The Five Deaths of Roxanne Love (13 page)

She stared at the numbers on the display overhead as they transitioned from 3 to 2 and finally to 1.

The elevator shuttered to a stop, then the doors groaned open onto a small alcove on the ground floor. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she saw the deserted walkway. It forked in three directions—left, right, and straight ahead. Signage told them what they’d find at the end of each path. The one that ran straight would take them to the lobby. The other two raveled around, intersecting with the tiny pool, ice machines or parking lots along the way.

Santo leaned close, his clean scent momentarily banishing the sulfurous air that seemed to be everywhere now.

“I saw a shuttle earlier,” he said in her ear, his voice pitched low. “Makes airport runs. We aim for that.”

“What if it’s locked?” she whispered back.

He didn’t answer her. What had she expected? If it was locked, they were screwed.

“Get ready,” he said a moment before he pushed away from the wall and sprinted straight ahead, around the bend to the front of the motel, never loosening his grip on her hand. She kept up, though. Her adrenaline had spiked, and running—even for her life—was a relief.

She had a quick glimpse of a front desk with a big bowl of fresh fruit and the deserted air of the night shift before Santo pulled them both to a stop beside an old
van with the motel’s faded pink-and-blue logo on the side. He reached for the handle of the front passenger door, but a dent in the side had wedged it permanently shut and it wouldn’t budge. The sliding panel glided back without resistance, though, and he pushed her in and climbed in after, closing the door as quietly as possible. Still, it sounded abnormally loud as it latched.

She reached over the driver’s seat and hit the master lock button on the door. At once the thud of the locks engaging echoed down the van. Roxanne glanced nervously at the lobby again, but whoever was supposed to man the desk had abandoned his post. Nothing moved behind the wall of glass and automatic doors.

When she turned back, Santo had moved up and slid behind the wheel, where he was yanking out some wires and working with the kind of competence that came from experience. If she didn’t know better, she’d guess he hot-wired motel shuttles every day.

Only an instant had passed, yet it seemed that time warbled between ticking seconds. Anxiously she scanned the parking lot for movement, for a flash of white skin rushing toward them, for a glimpse of something worse.

Her heart labored, so stressed she couldn’t tell if it had sped up or slowed down. The eerie stillness stretched hard and tight over them, an imperceptible cellophane wrapper that trapped them. Panic made her short of breath; terror convinced her that she’d find the
oxygen siphoned away from their dubious refuge if she tried to fill her lungs.

Santo worked silently, stripping the wires and twisting them into a new configuration with complete focus. His hands didn’t shake and his eyes didn’t shift from the task. He didn’t even look anxious. She envied his calm, even if it was all on the surface.

She peered through the dirty windows, finding only darkness pressing back in silent, inert layers. Maybe the hellhounds had been headed somewhere else? Maybe they thought she and Santo were still in their room, unaware of their pending invasion. Maybe he’d get the engine to start and they’d drive away without ever being detected.

Or maybe the piece of crap van would just transform into Optimus Prime and save the day.

She double-checked the locks on each door and finally allowed herself a deep breath.

Sulfur filled her nose and mouth. It coated her tongue and clotted in her throat. She could almost see it now, colored green by her imagination, gritty as sand and thick as syrup. With the stench came the sound, so soft at first that she could only discern the timbre and tone. Menace and vibrato pursuing her in the night.

She twisted around so she could see out the back window, leaning right, then left to check the sides. The stillness felt dissonantly solid and cold.

“I hear something.”

Head still under the dash, Santo didn’t catch her frightened whisper, but the sound came again. Louder. Deeper. What was it? Not the blood-chilling bay, but a growl. The deep rumble raised the hairs on her arms and sent a cascade of ice down her spine.

“Santo,” she whispered. “They’re here.”

His head came up from beneath the dash. “Where?”

Roxanne shook her head, maneuvering down the length of the van to check each window. “I can’t see them. But I hear them. I smell them.”

“Another second and I’ll be done,” he said sharply.

