Demon Hotel (Zombie Apocalypse Series, Book 1)

by C. M. Chidgey

  “You’re a fucking cruel bastard!” I hissed at him before slapping him around the face so hard that his neck made a clicking sound.

  He grabbed his red cheek and before he could recover I stormed towards the elevator and walked inside thankful that it was already open on this floor and I didn’t have to wait for it.

  Tears were running down my face before the doors opened on my level. Not wanting anyone to see me I walked as fast as I could to my door and walked in, closed the door behind me, grabbed the chair from the desk and pushed it under the handle so no one could come in especially that asshole.

  After sheathing my sword into its cover, which was on the desk where my other weapons had been put too I headed for the bathroom. I needed food, water and sleep, but I was also in desperate need of a shower. Taking care of my thirst issue first I turned on the water in the sink and scooped handfuls of water into my mouth. My throat was sore and I struggled to swallow at first, but after a few mouthfuls it slid down more easily until my thirst was quenched.

  I didn’t spend long in the shower, I just couldn’t cope with the spray constantly beating down on my raw skin. Tears were rolling down my cheeks when I climbed out, I was crying from the hurt Lucian had caused me and I was crying from the physical pain I was in. I wasn’t entirely sure which was harder to deal with, but they were both hurting like hell.

  I dropped my towel in front of the mirror to examine the damage that had been done. Most of the time my injuries would look worse than they felt, but in this case they felt just as bad as they looked, if not worse. I was covered in scratches, cuts, bruises, bright red marks and my back was burning so bad that I was afraid to look at it in the mirror.

  Before my legs decided to give out on me completely I pulled on some underwear and a too big t-shirt and climbed on top of my bed. I thought I would be awake for hours as I tried t block out the pain, but luckily I was so exhausted that it overcame its attempt to keep me awake and I fell into a fitful sleep.

  Chapter 16

  My skin was burning, I was in a furnace being burnt alive. That was the only explanation, it had to be or more soldiers had come and burnt down the hotel and I was still inside. That was probably what was really happening, there wouldn’t be any reason why I would be in a furnace.

  Something was making a knocking sound, I didn’t know what it was. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids were too heavy and I was too weak. The sound of something wooden snapping and a loud bang wasn’t even enough for me to open my eyes any further than a slit. My room looked blurry, but I could tell that the place wasn’t on fire, I wasn’t being burnt alive, it was just that hot.

  I felt a hand on my head then before hair was being pushed back from my face and Lucian was talking to me sounding desperate. “Taylor, wake up, you’ve been in here for three days.”

  Three days, I had been asleep for three days? Why was I still so weak after that much sleep?

  “Is she ok?” I heard Bethany ask.

  I tried to speak, but all I achieved was a slight groan and a slight move of my head.

  “Taylor, can you hear me?” He shouted shaking my shoulders, but I just couldn’t wake myself up properly.

  “Bethany, get Jason now!” Lucian yelled. She must have left because Lucian started talking to me again in a softer voice. “Taylor, come on wake up.” He pressed his forehead up against mine and I felt his breath on my face. “Please, you have to be ok. I’m so sorry Taylor.”

  He had said my name three times in the space of a few minutes, he must be worried. Then again I was lying here and couldn’t wake up so it was pretty serious.

  “Lucian, what’s going on?” Jason asked apparently having just arrived.

  “I don’t know, she won’t wake up. You have to help her Jason, you have to get her to wake up! I don’t know what’s wrong with her.” He said in a rush.

  “Calm down son, I’ll take a look.” Jason said softly.

  I didn’t know what Jason was doing to me exactly, but I knew he touched my head several times. The rest of my body was still burning too badly for me to know if he touched anywhere else. It could have been a few minutes later or even hours when Jason finally said.

  “She has a fever Lucian, we ne-.”

  I didn’t hear what they needed to do because I blacked out after that.

  The next time I was aware of anything was when a searing pain sliced down my back making me flinch and groan in pain.

  “She’s waking up!” I heard Bethany shout excitedly making me wince at the volume of her voice.

  Waking up? That wasn’t a good thing right now, it hurt too much, I just wanted to sleep. My eyes fluttered though as if insistent that I wake up much to my disgust.

  “Dude, go and get Lucian Cora, he’s talking with Elizabeth.” She said.

  Talking, that’s what he called it? I’d walked in on them doing their so called talking before and it hurt like hell to think about it just to add to the pain and I didn’t want him here anyway, I was still upset about what he had said to me before. It was out of my hands though as I heard the sound of presumably Cora’s feet as she ran out of the door.

  I realised I was lying on my front as my eyelids fluttered again until they were open halfway. My vision wasn’t perfect, but I could just about make out Bethany’s face as she grinned down at me.

  “Nice of you to join us, girl. How you feeling?”

  “Like hell.” I croaked out.

  She chuckled. “Well you’re lucky you’re feeling at all. You gave us quite a scare there you know.”

  “Sorry.” I mumbled weakly.

  “Cora is getting Lucian for you.” She said still smiling.

  I shook my head slightly and forced out through my dry throat. “I can’t talk to him right now.”

