by AnonYMous
‘That’s it?’
‘Nope. Not quite. I’m gonna need a photo of you lookin’ dead. So we’re gonna have to mock up a crime scene. I got some of those little packets of ketchup in my pocket. I’m suggestin’ you lie on the floor an’ we splatter some ketchup on your neck and make it look like I shot you. You cool with that?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. Is this what you did with the other finalists?’
‘No. They’re dead for real.’
Emily was stunned. ‘Oh my God! Seriously?’
‘Yep. Not killed by me though. Another guy, name of the Bourbon Kid, killed ’em. I haven’t worked out yet why he didn’t kill you. But he will if he sees you alive.’
‘Is he a creepy-looking guy dressed all in black?’
‘Usually. You seen him?’
‘A couple of times, yeah. He was pretty rude to me earlier. And he knew the show was fixed.’
‘Yeah, well, count yourself lucky I got to you before he did.’
‘So who are you?’
‘Name’s Gabriel. I work for God.’ He stood over her and unscrewed the silencer from the muzzle of his handgun. It really did look like he had decided not to kill her. He seemed a lot nicer than he looked, too, although Emily recognized she was probably clutching at straws. Or pissing in the wind. Or something. After all, he’d killed the security guards outside, hadn’t he? With what even Emily could see was a pretty small gun once the silencer had been removed.
‘That’s a tiny little thing, isn’t it?’ she remarked.
Gabriel smiled. ‘I can hardly go chargin’ round a hotel blowin’ people away with a shotgun, now can I? Small pistol like this is ideal for a discreet hotel-room job.’ Then, as if fearing he sounded rather timid, he added, ‘I got plenty of hardcore shit stashed elsewhere if I need to take down a fuckin’ army, y’know.’
‘Uh – okay. I was just saying, is all. It’s kinda cute-looking – for a gun. Did you really just – uh – kill those two security guys with that?’
Gabriel looked momentarily surprised, as if he’d forgotten about them. ‘Shit, yeah. Can you help me get the bodies in here? I can’t leave ’em outside. Someone might see ’em.’
‘Sure. Why not?’ Emily could hardly refuse. She still hadn’t had time to process properly her thoughts about this guy. He was a murderer, and for that reason, and that reason alone, she was going to do what he said. Whether he was a good guy who could genuinely be trusted was still open to debate.
Gabriel walked over to the room door and opened it. Emily watched him look both ways along the corridor. The dead security guards were splayed on the floor right in the middle of the corridor. Not exactly discreet, although there was barely a drop of blood on either body. The logic of using the small handgun had really paid off. Gabriel bent down, grabbed the nearest one under his armpits and, walking backwards, started dragging him back into the room with him. Once inside, he tugged the body Emily’s way.
‘See if you can get him in that closet,’ he suggested, nodding at where she had been hiding only minutes earlier.
She took hold of the body from behind, her arms under its armpits and her hands locked together in front of its chest, and started dragging it towards the closet. It was an almighty struggle for her to move the dead weight at all, and she succeeded only in laying it flat out on its back and backing herself into the closet.
Emily had never touched a corpse before, let alone dragged one across a hotel room floor. This was definitely not how she had seen her weekend mapping out. Just holding a corpse in her arms smashed home the reality of it all. By taking part in this, she was technically an accessory to murder. Collaborating with a killer was not Emily’s idea of a good time. Regardless of what Gabriel said and who he claimed to be working for, he had still killed two innocent men. What was to say he didn’t really intend killing her at some point?
Gabriel disappeared through the door and back into the corridor to fetch the other security guard. At last, Emily had a few seconds in which to think about the options he had given her. Head home and lose out on the million-dollar prize money on offer and the chance to be everything she had ever wanted to be, or stay and be killed.
