The Raven (A Jane Harper Horror Novel) (27 page)

What a shitty way to end a vacation.

The group heads for the stairwell, shielding their faces and the parasites behind their eyes from the flames. But they’re not fleeing the fire; they’re chasing the others. As Nate probably would have said, this is unacceptabru.

I pick up a bottle and whip it at the group before jumping over the side of the bar not engulfed in flames. I land on the opposite side about the same time the bottle clocks the underwear model in the back of the head.

She turns and sees me, which means they’ve all seen me.

The group, which is halfway down the stairs, pauses and turns toward me.

Whack!

A kamakazombie lands right next to me, its ample belly splitting open and loosing its contents as a red-and-white marbleized smear.

If I don’t get out of here soon, I’m dead.
But I can’t let this group follow the others. Not because Willem and Jakob couldn’t handle them, but because they might figure out what we’re up to.

When the tall brunette turns, I see the injury that has her thrown in with this gnarly lot. Her stomach is torn open. While a lot of her guts are missing and likely eaten, what remains crawls with parasites, each working to coat her insides with their gooey preservative.

She’d be easy to cut down. The long
katana
ensures that the Draugar won’t be able to get too close—that is, when I face them one at a time. But I don’t want to kill her yet. Facing off against
these twelve is not only dangerous but too slow. Sooner or later, more of these bastards will find a way past the wall of fire. If I’m still here when that happens, I’m screwed. Story of my recent life. Move or die.

The woman is a good foot taller than me, and that hole in her stomach kind of puts a monkey wrench in my plan. So instead of kicking her hard in the stomach, I leap up and jam my foot against her chest. The blow stumbles her back. She collides with the others, but the group catches her and props her up again.

So much for the bowling-ball plan.

Time for plan B.

I draw my spare pistol and fire it seven times before the ammo runs out.

Five zombies, including hottie-bo-bottie and four of the winter-clad gang, drop to the floor. There are still seven undead closing in, but I’ve blazed a trail of bodies straight down the middle of the pack. I waste no time dashing forward, stepping on the dead as I run through the group. I swing out with my sword. It’s a random swing, but it manages to eviscerate the bathrobed man. He trips on his insides and pitches forward.

With the stairs just ahead, I think I’m home free when something snags my ankle. My forward momentum snaps to a stop, and I flop to the floor like I’ve been lassoed. I look back and see the bathrobed man. He managed to grab hold of my ankle when he fell forward.

His grip tightens with inhuman strength. I feel my scabbed-over leg wound reopen as the skin below it is compressed. A scream of pain bursts from my mouth, but it’s coupled with action. I bring the sword down, severing the arm and the tendons pulling the fingers tight.

The hand falls away, but the pain remains. I channel my inner Jesse the Body Ventura, tell myself,
I ain’t got time to bleed
, and roll backward. The roll takes me away from the six remaining Draugr but over the side of the top step.

As I fall back, I have the presence of mind to fling the sword down ahead of me. It’s not that I don’t need the weapon anymore—I do—but falling down stairs with a razor-sharp sword is akin to walking into a doctor’s office with a paper cut and shouting, “Take the arm!”

Without the sword hacking off my limbs or taking my attention, I manage to partially control my descent and keep myself from being knocked silly. I’ll probably be covered in purple polka-dot bruises if I live to see another day, but I make it down the steps in record time, recover the sword, and still have time to taunt the nearest Draugr.

“Hurry up, Suzy-Q!” I shout as I separate the bathrobed woman’s legs at the shin. She topples to the side, catching herself on the next step down. But the well-dressed man beside her steps on her head, twists his already shredded ankle, and falls. He rolls down the stairs far less gracefully than I did. When he reaches my feet, I put him out of his misery.

I consider taking care of the others and following after Willem and Jakob, but that idea is quickly squelched by the sound of an alarm, which is followed quickly by the sound of spraying water. The ship’s computer system is smart enough to trigger the sprinklers where the fire is without saturating the entire ship, but not smart enough to realize those flames were the only thing keeping the Draugar at bay.

