Last Gasp (76 page)

He came onto the landing of the fourth floor, and as he squelched past the four elevators stuck his hand out and thumbed the sensor-touch buttons in their corroded metal plates, a childish habit he hadn’t outgrown.

Wayne stopped in midstride as the last set of doors slid open. Dan was right, there was still power somewhere in the building. He shone his flashlight inside the elevator and recoiled. Gleaming whitely in the cone of light was a pile of bones, the skeletons of three, maybe four, people. Hard to tell exactly. Shreds of clothing were wrapped around some of the bones, a shirt collar, a cuff. Wayne sucked in a breath and bent forward as a glint of gold caught his eye. A jewel sparkled like a lighthouse beam. He took a step nearer, seeing rings, bracelets, necklaces, and watches among the clutter. And on the small finger of one of the skeletons was a diamond ring that flared like a miniature sun, throwing off dazzling highlights.

Wayne placed one foot on the floor of the car, testing it gingerly. A cable above him creaked and there was a dry sticklike rattle, but the car itself was rock steady. Down on one knee, the flashlight held in his left hand, he picked out the jewelry without touching the bones. As the diamond ring came off so did the finger, falling with a bony clatter.

That sound seemed to echo in the shaft above his head and for one dreadful heart-pounding moment he thought the cable was about to snap and plunge him seventy feet into the basement. Indeed the car swayed fractionally, but held firm, and Wayne hurried on with
his
plundering, his parted lips dry and hot.

Behind him he heard a soft heavy plop and a harsh rasping as of scales being rubbed together, and swinging around, the flashlight slippery in his hand, he stared with bulging eyes at what lay coiled on the floor of the car. The rattlesnake was a monster. Its dark green and gray body was as thick as a man’s waist, the massive spade-shaped head raised up and swaying to and fro, the eyes glinting like icy diamond chips. Its bony tail blurred and in the confined space the rattle was ear-splitting.

Clutching a fistful of rings, bracelets, and watches Wayne staggered back and crashed against the rear wall, scattering the bones.

Now he understood. The skeletons—
of course
. The giant reptile lived in the warm dark recesses of the elevator shaft and whenever it was disturbed slithered down from its lair onto the roof of the car and dropped through the open trapdoor... and he had disturbed it for gold. For worthless metal. For glittering trinkets that wouldn’t buy a mouthful of food, a sip of water, or a single gulp of pure air.

The elongated eyes in the swaying head watched him unblinkingly. The brain computed the distance across the floor of the car to the millimeter. The tongue flicked out, tasting the air for his body smell. Then the neck drew back upon itself like a tightly coiled spring and the deafening rattling sound suddenly ceased.

Mumbling a silent prayer, Wayne Daventry saw nothing, it was so fast. The first strike was good, a deep clean double bite with both fangs in the side of his neck. It shook its prey twice in a violent threshing movement and then coiled back upon itself. The tongue flicked out as it contemplated its dead victim and after a moment reared and slid upward through the trapdoor, the silent rattle vanishing into darkness.

For two days nonstop and well into the third it rained torrentially. They slung sheets on the balconies and collected the rainwater in every kind of receptacle that didn’t leak. Pete Kosinski tested it as best he could and said that it was drinkable, though he couldn’t account for any impurity it might contain, nor whether in the long term it might prove harmful.

The fifth floor came to resemble a refugee camp.

By careful rationing Chase reckoned that the food would last them nearly two weeks—thirteen days to be exact. They had enough water for drinking even if they had to go without washing. All things considered they couldn’t complain. They hadn’t seen the gunship again, probably because of the bad weather, and despite his private fears he came to realize that making contact with it was their only hope.

To the north of the city was hostile territory, overrun by tribes and wandering crazies who wouldn’t hesitate to kill either for gain or just for the sheer hell of it. South of Vegas was jungle, which said it all. But the Californian border was less than thirty miles away—was that a possible sanctuary? They had heard rumors about concentration camps, hundreds of square miles surrounded by death-ray fences where people were herded in by the thousands. Uneasily, Chase connected such stories with the black gunship. Supposing there was a major war going on somewhere—maybe right here—that they knew nothing about?

