David Morrell - Creepers

"Cheery," Rick said.

"A small version of the world," Balenger said. "That's why Carlisle was fascinated with his guests."

"A Calvinist God watching the damned, capable of intervening but choosing not to." Cora rubbed her arms in distress.

"If we're going to finish this tonight, we'd better keep moving." Rick gathered the pages they'd been reading. He put everything inside the file and zipped it into a slot on the back of his knapsack.

"We'll need to remember to return it to the file cabinet when we leave," the professor said.

"I don't know what the point would be," Vinnie said. "This hotel will soon be a pile of rubble."

"But that's a rule," Rick told him. "If we break it even once, eventually we'll break others. Then we'll merely be vandals."

"Right." Vinnie's tone became flat. "When we leave, we'll put the file back."

Flashing their lights around them, they left the balcony and headed up the stairs.

"Feels solid," Cora said. "But after what happened to Vinnie, to be safe maybe we should go up in single file. That way, there's less pressure on the stairs."

"Excellent idea." The professor was always ready with praise for Cora, Balenger noted. "Keeping a slight distance between each of us would be useful, too."

Forming a line, they climbed higher through the shadows. On occasion, the stairs creaked, making Balenger tense, but the wood remained steady, and he decided the sound wasn't any different from the normal sounds that old stairs made when someone climbed them.

The professor gasped as a bird on an upper banister panicked, bursting into the air, desperate to escape their intrusion. It slammed into a wall and swung away in greater panic. Blinded, it circled their lights, its wings thrashing. At once, it veered down the stairs, disappearing into the darkness.

"Well, that certainly got the old heart racing," Conklin said.

Balenger turned toward him. "Are you sure you're okay, Professor?"

"Couldn't be better." The stocky man was out of breath again.

"Only two more levels to go."

"Terrific."

Footsteps echoing, they reached level five.

"Uh!" Rick jumped away.

"What's wrong?" Cora shouted.

"This." Rick pointed. "Something brushed the top of my hat."

They aimed their lights above Rick's head.

"For God's sake, that looks like-"

"Roots," Vinnie said.

What resembled ropes and strings dangled from the floor of the balcony above them. Threads seemed attached to them: smaller roots.

"I've never seen anything like… What's growing up there?"

They reached the continuation of the stairs. Rick took the lead, then Cora, Vinnie, Balenger, and finally the professor, whose slow pace made it natural for him to be the last.

Balenger now had a chance to study the skylight. It was spacious, perhaps forty feet square, shaped like the tip of a pyramid. Large segments of glass were held in place by crisscrossing copper supports, their metal green with age.

But many segments were missing or broken. After so many years, heavy accumulations of ice and snow had weakened the supports. Balenger remembered the shattered glass at the bottom of the stairwell. Yes, this is how the birds get in, he thought. He saw a half moon disappearing behind clouds. The wind whistled past the gaps in the skylight, the source of one of the sounds he'd earlier heard. The air got colder.

Something's wrong, he realized. "The stairs don't go higher. We're coming to the sixth level. There should be another set of stairs leading up to Carlisle's penthouse on the seventh. But there aren't any. How do we get up to it?"

"Take a look at that." Rick aimed his flashlight at the balcony he climbed toward.

As one, the group imitated him, their lights revealing the area from which the roots dangled.

"Some kind of…" Cora paused in astonishment. "For the love of… Is that a tree?"

Five feet tall, leafless and listing, its scraggly trunk and branches cast shadows from their lights.

"But how the hell…"

"A bird brought a seed in," Cora said. "Or the wind did it."

"Yes, but how did it manage to grow?"

Balanger's flashlight revealed a shattered urn. Dirt lay in a pile among the broken pieces. The tree grew out of the dirt. "There's your explanation. Add a little rain from the broken skylight, and it manages to stay alive."

"Barely," Rick said. "It looks like it's trying to feed off the carpet and the wooden floor. That's why the roots are so long. It's desperate to find food."

"The floor will be weak over there." Conklin paused behind Balenger. "Stay away from it."

Ahead, Rick stepped onto the balcony. Cora got there next. Then Vinnie. Balenger left the stairs and looked for a way up to Carlisle's penthouse. He glanced behind him toward where Conklin trudged up.

Creak.

The professor stiffened.

"I feel…" He exhaled. "… the stairs shifting."

Creak.

Hesitant, he took another step upward.

Creak.

"Definitely shifting."

"Don't move." Balenger watched the staircase begin to sway.

"I suddenly feel as if I'm on a boat," Conklin said.

Crack. The staircase swayed more discernibly.

"No!"

"Try to take my hand." Rick braced himself at the top of the stairs and reached down. "Cora. Vinnie." His voice was stark. "Grab me from behind so I don't get pulled onto the stairs."

Crack.

"If I reach up," Conklin said, "that'll shift my weight and make the staircase-"

As if anticipating his next words, the staircase wobbled.

Rick extended his arm farther, straining. "Damn it, I can't quite-"

Crack.

"It sounds like it's going to…" Vinnie held Rick tighter. Rick leaned farther down the stairs.

"Even if I stretch my arm, I'm not close enough." Conklin's voice trembled.

Crack.

"We can't just let him…" Cora held Rick with all her might.

"The rope," Balenger demanded. "Who's got it?"

"I do," Vinnie said.

Balenger rushed to him, unzipped his pack, and tugged out the rope. It was bundled in a figure eight. Thin. Made of twisted strands of blue nylon. Climber's rope.

Urgent, Balenger made a loop at one end and tied a slipknot. He hurried next to Rick, his headlamp revealing the professor's frightened features.

"I'm going to throw a loop around you," Balenger told him.

Behind his spectacles, Conklin's eyes were huge with apprehension.

"Raise your arms through the loop," Balenger ordered. "Adjust the rope so it's under your arms."

CRACK.

The professor flinched as the stairs jerked.

"When the rope's under your arms, tighten the slipknot. Make the rope as secure around your chest as possible."

No reply.

"Professor, do you understand me?"

CRACK.

The stairs swayed out of control.

"No!" Balenger swung the rope above his head and hurled it toward Conklin. It fell past the heavy man's shoulders. He swung the rope again, threw it, and felt his heart speed as the loop dropped over the professor's head, catching on his left shoulder.

"Reach through it!"

Conklin pushed his hands under the loop and enfolded it with his arms.

"Under your arms! The slipknot! Tighten it!"

Barely able to control his movements, the professor obeyed.

"Rick! Cora! Vinnie! Grab the rope! We need to anchor it!"

"This post on the balustrade," Rick said. "Wrap the e around it."

"Might not hold. Wrap the rope around each of you!" Balenger said. "Lean back! Hang on! There's going to be a hell of a jolt!" He secured the rope around his chest in a belaying position and braced himself. "Professor, try to walk up!"

"Walk?" Conklin tried to keep his balance on the swaying stairs.