“The windows,” someone yelled.
The lobby featured large bay windows set with old-fashioned ripple glass. Like most of the windows, they were painted tight in their casings. The smoke now hung in a solid, roiling sea just beneath the ceiling, and a dim red glow blossomed from the far ends of the halls. The hotel was like a great ship going down, and Violet lifted her chin against those who would abandon it.
“Don’t break anything,” she shouted, knowing they’d ignore her. Few understood the soul of this old place. To them, it was just wood, carpet, and glass.
One guy picked up a settee and hurled it against the window. It bounced away, but the glass cracked. A couple of people had dropped to their hands and knees to dodge the smoke. Even the torchlight did little to penetrate the murk.
“The couch!” Jonathan waved a few people over. Two men joined him and they bent and lifted the furniture to their waists.
“You’ll have to pay for damages,” Violet said, but no one was listening.
If Janey were here, they wouldn’t dare.
She could sense them—she wasn’t exactly sure what they were, only that they’d always been here and they had something to do with Janey’s disappearance—hovering around the corners, their laughter mingling with the distant crackle of flames and the cacophony of destruction.
“Heave,” Jonathan commanded, as the three men rocked the sofa backward. On “ho,” they hurled it into the window and the glass exploded. Cool night air poured through the jagged opening and the frantic crowd rushed to escape.
“Women first,” Cody yelled, carrying his injured patient to the window.
Rhonda made a move toward the window, but Violet grabbed her by the back of her blouse.
“Lemme go,” Rhonda said.
“You haven’t punched your time card.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Where’s the cash drawer? At the desk?”
“How should I know?”
Cody passed the injured woman through the window, and she was reluctant to let him go, clinging to his neck with tapered, skeletal fingers. He finally passed her to Jonathan, who was standing outside in the hedges. A man in a toboggan was helping women over the lip of the window, but not everyone was as chivalrous. Violet smirked as a chubby young man in T-shirt and jeans shoved his way through the crowd and clambered out, revealing the fleshy swell of his upper buttocks.
“Kendra?” Cody called, looking around the rapidly thinning crowd. He was just like the rest, calling a woman’s name like she was a possession.
Well, no one is going to possess me.
Now that the curtains were yanked wide, the lobby was filled with moonlight and was almost beautiful. Smoke curled around the piano as if it were on a nightclub stage and some music-school dropout were about to peck “Heart And Soul.”
But the audience was vanishing. Violet grimaced at the thought of guests leaving before they’d checked out. Had they no respect?
Janey would never stand for it.
But Janey’s no longer in charge. Now they’ve made me caretaker. And what am I supposed to do about it?
Good question.
But one thing she knew, there was no sense letting good money go up in flames. She elbowed through the chaos and headed for the office.
Chapter 48
Wayne opened his eyes to dirt, his head like a bowl of mashed potatoes with blood gravy.
Moist, forest-scented air wafted over his face, but smoke boiled from behind him. He tried to stand but couldn’t feel his legs. He remembered the darkness, the basement, and then....
He was lying on the ground just beyond a concrete pad, the wooden door split and sagging to one side. Behind him came screams and the rending of wood. He rolled over just enough to see the outside of the hotel, the back end with its sloping addition and a tin-roofed maintenance shed. The November night chilled his skin but the warmth of the fire crept along his spine like a molten snake.
“Yo, you okay?” someone asked. It was a college-aged man in dirty chef’s whites, obviously a cook who’d fled the kitchen. He stood near the edge of the forest, at a safe distance, nervously puffing a cigarette.
“Kendra... the others....”
“Get out of there, man, the place is going to blow,” the cook said. His face was streaked with grease and soot and his eyes bright with fear.
“My daughter’s in there.”
“They’re all out except—Jesus, there’s a dead guy behind you.”
Wayne’s first thought was “ghost.” But ghosts didn’t exist. That meant—
Wayne reclaimed the glimpse of Rodney Froehmer’s deranged face. He tried to turn but he couldn’t. Somehow it didn’t matter, whether it was a ghost or just a normal, everyday corpse.
Kendra is safe. I can just lie here and rest. “I can’t move.”
“Just my luck,” the cook said, tossing his cigarette aside and approaching Wayne.
“Never mind me,” Wayne said. “Other people are in the basement.”
“You must have hit your head. They all evacuated when the power went out.” The chef bent over Wayne. “How come you’re still here?”
“We were hunting in the basement.”
The sputtering flames licked light along the chef’s moist face. “Don’t know if I’m supposed to move you or not. What if you’re paralyzed or something?”
“Well, I can lay here and burn to death or lay over there and still be alive,” Wayne said.
The cook looked dubious, though he was in a hurry to retreat from the burning structure. “You won’t sue me?”
“Never saw you,” Wayne said. “And this didn’t happen.”
The cook lifted Wayne from beneath his armpits. Tingling needles of ice worked down Wayne’s thighs as blood began flowing through his legs. When the cook dragged him out of the doorway, Wayne at last saw what he’d left behind. Red light limned the entrance, revealing Rodney’s prone form on the basement floor. A steel pipe protruded from his chest.
“Don’t look back,” the cook said.
“Too late,” Wayne said.
“Least he don’t have to worry about burning to death.”
By the time they were 20 feet from the building, Wayne had regained some feeling in his feet. He raised himself up, wobbling, as smoke crept from the basement and drifted toward the trees.
“You ain’t paralyzed,” the cook said.
“Guess not.”
“Man, I hope I turned off the gas to the deep fryer. Janey Mays would have my balls in a blender.”
“So everybody evacuated?”
“Yeah, they’re out front. You’re one of them ghostbusters, right?”
“I guess.” But we’re the ones that got busted.
“Sorry about your friend there,” the cook said, already lighting another cigarette. “You must have been the last two in the building.”
The flames had just begun to penetrate the first floor. Wayne swayed on his numbed legs and took a trembling step toward the hotel. “I have to find my daughter.”
The cook grabbed his arm. “Hold on, man. I told you the place was empty.”
“I have to be sure.”
“Hear that?”
Wayne listened beyond the crackle of the flames, the whisper of the Blue Ridge wind in the trees, and the groan of straining timbers. A wail poured over the valley like the scream of a wounded dragon.
“Sirens,” the cook said. “We’ll get you an ambulance.”
Wayne nodded, wondering if Kendra was worried about him. He glanced up at the window of the room where he and Beth had conceived her—
And there she stood.
Chapter 49
Bad move.
Kendra had ducked into 318 because it was the first open door she’d found while feeling her way down the smoky hall. She’d hoped to escape through the window, but it was jammed tight and the lattice framework was too narrow. Even if she broke the glass, she wouldn’t be able to slip through. She looked down at the crowd milling on the front lawn, hoping to spy Cody, but also hoping he’d noticed she was missing.