The Last Haunted House on Mars and Other Stories (The Short Story Collections) by Amy Cross

Author:Amy Cross [Cross, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackwych Books Ltd
Published: 2023-05-25T22:00:00+00:00

V

“That should hold it,” Ashley muttered a short while later, once he'd finished running the chain through the metal handle on the final door. “I don't care how strong those things are, there's no way any of them should be able to break through now.”

Stepping back, he stared for a moment at his handiwork. He'd secured the chain to a nearby post on the hotel's roof, and then he'd wrapped it around several times. As far as he could tell, there were no obvious weak spots; anyone trying to smash their way up from the stairwell would have to be able to literally break welded metal apart, and he told himself that there had to be a limit to the ability of whatever those creatures were further down in the hotel. Still, he couldn't ignore a flicker of doubt in the back of his mind, and he continued to stare at the door before turning to look across the roof.

Now that they were on the top of the hotel, under the pitch-black night sky and surrounded by vents from the building's air-conditioning system, he could hear sirens ringing out all across the city. The cacophonous sound seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once, and as he stepped past one of the larger vents he realized that he could see fires burning on the horizon. He looked all around, convinced that somewhere he was bound to spot some sign of order, yet somehow the entire city of London – with its eight or nine million inhabitants – seemed to be caught in a moment of sheer disordered panic. Something else was wrong, too, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on for a few more seconds, until a patch of buildings to the south suddenly fell dark. That was when he realized.

“The power's going off,” Amanda whispered, standing over by the edge of the roof. “It's happening in stages, but... it's spreading all across the city.”

“What the hell could be causing this?” Ashley asked as he made his way over to join her.

“Look down there,” she replied, peering over the side of the building and looking at the street a couple of hundred feet below. “What...”

Her voice trailed off as he too looked down, and they watched as a few people raced through the night with only their phones as lights. Every so often one of those people screamed as they were attacked by other figures that emerged from the darkness, and already all the traffic had ground to a halt.

“It's like they're rioting,” Amanda said, “or looting. Where are the police? Where's the army? I don't understand why they're letting this happen.”

Ashley checked his phone again, but he was still unable to get any signal.

“It's like no-one's trying to stop it,” Amanda continued, as an agonized scream rang out from a nearby street. “Where is everyone? There should be someone out there dealing with all of this.”

“The whole city seems to be affected,” Ashley pointed out. “I imagine the authorities have got their work cut out for them.

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