Quake by Andy Remic Read Free Book Online Page B

young German woman with the proud chest sidled along the bar towards him. Carter grabbed his Schwarz-Bier and was about to make a dash, but was too slow in his haste to salvage his drinks. Her talons curled around his bicep and she held him, trapped by manners, imprisoned by etiquette.
    ‘Yes, love?’
    ‘Ahh, English. You here to ski, yes?’
    Carter looked into her eyes, saw the gleam of alcohol on her lips, eyed the painted decorative nails around his arm and swallowed hard. She was out for the kill.
    ‘Yes, yes ... well, snowboarding, actually.’
    ‘Ah, the snowboarding man. Athletic! Can I buy you a drink?’
    Carter eyed the three tankards and the huge glass of whisky - the kill-switch in his brain refused to trip. ‘Yes, sure, don’t mind if I do.’ He mentally kicked himself, then caught Natasha staring at him from the dance floor and frowned at her. She gave him a broad wink and he stuck out his tongue.
    Carter spent the next fifteen minutes stumbling through a broken conversation - broken because he refused to acknowledge his fluency in German, and thus allowed the poor girl to struggle with her distinctly bad English.
    It was when her hand started brushing against his thigh that he made a lame excuse and, finishing his beer, headed across the dance floor and into No Man’s Land.
    ‘I’m getting a headache.’
    Natasha tutted, boogying with Hans and twirling in a pirouette in front of Carter. ‘Do you find me sexually pleasing to the eye, future husband and father of my child?’
    ‘Yes, yes, but I’ve had enough of this. It’s not my scene. I’m going out for a smoke.’
    ‘Bad Carter.’
    ‘Yeah, so shoot me. Every other fucker tries.’
    Carter bounced from body to body and finally made the exit. Cold air hit him - crisp and fresh and exhilarating. The sky was partially clouded, but between the puffs of moonlit cotton twinkled stars brighter than crushed diamond. Carter breathed deeply, eyes closed for a moment of ultimate simple pleasure; then he pulled out a cigarette, lit the battered specimen and filled his lungs with a pleasant impurity.
    He could hear the thump of the music and a cold wind blew across him, chilling his body after the sweating, heaving, dancing crowd. He enjoyed the cigarette, the beauty of the simple night air around him and the crisp stars above. Enjoyment, he decided, was something without action; without adrenalin; without the defying of death. But then - there was always an intense gratification after shooting a bad man in the face.
    Slowly, teasingly, there arose a deep, distant, subsonic rumble.
    Carter froze, smoke pluming around his slightly wind-chilled face, eyes narrowed.
    The rumble came again, heavier, gravelly and deeply bass. Carter felt a tremor beneath his boots and his hand shot out to steady himself; and then he watched in horror as the hotel in front of him moved, shaking to the tune of suddenly screaming voices, and the whole world seemed to fill with a trembling roaring song as the structure thrashed backwards and forwards. The ground was shifting and flexing beneath him and Carter whirled, forgotten cigarette extinguished in the snow as he sprinted for the entrance to the party ... which spat forth a machine-gun stream of screaming people, faces contorted in horror and fear. With a deep, climactic surge of noise the hotel buckled near its centre and part of the roof disappeared, slipping into darkness. Some of the lights went out in a domino swathe ...
    ‘Fuck ...’
    Carter fought his way violently through the throng of escaping, stampeding people, ‘Nats!’ he screamed as the rumbling continued, some Earth-giant coming awake beneath their very feet. The world was a confusion, a shaking, rumbling, heaving insanity and Carter plunged past flailing, screaming people who struggled against him, kicking and pushing, but he was fighting not to get out but to get in ...
    Natasha was dancing with Hans, slapping away his cheeky hands as the first tremor