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Now or never. Elevator or stairs.
Judgment call time—elevator was an unknown quantity. Doors might open in a fraction of a second or in another three minutes. Three minutes was not an option. No elevator. I whirled the other way and doubled back, sliding on the slick marble floors still wet with the footprints of refugees.
Inches ahead of the zombie things, I skidded on squeaky-damp boots almost into the mirrored wall, but I caught myself and dropped palms-down onto the stairs.
The stairs were marble too, or some other shiny, polished stone. They were hard to climb on with wet feet, but if it was tough for me, it’d only be tougher for the things coming my way. Were they chasing me again, or had I simply tossed myself into their path?
Up, to Caroline—that’s where I was headed. Were they, too? Was that where all of us were going?
I made double, maybe triple the time of my pursuers. If I hadn’t been so tired, I could’ve really put some honest distance between us; but as it was, I was glad to stay even a few steps ahead of them.
I hit the mezzanine floor with a running start and charged towards Caroline’s room. The hotel was deserted now, or it looked and sounded deserted except for the crawling things coming up, always coming up. And then there was me—panting like a horse who’s run too long but is too afraid to stop.
“Caroline?” I called. “Caroline? Where are you, Caroline?”
She didn’t answer, and I had a full hallway between me and the things now, which wrapped around the corner of the mezzanine, overlooking the main common area with its pretty plush couches and lovely brass fixtures that cast warm reflections on a room littered with the trash of hundreds of refugees.
There were more things coming inside, too—one had broken a window and was making its way into the common area to join its fellows.
That made—at my best count—maybe twelve to fourteen.
And more coming. I don’t know how I knew it, but I knew it. Not many more—you don’t need too many to create a horde. That must be the word for a group of zombies—a horde. How many would you need for that? Two’s only a pair, so three or more, right? It might not be Romero-worthy, but I was willing to call a baker’s dozen a horde. Again the hysterics were setting in, and I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t, because it sounded too much like crying.
“Caroline?” I shouted again, coming to the corridor that housed her room—there on the end, on the right. It was locked.
I kicked at the door.
“Carol
ine? I know you’re in there. Open up, goddammit!”
And then the lock clicked, and the door swung open, just like I’d asked. I didn’t believe for a moment she’d done it because I told her to, but I was in a bit of a jam at the moment, so I took the invitation and pushed the heavy door against its hydraulic hinge.
I leaned it shut behind me.
“Caroline, what’s going on? Why are they coming here, and what do they want? You know, don’t you? Where are you?”
She wasn’t manifesting yet, but I was in a hurry. Things were coming up the stairs, lurching and tottering down the lovely halls of the old hotel, leaving stinking trails of black oil and sloughed skin.
“They’re coming for you, aren’t they? I can’t think of any other good reason—and they aren’t chasing me or the people. They were coming here all along, weren’t they? You tried to tell us, and we didn’t know what to make of it. But they were coming for you!”
Me.
“There you are, you crazy bitch. There you are—now talk, and make it good, because people are dying all over the place. ”
But she probably didn’t care about that. Better to turn it into something else; what did she need? What did she care about?
“The hotel,” I told her. “They’re going to take this hotel. They’re going to destroy it and everything in it. When they’re through with it, even if there’s anything left, the people who own it will just tear it down. Is that what you want?”
No. No, they cant have it.
“The zombies? That’s who you were talking about before, right? The ones who were coming for you, the ones you thought I brought. Well I didn’t bring them. They knew you were here; they knew all along. I tried to keep them away but it didn’t work—it isn’t working. ” I talked fast because I could hear them again, through the thick door, though they weren’t at the end of the hall yet, or I so I thought and hoped.
She knows.
There was an emphasis on that first word, and I knew exactly who she meant. There wasn’t anyone else to move them. She was doing all of this. She was running the show.
“Why? Why is she coming for you—the little girl, the one who didn’t die in the fire? What does she want from you?”
