Hotel of Madness Read online

  “Move!”

  The compulsion, aided by their fear, gets them to step slowly backward. I turn to see the zombies have stopped pressing the attack and are waiting outside the front door.

  “Come on!” I wave my friends into the backroom, concentrating on the three zombies pressed against the wall. Susan finds the door, hopefully leading to the employee area, but doesn’t open it.

  Stepping slowly, I watch the zombies begin to shamble into the FedEx building and feel vindicated by an earlier observation. Though they aren’t being compelled, they do recognize necromancy the way most animals understand the nature of fire.

  “DURA’G, DURA’G.”

  Compulsion breaks immediately, and the zombies I held under my sway are now smiling.

  “DURA’G, DURA’G”

  I reach the door with Susan and the other. My head is about to explode.

  “DURA’G, DURA’G, DURA’G, DURA’G!”

  I grab the handle and realize it is stuck. No, more than stuck, it's locked, and we’re trapped. The zombies are starting to enter the break room. Their smiling faces, more twisted and demented in the pale light of distant street lights and neon signs, erodes all reason, all purpose, all hope. Dura’g is here. In the room, in the air, in every futile breath, and in my simplest and most deprived thoughts. Sinful thoughts, easy thoughts. They knock and scream and bang in agony. No purpose. No reason.

  Just give in. DURA’G. Just embrace. DURA’G.

  “DURA’G, DURA’G, DURA’G, DURA’G!”

  Something grabs for me. Screams for me.

  “DURA’G”

  I… don’t know… it’s so….

  “DURA’G”

  “FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!” Something hot, no something sharp, penetrates my being. My person, this body. Oh, that hurts. Oh fuck. That really hurts.

  “Aww shit! What the fuck bitch!”

  “You’re back.” Susan's face is covered in a fresh stream of panic-induced tears. Her smile is quivering, but a smile all the same.

  I’m on the floor. No. I’m on my fucking knees. The zombies have stopped smiling. The… compulsion… failed, and if they were higher on the food chain, they could troubleshoot that problem. But being simple little monsters propelled by instincts and uncomplicated instructions, they’re left in a state of confusion.

  I don’t waste this chance. I rear up and kick the door hard. The lock breaks, but the door barely budges. It is barricaded.

  I gather myself. My soul, past, present, and future spill out before me doubling my Reserve; the parts of me that I can safely burn. I stretch out. The walls are thin, so the Multiverse is stretching out before me in its glory and horror. The Necromancer is surrounded by the living dead, the Sorcerer King of Atlantis made immortal by destiny lives in me. The zombies moan, then they rush forward.

  The eldritch energy of a thousand failed worlds pours through me in an instant. My perception of time slows to fractions of seconds, allowing my thoughts to verbalize power faster and faster. I peer into the veil, thousands of worlds, billions of souls, lost to the chaos of unreality, cursed to replay patterns of life, suffering, and death trillions of times. Finally, I find what I’m looking for and pull.

  In real-time, the zombies surge forward but are inexplicably interrupted by a great and terrible rampaging within their ranks. Confusion spreads like a wave before the chants of “DURA’G” start up. But these chants don’t come with smiles, nor are they aimed at me, thank God. Instead, they remind me of the ancient hymns of tribes at war.

  I collapse backward. My body spent my mind exhausted.

  “What is happening.” Susan tugs at me, imploring me to stand.

  “I created some zombies of my own.” I smile weakly. I probably aged ten years by doing that. I hope it was worth it, but the jury is still out on us surviving this.

  “You did what?”

  I look at Jacob and shake my head. “Just fucking push the door!” I want to say, ‘I’ll explain later, I promise,’ but the inside of my head is turning off.

  * * *

  My ankle bounces hard against an overturned maid cart. As I jolt awake as Rico and Susan drop me.

  “Ow!” I look around and see we’re in the underbelly of the Gaylord, the secret tunnels used by hotel staff, vendors, and security in their clandestine mission to provide excellent customer service.

