Chapter 29 Truth In Advertising
Truth In Advertising
Cass nearly went over backward, not from fear but in sheer surprise as Nigel blinked out of existence in front of her and reappeared less than a heartbeat later across the room.
More precisely, he hit the door like a freight train and took out a good chunk of wall to either side.
The guy had a serious fondness for Kool-Aid Man-style property damage, and the change from shy, near-stammering awkwardness to sword-swinging barbarian was jarring.
The hallway lights, bright bulbs trapped in sconces, blinked as a barrage of lightning sizzled around the edges of the curtains, and the thunder was almost immediate.
Christ, with weather like this it’s a wonder anyone lives here. Cass peered through confused, twisting shadows, and her heart gave a shattering leap.
The broad-shouldered, dripping thing lurching at Nigel gleamed wetly in stuttering electric light. A hideous, inimical stench drifted into the room and her gorge rose, hot bile whipping at the back of her throat. She recognized that scent.
Death, and gassy wet decomposition.
Trailing scarves and ribbons of darkness lifted like seaweed, seen not quite with her eyes but those strange inner senses that made her a freak.
Still, the physical view was bad enough, because the thing’s shoulders were familiar, its flayed legs encased in torn, rot-sodden jeans, and the filthy ruins of a violently pink and yellow Hawaiian shirt flapped as the corpse lunged, tiny bits of meat plopping just over the room’s threshold.
It wore a ruined simulacrum of Frank Bernadotte’s face, jaw working as it champed under a mass of curling hair clotted with mud, rancid yellow foam spraying from its lips as it moaned.
The noise mutated into a long trailing hiss, and Cass realized the thing was trying to speak as its shriveled eyes rolled, each frozen, desiccated pupil bearing a cold blue glare the exact color of the pinpricks sometimes showing up in Nigel’s or Edward’s eyes.
No. Oh God no.
The second zombie was taller, built rangy instead of broad in the beam, and its stiff, mud-clotted hair was cut just like Apoc’s.
Half its face had rotted to spongy yellowed skull, and more pieces of near-liquid flesh fell with those horrible little plopping noises, barely audible under another dry crash of thunder.
Cass’s hands clapped over her mouth. She couldn’t even try lunging out of her body; terror robbed her of the scenario reflex and she knew this was no dream.
Her heart pounded in her ears, muffled thumps drowning out thunder and clatter.
The curious, familiar metallic taste of adrenaline filled her throat; her feet tangled together before she was conscious of moving and she staggered, her knee hitting the rumpled bed.
I could just go out the window, she thought, dreamily. A few moments of weightlessness as she fell, and all this madness could be over forever.
The hall lights strobed, Nigel flickering between them, the sword a solid silver bar almost seeming to flex as it clove disturbed air.
A horizontal cut, slicing swollen, sagging flesh and yellow bone; the thing wearing Frank’s face gave a grinding, terrible hiss as viscous black fluid splattered in a high, oddly slow arc.
A half-turn, blade sweeping upward, and he nearly cut the Apoc-creature in half as well, ribs snapping like matchsticks.
The taller zombie’s jaw fell, exposing jagged-broken, yellowed teeth.
Nigel reversed with near-inhuman speed, metal giving a soft low sound of strain.
The sword was absurd, neither it nor its wielder should move so fast, but another swift turn accompanied by a high keening metallic whoosh and the Bern-thing’s arm fell with a wet, sickening thud.
Both the rotting, shambling bogeys stared straight at Cass, as if not noticing the man methodically chopping them into bits. The Bern-thing’s moaning hiss repeated over and over, and she realized what it was trying to say.
Sssss… Kaaaah…sssss…
The Apoc-shaped bogey echoed the sounds, hunching obscenely because its ribs were now caved in. Cass’s knees failed; she folded down, her knees thumping onto pleasant blue-and-yellow carpet.
Cass. Caaaaaasss.
Nigel glided backward, soundless-swift, and turned again, the sword singing. A nice solid thwock!, and the Bern-bogey’s head was walloped clean off its shoulders, eyes full of that horrid wet blue shine, the mouth leering wide in obscene quasi-surprise.
Cass tried to scream, but all she could produce was a dry croak.
There was a terrific pressure behind her eyeballs, as if they were going to pop right out of her head; the stench was thick, cloying, and rolled through the room on a heavy tide of thunder.
More lightning flashed, and the curtains quivered.
She recognized that flapping, filthy Hawaiian shirt. After all, she’d bought it herself.
