Hotel of Madness Read online

  The blow cracks my rib and probably punctures one of my lungs. As I bounce off a hard surface, I put everything I have into one vengeful burst of necromantic rage.

  “Fuck you.” I burn my fingers to the third joint in the process of sending one long burst of crimson lighting across the room and into the knife. It strikes him seconds before he descends on her and misses her by centimeters. The blade lights up, and the force of the blast arches him backward as he screams bloody murder. I burn and burn until nothing is left but a blackened corpse, too far gone to be reanimated by Jesus Christ himself.

  Clutching what’s left of my hand, I hobble over to Susan, who looks visibly shaken. She faced true fear and lived, but the terror of it all has lodged itself deeply. Already her face has aged from just looking at that thing.

  “How did you—” her mind stammers. Sanity remains, though slightly shaken.

  “What the fuck was that!” Neckbeard approaches, prioritizing me over the fact that the door barricade is starting to move.

  I whirl on him, and for a second, the voice of a full-powered compulsion is about to be unleashed, but I stop myself short. “Zombies. Getting in. Wack with sticks.”

  I can feel the anxiety in the room rise exponentially as the zombies push their way in.

  “GO!”

  And the glasses girl jumps in first, whacking the first zombie hand reaching through the opening, then proceeding to bash anything with discolored flesh. The teenager and Neck Beard join her.

  “Are you ok?” I ask Susan, who I know isn’t, but I have to ask.

  “Yeah… yeah…” her mind is still trailing, and considering how she saved my life, I really can’t leave her like this. So with my good hand, I touch her forehead, and with some effort, I soothe her still strong mind. It’s not a full cure, but it's at least some Tylenol. I can’t afford her passing out on me.

  “You— what was that?”

  I give her what's left of her spear. “An alien, just more illegal than the ones outside.”

  “And you shot lightning from your hands?”

  I show her what's left of my right hand. “It wasn’t the best idea, but it was better than the alternative.” Also, it only worked because I had something to anchor the arc. I shudder to think what would have happened if that Daemon had the wherewithal to remove the knife first.

  “So, are you like a Hero or something?”

  The group of survivors is still bashing at the zombies trying to get in. I collapse on the ground but play it off like I'm taking a seat.

  “Not by choice, but yeah, something like that.”

  She sits next to me, “So you're going to save the world, big guy?”

  “Honestly, I think we’re doomed.”

  Dur’ag

  Daemons don’t summon themselves.

  It’s a basic rule, kinda hard to ignore. Unless the walls between reality and unreality are getting rather thin. So thin, in fact, creatures from beyond the veil are hearing the dinner bell offering seven billion undevoured souls.

  Let's do a logic exercise. How many exceptions does it take to make a rule? Something happening once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three is plausible deniability. But four, five, six, seven times? Panic at the disco. The entropic nature of unreality. If left unchecked, the real world stops making sense on a fundamental level, and no rules or laws can be enforced.

  “Do you remember what that guy, the one the Daemon possessed, was in here for?”

  Susan nods, “Swallowed half a gallon of Everclear from what his friends told me.”

  “Any cough?”

  “... Had the sniffles. Why?”

  Well, there's no point in keeping the soon-to-be-dead uninformed.

  “Trying to work out how that thing came across.” And honestly, the scenarios look pretty shit from where I’m standing. “How long was he in here?”

  “An hour and a half give or take thirty minutes. Never got so busy we needed him to get up.”

  The timeline fits, but what I was dealing with back in room 12321 was a complete replacement of the human microbiome. Well, a suped-up alien cold virus wouldn’t be too different, but that leaves some serious problems. One, how long have we’ve been hotboxing with patient zero? And two, why is no one else infected? It wouldn’t take hours for something like that to start eating its way through a person unless—

  The power went out. I liked to assume it was the goth girl and the Necronomicon, but no, it was reality shifting slightly to accommodate for Dura’g. What the fuck is Dura’g?

  Breaking out my trusty mental Daemonology 101 handbook, I can narrow down what it probably is. First and foremost, you have Lings. Basic, bottom feeder little fuckers. Barely sentient and only motivated by hunger. They're also the closest to “reality,” if that makes sense, and have a harder time adjusting to the rules and regulations of our world due to being very primitive in nature. They are most dangerous to small children and medieval civilizations and, in their native plane of existence, are mostly prey or foot soldiers for the bigger fish.

  The bigger fish being Daemons. They come in various tiers, but the general gist is, don’t fuck with them. Really don’t do it. They are older than you, smarter than you, and are motivated by greed and hunger that would make Gordon Gekko seem like a naughty little boy in comparison. They exist in multiple planes of existence, and if the conditions are right, they have a variety of ways to safely and neatly cram their beings into our reality. One of which is perfect daemonic possession, when they hurl their consciousness at a willing/unwilling host that matches a certain profile. In this case, it only required the kid to be “sick.”

  But that wasn’t Dura’g, at least, I don’t think it was. A minion? A field officer in the great Dura’g army? Or maybe something else entirely. It made a definite pass at trying to mind fuck me, but why just me? There were four unwarded untrained minds he could have used to his advantage. Was I a threat to it? Or did it have other plans?

