Chapter 22

When Mia and Tom arrived at the hotel, they found the place completely surrounded by black and whites. Behind each of the vehicles, cops with wide, frightened eyes squatted with their guns drawn. Several portable spotlights had been brought to the scene and their bright beams traced back and forth across every face of the historic building. As Tom and Mia drew close, they could see that a bullet ridden body was lying on the sidewalk in front of the shattered hotel entryway.

In a combat crouch, Tom ran from the car to the side of the nearest police officer. Mia, remaining upright, followed at a far more sedate pace, her eyes roving up and down the besieged building.

Tom asked the officer, whose name tag proclaimed him to be "Rudowski," "What's the situation?"

"Fucked if I know," Rudowski replied, his eyes never looking away from the darkened hotel entrance, "We got a garbled radio message from some patrolmen who had noticed that the lights were out in the lobby. They entered and reported some pretty horrible shit. There were some shouts, some gunfire, some screams, and then nothing."

"Okay," Tom replied as he nodded toward the body on the sidewalk, "What's the story on that guy? Who shot him?"

"That would be us, sir," Rudowski answered, "Problem is the bastard won't stay down."

Before Tom could ask another question, Mia crouched down next to him and, in a hushed voice, said, "The place is teeming with ferals. Hundreds of them. Their hunger is nearly overwhelming. But, I can also sense fear. There are still some survivors inside."

There was a sudden flurry of activity as the body on the sidewalk began to twitch and then rose to its knees. Its face was that of an average, middle aged man, but it looked around at the surrounding officers with a snarl of hatred and rage, its lips pulled back to reveal elongated canines. Immediately, gunfire broke out from across the line of police. The feral's body jerked violently as bullets tore through its flesh while stray shots added to the damage that previous fusillades had inflicted upon the hotel entryway. The gunfire slowed and then ceased as clips were depleted and the feral's body again slumped to the sidewalk.

The undead had only been motionless for seconds when all eyes went upwards at the sound of something heavy striking glass. On roughly the fifteenth floor, Tom could see one of the windows vibrate as someone or something struck it repeatedly from within. As they watched, the window cracked and then shattered; shards of glass arching down to tinkle upon the pavement. A man's face appeared in the window and, in a voice filled with horror, he shouted out for help before turning to face back into the room. A lost and forlorn cry echoed out into the night as the man launched himself from the opening. In the intense beams of the spotlights which had converged on the plummeting figure, Tom could see that the terror in the man's features actually faded as he hurtled toward the pavement far below.

Before the jumper had reached the sharp, sudden and fatal stop that awaited him, two more forms launched themselves out from the building. Unlike the first man, these two showed no sign of fear. Rather, their limbs twisted and their mouths opened and closed spasmodically as they continued to strive to reach the quarry that had resorted to such desperate means to escape them.

The sickening thuds of flesh striking concrete had not yet faded when the two pushed themselves up from the ground. As they rose, the massive but bloodless lacerations that they had sustained in the fall closed shut and their bent and broken limbs straightened as shattered bones popped back into place. Again the air was rent by the crack of small arms fire and the figures were thrown to the ground by the impact of dozens, if not hundreds, of bullets.

Tom ran back to his car to retrieve his crossbow; in his confidence that the crisis had been brought to an end, he hadn't bothered replacing the improvised spears that been lost in the battle the night before. He loaded it as he ran in close enough to the downed ferals to be certain of a lethal hit even with his meager skills. He had fired bolts deeply into the chests of the two vampiric jumpers when a shout warned him that the feral by the entrance was rising again. Tom scrambled backwards to clear the fields of fire of his fellow policemen. When the feral had again been put down by a hail of bullets, Tom sprinted forward and fired a bolt into its chest from point blank range to make certain that, this time, it would stay dead.

Returning to Rudowski and Mia's side, Tom appropriated the officer's radio and called out for his team to assemble at his location. Within minutes, all seven of the team members who were still healthy enough to fight had gathered around him. Tom knew that he could easily bolster the thin ranks with volunteers from the large force that surrounded the hotel, but, without appropriate weapons, they could only be a liability. With this in mind, he ordered that all but his team stay outside the hotel.

When his men had readied their weapons, he led them forward toward the hotel entrance. Even with Mia's assistance, he knew that their odds weren't good, but, with survivors still remaining in the building, they had to try.

At the entrance, they stopped for a few seconds while Mia probed ahead with her extended senses. When she announced that the lobby was clear of ferals, they moved forward cautiously. Each of their steps produced loud crunching sounds as they ground bits of lead crystal from the fallen and broken chandeliers beneath their feet. They had only penetrated a few yards when they heard the crunch of glass behind them.

Turning, Tom saw that at least thirty uniformed officers had followed them in. Before Tom could protest, one of them said, "Look detective, we know you told us to stay out of here, but you're going to get your asses kicked with only nine of you." Brandishing his sidearm, he added, "We might not be able to kill these things, but we can knock them down while you do."

Tom reluctantly admitted that the man was right and gratefully accepted the help.

The group had penetrated a few yards farther into the darkened ruins of the lobby when a number of the officers turned on their flashlights and shined the beams around the cavernous room. What the light revealed made Tom's mind go numb with horror. The central lobby had previously been surrounded by elegant wooden railings, but the handrails had been torn off and the majority of the posts, which were thick in the middle and tapered to a point at each end, had been broken loose. On each of the posts that remained a body had been impaled, some face up, some face down and some sitting unnaturally erect. Almost all wore the colonial era costumes of hotel staff.

While those that were vertical had obviously died as the act was carried out, the bloody hand prints on the posts that jutted through the bodies of those who were horizontal showed that they had continued to live for some time. In many cases, there was evidence that they had died at the fangs and hands of ferals rather than as a direct result of being impaled.

Tom's team dispersed to check for life signs, but each of the men who leaned down to touch a finger to a throat or wrist straightened quickly with a sharp shake of the head. What had been done here was an abomination, but Tom knew that they couldn't linger when there might still be living people above them. As it was apparent that nothing could be done for any of these hapless men and women, Tom motioned for his team to move on. With a few hastily muttered prayers, his group followed closely behind him. Only Mia stayed behind. She walked quickly around the edge of the lobby and gathered up the posts that had been knocked loose.