He could imagine the scenario well enough: the government in “Washington” (wherever that was now) overthrown by a military coup, the armed forces split two, three, six different ways, the scramble for those geographic areas least affected by the deteriorating climate, the usual power play by the pros and antis, the hawks and doves, clubbing one another into the ground and grabbing what they could.

Yes, he could see it all too clearly. Here and now, though, there were more personal and far more immediate concerns—Jo’s condition for one.

Ruth was blunt about it. “She’s got five days. Then she’ll either lose that leg or her life.”

“Does she know it’s gangrene?”

“I haven’t told her, but Jo isn’t stupid.” Ruth sat on the end of the bed and looked at Chase lying propped up on pillows. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks marked by deep vertical lines above his tangled beard. Despite the use of protective cream his forehead and the bridge of his nose were badly blistered. “If she doesn’t know now she’ll know in a day or two when the wound starts to suppurate. And the smell will leave no one in any doubt.”

“Five days,” Chase said, staring at the wall opposite. “What can we do in five days? Where can we go?” He thumped the bed impotently.

“Take it easy, love.” Ruth took his fist in both hands and pried open the stiff fingers. “You’ve done everything you could. The responsibility isn’t yours alone—not anymore. It’s ours, everyone’s.”

Chase was hardly listening. He could see Wayne Daventry, poor kid, his head bloated to three times its normal size. Eyes like buttons in a padded cushion of blue-black leather. It was obvious what had killed him from the bite marks. But the width of that bite! That thing must be of a monstrous size, and there might be more than one—perhaps the building was infested with them.

And what about that computer technician, Richards—where had he disappeared to? He’d been with them on the third floor, and then ... gone.

Five days, Ruth had said. Five days in which to get help from somewhere. If any of them lived that long. What else did the famed Stardust Hotel have up its sleeve?

Later that afternoon he climbed with Dan, Nick, and Art Hegler to the roof of the building. Ostensibly it was to spy out the terrain, but really he needed to talk through the situation and form a plan of action.

Printed in his brain like flaring red neon, the words
How?
and Where? blocked every thought so that his mind became a circular track endlessly repeating itself.

Before venturing out they plastered their faces with cream and put on dark goggles. The sky had at last cleared and under the hot sun the jungle steamed and shimmered like something alive. It was alive, Chase reminded himself, crawling with all manner of creatures and insects.

He stood with the others looking west. Not long ago—ten or fifteen years—this had been sand and scrub. Nature had come back with a vengeance; almost, it seemed, as if it had a personal vendetta. You asked for it. Here’s where you get what’s coming to you.

“Jo hasn’t got long, has she?” Nick said. Under the yellow cream it was impossible to read his expression.

“No,” Chase said.

“She was feverish last night, though the leg isn’t hurting her. At least she’s not in pain.” His chest heaved as he sucked in a thin breath. “By God, I’ve never wanted to kill anything, but I’d gladly wipe them out, every single grub ...”

“The way things are going, it’ll be the other way around. The old law still applies: survival of the fittest.”

“And we’re not fit for anything,” Nick said drably.

Hegler called out to them from the other side of the roof. They went across and he pointed out one of the tall buildings directly across the Strip. “Do you know what that is?”

“Yes, it’s the Riviera Hotel,” Dan said.

“How can you tell?”

“I remember seeing the sign above the entrance. You can see it from our floor—”

He stopped because the sign was no longer there. Chase and Nick stared too, trying to find it, and then the realization dawned collectively.

“It’s under the water,” Dan said in a small voice. “That sign was way up above the entrance. The level must have risen by at least twenty feet!”

“Now we can’t leave,” Nick said, spitting the words out, “even if we had somewhere to go. We can’t fucking leave!” He lurched toward the low parapet and Chase grabbed his arm and hauled him back.

“What were you trying for, a gold medal in the swan dive?” he said, keeping a firm grip. The two men held on to each other, swallowing back emotion. Chase said, “This is getting to be a habit. I saved your bacon at Hailey Bay Station.”

“Those were the days,” Nick sighed. “Then I didn’t have a care in the world.”

“Except where to get hold of some Morrocan Blue.”

“Algerian Red, you stupid bastard.”

