The Raven (A Jane Harper Horror Novel) (26 page)

I step back to the others, pull them in close, and whisper, “There’s just one. I can take care of him, quick and quiet. They won’t know which way we’re headed, but I think others will come running to find out what happened.”

“We’ll need to move fast,” Willem says. He turns to Steven. “You can lead the way?”

Steven looks petrified but nods without delay. Feeling a twinge of sympathy for our guide, I take out my knife, unfold it, and hand it to him. “You don’t need to kill them all. Just incapacitate. Back of the knees. Back of the neck. Achilles tendon. Don’t bother with body shots. They won’t even feel it. The odds of you punching the knife through a human skull is slim, so don’t attempt it unless you’re out of options.”

He takes the blade in his shaking hand.

“Remember,” Jakob says. “Maintenance first.”

“Then a keycard if we need it,” Willem adds.

“Don’t stop moving,” Jakob says. “If someone falls behind. Or is caught. None of you are to stop.”

None of
us
. Jakob knows he’s older and slower than the rest of us. He’s talking about himself. I don’t say anything, mostly because I agree with him, and I don’t want Willem to hate me for it.

“Even if none of us makes it off of this ship alive,” Jakob continues, “this ship and everyone on board needs to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic. Agreed?”

“Yes,” says Willem without hesitation.

“You know how I feel,” I say.

All eyes shift to Steven. “For Shamaya,” he says. “Yes.”

Attaboy
, I think.

“Stay by the door,” I say. “When you hear the Draugr drop, treat it like the start of a race.”

When I get all nods, I move back to my position by the open door frame and look up at the mirrored ceiling. The Draugr hasn’t moved. Without a glance back, I tiptoe into the duty-free clothing department, staying low behind the racks of clothes.

Halfway across the room, I pause. The stench of old man death has increased. I can hear a slight squeak from his flip-flops as he shifts back and forth. But nothing else, from the man or from the hallway beyond the shop exit. I take a peek to confirm that the space outside holds no immediate surprises. Finding none, I tighten my grip on the
katana
and round the right side of the clothing rack.

As the old Draugr comes into view, I stop. He’s wearing a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and turquoise shorts. The top of a paperback novel titled
Pulse
pokes out of the top of his shorts pocket. Something about the dog-eared novel makes me remember that this was a human being not so long ago. He has to be at least eighty, and looks like many of the old-timers I saw at the VA hospitals when my father would take me to visit one of his injured men.

Sorry, Pops
, I think and then bring the sword up at a forty-five-degree angle. I feel a tug on the blade as it passes through the tough esophagus and then the spinal column, but I’ve managed to sever his head and drop the Draugr in a single strike.

Parasitic worms flow from the headless body rather than blood. The head falls at my feet and starts to roll toward me. I tear a shirt off the rack and toss it over the severed neck and head, just in case the parasites within can still communicate with the others.

Footsteps approach from behind. Steven dashes past me. His face is grim as he leads the charge from the duty-free. I follow close behind with Willem and Jakob. The hallway outside is a spectacle of its own, with fluorescent lights, a fountain, and lines of benches. But it’s also deserted.

Thirty feet of hallway passes in a blur. As we approach the end, Steven breaks the rules.

He stops.

When I reach his side, I see why.

T
he atrium is nine stories tall and lit up like a pinball machine. The decor is old-world—columns, statues, and ornately carved wooden railings—mixed with the modern. An LED chandelier casting rainbows on the floor and walls hangs from the center of the ceiling. Two long, curved, tapering staircases lead to the third floor, and four glass elevators in each corner rise to the others.

A bar cuts through the center of the space, blocking a direct path to the descending stairs on the opposite side of the massive space. Flashing lights rise from the depths of our target staircase, and I can see the tops of lit letters spelling out
CASINO
. But that’s not our destination. We need to reach the floor
below
the casino, which at the moment seems unlikely. It’s all very impressive, but it’s not what stopped Steven.

The mangled horde from outside has found its way inside the
Poseidon Adventure
, and congregated in the atrium. They turn to us as one and cock their heads to the side as if they’re as surprised by our appearance as we are by theirs. Gnarled zombies—scores of them—occupy each floor. They stare at us from staircases, through the elevator glass, and over the rails of every floor.