  Her face turned to a frown. “I get that you’re mad about what he said, I really do, but the guy is completely head over heels in love with you.”

  I snorted. “He’s not in love with me, he just has this need to protect me because he promised he would. It’s all a lie Bethany, he doesn’t feel anything for me, he just wants to keep his promise to his Mum.” I took a breath finding it difficult to talk, but I had to make her understand. “We’ve always hated each other, it’s how we grew up and normally what he said down there would have just made me yell back. The only reason it hurt so much was because I let him in, it was a mistake and I can’t do it again.”

  She sighed. “Listen, I know I don’t know you guys that well, but I know how someone looks at someone when they are in love and that’s how he looks at you. He went crazy when Jason said you might not make it, he looked like his heart was breaking or something. It’s not really my business, but I just think you should give him a chance.”

  I blinked my eyes trying to hold tears back, but despite my attempts one rolled down my cheek as I whispered. “I can’t.”

  She looked as if she felt sorry for me, but I looked away from her and quickly wiped away the tear when Cora skipped in followed by Lucian.

  “Taylor!” Cora squealed.

  Instead of building up the guts to look at Lucian I instead focused all of my attention on Cora and gave her a small smile.

  “You ok sweetie?”

  She snorted. “Me? I’m not the one who tried to die, I can’t believe you would do that to us!” She shouted hitting my arm.

  That small touch even hurt, but I managed to hold back the wince and rolled my eyes as I answered her as loudly as I could, which wasn’t very. “I know Cora, I’m sorry for being so inconsiderate, but you ran off with the soldiers first having me worried sick.”

  She grinned. “I knew you would save us!”

  I grunted. “Next time you want me to save you go somewhere nice.”

  She giggled. “I hope you get better soon.” Then she completely innocently patted my back.

  “Cora!” Bethany and Lucian shouted at once, but it was too late.

  The pain shot through my back as if acid was being poured onto it.
I clutched my hands into the bed sheets and buried my face into the pillow as a squeaking noise escaped my throat in response to my effort to contain the scream that wanted to be released so bad. Cora was shouting apologies at me, but I was more concerned with the fact that it felt like my back had its own heartbeat at the moment. I felt tears sting my eyes and took deep slow breaths in an attempt to block out the pain.

  I could have just opened my mouth and screamed for an entirely different reason when I realised that Bethany and Cora had left, leaving me alone with Lucian. Deciding to end the awkward silence and get straight to the point I sighed and whispered.

  “Lucian, I can’t do this right now. My whole body hurts like hell and my head is just messed up and right now there is nothing I want to do more than force myself out of this bed and shoot you with one of my arrows.”

  He sighed and sat down in the chair that Bethany had vacated next to my bed. “I know, and I deserve it, I shouldn’t have said that shit, but you fucking scare me Blondie. You make me act like some kind of mad man, you always seem to be putting yourself in danger and it drives me insane, I can’t take it!” He leaned forward and ran his fingertips across my forehead and down my scarred cheek before he cupped it.

  My eyes closed of their own accord and I pressed my face into his palm taking comfort in his touch. His thumb ran across my lips and it made me remember that he had been with Elizabeth when Cora went to find him, his lips could have been on her just minutes ago.

  “Don’t.” I whispered managing to make myself pull my face away from his touch, but I kept my eyes closed not sure if I could take seeing the look on his face. “I just can’t do this Adams.”

  "Dammit!" He yelled loudly enough for me to snap my eyes open in shock. "Why do you keep doing this? One day you can't keep your hands off of me and the next it's like you hate me!"

  "I never tried to deny the fact that I hate you." I muttered looking away, I didn't want him to figure out that I really didn't hate him anymore because I wasn't really sure how I felt about him now, but I knew that I had to push him away, I wouldn't let him in again.

  "Fine, if you want to hate me, then hate me because I'm done." He gestured between us. "This, whatever this was, is over."

  "You can't end something that never really started." I sighed.

  He snorted. "Whatever, I'm out of here Mckenzie."

  With that he turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door so hard behind him that it made me wince. He took a part of me with him out of that door and whichever part it was I knew I needed it badly because I felt empty as I lay there on the bed. It didn't take much for sleep to consume me letting it drag me into darkness where I wouldn't have to feel anything.

  The peaceful sleep I had hoped for though didn't seem as if it was going to be within my grasp.

  Memories of being in that torture chamber plagued my dreams and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't escape it. He was torturing me again, only this time it was even worse. If it had been real I would have been dead long before, but as it was I seemed to be invincible or something. It didn't mean I was immune to the pain though as he cut me, burnt me and bruised me repeatedly until there wasn't one inch of my skin that wasn't deformed in some way. I had stopped screaming long ago after realising that it didn't make any difference, in fact he seemed to enjoy it when I screamed all the more. His face was shadowed as he walked over to the table to select his weapon of choice yet again.

  "You're going to really enjoy this one Tink."

  My head snapped in his direction just in time to see him turn towards me with a long knife as he chuckled. Eric's features changed into Lucian's and his blonde hair turned dark along with his eyes as they glared at me in a way I had never seen Lucian look before and his laugh was so evil that I wanted to curl up in a ball right there and cry.