  I get up gingerly as if recovering from a hangover after an all-night cocaine-fueled fuck-a-thon with Brazilian strippers. I look around and see the gangs all here, more zombie blood and juices on them but still alive. But seriously, why does my crotch hurt?

  “See, I told you he would wake up,” Susan points out to the rest of the crowd. I can pretty much guess it was her idea to drag an unconscious man who probably weighs 200 plus through the middle of a zombie-infested hotel. I commend her bravery. Kind of stupid, but undoubtedly selfless. I don’t blame Vee, Jacob, and Rico for wanting to leave.

  “You... ok?”

  Vee procures a water bottle from nowhere, and I drink gratefully.

  “Thanks, Vee.” I take a gulp. “Hey, don’t be nervous.”

  “What are you really?” Jacob's face is a mixture of fatigue, apprehension, and curiosity. He doesn’t know whether to treat me like a Russian spy or ask me if aliens are real. Or sleep. He doesn’t look like someone big on cardio, and fighting zombies has him out of breath and sweaty.

  So what should I tell them? I mean, I honestly don’t have to explain anything, but at some point, usually before lightning shoots out my ass, they’ll need to know for their own sanity. This isn’t that moment in the superhero movie where the normals pretend there is a rational explanation for why their nerd friend can bench press a car.

  “Well, honestly, it’s a long story.” I desperately try to find an abbreviated version of being the reincarnation of King Arthur Curry, the Sorcerer King of Atlantis, and the Hero of a version of earth where Atlantis isn’t a myth but an actual dead civilization. “The short of it is, I’m a private contractor who occasionally takes part-time gigs for the government. Sometimes it involves killing rogue wizards. Other times it's trying to stop monsters.”

  “So are you’re like an Aurora?”

  “Aurora’s are like the police in the Harry Potter universe. He’s more like the supernatural detective from the Dresden F-”

  “Ah-ah, don't finish that sentence.” I wave my hands at Rico as if warding off bad memories. “That comparison triggers me.”

  “Ok, that's what you do. But not what you are and, more importantly, what the fuck you did back there.”

  “I’m a Necromancer.”

  Necromancy doesn’t and shouldn’t have the best rap, so the news doesn’t go over well, judging by their sore expressions.

  “So are the—”

  “No. Those zombies aren’t me.”

  “You can survive being bitten,” points out Vee.

  “Like I said before, I have a better immune system. Also –” I point to the bite marks, “ –If the zombies were my fault, why do they try to eat me?”

  “But we saw you kill some without a weapon!”

  I look at Rico. “Well, I am a Necromancer.”

  “So those zombies that came back to life after you supposedly killed them? Or how about those zombies that were moved away from you?”

  Jacob is a thinker, which is bad because he doesn’t know everything, and thinkers tend to draw dumb conclusions when facts aren’t available rather than simply admit they don’t know.

  “Ok, first of all,” I gotta sit down for this one, “I’ve tried to stop this mess from spreading from minute one. Did I do a great job? No. But I ain’t Bruce fucking Campbell. Second, none of you know how magic works. So I’d appreciate a little less bullshit and a little more appreciation for saving your lives. You want a short answer? There is none. Those things down the hall aren’t zombies. They’re aliens that found the zombie myth a very convenient justification for their continued existence. They’re only acting like zom
bies.”

  I look at Susan, who is relatively unphased by my explanations, and continue, “As for me, I eat souls. I’m not entirely human but human enough to be very concerned about dying. I’d rather stay me, so faced with our imminent deaths, I choose to take advantage of an abundant resource.” Which is to say, I took the soulless corpses of the zombies I’ve eaten and put Lings, the bigger variations, inside of them. Binding them to my service before doing so, of course. Though the bind itself isn’t foolproof. No bind really is. But considering the alternative was getting eaten… “And created my own zombies. Just not the self-replicating kind. As long as I’m alive, they’ll do their job.”

