Zombiegrad. A horror novel

“Quick!” Ksenia shouted. “Upstairs!”

They ran to the exit at the end of the corridor. A female creature was standing on the floor landing, blocking their way. Ramses slammed her on the head with the butt of the assault rifle. The creature fell down the stairs on top of other ghouls.

Ramses slapped a fresh magazine into his Kalashnikov and they ran all the way up to the fifth floor.

“The ladder,” Ksenia said, pointing at the fire ladder outside the double windows. Without thinking twice, Ramses opened the first window. The second one was barred, and they had to use their last hand grenade to break the bars.

When the way outside was free, they stepped out of the window onto the narrow ledge, coming along the building wall.

A horde of moaning psychos appeared at the beginning of the corridor just at the moment when they started descending down the ladder. Ksenia was the first to go. Ramses followed her. Ksenia’s long hair was blowing about in the icy wind. She lost her footing on one of the rungs, slipped and nearly fell off the ladder.

They got down into the police station parking lot and had a look around. The parking lot was surrounded with a high brick fence, razor wire running along its perimeter. They crouched behind a black Lada.

Ramses fished out the car keys. “Let’s locate that Opel.”

It was not so hard. They spotted an old and well-used blue Opel Corsa in a distant corner of the parking lot. Two dead ones were shambling about as if drunkards shopping for cars in a dealership. Dispatching them would attract undesirable attention, and Ramses and Ksenia walked around them in a wide arc, hiding behind the cars and vans.

They opened the driver’s door and switched off the alarm system.

Ramses turned the key to warm up the engine. “Stay inside,” he said to Ksenia. “I’ll check the gates.” He left the backpack on the passenger seat and slammed the door shut.

The first sun rays shone shyly on the city. It was a clear morning, and it was not snowing. He went the length of the fence to the gates. He was shaking with cold and his body temperature was dramatically falling. He could feel the frost was compressing his heart muscle. His T-shirt was a bad protection against the severe winter cold. He started running to get warm.

As he reached the gates, he saw they were closed. Though the power was out, he could open them manually with ease.

He entered the checkpoint. It was empty. Plastic cups and newspapers littered the floor. Puffs of his warm breath filled the small gatehouse. He took a little break from the harsh wind and then went out into the cold again.

He crawled under the gates on his stomach and elbows and hid behind a lamppost. He peeked cautiously around it. The street was swarming with the dead. Lots of abandoned cars. An emergency vehicle was sitting in the middle of the street. Two cars had crashed into it. The lights of the emergency vehicle were still blazing, but there was no sound of the siren. It must have broken during the collision.

A white Subaru was parked near the gates. He made out corpses inside the car. Mutilated. A kid seat had been dragged out of the car and thrown on the snow-covered ground. Blood splatters all over the seat. No sign of the kid anywhere. He cupped his mouth with his hand. A scanty tear froze instantly on his manly cheek.

“What the fuck is going on here?” he said slowly.

***

Just when Ramses and Ksenia pulled out of the parking lot into the infested street, the piercing shriek of an air-raid siren choked off the monotonous wailing of the triggered car alarm systems and made a flock of sparrows take wing off trees and inactive trolleybus wires.

The traffic in the city was paralyzed. There were stranded cars sitting even on the sidewalks. Ramses maneuvered the Opel around the cars and the debris, looking frantically for gaps between the vehicles. They nearly hit a couple of survivors, a man and a woman, who whisked past them, riding a motorbike. The undead stretched out their hands toward the riders, but they were too slow to capture their prey. In only one day, the city streets were filled with fear and death. Hundreds of hungry eyes were pointed at the old blue Opel Corsa, which was making its way through the ravaged city.

“Where are we going now?” Ksenia asked. They had not had the time for discussing this issue before. Now it was the most vital one.

“I really don’t know,” Ramses said. He looked at Ksenia. She was huddled on the passenger seat and hid her hands under the sweater sleeves. It was still freezing in the car. “How about your place? To rescue your family?”

Ksenia lapsed into silence. She was sad and shivering with cold.

“Dad was … everything I had … in my life. He was my family.”

“I’m sorry,” Ramses said. In a minute he asked her, “You have any other relatives?”

