Hanna glanced towards the doors, then over at the shadow of the Panoramic Hotel. “We need to keep out of sight, in case those things are still here. We need to make sure they don’t know where we are. Yesterday, when Stefan and I were looking for the villagers, I felt like I was being watched. But only on the edge of town, not here, not in the centre. And I trust my instincts. So we need to make sure that when it gets dark, if those things come out again, they don’t know where we’re hiding. It won’t be long until help comes. A day, maybe two. Particularly as the people in the valley can’t get hold of us. We just need to stay out of sight long enough for the storm to clear.”
Chapter Sixteen
On paper, the scenario was like a dream.
Trapped for endless hours, alone in the dark with a pretty girl who couldn’t bear to be more than an inch away from him, her arms wrapped around him. The problem was that Nico himself was terrified and he had no idea what to do next. That, and the fact that at some point during what had happened he’d wet his pants.
After those things had smashed into the hotel, after they had dragged Chris and Jacob and Sarah and God knew who else away into the storm, the world had turned into a nightmare.
Nico had seen some of the survivors sprinting up to the first floor and a few more fleeing along the corridors downstairs. More by accident than anything, he had found himself pushed along out of the lobby in a tide of screaming, frantic students.
Then he’d taken an elbow to the face, fallen, slipped and tumbled down a set of stairs that led to the basement. Luckily for him, it had only been four stairs down to a small corridor at the bottom. Unaware, uncaring or maybe both, the other students had raced on, perhaps heading for the back of the hotel and the fire escape there.
Nico had staggered to his feet, rubbed at his ear and glanced around. He hadn’t been on his own. Two tearful brown eyes had stared imploringly at him out of the gloom.
“Please! Please, help me, help me get away, please!”
For a few seconds he’d stared at Leandra, unsure of a way forwards. He’d often imagined himself as the hero of an action or sci-fi film, but when he’d finally found himself in the role, he had wanted to be anywhere else on earth.
With a whimper, he’d led Leandra down the corridor to the ski storage room at the end of the hall.
Back on the first day of the trip, Nico had managed to break the tip off one of his skis, and the hotel manager had burned some strange, smelly resin on to the crack to try to fix it. The ski room was small, musty and cold, but it had a heavy metal door at one end and a rack, which could be slid over to block the only way in. He’d herded Leandra into the room, slammed the door shut, blocked it and then had started to pray.
To his disbelief, it had worked. Nothing had stalked down the corridor to investigate their tiny hiding place. He and Leandra had shuffled as far away from the rack as they could, huddled under a pile of old ski jackets that they had found in a corner, and sat together in the dark.
The first hour had been the worst. From somewhere above where Nico and Leandra shivered and sobbed had come the shouts and howls of the things that had taken Stefan.
Then there had been another noise. A student in the corridor above, crying and pleading. Nico had felt his blood run cold when, a few moments later, one of the intruders heard the survivor outside and came for him.
Once that happened, Nico had to jam his hands to his ears and bow his head down by Leandra’s, whimpering to himself and begging for the awful wet noises to stop.
As he had sat there, trying not to hear the sounds but picking up every tiny detail, his mind had kept going back to what he had seen earlier. The face of one of the things as it burst in through the glass and pounced on one of the few girls that had ever lowered herself to talk to Nico.
Its skin was pale and wrinkled, its eyes clear and translucent. But it had been the mouth that haunted Nico most of all: its jaws wide and vicious and filled with misshapen, jagged, dirty fangs that protruded irregularly, like stalactites on the ceiling of a cave. The image had jumped back and forth in his mind, over and over, a visual accompaniment to the awful slurping and sucking from just outside the door. He was pretty sure that it had been then that his bladder had let go, soaking him.
Some time later he must have fallen asleep, Leandra moaning and jerking next to him. When she finally woke him from thin, terrified dreams, they had no idea what time it was, day or night. The only thing they were sure of was that apart from the howl of the wind, the world above was silent.