  “And I’m assuming their job is to fight the other zombies?” Susan smiles, but I can tell she’s uncomfortable with the thought of me adding more monsters to the monster mash.

  “Is that even safe?” Rico says nervously, his mind rapidly drawing conclusions.

  “Honestly, no.”

  “And those zombies you made walk backward?”

  Fucking Neck Beard. “Necromancy. The mind-bending kind.”

  “But zombies don—”

  “These do. Remember they only look like zombies. Beneath the shallow similarities, you have a sentient creature with its own thoughts, feelings, and motivations. Think of them as artificial intelligence programmed inside a T850 calculator.”

  “So they were afraid of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they always afraid of you?”

  “No. When I… ate a few of them when they tried to eat me, it spooked the rest.” It is better to not explain to a group who mostly volunteered for a suicide mission that you can force them to do ostensibly whatever you want— especially with two women in the group. I really really don’t want to pinky promise swear I won’t magic them without consent. Or have to prove I didn’t do it already.

  “Now that you're awake, where are we going? You must have had a reason for trying to come back here.”

  Susan is more or less the de facto civilian leader of this group. She probably debated that we didn’t have time to ask the resident superhero about his superpowers during the zombie apocalypse. She was probably outvoted, but she is firmly back in charge with the questioning out of the way.

  “Need to find a book.”

  The group looks confused.

  “This all happened because someone got a hold of a real copy of the Necronomicon.” My copy, to be precise, but I’d rather not go into those details. “And we need to end this once and for all.”

  “So like… Sending them back, right?” Susan hopes.

  Not quite what I had in mind, but, “...Close.”

  Madness Proposition

  “Oh great DURA’G. Immortal is your name. Thy will shall come on earth as it is in among the stars.”

  A rough hand grabs my chin. It burns! It hurts so much! I want to scream, and cry, and fight and struggle. But I resist, I must resist, or I’ll end up like Matt...

  “Well spoken. Your prayer is accepted. However, the sacrament must be taken.”

  No, “NO! I can’t,” I whimper as I watch it tear the flesh from my friend and mash it into a ball. The Daemon cuts his palm so that blood can flow freely from the open wound to the meatball of skin and tissue. “I won’t be me anymore!”

  It laughs, “Yes, you will be. If you choose it willingly.” It tightens its fingers around my face. The searing sensation turns my sight white with pain. “Is it not an honor to fulfill your purpose? Have we not seeded you to this universe 3.5 billion years ago? To seek us, to invite us? And to be our cattle. Yes, your species has made it far enough, Seeker.”

  I’m not sure how long I’ve been stuck in here, but eventually, I let go of Matt and Sam when Sam started coughing. “Con-plague,” Matt had said, his mind thankfully dim enough not to wonder how he ended up in an elevator with no power smelling slightly of vodka, sweat, and dried bourbon. I could have encouraged Sam to help us out of here, but his coughing became labored breathing, so we had to settle him down. Besides, assuming the power is out because of the increased entropy, localized events don’t last forever. Eventually, once the backup generator is charged, the hotel power will return. In a weird way, I was better off trapped in an elevator between floors than out there.

  But then the elevator got cold. Insanely cold for several seconds before everything went back to normal, except Sam. Sam was different, even Matt noticed. The air was different, rancid somehow, and hot. Sam sat up and simply stared at me. Even in the dark, I could tell he wasn’t blinking. This lasted for what felt like minutes, no hours before it spoke.

  “DURA’G.”

  For a second, I thought I had died. Now, I wish I had died. The elevator lights flicker unsteadily with an eldritch glow, and Matt is dead. Very, very dead, with the smell of his blood and bowels filling the enclosed space. I think I remember vaguely how he died. He touched Sam. I screamed at him not to, compelled him, but… it was too late. He screamed, then he cried, first for me to help, then for Sam to stop, and finally for his mother when the lights went out from the pain of being torn in half. I didn’t. No, I choose not to remember how I begged, how I pleaded, how its true face filled my third eye! Oh, what an enigmous thing! Pulsating, rippling, hostility and hunger, intelligent malevolence made flesh and nightmare.