“No.” She paused. “An aunt. In Moscow.”

Ramses said, “We’ll head to my hotel then. Let’s hole up there if the place is safe. My friend Steve must be still there.” He turned the steering wheel to avoid a bump against an attacking living dead. He was driving on the separating strip now. “I hope he is. We gotta stick together.”

They drove into an area where the power was obviously on. Some traffic lights kept on functioning, blinking only yellow lights for the indifferent immobile vehicles and the uncaring pedestrians from hell.

Ksenia gave Ramses the directions to the hotel.

“The Arkaim Hotel is half an hour ride from here.”

A pair of red fuzzy dice was dangling from the rearview mirror. There were distracting Ramses from driving and he took them off and tossed them on the back seat. He looked through the windshield at a burning car.

“I wish it were a dream,” he said. “And I wish I snapped out of this dreadful nightmare.”

“Can murderers be afraid?” Ksenia said with sudden anger.

Ramses breathed out a sigh. “It was an accident. I haven’t murdered anyone. I mean … This is all about self-defense. That kid pounced on me himself. Now, this,” he waved at the chaos outside, “is worse than what I’ve done.”

“Sorry,” Ksenia said. “I just don’t know where to go, who to trust.”

“I see. Sure thing, I’m afraid. I’m scared shitless. You don’t see dead people every day, you know. Especially the sort that walk around the streets and devour other people using no kitchen utensils.”

Ksenia opened the glove compartment covered with hot babe stickers and fished out an apple, two stale cheese sandwiches, a gas lighter, a pack of cigarettes and a penknife. She put everything into the backpack.

Ramses could feel the welcome warmth gradually returning to his body and numb extremities thanks to the heater.

“Brr! What a cold! Why did you choose to live here?” he said without taking his eyes off the road.

“I didn’t. I was born here.”

She dug into the apple greedily. She handed him one sandwich, and he wolfed it down in one go.

The danger was scattered around the city. Here and there, groups of creatures were moving around. A female monster wearing an expensive fur coat sat on the sidewalk, eating a piece of flesh. Blood and drool streamed down her chin. Ksenia closed her eyes and turned away from the window. Then she opened them and shoved the half-eaten apple into the backpack in disgust.

“Right there.” She pointed in the direction of a bridge. “Behind that bridge. The hotel is on the riverbank.”

An overturned bus had blocked a large portion of the road through the bridge.

“Uh-oh,” Ramses said and applied the brakes. “Not good. We can’t drive through this jam.” The car shuddered to a halt in the middle of the bridge.

“Let’s go back,” Ksenia said. “There might be crazies in that bus.”

Ramses strained his ears.

“Wait,” he said, letting out tendrils of vapor through his nose and raising his hand. “Think I can hear something.”

The ambient sounds were a cacophony. It was composed of the banshee-like scream of the air-raid siren, car alarms and incessant moaning of the horrid creatures. Now another disturbing sound added. It was a rumbling noise coming from behind the bus. Ramses could not see what it was because of it. The thunder was getting louder.

Ksenia said she could hear it, too, and looked at Ramses, hoping to find the answer to her questions on his worried face.

There was the screeching metal sound, and the body of the bus was burst open by the brutal force of an army tank, rushing along the bridge at full speed with the turret facing backward.

FIVE

Andrew Thomas woke up at 5:00 a.m. sharp. He switched off the alarm clock and got out of bed. His head was clear, as always. He felt refreshed after a good night’s sleep. He walked into the living room. The motion sensor lights kicked on. He took the remote control, turned on the CD player and selected Bruce Springsteen’s album, “The Rising”. He was into Bruce Springsteen this week. He pushed a button, and music filled the room. He opened the window to let the winter morning air in and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. It was still dark outside.

When the room was cool enough, he closed the window and started doing his morning exercises – push-ups and sit-ups. His body began functioning at full capacity, blood rushing in and filling each cell of his body with energy. While the music was still playing, he turned on the FM transmitter on the CD player and left the living room. In ten seconds, the lights went off automatically. He had always been a thrifty person like his father and saved every penny he could save. That was why he got the motion sensor lights installed in his apartment.