My gaze flicks from face to face. They’re torn, decayed, and beaten. Not a one of them is uninjured. When my shock over the
horde’s sudden appearance fades, I remember our urgency. Just fifteen Draugar occupy the lowest floor, spread out around the enclosed bar.

Sword in hand, I charge down the steps. “Move!”

The first Draugr I reach—a man dressed for a night of fine dining—recovers from the horde’s mass surprise a moment too late. I see the tiny black speck eyes of the parasite worms filling his eyes shift toward my sword’s blade. I played softball in college, and I put all those years of practice to good use. Step in. Swing hard. Keep your eye on the…head. The blade connects with the undead man’s temple. I feel the impact, but it’s far less than I expected. The strong, sharp blade severs skin, bone, and brain with equal efficiency. I follow through, completing the arc, and watch the top of his skull and brain flip to the floor, where it lands alongside his collapsed body.

With a shout, Willem brings his ax down on a Draugr who has just started moving. The sound of the strike reminds me of a coconut being split. The heavy metal chops through the man’s head and stops in his neck. Willem kicks out hard, striking the man’s solar plexus, and sends him flying, freeing the ax, which he quickly brings to bear on a woman who’s charging him.

The horde is in motion now. Those on the bottom floor move in to attack. The group on the third floor charges down the dual staircases, though
charge
is a generous word. It’s really more of a hobble. One of the bunch, whose foot is twisted to the side at a sick angle, topples forward and plows through the Draugar in front of him. It’s like watching a Looney Tunes snowball grow larger as it rolls down a hill, enveloping people on the way.

A fast-moving zombie lumbers toward me, arms outstretched and fingers hooked. Ducking low, I swing hard and remove his legs. He falls hard to the side but barely breaks stride as he starts pulling
himself forward with his hands. He sticks out his parasite-laden tongue. I can see each one of the maggoty monsters wriggling, eager to find my flesh and take my mind. A quick sword thrust to the top of his head takes the fight out of him.

Jakob appears by my side. I haven’t seen him take on a zombie yet, but the gore dripping from his sword says otherwise. “Keep moving,” he says, stepping over the man I’ve just dropped and hacking at the first Draugr to reach the bottom of the stairs.

I look for Willem and find him already on the other side of the atrium, clearing the Draugar blocking our path to the stairs with wide, powerful swings of the double-bladed ax. His attacks aren’t exactly precision, but the flying gore and limbs leave no doubt as to his effectiveness. Dead or incapacitated, it doesn’t matter. We just want to get through.

A flash of color pulls my attention to the bar. Steven leaps over the side. The zombie pursuing him slams into the bar, stymied by the polished hardwood wall. Steven stands up and looks at the thing, and his eyes widen. As do mine when I see what he’s looking at.

The zombie trying to reach him is wearing a white uniform. His cap is missing, but the blue shoulder board with three gold bands and a fourth looped band identify the man as the
Poseidon Adventure
’s captain.

A chain dangles from his neck and disappears beneath his heavily bloodstained reefer jacket.

The keycard.

I change course, heading for the bar, but only make it two steps. A blur passes in front of me, falling from above. A wet thud forces me back. When I look down, I see a stream of parasites crawling from the ruined head of a twisted Draugr. I take another step back.

Whack!

I spin around and find a second Draugr in a similar state.

What the—
whack!

This time I see it. The Draugr came from above. I look up in time to see a fourth man leap from the eighth floor like a BASE jumper.

“Look out!” I shout to Jakob. In the three seconds it takes the dive-bombing zombie to reach the floor, Jakob ducks to the side. He narrowly avoids being crushed but has no time to think about the close call.

The glass elevators are descending. The wave of zombies reaching the bottom floor will soon be joined by their more resourceful counterparts.

“Keep toward the center,” I shout to anyone who’s listening. Then I take my own advice, leaping over the suicidal zombies and heading for the bar.

Steven looks unsure of how to handle the captain.