Running feet and loud moans drown out the hissing spray. They’re coming for me. And since I’ve managed to kill another few
thousand of their kind, I have a feeling my end will be slow and painful.

I turn and run but don’t follow the next flight of stairs down. Instead, I enter the casino. Flashing lights, dinging bells, and mechanical voices surround me. “Howdy, partner,” says a slot machine as I pass. “Give me a whirl!”

Rows of slots stretch down the center of the casino. Pews for the Church of the Almighty Dollar. Toward the end of the slots, I see a gray-haired woman sitting at one of the machines. Her head is dipped forward, but her hand is raised and clutching a quarter that’s halfway in the slot. I prepare to strike her down with the sword, but there’s something different about her. She looks…dead. Like
dead
dead, rather than living dead. When I step up next to her, I see her eyes. The color is faded, but I can still see the brown of her eyes. Not a Draugr. Never a Draugr. She died playing slots while the ship around her went to hell. Old bag went out the way she wanted to, I guess.

I duck behind the old woman’s machine as the horde reaches the bottom of the stairs. I’m not sure if out of sight, out of mind will stumble them up, but I need to catch my breath.

The motion-sensitive slot machines near the entrance start jabbering. The electronic solicitations are greeted with angry grunts. The sound of smashing machinery follows. Are they angry at the machines or my disappearance?

Whatever the cause, it seems to have slowed them down long enough for me to suck in a few breaths. But there are more voices joining the chorus. The sound of awkward footfalls grows louder. They’re congregating at the entrance.

I look to my left. The wall of slots will hide me from them if I stay low. If I can make it to the side of the room, I might be able to reach the far side before they spot me heading for the exit.

Committing to the plan, I carefully slip the sword into the scabbard still slung over my back. I’m going to need both hands free to crawl. I push off the slot machine and onto my knees.

A metallic
cling
freezes me in place. The sound of a coin making its way through the inside of the slot machine feels like gunshot. I cringe, knowing it was my motion that knocked the woman’s hand loose.

The din at the entrance quiets in response to the sound. But nothing moves.

Well, nothing except the old woman. I can almost see her ghost hovering above her corpse, saying, “One more game!” and then shoving her old body forward. I hear a bang, which can only be the woman’s face striking the glass. Then her hand falls and strikes the lever just hard enough to trigger the digital slot machine.

The thing ticks loudly. I can’t see the images scrolling by, but I know they are. Then one by one, they stop.

An alarm blares.

A spinning red light flashes.

Coins rattle into the metal tray.

Granny Smith is a winner. Which makes me the world’s biggest loser.

The horde and I burst into motion at the same time. A quick look back as I leap out of my hiding place reveals at least fifty of the mangled monsters.

The space beyond the slots is more spaced out, with roulette, card, and craps tables. While the tables aren’t a problem, the chairs that surrounded them are now strewn about the room, forming a chaotic maze. I leap, twist, and hop my way through rather than clearing a path. The Draugar will have a harder time with the obstacles than I do.

I’m close to the far side exit when a single zombie stumbles into view, blocking my path. He’s an average-size man in a casual jacket. Part of his leg is missing, as are several of his teeth.

They’re moving to cut me off
, I think. A second man stumbles into the entrance, this one dressed as a waiter except the arm that might normally hold a tray of food is missing at the shoulder.

There must be a staircase beyond the doors. Knowing that more could arrive at any moment, I rush toward the open arms and maws of my nightmares made real.

W
ith just twenty feet between me and the two Draugar blocking my path, I reach for my sword but then decide against it. Using the blade will mean stopping to swing, parry, and swing again. It’s a delay that could allow the horde at my heels time to close the gap.

I see a chair, intending to use it as a shield and ram my way past the two men, but find a better option. A roulette table has been tipped on its side. It looks like it was attacked by an ax; blood smears hint at the demise of whoever tried to use the table as a shield. It’s the roulette wheel that grabs my attention. The thick wooden disk is separated from the table, leaning against it.

