Lost Valley (Extinction Survival Book 1), page 12
“We’re stuck too,” Carver said. “We need to wait this out.”
“Okay,” Randy said, followed by a sad sigh.
With nowhere to go and nothing else to be done, the three of them sat down and spoke for a long time. Randy talked about his home, his family, and his dreams. Carver did the usual man thing, giving the briefest of descriptions of his life, leaving out the painful details of the friends he’d lost during his long military service.
Hope told her story, too, speaking about her love of her son, the failed marriage to a husband who’d had problems with alcohol and the concept of fidelity. She was more worried about Kyle’s safety than her own.
The three sat quietly after that, listening to the sounds of shuffling feet and the tortured groans of the infected.
— 13 —
Manchester Hyatt
San Diego
Jen woke with a start as several terrifying screams broke through her dreams. She looked around the room in a daze. She’d fallen asleep! She grabbed her phone to check the time. It was nearly three in the morning.
She opened the phone and found no notifications. Garret hadn’t called, nor had he messaged her. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t tried to get in touch with her, but then again, he might be too busy or there may be a communications blackout. Jen tried to call him but received an “all circuits are busy” message. She quickly tried to send a text, but it was immediately rejected as a notification of its failed attempt popped up on the screen.
Another scream from outside brought her back to reality. She rushed to the picture window and looked down onto the street. People were in a panic, with almost a dozen men and women running in front of the hotel. Two of them froze and let out another cry for help as a mob of people were sprinting directly at them from the hotel entrance.
It made no sense as she watched the two groups. The mob was like a living organism, each person shoving and pushing within the mass of flesh while the other smaller group broke up and scattered. The horde covered the distance in seconds and eight or nine people leapt out of the mass, slamming the two victims to the concrete. The rest piled on and howls began to pierce through the pane of glass. Jen cried out when a dismembered arm flew out of the pile that had formed on the two women. Two of the people from the mob lunged at it and began to fight over it like rabid dogs. That’s when she noticed the deformities.
From this distance, and in the dim orange-tinted streetlights, the details of their features were washed out. But the speed in which they moved and the way their limbs worked in an unconnected way lent an unreal aura to the horror she was witnessing.
More screams, this time in the hallway outside. Jen rushed to the room’s door and flipped the security bar into place. The rushing of bodies sounded from the hall, and she put her eye up to the peephole. The dark shadow of something other than human lurked just outside. The creature was hovering at her door, sniffing the air like a feral animal. Its head filled her view, giving her momentary glimpses of its deformed and diseased frame.
Pasty, pallid skin clung to its body while bluish and black lines spread out over its face. It was scanning the eyehole, alternately peering into the glassy bead and then sniffing it. Jen froze. She quickly realized that it was a predator searching for prey.
The thing had once been human, of that, she was certain. Its patchy hair hung straight down to the side and over its forehead. But it had the look of a corpse, with its pale complexion and taut facial muscles. However, the most disconcerting aspect of the creature was its eyes and mouth. The eyes were a bright amber with ochre, bloodshot capillaries. She had about cried out when it brought its eye to the peephole but caught herself before she could scream. She dared not move, afraid that any motion would alert the thing to her presence.
Sensing that Jen was just beyond its reach, the creature growled and began to scratch at the door. Jen instinctively backed up. The thing must have heard her movement and howled, then slammed its body into the doorframe. It easily held. But a second, then a third attack quickly followed. Jen had no idea how long she would be safe, and by the sounds of the thing outside, it was not going to give up until it got inside.
Jen scrambled and began to look for a way out. She turned off the bedside lamp, throwing the room into darkness. She ran to the window but was four floors above ground level. She thought about tying sheets together and shimmying her way down while the thing outside continued to throw itself against the door, each attack seeming to become more and more frantic.
Jen stripped the bed of its sheets and tied two of them together. She went to the window and slid a side panel of glass open. She pushed on the attached screen, but it wouldn’t give.
The creature must have sensed that she was trying to escape, and it let out a terrifying cry that momentarily froze her. Then, to Jen’s horror, she heard an answering scream from outside. She looked down and saw at least a score of the creatures searching the building’s facade, looking for the source of the primal cry.
Jen stopped and froze. The things began to sniff the air, grunting and barking amongst themselves. Then they began to scatter, moving toward the hotel entrance as they searched for more prey. Jen watched them lope toward her building and let out a slight gasp when she saw what was left of the two women they’d attacked. A small pile of bloodied clothes and two rent corpses lay on the street. They had been eviscerated, their abdomen and chests splayed open and their organs either missing or laying in small pieces on the ground.
Jen gently slid the window shut.
The creature in the hallway continued its assault on her room, but the heavy wood-and-metal door was holding. She closed the curtains and then looked back at the room’s entrance. The hallway light crept in from under the door while the thing outside cast a shadow as it continued its attack, creating a macabre shadow show on the room’s threshold.