And then they heard the voices.
Chapter Seventeen
“Why did you bring us here? What’s wrong with you?”
Hanna ignored Tara’s words and paced around the ravaged dining room, as if she were trying to find some clue within the chaos. The tattered curtains billowed and whipped in the wind, and the shards of glass on the floor glittered in the faint daylight.
For once, Charlie found himself feeling the same way as Tara. Every gust of wind made him jump and he found himself constantly fighting an urge to run for the door. When Hanna had first revealed her plan to return to the hotel he had tried his best to talk her out of it, but she had been adamant. Tara had tried to recruit Ellie and Jordan in a takeover bid for leadership, but Hanna had seemed happy enough to go off on her own. She’d wanted to see the hotel in the daylight, and she had been bent on finding out if the destruction from the night before might reveal any more about their attackers.
And there had been no talking her out of it.
Unwilling to lose their resourceful guide, the rest of the survivors had trailed Hanna the few metres through the relentless blizzard towards the Panoramic Hotel. Fresh snow had hidden any signs of the bloodshed from the night before, but even so Charlie’s mind kept picturing the horrors that might be lying underneath the deep drifts, the things he had seen when he had hunched shivering on the rooftop above.
At first Tara had refused to go in at all. It was only when she’d realized that she would be left outside on her own that she sighed loudly and reluctantly padded into the hotel behind Jordan and Poppy.
The door swung to and fro in the harsh wind, the few shards of glass that still clung on to the frame flecked with blood. Charlie wondered if some of it was Stefan’s. A plastic chair had been overturned in the lobby, and the old computer that had manned the hotel desk now lay discarded on the ground, its cracked screen reflecting the blizzard outside.
While Hanna stalked from spot to spot, the rest of them tried their best to step over the patches of blood on the floor. One large slick led away into the dining room. Jordan let out a choked sob and turned away from the sight, but Hanna stared at it wordlessly then followed it. Charlie chewed at his lip for a moment then went after her.
The dining room was like something out of a nightmare. Dark stains spattered the carpet and sofas. Glass and torn shreds of curtain and clothes covered the floor. But of the students that had once sat in the ravaged chairs, there was no sign at all.
Charlie wanted to get out as quickly as he could, and he scanned his surroundings, trying to avert his eyes from the chair in the corner where Kelsey had been sitting when it had all started. The brown leather of the old sofa was stained as if by oil, black patches leading away in a trail, like footprints on a ghastly treasure map.
He stole one more glance at the chair, felt a wave of vomit at the back of his throat and stumbled out into the lobby.
While Ellie stood by the door with her hood up, Poppy watched Charlie from where she sat over behind the reception desk, her mauled leg propped up on a bin by her feet. Charlie pulled the jacket he had taken from the ski shop closer around his ears and moved over to sit on the desk next to her.
“How’s your ankle?”
There were dark lines under Poppy’s eyes, and beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. She drew in a jagged breath and looked up at him. “It hurts like hell. Like I’ve been bitten by a dog or something.”
She paused, wipe
d at her eyes and shifted her leg on the bin. “I need something for the pain, just to make the throbbing less. Could you do something for me? Could you see what you can find?”
Charlie nodded and dug around in the drawers next to where she sat. There was a first-aid box in the second drawer, and it didn’t take Charlie long to find a pack of painkillers. He handed two to Poppy. She took them gratefully, dry swallowed them and motioned for two more. Charlie stared at her, shrugged and gave her what she wanted.
For a moment neither of them spoke, and then Poppy sighed and looked up at Charlie. “I’m sorry. You’re not what I thought you were, you know. So I’m sorry.”
Charlie shrugged. “For what? You never did anything to me.”
Poppy wiped at her eyes. “Yeah, I did. I was in that English class with you. I’ve got a lot of friends. I could have made things easier for you, not ostracized you. Not whispered rumours and gossip about you whenever they dragged you away to the office. I didn’t know what was going on with you. And maybe I should have asked.”
