Slash, p.19
Slash, page 19
They came to the fountain in front of the hotel.
“It can’t be Otto, right?” Todd said.
“No. It can’t. So get that out of your head, dude. This is a real flesh and blood lunatic.”
Todd couldn’t deny that he was flesh and blood. But was he resurrected flesh and blood? It was ridiculous, but his Lutheran upbringing had laid a foundation for the possibility of people rising from the dead. Aside from Jesus and Lazarus, there were many other cases of people being brought back to life. He remembered one of the books of the Bible talking about scores of people rising from their graves the moment Jesus perished on the cross. They appeared all throughout Jerusalem. It must have been one hell of a terrifying mindfuck to the living.
Very much like here, thousands of years later.
But the revived dead in the Bible had been, to a man and woman, good people. The good might have died young, but they got second chances. Not so with the bad. Why would God breathe life into the wasted corpse of a Nazi deviant?
“What did they discover?” he whispered.
“What’s that?” Jerry asked, pausing at the now glassless revolving door.
“Just thinking about what Bill said about Nazis.”
“Yeah, well, think about finding Bill so he can live to gamble another day. I wonder what odds he’d give on us getting out of here alive.”
The corner of Todd’s mouth curled up. “I’d say they just increased dramatically once he heard those sirens.”
“What’s the surefire odds he always says to avoid because there’s no payout? One-to-nine?”
“Yep. ‘You can’t make cheddar on chalk’. The man is full of wisdom.”
“Oh, he’s full of something all right.”
They were about to step into the hotel lobby when the sirens suddenly cut off. Todd whirled around. The red, blue and white strobing lights that had been painting the grounds a good distance from them disappeared.
“Did they just leave?” Todd said.
The fire still raged. It looked like it had started to devour the bungalow next to it.
“No way. They wouldn’t let the place burn, even if it is scheduled to be demolished.”
A dark suspicion picked at the back of Todd’s brain with a pointed talon. His body prickled with goose bumps. “We better hurry up and find them.”
Todd took a breath to call out for their friends when Jerry put an arm across his chest and shook his head. “We go in smart.”
Jerry carefully picked his way through the debris so as not to make any noise. He turned on his small flashlight, but cupped his hand over the bulb. “Take this.”
Todd kept the light doused. Jerry’s gun led the way.
The lobby felt sinister, haunted, since they’d been inside it just hours earlier.
“Keep the light low and sweep the lobby,” Jerry whispered.
Todd scanned the ground, the light petering out to a dull film just a dozen feet from them. He saw a splash of blood glinting off pearls of broken glass, and pointed.
“They definitely came here,” Todd said.
“Let’s hope they stayed. Look for more and we’ll follow it.”
Todd searched for more blood, both hoping and not hoping to find it. There was a trail, with long breaks between markers. It wound through the lobby, leading them to the breezeway that led to the dining room. Something flitted overhead. Jerry jerked his arm to the ceiling, ready to pull the trigger. The flap of wings whooshed over their heads. Todd pulled his cap on tighter.
“I’m not a fan of bats.”
Jerry took a few calming breaths. “So I guess that means you won’t be pissed if I shoot one?”
“I will if it drives….” He fumbled for the correct name to use. Killer was too generic and Otto was not allowed to be on the table. “If it drives the Wraith toward us.”
“Tell the wildlife not to dive-bomb me when I’m tense as a motherfucker.”
“Duly noted.”
They walked quietly, but it was impossible to be silent. Between the noise and the subdued light, Vince, Heather, Bill and Sharon would have detected them by now if they were near.
Todd looked at a gilt frame, a torn menu still inside it. One of the appetizers was beet soup. It didn’t sound very appetizing.
The dining room was crammed with broken tables and chairs. It reeked of mold and animal urine. Todd stepped in something that squelched. He looked down expecting to see a puddle of blood. Instead, his foot was almost through the wet, rotten floor. Casting his eyes upward, he saw huge rents in the ceiling.
He pointed the flashlight to the far wall and clicked it twice.
No response.
Jerry shifted hard to the right as his foot sank into the wood. Todd grabbed his arm and pulled him away before it got worse.
“I don’t think they’re here,” Todd said.
There was a hole in the dining room floor about fifteen yards ahead of them. A rusted chair clung to the edge of the hole, one of the legs snarled in the rotting carpet.
“If they were, they’re in the basement now. Try to back out the same way we came in.”
There was a clatter to their left.
A shadow darted past a window, the board probably having decomposed and crumbled away ages ago.
“Christ, is that a raccoon?” Jerry said.
“I think so.” Todd’s breath caught in his throat. “Big sucker.”
The raccoon trundled along the windowsill before dropping out of sight. It looked like it hadn’t missed a meal for quite some time. At least it was smarter than the humans and knew enough not to walk on the floor.
“Okay, where to next?” Todd said.
They had lost the trail of blood in the hallway. It was as if his friends had been sucked up into the sky.
“I know they won’t go back to one of those bungalows. You know another place that could give them space and cover?”
