All The Beautiful People (A Dread Novel Book 1) Read online

  Another look behind her and Taylor stopped. The horde would be on them in seconds. The mass of sprinting bodies was so close now, Taylor could make out uniforms and faces. A waitress with her left eye falling from its socket, a man in a police uniform with his lower jaw missing; thousands of lost souls all aiming to consume—nothing but madness in their eyes and hearts.

  They all knew it was over. Frank, Captain Martin, Dr. Jenkins, Cidney, Taylor. The girl was looking at Taylor with trust and hope in her eyes. Taylor saw her own reflection in the little girl’s stare. And in that moment, Taylor knew she would find a way to survive. If not for herself, then for this little girl who looked at Taylor like her own personal hero.

  Something changed in Taylor. For so many years she did her job for money. She saved and ended lives for a paycheck. This was different. As she raised her 1911 and searched for an answer, Taylor knew that she actually cared for this little girl. Through some unexplained force moving inside her, Taylor knew she would never let anything happen to Cidney.

  Then as if the answer to her unspoken prayer was being manifested, she saw the tanker. A huge silver cylinder pulled behind a massive truck. It was to her left, to the right of the approaching wave of teeth and nails. No one was inside, a sign that the driver had fled with the mob of terrified civilians.

  It was close, too close for Taylor to know they would survive but what option did they have? The captain’s men were pumping round after round into the frontlines of the human mass, and where one fell two seemed to take its place.

  With a prayer that the tanker still held gas, Taylor fired her pistol at the steel exterior. Time hesitated as the bullet made contact with the material. In the place of the desired explosion, a small hole appeared with fluid draining out onto the gray freeway pavement.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Widening her stance, she locked both elbows and opened fire on the tanker in quick succession. The air was cooling from the sun’s descent and the cold was settling in. Somewhere between the fourth and fifth bullet, with the infected bearing down on them no more than fifteen yards away, the tanker exploded.

  In the fraction of a second it took for the bullet to ignite the gas, the shockwave hit. She knew they were too close. The blast that radiated from her target rocked her off her feet. The heat soaring from the tanker warmed her entire body and even singed her hair. Her gun was lost amongst the maze of cars as Taylor was blown backward. She rocketed through the air like a baseball after a homerun hit.

  Still in the air, Taylor was left to wonder how much her landing would hurt. The stars opened up to her as her neck snapped back.

  So few stars in the sky to see in this part of the world.

  Taylor came down on the trunk of an ancient Mercedes-Benz. The impact sent searing pain through her entire body. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, something like an electrical shock stole her breath. She lay there for a moment, struggling to force oxygen back into her lungs. Her impact dented the car and even cracked the rear window.

  While she was catching her breath the last person she expected to see popped into her line of vision.

  “Wow, I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe we’re alive.” Frank was a sight. Most of his black Kevlar armor was gone, shed from his need to run faster. Along with his change were his eyebrows. Taylor assumed they were casualties, singed completely off from the blast. Unsure how he would take the news, Taylor decided to skip over his alien-like appearance.

  “Help me up.”

  Frank extended a hand. With a grunt she stood from her metal landing pad. Equilibrium struggling to find its center, she surveyed the freeway, post-explosion.

  The tanker was a mess of flames and twisted metal, as were the cars closest to the epicenter. The mass of infected humans racing toward them was nearly all fried to ashes. The smell of gasoline and burnt flesh was heavy in the air. Here and there, one of the humans taken over by its own darkness struggled to its feet. Some still on fire, some with their legs blown off, crawled in their direction.

  Members of her own party were fighting their way to their feet. Taylor searched for Cidney and her father. Dr. Jenkins was bleeding from a wound near his hairline. Cidney looked dazed but she was on her feet, no trace of serious injury apparent.

  “That was one hell of a call, Hart,” the captain said, throwing away his used rifle and limping toward Taylor. “I think you may have saved this mission.”