Without stopping, I take hold of the top of the wheel and lift. “Ugh.” I grunt at the effort. It’s a lot heavier than I thought. At least fifty pounds. But the adrenaline pulsing through my body enables me to lift it. I take two more steps forward, spinning as I move. Centrifugal force makes the wheel nearly impossible to hold on to, but that’s also the idea.

I let go of the wheel and send a spinning blur of red and black toward the pair blocking my path. The solid disk strikes the first man in the face, knocking out his few remaining teeth, imploding his jaw, and knocking him back. He and the wheel smash into the waiter, and they fall together like a pair of dominoes.

The waiter is pinned, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching up for me as I leap over him. He probably would have caught me, too, if he hadn’t tried to use his missing arm. Instead of catching me, he just looks silly. I’ve heard that people who lose limbs can sometimes still feel the arm or leg like it’s still there, sometimes even having an itch that’s impossible to scratch. Seems the parasite’s sense of the world is dependent on how the host brain processes external information—except for sight, they’ve hijacked that sense directly. But they can only smell, feel, and hear the world as well as their host can. I doubt they can taste a thing, though, not with the way they turn the tongue into a parasite delivery system.

I clear the two fallen undead unscathed and dash through the open end of the casino. Had there been doors, I might stop and try to lock them, but the entrance to the casino is open wide, ready to pilfer money from passengers 24/7. So I don’t slow as I enter the large hall beyond.

The hallway is short but wide, really just a junction. The staircases descend on either side of the casino entrance. I can hear shuffling feet from above as more Draugar move to cut me off. A hallway branches off to the left, labeled “Promenade Bar, Library, Starboard Deck.” A hallway on the opposite side reads “Internet Café, Salon, Port Deck.” Straight ahead are two sets of glass double doors—shattered—beneath a sign that reads “Yan’s Sushi Bar.” No offense to Yan, but rotting raw fish is not a scent that will improve what is already the world’s most nauseous experience. A second sign on the wall of the port hall catches my attention. It’s a crude drawing of a small boat with the text “In case of emergency—Lifeboats this way.”

If I can’t lose the Draugar in the maze of hallways, rooms, and bars, then maybe I can hide from them in a lifeboat. With no time to debate, I head left.

The mash of intersecting hallways, though clearly labeled, really is a maze, and while there may not be a minotaur waiting at the ship’s core, I think I’d prefer the half-bull, half-human myth to the swarm of zombies. I follow the lifeboat signs, turning left, then right, then left again. The sound of pursuing footsteps fades with every turn. Without a single direction to head or clear target, the hive is going to have to think in several directions at once. They’ll follow me for sure, but not all of them.

I push through a door and am shocked as cold air hits me. I’m outside. The cruise ship, along with every other ship bound to the moving island, has its lights on, illuminating the ocean with a brightness equivalent to the noonday sun. Shivering, I close the door and latch it shut. It’s not locked, but the metal latch offers some warning if anything opens the door.

I step up to the rail and take in the view. The stars of the night sky are obscured by the artificial light.

They can’t see in the dark, either
, I remind myself. My relief at being able to see is quickly consumed by the realization that I can also
be seen
.

Jangling chains draw my attention up to the ceiling. Several chains with carabiners at the end hang there. There are three groups of four. What the—
damn
.

“They’re gone,” I whisper. A quick glance to the right reveals more of the same. Three long lifeboats had once hung here. The winches on the overhang above confirm it, but now the cables are stretched out and attached to the neighboring ship’s rail.

Some of them escaped
, I think. Word of the zombie infection must have spread faster than the infection itself, and some of the people made it off the ship.
And now they’re out there.
I look at the dark ocean beyond the conglomeration of ships.
Probably freezing. Lost. Desperate. In short, a hell of a lot better than being here.

But they’ve also taken my hiding place.

The deck to my right stretches two hundred feet before ending at an entrance. But about half that distance is another entrance. I have no idea where it goes, but the sign with the little stick figure descending a staircase that hangs above the door means it heads down. And since Willem, Jakob, and Steven are on the floor below me, down is good.