Todd closed his eyes and conjured up pictures and videos that he’d found on the internet. The nightclub had collapsed completely before Ash had come here. There was nowhere to hide by the rink. The ski chalet was too far for them to have reached in so little time.
“There’s the pool,” he said, unsure.
“Where is it?”
“In the other wing. I think you had to go down from the lobby to get to it.”
Jerry rubbed his chin, the crackling of his bristles too loud for Todd’s comfort. “I forgot to bring my bathing suit.”
“Then you should be okay…for now.” They jogged back to the lobby. “The skinny dippers always bite it in slasher flicks.”
“I’ll remember not to show you my ass then. Be careful.”
Todd almost tripped over a baby carriage. It was an old-time pram with a frayed hood. Its presence in the middle of this place of death and rot was more than a little unnerving.
They bypassed the elevators and hit the door to the stairwell. The handle came off in Todd’s hand. He nudged it open with his shoulder while Jerry kept it open with a brick encased in jagged mortar.
The stairs had survived the ravages of time because they were made of metal. They were rusty, but a few test steps proved them to be sturdy enough to support their weight. Their movement was causing a storm of dust particles to swirl around their flashlight’s beam.
“Never thought the best I could hope for on a night out with my buddies was asbestos poisoning,” Jerry said.
“I have masks in my backpack.”
Jerry coughed into the crook of his arm. “I’ll live. Let’s go.”
Because he had the light and the stairs were narrow and littered with junk, Todd had to take point. His feet pushed away soiled clothes, construction debris and crushed beer cans. That was, until he noticed someone had already made a clear path down the stairs, hugging close to the rail.
“Could be a good sign,” Todd said, his breath curling over his head and blasting Jerry in the face.
“Or we could be walking a Wraith game trail. Just keep your eyes and ears open.”
Todd couldn’t help doing anything less. He was worried the Wraith would be able to hear the pounding of his heart.
They came to the basement level and a gray metal door that once had a window with wire mesh at the top. Now, all that remained was the mesh.
“Open the door slowly,” Jerry said, leaning into Todd. As Todd pulled the handle, Jerry inched the gun into the widening crack.
Stepping up to what was once the pool reception desk, Todd spied a pinball machine that had been left behind. Someone had decided to smash it to splinters. One of the silver pinballs had been either thrown or pushed into the drywall. Back in the day, there were kids playing games and running around, parents lining up for soft white towels, the smell of chlorine and the sounds of laughter and people having fun in the pool.
Now, it was black and dusty and ominous. It was difficult to picture this ever being a place people would willingly go.
Unless they had to find their friends before a crazed killer did.
There, just before the crooked doors to the pool area, Todd’s light fell upon more blood. If Heather had lost this much blood, he worried if she’d even be able to walk now.
“They’re in there,” Todd whispered.
Jerry took the flashlight from him and slowly panned it across the walls. Like everywhere else, graffiti covered just about every inch. Except down here where the air seemed thinner and the pressure was so thick that Todd yawned to make his ears pop, the spray-painted tags and murals seemed far more sinister. Everywhere they looked, there were upside-down pentagrams, 666, satanic faces and foreboding quotes like Welcome to the fiend’s lair and Blessed are the destroyers of false hope, for they are the true Messiahs.
Someone had painted a very realistic mural of a woman copulating with a goat while it was being cut in half by a saber. A naked man wearing a red mask with large black eyes wielded the saber. His erect penis sported curled horns.
“What the fuck drugs do the kids up here take?” Jerry said.
Beside what had once looked to be a snack counter, the flashlight shined on a wall emblazoned with swastikas of every size and color.
“Maybe more locals knew about Otto than we think,” Todd said. The swastikas, more than the juvenile attempts at scaring people with satanic scrawls, gave him chills.
“Moron kids love to paint that shit because they know it upsets people. Let’s just find everyone and get the hell out of here.”
There was nowhere to hide in the game room, so it was on to the pool.
The ground was gritty with broken glass. Their boots crunched through it as they navigated their way through the doors that barely hung onto their top hinges. All of the window boards were still in place, but there was still an opening that led from the indoor part of the pool to the outdoor side. Swimmers would have to hold their breath and glide under it, popping up into the fresh air rather than the nose burning of confined chlorine.
There was a flash of light and a simultaneous boom. Something pelted Todd in the back of his neck and he found himself facedown on the filthy ground, writhing in pain.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The back of Todd’s neck was wet. Pebbles of concrete or tile were embedded in his flesh.
“Stop shooting!” Jerry wailed. “It’s us!”
“Are you crazy? You could have killed them,” Todd heard Bill shout.
He looked up and saw three figures emerging from the empty pool. Jerry angled his light so it blinded their friends for a moment. Vince shielded his eyes, saying, “I told her it was you guys. Are you hurt?”
Todd’s next to worst nightmare stared at him from fifteen feet away.
Sharon was holding the gun.
Jerry went into a rage.
“Put the gun down, you psycho bitch, or I’ll drop you right here.”
