Sue Ling was the first to stand up from behind the lobby’s bar and take careful aim at one of the creatures, a Howler dressed in a prison guard’s uniform. She waited for it to get about three feet from Bell before she fired her pistol.  She and Johnny, both dead-drunk, had concocted a “live video game” to see how close they could let Howlers get to Bell, before they shot them down from their firing position behind the bar.

Sue Ling missed.

Bell screamed, as the thing was only a foot away. Sue Ling fired a tremendously loud second shot. This time she caught the Howler in the head and its whole body fell violently back, stone dead.

Bell began to scream involuntarily. The second Howler had reached him and grabbed him by the collar. It stopped and looked at him, ribbons of saliva pouring from its gaping mouth.

Let me go home.

Why don’t they let me go home.

This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.

“Four!” Johnny yelled. Bell, his head turned toward the bar by the Howler tugging on his jaw, saw Johnny’s gun barrel flash. Johnny had popped up from behind the bar. A bullet struck the Howler in the side of the head. The impact from the Desert Eagle’s round knocked the thing over, shattering its skull. Its contents splattered Bell’s face with warm blood and greyish-colored brains.

“What a fucking cool game!” Sue Ling said. “You all right, honey?”

Bell’s body was swinging. He heard the beam holding the rope creak. He had grey matter and blood on his face, covering his eyes. He heard himself scream at the top of his lungs, unable to stop. His long, horrible ululation was completely involuntary.

“He’s okay!” Johnny yelled. He came out from behind the bar and doused Bell’s face with a glass of cold beer, then wiped Bell’s brain-splattered face off with a dirty bar towel so he could see again.

“I’m going to kill you,” Bell whispered, looking up at him. “I swear to God! If it’s the last thing I ever do. I’m going to kill you.”

“Swing him higher!” Sue Ling yelled from the bar. “There’s more of ‘em out there. “Shit, this is fun, baby!”

Johnny Ryder grabbed the yellow-nylon rope holding Bell upside down. As if Bell were a child in a schoolyard, Ryder swung him. He grabbed the rope and ran as far as Bell’s body weight would let him. He ran after Bell’s swinging body and caught it, as it swung in the opposite direction, and pushed him higher. Bell’s body was swinging across the entire lobby, Bell’s head just missing the concierge desk. Johnny lifted the Desert Eagle and fired a round into the ceiling.

“Yeah, baby!” Johnny yelled.

Bell felt himself swinging through space, the sound of the loud rock music from the bar in his ears, his face wet with beer. He knew he was going to die. He closed his eyes. I can’t take much more, he thought. He felt, for the first time in his life, he would beg. He was only a moment from losing his nerve. His threatening Ryder had been a show of bravado, nothing more.

The music switched to Heavy D’s “Now That We Found Love”:

Now that we found love what are we goin’ to do 

With it?

Shake me, Shake me … Baby, Baby, bake me ...

*   *   *

Lacy had run down the narrow, well-lit hotel road. She was crying and didn’t know why she’d agreed to leave Bell. That had been the deal Bell had struck with the crazy Johnny. He’d agreed to let her go in exchange for the ten thousand dollars cash that she and Bell had collected from dozens of dead bodies. Bell had insisted she be allowed to leave the hotel in the limousine, the only car left with most of its windows intact.

The couple’s quest for cash money had been a horrible ordeal that had lasted several hours. A dozen or more Howlers had been randomly wandering the upper floors of the hotel. Bell had been able to kill them, always making sure Lacy was safe and hidden in the elevator. They’d not spoken a word since their strange, passionate encounter in the hotel’s kitchen. They had held each other close without speaking, as if they were the last two people left alive in the whole world.

At each floor Bell had Lacy wait inside the elevator, the loud sound of shotgun blasts coming from outside the elevator. He’d told her, stepping out into the hallway, shotgun in hand, to hit the close button and then use the emergency shut-off until he got back and pounded on the elevator doors, signaling her to open them. She would switch the elevator back on, the doors would open and Bell would throw wallets and purses into the elevator at her feet, adding to their horrible booty.

On the sixth floor he stepped into the elevator with his face blood-splattered, a deep scratch on his neck. He emptied his pocket and two shotgun shells fell onto the elevator floor. Bell’s hands were shaking.

“Only two shells left. Count the money,” Bell told her. He closed the elevator doors and hit the emergency shut-off button. Then he’d sagged to his knees and watched her empty wallets and purses he’d collected and begin to count the money.

“You’re hurt,” Lacy had said.

“You should see the other guy,” Bell had said. She could see he was exhausted, and that whatever he’d done out in the hallways and in rooms—four floors’ worth—had left its mark. His expression had turned vacant, his hands shaking involuntarily. His already filthy green-nylon flight suit was spotted with Howler blood.

“Let me help you,” she said. He shook his head no. “Why not?”

“I promised your father. How much have we got?”

She’d finished emptying the last wallet and counted the cash. “Nine hundred and thirty-three dollars from this floor. We’ve got eight thousand forty-two, all together.”

Bell closed his eyes, the shotgun between his knees. His back was against the elevator’s silver doors.

“Not enough,” Bell said. “We’re short. He said ten thousand.”

“I’ll call my father. He’ll come. Let’s just go up to the roof.”

“Maybe he’ll come. If he’s still alive,” Bell said. “We don’t know if anyone will come. Can come.”

“Don’t say that,” Lacy said.

Bell looked at her. “There’s one more floor. That might be enough,” he said.

“Well, at least go down and get some more ammunition,” she said.

“There is no more. He only had one box for the shotgun.” Bell reached up and turned the elevator on. They both felt the motor start up, the gears clutch; it began its climb up to the hotel’s top floor. Bell stood up and loaded the shotgun with his last two shells.

“What if there’s too many of them?” Lacy said.

“Then take the damn money you’ve got there and ask for the limousine. I saw it had the key in it. It’s a heavy car; you might be able to make it in that. No matter what happens on the road, don’t stop. It’s got a full tank of gas, I checked,” Bell said.

The elevator door opened on the top floor. Bell stepped out and walked down the well-lit corridor. It looked so normal, Lacy thought. She reached her hand up and hit the elevator’s emergency off-button and tried her phone. It finally had a signal.

*   *   *

Miles slammed on the brakes. He recognized the figure in front of him. Patty had been yelling at him to hit the girl, but at the last minute Miles recognized Lacy Collier and couldn’t bring himself to run her down. He’d come within inches of killing her. She collapsed in a heap on the road, in front of the Cadillac.

“It’s Lacy Collier!” Miles said.

“We don’t know if she’s one of them,” Marvin said.