and a bleeding, pissed-off George W
ashington stumbled through. He was followed by a large, stout woman wearing a pillbox hat.

“
You can’t get away, Loretta,” Eleanor said. “
No guests ever leave.”

Letti considered running at the woman, perhaps taking her as some kind of hostage. But four of her large brood filed out of the room behind her, so Letti turned and climbed up the ladder. At each rung, she expected someone to grab her ankles, pull her back down. But it didn’t happen. No one even seemed to be chasing her.

When she reached the top, she understood why. The ladder
led to another doorway, which opened up into the main floor of the Rushmore Inn, where there were more than a dozen freaks waiting for her.

# # #

Felix didn’t move. He didn’t dare breathe. The mountain lion was less than a foot away, its golden eyes staring Felix right in the face. The cat’s ears flattened against its head and the beast roared in unmistakeable wildcat style, baring its sharp, thick fangs.

I’m about to die, and there’s not a thing I can do about it.

But Ronald wasn’t ready to kill Felix. Not yet.

Ronald wanted to play with his food first.

A paw shot out, clipping Felix in the head, the blow dizzying. Felix rolled, crying out, not caring anymore if he was heard or not. He had no idea how much punishment a man could take and still survive, but he knew he was near his limit.

The cougar pounced, landing next to Felix, and gave him another swat. It tore Felix’s shirt, and the skin underneath.

Felix tried to feebly scramble away, and Ronald’s claw hooked into his leg, pulling him back. He tried once more, and the cat did the same thing.

Enough. I’m done. It’s finished.

Felix rolled onto his back, staring up at the full moon peeking through the trees. He realized it would be the last thing he ever saw.

Such a shame. He wanted his last sight to be the woman he’d fought so desperately to save.

I love you, Maria.

And then Ronald’s
warm mouth closed around Felix’s neck.

# # #

The first thing Deb saw
when she opened her eyes was a swirling, spinning jumble of motes. They danced in her vision, making it hard to focus.

She shook her head, trying to get her bearings, a
nd realized four things in rapid succession.

I fell on top of Calvin
, and he’s bloody and completely still, and I think he’s dead.

My nose hurts, and I have
a headache, but I don’t think I sustained any major damage.

I
lost my knife, but I still have my prosthetic leg bag around my shoulder.

I’m surrounded by freaks.

The last thought jolted her back to the here and now. Deb pushed herself up off of Calvin, struggling to get her Cheetahs under her. The bottom skids kept slipping on the widening spread of blood.

Coming at her from the left side were; a man with one long arm and a very short arm, his skull so misshapen and massive he wore a neck brace to support it; a set of parasitic twins, the smaller, deformed brother’s head and hands sticking out of the hip of his host; a morbidly obese man with two extra hands jutting from his chest; and a man without a shirt, exposing lumpy growths all over his body that looked a lot like pink coral.

On her right side, Deb was confronted by; a man with a spine so twisted he walked on all fours;
a tall, long-limbed teenager whose eyes were too close together, bloody acne covering his face like a crust, two more men like Grover, with flippers for hands and deformed skulls, and a gigantic, muscular hulk who didn’t appear to have any neck.

Deb
grabbed her dropped mountain climbing leg, which was lying next to her. Then she crawled out of the blood pool. Her prosthetics were still too slippery to stand up. She assumed a kneeling position, raising the artificial leg like a weapon, realizing she had no chance at all of getting away.

The pimply teenager reached for her, his hands stained with dried blood—probably from picking at his face. His reach was so long Deb was unable to hit him even as his spidery fingers encircled her throat.

And then the teen’s head jerked to the side. His eyes—
mere millimeters apart—crossed. He flopped to the side, his head bouncing off the floor.

Coming in behind him, someone else reached out for Deb.

Florence.

“
Give me you
r hand,” she said.

With the older woman’s help, Deb was able to stand up. Once Deb was vertical, Florence lashed out her foot, catching a freak in the jaw, knocking him away.

Deb
followed Florence through the hole she’d made in the wall of attackers, walking carefully because her treads were wet. The tiny burst of optimism spurred by Florence’s rescue attempt faded quickly when Deb realized there was no place to run.

We can’t get away. There are too many of them.

Florence didn’t
seem deterred by this. She kicked and punched like Jackie Chan’s grandmother, and for the moment the freaks gave her a wide berth.

“
We should try for the front door,” Deb said. They were now standing back to back, both of them swinging at the surrounding horde.

“
I’m not leaving without my family.”

Someone crawled up to Deb, someone with stunted legs like Teddy. He grabbed Deb’s Cheetah, pulling her off balance. Deb smacked him in the face with her mountain climbing leg, the spiked end flaying off a few layers of skin.

