He passed beneath an arch into a short corridor, where a pair of doors faced each other on opposite walls. Choosing the left one at random, he all but fell against it. It opened and he stumbled into the rest room, vomit already boiling up through his oesophagus. The pain and the alcohol and the need to puke had diminished his senses, the music now no more than a mushy throb in his ears, his eyesight narrowing to tunnel vision. Ahead of him he spotted a sink, the silvery gleam of a mirror above it. Somehow he forced his feet into a rickety, lopsided run. He had barely gripped the edge of the sink when his head lurched forward and what felt like gallons of stinking liquid ejected itself from his system.
The liquid burned as it rose up through his stomach and throat. The fumes from the regurgitated alcohol were like a toxic irritant, making his eyes water, his nose run. He puked so violently that it spattered back off the porcelain walls of the sink, peppering his face and hands and shirt. The shirt was pale blue with little white palm trees on it. He had only bought it that week and was wearing it for the first time.
Slowly he raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked ghastly, his skin like old dough, his eyes peering from deep hollows. He looked just like his grandpa Buck had done in the last stages of his battle with liver cancer. Leaning forward to prop himself against the sink, he tentatively released his grip so he could turn on the cold tap.
After scooping several handfuls of water over his face and into his mouth, Logan felt a little better. A little, but not much. He had now reached the point where all he craved was a soft bed and sweet oblivion. Hoping enough strength had returned to his legs to support his body, he pushed himself upright and stepped back. As he did so, the reflection in the mirror showed him more of the room, and he was surprised to discover he was not alone.
There were two women on the floor by the toilet cubicles. One was lying on her back, and the other was on her knees, leaning over her. Logan guessed they must have been here the whole time, but he had been so preoccupied he hadn’t even noticed them. He turned now and looked at the women properly; he couldn’t see either of their faces. The one who was kneeling had her back to him, and was leaning forward at such an angle that she was obscuring the face of the other.
It took him a moment to realize the kneeling woman looked familiar. She was petite and slender, with glossy, black, shoulder-length hair. She was wearing the white blouse and knee-length red skirt of a Palm Hotel receptionist. Unless he was mistaken, this was the cute Chinese girl who had checked him in.
‘You OK?’ he asked.
The girl turned her head, her raven-black hair swishing like a curtain. It
Not questioning the fact that Logan was in the ladies’, she said, ‘I think this woman’s having some kind of seizure.’
Logan stepped forward and saw the other woman’s face. ‘Whoa,’ he said.
The other woman looked … weird. Her eyes were glazed and white, the pupils having shrunk to little more than pinpricks. Her teeth were clenched and she was frothing at the mouth like a rabies victim. Moreover she had begun to snort and growl like an animal, her head thrashing from side to side. Even as Logan watched, her body was seized by a series of shuddering convulsions, her hands becoming rigid, fingers curling into claws.
He was about to say something when, without warning, the woman snarled and sat up. The cute Chinese girl was still looking over her shoulder at Logan and so was slow to respond. Before Logan could shout a warning, the woman lunged at the Chinese girl, grabbed her arm and bit her hand. The Chinese girl screamed and pulled away, but not before the woman had done some damage. Logan was shocked to see blood mixed with froth dribbling from the woman’s mouth, and a crescent of teeth-marks on the fleshy pad of the Chinese girl’s hand. He thought again of rabies, of infection. As the woman sprang to her feet, suddenly lithe as a monkey, he made for the door.
The Chinese girl was right behind him. Logan wrenched open the door and they scrambled out together. He had barely got the door shut when the crazy woman hurled herself against the other side of it. Logan clung to the handle as she screeched and battered at the door, trying to yank it open. He wondered whether he ought to let go and make a run for it. There were so many people in the room that she would probably attack someone else.
‘We ought to try and help her,’ the Chinese girl shouted above the thud of the music.
‘Are you kidding?’ Logan yelled back. ‘Unless you’ve got a tranquillizer gun she’d rip our fucking faces off.’ He noticed blood dripping from the Chinese girl’s hand and shrank back from it. ‘You should get that looked at. It might be infectious.’
The girl looked around. ‘I’ll do it in a minute. Wait here.’
‘Where are you going?’ Logan shouted as she moved away.
‘To get help,’ she said and slipped into the crowd. On the other side of the door, the barrage of blows from the screeching woman continued. Logan clung desperately to the door handle and wondered if this was finally it, his divine punishment not only for killing Drew Peters but also for getting away with it. If you could call the loss of both his career and his reputation ‘getting away with it’, and, personally, Logan didn’t think you could; he felt he had already suffered more than enough. He’d heard all that Old Testament stuff about God being vengeful and full of wrath, but sending some crazed, psychotic bitch after him to make his life even more crap than it already was was just fucking overkill.
He decided that if the Chinese girl wasn’t back within a minute he’d let go of the handle and take his chances. If the psychotic bitch jumped him and ripped his head off, at least she’d be putting him out of his misery. He started to count, but had barely reached twenty when the Chinese girl came running back with two hefty security guys in tow. The security guys looked dubious and a little amused — they wore expressions which clearly conveyed that whatever the girl had told them, they believed she was exaggerating.
‘She’s in here,’ Logan said. ‘Be careful, she’s crazy.’
The security guys lumbered forward. Both Chinese, like the rest of the staff here, they were built like Sumo wrestlers and sported identical buzz cuts.
‘Move away from the door please, sir,’ one of them said confidently.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Just do it, sir,’ said the other security guy. ‘We’ll take it from here.’
‘Well, if that’s what you want …’ Logan said, and let go of the handle.
He didn’t hang around to see what happened next. The instant he let go, he turned and ran for the exit. It might have been his imagination, but over the pounding beat of Sam’s signature tune, ‘Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch’, Logan thought he heard screams. But he didn’t look back until he was safely in his room with the door closed and locked behind him.
Chapter 4. UNKNOWN NUMBER
‘
It was almost 4 a.m. when Purna awoke to screams.
Alert in an instant, she jumped out of bed and ran lightly across to the double doors leading on to the balcony. The screams had come from outside, she was sure of it. In her job it paid to be attuned to her surroundings even when asleep. She turned the key in the lock and stepped on to the balcony in her bare feet.
From here she could see the swimming pool below, its inset lighting creating strange ripples and reflections. Beyond the environs of the resort, away to her right, was the lower end of the main street. Purna was just in time to see a woman, running, being chased by … what? In the quick glimpse she caught of it before both the woman and her pursuer disappeared around the edge of a building, Purna thought the figure looked and moved like an ape — an ape wearing dishevelled and possibly blood-stained clothes.
The woman screamed again, her voice echoing back along the otherwise deserted main street. Purna knew she couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. Stepping back inside the room, she ran across to the phone beside her bed and lifted the receiver. She had already pressed ‘1’ for Reception when she realized the line was dead. What the hell? Exasperated, she replaced the receiver in its cradle.
Training and experience had taught her to remain clear-headed, unflustered. She dressed quickly, pulling jeans and a light zip-up jacket on over the shorts and vest top she wore as pyjamas. She put trainers on over white
