The Creeping Dead: A Zombie Novel (26 page)

Nat and Sean plopped on the bed next to where Pete sat, giddy with anticipation.

“Hello,” said a young voice on the other end.

“Hello,” said Pete. “Is this Kyra?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Do you come to Smuggler’s Bay?”

“Yes, I do, sweetie. Where did you get my number?”

“From a website.”

“So, you know the donation for my time?”

Good. She used the word donation instead of fee or payment. She also mentioned it was ‘for her time.’ All good signs.

“Yes. I have two friends.” Nat and Sean squirmed with excitement.

“Well, that’s a coincidence. I have a friend.”

“You have a friend,” Pete repeated for Nat’s and Sean’s benefit. “Is she as pretty as you?”

“Yeah, she’s hot.”

“When can you get here?”

“Where’re you staying, sweetie?”

“The Sungod Motel.”

“Which room?”

“Four seventeen.”

“Hey, are you guys a bunch of clowns?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you guys dress up? My friend and I have a thing for clowns.”

Pete felt a stirring in his pants. “Sweetheart, we beat you to it.”

“Sounds good. I’ll call you when we get close. Gimme twenty minutes or so.”

“Okay. See you then.” Pete hung up the phone. “She said twenty minutes.”

“Awesome. Just enough time to do some shots,” said Nat.

Sean upended their last tequila bottle over a shot glass picturing a pirate riding a surfboard and a caption reading ‘Get Some Booty Smuggler’s Bay.’ “Empty.”

“That’s okay,” said Nat, “I’ve got more in my room.”

“Ah-ah-ah,” said Pete. “Not so fast. Pony up first.”

“Right,” said Nat. He stood and grabbed his wallet off the dresser next to the old cathode ray tube television set. He pulled out three fifty dollar bills. Pete and Sean did as well. Pete collected the funds and stacked the bills on the nightstand behind the shot glasses.

“Wait a minute,” said Nat. “If there’s only two of them and three of us, someone’s getting sloppy seconds.

Simultaneously, Pete and Sean placed their fingers to the sides of their noses and said, “Not it.”

“Goddammit,” protested Nat.

“Not fast enough,” said Sean.

“Don’t worry,” said Pete, “Sean will only need two minutes.”

Nat waved a dismissive hand. “Shit, then I’ll get the room to myself. Lord knows I don’t want to fuck with one of you two clowns in the room.”

“Will you get the tequila already?” pressed Pete. “Moonlight’s burning.”

“All right. All right,” said Nat impatiently. He opened the front door and disappeared, closing it behind him.

“Ass-hat,” said Sean.

Nat descended the steps to the second floor. Before he turned to his room, he saw a short, dark shape standing down on the opposite end of the floor. He waved, but it just stood there, swaying in the neon light of the Sungod sign.

“Well, fuck you then,” muttered Nat as he began to walk in the other direction. He reached the door to his room, fished his keys out of his outfit, and opened the door. He looked to his right and still saw the small figure standing there at the other end, immobile except for the slight swaying motion.

“Creepy.” He let himself in, closed the door behind him, and then made a beeline for his suitcase. He unzipped it and pulled out a fresh bottle of tequila.

He rested the bottle on the sink and decided to relieve his bladder before leaving. He shivered as he returned some tequila. When he finished, he zipped up and, omitting the act of washing his hands, he snatched up the bottle of tequila.

He walked back to the front door and opened it. He jumped out of his skin when he saw a little old lady standing in his doorway. She wore a pink nightgown, her eye makeup apparently smeared around her eyes in dark smudges.

“Fancy a drink?” was all he could muster.

“Screeeeeeee!” The lady reached out and grabbed Nat as he dropped the bottle of tequila on the floor.

“Did you hear that?” asked Sean, started by the banshee wail.

“Probably two cats fighting,” said Pete, “or fucking.”

“That’s probably what you sound like when you’re fucking,” slurred Sean, swaying on his feet.

Pete winked. “You’ll find out in a little bit…What’s taking numb-nuts so long?”

“Probably taking a good shit,” said Sean.

Nat fell backward as the old lady fell on top of him, clawing his face and biting his fingers as he pushed her face away from his. She bit down and ripped off the index and middle fingers on his right hand down to his knuckles.

His mouth opened wide in a silent scream as the old woman bit down on his neck, tearing flesh and skin away. She hovered over him as he clamped his left hand down on his neck and the old woman chewed on his skin like a cow chewing on curd.

“You crazy bitch! You fucking bit me!” He rolled away from her. When she reached out for him again, he kicked her in the face, but she still kept coming.

Nat rolled onto his belly and commando crawled across the carpet.

She crawled after him on her hands and knees, scurrying like a crab on the beach.

He felt cold, probing fingers on his sneakers and then his ankles as he crawled across the carpet. He looked over his shoulder and kicked the crazy old bag in the face, before finally squirming out of her grip.

He pushed himself up off the carpet and dashed for the back door to the balcony. The old lady screeched at him and was getting clumsily to her feet, which bought him the extra few seconds he needed.

Panicked, he grabbed the doorknob and twisted, forgetting to unlock it as the lady was on her feet and lurching toward him.

He cursed himself for squandering his tenuous lead on the rabid hag as he unlocked the door and flung it open. He threw himself out onto the balcony as the old woman projectile vomited across the short distance between them, covering him in brown bile and blood. He cried out in disgust and pulled the door shut as the old woman threw the weight of her body against the door.

Nat clutched his broken fingers, the open wounds covered in that pungent brown syrup, and he moaned. The old hag shrieked again from the other side of the door, and then Nat saw the doorknob start to jiggle.

