Last Hope, Book One: Onslaught by Drew Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

hand.
    “No, Monsieur Ashby,” she said. “We stay together.”
    Budd nodded. “Sure.”
    He stepped around the corner and moved down the hallway, quicker now because the light from the elevator gave some definition to the area.
    “ Monsieur Ashby?” Juliette said when she saw the dark head of hair in the doorway. Budd ignored her and carried on. There was a mauve cap on the floor a short distance from the body. He reached the elevator and looked inside, keeping Juliette behind him to obscure her view.
    The head jamming the elevator doors belonged to a lift attendant. He was face down, his skull partially crushed by the repeated blows.
    Despite the injuries, Budd thought there was a surprising lack of blood on the carpet.
    An old man was slumped against the back wall of the elevator car, a guest wearing a suit and tie. His head was tilted so that his chin rested on his chest, while his white hair was parted in the center and held in place with wax. Budd stepped over the lift attendant’s corpse and knelt beside the old man to check his wrist for a pulse. The arm was cold and a little stiff.
    “He’s dead.”
    “What has happened?” Juliette asked, crouching beside Budd.
     
    I didn’t answer. Aside from it all being a nightmare, I didn’t have a clue. She might as well have asked which religion is the one true faith…
     
    Next to the door, on the control panel for the elevator, a solitary neon bulb was lit. It was the top floor, the Skyview Restaurant. Someone had pressed the call button. Budd looked at it, wondering what to do. “Should we let this one go? Call another?”
    “I do not like this dark, Monsieur Ashby.”
    “Me neither. But I ain’t too hot on our company.”
    “The dead cannot hurt us.”
    “I guess not. Up, then?”
    Juliette nodded.
    Grabbing hold of the lift attendant’s ankles, Budd dragged the corpse inside. During the movement, the squashed head dropped to one side. Budd instinctively examined the face.
    It was Stephen Doring.
    The bell chimed and the elevator started to climb.
     
     
14
    Neither Budd nor Juliette spoke as the elevator rose through the building, and nor did they take their eyes away from the panel of floor numbers. Budd thought he heard Juliette breathe a sigh of relief when their movement slowed.
     
    I think, just that once, even I was glad to hear that awful bell chime before the doors finally opened. I didn’t like be cooped up in there with two dead bodies.
    Unfortunately, I had a shock coming…
     
    The long, narrow room where the maître d’ had worked from his podium was in darkness, lit only by the light from the elevator and another line of green bulbs on the floor. Budd stepped out and his gaze settled on the two wooden restaurant doors. He started towards them.
    A pace behind, Juliette hesitated. “What about the lift?” she asked.
    Budd stopped and glanced around, searching for a way to stop the elevator from leaving after they were gone. He could only think of one: he took Stephen Doring’s corpse by the shoulders and slid the head back between the doors. When he straightened up, Juliette had a look of disbelief upon her face.
    “That is not right,” she said.
    “It was his life’s work,” Budd replied, a grim smile forming on his lips. “I’m sure this is what he would’ve wanted.”
    Juliette’s expression showed her displeasure, but she shrugged her shoulders and pointed to the restaurant. “Let us go,” she said, and turned away.
    Budd jogged to overtake her. When he reached the double doors, he took hold of the handles just as the pulpy thud of the elevator doors closing against their human stop rang out.
    Juliette winced.
    After counting to three in his head, Budd opened the right-hand door. Bright light burst in and he shielded his eyes with his arm. The Skyview Restaurant was filled with the grey ambience of dawn, which flooded in through the glass walls and roof.
    Blinking away the sudden change, Budd thought that the clouds