“You will. I’m almost ready to believe we’ll survive this and be rescued.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” He said, though he wasn’t at all sure of it.
* * * *
Margie snuck down the hall, her plan now in full swing. She had located the exit she was most comfortable with and found a maintenance closet right next to it. The small room had contained the rest of what she needed.
She was walking quietly, her bare feet lightly touching the floor with each step. She watched the door to Helen’s room, waiting for her to come back up from downstairs. She had seen Helen leave a little while ago, glad that the girl had gotten up at this time of the evening. It would make things easier to carry out her devious plan, especially with everyone hiding in rooms or downstairs.
Helen made her way back to her door, a glass of water in her hands. She reached into her back pocket for the card key to open the door. She was just starting to enter her room when Margie made her move, running up behind her and slamming a fire extinguisher into the back of her head. Helen moaned and dropped to her knees. Another hit and she crumpled to the floor.
Margie stood over Helen’s unconscious body as she tossed aside the extinguisher.
“Take that, bitch!”
Grabbing Helen by the feet, she began dragging her down the hall toward the exit, not worrying about being careful with her. If Helen banged against a wall and gave a moan it didn’t bother Margie one bit. Her jealousy and anger were now at a much higher level than her fear. Helen began to stir and moan. Margie kicked her in the side of the head, quieting her again.
“Just shut the fuck up,” she said to the unconscious girl.
She pulled Helen across the carpeted floor of the hallway. She dragged her into the laundry room near the back door of the hotel, stopping to catch her breath after hoisting the unconscious girl into a wheelchair she’d placed here from the maintenance closet earlier. She used towels as ropes to secure Helen to the chair. She didn’t want her falling out before the chair and girl could get far enough across the lot.
Closing the door nearly all the way, she watched through the crack for Lenny to arrive. If he was late, she had every intention of leaving without him. She had thought this through and gone through this trouble and would not be held up by Lenny.
She opened the door when she spotted him creeping down the hallway. She wheeled Helen out of the laundry room and down to the door, waiting for him to catch up.
“What are you doing?” Lenny asked, his face showing his shock.
“I’m sending the bait out ahead of us,” She answered, signaling him to open the door.
Lenny’s eyes widened. “Helen is the bait?”
“That’s right. Now open the damn door and get ready to run when they go after her.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea. This is like murder.”
“Stop being a little bitch! Do you want to get out of this town alive?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “I just don’t want to be arrested for murder when we do get out.”
“Who will arrest you?” she asked impatiently. “Who’s going to know? None of these people are ever going to get out, anyway.”
He shook his head. “I just think…”
“Open the fucking door!”
He reluctantly obeyed, opening the door and stepping out of her way as she sent Helen flying across the parking lot in the wheelchair. The zombies saw her at once and began to slowly shuffle toward her as Margie and Lenny bolted across the parking lot for the woods.
* * * *
Jacob Brenner peered through the trees as best he could. Another night of hearing all the racket coming from the hotel had him curious and slightly annoyed. Since they’d built the hotel he’d been fortunate enough not to have to be disturbed by too much racket. After all, he’d moved outside of town to get away from the noise and live a quiet life. The past couple of nights were proving to be more than he was willing to tolerate.
He leaned against his boat, which sat firmly on the trailer in his back yard. It was a beautiful little motorboat with an inboard motor and more seating than you would think by looking at the outside. He’d planned to take his two granddaughters out on one of the nearby lakes with it while they were visiting him and his wife, but the rain lately was making it nearly impossible to take the day trip. As high as the river was getting, he could almost take it out from his backyard.
Hearing the sound of something hitting the wall inside, he glanced at the house. It was most likely just the girls getting rowdy. They would be going home in a few days, and though it would be quiet again, he was going to miss them a great deal. Having them around made him feel young again.
Turning his attention back to the hotel, he decided he would make a call to the manager in the morning, asking her to please attempt to keep the guests quiet. In the past couple of nights, he’d heard tires squealing, a great deal of thumping and even more yelling. It was enough to wake the dead.
Hearing footsteps shuffling toward him, he turned to see his granddaughters moving slowly toward him. The oldest, now ten years of age, held something in her hands, gripping it like a prize.
“What ya got there, sweetheart?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. Her gaze seemed so unlike her, almost lifeless. The youngest displayed the same stare. Looking closer, he realized it was an arm the girl carried, blood dripping from the shoulder end of it. It was the bracelet hanging off the wrist that gave away the identification of the former owner of the limb. It was his wife’s appendage, now removed and bloodied.
“Oh, my God,” he said, unable to utter anything else.
As his eyes fell on his granddaughters’ faces, a whole new terror filled him. Their faces were covered in blood, as well as their nightgowns. How he’d missed that before was beyond him. They didn’t speak, just hissed and growled.
Their mouths opened wide as they lumbered toward him, chunks of flesh still hanging from their teeth. He couldn’t move, rooted to the spot until they were on him.
