The Devil's Graveyard (49 page)

One of the zombies that had been standing back against the wall grabbed hold of Emily by her hair. Its crusty black fingers grasped one of her pigtails and pulled hard. Then its other hand grabbed her beneath her left armpit and pulled her up towards its mouth. She turned her head and looked the creature in the eyes. One of its eye sockets was completely empty. It had barely any skin on the top of its head and its one good eye was red at the centre, the yellowing white bloodshot. The skin on what was left of its face was charred and coarse, and in its gaping mouth she could see that its gums had rotted away. But its teeth were still there. They were jagged and sharp and canted at different angles, like those of a crocodile.

Once it had dragged her to her feet and pulled her back, away from the others, it displayed a level of cunning that Emily would not have expected from a zombie. Releasing its grip on her pigtail it placed its right hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming out for help.

She struggled with the deformed monster. Although it was stronger than her, it too was also fighting to keep a steady foothold in the listing, crumbling passageway. Emily managed to spin herself around and elbow it in the head. The blow knocked it slightly off balance and she was able to free herself from its grip. As soon as she had knocked its horribly coarse hand away from her mouth she screamed out for help. It was a futile effort.

Paul McCartney’s frog chorus was still in full swing and the constant burping noises drowned out her cry. Worse, Emily suddenly found herself in the desperate position of having at least six zombies between her and Janis Joplin, who hadn’t even noticed that the girl dressed as Dorothy was no longer behind her.

Before Emily could decide what best to do, a hand grabbed her left shoulder from behind and she heard a familiar gravelly voice. It was a voice that struck fear into most people, but in Emily it instilled nothing but hope and relief.

‘How many more times am I gonna have to rescue your ass?’

She turned her head. Her heart soared, and she was immediately overcome by a feeling that everything would be all right when she saw the Bourbon Kid behind her. He had the dark hood on his jacket pulled up over his head, a sure sign that he was in full-on killing mode. He also held a large pistol in one hand. He was pointing it at three zombies coming from the direction of the auditorium in an attempt to scare them off. They held back, but were clearly only waiting for a chance to pounce. Emily took stock of the situation. They were in a decaying, crazily tilted corridor with three zombies behind them and six between them and the reception area, and an enormous crack in the floor that was growing wider by the second. The Kid began pulling her back down the corridor in the direction she had just come from, towards the three zombies. The nearest potential escape route was via the lobby, but she had a strong feeling that her best chance of survival lay in following the hooded serial killer.

‘I should have listened to you before,’ she said apologetically as she edged down the corridor with him. Two large male zombies from the reception end began tentatively following them, wary of the Kid’s gun but readying themselves to make a lunge.

‘Well, this ain’t the time for me to give you the “I told you so” speech,’ said the Kid. ‘Although, for the record, I did fuckin’ tell you.’

‘Yeah. I know. Can you just get me out of here and tell me again later?’

‘Doin’ my best. In a minute, when I shout “Run”, you fuckin’ run past me down this corridor then turn right at the end an’ follow the signs to the fire exit.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Gonna kill these fuckers.’

The Kid was true to his word. A few seconds later he launched himself at the three zombies in front of him, at the same time yelling at Emily to run. With her heart beating wildly Emily rushed through the opening the Kid had created and headed for the end of the corridor. Halfway down it, realizing that there seemed to be no more zombies in front of her, she stopped and looked back. The Kid had two of the filthy creatures all over him and had dropped his gun. It looked as though they were trying to pin him against the wall. Each had a hold of one of his arms, attempting to force him back so that the third zombie could get a clear run at him.

If Emily had learned anything in the last few hours, it was to do as the Kid said. That meant running for the fire exit. Leaving him behind maybe wasn’t the bravest thing to do, but her gut instinct was telling her that he’d be okay.

She hoped.

Invincible Angus’s attempts to get out of the walk-in freezer had left him extremely frustrated. (For its part, the freezer had left him extremely cold.) The anger at being outwitted and imprisoned by an imbecile like Sanchez was building inside him. It increased his desire to kill someone, whether Sanchez or simply the next person he saw was of no consequence.

In trying to shoot open the lock from the inside, he had only succeeded in scaring Sanchez away. Firing a round at the metal door had actually turned out to be a none-too-clever idea. The bullet ricocheted off the lock and up into the ceiling. Many more shots like that and Angus might have found himself the unfortunate victim of a gunshot wound, courtesy of his own pistol.

For almost twenty minutes he froze his ass off trying various other ways to bust the lock on the door. First, he tried charging at the door and ramming his shoulder into it. That left him with a bruised shoulder. He then tried hammering on the lock with the butt of his gun. Again, no joy. His third idea was no more productive. As the cold began to affect his rational thinking he set about looking for something inside the freezer that might force the lock open. Since the most useful tool he could find was a chicken drumstick, the outcome was inevitable.

Even though he was wearing his long trench coat and a pair of thick combat pants he was now feeling the cold very badly. With time running out and the chills beginning to cut to the bone he decided to try firing at the lock again. Clearly a more careful approach was required, so he stepped further back out of the way behind the corner of one of the rows of shelving and fired from a distance His hands were shaking with cold which affected his ability to aim his gun with any accuracy. So once again, after firing at the lock, he had to dive for cover as the bullet ricocheted around the inside of the freezer. This time, however, the shot did have a positive outcome, although not quite what had been intended. Just when he thought he had exhausted all his options he heard a voice shout from the kitchen.