  And now there’s the sacrament, held over my lips, ready for me to say yes.

  “Please…”

  It laughs. So terrible. I can’t bear it; I just can’t.

  “Seeker! Your destiny beckons!”

  It places the wad of flesh and blood to my lips and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

  * * *

  I’ve seen the languid waters of the Multiverse, its islands of order separated by a flowing sea of chaos. Every so often, that chaos would rage and consume an island whole, sinking it into the deep waters below. I see my world, my reality, and watch the chaotic waters seep and spread from the Gaylord, spreading gangrenous from the wound Greg created. The problem I created. Even now, like a storm gathering strength, it pushes outward, spreading vileness and anomalies. Things worse than zombies are shoving their way through, eager and hungry.

  But then there is the other, a presence not human, but also not inhuman. His strength wanes and ebbs like a tide. And I see him working, reaching out to the chaos, to the hell in between the islands of order and yanking their monsters and foul vermin out by the handful. I scream for him to stop, but he can’t hear me.

  “You have peered beyond the veil long enough, Seeker.” The book speaks but not with words. It's like impressions in the shape of words being beamed into my mind. I interpret it almost instantly.

  “There has to be some kind of cure!”

  “I’ve presented you with cures.”

  I shake my head, though. In this out-of-body experience, it merely dissolves and reappears with the exaggerated motion.

  “Those can’t be it. There must be another way.” I’m not a magician, but the book's initial suggestions were… unpleasant.

  “The souls that you provided will not be enough to keep you in this state.”

  “I needed to see! I needed insight! You suggested this!”

  The Necronomicon churns. Its thoughts are garbled as if mumbling it itself. A book can do that, apparently.

  “You are a Seeker. I must assist you on your journey.”

  “Well, help me. End the mistake Greg and I made!”

  “As a Seeker, you can abandon this world.”

  The thought never occurred to me. Seeing is one thing, but travel? “I can’t do that. I have family, friends!”

  The book turns, the out-of-body experience narrows until we are back in the breakroom with the two people I’ve murdered.

  “Why can’t you just… suck them back in?”

  “That would require thousands of souls.”

  “Souls?”

  “Yes, a life for a life.”

  “Zombies aren’t alive.”

  “Oh, but they are!
”

  “That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “You peered beyond the veil, Seeker. You saw the Other inside of them. That same Other is inside of you.”

  The book is right… I saw it for myself. But I dismissed what I saw, ignored it to preserve my own understanding. I don’t know. I may never really know. I’m talking to a fricken book, for God's sake!

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because you asked.”

  “Why didn’t you help Greg?”

  “He didn’t ask.”

  No. “You didn’t offer.”

  “His curiosity was limited. Yours is not.”

  “But you watched him cause this.”

  The book’s thoughts become jumbled as if debating something behind a closed door. “I did what he asked.”

  “He didn’t ask for zombies!”

  I can feel the Necronomicon sigh. The sensation and the implications are unnerving. “He asked for the removal of your common disease. However, he did not wonder the toll it would take on him or—”

  “The side effects.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Well, show me something that will actually work with my well-being in consideration.”

  If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn the book smiled. “Very well.”

  The book urges me to turn the page. I do without protest. I keep turning until it suggests I stop.

  “The blood mist?”

  “The spread of DU—zombies can be halted if you prevent the disease from spreading.”

  “And how exactly does this blood mist do that?”

  “It’s secrets can only be explained if you commence the ritual.”

  “I need the fine print.”

  The book smiles. “You need power. The mist can provide you with the power you need.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “To remove a being from this world, you need to either destroy its physical body or consume its soul. To end this and save your world, you need the power to do one or the other.”