“
Deb!”

She looked up, at a door that opened behind the staircase.

Mal!

He looked like hell, and was missing his left hand, and they were both probably doomed, but damned if he didn’t smile when she met his eyes.

Following him through the door were two women. One looked like a younger version of Florence. The other was thin and dishevelled but brandishing a scalpel like she wanted to cut the whole world’s throat.

Our odds just got a tiny bit better.

Mal pushed his way through Eleanor’s children, reaching Deb, giving her a quick, gentle caress on her cheek before he wielded a scalpel of his own and began slashing at the oncoming wave of freaks.

For a moment they held their own, and Deb thought they might actually have a chance.

But more of the brood came down the stairs, shuffling toward them like
zombies. And even more came through the door under the staircase, dressed in antique clothing.

How many of them can there be
?

Then Deb saw something that could be the game-changer.

Eleanor is here.

The matriarch
stood next to the stairs, arms folded, looking smug.

It’s like chess. I
f you capture the king, the rest of the pieces stop attacking.

Deb
headed for Eleanor, swinging her mountain climbing leg like a club, clearing a path. Eleanor saw Deb approach, and must have sensed her intent, because she hurried up the stairs. Deb wasn’t good on stairs, but she got ready to follow, to hunt down the old woman and an end to this madness.

Apparently, someone else had the same idea. Shoving Deb aside, the thin woman with the scalpel tore upstairs after Eleanor. Deb fell over, and found herself being pawed and groped on all sides by losers in the genetic lottery.

“
We have to go back
to the basement!” Mal yelled. “We can’t hold them off up here!”

Someone pulled Deb’s arm—Florence again. She dragged Deb across the floor, to the doorway under the staircase. Mal and Florence’s daughter followed. The door led to a small room the size of a closet, an iron ladder descending into the floor. Deb’s hopes sank even lower.

I’m
even worse on ladders than I am on stairs.

“
You go first,” she told Florence.

Florence hesitated. “Can you manage?”

“
If I don’t, gravity will.”

Florence sped down the ladder. Her daughter was next, leaving Deb alone with Mal. The freaks closed in, shuffling en masse like a giant wave about to wash up against them.

“
Ladies first,” Mal said.

“
You go.”

“
No time to argue.”

“
I... I can’t.”

Deb knew
she would need to scoot down backwards, feel around for the rungs. It was dark, and she had no idea how high the ladder was. Mal could go faster, even with one hand. He should—

And then Mal shoved her. Deb teetered, stepping backward, her leg missing the floor and dropping into the hole.

She fell, crying out, insane with panic, and then something snagged her hand and stopped her.

Mal. Holding onto
me from above.

“
Catch her!” Mal yelled.

Then he let go of Deb’s hand, and once again the crazy panic feeling took over, staying with her even as four strong arms broke her fall.

Rather than feeling relief at still being alive, Deb stared up at the ladder above her, willing for Mal to come down.

He didn’t.

“
Mal!” she yelled. “MAL!”

There was an unbearable silence.

Then Mal began to scream.

# # #

Kelly couldn’t quite comprehend what she was seeing. The dead were stacked around her like cords of firewood, almost as high as the ceiling. Most were dishevelled, their skin shrunken and mummified. Others were practically skeletal. They towered on either side, threatening to topple over and bury Kelly in an avalanche of corpses.

Cam got to his feet and kicked something aside. The object rolled away into the darkness, but not before Deb could make out its long hair and two hollowed-out eye sockets.

He just kicked a human head.

“
The flame is blowing toward me,” Cam said. “There’s a way out.”

“
We need to get Mom.”

“
I think I see your dog.”

Cam hurried ahead. Kelly had to follow, or else be left in total darkness. She reached her arms out in front of her, not wanting to bump into anything while chasing Cam, and then felt a sharp pain in her heel just above her gym shoe, like she’d caught it in something.

She immediately lifted her leg up, reaching for her calf—

—
touching something greasy and furry. Something that squirmed when her fingers touched its pointy nose.

Oh my god it’
s a rat!

Kelly had held rats before; one of her friends had a rat as a pet. But that one was tame and cute, and this one was biting her ankle.

She stabbed at the creature with her scalpel. It dropped off
, squealing, just as Kelly felt another one run up her other leg. She jabbed that one as well, but then there were more of them, running over her feet, bumping into her from all directions. The scalpel wasn’t enough.

“
Cam!”

Kelly ran forward, wanting more than anything to get the hell away from there, and then she was pressed up against the pile of corpses, her face mashing into someone long dead. Thick dust—
dead flesh?
—rained down on Kelly, getting in her eyes and nose.