  It was a funny thing to literally blast everyone off their feet and yet be praised for her actions. Brain aching from her impact, Taylor made her way to the doctor and Cidney. “Everything okay, you two?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Dr. Jenkins said. “I thought for sure we were done.”

  “I knew we weren’t,” Cidney spoke up. Her eyes were locked on Taylor. With a nod the child continued, “I knew you would find a way.”

  “We need to get moving,” Captain Martin said over the crackling flames of the tanker. “We’re almost there. Taylor bought us some time but we’re not out of the woods yet.”

  With parting looks at the infected mob of humans struggling toward them despite their injuries, they were off again. The wounds from the blast were more severe than she’d thought. Everyone was alive, yet they were moving at a fraction of the pace they had mere moments before.

  Taylor’s head was alive with buzzing, as if a swarm of bees were doing circles in her skull. Though her body ached and begged for a respite, she was determined to get her team to safety.

  They approached the exit they needed off the freeway at a snail’s pace. Through raw determination, the party made it to the freeway off-ramp.

  “There.” The captain pointed with an outstretched finger. Taylor followed his line of sight to a high-rise building. The exterior was covered with a quilt of glass windows, some broken, and others with lights blinking off and on inside. Most of the windows were dark altogether.

  Gun lost, Taylor walked with the others down the dark freeway ramp and onto the quiet city street. For a city this large, there should be more noise; more voices, sounds of traveling cars, something. There was nothing. It felt wrong, and Taylor wasn’t the only one that sensed the problem.

  “Why aren’t there more people here?” Frank whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Jenkins replied. “This is the beginning of the business district. Maybe they were the first to flee back to their homes?”

  Taylor kept a firm grip on the handle of her blade. The doctor was right. Instead of houses cresting the landscape, large buildings ascended into the dark sky in varying heights. Besides a streetlight forever alternating its red, yellow, and green lights, nothing moved.

  Limping the remaining distance to the entrance of the tall building, Taylor couldn’t believe their luck. The group huddled outside the front doors, kneeling behind a giant cement planter holding a grouping of large domestic plants.

  “Four-man teams,” the captain said. “One in the lead with me, the other covering our rear. Taylor, you know your job. Nothing can happen to the doctor.”

  “Or his daughter,” Dr. Jenkins added.

  “Or me,” Frank said with a twitch of his nonexistent eyebrows.

  Cidney giggled. “You look funny.”

  Frank furrowed his brow. “Why do you say that?”

  Cidney unslung and unzipped her backpack in one quick, practiced motion. Her hand disappeared in the bag only to return a moment later with a thick, black-tipped marker. “Here, I’ll fix you.” She motioned with her left hand. “Come here.”

  The entire group was lost in the comical interaction between Frank and Cidney. Despite the hour and the circumstance, the child’s innocence dampened the desperation they all felt.

  Captain Martin brought them back to reality. “Cidney, that’s very nice of you to offer but we have to be going now. We go quietly and make for the stairs. I don’t know if the elevator is working but I don’t want to risk what may be in there if it is.”

  The group to
ok one deep, collective breath and moved forward.

  The entrance to the building was flanked with white marble pillars casting shadows across the entire front entrance. The first group of four security members, led by Captain Martin, reached the massive doublewide glass doors. The inside of the building’s lobby opened in front of them in a twisted maze of shadows and reflections.

  The captain and his team entered first. A brief moment passed, then the captain motioned the others inside. Taylor followed with the two Jenkinses and an eyebrow-less Frank.

  The room smelled like a mixture of sweat and death and Taylor put a hand to her nostrils. While her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, a quick survey of the lobby revealed the room had witnessed something horrible beyond words. The tile was slick with fresh blood. The lobby’s decoration items—chairs, end tables, plants—were strewn all over the floor. What bothered Taylor the most was the lack of bodies. There was enough red wetness on the ground to satisfy Dracula himself, but no bodies.

