“Well, I’m a chick—so the Walther it is, then,” Patty said.

“The Walther is loaded. We kept it behind the counter at the store. The AK is a fully-auto model. My dad was a gunsmith and made a few adjustments I think you’ll appreciate. Please promise not to tell ATF, or any tree-huggers either. And expect it to twist when you fire it. That’s the problem with full auto.” Rebecca winked at her. “My name is Rebecca Stewart, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”

“Patty Tyson.” The two shook hands.

“Might as well be on a first-name basis if we’re going to have each other’s backs and shit,” Rebecca said. They both got into the patrol car, Rebecca behind the wheel. Patty placed the AK-47 between her legs.

Rebecca drove the road at a crawl. She flipped off the police lights and turned off its headlights. They made their way down the long driveway, finally stopping in the hotel’s huge turnaround. The hotel’s generators kept the entire property lit up and elegant. The normalcy seemed strange, Patty thought, given what had happened over the last twenty-four hours.

The turnaround was scattered with luggage, dead bodies, random bits of clothing, and personal items. A red Hermes handbag sat near a dead woman. A Howler at the bell captain’s station was beating an obviously already dead man. The thing dropped the dead bell captain he was beating and lurched toward them, out into the turnaround.

Patty felt the patrol car stop. She saw the thing’s lips dripping its signature ribbons of saliva. It let out a ripping howl, one of the loudest Patty had heard. It was so loud it made her want to bolt from the car and run. It was demon loud, almost like a bark, like a mad dog/monkey might make, piercing. Patty started to get out of the patrol car ready to shoot the thing, raising the AK-47, but Rebecca stopped her.

“No! They’ll hear the shots inside—the two crazies,” Rebecca said. Patty turned away and got back into the car beside her.

“So what do we do?” Patty said. The girls watched the thing come toward them, the ribbon of saliva hanging from its open mouth, the silver-like string almost touching the ground.

“Fuck!” Rebecca said. She hopped out of the patrol car, ran to the trunk and got out an orange plastic Orion flare gun she’d thrown into the random mix of weapons. She opened the flare gun as she stepped out and away from the back of the patrol car, checking to make sure the flare gun was loaded. The Howler, excited to see her standing in front of him, began to lope toward her.

Rebecca raised the flare gun and waited for the thing to get a few feet in front of her before she fired, aiming for its wide-open gob. She could see its icy blue eyes in the moonlight. The low-speed flare launched as soon as she fired; the fat plastic bullet hit the Howler dead in its mouth, sticking in its gob like a plug in a bottle. The thing’s face lit up like a pumpkin on Halloween. The lit flare, burning progressively hotter, began frying the thing’s throat and brains, making it dance in pain in front of Rebecca, almost comically. It stopped dancing and tried to howl, but couldn’t because of the plug in its throat. It made more of a human sound, little pain grunts. The flare’s chemical fire started to pour out of the thing’s ears and mouth like a horrible Roman candle.

In a stupid spasm, the Howler began hitting himself in the face as if it would do some good. The thing fell to the ground dead, its face puckered, burning and red as salmon flesh. Fire shot out a hole in the back of the thing’s skull and lit up the turnaround, tinting the lobby doors an eerie orange-yellow.

Rebecca climbed back into the patrol car. Patty gave her a startled look. Any question she’d had about the beautiful girl’s effectiveness in a fight now gone.

“Sometimes you just got to go for it, you know what I mean?” Rebecca said.

“Yeah. Right,” Patty said.

“Put your clothes on!” Bell barked at the naked couple having sex in the hotel pool, oblivious and lost in their pleasure.

Rebecca and Patty had walked into the lobby and found Bell hung upside down in the lobby, expecting to die. Johnny and Sue Ling had left him there, having reneged on their deal to allow Lacy to leave in the hotel’s limousine. Instead they’d taken the cash Bell had collected and thrown Lacy out of the hotel, either to freeze or be killed by Howlers on the road. Bell had misjudged their intentions; they had no rational plan.

The two had left Bell strung up as Howler bait so they could feel safe while they went for a swim in the hotel’s heated pool, both high as kites from coke and booze. They were screwing in the shallow end of the detritus-filled pool, a bottle of Dom Pérignon within easy reach.

Sue Ling’s legs were way up in the air, her ass hiked up onto a submerged step, when Bell dropped the barrel of the Walther on Johnny’s bobbing shoulder muscles, which were hardening for a climax. Bell wanted to pull the trigger right then and there, but couldn’t.

“Oh, fuck that’s good,” Ryder yelled. He felt the pistol. “Is that you, Bell?”

“Yeah, asswipe. It’s me.”

“Shit!” Johnny said. “I knew I should have killed you.”

“Step out of the pool,” Bell said. “Both of you.” He was trying not to kill them both. He’d tried to pull the trigger and couldn’t. He was not a cold-blooded killer.

“These are the two?” Rebecca said. “They look pretty harmless.”

“Yeah?” Bell said. “Well, they are most definitely not harmless.”

Sue Ling climbed out of the pool, stark naked, having pushed her boyfriend off. She ran to where she’d piled her clothes on a lounge chair and pulled on her panties and a pair of skinny designer jeans she’d ripped off. Johnny stood in the shallow end, his dick hard and his face expressionless. Then Ryder got out too and put his clothes on. Bell had picked up both their weapons and tossed them into the deep end of the pool while they’d been fucking.

“Now what?” Johnny said, getting dressed, his face red.

“Payback is a bitch,” Rebecca said.

*   *   *

Quentin opened his eyes. A pounding sound was coming from outside the cabin, very loud. It had woken him.  Marvin, who’d been examining him, was staring down at him, shining a flashlight in Quentin’s eyes and sitting on Quentin’s narrow cot-style bed.

“What happened?” Quentin said.

“You were knocked unconscious,” Marvin said. “A few hours ago.”

“Where are we?”

“Some kind of doomsday-prepper’s cabin,” Marvin said. “We’re safe, I guess. For the time being anyway.”

“Where are Lacy, and Lieutenant Bell?”

“They went to get Bell. Patty and Rebecca Stewart,” Marvin said. He watched Quentin pull himself up in the narrow bed where they’d laid him. “Lacy is outside waiting to see you. I want to give you a shot of something first, so I’ve asked her to wait.”

“Shit.” Quentin said. “What a mess. Sharon—”

“Yes, I know.” Marvin said. “Lacy told me what happened.”  The doctor turned off the flashlight. “You have a concussion, maybe slight, maybe not. Time will tell.”

“Great,” Quentin said.

“We found a medical room, believe it or not. It’s a huge closet with all kinds of drugs. I’m going to keep you awake. Give you a shot of something,” Marvin said.

“Awake.”

“Yes. I don’t want you to sleep. If you go downhill, we’ll be able to tell. If you’re going to have serious side effects, they’ll happen soon.”

“What will happen?”

“You could have swelling of the brain,” Marvin said. “You’ll vomit, feel dizzy, and you’ll want to sleep. If you’re lucky, coma and death will come next.”

“Am I going to die? Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Marvin?”