The Devil's Graveyard (44 page)

He had just allowed Julius to live, despite learning the truth about him. But he’d come to the conclusion that the James Brown impersonator had a chance of winning the show, and so long as Emily didn’t win and sign that poisoned contract, he didn’t give a damn what the outcome might be. He was ready to do whatever it took to achieve the result he wanted, and if that meant shooting someone then he’d do it without hesitation. Or regret.

When he got back to the lobby at the front entrance of the hotel he found it deserted. It had been quiet earlier when he had made his way through to the bar, but now, at half after midnight, the emptiness was oppressive. There was something strange about it, too. No night staff on the reception desk. No bellhop manning the entrance. All the phones, keyboards, pens and papers on the reception desk had been packed away, the computers shut down and the monitors covered. The whole place looked as if it had been uninhabited for weeks, or even months, as though the staff had left on summer vacation and closed the place down. In fact, they were most likely all in the auditorium, awaiting the result of the singing contest.

The Kid took a swig of Sam Cougar, then stood completely still. Listening. He possessed a sixth sense way beyond that of most mortal men. He could feel something was about to happen.

Something evil was near at hand. Even after drinking as much bourbon as he had, he could sense it. He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand, reached inside his jacket and pulled out the dark grey handgun. He began turning slowly around on the spot. The alcohol was beginning to kick in, leaving him a little unsteady on his feet as he kept turning with the gun aimed at the walls, watching, waiting for something to appear.

Finally he heard a noise.

The noise had been there all along, it had just taken him a while to notice it. It was a dull low-pitched scratching sound coming from the glass doors at the hotel entrance. It was pitch dark outside and with the lights on in the lobby, it was impossible to see beyond the doors. As soon as he’d become aware of it, the scratching sound grew louder. Then it was joined by a low hissing noise.

As he listened to the sounds and tried to figure out what they were, the muffled voice of Nina Forina drifted into the reception area. The singing had finished and she was thanking the audience for voting. No doubt the result was soon to follow. The Kid needed to be up in the sound booth with his gun trained on the stage. But first he had to know what the hell was making the noise outside?

He moved slowly towards the glass double doors at the front entrance. His boots crunched on some broken glass on the marble floor as he walked. There was a large crimsoncoloured mat printed with the hotel’s name on the floor in front of the doors. He stepped on to it, silencing his footsteps. He took five more steps towards the doors. The scratching and hissing were definitely coming from outside, because the sounds grew louder with every step he took. And the closer he got, the more the hissing began to sound like whispers. Voices whispering to him. He couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Then, when he was little more than a foot from the glass, the hideously deformed face of a woman slammed into the door in front of him. Typically, he didn’t flinch. Instead, he looked closely at the thing. The skin on its face was black and looked coarse, like sandpaper. The creature might once have been white-skinned, but now it had a complexion that suggested the whole head had been scalded by boiling water and then thrust into a pit of tar. Its red, bloodshot eyes leered at the Kid and its open mouth made biting motions at him through the glass, as if it hadn’t eaten for a year. As indeed it hadn’t.

The Kid set the bottle of Sam Cougar down on the crimson mat and stepped right up to the glass door. He raised one hand to his forehead to block out the light from the chandelier on the ceiling behind him and peered through the glass at the face pressing against the glass door. It was most definitely that of an undead creature of some kind; he’d have worked that out quickly enough even if he hadn’t killed two of the things in the parking lot earlier. But how many of its kind were out there? It was hard to tell. There were definitely others moving around outside, beyond the locked doors, but it was impossible to get much of a look at them. The only way to tell for sure would be to turn out the lobby lights.

With Nina’s commentary whipping the audience up into a muffled frenzy somewhere behind him, the Kid knew that he didn’t have much time. The results would be announced soon. He tucked his handgun down into a deep pocket on his right thigh. It slipped in snugly with the butt sticking out at the top, from where it could be quickly drawn. Then he headed over to the reception desk. Reaching it, he slammed the palm of his right hand down on the counter and, almost as part of the same movement, vaulted over it. On the wall behind the desk was a panel of light switches, three across and three down. He flipped all nine switches down, instantly plunging the entire lobby and reception area into darkness.

Then he turned and took a look back at the glass entrance doors. It was clear now just how dangerous the situation was. There were zombies everywhere. They were clawing at the doors, desperately trying to clamber over each other to get to the front, with others behind them cramming on to the steps leading up to the entrance. The doors were made of heavy armoured glass and secured by steel bolts top and bottom, as well as a substantial steel lock in the centre, where they met, but they weren’t going to hold the filthy creatures back for long.

The Kid vaulted the reception desk again and walked back over to the crimson mat by the entrance doors. He had not even got within a yard of the glass before the zombies had worked themselves into a frenzy, each one eyeing him up for its first kill. The sight of his warm, living flesh drove them crazy. Ignoring them, he stood close enough to the doors to get a good look around outside. There wasn’t time to count them all, but it was a pretty safe bet that there were several hundred zombies outside, baying for blood and desperately fighting to get in.

He picked up the bottle of bourbon from the floor and pressed it to his lips, taking a large mouthful and swallowing it in one. Then he reached inside his jacket and drew out a soft pack of cigarettes. He put the pack to his mouth and pulled one out with his teeth. It was the last smoke in the pack, so he tossed the empty wrapper on to the mat at his feet. The Bourbon Kid had never been in the business of backing away from any kind of fight, but he had to take into account the fact that he was outnumbered by maybe five hundred to one. Further, he only had one round left in his gun. And that shot was intended for someone else. Someone who was going to be in range very soon.