She could see that it wasn’t really a fair offer at all. Even though this man had been polite and had offered her a chance to live, he was asking her to give up her dream and any chance she might have of making her dying mother’s last days as painless and peaceful as possible.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the steam iron on the shelf in the closet. If she wanted not only to appear in the final of this show, but also to stay alive, she was going to have to use it. This was her last chance. If she could knock Gabriel out with the iron, then she could get Nigel Powell and the police to protect her from anyone else trying to kill her. She could still win the show. And her mother could still get the care that she needed.
Fuck it, she thought. It was worth the risk.
Thirty-Six
By the time Invincible Angus returned to the Hotel Pasadena, he’d dreamed up at least ten new ways to torture, maim, and eventually kill Sanchez and Elvis. By the way he figured things, those two fuckwits had cost him seventy grand so far, between the missing twenty grand from Julius and Powell’s promised payout of fifty Gs. Oh, how he’d make it nice and slow. He just couldn’t wait to hear their screams of agony.
Even that, however, didn’t compare with what he’d do to the zombie pricks who had tried to bite chunks out of him, ripped his favourite trench coat, and stolen his van and his Tom Jones CD. Those muthafuckers had a one-way ticket to Hell, and he was the guy to deliver it to them.
He stormed up the steps at the front of the hotel. A grey-haired old woman in a heavy, expensive-looking white coat was coming out of the glass doors just as Angus was barrelling in. She was about to light up a cigarette, and in consequence didn’t notice Angus’s huge frame looming towards her. He pushed in between her and the doors, shouldered her hard and watched with glee as she lost her footing and tumbled down the steps, swallowing the cigarette she had been about to light. God, that felt good. It wasn’t enough, though. He was eager for some sort of confrontation with absolutely anyone or anything. The next victim to fall foul of his vile mood would get both barrels. He headed straight to the reception desk.
There was just one receptionist on duty, a blonde young woman who looked to be bored out of her mind. The entire lobby was now deserted. No one was checking in this late in the day. Since the whole weekend was organized around the goddam stupid singing contest, everyone had already arrived. And by now the evening’s entertainment was well under way.
Angus placed his hands on the reception desk and leaned over to get a look at the name badge on the receptionist’s red vest.
‘Belinda,’ he said, reading it aloud.
She greeted him with a polite smile. ‘That’s me. How may I help you, sir?’
‘Gimme a key for room seven-thirteen. Now!’
The polite smile disappeared as Belinda began tapping on her keyboard and checking the monitor in front of her.
‘Are you Mister Sanchez Garcia?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m the guy was s’posed to have that room before that Garcia bastard stole it.’
‘Then I’m very sorry, sir, but I’m not permitted to issue you with a key.’
Angus pulled one of his revolvers out from inside his trench coat and pointed it at the receptionist’s head.
‘Now, you listen to me, you fuckin’ bitch. I’ve just been attacked by about a hundred fuckin’ zombies that just came up out of the fuckin’ ground in the desert. Right out of fuckin’ nowhere. And if I ain’t mistaken, they were trying to bite chunks out of me. I killed quite a few of ’em with this fuckin’ gun.’ He waved the weapon in front of her face. ‘An’ when I ran out of fuckin’ bullets I killed a few more with my bare fuckin’ hands. I’ve now reloaded the gun, and I gotta tell you, I am really not in the right frame of
mind to hear “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m a stupid bitch so you can’t have the key” from the likes of you. So whyn’t ya just give me the fuckin’ key and I won’t pretend I mistook you for a fuckin’ zombie, and had to blow your fuckin’ head off.’
‘Will there be anything else, sir?’
‘That’s all.’
‘One moment, please.’
Belinda reached down to her right and into a drawer below the desk. She pulled out a key card and placed it on the counter in front of Angus.
‘That’s a fucking skeleton key, sir. With that fucking thing you can get into any fucking room you fucking want.’
‘Thank you. Oh, an’ by the way – those fuckin’ zombies are headed this fuckin’ way. I suggest you give them less fuckin’ shit than you fuckin’ gave me. An’ ya wanna do somethin’ ’bout that potty mouth of yours. Unattractive habit in a young woman.’
