“If we’re not getting out of here,” Harte asked, moving to one side so that Gordon and Ginnie could get past, “where are we going to go?”
“Need to stay by the supplies,” Hollis answered quickly. “Try and fortify the restaurant perhaps? Maybe the Steelbrooke Suite?”
Harte disappeared into the shadows. Hollis followed, ushering Howard and Caron out of the way. He sprinted toward the Steelbrooke Suite, pausing only to glance into the restaurant. Webb was still sitting exactly where they’d left him, staring into space. Martin sat two tables away, slumped forward with his bandaged head in his hands.
“Come on,” he yelled, “shift yourselves!”
Webb looked up but didn’t move. Jas ran back from the front of the hotel and bustled into Hollis, distracting him.
“Leave them,” he grunted, pushing his way toward the large conference room in the far corner of the building. “It’s all their fault.”
“You couldn’t find a way out, then?” Hollis shouted after him. Jas disappeared into the darkness without responding.
Inside the Steelbrooke Suite, Lorna had already begun to pile tables and chairs against the doors and glass walls to strengthen them. Ginnie and Gordon were bringing in whatever food they could find and stacking it in the corner. Howard’s dog rushed across the room at a ferocious speed, its pads and claws skidding on the parquet flooring, then she began to bark and howl furiously at the windows, pacing up and down beside the two glazed walls.
Hollis looked up just in time to see the first corpses slamming against the glass. They smashed against the tall windows, hammering at them with their fists, trying desperately to beat their way inside. In a matter of a few seconds what looked like hundreds of them had appeared across the full width of the back wall, spreading out in either direction, blocking out the little light which remained and dramatically reducing the already limited visibility in the room. Then, when the size of the crowd was enough to cover almost every square inch of glass, the bodies began to spill down the side of the building, moving slowly but with unstoppable intent and determination. Like a partially coagulated liquid they poured themselves around the outside of the hotel.
“We can’t stay here,” Gordon shouted.
“We can’t get out of here!” Jas screamed, already on his way back to the other end of the building. “Get the front secured. Now!”
Everyone in the Steelbrooke Suite stopped what they were doing and ran through to the other end of the building. Some took the east corridor, others the west. Harte, who could outrun just about all of them, cut straight across the courtyard, throwing the glass doors open and barging through. He arrived in reception and found Jas struggling to push the wooden desk across the floor toward the door. He shoulder-charged the other end of the huge piece of furniture and it began to move, juddering awkwardly across the floor tiles.
“Get anything you can find to help block it up,” Gordon ordered as he added his weight to the push behind the desk. Ginnie, Lorna, and Howard did as he said, disappearing into anterooms and store cupboards and bringing out everything and anything they could find to help seal the entrance. Another coordinated shove of the desk and it slammed up against the door, completely blocking it. The three men had just moved out of the way when Hollis dragged a tall-backed leather sofa up onto its end and pushed it over so that it dropped down against the desk at an angle, wedging it hard against the door frame.
“Shut that bloody dog up!” Ginnie screamed. Howard’s dog was standing in the middle of reception, barking furiously at the glass. He reached down for her collar and tried to pull her away, but she stood her ground and refused to move, eyes fixed forward. He looked up and saw that the bodies had advanced all the way along the side of the hotel and had now begun to spread across the front. Through the gaps between upturned pieces of furniture he could see them moving continually, steadily surrounding the entire building. The steps leading up to the main entrance held them back temporarily until the weight of flesh still surging forward forced the leading cadavers to climb. Howard let go of the dog and helped barricade the doors with whatever he could lay his hands on. Rotting faces stared back at him through the glass and the bodies slammed their bony hands against the window continually. For a moment he thought he saw one of them grab the handle and try to pull the door open.
“Is that gonna hold them?” Harte asked, wiping sweat from his eyes.
“Going to have to, isn’t it?” Lorna answered. Her voice echoed around the now almost pitch-black reception area. As well as shutting out the final shards of fading light, the haphazard blockade had changed the acoustics of the room, muffling the sounds outside and amplifying the noise indoors. “What now?”
Gordon and Hollis moved closer.
“Where will we be safest?” Gordon wondered.
“Right in the middle of the building?” Lorna suggested. “Either that or we should head up?”
“There’s no way out if we go up,” Harte said ominously.
“Don’t think we have a lot of choice.”
“We need to get out of sight,” Hollis said. “A room big enough for all of us where they won’t see us.”
“We could try—” Harte began to say before being interrupted by a horrific scream from the other end of the hotel. It was Caron. He froze with terror, not wanting to know what she’d found. Around him others began to run toward the source of the sound. Even from a distance he could hear what was happening.
“They’re inside,” Caron cried, running down the west-wing corridor.
“How?” Hollis demanded.
“Swimming pool,” Jas said, his voice full of desperation and disappointment. “Fucking things must have got in through the doors into the pool.”
“Then block the bloody corridor off!” Gordon yelled, pushing past Caron and hurtling toward the pool and gym.
It was too late. By the time he’d got there the creatures were already swarming out into the open, steadily filling the marble-floored area in front of the restaurant, bar, and the Steelbrooke Suite. The dead moved with renewed speed, their progress helped by the pressure of others moving up through the narrow corridor behind them, forcing them forward. Within seconds their numbers were such that they burst through the doors into the courtyard and began to spill down the glass-fronted corridors on either side. In places the decorative glazing began to crack and give way under the pressure. The noise of the shattering glass seemed to excite the dead still further as they spread through the building.
“Up!” Jas shouted, loud enough for all of them to hear. “First floor, middle room. Trust me!”
With no other option, Lorna, Ginnie, and Howard began to climb the staircase at the reception end of the west-wing corridor. Caron and Gordon ran back down the hallway toward them, glancing back over their shoulders at the steadily advancing tide of corpses which washed after them. Hollis shoved them up the staircase, then turned to face Harte and Jas.
“What about Webb and Martin?” he asked, the nearest bodies now less than thirty meters away.
“Fuck them,” Jas immediately replied. “We left them in the restaurant. With a bit of luck they’ll have managed to block the door before they got in.”
“All of this is Webb’s fault,” Harte seethed. “He doesn’t deserve to survive.”
“What about Driver?” Hollis demanded, the nearest bodies now close enough for them to be able to see the horrific detail in their dead faces. “We can’t just leave him, can we?”
“He’s probably dead already,” Jas snapped. “Now come on, get upstairs.”
Hollis didn’t move, struggling with his conscience.
“Which room was he in?”
Harte was struggling too.