Gordon cringed again, quivering in the sunlight slanting through the window. Then he grew still, and he spoke without turning around or looking up. “Your brother is alive north of here. The rest, I think you already know.”
“No,” she moaned again, hand clenching tight around the knife handle, her other hand dripping blood onto the lush carpet. “We walked over them. I could have seen them, I knew they were there…” The whole nightmare came to her now, a solid, dreadful memory that refused to go away.
She screamed, raised the knife again, saw the startled expressions on her friends’ faces, and threw the blade over Sparky's head towards the bed. Even before it bounced from one of the corner posts she was running, screaming again, raging, venting fury and hatred as spittle-strewn invectives.
“We can't have her making too much—” she heard Gordon say.
“Her mum and dad are dead!” Emily snapped.
Lucy-Anne reached the door and hauled it open, swinging it so hard that the handle knocked a chunk from the plasterboard wall behind. She went with no destination in mind, bursting through doors, sprinting along corridors, trying to outrun the nightmare that had been stalking her since yesterday. And for a while, in that place of endless corridors and rooms that all looked the same, she lost herself to grief and rage.
As his girlfriend disappeared out into the corridor, and Sparky looked up as though he had never seen any of them before, Jack only wanted to hear about his father.
“You really need to stop her,” Gordon said. “There are Superiors about, I sensed them earlier.”
“Superiors?” Jack asked, confused.
“Later!” Rosemary said, grabbing Jack's arm. “Go after her.” Lucy-Anne's screams were fading as she ran.
“But my father…” he said.
“I can tell you about him soon enough. And dear Susan, your mother. But stop her making that noise, or we'll all be in trouble.”
My father? My mother?
Rosemary glared at Jack, and he nodded, signalling Emily to stay with the others and then running for the door.
Just as he exited the plush suite and started along the corridor, he heard Gordon say, “Oh sweet Jesus, they're already here.”
There will be a statement from the prime minister on all TV and radio channels at midnight.
—Government Statement, all-channel broadcast,
10:30 p.m. GMT, July 28, 2019
Jack expected monsters.
“Superiors”? What the hell are they?
As he ran along the plush hotel corridor in pursuit of Lucy-Anne's fading screams, he wondered whether he was now just following echoes.
I've never heard of them, Rosemary never mentioned them, and—
The door to the service staircase opened. Jack skidded to a halt. A woman stepped out. She was beautiful, but terrifying in a way Jack could not properly establish. Maybe it was the complete disregard she seemed to have for her appearance: tatty, loose trousers; a torn jacket; dirty sweatshirt. Or perhaps it was her eyes and the way they seemed to bore right through him from the second they locked glances.
“Where are you going?” she asked, and her voice came from inside his head as well as without. Jack slumped against the wall.
“I'm following Lucy-Anne to bring her back,” he said without thinking.
“Who's Lucy-Anne?”
“My girl…” He frowned, because that no longer seemed right. “My friend.”
“Where are the others?”
What others? Jack thought. He could not lead this person—this Superior—to Emily, Sparky, and Jenna.
“Room 602,” he said. Then he started backing away from this woman, because he had not intended to say anything.
“It's all right,” she said, smiling. “You couldn't help yourself.”
The door behind her opened again and a man stepped through, incredibly tall and exactly the opposite to her when it came to clothing. He wore an expensive suit, cuff links, a thin dark tie, and his shoes were shined to a mirror-like sheen. His face was very severe, and Jack's first thought was that the man would never be in danger of suffering laughter lines.