He released his bleeding hand and grabbed the doorknob with his good hand as the crazy lady tried to turn it. He gripped it tightly, turning as hard as he could in the other direction as hot tears streamed down his face.

“Somebody, help! Help me, please!” he screamed into the night, his voice echoing slightly around the motel grounds. He prayed that someone would hear him.

“Screeeeeaaaaahhhh!” the old woman howled, matching him scream for scream, drowning out his desperate pleas for help.

A door slammed on the balcony directly above his. “Would you keep it down? I’ve got sleeping kids up here!” yelled a man. “Asshole,” he added as an afterthought, and then the door above slammed shut.

Suddenly, the knob stopped turning. Nat strained to look through the window, his heart beating out of his chest, and his broken fingers throbbing. He saw the shape of the old woman turn and shuffle out of the room through the frosted glass.

“What the fuck was that?” asked Sean.

“Probably some drunk asshole carrying on,” said Pete.

“Speaking of drunk assholes, what’s taking Nat so long?”

“He probably passed out in his room,” said Pete. “You know what that means…”

“We have the two escorts to ourselves.”

“Exactamundo, brochacho!”

As if on cue, there was a thud on the door.

“Speak of the devil…” said Pete, hopping up off the bed. He straightened out his clown getup and flattened his hair while looking in the mirror next to the television.

He then reached out, turned the knob, and opened the front door. He scratched his head.

There was an old woman with smoky eyes standing in the doorway with blood dripping from her mouth. She was baring her teeth in a snarl.

“You’re a bit older than your pics on the site,” said Pete dryly.

“Is it them?” asked Sean from behind Pete.

The old woman pitched forward and grabbed Pete by the throat.

“Jesus!” He stumbled backward.

The old woman snapped her jaws at him as she dripped blood and saliva from her chin onto his chest.

“What the fuck?” said Sean.

“Don’t just stand there! Get her off of me!”

Sean grabbed the old woman from behind by the waist and pulled her off Pete as she lashed out at him. “She’s strong,” said Sean.

“Get her out of here!”

Sean began to drag her by the waist toward the door when she turned around, reaching for his face. Her fingers slipped into his mouth as he gagged. She growled like a bobcat as she tried to crane her neck, her jaws still snapping.

“Sean!” Pete ran over to them and grabbed the old woman by the neck. He yanked hard, pulling the woman away from his friend and back farther into the room. Her fingers slipped out of Sean’s mouth as he gasped for air, gagging on the copper taste of blood.

She fought Pete, pulling in the direction of Sean, growling and shrieking like an animal.

Pete yanked so hard that he heard a snap, and the old woman’s head flopped to the side and then rolled to the back.

She groped the air around her, looking like a demonic bobble head, the angle of her head unnatural in relation to her neck, as if it had become dislocated.

“What the fuck is wrong with her?” shouted Pete.

Sean grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around while being careful to avoid the floppy head with the snapping jaws. He shoved her out the front door and grabbed the knob, pushing it shut. He locked the door and threw on the chain.

There was a loud thud, and the door shook as the woman shrieked like a banshee. Sean put all his weight up against the door, not trusting the flimsy lock and chain.

Pete’s cell phone erupted into a loud ring that startled both men. He instinctively picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“We’re here, sweetie,” said a sultry voice.

Pete swallowed hard as Sean braced himself against the pounding on the front door. “Uh, this isn’t the best time. Can we get a rain check?”

“Listen, asshole,” said the escort, dropping the veneer, “we came all this way.”

“Well…we’ve changed our minds.” He heard the bass of a male voice in the background. That would be the pimp. It was muffled, but he was pretty sure the guy was pissed.

The escort sighed heavily in exasperation. “Hey, if you don’t want to party, that’s fine by me, but we need to get paid for coming out here.”

“Pete, call the cops,” cried Sean as the doorknob jiggled furiously.

“If you call the cops, what are you going to say? The prostitutes you guys ordered won’t go away?” said the escort, thinking Sean was referring to her.

“No, you don’t understand!” pleaded Pete. “There’s this…crazy person trying to get into our room!”

“Yeah, right.” The phone changed hands. “I’m coming up there to find you assholes, and you’re going to pay up,” said an angry male voice. The pimp hung up the phone.

“Was that the hooker?” asked Sean, now grabbing the doorknob, trying to hold it still.

“She’s coming up with her pimp. They want their money.”

“They can fucking have it!”

“Hey, let’s sneak out the back. They can tangle with that crazy old bitch out there while we sneak out,” said Pete.

“Are you kidding? We’re three floors up?”

“The balconies are real close together. We can climb to the one next door.”

“And then what?” asked Sean. “They’ll see us.”

The pounding on the door stopped, and they heard footsteps outside.

“Who the fuck are you?” asked the deep male voice outside.

“What’s wrong with her head?” asked one of the escorts. It didn’t sound like Kyra, so it must’ve been the other one.

They heard the old woman wail and hurried footsteps. “Oh, shit!” shouted the pimp. There was growling and feet shuffling on the floor one door over.

“Now!” shouted Pete.

Pete ran to the back door, Sean following right behind, and onto the balcony. Sean closed the door behind them as Pete already had his leg over the balcony railing. He reached out, grabbed the railing of the next balcony, and hopped over to it.

Sean threw his leg over the railing as Pete pulled himself over and onto the next balcony. “C’mon, Sean,” he whispered.

Sean hopped to the next balcony, and Pete grabbed his hands, pulling him over the railing. Sean landed on the new balcony on his side, but he was on his feet quickly.

“One more over,” whispered Pete.

They each jumped to the next balcony, careful to get a good grip on the railing, as it was covered with beach towels draped over it set out to dry.