Hotel of Madness Read online

  “Then what are they!”

  “Intelligent life from beyond your concept of spacetime. Think very illegal aliens.”

  That silences the crowd for a minute as I find a space for myself. I look for bandages and alcohol wipes, which I do find thankfully, and start wrapping my injured parts. Susan watches me for a minute before deciding to help, which isn’t a small favor considering how bad a job I’m doing.

  “Don’t forget my left leg,” I say with a genuine smile. She works fast and is naturally inclined to help.

  “Are there any spare 2x’s in here?”

  She leaves to retrieve one, probably from an impromptu version of lost and found.

  “So you don’t turn if you get bitten?” asks the glasses chick, her face blank as stone, exhausted from fear.

  “That’s ridiculous. You get bitten by a zombie, you turn, everyone knows that!” a worked-up teenager replies.

  As I put on the shirt, a white tee with a picture of Sasuke Uchiha in the center, I roll my aching shoulders and look at the girl. “I told you no such thing as zombies. However, yes, you do turn if you get bitten by one of those things. And for all intents and purposes, treat them like zombies.”

  “So why are you so sure you won’t turn?”

  “I have a slightly better immune system than the average person.” Well, inhumanly better. “And also, it only takes five minutes to turn into one of those. So once infected, you wouldn’t have time to even pretend you weren’t.”

  Now I have the time to think. Never too late to make a run for it. But judging by the rate of this plague, it’ll be in New York in less than 72 hours. And a global problem by the end of next week. Running would just buy time. Maybe get far enough away from Derek’s no-call zone for me to get real back up.

  What gives the human race a fighting chance? Find the Necronomicon and maybe pull off a four-dimensional chest maneuver or get help and hope the federal government nukes the state of Maryland? While I’m sitting here, I might as well try the former. If the current owner gets on 295, I might as well take option B.

  So I focus. Hopefully, the door to this room holds because nothing is more embarrassing than having a permanent out-of-body experience. The perspective shift comes, but I can’t afford to replay events from the last time I touched it, so I skip forward to what I figure should be a safe enough bet that our two consciousness won’t occupy the same time and space.

  Pandemonium. Chaos. Disorder. The Holder is running now. The Seeker is not far behind. They push through the mob of strangers, the seekers' words propelling the Holder past the limits of declining physical form.

  “What if we did something else?” The Holder can’t bear the thought, won’t bear the thought. Relief is felt, an exit, the exit is there. Fuck me, he is getting out of Dodge, ain’t he. But then the book feels it, I feel it, we both notice it, but I feel dread. The insurance policy left behind by Derek. As the Holder runs for the exit, he is stopped suddenly and forcefully by a presence. A woeful presence whose mind and soul have been hollowed out by geas. What faces the Holder is no more than an automaton.

  “We need to check your bag.” It speaks, the presence reaching for the confined space that holds me.

  * * *

  The Seeker grabs the Holder. She tugs and pulls and tells him to “run” with all the urgency of a compulsion without the power. He indeed runs and follows her lead. The automatons give chase. They see me, but only at an extremely short distance. Their minds are far gone enough that what's left can accommodate a minor third eye. So they run, the Holder following the seeker's intuition, the lust, and admiration for her the only thing keeping the Holder going.

  My influence has touched the Seeker, but I can give her inspiration directly with only a little more. I drain the Holder. His steps grow weary before he collapses altogether. His hopes, dreams, wants, and desires are being put to a better purpose, a higher purpose, as I reach out to the new Holder. She pauses, noticing her friend has fallen, but concern for him is absent. She sees opportunity and wealth beyond her imagination, her thirst for knowledge being sated, and the mysteries of worlds beyond lay before her. She grabs me and runs as the automatons close in. Her mind is clear and determined but also unaware of my consciousness.