She looked over at Todd, though not with much concern. It seemed to him as if she were only trying to gauge whether or not she’d killed her second person of the night with cool passivity.
“I thought you were him,” she said, not relinquishing the gun.
“I’m sure you did. Put the gun down now.”
When she didn’t obey him immediately, Jerry fired a warning shot into the ceiling. Debris cascaded between them, just missing all of their heads.
“Are you crazy?” Vince said. “You want that maniac to find us?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s not deaf. He already heard the stripper nearly kill us.”
Sharon lowered the gun but her fingers were still curled around the grip. “Stop calling me that.”
Jerry snickered. “What a shock. A stripper who doesn’t have pride in her work. Last chance. Drop the gun or I drop you. Your choice. Vince, Bill, I need you to step away from her real quick.”
Bill took a half step from Sharon. Vince, on the other hand, grabbed her by the waist and jerked the gun from her hand. He let her go, pushing her away so he had a moment to jam it in his pocket. “There. Problem solved.”
“Not by a long shot,” Jerry said, advancing on Sharon.
Todd cast aside the burning pain on the back of his neck and got hold of Jerry. His friend was angrier than he’d ever seen him, and Todd was honestly afraid of what he’d do to Sharon. “Not now. We have to get out of here quick before the Wraith finds us.” Sharon massaged her hand, shaking out her fingers. Todd asked Vince, “Where’s Heather?”
Vince nodded his head toward the pool. “She’s too weak, man. While we were waiting for you guys to come out of the bungalow, Bill spotted him coming around the corner. I’m sorry, but we started running. Heather fell on her hands and knees right away and her bandages came loose. There’s no more of those butterfly bandages in your kit, are there?”
Vince was on the verge of tears.
“Let me see her,” Todd said.
He heard Jerry say to Vince, “How the fuck did she get the gun?”
“We’re in the goddamn dark and I have other things to worry about, Jer. Lay the hell off me.”
Todd found the shallow end of the pool and jumped. Desiccated bushes had grown through the broken pool bottom. It was like leaping into a greenhouse of the dead. He found Heather, ashen-faced, leaning against a broken diving board that had been propped up against the side of the pool. Her bloody wrist and hand lay on her equally bloodied thigh.
The first thing he did was elevate her hand. Her eyes fluttered open and started to tear up. “Oh my God. You’re alive.”
“Bet you didn’t know I’m flame-retardant.”
Her head lolled and he thought she was going to pass out. “There’s so…so many things I could say to that.”
“Yeah, well save your breath for now. Let me see what I can do about this wrist.” He undid his belt and used it as a tourniquet around her upper arm. If he couldn’t stop the flow of blood to that deep cut in her wrist, she would bleed out before they got to the Hayden’s entrance.
The entrance where the first responder vehicles had mysteriously gone dark. If they weren’t there, he wasn’t so sure Heather would make it to their car and then hold on for the drive to the hospital.
One thing was for sure, she wasn’t walking out of here on her own. They would have to carry her. It was a good thing she was so petite.
Vince startled him. Todd hadn’t heard him come up behind him.
“Is she going to be all right?”
He clasped his best friend’s shoulder and lied. “Yes. Jerry and I saw police and fire arrive before we came in here.”
Heather was out again. Vince cradled her head against his chest.
“We heard the sirens and were about to make a run for it when we heard what we thought was that lunatic walking around. Heather fainted dead away in my arms and Sharon grabbed the gun from my coat pocket. I couldn’t have stopped her.”
Todd plucked pebbles out of his neck, trying hard not to wince in front of his friend. “I know, buddy. I know. You okay to carry her? I can barely carry myself at this point. My lungs feel wrecked.”
“I’ve got her. You go up first. We’ll be right behind you.”
Todd slung Ash’s backpack over his shoulder and pulled himself the short distance to the pool’s edge. He lay on his back for a moment to catch his breath, and then rolled away to make room for Vince and Heather. “He’s going to need help getting Heather up.”
Bill hustled over, reaching down to take Heather. Jerry and Sharon were in a staring contest.
“Sharon,” Todd said.
She flicked her eyes to him. “What?”
“Help Bill. Please.”
When he tried to stand up, a fresh round of coughing locked his spine. He spit foul-tasting sputum. Once he settled down, he shot her a look that sent her into action.
Jerry helped him to his feet.
“Heather’s in bad shape,” Todd said. “We don’t have time to waste.”
“That we don’t.” Jerry cast a worried glance at the pool doors. “Maybe we go out through the pool instead. I don’t like the idea of being trapped in those stairs with us carrying someone.”
“Hold up,” Todd said to Vince, Bill and Sharon. “Jerry says we should get to the outside through the pool.”
“That would be easy if it wasn’t filled with all kinds of heavy shit,” Bill said. “Looks like they’ve been dumping huge chunks of mortar and stuff in there.”
Todd and Jerry noticed for the first time all of the debris clogging the far end of the pool.
“Is there any way we can get through it?” Jerry asked.
Bill shrugged his shoulders. “There might be. We didn’t give it a thorough check in the dark, you know what I mean?”