‘I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, sir. Enjoy your fucking stay.’
Angus snatched up the key card and headed out of the lobby and down the corridor towards the elevator. The receptionist watched him, waiting until he was out of earshot before picking up the phone on her desk and dialling a four-digit number. The phone rang twice before it was answered.
‘Nigel Powell.’
‘Hi, Mister Powell, this is Belinda on reception. A rather unpleasant fuck— ’ – she just stopped herself – ‘gentleman with a gun and a foul mouth has just been in. I gave him a skeleton key to access any room he wants. It was either that, or he was going to shoot me in the face.’
‘I see. I’ll get security on it. Give them a description when they call you. Are you okay, Belinda? You should take the rest of the night off.’ Powell was always solicitous towards his staff. It wasn’t altogether altruistic: replacing people out in the Devil’s Graveyard was not the easiest task he could think of.
‘Oh, I’m fine thanks, Mister Powell. There’s one other thing you should know, though.’
‘Yeah? What’s that?’
‘This guy said he had just come in from the desert where he’d been attacked by about a hundred zombies. He said they were headed this way.’
On the other end of the line Belinda heard her employer let out a deep sigh. ‘Shit. They’re on their way already, huh? We’d best get this singing contest finished up double quick. The bastards are coming early this year, by the sounds of it, and I don’t think any of us wants to be snack food. That’s what those idiots in the audience are for.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Thirty-Seven
Emily grasped the steam iron in her right hand and raised it above her head. She found she was trembling with fear. Was this the right thing to do? Or even sensible?
She waited as Gabriel dragged the other security guard into the room. His back was to her, which was fortunate. She didn’t think it would go over so well if he were to see her standing with a steam iron held above her head. He kicked the door closed and began moving backwards towards the closet, stooped over, with his hands under the dead guard’s armpits. Towards her.
When he was close enough, she took a deep breath, and, using all her strength and weight, swung the steam iron at the back of his shaved head. And she swung it good.
CLUNK!
The iron hit him squarely on the right side of the back of his head. It caught his right ear, but mostly it connected with a part of his skull, covered only by a very thin layer of skin and stubble. Gabriel went down like a sack of corncobs, falling on top of the body of the security guard he had been dragging along.
Emily peered down at him. He seemed vaguely conscious, if the slight murmuring sounds he was making were anything to go by. She had definitely dazed him, but how badly? She didn’t want to kill him, so she held off striking him on the head again, and instead tried to step over the pile of bodies between the bed and the wall, and now blocking her path to the room door. There was the security guard that she had dragged to the edge of the closet. Then there was Gabriel, and underneath him, the second security guard. Muttering a slightly hysterical apology, she stepped gingerly on to the first guard and attempted to take a giant stride over Gabriel and the other guard.
As she reached a leg over Gabriel’s body, he snapped into life. The momentary dizziness she had inflicted on him had passed all too quickly. He grabbed her left leg and pulled hard on it, causing her to lose her balance. She tripped and fell to the floor by the bed, narrowly missing striking her head on the wooden bed post. The awkward landing made her drop the steam iron on to the carpet by her side.
‘You fuckin’ bitch!’ she heard Gabriel shout. She had succeeded in riling him up, not knocking him out.
He climbed to his feet behind her. As she tried to get back up, he struck her a heavy blow on the back of her neck with his right fist. She fell flat on her face. She now had an idea of how he had felt when she had whacked him with the iron.
‘That was really fuckin’ stupid,’ he snarled malevolently. She looked sideways and up, to see him rubbing the back of his head where she had hit him.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.’
The biker seemed to have recovered completely from the blow to his head. He crouched down and she felt his knee push into the small of her back, pinning her to the floor.
‘I gave you a chance to live, bitch.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry ain’t gonna get rid of my headache. You goddam fuckin’ worthless bitch.’