Charlie looked down at her and shook his head. “Forget it. I heard the stories about me, too. I read some of them on the wall in the sixth-form toilets. Not all of them were lies. And maybe I could have done with a little help. But that school never seemed like the friendliest place to me. Neither did the other kids there.”
Poppy brushed a rogue strand of curly auburn hair from her face and winced at a fresh spasm of pain. “Do you think we’ll ever see the school again? Do you think we’ll get away from here?”
Before Charlie could answer, Jordan hurried into the lobby. He had been by one of the corridors that led to the back of the hotel. Ellie was still standing by the door, unwilling to commit to fully entering the lobby, and at the tone in Jordan’s voice she took a step backwards into the storm outside.
“There’s something. Back there, down some stairs just along the corridor. I swear it, I heard a noise.”
Hanna stalked in from the dining room, the metal hockey stick held in both her hands. “What noise?”
Jordan shook his head, his tight blond curls dancing in front of his eyes. “I dunno. Crying, I think – voices, too. I’m not imagining it, though. I heard something, for sure. Then when I crept closer it stopped. Like it heard me.”
Hanna looked past him, down the corridor that disappeared into shadow.
“Show me.”
Jordan nodded reluctantly and started to go back the way he had come. Charlie’s heart was pounding in his chest, his legs shaky, but all the same he found himself rising from the desk and slowly walking after the others. As he went, he noticed a shattered glass panel on the wall, a fire axe suspended inside it. Gently, he unclipped the axe, tested its weight then continued after Hanna.
Jordan had paused halfway down the corridor, at a place where a puddle of dried blood seemed to almost point towards a small set of stairs, going down to a basement level. He was careful not to stand in the blood, his whispers bouncing off the linoleum of the floor as he nodded down the corridor.
“There. It was down there. I don’t know, but I think that whatever it was heard my footsteps and tried to be quiet. Maybe … maybe it was one of those things.”
Hanna licked her lips then carefully descended the stairs. Charlie glanced at Jordan, but the other boy shook his head.
“Fill your boots, Crim. I ain’t going near that door.”
Charlie moved away to where Hanna had stopped, her head to one side. Her words were directed at the looming door, her accent more jagged than usual. “Hallo. Is somebody there? If you are, you need to show yourself. Now.”
Noises came from the other side of the door and Charlie took an involuntary step backwards, his hands tight around the handle of the axe. A low screech echoed down the corridor, something heavy being slid to one side. Then the door opened a crack and a face peered through the gap.
“Thank God. Please tell me you’ve brought help. Please tell me those things are gone.”
Hanna lowered her hockey stick then shook her head slowly from side to side.
Chapter Eighteen
“You’re sure this old hostel is safe? It feels like a tomb, like no one’s stepped inside here for decades. It’s creepy.”
The girl called Hanna glanced up from the contents of the can she was eating from and fixed Nico with a steely glare.
“You have a better idea? An underground bunker somewhere, maybe, or a vault in some bank I don’t know about hidden in the village?”
Nico shook his head penitently. Hanna’s grey eyes bored into him for a moment longer. Her face had a hard, scary quality that made Nico want to avoid getting on the wrong side of her.
“You don’t? Then the answer to your question is no, I don’t think this place is safe. But I don’t have a better idea. It’s nearly twilight, and I don’t think any of us want to go out and try to find somewhere more secure, particularly if those things come out again once it gets dark. I don’t think anywhere is safe. But this is the best we’ve got for now.”
Thankfully, Hanna looked away and went back to the food in the tin. Nico wasn’t sure what it was she was eating, but it stank. He started to remark on the fact, but decided it would be unwise.
Next to him Tara leaned forwards and, in an antagonistic tone, said: “I told you we should have gone with Ryan. Even if we couldn’t ski, we could still have walked. Anything is better than this. I mean, what are we going to do if those things do come out? It’s going to be dark soon.”