Jen quietly sat down on the leather chair and awaited her fate. There was nothing she could do but hope that the door would hold. She had no weapon, nor did she have a place to hide, other than the bathroom. That would be her last refuge if the thing broke in. But the bathroom door was no stronger than the one leading to the hall. If it got through the hallway door, all she was doing by taking refuge in the washroom was to delay the inevitable. Still, it was better than nothing.
Jen waited in stoic silence. She thought of Garret and his proposal. Her heart was heavy with the possibility that she’d never be able to give him an answer. A depression began to seep in, calming the fear in a way that surprised her. It was a fatalistic way accept her own death, but there was a serenity that began to take hold. If she was going to die, she’d be okay with that. After all, there was nothing she could do about it now.
Another scream, this one human, emanated from the floor nearby. The creature stopped its attack and Jen heard it run away, snarling and barking as it went. Jen grabbed the sheets and ran to the room’s door. She stuffed them up against the floor, filling the crack with the cotton panels.
If this thing can smell me, maybe I can prevent that, she thought.
She piled and jammed the sheet into the crack under the door, then rushed to the wet bar. Opening the refrigerator, she pulled out her uneaten meal. Her Teriyaki chicken had a small container of sauce. She ran to the door and sprinkled the fragrant liquid as well as the included packs of soy sauce onto the sheets. Her room smelled like a Chinese restaurant. Hopefully, it would mask the smell of her fear. It was all she had.
The scream she’d heard quickly turned into the shrieks of a dying animal. Whoever had been caught had not perished quietly. Their pleading cries were quickly transformed into the sounds of death. Someone’s demise had bought her time, and Jen decided not to waste the moment.
She went to the in-room wet bar and gathered the snacks and non-alcoholic beverages. She took a pillowcase from the bed and loaded it up with the loot. She grabbed two other pillows and a blanket then went into the bathroom and closed the door. She locked it, then spread the blanket out into the room’s tub and lay down.
Outside, the sound of an unknown number of creatures rumbled down the hallway. They would cry out, which was often followed by bodies slamming into a something hard. Eventually, Jen would hear the explosion of a door crashing into a room. Then, like a death knell, she heard the final cries of another victim as they were devoured by the unrelenting creatures.
Finally, as the night bled away, exhaustion demanded her attention. With the sounds of killing continuing to drift into the room, she closed her eyes and passed out. If it arrived, death would find her unconscious. At least, it would be a painless demise. All she could do was accept her fate and hope that she’d wake up in the morning light.
— 14 —
April 21
Borrego Springs Country Club
Carver was dreaming. The banging from outside blended into the story being played out in his sleeping brain, an all-too-familiar memory of the action he’d seen in Afghanistan. It wasn’t until Hope shook his shoulders that he awoke to the sound of crashing and thumping coming from the door that led to the golf cart storage garage.
Carver checked his watch and was shocked to find out it was already dusk. They had fallen asleep a few hours or so after sunrise and continued to catnap during the day and much to Hope’s embarrassment, use the sink to relieve themselves. Having dozed off after a late afternoon snack, he couldn’t believe it was now pushing eight in the evening.
The door was bolted shut, but it rattled with each strike. Concrete dust was puffing out from around the doorframe, and it was becoming evident that the door wasn’t going to hold forever.
The line to the kitchen was still active, and Randy’s voice came loudly over the speakers. “Are you two awake yet?”
The thumping increased in intensity once the creatures heard Randy’s voice. Carver ran over to the wall and jabbed a button to mute the sound. Hope showed him how to turn off the speakerphone, and they crowded around the receiver.
“What was that?” Randy asked. “Did you just put me on hold?”
“It’s them,” Carver replied in a whisper. “I don’t know if the door can take it for much longer.”
“Oh God. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Carver replied honestly. “I suppose we stay as quiet as we can and hope they go away.”
“Can I—is there anything I can do?” Randy asked.
“No, Randy,” Carver said. “But thank you.”
The pounding continued, and Carver watched as a crack appeared along the edge of the concrete where the doorframe had been screwed in place.
“On second thought, Randy,” Carver began, “can you get out of your office?”
“I think so,” he replied. “I haven’t heard anything in hours.”
“They’re going to break through soon. I don’t think the doorframe is going to hold up much longer.”
Carver paused, looking at Hope who was sitting in the corner next to Shrek. She was absently stroking the war dog’s coat, staring off in the distance, no doubt spending her final minutes in thought about her son.
“Listen closely,” Carver said to Randy. “I want you to sneak out to my truck. The keys are somewhere on the ground. I need you to drive back to the Boy Scout camp. You know where that is. Take the road back through Ranchito. Kyle’s there. He’ll need a familiar face to look out for him. Can you do that?”
Randy
Randy didn’t answer for a long time.
At first, the gravity and responsibility of the task he was being asked to perform paralyzed him, but then he began to change. The horror of going out the door was replaced with a grim determination. That poor teenage boy had already lost his no-good daddy. Now he was going to lose his mother and the man who’d been more of a father to him than his real dad. The anger quickly overwhelmed the panic, and Randy’s brain went into overdrive, the adrenaline becoming the mote of his action. It was clear now what he needed to do. He was going to save Hope and Carver.