With that in mind, he drew hard on his cigarette and watched it light up of its own accord. The smoke filled his lungs for a few seconds before he blew it out in the direction of the zombies. The swirling cloud blew up against the glass doors and then drifted in a blue haze towards the ceiling. The gesture seemed to anger the creatures at the doors even further, for their lunging and scrabbling grew more frantic. The doors began to shake violently. He turned his back and headed towards the corridor that led to the sound booth. The results of the
Back From the Dead
show were about to be announced, and he had to be up in the deejay’s sound booth.

Ready to line up his target.

Sanchez could feel cold liquid splashing on to his face. He opened his eyes and blinked them a few times, before wiping away the water trickling into them. It dawned on him that he was half-reclining in a comfortable armchair and that there was a small crowd of people looking down at him. He recognized the nearest figure. It was Emily, and she was holding a small plastic bottle of water in her hand. He could also hear a familiar voice was calling out his name. ‘Sanchez? You okay?’ It was Elvis. He sat up and blinked a few more times. He caught sight of Elvis’s gold jacket glowing just behind Emily. ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

‘You’re in that room backstage. Ya passed out, man. Just went down and banged your head on the floor.’

That seemed to be right. The back of Sanchez’s head was throbbing and it hurt like hell. ‘How’d that happen?’ he asked.

Emily handed him the half-empty bottle of water. ‘We were just, you know, talking,’ she said, ‘and all of a sudden you went pale and fell down.’

‘Oh.’ Sanchez couldn’t think of anything to say. Then a thought struck him. ‘Hey! Is the show over yet? Who won?’

Elvis leaned over him, peering over his gold-rimmed sunglasses. ‘Hell, you’ve only been out for five minutes or so, man. They ain’t announced the winner yet.’

‘Cool. What did the judges think of Julius? Last thing I remember, he’d just finished his song. It’s all a blank after that.’

‘You shoulda seen what happened,’ said Elvis. ‘Man, it was fuckin’ hilarious.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, first up, Lucinda says he’s great. She loves him.’

‘Yeah! Good.’

‘Yeah, but then ol’ Agent Orange Powell tells him he sucks ass.’

‘Muthafucker.’

‘Yep. But then it gets good. See, Candy Perez gets up, an’ she says he’s brilliant.’

‘She’s a good judge.’

‘She sure as hell is. She even tries to gee the crowd up a bit by wavin’ her arms around. But you’ll never guess what happened then.’

‘What?’ asked Sanchez, rubbing the large bump that had formed on the back of his head.

‘That tight white jacket thing she’s got on? Well, what with her wavin’ her arms an’ stuff, the zip slips down and BAM!
Her tits fall out!
You shoulda seen it, man. Funnier’n hell. They got it up there on the big screen, an’ everythin’. That woman’s got a
helluva
rack!’

Sanchez felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him. Faintly he heard Emily’s concerned voice. ‘He’s passing out again. Sanchez, are you okay?
Sanchez
?’

He awoke again several minutes later, to yet more water being splashed on his face.

‘What happened?’ he croaked feebly.

‘You passed out again,’ said Elvis.

‘Again? How many times is that?’

‘Twice, man. We tried to get you a doctor, but there ain’t no staff on duty at reception no more. Seems like they’ve all deserted the place an’ gone home.’

‘Ow, my head! Why’s my fuckin’ head hurt?’

‘You fell down an’ hit your head just after Julius did his James Brown thing.’

‘Oh yeah, right. What did the judges say about him?’

Emily and Elvis looked at each other. Then Emily spoke. ‘They said he was good.’

‘Right. That’s good.’

‘MUTHAFUCKERS!’ It was not difficult to tell from this that Janis was still in the backstage room with them. ‘They’re about to announce the winner,’ she said, tugging at the sleeve of Elvis’s jacket.

The King looked back at Sanchez. ‘You feel up to watchin’ the result?’

‘Shit, yeah.’

‘Well then, haul that fat ass up!’

Elvis hurried off after Janis, leaving Sanchez with Emily. She held a hand out to him. He took it gladly and she hauled him out of the chair and on to his feet. The sudden movement brought a minor rush of blood to his head and he felt a little dizzy again.

‘How’s your head?’ she asked.

‘Kinda hurts a bit. Throbs, ya know? But I’ll be okay,’ he said bravely. He was still seeing stars, but his head was gradually clearing. Emily took his hand and pulled him towards the door that led to the stage area.

‘Come on, we’ll miss the result,’ she said.

Sanchez tugged his hand away from hers and stopped for a moment. The blow to his head seemed to be giving him all kinds of strange thoughts. Emily looked back at him. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

He stood and rubbed the bump on his head. Should he tell her what he was thinking or not?
Fuck it, yeah. It couldn’t hurt.

‘Uh, Emily?’ he said tentatively. ‘I don’t really know what’s gonna happen when they announce the winner of this show. But,’ he paused and took a deep breath. ‘If my buddy Elvis ain’t the winner, then I gotta hope it’s you. You’re the best one here, and ya really deserve it.’