  Thomas raised a hand to shield his daughter’s eyes but the look plastered on Cidney’s face told Taylor she had already seen the worst. Along with the rollercoaster ride of emotions Taylor was struggling through, a new one surfaced. Anger. Anger for what Cidney had to see. The issues this child would have due to the events of the day boiled inside of Taylor.

  The future for all of them was bleak at best. Knowing Cidney for only a few hours, Taylor knew she deserved more. She at least deserved a chance at life.

  The group moved further on into the dark. To the right was a row of steel elevator doors. To the left was a door, presumably to a stairwell. It was too dark inside to see but a sign was placed beside the door. As they got closer it revealed a stick figure man walking up a mountain of stairs.

  Picking their way through the slick blood and overturned furniture, the company crossed the lobby entrance and halted next to the closed stairwell door. The silence was so thick it was nearly tangible.

  Taylor would look back on that moment unable to remember who was the person to open the stairwell door. It seemed like such a trivial thing, something they had all done a million times in the past. Opening a door; it was so simple. Yet when this door was opened it would signify something vastly different. It would herald death.

  CHAPTER 23

  Even as the door was swinging open, Taylor knew they were making a mistake. The blood, the lack of bodies, the stillness since their hike from the freeway, it was all leading to one eventuality. The diseased were gathered somewhere. Why they were packed into the stairwell would remain a mystery. Maybe someone had managed to trap them there. Maybe they were chasing some poor soul and once they feasted on their victim they became entombed. Whatever the reason, none of it mattered now.

  As the door inched open Taylor screamed, “No!” Throwing her body against the outside of the door was of little use. Force equivalent to an army of pushing arms and legs was awakened. The power of what felt like a hundred bodies now hammered on the opposite side of the door.

  A soldier brought out his pistol. He stepped toward the widening crack of arms and heads breaching the doorway.

  “Stop!” Taylor yelled. “Get back!”

  It was too late. The guard fired his weapon through the door as an arm reached out and with superhuman strength yanked him inside the stairwell.

  The right side of Taylor’s body was braced against the door, her feet fighting to find traction on the blood-soaked floor. She was close enough to touch the unlucky soldier as he passed from the lobby to the interior of the stairwell, terror plain on his face. He screamed a yell of pure terror, one Taylor had never heard come from anther human being’s vocal cords. Then he was gone, sucked into the swirling pit of infected.

  More bodies collided on both sides of the door. Beside her, Captain Martin hit the door and pushed along with her. On the opposite side of the panel, Taylor was left to imagine the sight of cramped, blood-crazed humans, their deepest inner darkness running rampant.

  Despite their greatest efforts, it was a stalemate. Only seconds passed before Taylor knew they had to get out fast. Leaving the building wasn’t an option, not when they were so close. They had to try the elevators.

  “Captain, we—”

  “I know. We’ll hold them here.” He motioned to the trio of Frank, the doctor, and Cidney. “Get them to the roof, Taylor.”

  Something in his voice made her pause. He gave her a long, hard look as he pushed with his remaining men against the creaking door. Taylor knew he had no plan to rejoin them. Like a true leader, he would die with the rest of his men. This was his way of saying goodbye without having to say it at all.

  “No matter what, you get them to the roof. Understood?”

  Taylor fixed him with a strong gaze and nodded. She pulled away from the door that was slowly inching open.

  “We’re going,” she said in a tone that didn’t allow for debate. She didn’t look back at the door. She grabbed Cidney’s free hand and ran for the elevators.

  The noise of the plagued muttering and howling followed them as they ran slipping across the lobby’s tile for the elevators. Taylor punched the button to call the steel box and hoped the elevator’s electricity was still responding.

  Cidney clutched Taylor’s hand with white knuckles. Taylor unsheathed the machete-sized knife hanging on the side of her hip.