Hanna swore in German, put her tin and fork to one side, and gave Tara an icy stare. “You would have frozen to death in an hour. Not that it would have been a great loss. And what are we going to do? Well, we could put on some lights, play a little music, have a drink, maybe even get a board game out.”
She took a deep breath and tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear. “We’re going to hide. The windows are boarded up, the only doors to the outside are bolted, and this lantern is the only sign we’re here, apart from your whining. Soon we’ll put out the light, climb under our blankets, and pray those things from last night don’t know we’re here. But there’s still time for you to join your little boyfriend. Although I don’t want to think about the state you might find him in.”
Tara shook her head, glancing at Ellie and Jordan for a glimmer of solidarity. “Better than here. With you. You two agree with me, don’t you? We should have gone, shouldn’t we? With Ryan, out into the storm, rather than staying here. Anyway, he’s probably down in the valley by now. Safe. We’ll see who’s right when he comes back up here, to rescue us. We’ll see how clever you are then.”
Hanna sat up and leaned forwards. She picked up her fork and held the pointed end at Tara. Tara slowly slid backwards into her sleeping bag at the threat.
“Another word. Just one more word.”
Across from Hanna, Leandra pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders and studied the Austrian girl. “Who put you in charge? I mean, no offence, but I don’t know you. None of us know you. How do you know what’s best?”
Hanna stared at Leandra for a moment before she replied. “I don’t. I’m making this up as I go along. And as I said to your friend Tara, if you don’t like it, you know where the door is. I’d be happier on my own.”
The atmosphere in the musty lounge had become more than a little uncomfortable, and Nico concentrated on his food to avoid the brewing conflict, forcing another mouthful of his cold ravioli. There hadn’t been much choice in the small convenience store that Hanna had hurriedly looted on the way back to the boarded-up hostel, and the canned food that Nico had chosen was even worse cold than it would have been warmed up. Even though he was starving he still couldn’t stomach it, and he found himself putting his can down on the dusty floorboards.
Across from him, Charlie stared up at the boarded-up windows and Nico followed his gaze. Earlier, Charlie had explained how Hanna knew about the old hostel, and even though Nico’s childhood had been the very opposite of joyful, he sti
ll had to wonder about the type of adolescence where children spent their time wandering around in old, dilapidated relics. The aged hostel was creepy with a capital ‘C’, and Nico was relieved when Hanna clicked off the lantern. At least then he didn’t have to look at the awful Gothic oil-painted scenes on the walls and the cobwebs that were draped over them.
“You think they’ll come out again tonight? You think they’ll try to find us?”
The words were Leandra’s. Nico might not have had much contact with her back home, but after a night trapped alone in the hotel basement with her he would know her voice anywhere.
“Maybe not,” Charlie answered. “They didn’t find us last night. And maybe they’re gone. Maybe they got what they wanted.”
Jordan seemed to come out of a daze and he glared across at Charlie. “How do you know so much? You an expert now? An expert on nothing but being a screw-up. Should be Jacob standing where you are, or Angus. Not a loser like you.”
Jordan stumped off to the corner, pulled his sleeping bag up over his face, and fell silent. Charlie ignored him, his eyes never leaving the deserted streets.
Nico watched the thin silvery beams of light that slid in through the cracks in the wooden shutters. They were fading by the second.
Someone yawned. From the sofa in the corner of the room came a low, stifled sobbing. Nico didn’t know what had happened to Poppy’s ankle, but it looked like she had stuck her leg through the bars of a shark cage and not pulled it back quite quickly enough. She wiped at her nose and spoke to no one in particular.
“They’re out there, aren’t they? They were watching us today, waiting.”
Nico cleared his throat, and spoke with a certainty he didn’t feel. “Maybe not. Maybe—”
A low, hungry moan rose above the howl of the wind, Jordan swore loudly in response, and Nico heard the words crumble and fade on his lips.
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