‘Is someone in there?’

Angus rushed to the door and yelled through it, ‘Yeah. Help me! I’m locked in the goddam freezer!’

The sound of footsteps heading towards the freezer door was one of the most welcome he had ever heard. There was a clicking and then the door was pulled open. Angus hurried out, shivering violently. Standing on the other side of the door was the young dark-haired bartender who had gestured to him that Sanchez had run through to the kitchen. He looked both confused and terrified in equal measures. At first Angus assumed that the sight of his pistol had scared the young man, but his face was deathly pale and he looked as though he’d seen a ghost. Angus glanced down at the name badge on his red vest.

‘Thanks, uh – Donovan. Thought I was gonna freeze to death in there,’ he said, with his teeth chattering. He began dusting the frost off his clothes, only to be confronted by something far worse than the cold. Behind Donovan the door from the bar area into the kitchen burst open, and the hideous form of a pale-skinned male zombie appeared. It wore tattered clothing and had almost no hair, just a pale, putrid scalp to go with its gaunt face and red eyes.

‘They’re everywhere, man!’ Donovan yelled. His voice revealed that he was genuinely terrified. ‘They’re killing off anyone they can get their hands on. We need to get out of here!’

The zombie arched its shoulders back and hissed at them, revealing a foul set of gnarly teeth. Then it began to shuffle cautiously towards them, eyeing Angus’s gun, wary that he might use it.

‘It’s okay,’ said Angus, dusting some frost off his pistol. ‘I got a plan. Y’see, they only prey on the weak.’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Donovan, his voice beginning to crack as hysteria swept over him.

‘Survival of the fittest, my friend. They just want an easy meal. One that can’t fight back.’

‘So? What the fuck’re we meant to do? Throw it a turkey drummer?’

‘Nah. A wounded bartender
.
’

Donovan looked confused for a moment. It was a look that almost immediately turned to one of fear and then of despair as Angus turned the gun on him. In one swift movement the killer aimed at the bartender’s leg and fired a bullet into his thigh.

‘Aaagh! SHIT!’ Donovan fell to the floor clutching his right thigh with both hands at the point where the bullet had entered. Blood pumped out and seeped into his dark pants and through his fingers as he tried to stem the flow. A long, low moan escaped him as he rocked back and forth.

Angus looked down at him and shrugged. ‘Sorry, man. Like I say, survival of the fittest.’ With that, he stepped aside and ducked behind a couple of the metal trolleys to allow the zombie a clear run at Donovan. The creature gratefully homed in on the stricken bartender on the floor, allowing Angus to sneak over to the door. He didn’t bother to look back as he headed out into the bar area.

Outside the kitchen, the scene was one of indescribable mass panic. Zombies and humans were running around the bar and the passageway that led to it. The scene resembled a spectacularly bloody riot at a football game. Zombies were chasing hotel guests and jumping on any that became separated from the scattered groups. Angus made a point of waving his pistol about as ostentatiously as possible, hoping that the zombies would think twice about attacking him once they saw it. They didn’t have much in the way of brains, but like any other creature they had survival instincts, despite being undead. They did seem to be leaving him alone, no doubt hoping to land some easier meat.

So far unattacked, Angus was able to see that the filthy things were swarming in from the reception area. A quick decision was needed, and so he made it. Head the opposite way and look for another exit. He jogged briskly towards a set of cream-coloured double doors at the far end of the passage. As he did so, the floor began to shake beneath his feet and the walls started to crumble. Slabs of plaster fell from the ceiling. This was plainly no time to hang around.

The doors were about twenty yards away, and between him and them were about six zombies chasing a group of guests who had come to the same conclusion about the best way out. Surprisingly quick-footed, the zombies were picking off the slowest of the guests. Angus, with his pistol held menacingly out in front of him, was able to glide safely through the carnage towards the doors. A petrified-looking, middle-aged blonde woman in a green frock raced through before him, but courteously stopped to hold the doors open for him after she’d passed through them.

The doors led at right angles into a corridor. Faced with the option of turning left or right, Angus took a look both ways. Turning right would mean walking into a dead-end twenty yards further on. The only option was to turn left and run back towards the centre of the hotel and the auditorium. He shoved the woman in the green frock in the back, pushing her into the wall opposite. She hit her face hard and fell to the ground in a heap. Angus wasted no time and began running down the corridor in which there was no sign of a single zombie, though the noise of them attacking screaming victims could be heard quite plainly. Seeing a passageway coming up on the left, Angus made a point of staying close to the right-hand wall. He wanted to ensure that if anything lunged out at him he would be as far away as possible from the opening in which it would be lurking.

As he approached it, he slowed to a steady walking pace, just in case any zombies were waiting to pounce. His gun was cocked and ready to fire. What he actually saw when he reached the turning and glanced down it was a number of zombies in a fight with a guy in a black leather jacket. The man had a hood pulled up over his head. But that wasn’t what grabbed Angus’s interest most. Between him and the hooded man was the Judy Garland impersonator. She was backing down the corridor towards him.