Nigel stuttered through space again, a short hop—no longer here, suddenly there, and the Apoc-thing’s head hit tasteful hotel carpet with a damp sound, like a watermelon dropped on the freeway.
She recognized the stubborn curl that lingered to the right of his forehead and the boots, his regular desert-taupe Army surplus numbers with the red-and-black laces found on sale during a recent supply run.
Oh hey, thanks, Cass. He’d grinned and bumped her shoulder with his elbow, the impact carefully gauged. I’ll be stylin’.
Nigel wasn’t done yet. He descended on the bodies with a further flurry of sword-strokes, and the juicy, nasty sounds made Cass’s gorge rise afresh.
She choked on bile, and only both hands sealed over her lips stopped her from spraying thin hot vomit.
Her nose burned, her eyes watered furiously, and her pulse was so loud it rivaled the sky’s crashing—yet it couldn’t drown out those awful, croaking efforts to pronounce her name.
Cass… Cass…
Reduced to quivering parts, the two zombie-bogeys oozed brackish pudding. Nigel made a complicated movement, the blade slashed clean and shining before it returned to his back and he hurried away from the hole in the door, boots squelching in corpse-juice.
Cass stared at the carpet springing back up from his footsteps, either slowly because it was saturated or a quickly as he wiped his soles, scuffing slightly. Just like one of her squad entering the RV on a rainy day.
Oh, God.
“Up.” He was right in front of her now, bending swiftly to grab her shoulders. “Get up, my lirai. Time to leave.”
* * *
He lifted her over the twitching, oozing ruins; Cass realized vaguely that a klaxon was blaring and emergency lights strobing at the end of the hall. Drywall dust danced in the air, flashing, and the thunder was constant.
Nigel paused, glancing at the stairwell door, and shook his head. He set off for the elevators, and Cass wondered who else was on this floor. Why were the alarms going? Lightning, fire, or had his tearing a big hole in the wall triggered something?
Or maybe it was the zombies? Were there such things as bogey alarms? It would’ve made her squad’s job so much easier.
“—between floors.” Nigel was saying something.
Cass shook her head, knowing some response was required.
The soft cotton stuffing of shock was in her ears, or she was deafened by her own pounding heart.
No Trille around to administer chemical signals to her poor stupid body; if her cardiac muscle exploded under this strain, it would save everyone so much trouble.
She blinked, and the next thing she knew Cass was propped against the metal wall of an elevator, clinging to a metal handrail. A funny melting sensation just under her ribs told her the contraption was descending, and Nigel’s dark head was tilted, blue eyes bright as he listened intently.
Does he like Muzak or something? Cass discovered she was shivering in great gripping waves, her teeth chattering. The carpet in here was short-pile, alive with blue and green stripes; his boots left faint marks she tried not to look at.
Nigel’s chin came down. He leaned forward slightly, punching the emergency stop button. The elevator halted with a jolt, nearly emptying her stomach again.
“What are you doing?” she heard someone whisper, and realized the voice was hers.
I sound scared to death. Well, it was truth in advertising.
“Traps on the stairs,” he replied, grimly. “No worries, I anticipated as much. Just stay calm.”
I am not calm at all. The effort not to scream was immense, exhausting, useless. “Bern,” she whispered. “Apoc. It… those were…”
“Your friends were already dead.” He considered the door for another moment, then reached up, hooking his fingers in the central seam.
His shoulders swelled, the swordhilt glinting slightly, and he forced the door-halves away from each other.
Metal groaned. “They are at peace now; I am… sorry, that you had to see it. Just keep breathing.”
The elevator had halted partly between the second and third floors, a layered slice of concrete and metal showing at the top of the doorway. Funny, Cass had never thought about how floors in multi-story buildings were made; it was enough that they didn’t buckle underneath her.
“Quickly,” Nigel continued, turning and holding out a hand. “The god drove them right to your door, which shouldn’t be possible. But we’re still faster.”
Cass’s hands wouldn’t listen to her, stuck fast to the metal railing.
“You should go.” Hoarse and hopeless, she stared at the underpinnings revealed by stopping where guests weren’t supposed to.
The fire alarm kept wailing so hard she could barely hear the storm.
“Please. Just leave me.” You’ll die too if you stay.
“Can’t, love.” He stepped across intervening space and took her arm, fingers closing gently but irrevocably, drawing her away from the wall. “That’s what sealed means. Watch your head.”