Night of the Living Trekkies (7 page)

“Like, believe in the perfectibility of the human race,” Rayna countered.

“Or that tomorrow will be better than today,” one of the Klingons added.

“Or that by working hard, we can bring real and lasting change,” Gary said.

Jim resisted the urge to laugh at their naïveté. There were times when he felt compelled to describe the horrors he’d witnessed in Afghanistan. Decimated villages. Shattered limbs and burned bodies. Little children who looked as broken and shell-shocked as grizzled combat veterans. These sights didn’t fill him with confidence about the future of the human race. But as usual, he kept his mouth shut, and the conversation turned to other subjects: the Gamma Quadrant, the
Voyager
, Leonard Nimoy’s career as a director. He decided to get up and walk to the bar. The two servers working the room were running themselves ragged, and Jim knew he’d get a drink quicker if he ordered it himself.

“You want a Klingon martini?” the harassed-looking bartender asked him. “They’re gin and vermouth with a shot of bloodwine.”

“What’s in the bloodwine?”

“Everclear and red food coloring. It’s really popular tonight.”

“I think I’ll just have a Bud,” Jim decided. “Make it a pitcher.”

He returned to the table and offered the beer to the group. His new friends cheered—all except Matt, who appeared preoccupied with watching the entrance to the Gweagal Room. After everyone had a glass, Jim asked Matt if he was looking for someone in particular.

“I’m supposed to meet a Klingon,” Matt explained. “He makes edged weapons. I ordered a bat’leth from him. All custom work. Made a fifteen-hundred-dollar down payment.”

“I know that guy,” Jim said. “I think I met him right before you showed up.”

“Well, he was supposed to be here ten minutes ago,” Matt said. “If he stole my down payment I’m going to kick his ass.”

T’Poc answered with an amused snort. “Have you
seen
Martock? He’s, like, seven feet tall. The guy’s muscled up like an Augment.”

“And he’s got enough knives and swords to arm an entire boarding party,” Jim added. “He’ll carve you up like a serving of bregit lung.”

Laughter rippled around the table.

“Screw you guys,” Matt said. “I’m a central character. Nothing bad is going to happen to me.”

“You’re a what?” Jim asked.

“I’m the star of this show,” Matt explained. “Flag personnel in the various
Star Trek
series never get killed.”

“What about me?” Gary said. “Can I get killed?”

“Much as I hate to admit it, you’re probably safe, too,” Matt said. “You’re the comic foil. The funny characters always live to see another episode.”

“And me?” Rayna asked.

Matt furrowed his brow.

“It doesn’t look good,” he said. “The commander’s romantic interests are always transitory. You’re slated to die in a horrifying final plot twist.”

Matt moved on so quickly that he didn’t notice the irritated look on Rayna’s face.

“I know where
I
stand,” T’Poc said. “I’m a semiregular character, like Guinan on
Next Gen
. I don’t even have to die. I could vanish tomorrow and things would go on without me.”

“That about sums it up,” Matt said.

Jim took a swig of his beer. “Think about this,” he proposed. “What if you’re
all
extras? Do you know how many starships, with their captains and their yeomen and their crusty doctors and their comic relief guys, got blown to bits during various
Star Trek
episodes? Maybe you’re one of
those
crews. Maybe you’re all just phaser fodder for some other set of characters that truly matter to the story.”

Jim took another drink and let the Trekkies mull it over.

“Dude, that’s deep,” Gary finally said. “We go around thinking we’re the big dogs, but maybe we’re all just crewmen on the USS
Constellation
or the USS
Bellerophon
or the USS
Yamato
. We exist simply to die. We make some minor plot point, then get dispatched.”

“Heavy,” T’Poc said.

“Bullshit,” Matt said. “I’m not an extra. I’m in the goddamn opening credits.”

Jim was still formulating a response when a female Klingon returned to the table from the bar, cursing under her breath.

“Party’s over,” she said. “They just ran out of bloodwine and they aren’t getting any more.”

“What?” Matt said.

He directed a glare at Jim, as if he were personally responsible.

“Fine with me,” Gary shrugged. “I need some sleep.”

“You can sleep when you’re dead,” Matt said. “Let’s go up to my room and par-tay.”

Jim couldn’t believe that anyone was still using the word “partay” to describe an experience that was supposed to be enjoyable. Even the Klingons at the table seemed skeptical. They looked at each other, then at their watches.

“We’re just going to call it a night,” one of them said. “We were supposed to do the bat’leth demonstration, but two of our guys got caught up in a riot. Down by the train station, I guess. They wanted me to pick them up, but no way am I driving in this traffic.”

