Meanwhile Purna moved into Sam’s peripheral vision on his right-hand side, clearly trying to find room and space to once again slam the splintered end of the chair leg into the side of the zombie’s head. Sam tried to aid her by withdrawing his weapon, his right hand now as slick with blood as the zombie’s own, and ramming it directly upwards into the creature’s throat, between its jaw and its Adam’s apple. Skewered on the end of the weapon, its torn neck stretched, the creature gave a gurgling snarl and tried to work itself loose. However, instinctively seeking its prey, it pushed downwards instead of pulling up, and so succeeded only in driving the metal spines in deeper. They slid up through the bottom of the creature’s mouth, harpooning the underside of its blackening tongue and causing congealed blood to burst from the wounds and spurt out from between its lips.
Seizing her chance, Purna slammed the end of the chair leg into the side of the zombie’s head again, and then again. After the fourth blow there was a gristly tearing sound, and like a hinged lid, the zombie’s head toppled over to one side, twisting Sam’s weapon from his hand with such force that it drew a strip of skin from his palm. The head swung down grotesquely in front of the zombie’s chest like a bowling ball in a stocking, held in place by nothing more than a few stubborn ropes of stretched skin and tendon. It swung, in fact, into Sam’s face, the prickly buzz cut scraping across his cheek, causing him to cry out in revulsion. Convulsively the zombie’s hands began to open and close, enabling Sam to free his left arm, and then, with Purna’s help, to scramble out from under the creature’s dead weight. Battered and bruised, and drenched stickily in the zombie’s foul blood, he watched numbly until the creature’s almost decapitated body ceased twitching and became motionless.
‘Thanks,’ he muttered finally, glancing at Purna.
She gave a brisk, brief nod. ‘Don’t mention it.’
‘Did it bite you?’ asked Logan, sitting on the stairs a little above them, like a spectator watching a football game from the bleachers.
‘No,’ said Sam. ‘Just bled on me a little.’
‘Zombie blood is probably contagious,’ Logan said.
Sam scowled. ‘In that case, I’ll try to resist the temptation to lick myself clean.’
‘Just saying,’ Logan said.
With more than a little distaste, Sam placed his foot on the zombie’s almost-severed head and yanked his now bloody and mangled weapon from its throat. He held the weapon up ruefully. ‘Soon as I get the chance, I’m gonna trade this motherfucker for an Uzi.’
‘You want me to take point again?’ asked Purna.
Sam glanced up at Logan, narrowing his eyes. ‘Ain’t it his turn?’
‘He’s only got one arm. Plus he got bit. Which means he’s not exactly in the best of health.’
Logan did his best to look contrite and apologetic. Sam grunted. They continued on down the stairs, trying not to slip in the zombie’s blood, which was fanning out from beneath its body, overspilling the edges of the stairs and dripping on to the steps below. They reached the ground floor without further incident, halting at a door marked RECEPTION. Already they looked a pretty battle-weary bunch, wounded and spattered with blood.
‘OK,’ said Purna. ‘We need to be ready for this. We don’t know what’s out there.’
‘What if there’s hundreds of them?’ said Logan.
‘There won’t be. Lucky for us, the outbreak only reached this part of the island when most people were already in bed.’
‘You reckon that guy who called us up was telling the truth? That there
Purna shrugged. ‘Who knows? Let’s just take it one step at a time.’
‘Who was that guy anyway?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘You really want to discuss this now?’
‘Guess not,’ he said.
‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Logan.
Unhesitatingly Purna said, ‘We’ll take it nice and slow. No point drawing attention to ourselves. You guys ready?’
‘Not in the slightest,’ muttered Sam.
‘I’m
‘Then let’s go.’
She pushed open the door just wide enough to ensure there were no zombies in the vicinity, then stepped forward, gesturing to the others that it was safe to emerge. The door to the stairs was situated at the end of a short corridor to the right of the main reception area. From here they could see most of the lobby, including the main doors about fifteen metres away to their left, and the long reception desk just beyond that, occupying the wall directly opposite them. In the centre of the wide expanse of carpet was a fully grown palm tree, encircled by a number of curved, interconnecting leather seats, which gave the impression the tree was at the centre of a giant black wheel.
Although the area was quiet and currently deserted, there were several indications this had been anything but a normal night. There were streaks of blood across the surface of the blond-wood desk and the light-coloured carpet — streaks long enough and dark enough to suggest that this had been heart-blood jetting from a severed major artery. There was more blood on the inside of the hotel’s glass frontage, including a smeary handprint. Most distressing of all, there was the body of what they could just about make out had been a young Chinese woman, dressed in the hotel’s staff uniform of white shirt, red tie and red skirt, lying on her back close to the central seating area in an ungainly sprawl of limbs.
The young woman had been attacked so savagely that she was almost unrecognizable as human. She had been almost ripped apart, as if by a mob. Her left leg was attached to the rest of her body by nothing more than a shred of skin, her right arm was missing completely from the elbow down, and her intestines had spilled from a jagged rent in her stomach and were now lying on and around her in glistening purple-grey loops.
Seeing her, Logan said, ‘Excuse me,’ and promptly threw up into one of two small potted palms flanking the doors of the lift a few metres away. Purna patted him on the back and glanced up at the lift indicator. It was frozen at floor 5, and she wondered for a moment what terrible dramas had unfolded up there.
‘You OK?’ she whispered as Logan straightened up.
He looked more ghastly than ever, his complexion deathly pale, but he nodded.
‘Thought the girl might be … well, the one who checked me in, and was with me when the woman attacked us … but I’m not sure.’
Sam joined them beside the lift. Although they could see most of the lobby from here, they couldn’t see all of it. They couldn’t, for example, see the area at the back where the lobby divided into corridors leading to other rooms on the ground floor, such as the restaurant, the main bar and the ballroom where Sam had had his gig.
Thinking of the gig, Sam couldn’t believe that five hours ago he had been up on stage, playing to a large and enthusiastic crowd. The event seemed like a lifetime ago now. Strange to think that back then he had been worried about nothing more than how his new songs would go down with an audience, and whether this was his last shot at a new record contract, the only chance to resurrect his career.
‘We good to go?’ he muttered.
‘Logan?’ asked Purna.
Logan ran his tongue over his teeth and spat the last of the vomit from his mouth. ‘Let’s do it.’
Like thieves they crept to the end of the short corridor and peered around the corner. The area at the back of the lobby showed corridors angled in all directions, many of them curving out of sight. Purna nodded and they broke cover, hurrying across the carpet to the main doors. Standing in the well-lit lobby, they were uncomfortably aware of how visible they were from outside. However, the forecourt of the hotel seemed deserted and was fringed with tall palms and thick bushes.
‘Guess those fuckers have gone where the food is,’ Sam muttered, indicating with a jerk of his head that he meant the infected had probably gone deeper into the hotel in search of the still-living guests holed up in their rooms.
‘Luckily for us,’ said Purna, glancing outside and swiping her plastic keycard through a reader to the right of the doors.
With an obliging hum the automatic doors parted and the trio stepped outside. Cool, scented air washed over them, taking away, temporarily at least, the stench of raw meat and zombie blood. Logan swayed slightly, as if the air was a little too rich for him.