  * * *

  The sensations of the book abruptly stop as if somehow protecting her. From Dura’g or from me? Fuck I mean zombies. Suddenly I feel the light of perspective. The book is free and being read. I groan at the realization, but I’m also desperate to find any hint of where they are. I spread my awareness as she reads, and the book is preoccupied with showing her what it wants her to know. The Necronomicon fundamentally is a telephone to the other side. The other side being the place where Gods and monsters wait, chomping at the bit to eat plain old vanilla reality. Now a telephone by itself isn’t dangerous, but like giving a smartphone to Timmy, the five-year-old, don’t be surprised if the little bastard spends five thousand dollars on microtransactions. Mobile gaming and the Book of the Dead have this in common; they're predatory in nature, and while one tries to empty your bank account, the other tries to phone home. And if my recent experience with technomancy can teach anyone anything, it’s that two-way communication is a perfectly viable medium for necromancy. The rareness of this book is mostly due to its uncanny ability to eventually call an uber back home and take persons or civilizations with them.

  However, if you're experienced, the book is mostly harmless. You can use it to look up a concordance of spells used by actual Daemon lords, real-life principalities, and risk-free ways to look beyond the veil at very low prices. Basically an occult smartphone with all the ease of use that implies. As I try to find context clues, I eventually figure out she ran into the staff area. Not the best place to hide from security, but she also barricaded herself inside a break room.

  Also, she killed two people with a coffee machine. Which is... Jesus... So the room is warm with their freshly eaten souls. The Necronomicon is brimming with power now, and I feel the tug of time overlapping. Fuck this was recent?

  “There should be something in here to send them back,” the Seeker implores, obliging me to answer… in a fashion.

  “OH FUCKING JESUS CHRIST ON A GODDAMN GRAHAM CRACKER!!”

  As I return to my own body and mind, I realize I just said that out loud. Fuck! Now I have to stop this chick before she unintentionally makes things worse. Fucking hell on graham cracker being shoved down an anal cavity! The book is made of human skin! Why read the book bound in human skin?

  “Are you ok?” Miss Susan interrupts my existential crisis. Something bad is about to happen, and the Hero geas is working overtime to propel me forward.

  “I’m… ok. I just realized I—” ok, calm down, “—dropped my keys.”

  She doesn’t believe me. I look around. Everyone in the room is now paying attention to me, the man with the Crocodile Dundee knife. I see no one else believes me either. I could stop to explain that extradimensional aliens from another reality are hijacking people's bodies and debunk the common myth about zombies. Ok, I sort of did that already. Maybe I should further explain how said zombies were brought here by some horny man-child who wanted to impress a big titty goth girl (I’m assuming here) with a cure for the cesspool of germs called ‘con-plague.’ Then fast forward to describe how the same goth girl managed to bash in the brains of two hotel staff probably minding their own business during the zombie apocalypse, with a coffee marker. And is now trying to fix her late hook-ups mistake with an impromptu spell from the same book that caused this mess in the first place. In hindsight, I would like to think she did all that under the influence, but the Necronomicon really only draws on what you kinda already know. Even if she didn’t make the critical connection that turns a dabbler into a practitioner, a part of her knew and knew enough that she without hestitation ended two lives hoping to save millions.

  Or how about even better that? How about the fact none of this shit would have happened if I didn’t want some vac
ation money for my trip to Turkey. Oh man, I’d really like to get that off my chest, and I am about to when the lights go out.

  That Bitch

  “That fucking bitch!”

  And here I am, trying to cut my losses. Greg’s dead, probably a side effect of casting the spell that caused this mess in the first place. How the fuck did he read my book is a better question. I got it in Sumerian to prevent this kind of fuck up. Now that bitch has it.

  I look at my two remaining friends, whose minds are under my iron grip for their own safety and partially for my own convenience. Can’t have them distracting me with questions about dead cosplayers, my use of compulsions, and how long I’ve been a wizard. They don’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way.