The last things he felt were emotional anguish at the sight of his granddaughters like this and an incredible amount of physical pain as they began to devour him.
CHAPTER tWENTY-SEVEN
Taking a break from the journals, Joel attempted to clear his head. He intended to get back to it in a moment, but for the moment the television distracted him. Pacing in front of the large window, he pulled the drape back and looked out into the darkness beyond the parking lot lights. It was so quiet out there. The dead filled the parking lot but appeared to be avoiding the trees. He was about to turn back to the room when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Two people were running for the edge of the parking lot.
“What do they think they are doing?” he mumbled to himself.
It was then that he noticed the dead were not following them. They seemed to be gathering toward the other end of the lot. Scanning the lot near the gathering horde, he caught a glimpse of what they were moving toward. There was a person in a wheelchair, rolling toward the grass. He gasped when he noticed it was Helen Jones, and she wasn’t moving.
“Oh, shit!” he yelled.
He ran out his door, heading down the hall, down the stairs and for the door that appeared to have been left open. None of the dead attempted to get inside the door, their attention apparently drawn to Helen.
“Where the hell are you going?” James hollered from the hallway.
“Helen’s out there!” Joel yelled back.
“She’s outside?”
“Yes, I think she’s unconscious,” Joel said, sliding to a stop outside the janitor’s closet as an idea suddenly came to him. “Do you have a lighter?”
“Yeah, Why?”
“I need it,” he said, grabbing four cans of spray disinfectant from the shelf in the closet and running back into the hall.
James threw the lighter to Joel who caught it and bolted out the door. James sent Emily to get Rob and Reverend Brighton as he he
ld the door open for Joel’s return. Joel easily outran the zombies, stopping next to Helen, kneeling down and gently slapping her back into consciousness. Looking over his shoulder, he only prayed he could get them back to the hotel as easily.
“Come on, Helen. Wake up,” he pleaded, glancing at the approaching dead.
Helen moaned a few times and finally opened her eyes. “What’s going on?”
Hands began grabbing at him. The dead were on them quicker than he’d planned. Standing up, he kicked the nearest ones away, only to be replaced by others.
“Can you walk?” Joel asked.
“I think so.”
Igniting the spray from one can, he drove the dead back, setting one on fire. It blazed and stumbled around, scaring the others back further. Joel felt a brief moment of relief, realizing they had just been giving the break he needed, if he could capitalize on it. Otherwise, he was only prolonging the inevitable demise that awaited them both.
“Be ready, you can lean on me. We are going to have to run in a second.”
“Where are we?”
“Outside, but I am going to get you back to the building.”
“How did I get out here?”
“I’ll explain later. Just be ready!”
“Okay,” She said, swaying but remaining upright.
He held two of the cans of disinfectant in front of her. “Can you hold these?”
She nodded and took them. He grabbed the lighter in one hand and the remaining can in the other. Igniting the spray, he directed the flame toward the nearest dead, feeling the heat as they went up in flames. When the can fizzled out, he grabbed another and continued spraying flames into the dead as they continued to surround them. By the time he got to the third can they were bumping into each other, igniting other zombies as they fled.
Once he’d emptied all three cans, Joel threw Helen’s arm around his neck, put his arm around her waist to hold her up and pulled her toward the hotel. A new wave of the dead moved toward them. He tried to move her faster, but she seemed to be slowing them down.
“Run!” he urged her. “We need to run now!”
They ran as fast as Helen could muster and kept ahead of the zombies. James held the door and Rob ran out to grab Helen’s free arm. Together Rob and Joel pulled her inside the door to safety. James slammed the door just as a small army of the dead slammed into it. They ignored the pounding as they retreated to the office.
“What happened?” Joel asked Helen.
“I don’t know,” she responded, still groggy. “I was going into my room when I blacked out.”
“I think you were knocked out.”
“By who?”
“I saw two people running away. I think it was that redneck guy and his girlfriend.”
“You mean Lenny and Margie?”
Joel helped her into a chair. “Yeah, them.”
“That was damn good thinking, Joel,” James said, patting Joel’s shoulder. “Mini flame-throwers. Kinda gives me an idea.”
“We just use whatever will burn,” Rob said. “Cans of stuff, propane tanks, anything.”
“Propane tanks may not be a good idea,” Joel said.
“They are if they’re far away from us and next to them,” Rob replied.
“Hadn’t thought of that,” Joel admitted.
“We need to put together a salvage crew to find whatever this place holds,” James said.
“I would be glad to help,” Joel offered. “But first I think I’m going to help Helen to her room. I think she needs some rest.”
“Good idea,” Rob agreed. “You get some rest, too. I don’t think you’ve slept since we got here. Why don’t you take Doctor Blake with you to check out Helen’s injuries?”
“Sure, but I should probably mention that I’m actually NeurAx’s laboratory animal veterinarian,” Blake said. “I’m not a physician.