He went along a spacious hallway and stepped into the bathroom. The lights went on there. He touched the screen in the shower stall and activated the radio receiver tuned to the wave of the CD player, which was now transferring Bruce Springsteen’s music into the shower stall. Standing under the hot shower was a way of meditation for him. Like exercises, a hot shower is also good in the morning. Makes the blood circulate better. Especially in the brain. Which again increases efficiency. He took a shower trying not to think of the plans for the day. In eleven minutes he got out of the shower stall, wiped himself with a big bath towel and got dressed.

He had his breakfast quickly but savoring his meal. While he was eating, he listened to his home radio station in Sheffield.

After the breakfast, he put on his black suit and a white shirt and slipped a tie around his neck. He looked in the mirror. A thirty-year-old man with green eyes and light brown hair was looking at him. He smiled, and the young man in the reflection smiled back.

Andrew Thomas, General Manager of the Arkaim Hotel, was ready to face the new day.

Andy went out of his penthouse apartment, which was on the fifteenth floor of the hotel and walked into the elevator. Bruce Springsteen’s song “Worlds Apart” started playing there. The elevator technician had replaced the Cher album that had played in the elevator last week. Andy smiled. He liked it when the things ran smoothly. Even such a small detail as having the staff change the elevator music in time brought him a smile.

He pushed a button on the panel, and the elevator started descending to the first floor.

Andy had ambitious plans. He wanted to build an empire of his own and expand it from the east to the west, though an ordinary Western businessman would have done it just the other way around – from the west to the east. But the market in Western Europe had been saturated. And Russia was full of opportunities. Though the economy was shaken during the 2008 crisis, when he opened his hotel, Andy managed to pull through. Part of the success was due to Andy’s excellent team, which he had handpicked and built personally. One of the requirements for his staff was to have a good command of English. The people working at the hotel were mostly Russian, and though Andy had learned the Russian language quite handsomely, the working language among the hotel staff was English. He did not think the English courses were a waste of time, and he encouraged his employees to practice English constantly. The most capable ones were regularly sent to attend hotel management courses in the UK, Austria, and Switzerland. And all this brought added value to the quality of service in his hotel and raised its standards. His father, Henry Thomas, a guru in the world of hotel management, was proud of him. Andy felt frustrated he could not call him today. Last night, the Internet and phone connections went down almost simultaneously.

Andy looked at the display, humming to the music.

At some point, it was difficult to conduct business in Russia. Kickbacks, bribes, and all such things were an inseparable part of it. In many respects, Russia was an Asian country. Cronyism was a usual thing here. But nevertheless, he tried to risk it. He decided to start his business in the industrial city of Chelyabinsk. The city was big, over a million of residents in the metro area, more than fifty thousand tourists visiting the city every year. The city also boasted world sports events and attracted business people from all over the world. An ideal place to start a chain of hotels in Eastern Europe. On Valentine’s Day, they celebrated the fifth anniversary since the official opening of his hotel, and business seemed to be looking swell. Until recently …

His face darkened as the memories of the past thirty hours flashed in his mind. But he ought to focus and stop worrying. He pressed his hand to his forehead and tried to calm down.

For every problem there is a solution, he reminded himself. Always.

The display showed the number “5”.

He snatched a gun out of his shoulder holster and held it in front of him.

The second floor. Safety off. Andy was ready to face the new day.

On the first floor, the elevator clinked, flashing number 1 on the display, and the doors opened before him.

A large poster on the wall said, “Welcome to the Arkaim Hotel – your home away from home.”

He stepped out of the elevator and walked past the front desk. The reception clerk was not to be seen anywhere. Not good. The face of the company, as they say. One of the key figures in his business.

Andy walked past a fountain. The flowing red carpet led him to the lobby where the security guards were doing their routine. Andy nodded at them and concealed the gun in the holster.

A man was standing at the second set of entrance doors, which had been barricaded with couches, coffee tables, and vending machines, and looking at something through the gap in the door glass. Andy felt the cold air coming in from outside.

“Good morning, Goran,” Andy said.

The man turned around. He was in his early forties. Good-looking. Raven black hair and brown expressive eyes. Goran Pavic was the best executive chef he had ever met.