  And besides, they’re liable to do something stupid if left to their own devices. Not that they can get into much, considering we’ve been stuck in this elevator for the past ten minutes. The power went out just when I got a bead on where that bitch was. Maybe I could jerry-rig a solution to move the elevator the last three floors I need to reach the convention level. But that would require burning all my wards, which is my only defense against those things. Can’t even call them zombies at this point. The most I can do is convince them that I’m not here, anyway. Which came in handy considering I ended up on an elevator set to go up and had to literally convince every desperate person and undead this booth was taken.

  After the elevator finished stopping on every floor on the way up, the power went out just as it started going down. Just my luck, and even better, the backup power didn’t kick in, so I’m in between floors. There has to be a way to crank it down manually. I look at Sam and Matt and judge that Sam would be better at fitting through the emergency hatch. But being mesmerized tends to drastically reduce your IQ; without specific instructions, he can’t possibly figure it out due to a lack of critical thinking skills.

  But I do have the only working smartphone in the National Harbor. So I can look up this elevator and check for an emergency manual. Which would have been a good idea, if my phone wasn’t dead.

  * * *

  The zombies have figured out survivors are inside the nursing station. Though abandoning them would be the smart thing, the teenager, the volunteer nurse, the chick with the glasses, the guy sleeping off a vodka binge (I envy him), and the 30-something neckbeard probably don’t deserve to die. And besides, I’ll have to fight my way out of here and probably through a horde of undead on the way to stop that misguided white woman from making things worse.

  Which, to be honest, wouldn’t be the first time.

  Anyway, first things first. “Wake up, asshole.” Bloodshot eyes greet me and suddenly double back upon seeing my scars and the dried blood. “Easy there. Just need you awake.”

  The cell phones coincidently died during the blackout, which is an important detail that I’d rather not contemplate right now, so we’re all fumbling in the dark. It’s a small miracle they were able to start a barricade.

  “Alright, I know this seems bad, but if you follow my lead, most of you are going to survive this.”

  “What do you mean by most of us?” the teenager croaks. I try my best to not think less of him due to him being pre-pubescent, but that’s very hard.

  “Look, you have two choices, stay here till help shows up or make it to your mode of transportation of choice.”

  “Through all those zombies?” The glasses chick's doubt is reasonable and also shared by the rest of the audience.

  “If you stay, they’ll eventually pound their way through, and I personally can’t protect all of you if that happens.” I take a deep breath, “Also, something worse is bound to happen if I stay here waiting around for shit, so I need to get going.”

  The crowd is apprehensive, even I’m doubtful I can help them escape, but I can try.

  “So you're leaving us?” the neckbeard wobbles, not the bravest chap in this lot.

  “Well… guy, I can’t really save the world from here. Kinda is my job.”

  “You can’t be serious.” I can’t really see his face, but I’m sure it's hopelessness and bemusement having a baby.

  “I am. I can explain, but that would require me to take you on as apprentices, and, well, Batman’s Robins tend to have a high mortality rate. So what I can do is give you the tools to make an escape. Or you can wait here and hope that door holds.”

  “What if we choose to help?” I don’t even have to look at Susan to know she is sincere.

  “That would be unwise.”

  “The way I see it, you're the only one that seems to know what's going on. Or, at the very least, you’re not pissing yourself. So I figure I’m safer with you.”

  No. No. None of that. “Look, I’m not running in the opposite direction of this. If I were, sure, but I’m not. Stay here or make a run for it. You’ve got until I finish preparing to decide.”

  They murmur to themselves, which I tune out as I get started. First and foremost, wards. About five should do, and you don't need to be a practitioner to make use of them. Also, weapons; in a normal situation, you give a swat team a couple of banishment rounds inscribed with pigs' blood. The principle is simple, standard bullets plus a spell set to “exterminate.” The blood inscription is for flavor; the Daemon will instinctively try to consume the Other left in the blood, which activates the banishment under its own power. Relatively risk-free and easy enough that the average person only needs to believe the bullets should kill it to work.