“Listen,” Randy said, his voice strong and confident. “Get ready to leave. I’ve got a plan, and when it starts, make a run for it. Get to your truck and take Hope back to her son.”
“Wait! What are you planning to do?” Carver asked.
“You’ll know, Cowboy! Just get ready to rock and roll.”
Hope grabbed the phone from Carver and said, “Randy, don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want anything to happen to you. You’re my best friend.”
Randy was touched by those words, and they made him even more determined to make his plan work.
“I love you, Hope!” he replied. “Just do me a favor—kiss that handsome man of yours while you have the chance.”
With that, the formerly timid food services manager hung up the phone and prepared to save his friends. Randy glided to the locked office door and listened intently for over a minute. Opening it a crack, he stopped and made sure nothing was lurking outside. With a clear path in front of him, he strode to the preparation table and quietly opened the cutlery drawer. He drew out the biggest, heaviest knife he could find and made his way to the swinging doors that led out into the dining hall.
The plan was simple. If he could draw the monsters away from the pro shop, Hope and Carver could make their escape. The question was how to get them to leave his friends alone. The zombies, or whatever they were, seemed to be drawn to noise. The answer, then, was to pull the fire alarm in the dining room.
Randy was determined but not suicidal. After the clubhouse’s stock of fine wine, caviar, and truffles had been raided a few years back, Mr. Stanwick had installed a heavy-duty door to the kitchen’s pantry—and Randy had the only key. If he could get back to that room, he could ride it out in style for a long time.
Randy passed through the dining room and made his way back down the hallway to the outside door where Carver had parked his truck. It had been drawn shut, likely by the gusting night wind, so he had to open it to give the infected a way to get into the building. As the metal door slowly swung out, it made little noise. Stanwick might have treated his staff like crap, but he’d tried to keep the club itself well-maintained.
He hustled back to the dining hall. He took a deep breath, grabbed the fire alarm’s red latch, and pulled it down. The din created by the klaxon was overwhelming and loud enough that it would wake up the dead. Or at least, that was his plan.
Randy hustled back down the hallway that led back outside and watched to see if the infected were coming. For over a minute, he waited with nothing moving his way.
He tentatively retraced his steps to the outside door and peered into the parking lot where he saw that it was still filled with the infected. Their disjointed movements were spastic and unfocused as they searched for the source of the shrill sound.
He decided they needed some motivation, so he stepped into the light and, waving his arms, yelled at the top of his voice.
“Over here, you nasty things!”
As soon as one of the creatures saw him, it emitted a primal, animalistic screech that caught the attention of the rest of the horde.
“Oh crap!” Randy said as they turned on him, almost as one.
Randy sprinted back into the hallway and hurried to the kitchen, the mass of infected right at his heels. He ran through the dining hall, making his way to the traffic doors that led to the kitchen and eventually to the back room where he was going to make his last stand.
As he pushed through the swinging doors, he unexpectedly slammed into something on the other side.
Randy fell through onto the tile floor just as another body landed a yard or two farther inside. Randy quickly recovered and got up, searching for the source of resistance. Something moaned from just beyond one of the stainless-steel prep tables.
Rising with a hiss was a creature with blotchy, scarred skin crisscrossed with black deformed veins. Remnants of human flesh stuck to its teeth, and its foul odor permeated the room. It reared its head back and let loose a piercing screech. Then its yellow, blood-crusted eyes locked onto Randy’s neck.
It lunged over the gleaming prep table.
Randy fell backward into a rack of pots and pans. A cacophony of screeches came from the dining hall as the metal containers all fell onto to the floor.
The creature in front of him gathered itself and swung around the edge of the counter.
Randy gripped the knife firmly and backed farther into the room. The sounds from the horde of infected in the dining room seemed to send the creature in front of him into a frenzy.
It surged ahead, and Randy barely sidestepped it as it shot past him and into an industrial refrigerator, knocking the large appliance to the ground. Milk and wine splashed onto the floor as the thing quickly recovered and turned toward Randy again, preparing to make its final kill.
That’s when Randy noticed the shoes. On its deformed, monstrous feet were a pair of white Church’s, now splattered with blood. He looked up, and sure enough, tied around the creature’s neck, was the stained and tattered remnant of a tacky little scarf.
“I’ve always hated that ascot!” Randy hissed at the creature. “And I’ve always hated you!”
The thing that had once been Everett Stanwick hissed back at him and lunged for the man’s throat as Randy brought the large knife up in defense. Its shoes hit a puddle of spilled milk on the floor, and it fell, forward momentum sending it skidding halfway across the kitchen.
Randy’s knife swung in an upward arc and pierced the creature’s throat, plunging the eight-inch blade far into its brain stem.
Stanwick’s second death that day was both quiet and quick.
Meanwhile outside the kitchen, the crowd of infected had grown. They pounded on the metal shutters that Randy had drawn down and latched into place, shutting the window where cutlery and dirty dishes were returned. None of them had gotten in.