“Well, that’s just great,” Rob said. “And here I thought we had a doctor among us.”
“I have enough medical knowledge that I can hold my own as a doctor too. I would be glad to briefly examine her and make sure she has nothing to worry about.”
“I’m sure we’re all grateful for any help you can give,” Rob said.
Joel led Helen to her room, Blake following close behind.
* * * *
Margie and Lenny crept quietly along the trail, keeping an eye out for the dead as they pushed toward the next town. The light was fading, bringing darkness over the woods. Margie’s eyes darted in all directions, watching for any movement. She had been certain the dead would be in town but she still had a fear they might run into one or two along the way.
She could hear Lenny’s breathing, shaky breaths that gave away his own fright. She wasn’t sure that bringing him along was the best choice. If need be, she would leave him behind. At this moment, he seemed more scared than anyone in the group had appeared.
“We should have brought a flashlight,” Lenny complained.
“Quit your whining,” she said.
She was finding him annoying, now more than ever. She wasn’t sure why she continued her relationship with him, but she didn’t want to be out here alone in the dark right now. If she hadn’t been afraid to go on her own, she would have left him back at the hotel.
“I can’t believe you fed Helen to them,” he said.
“What did you just say?” she said, stopping in her tracks.
“She didn’t deserve that. You should have let her regain consciousness. First. At least that way she had a fighting chance.”
“You still have feelings for her,” She said her tone becoming dark. “You would rather look out for her than get away from there with me?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, exactly?”
“I just feel like we murdered her.”
“We did what we had to in order to get away.”
“Okay, fine.”
“No, it’s not fine. You seem more interested in her than in our survival.”
“I just have a hard time sacrificing someone,” he said, appearing more scared of her than the dead at this point. “It’s not just because it was Helen.”
“You didn’t want to sacrifice her because it’s Helen!” she yelled.
“Quiet!” he warned. “You’ll have the zombies on us.”
“Fuck you!” she yelled, unable to control her anger. “I can’t believe I let you come along. When we get out of here, I want nothing more to do with you! If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be in that hotel, about to be swarmed and devoured!”
Just then they heard the trees rustling as a small group of the dead stumbled out of the woods a few feet away, all staring directly at Margie and Lenny.
* * * *
Sargent Perkins drove around the perimeter of the town, checking on the progress of the bucket loaders digging a massive ditch encircling it. The only breaks in the ditch were where the roads and the river entered and exited. He never thought he would see the day when he was basically putting a town under quarantine, much less locking it in with a flaming moat.
He stopped in front of one of the dig sites, getting out of the car.
“How are we coming over here?” he asked one of the bucket loader operators who had stopped to get a drink of water and light up a cigarette.
“It’s going fine. It doesn’t take too long to dig a trench only a couple of feet deep. Why are we digging one so shallow?”
“We only want it deep enough to put some flammable fluid in there to keep a fire going for a while. We just need to keep those things on that side until they find a way to stop them.”
“Well, we worked on through the night and the trench is pretty much done. If you let the other operators know to get their loaders away from the trench you can fill it and light it up.”
“I’ll get the fuel trucks in to fill the trench,” Perkins said, climbing in the car and heading to the camp.
By the time he arrived at the camp the State Tr
oopers had set up, they had the trucks pumping the gas into the massive ditch, getting ready to light it once the trucks were out of the way. The whole idea had made him nervous but he had to agree with Sheriff Daniels that this was the best way to keep any of the traveling dead from escaping the town.
A young trooper approached him. “We’re ready anytime, Sir. We can light the trench whenever you give the word. The other areas are calling in saying that they have their trenches drenched.”
Perkins looked down at his shoes, taking a deep drag of his cigarette. This was it, no turning back once the word was given. He wrestled with his conscience and his common sense one last time, glancing at the line of troopers awaiting his orders.
“Light it up,” he said, looking around and making sure all the volunteer firemen and their trucks were in place, ready for anything.
The gasoline fumes burst to life, creating a wall of fire that no one could walk through. The brightness of the flames made him shield his eyes, squinting against the sudden heat that burned against his face.
He walked over to the car, picked up his cell phone and dialed the hotel office.
* * * *
James answered the phone when Perkins called. He was sitting at the desk, covering the phone while Rob was away for a while. Emily was checking the hallways, keeping an eye on things outside the office and returning to update James on anything she came across. So far, the last few hours had been uneventful since the incident with Margie and Lenny.
“James Douglas speaking,” He answered as he placed the receiver to his ear.
“This is Sargent Perkins. How are you all holding up over there, James?”
“Things could be better,” James said, glad to hear a voice from the outside world. “We almost had a girl get killed. It seems two of our former guests decided to use her as bait so they could get away. They sent her out unconscious in a wheelchair. Thankfully, she’s alive and mostly unhurt.”
“Are these two individuals still on the loose?”
Threshold Series (Book 1): Threshold Page 16