“So what now?” Dan said. “Build an ark?”

Behind them Hegler was gazing thoughtfully at the tangle of television antennae sprouting from a concrete box in the middle of the roof. “Is there any juice in the system? That TV set you tried,” he said to Dan, “is it still working?”

Dan shrugged. “I haven’t tried it since.”

“What if it is?” Chase said. “It was a closed-circuit channel feeding off the hotel’s emergency supply—there was nothing coming in from the outside.”

“I was thinking of stuff going out, not coming in.”

“You mean transmitting? Is it possible?”

“It’s possible,” Hegler said.

“And we’ve got hundreds of TV sets we can cannibalize for parts,” Dan said eagerly. He looked around at the others. “Surely we could build a transmitter of some kind?”

“How do you make a microphone out of a cathode ray tube?” Nick asked caustically.

Art Hegler shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking of anything quite so sophisticated. All we need is a constant signal—not even Morse—that somebody somewhere would pick up, then they’d use the signal to get a fix on us.” He scratched his sideburn. “I don’t know, maybe it wouldn’t work; it’s just an idea.”

“The best one I’ve heard today, or this month, for that matter,” Chase said with a grin. “How about it, Art, will you give it a try? Get Pete Kosinski to help you and ask around for anyone with knowledge of electronics or communications.”

“Okay.” Hegler grabbed hold of a tarnished cross-strut with his gloved hand. “First thing is to find out if the power’s still on. If it isn’t, this isn’t worth scrap.”

They went back down to the fifth floor using the main staircase. On each landing Chase made sure the elevator doors were closed. He knew it was a futile precaution because the elevator shaft would have access off through other parts of the building—in the spaces between the floors and ceilings, or possibly the ventilation system. It was for that reason he had warned everyone not to enter any of the rooms without first making absolutely sure they were empty, and to take extra care when opening closets and cupboards.

Dan suggested taking a look through the upper floors. “There must be four or five hundred rooms above us—there could be food, supplies, all kinds of useful stuff.”

“Not to mention things living there.” Nick gave Dan a narrow stare. “If you want to go poking around, count me out. Don’t you think we’ve got enough trouble without going looking for it?”

“Let’s keep to our own floor, Dan,” Chase said. “We can barricade the doors and at least have some degree of security.”

He didn’t qualify that by reminding them of the giant snakes. But then he didn’t have to.

Chase tossed and turned, the sweat pouring off him until he felt himself to be wallowing in a soggy morass. His feet had swollen with the heat and his hands felt boneless, spongy.

He slid off the bed, rearranged the single sheet over Ruth’s sleeping figure, and took a drink of tepid water from the jug. Instantly sweat rolled down his face and plopped into the water like raindrops. He tottered in the darkened room as a wave of dizziness swept over him. Was it just the heat or was it something else? At the back of his mind was anoxia, the creeping disease of oxygen deficiency in the tissues. Was this how it started, with fainting spells and nausea?

A tremendous crash shook the building and the uncurtained window flared with daylight brightness, with it a stabbing boom of thunder whose noise and pressure bore down with such force that his eardrums almost ruptured.

For a moment he thought the hotel had received a direct hit from a missile. But the cause, thank God, was natural—like everything else, the thunderstorms were built on a gigantic scale.

Ruth sat up and hugged her knees. “If it keeps on raining we’ll have to move to the penthouse,” she said.

“And after that grow wings.” Chase turned back to the bed and suddenly doubled up as pain twisted like a knife in his gut. He fell the next two steps and collapsed across the foot of the bed, mouth pulled back, groaning through clenched teeth. The sweat was now gushing off him, drenching Ruth’s hands as she sought to help him. His skin felt to be on fire. He was burning up with fever.

Ruth darted across the room to get the medical pack from the closet, and as she touched the handle of the sliding door she heard a dry rattling noise from inside. She whipped her hand back, her fingers cold and numb, heart palpitating with fear. Step by wooden step she withdrew, eyes bulging and straining to see in the darkness. Faintly she heard the closet door creak as if, perhaps, a heavy weight was leaning against it. She waited, fists knotted by her sides, almost unable to hear anything because of the blood pounding in her ears.