  As the elevator doors dinged open, two things happened. First, there was a loud tearing noise from the stairwell door followed by running feet and Captain Martin yelling something about the door being ripped off its hinges. Second, the elevator in front of Taylor opened. The box revealed a mass of creatures that had at one time been human. Snarling blood encrusted humans with noses missing, teeth pulled free from gums, and ears ripped to shreds welcomed them.

  It was havoc beyond anything Taylor had ever witnessed. Every group converged at the spot right outside the open elevator at once. As handguns were fired expelling their last rounds, Taylor pushed Cidney behind her. Both hands on the handle of her machete, she went to work.

  Calling on every skill she possessed, Taylor charged the elevator. Somewhere beyond the flying blood, past the groping hands, she knew if she could clear the elevator they would have a chance.

  Separating heads from bodies was something Taylor had never practiced. But like anything else, if she concentrated on the job rather than zeroing in on the details, she knew she could get it done. Instead of reminding herself that she was hacking into bone and meat of once living people, Taylor reminded herself it was a job. All she had to do was clear the elevator; that was it.

  Thinking this way, she might as well have been hacking wood or branches. With each swing, her plan became more than a simple aspiration. She couldn’t spare the time to look back toward the screams and yells coming from behind her. What mattered to her most was none of the howls belonged to Cidney. The faster she hacked her way through the demons spilling out of the silver elevator doors, the faster they would be safe.

  She took some with a baseball bat swing to the neck. Others she met knifepoint first, sinking the blade into their heads or the spot over their hearts. She moved like light. In a way that was exactly what she was, light fighting the darkness. Or in her moral case more specifically, a dim gray glow fighting the darkness.

  Whenever her blade became stuck, sunk deep into the flesh of yet another victim, she would plant a boot in the drooping mass’s chest or stomach to pull it free. Groping arms became nubs; faces full of evil were separated from their bodies and fell to the floor twitching and squirming.

  Lucky for Taylor, there weren’t as many as she originally thought. Finally, the last elevator rider came at her, an overweight child sporting a shirt that said, ‘I’m not fat, I’m just a little husky.’ Taylor experienced a brief moment of sympathy as she brought her knife down hard in a two-handed overhead swing. The blade did its work well. In one hungry rend, it tore through skin and bone, finding a deep resting place in the boy’s skull.

  Wh
en the child’s husky body fell limp like a bag of apples, Taylor planted a boot on the kid’s face and jerked her blade free. The elevator was cleared. More blood smothered the tile floor along with jerking bodies, but their means of escape was open.

  Taylor was covered in a splattering of her enemies’ blood. Her body looked like a Pollock painting gone wrong. In the minute or so it took her to clear the elevator, fate had not been so kind to her remaining unit.

  All of Captain Martin’s men were dead or in the process of discovering the extent of the evil that lived within them as they struggled with the plagued. Only a handful still drew breath, and they were already too far gone to save. A soldier to Taylor’s right was screaming as he was torn apart. Another to her left, already bitten and clawed, was wrestling with a pair of nuns hell bent on finishing what they had started.

  Frank used his laptop to beat on the skull of a large man with thick legs. Captain Martin drew his knife and sawed at the attacker’s throat. Dr. Jenkins hovered over Cidney, zipping closed her backpack in a corner, so far lucky to avoid the attention of the diseased. Taylor could only imagine what was going through her mind.

  “Here!” Taylor yelled over the screams of the dying and the tearing of flesh by the diseased. “Get inside the elevator!”

  No one wasted a second. Frank and the captain were the first to move, with the doctor and Cidney close behind.

  Taylor was already inside the elevator’s metal box of promised safety, her right hand on the doors struggling to close.

  The captain slowed down for the doctor and his daughter to catch up. The four made their way high-stepping through the mass of dead and dying bodies on the floor. Frank’s computer was destroyed. Its use as a club rendered it to a mass of missing keys and a broken screen. Despite this, he carried it like a star running back with a football, sprinting for the elevator doors.