  This was wrong, I needed to wake up, Lucian would never hurt me like this. He would be the one saving me not the one torturing me. He walked towards me though and he didn't look like he had rescuing on his mind at all. Tears started to run down my face and before he could reach me I started screaming and struggling, I had to wake up now. Why wasn't I waking up? I guessed if the waking up was up to me though I would have woken up long ago, but just as before I was still stuck in this nightmare and there was nothing I could do about it.

  I hadn't noticed until he reached me, but he had a hand behind his back and it was only now that he was standing right in front of me that he pulled it out to show me a little box. It was so weird that I stopped screaming for a second and frowned at him. He smirked, but not in the cute way that he would have in real life, this smirk looked plain evil.

  Before I could ponder that fact for too long he opened the box, put his hand in and lifted it out. My screams started full force again as I focused on what he was holding. He had a spider in his hand, but it wasn't just any spider, it was the same spider that had been in Australia that day. Obviously not exactly the same one since it was dead, but it was definitely the same species I would never forget every detail of that evil creature. I cried and screamed as loudly as I could as he placed it on my wrist next to the manacle right on the scar that had been left there years ago. The pain right there exploded as he pierced my skin with its fangs all over again. I couldn't move my arms enough to even attempt to dislodge it, it was attached to my skin, filling me with its poison and there was nothing I could do about it except fall apart as fear and pain enveloped me in a murderous grasp.

  "Wake up!" Lucian yelled, but it sounded far away and it definitely wasn't coming from this dream Lucian who was starting to fade out of focus.

  My eyes snapped open, I was still screaming and thrashing and Lucian was still looking at me. The fear was still left over from the dream and upon seeing him I shut my mouth and bolted over to the other side of the bed despite the pain throughout my whole body to land on the floor only just catching myself before I fell into a heap.

  "Mckenzie, what the.....?" He asked walking around the bed towards me.

  I couldn't seem to shake away the image of what his dream version had done though and I stumbled backwards away from him feeling tears run down my face as I squeaked out in a pathetic sounding voice.

  "No, don't touch me."

  He stopped and held his hands up in surrender clearly catching the look of fear on my face because he asked.

  "Woah, calm down. What's going on, why do you look so terrified of me?"

  When I stayed silent he started to approach again, but I involuntarily flinched away from him bringing him to an immediate halt. He ran his hands through his hair and looked at me helplessly.

  "I don't know what you want me to do here Mckenzie."

  I just shook my head at him, I was just as clueless as he was. That little torture session with Eric seemed to have had more of an affect on my mental state than I had thought.

  My too fast heartbeat was beginning to slow down and my fear was slowly disappearing as my confused mind began to realise that this was the real Lucian and he would never do something like that to me. I was safe here with him, at least I was safe physically, my heart however was a different story with him around. There was nothing I wanted more than to fall into his arms at that moment, but I knew that would be opening up to him again making me vulnerable and I couldn't be in that position with him again.

  He sighed. "You don't have to deal with this shit alone you know."

  "I'm fine." I mumbled finally before sitting on the edge of the bed.

  "You've been screaming your head off on and off for the past hour Blondie, I'm surprised you didn't wake anyone up, I couldn't lie there in bed listening to it anymore. You aren't going to get over what that sick bastard did to you that quickly no matter how much you want to. You need to talk about it or something."

  I snorted. "You my psychiatrist now Adams?"

  "For fuck sake, I'm being serious, why do you have to be so damn stubborn?" He growled. "Things like this can destroy people."

  I grunted.
"It's a little late for that and in case you hadn't noticed, the world has been taken over by zombies and we don't have luxuries like going to visit psychiatrists to help our delicate little human minds from falling apart."

  He levelled a glare at me. "It doesn't have to be someone who specialises in listening to people that you talk to."

  I raised my eyebrows at him. "What, you want me to talk to you?" I gave a laugh of disbelief. "I made that mistake once already."

  He ground his teeth together, a clear sign that I was starting to piss him off with my smart remarks. "Talk to Bethany then, you seemed to hit it off with her."

  "It happened to her too, I'm no going to add to her shit by piling my problems onto her. I'll get over it in my own way Adams, just forget about it."

  "And in the mean time, I'll listen to you screaming in your sleep as you relive it right?"

  "Well, sorry to interrupt you, I'll try to keep it down, but no one said you had to give me the room next to yours, that was all your idea." I hissed.

  "I didn't mean it like that and you know it, quit being so defensive, I'm trying to help you!"

  "I don't need your help!" I shouted in frustration.

  I was lying of course, I did need help, I wasn't sure how I was going to get through it on my own if I started having nightmares like that every night. The nightmares I had, had after my first rape weren't even as bad as that and I had only just managed to make it through that without going crazy.

  "Fine, you want to play it like that then fine. Deal with it on your own, getting rejected twice, for two different things in one night is bad enough for my ego, I don't need to wait around for it to happen a third time."

  "Good thing you have a big enough ego that it won't do too much damage." I yelled after him as he headed for the door.

  "Glad to see that all this hasn't affected your bitchyness." He grunted before slamming the door behind him for the second time that night.