Read Online Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson, Sam Stall, Kevin David, Sam Stall Anderson - Free Book Online Page A

stared at the mirror. There was a large, crimson smear in the middle of the glass. Jim looked into the sink beneath it.
    The bloody face of a young woman stared up at him.
    The rational part of his mind told him that the force of the decapitation must have bounced the head off the mirror and plunked it into the basin. The primal part shouted for him to get the hell out of there. Now.
    For a moment, reason kept control. Jim gazed down at the face. There was an odd, purplish growth right in the middle of her fore-head—just like the welt he’d seen on Sarah’s shoulder, only larger, roughly two inches in diameter. Otherwise he could swear it was the exact same mark.
    Jim leaned closer to study it.
    Suddenly the growth popped open, revealing a glaring, fully developed eye. It peered directly at him.
    All pretense of reason fled. Jim leapt away, caromed off the bathroom stall behind him and ran out the door as fast as his unsteady legs could carry him. He didn’t stop running until he reached the front desk.

Chapter 7
A Taste of Armageddon

    Jim found Janice standing behind the counter, utterly alone.
    “Call the cops,” he told her. “Now.”
    “The phones aren’t working,” she said. “I can’t get through to anyone.”
    “Did you try your cell?”
    “No service. Nothing works.”
    Jim gasped for breath.
    “Dexter,” he said. “Is Dexter still around?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What about Oscar?”
    “He went out front twenty minutes ago.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I asked him to. Ever since the sun went down, people have been walking outside to get better reception on their cell phones.”
    “So?”
    “After a while I realized that none of them were coming back.” Jim’s breathing began to steady. He slowly got himself under control. As he did, he realized that something about Janice had changed. She didn’t seem angry or put-out or frustrated anymore. She seemed frightened. Profoundly and deeply frightened.
    “Oscar didn’t come back, either,” she whispered.
    Jim looked out the glass doors. All he could see was darkness.
    “All right,” he said. “I’ll take a quick look—”
    “No!” Janice said. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Nobody comes back!”
    Jim hesitated. The crime scene he’d just witnessed had rattled him to his core. But seeing Janice—confident, dogmatic, in-control Janice—coming unglued was almost worse.
    “It’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ll just stick my head outside. You’ll never lose sight of me. Sit tight.”
    Jim headed toward the doors. Then he stopped and turned around.
    “One more thing,” he said. “I need you to do me a favor. My sister, Rayna Pike, is staying on the seventh floor. I want you to call her and tell her to stay in her room. She needs to stow her Star Trek crap for a while and look after herself.”
    Janice stared back at him. He wasn’t sure if any of his words had registered, and there wasn’t time to repeat them. He stepped through the first set of glass doors, into the main entrance’s air-lock.
    The doors shut behind him, leaving Jim, finally, with a fairly decent view of the outdoors. The Botany Bay was located on the edge of downtown Houston, just minutes away from the city’s convention center and financial district. Aside from the occasional fanboy convention, the hotel mostly catered to business travelers. The surrounding neighborhood offered little in the way of tourism or nightlife. There was an Applebee’s down the road, and a Starbucks that closed at eight o’clock, but the rest of the avenue was given over to generic office buildings and parking garages. Tonight the streets and sidewalks were empty, just like any other night.
    Jim glanced back into the hotel. Janice was behind the desk, staring at him. He waved at her, smiled, then opened the exterior door and stepped outside.
    A blast of hot, humid Gulf Coast air washed over him. He looked west, then east, and saw nothing unusual. Off in the distance, maybe