Roxanne nodded, though he couldn’t see her, and began compulsively checking locks again. She caught herself muttering under her breath.

Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. . . .

The engine roared to life as she saw the first one. It wove through the cars like a dog on a scent, bolting toward the van at full speed. It came so fast that it made a blur of white and black. An optical illusion that filled her gut with sharp, pricking spikes. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed another one darting through the shadows and then more, converging on the van like fired arrows.

She’d never seen anything like them.

Huge and monstrous, the creatures had the same colorless skin as the scavenger demons Santo had pointed out from the window, but it was as if something had warped the wretched beasts into a shape that crossed human with animal.

They looked like rabid dogs with the size and mass of a full-grown man. Not the furry humanoid wolf-man of Hollywood—no, these nightmarish monsters challenged anything the imagination might conjure. They alternated randomly between running upright and charging on all fours. Misshapen skulls connected with blunt necks and distorted torsos. Legs too long, eyes too human, jaws like a great ape’s—wide with vicious, sharp canines.

The first of them slammed into the hollow shell of the van with a
boom
that rocked the vehicle on its wheels. Three more came at the windows, smashing into them with barrel chests, thick-skulled heads, wicked claws, and bared teeth.

Roxanne gripped the dash, trying not to scream when the biggest of the creatures lunged at the window beside her with enough force to crack the glass.

“Hurry, Santo,” she breathed, when she wanted to scream.

Santo popped the brake and hit the gas, and the big engine roared. Before he could jam the gear into drive and get them out of there, the delivery boy—what was his name? Chandi? Cheli?—rounded the corner at that moment and froze, a grease-stained paper sack in his hands. His eyes widened as his mouth dropped open with shock. He stared at the van. At Santo sitting behind the wheel. At Roxanne in the passenger seat. Disbelief pulled at his features.

“Stop,” he shouted. Then he turned his back—
turned his back on the wild beasts attacking—
and yelled something at the deserted lobby. Roxanne couldn’t make out every word, but she thought the foolish young man was reporting the theft of the van, not that there was anyone to hear him.

“What’s wrong with him?” she demanded, turning to Santo. “Why isn’t he running?”
Why wasn’t he screaming in terror?

The creature that had slammed into the window took advantage of their momentary distraction, regained its feet, and tried again, this time hitting glass already weakened. The force of its weight shook the van, and a baseball-sized hole splintered the center of the window.

The delivery boy jumped at the sound, and at last fear filled his eyes. He looked around him, as if searching for the source. Roxanne couldn’t keep the scream inside this time as tiny shards of glass peppered her skin.

The beast had hands—
feet?—
with fingers that looked like they’d been jammed into the mold of a paw. The two parts didn’t match—those long, prehensile appendages attached to the rough pads of a massive paw on one end and long, deadly claws on the other. It swiped at her through the hole it had made, caught the flesh of her shoulder and tore at it.

They’ll rip out your soul and feed on it.

Santo jerked his gun from its holster and fired at the creature, once, twice. The
bang, bang
in the compact
space made Roxanne’s brain feel like it would spurt out of her ears, but the beast withdrew. As Santo hit the gas, though, the delivery boy—
Chidi, his name was Chidi
—dropped his paper sack and rushed forward, grabbing the passenger door handle.

“Let her go,” he shouted angrily as he tried to wrench the door open. “Drop the gun.”

The words were so unexpected, so ridiculous, that at first they made no sense.
Let her go? Drop the
gun
? Was he
insane
?

“Run!” she screamed as two of the creatures pounced.

But Chidi seemed aware only of Roxanne and his misguided perception that Santo meant her harm. He didn’t—apparently
couldn’t—
see the real danger, or he would have run as fast and as far as he could.

The first beast sank its teeth deep in his arm, the second went for his leg. Chidi’s shriek of pain and confusion mixed into the howls and snarls.

“No!” she shouted.