  A small shudder runs down the base of my spine. Despite my asshole exterior, I am very well aware of my place in the grand scheme of things. A Hero is not supposed to win in the end. There is no scenario where this universe doesn’t succumb to entropy and descend into hell itself.

  But that doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t try. So the only thing Dura’g could be is an actual Principality or a Deep One. Both are pretty bad. Principality or Prince is the representation of the hierarchical systems that replicate themselves in nature. A manifestation of that is something big, bad, and mean enough to organize and bend Daemons to its will. Not a fun prospect.

  A Deep One or Old One is basically a Cthulhu, but an actual God instead of a glorified uber driver. Categorically just existing in multiple planes of existence is not enough. One has to be so large it’s basically a miniature universe by itself. So large it’s too expensive for any reality to render “all” of it, so it’s basically trapped in a half-dead, half-dreaming state for much of eternity until some new reality is made available to squeeze into.

  If the zombies merely represent an entropic process started by the Necronomicon, the book probably found a way to go big and go home. Which doesn’t change how up shit’s creek I am, but it's always good to keep score. Especially when things are due to get exponentially worse.

  I get up and retrieve my knife, the blade hums with the Daemon’s consumed soul. That’ll help with the healing process, albeit slowly.

  “You're still leaving, aren’t you.”

  I realize what Susan wants before she even asks. “Probably.” She can’t come.

  “I’m going with you.”

  I try to walk past her, but she keeps pace, so I stop and give her my full attention. “Why!?”

  I could compel her away. Tell her to save herself. But the strength of that compulsion has to be subtle enough for it to be her idea. Otherwise, you break that person, I would break her, and what’s the point of trying to save her life if that happened?

  Yeah, no point at all, righ
t? So why do I even fucking care is a better question! If she comes with me or goes? If she lives or dies? I’m a goddamn Necromancer, I’ve done bad things to people who don’t deserve it, I’ve used people to save the world. I’ve used people for far less, so why do I care?

  Because she is a Hero. Not because she volunteered to be a nurse at an anime convention. Oh no, I mean in the big fucking destiny sense. Pattern recognition against the chaos of the infinite cosmos. I’m not worried about her. I’m worried about what she is volunteering to be. Because her actions now, when the walls between reality and hell itself are crumbling, will reverberate throughout the Multiverse. Her heroic death will damn not just her but every Susan across every reality that is and ever will be. As she lives, her actions will build her legend, and the noose will get ever tighter.

  I don’t want to watch another me born.

  ‘Don’t be a Hero,’ is something I’d like to say but don’t. I can’t. Destiny has found another piece. Even without my third eye, I can see the Multiverse unraveling around her, adding her tale to the history of doomed worlds.

  “Here.”

  She hesitates but takes my knife. The shark tooth blade doesn’t try to eat her, so she may have some talent after.

  “Don’t you need this?”

  I shake my head. “Right-handed.”

  I march toward our only exit. The nerdcore have fought a good fight. Zombie corpses have piled up right outside the door, and new zombies are wandering by less and less. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they might have conceded this room. Maybe they did.

  “I’m making my way through.” I think about this group of impromptu zombie killers and shrug. “Look, you can stay here or make a run for it.” I peek out the door and note some lights coming from the surrounding businesses. “If anyone has a car parked in the parking garages away from the hotel, you may be able to drive out of here.”

  They look at each other, eyes exhausted, hands full of blisters, and faces smeared with dried blood.

  “We heard you and Susan talk,” the teenager steps toward me, “we want to come with you.”

  Is this some kind of disease?

  “You can’t be serious.” For a moment, I really do consider compelling them to stay put and hoping the world doesn’t end. But a burnt hand, a few loose ribs, a horde of zombies, and probably worse…

  “Fine. Fuck it.”

  We start removing the barricade and opening the door. We shove the zombies to one side facing the hallway and creep around the other side, eventually making it to the stairway. In the dark, the haphazard rush of smashing our way through the mob wouldn’t work out very well. The only thing left is the distant street lights of the surrounding national harbor. Neon signs glowing eerily in the silence.

  We travel slowly and cautiously in a conga line like a video game with a shitty stealth escort mission. Susan holds on to my shirt, followed by Rico, the teenager, holding on to her shirt, while the Vee, glasses chick, holds on to him, allowing Jacob to take up the rear. These zombies sense souls but also rely on audio and visual cues. Between the wards and the limited visibility, we can make it by as long as we limit the noise. Unfortunately, save for Susan, the rest are visibly jumpy and perpetually on the verge of screaming.

  Can’t blame them; the zombies are a visual nightmare in the soft glow of distant neon. Faces chewed in half, chests exposed to reveal mutated hearts pulsating with fetid blood, arms and legs littering the ground, some still wearing parts of cosplay, some even faintly moving. The creatures walked slowly, aimless and drifting. The greater horde was outside now, carrying the plague deeper into the tristate area or simply following the fleeing convention-goers. The ones left behind, deformed and disfigured, were merely the leftovers. Those took longer to reanimate despite missing things like abdomens and large portions of their brain.