“Hi, Andy,” Goran said in English in his Serbian accent.

Andy came close to the heap of furniture, which was blocking the entryway. He could see that the front door was ajar.

“Is it getting any better?” Andy asked.

He almost jumped up as a hand smashed against the glass panel. A female looked at them through the glass, her right eye hanging on bloody tendrils and resting on her cheek. Half a dozen other anthropomorphic entities stared at them through the glass covered with cracks. They snarled and tried to break through.

Andy made a step back. “Bloody hell! I guess not.”

“I hoped it was all a bad dream when I woke up today,” Goran said. “I came down here and saw it was not a nightmare.” He looked at Andy. “We’re not sleeping.”

“This is all crazy,” Andy said. “But no, Goran. You’re not sleeping. You’re not Alice, and this is not Wonderland.”

An obese man in his late forties walked up to them. He was wearing a black suit with a name tag, which said, “Igor Sorokin, Security Manager.”

“Dobroye utro, Mr. Thomas,” Sorokin said. There was a portable radio set in his hands. “Your walkie-talkie. The mobile connection is still down.”

Andy could smell whiskey on the man’s breath, but said nothing about it. He took the device from him. “Spasibo, Igor. How’s the perimeter?”

“The front door is secure,” Igor tapped on the door glass, and a male monster snarled at him behind the glass. “The space in the lobby is too tight for these customers here, so they don’t get enough leverage to break in. They’re packed like sardines.”

“Still, one cannot be too careful,” Andy said. “Reinforce the barricade.”

“We’re on it,” Sorokin said.

“And we’d better clear the yard and close the gate,” Goran said. “Knowing that these sorry sickos walk around and can break in any minute just gives me the creeps.”

Sorokin nodded. “Yes, but we’re short of firepower.”

“What else?” Andy asked.

“The underground parking lot is gone,” Sorokin said and rubbed his eyes wearily. He seemed to be in desperate need of sleep. “And we need to have the parking lot door welded to make it more stable. But it’s holding. So, we’re golden here so far. Like we put it in Russia, we’re under Christ’s armpit.”

“That’s good to hear,” Andy said. “Give me two of your boys for a tour around the hotel.”

“Won’t be a problem.”

“Good,” Andy said. “And will you check on Diana, please? Tell her I’ll do the tour around the hotel myself today.”

Diana Grinina was Andy’s deputy manager, his right hand. She was so devoted to her job that after the shock wave had shattered the hotel windows and glass splinters nicked her cheek, she got four stitches and was back in business in an hour.

“Sure,” Sorokin said. “See you in three hours in the conference room.”

He left and Goran took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Andy. “Here. I’ve translated your speech into Russian. It’s pretty good.”

“Thank you so much. This is my first emergency speech.” Andy took the sheet of paper and put it in his breast pocket.

Goran looked at his watch. “Okay. I’m gonna check the kitchen now. Keep in touch. And take care.”

“I will,” Andy said.

Goran left.

Andy looked at the vacant reception desk, frowned and turned to the guards, “For chrissake, find that front desk clerk, will you? Whose shift is it today?”

“It’s Pyotr’s.”

“Get him back asap. We’re a five-star hotel after all. I want the things to remain the way they had been before.”

Andy heard a rumble outside the hotel. He came to the window and saw a battle tank, trundling along the street and sending stranded cars flying.

“What are you talking about, Mr. Thomas?” One of the guards named Viktor stood by the window. “The world is going to pieces. Things are not going to be the same again.”

Three more tanks rushed down the street.

Andy sighed and kept silent for a bit. Finally, he said, “Is the radio ready?”

“It always is,” Viktor said.

Andy went to the security operations room. It was small. It does not have to be large. There were two desks, two chairs. CCTV monitors, and the armory. Generally, the room was occupied by one guard on duty. Sometimes the security manager sat at his desk, busy with paperwork. The work of a security guard was all about legwork.

A young guard with a bowl cut was watching the monitors.

“Any suspicious activity, Ivan?” Andy asked him.