But there was nothing they could do to help him. Any attempt would most likely end with them all being ripped apart. She knew Santo had already come to that conclusion, just as she knew it was the
right
conclusion if they meant to survive.

But Roxanne couldn’t just sit there and do nothing while the delivery boy who’d thought to help her was torn to pieces.

All this went through her mind in a blink as she reached for the door. Santo yanked her back.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded.

“He was trying to help me. We can’t leave him.”

“He’s as good as dead,” Santo said. He gunned the engine and the van shot forward, just as another of the bloodthirsty beasts jumped over the hood and slammed into the windshield, turning it into a network of fragments.

They’re learning.
They’d seen the other one break through the glass, and now they knew where to attack.

The hysterical thought snapped her out of her paralysis as Santo swung the van at the pylons that marked the motel’s drop-off area, careening into one and dislodging the animal but not slowing it down. He cranked the wheel in the other direction and she realized he meant to keep going, down the ramp and away.

The sound of tires squealing distracted the two animals that had the delivery boy pinned, and they both charged the van. With cunning that astounded her, one came at the window beside her and the other at the windshield. The first managed to get its thick skull through the hole to snap its jaws at her. The beast caught her between the seat and the door with no way to escape and sank its teeth into her arm, braced its limbs against the frame and jerked with incredible power.

The safety glass came free in one piece, shattered fragments held in place by film. It made a spiked collar
around the creature’s throat, piercing and drawing blood, but the beast didn’t care. It had full access to Roxanne, and it wasn’t letting go. She felt it dragging her through the window as she frantically twisted and fought to get free.

Pain sliced and burned from her shoulder to her toes as the creature tore at her flesh and heaved her to the ground. Santo threw the van into park and scrambled from behind the wheel through the window after them, landing on his feet with her sprawled between his spread legs. He unloaded five rapid shots into the monster until it released, snarling and snapping with rage. The bullets had slowed it, hurt it, but they hadn’t stopped it.

From the hard asphalt beneath her, she watched as its muscles bunched. It flew at Santo, but he was ready. His aim didn’t waver as he put a bullet between the creature’s white devil-eyes, blowing its head into a gelatinous mass of matter and blood. Roxanne felt the splash of it, warm and gooey as the impact knocked the beast back and laid it out on the ground beside her. Its hind legs twitched, its unhinged jaw snapped, but it didn’t get up.

Her shock mixed with her agony, but there was no time for suffering. Santo yanked her to her feet with one hand, still spraying bullets at the monsters that remained standing.

Chidi had managed to get his legs under him while the beasts had been busy with Roxanne and Santo. Roxanne couldn’t believe he was still alive.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Santo shouted, popping the cartridge from his weapon and inserting another in a quick, smooth action. Chidi stood stunned and frozen in place. His wild eyes darted everywhere, searching for the danger he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, and couldn’t fight. Santo lifted his gun again and fired at the ground near Chidi’s feet. The delivery boy jumped back in surprise.

“Run or die,” Santo snapped. “Your choice.”

The remaining creatures faced Santo in a pack. Huge, ugly, fierce. Roxanne quaked at the long, sharp teeth and slathering maws, but Santo didn’t even wince. The creatures stood in formation, the biggest at point, the other two fanning out behind him, leaving Chidi for later. Shoulders as broad as a man’s. Legs warped and muscle-bound, terminating in those grotesque hand-paws. Claws scrabbled at the asphalt.

“Get in the van, Roxanne,” Santo said quietly. “Get behind the wheel and start driving. Don’t look back.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she croaked.

Santo cursed under his breath. “You’re a stubborn pain in the ass. You know that?”

“Yeah, I get that sometimes. But I’m still not leaving you.”

“Just get in and get ready.”

That she could do. Carefully she backed away, feeling for the van behind her, convinced she’d find her fingers in a hot, wet mouth just waiting for a treat. She
rasped her knuckles against the handle as Santo took a step back with her, keeping his gun on the creatures.

The biggest one in front stood on its hind legs and eyed Santo with a cold canine grin.