“Maybe,” Rosemary said. She paused between first and ground floors, and for a terrible moment Jack thought she was going to hand him the gun. She shook her head. “It's all we can do. We can't afford to get trapped—”
The door a flight below them crashed open. It rebounded from the wall, and Jack heard the squeal as the mechanical door closer pulled it slowly shut again.
Silently, Rosemary signalled, Up!
They climbed back to the first floor landing. The door out of sight below them opened again, slower, and this time they heard footfalls as at least two people entered the stairwell, boots grinding on grit.
“Clear!” a voice whispered.
Jack opened the door, hoping against hope that the hinges on this one were better oiled. He glanced at the corridor beyond, then went through, pulling Emily after him. Rosemary followed, and he waited until she chose which way to go.
The corridor looked exactly like the one on the sixth floor, and that disorientated him even more.
He heard gunfire in the distance, then a muffled explosion that thudded through the building fabric and brought dust down from the ceiling. Rosemary paused, looking up, tilting her head to listen.
“Can you tell—” Jack asked, but then Rosemary clamped a hand across his mouth. She looked at Emily and nodded across the corridor at a door.
Emily had it open in an instant, and Rosemary pushed Jack in after her. It was a basic room, though still quite large, with two double beds, a desk, and an en-suite bathroom just inside the door.
Jack went immediately to the window, careful not to touch the heavy curtains as he peered outside. Emily came with him, and Rosemary remained at the door.
The window looked down behind the hotel, at an area once used for staff parking, deliveries, and service access. He could see no movement, but he concentrated on the areas where people could be hiding: behind the overturned bins; under the verdant bushes that had broken out from the neighbouring garden; inside the three vehicles still parked there, all sitting on flattened tyres and with unreadable graffiti daubed across their doors, bonnets, and roofs.
“What do you see?” Rosemary whispered. She was standing behind the closed door, one eye to the spy-hole.
“Nothing,” Jack said. “Back of the hotel. No movement. They must have come in the front.”
“They'll have it covered,” she said. “They always…” She trailed off, and Jack watched her slowly raise her hand, then step back and point the gun at the door.
He motioned at Emily to lie between the two beds, then went to Rosemary, waiting for her to act. And then he heard the voices. They were distant at first, muffled and mysterious. But they were coming closer.
“Did you see them?” he whispered. Rosemary did not answer. She looked even more scared than she had before, and the gun in her hand was shaking.
“No,” she said at last, “but I heard him.”
“Him?”
“Miller.”
“Who's—?”
Rosemary held up her head and nodded at the door.
The voices outside were louder now, and Jack started picking up some of the words. “…here somewhere, they must be, so I don't want any more…”
“…every floor, from the bottom up.” This was a quieter voice, obviously answering the man in command.
“…stairwell…dead, and blood everywhere, so we must have hit one of them at least.”
“…more than a bullet to kill some of these freaks.”
There was a pause at that, and Jack stepped closer to the door. They must be almost directly outside. He sensed Rosemary shifting so that she could still aim her gun at the wooden door, then he leaned over so that he could see from the spy hole.