  But inside an impromptu nursing station, the only thing here is chairs, tables, cabinets, and bandages. I don’t play Minecraft, so this is going to be really shoddy work at best. Especially while it's pitch black and zombies are banging on the door rather loudly.

  I do this on autopilot for my mental health, shatter some tables, rip some cabinet doors, and break them in half over my knee. Then I feel for something solid, break it with some firm kicks and lay it all out on the floor. The sound of the banging grows louder, and the barricade is starting to bulge. They’re obviously getting stronger somehow. They couldn’t barge their way through a hotel room door an hour before.

  Again the power going out is a nagging problem, and I’m purposely ignoring the implications.

  As my eyes adjust to the pitch blackness, I can feel the eldritch aura fill my being with renewed purpose. The shark tooth blade is at home in the dark, and so am I, apparently. I still can’t see for shit, but I can make out shapes better which is a start.

  “Ok kids, gather around. Follow my voice, and don’t trip.”

  I hear them shuffling as I make the inscriptions on the items meant to be weapons and provide some of the juice for those meant to be wards.

  I stand up and realize the drunk guy is still lounging on the makeshift bed, determined to sleep through the apocalypse.

  Reminding myself that I can’t save everyone, I start handing out the wards.

  “Keep this on your person,” I insist. “Shove it in your pocket or purse and never pull it out.”

  “Why?” the teenager asks, fidgeting as I approach him.

  “Decreases your chance of being noticed by zombies by fifty percent.” Any higher than that, and the ward will short out, unfortunately. “Be careful, move fast, and you’ll probably make it.”

  I also need to make this room less likely to be noticed. If I was confident that would work in the long run, I wouldn’t have suggested making a run for it. But I feel a nagging sense of dread associated with staying here any longer. More than a premonition, it's a promise something terrible is going to happen.

  “And your weapons.” I hand them table legs with door cabinets tied together with bandages. I used my spit as an adhesive which was no small bit of necromancy. “Slap them across the face or any part not protected by clothing. Don’t worry about killing them. Stunning them will be enough.”

  With enough force, the skin-to-wood contact should activate the banishment inscription. As long as they’re desperate, the intent should be there. Ho
wever, I hand Susan what I cobbled together from the remains of what I took out frustrations out on. It is basically a polearm with three sharpened pieces of wood tied to the business end.

  “Here you go.”

  She holds it and balances it, checking for balance intuitively, which brings a smile to my face. “Stab them with the business end, but a hard poke with the other end should stun them.”

  “Thank you.” She smiles. Though I’m pretty sure she can’t see me, I smile back.

  “DURA’G.”

  My eyes shoot to the barricade. It’s holding, and the incessant banging means the zombies are still on the outside.

  “DURA’G.”

  My mind splits open to the image of death and collapsing reality. Visions of worlds left baron by a mindless hunger as its acolytes chant his name.

  “DURA’G, DURA’G DURA’G DUR-”

  Drunk kid rises from his sleeping position, his eyes a swirling green mass of eldritch horror while his mouth is agape, chanting that fucking name.

  “DURA’G, DURA’G.”

  I charge him in a rage. The door is cracking now from the weight of the zombies outside. Fear, urgency, madness, fury all go into a single blow aimed for the temple. He catches my wrist and squeezes it with enough strength to break the bone. As my wrist bones grind together and the pain of it forces my hand open to relieve the pressure, I cry out. As he stands fully, I’m driven to my knees by his strength. I grab his hand and, with effort, try to eat his soul, but the inner hunger that served me well is cowed by the daemonic presence. A full-out manifestation of something greater than the zombies has somehow squeezed itself into our reality while the pretend zombies attempt to bash their way in.

  Then Susan stabs the monster in his chest and, with a warrior's scream, drives him into the wall. I don’t waste time. I snag the shark tooth blade off the floor and impale his stomach. The unearthly glow in his eyes becomes blinding before he shoves me with all his strength to the opposite side of the room. Then it snaps the impromptu spear in two before diving for Susan.