He pushed her head hard down into the carpet. With his knee in her back as well, she was completely disabled. Then she heard the sound she most dreaded – Gabriel pulling his gun back out from within his jacket. He pressed it into the back of her head. She was now more terrified than ever. She had messed up completely. Hitting him on the head with the steam iron had been stupid. And unnecessary. Although, she thought fleetingly, given the chance she would go back and do it again, only a hell of a lot harder.
‘Not nice having a metal object thrust into the back of your head is it?’ Gabriel growled. He pushed the barrel of the gun harder into her skull. ‘See how it feels? Huh? Pretty fuckin’ unpleasant, ain’t it?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry.’ Emily began to sob. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah, you’re fuckin’ sorry. Well, you had your chance!’ With his free hand he grabbed a handful of her hair, lifting her head up a few inches off the carpet. ‘For fuck’s sake, I was doing you a fuckin’ favour!’
He slammed her face into the floor. Her forehead hit first, just saving her nose from taking the brunt of the impact. It still hurt like hell, though. She felt dazed. Again, Gabriel pulled her head up by her hair and then slammed her face back down. Emily felt sick. She couldn’t hold back the tears any more. She was about to die, and she’d let her mother down. She felt the barrel of Gabriel’s gun press into the back of her head again. She screamed out in pain. Then she heard a metallic click. He had released the safety catch. This was it.
She closed her eyes and waited for the moment of truth. How would it feel? How long after the bullet entered her skull would she be able to feel the pain of it?
As these questions and a million other thoughts raced through her mind, she heard an almighty crashing noise from behind. The barrel of Gabriel’s gun stopped pressing into the back of her head. This was the moment.
BANG!
She heard the gunshot as clear as day, deafening inside the room. Was this what it felt like to be shot? Or dead? She felt nothing. She felt the same. She felt – wait a second. As far as she could tell, she was still alive and breathing. What the –?
THUD!
In her dazed state she twisted her head and glanced to her left. Gabriel’s face swam in and out of her vision. She focused on it and realized that he was lying on his side next to her, staring at her. They looked into each other’s eyes. Then Emily watched Gabriel’s eyes slowly roll up in his head.
She was still lying prostrate on the carpeted floor, unsure what had happened. There was blood seeping out f
rom beneath Gabriel’s head. It was creeping along the cream carpet towards her.
Then, without warning, her feeling of dizziness magnified. She raised her head to look behind her. Standing over her and the dead body of Gabriel was the man in black she had seen earlier in the day. He was holding a pistol in one hand, bluish smoke still drifting hazily from its muzzle. As she slipped out of consciousness, she realized that the man known to the world as the Bourbon Kid had come to her rescue.
And had blown the back of Gabriel’s head off.
Thirty-Eight
Nigel Powell was sitting at the desk in his office with his head in his hands, fingers covering his eyes. His frustration was evident. His two fellow judges, Lucinda and Candy, were seated opposite him. Neither of them was particularly bright, but they would have to have been exceptionally stupid not to have picked up on his bad mood very quickly. They waited patiently for him to take his hands away from his face. When he did so, the first thing he saw was Candy’s tight white leather jacket. As the day was wearing on, her breasts were coming ever closer to popping out of it. The sight distracted him for little more than five seconds. Lucinda’s bright yellow dress caught his eye, reminding him of her presence, so he averted his gaze from Candy’s cleavage and looked up at the two women.
‘Well, you gonna tell us what’s the problem here?’ Lucinda asked, rather more combatively than she’d intended. She didn’t much like Powell, but she was wary of him. Besides, he paid her handsomely.
The hotel owner puffed out his cheeks. He took turns to look them both in the eye to be certain they could sense his frustration.
‘We’ve lost three of our finalists,’ he said bleakly.
‘Lost them?’ asked Lucinda. The way he’d put it made it sound as though they’d all been rather careless.
‘They’re dead. Someone assassinated them.’
Candy looked confused. Nigel knew she was considerably more intelligent than people gave her credit for, but in essence she was still a stereotypical airhead blonde.