  We trudge slowly against the backdrop of aimless horror, my third eye guiding us away from the undead as we marched toward the doors leading to the emergency stairs.

  Click.

  It was another group of survivors further up ahead. Their leader had a gun and kept a low profile with about four or five people in tow. The zombies didn’t pay them any mind at first, but then a shift happened that had to be sensed to understand. As if something large and oppressive was giving you its undivided attention.

  They had to run, and the first bang sealed it. The group scampered in all directions as the zombies converged. Susan tried to move, but I stopped her, holding her wrist tight. I shook my head.

  “Keep moving,” I whispered, pulling Susan and thus the rest of the group forward. The door to the stairs was tantalizingly close, and as the zombies moved, we hurried our steps until we were practically running too.

  But when we got there, the door didn’t budge. More bangs; the guy was a good shot, at least. The moans of more zombies could be heard, many of them waiting in darkness, now coming to the pale light to give chase. But I can’t save them, no I can barely open a goddamn door! I hurl my body at the double doors, my efforts budging the obstruction a little but not much. I grunt and push but no luck. Even Susan joins in, but the door doesn't budge.

  Fuck.

  The other survivors have run out of immediate sight but not out of earshot. Desperate running could be heard as the survivors try to find an exit, any exit to make an escape. Occasionally the loud “bang” of the lead survivor's gun could be heard in between the moans and the shuffle of feet.

  That must be another way around! The FedEx. There is one near the convention area, and it should have a backdoor for employees. As I lead the group over to FedEx, I hear the faint sound of another “bang” before a scream cuts through the silence. And just like that, the restlessness that consumed the undead before has quickly settled. I can feel Susan tensing up, I know she wanted to help, but we just couldn’t.

  Or wouldn’t. This isn’t a comic book where the Hero gets perpetually rewarded for all the good deeds they’ve done. No, in this business, power comes intrinsically from death and sacrifice. There is no way around it or through it. You can only manage “so much.”

  As we travel, I feel Susan tap me on the shoulder. I stop to see what she needs, but she has already left the group. Frantically I look around only to see a zombie stumbling in our general direction. I’m tense, ready for a fight, when suddenly a knife protrudes through its gaping mouth. As the unlife leaves it, Susan eases the falling body to the ground. She walks back to the group as I shake my head. That was impressive, I have to admit.

  We make it the FedEx. The door is locked, and I need the knife to jingle it open. But before that—

  I knock three times softly and then press my ears closely against the door. In the silence, I hear a faint scuffle. So at least one. I ask for the knife, jimmy the door open, and hand it back. I wasn’t kidding about being right-handed. I motion for Susan to stay outside. She understands me and doesn’t insist on following. Necromancers first. I step cautiously into the darkness and feel my way through. The neon of the outside world barely touches this place. The counter takes up most of the space, followed by an assortment of desk hosting printers and copying machines. I turn toward what I think should be the back area when it lurches toward me.

  I sidestep its approach letting it trip and fall. Before it moans, I bash its brains repeatedly against the tile floor. Its skull breaks surprisingly easily, allowing what's left of its brain matter to leak out in a black ichor covered in pulsating tendrils. Something strongly encourages me not to touch that, advice not hard to follow as I give the fetid pool a wide berth.

  Creeping forward, I reach the door leading to the back area and knock on the door. I listen carefully for any sign of movement before opening the door. When it opens, a chill passes over me, as if prying open a deep freezer. In the pitch black, an eerie stillness pervades over the seemingly empty space.

  I took one step forward and instantly realized my mistake. The groans of half a dozen zombies echo from the still void, their hunger find
ing a new target.

  “Ah fuck!” I slam the door closed just before they slam into it, bucking me backward.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” The sound of the zombies banging into the door is worse than a gunshot. I can feel the undead stirring and gathering around us.

  “GET IN HERE!”

  Famous last words as the zombies come rushing in.

  Madness Reservation

  We’re going to die – in a FedEx. The zombies come pouring into the room from one side, while the backroom zombies are tearing through the door. The only way out is through. Jacob and Vee are bashing zombie heads in with macgyvered rowing paddle while Susan stabs furiously at anything trying to get back up. Smart. Rico, however, is frozen, his mind already racing to the part where his neck gets sawed in half by the undead legion. I don’t blame him, but I kick him hard in the ass.

  “Go fucking help!” He makes a mad dash to the entrance joining the others in their attempt to hold back the tide.

  I get the easy part. I pull the backroom door open and brace myself. The zombies come rushing forward, biting and clawing their way to me and past me. I grit my teeth as the zombies find purchase on my flesh.

  “Fffffffffffffffffffffffffu—” I can’t scream, I can’t flinch. I don’t dare to do anything but focus on the little Lings moving the decaying sacks of flesh, giving it the unlife it needs to feel hunger and find purpose. One sinks its teeth into my skull, another my shoulder, and one my bicep. Flesh to flesh, their desire and hunger up against my indomitable will. They won’t get past me. I won’t let them. So I eat them, unlife and all.

  Three zombies fall unceremoniously. Freshly bloodied, I point a finger at the remaining three who are unsure whether their base instinct will lead them to a similar fate. Not entirely mindless after all, but they won’t stay like that forever.