“It depends on what you call suspicious,” Ivan said. He pointed at a screen. “There’s a man taking a piss on the stairwell between Level 5 and Level 6.” He pointed at another screen. “And there’s a woman in the parking lot, who has just eaten her poodle.”

“Good heavens,” Andy muttered and turned away.

He noticed that one of the monitors was switched off. So, it was impossible to see what was happening in the backyard.

“What’s with this one?” he asked the guard.

“That was on Friday. Kids broke the video camera on the western side of the building. With a pneumatic rifle, can you believe that?”

On a normal day it would not be a problem to have the technician fix it immediately, but with the yard swarming with these cannibalistic ghouls, the mission was next to impossible.

Andy took out his notebook and scribbled some notes. The walkie-talkie on his belt gave a hiss of static. He took it and pressed the button. The walkie-talkie crackled in Andy’s hand and a grumpy voice of the sanitary engineer told him that a pipe burst down in the basement. The water was cut off, but there was a decent puddle of water on the basement floor.

Andy clicked off the walkie-talkie. “Problems just keep piling up.”

Back in Harvard Business School, Andy received his MA in conflict management. He was trained to work under pressure and deal with various problems and conflicts.

For every problem there is a solution, he kept saying to himself. New situations, new solutions.

Andy sat in the chair, pushed buttons on the control panel to switch on the radio equipment. The loud-speaking communication system kicked in. He placed his note with the Russian text of his speech in front of him and spoke into the microphone.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen!”

Though I doubt that it’s good, of course, he thought, but he did not say it aloud.

He cleared his throat and went on, “My name is Andrew Thomas. I’m General Manager. As you very well know, we’re witnessing a bit of a complicated situation in this city. No one seems to know what’s going on at the moment. Apparently, the local authorities cannot shed light on the current situation either. The national news abounds only in reports of the recent meteor crash. But no information whatsoever is available on the true causes of the acts of violence we’re seeing in the city streets. There are some rumors of a contagious infection. On behalf of the Arkaim Hotel, I ask you to remain calm and not to attempt leaving the hotel. The building is surrounded by murdering insane persons. So I repeat – for your safety, and the safety of other employees and guests, do not try to leave the building. For further information, there’ll be a meeting in the conference room at 10:00 a.m. this morning. Once again, I’m Andrew Thomas, General Manager. Please enjoy your stay at the Arkaim Hotel – your home away from home.”

He read his speech aloud again, this time in English, and went out into the corridor. He saw Viktor, the guard, who stopped him and said quietly, “We found Pyotr, Mr. Thomas. He’s dead. Hanged himself.”

SIX

The news of Ramses’s imprisonment shattered Steve Clayton. He called Vassili Koshkin at once and asked him what to do. Vassili had a good lawyer in mind, but it was a weekend, and the least they could do for Ramses was to bring him some clothes and food.

Their taxi arrived at the hotel at around 10:00 a.m. and parked in the underground garage. The driver, whose name was Boris, helped Steve and Vassili pack their things into the trunk, and they sat in the backseats.

There was a jam at the exit, and the taxi dragged slowly behind a huge Coca-Cola truck. It moved forward a bit and then stopped. The taxi driver got very impatient.

Behind the cab, there was a long motorcade, ten or twelve cars, which had been decorated by colorful balloons and bright ribbons. Steve looked through the rear windshields at the white limousine following them. Their driver was edgy, too.

“Saturday,” Vassili said. “Wedding day. I pity those folks.”

Boris swore under his breath when the taxi had to halt again. This time they had to wait too long.

The limo driver leaned out of the window. “Hey!” A cloud of steam came out of his mouth. “What’s going on there? Why did we stop?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He shoved his door open and got out. A tiny beep signaled that the door was not closed. He walked past the cab, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Three strange-looking people showed up from behind the truck. They spotted him and began walking toward him. Steve could see there was something weird about them. Their gait was robotic and their appearance was dirty.

As the trio approached the limo driver, they stretched their hands toward him as if they wanted to charge and strangle him. The man made a step back and slammed onto the asphalt. He made an attempt to scramble to his feet, but the attackers surrounded him. Their backs blocked the view for the men in the cab who could only see the man’s feet drumming on the shiny asphalt for a couple of seconds.