“Did you say riot?” Jim asked.

“
They
said riot. It sounded like a riot.”

“Maybe it’s the zombies,” T’Poc laughed. “Or wait—maybe it’s vampires! The sun’s set and now they’re finally making their move!”

Gary and Rayna laughed. Jim didn’t.

He knew people didn’t toss out the word “riot” in idle conversation. Cell phone reception was bad, but it wasn’t
that
bad. The kid with the toy phaser had complained that his television didn’t work. There was no signal. Just static.

Jim’s instincts were screaming. He still couldn’t grasp the threat’s true nature, but he sensed its silhouette. And it was enormous.

He told Rayna that he was going to swing by the front desk to check with the manager.

“You do that,” Matt replied. “Tell them that the VIP in room 754 is having a meltdown about the shitty service. Use those exact words, okay?”

“Got it,” Jim sighed. “Meltdown. Shitty service.”

They rose from the table en masse. Their move triggered a general evacuation of the banquet, with everyone heading somewhat list-lessly toward the doors.

“You will come by, right?” Rayna said.

“Count on it,” Jim said. “Watch yourself until I get there.”

“Watch myself? What am I watching for?”

“Trouble.”

“Are you okay?You’re acting kind of paranoid.”

“Something’s going on. I’m not saying it’s zombies, but it’s something. I’ve felt it all day. Now, suddenly, it’s worse. So keep your head on a swivel.”

He watched as the group started down the hallway to the lobby. He hung around for a minute, waiting to see if anyone would appear to clean up the mess. No one did. Even the two servers seemed to have vanished.

Finally he stepped out into the hallway, turned out the lights and locked the door behind him. Jim closed his eyes and then slowly rolled his neck from right to left.

He opened them just in time to see Martock running out of the men’s room and heading toward the lobby. He was still in full armor and full makeup but moved with an urgency that didn’t look like play-acting. Jim was about to call out to him when he noticed something on the carpeted floor.

Something red.

Something wet.

Footprints.

Jim followed them to the door of the restroom. It was located halfway down the long hallway that linked the lobby to the Endeavour Room. He stepped cautiously up to the door and, not knowing what else to do, knocked. No one answered.

He took a deep breath and pushed it open. It resisted slightly. He heard something metallic scrape across the floor.

“Hello?” he called as he entered. “Everything okay in here?”

A quick glance downward revealed that everything was, in fact,
not
okay. The scraping sound had come from a bat’leth lying on the floor. Jim figured Martock had dropped it on his way out.

The blade was covered with blood.

Jim stepped over it and entered the bathroom, backtracking over the Klingon’s crimson footprints.

“Anybody in here?” he called.

A bank of toilet stalls to his right prevented him from gaining a full view of the room. Jim stepped around them cautiously until he reached the row of sinks and urinals in the back.

A blood-drenched body lay in a thick, red-black pool of rapidly congealing blood.

“Hotel security,” Jim said, inching closer. “Are you okay?”

He realized the body wore the same dirty athletic shoes he’d spotted on the woman sleeping in Martock’s booth.

Then he realized the body was missing a head.

Jim reeled back toward the sinks, managing to catch one to balance himself. Fighting nausea, he tried to put everything together in his mind. The Klingon had decapitated her with his bat’leth, then dropped it at the door and run away.

He turned around and 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.

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 two blocks away, he made out a pair of pedestrians. But something was wrong, and it took him a moment to realize what was missing.

Smokers. On any normal night, one would find a knot of guests and staffers puffing away in front of the hotel, near the entrance to the alley where he’d spotted Rodriguez earlier in the day. It was the Botany Bay’s unofficial nicotine refuge. Midday or midnight, rain or shine, there were always smokers.

Except now.

Jim took a few hesitant steps toward the alley. He noticed a pack of cigarettes lying on the ground. And an iPhone. There was also a purse.

And a smear of black liquid that might have been motor oil.

Jim took a few more careful, quiet steps. He was close enough to hear noises coming from the alley. Footsteps shuffling. Voices grunting. Something ripping.

The homeless men and women he’d glimpsed earlier in the day, hiding in the shadows at the far end of the alley, were now just around the corner from him. And their numbers had grown. They sounded like an angry mob.

For a moment he contemplated simply confronting them. Until he remembered that this was probably what Oscar had done. Oscar the ex-Marine who was now MIA.

This isn’t in my job description
, Jim thought.
I’m just the goddamn bellhop.