I doubt he has the gumption to stab his commanding officer in the head, so I offer him an alternative as I hop over the bar. “Taser him!”

Steven looks at the Taser in his hand like he’d forgotten it was there. He pushes the trigger, activating the blue arc of electricity, and shoves the two metal electrodes against the captain’s outstretched arms.

The zombie twitches, frozen in place. The parasites are unable to control the host body while fifty thousand volts course through it.

“Hold it there!” I shout, running up beside him. Without thinking, I reach out and snatch the chain. The resulting shock flings me backward. I fall to the floor, stunned but conscious. And when I look down, I see the chain gripped in my hand, along with a keycard.

To my great surprise, Steven jabs the captain in the side of the head before turning to help me up.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Look out!” I say, pulling him down.

A zombie crashes down on the bar with a crack, his back folding over.
Sonofabitch must have got a running start.

When I stand back up, the situation has gone from shitty to fucked. The elevators are opening. The stairs leading to the bottom floor are thick with undead, many of whom have spilled out into the atrium. And the Draugr projectiles continue to rain down from above as they sacrifice themselves for the protection of the hive.

“Jane!” Willem shouts from the descending staircase. “Hurry up!”

Even if we make it to the stairs, we’re going to have an angry horde hot on our heels. We might be faster, but we’re also still human, and eventually our bodies will betray us. The Draugar have no such concerns. I’m about to tell Jakob and Willem to carry on without us when I remember the keycard. They might make it all the way to maintenance only to find the door locked.

Glass shatters. “Help me!” Steven shouts.

He’s tossing bottles of liquor at the floor around the bar, saturating rug and zombies alike. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he’s up to, so I grab as many bottles as I can, whipping them at the floor and distant stairs. When I’m satisfied with the job, I dump two bottles on the bar and down its outside edge.

I take the Taser from Steven and hand him the keycard. “Go!” I shout. “Get them to the fuel tanks.”

“But—”

“Now, damnit!”

Steve springs into action, leaping over the far side of the bar, where Willem and Jakob await.

Jakob separates a Draugr’s head from its shoulders and turns to face Steven. He nearly cuts the man down, but the brightly colored outfit makes him easy to identify. The blade stops short of Steven’s neck.

Jakob looks from the keycard to me. I hold up the Taser, indicating what I’m about to do. “Make him go,” I say.

Giving me a look that’s part regret, part respect, and one of his patented Viking nods, he turns for the stairs, grabbing Willem’s arm to pull him along, not giving him a chance to look back. The trio disappears down the stairs.

A few Draugar give chase, but the rest are stopped when I trigger the Taser and place the electrodes down on the alcohol-soaked bar. Flames erupt, nearly singeing my hand. The blaze rockets across the bar, down the side, and across the rug. The lowest floor of the atrium is quickly transformed into the lowest level of hell.

And I’m caught in the middle of it.

T
he burst of heat from the conflagration makes me duck back behind the bar. There’s a steady, rising
whoosh
as the fire spreads across the atrium floor. The flames quickly move beyond the alcohol, eating through the rug and carried farther beyond by burning Draugar. They don’t normally react to physical pain, but the parasites inside the flaming hosts must know they can’t escape, because they’re flailing around, rolling on the floor and slapping their bodies. The revolting scent of melting flesh and popping hot body fat mixes with the strong odor of alcohol, twisting my stomach. As screams rise, I wonder if that small part of humanity that resides in each undead is brought forward by the intense pain.

God, I hope not.

The thought is too much to bear, so I push it from my mind and focus on not becoming another human torch.

The flames rise up the staircases, burning through rug and Draugar, but the fire isn’t everywhere. There are still some clear paths, especially by the elevator nearest the casino—the area we didn’t douse with booze.

The elevator doors open and belch out a dozen ragged-looking tourists. Two of them, a man and woman, wear bathrobes. A matching set. Another woman is wearing just her underwear, a cute matching set of black lace accented by bits of whoever it was that
she devoured. A few are well dressed, ready for a day of gambling or lounge hopping. And the rest are wearing the jackets needed for spending time in the Arctic Ocean air.