Last Hope, Book One: Onslaught by Drew Brown Page B

on.”
    Budd looked around at the sofas and coffee tables positioned in the corners of the room. The areas were littered with bodies. There were two women in casual clothes slumped across a coffee table and a mauve-suited employee surrounded by a set of matching blue suitcases. Other people had collapsed while walking and were sprawled on the ground, while five bodies in a line formed a small, dead waiting-line at the reception desk. High above them, mounted on the wall, a large clock with Roman numerals had ceased to run. The time on its face was one o’clock.
    “Hey, you two, wait,” called a voice that stopped Budd and Juliette and spun them around.
    A mauve-suited hotel worker was standing in a doorway on the rear wall of the reception. The man’s jacket was unbuttoned and his flat cap was gone. His blond hair was untidy. “Have you seen anyone else?”
    “What is happening?” Juliette asked.
    “I don’t know,” the hotel worker answered. “My name’s Frank. There’s a group of us sheltering in the bar.”
    “How many of you are there?”
    “Maybe ten or fifteen, but there’s more coming down all the time. You should come with us.”
    Budd shook his head. “Sorry, Frankie, but we’re using my car to get outta here. Wanna come?”
    The hotel worker paused, waiting as Budd started to move. “If your car’s down in the basement, you can’t go anywhere. The garage doors aren’t on the emergency power circuit.”
    Budd looked at Juliette, using his eyes to question her as to what she wanted to do. After a few moments, and a couple of glances at the hotel worker, Frank, she nodded her head.
    “You said the others are holed up in the bar. That’s the floor above, right?” Budd asked, turning back towards the elevator car.
    “You don’t want to use that. No one’s ever tested how reliable the back-up generators are. There’s a staircase here in the employee section.”
    Budd shrugged his shoulders. “You’d better show us the way.”
     
     
17
    Frank used a battery-powered flashlight to navigate the narrow corridors of the employee-only section, his light illuminating countless notice boards and signs on the white walls. After a couple of turns, passing several collapsed hotel workers who had their faces turned to the shadows, he reached a door on a spring-return, which had been latched open to a hook on the wall.
    “Keep following,” he said as he strode up the stairs. With every twelve steps there was a half-landing, from where the next steps started in the opposite direction. There were four flights between the two floors.
    “Have you heard anything from outside?” Budd asked.
    Frank was slow to answer the question, and instead kept walking. When he stepped off the staircase and through the doorway into the shop-filled corridor that circled the bar, he stopped and licked his lips nervously. “The TVs aren’t working and neither are the phones, even the secure lines are down. So far the only thing we’ve heard is from the radio, but even that’s just a few snippets.”
    “What has it said?” Juliette asked.
    Frank turned his attention from Budd to look Juliette straight in the eye. “That this is happening all over the world.”
    “Everywhere?” Juliette said.
    Budd placed his arm around her shoulder, moving his head so that they were face to face. He smiled at her. “That’s impossible, kiddo. Let’s get to the bar.”
    Frank set off once more and they rounded a corner to see the bank of elevators. Across from the brass-plated sliding doors was the bar, which had its own wooden double doors propped open with red fire extinguishers.
    Although the power for the room was obviously not on the backup generator’s ring, someone had found a supply of candles and had placed several of them on each table. The multitude of tiny flames flickered and danced across the walls and ceilings, casting shadows that seemed to be alive, ceaselessly moving and changing shape in the corners of the