Shaun Hutson - Warhol's Prophecy

Walker emptied a magazine into the terrified crowd that clogged the doorway.

Many of the bodies remained upright because of the crush. Others toppled backwards, or sideways, like bloodied mannequins.

More of the windows were blasted out by bullets, the sound of crashing glass now mingling with the staccato rattle of the submachine-guns and the shrieks of pain and fear.

Hailey managed to rise to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks.

From her position behind an overturned table, she could see Walker spraying the rest of the terrified guests with bullets. Saw them falling in untidy heaps. Others were trying to escape through the broken windows. She saw one man even punching glass out of a smashed frame, trying to pull himself through to safety.

Walker shot him in the head and back.

She looked towards him, then at the door behind her.

Could she make it?

He fired off another burst.

Hailey saw him stop to reload.

Now, run! Go now, for God’s sake!

She got to her feet and hurtled for the doors that led out into the foyer.

Walker chambered a round and prepared to fire again.

Hailey was inches from the door when he spotted her.

114

THE FIRST BURST of gunfire swept over her head, missing her by less than six inches.

Hailey threw herself down, feeling the air part above her, shredded by the high-velocity shells.

She saw holes blasted in the double-doors. Then, to her horror, she saw them open. Saw people standing there.

Security guards.

The second burst took out two men. Hailey screamed as she saw one reel backwards, his right eye socket drilled empty by a bullet.

The other man dropped to his knees, hands clasped to his stomach as if to hold the blood in. She noted, with horror, that part of his lower intestine was bulging out through the gaping hole in his belly, like a bloodied swollen worm. He fell forward.

Hailey made another dash for the door, and this time made it.

She threw herself to the floor, then rolled. Chanced a look over her shoulder to see if Walker was pursuing her.

He wasn’t.

Find a phone. Get the police here now, while there’s still someone left alive.

The foyer was deserted.

When the shooting had begun, she assumed that anyone else in the hotel had fled. Or perhaps, even now, some were cowering in their rooms.

The reception area was totally empty.

She looked around desperately, the rattle of gunfire still filling her ears.

Deafened by the continuing blasts, her face bloodied, her head reeling, she staggered towards the reception desk.

Towards the phone.

She lifted the receiver and jabbed out three nines.

Tears were coursing down her cheeks.

She waited for the phone to be answered.

Waited . . .

Were Becky and Rob already dead?

Waited . . .

Her daughter and her husband, both riddled with bullets?

She looked towards the open ballroom doors, expecting Walker to emerge at any minute – his weapons aimed at her.

The phone was still ringing.

Inside the ballroom the bursts of fire were replaced by an appalling silence, now broken only by screams of agony and moans of suffering.

He must be reloading yet again, she thought, her body racked by sobs.

Jesus, how much fucking ammunition did he have with him?

To Hailey it seemed as if this nightmare had been happening for hours.

Less than six minutes had actually passed since he’d fired the first shot.

‘Emergency here. Which service do you require?’ She heard the calm voice in her ear.

‘Police and ambulance,’ she said, trying to control her gasping. ‘Please hurry.’

‘Can you give me your name?’ the voice asked.

‘Help me,’ Hailey shrieked.

‘I need your name and . . .’

‘The Pavilion Hotel. For God’s sake, send someone to the Pavilion Hotel now, please,’ she begged and dropped the phone.

Inside the ballroom the shooting had begun again.

115

THREE MEMBERS OF Waterhole were already dead.

Adam Walker could see them lying on the marble floor, each in a pool of his own blood.

Nearly everyone else inside the ballroom was either dead or wounded by now . . . Apart from a small group still trying to force their way through the emergency exit at the rear.

There were corpses piled up in front of them, and the stench of blood and excrement filled the air as densely as the more pungent odour of cordite.

Walker laid the MP5 on a table and pulled the Sig-Sauer P225 from his belt.

Nicholas Barber turned to face him, his features contorted with fear and splashed by blood.

‘Please don’t kill me,’ whimpered the MP, dropping to his knees. He clasped his hands together before him in prayer. ‘Please.’ He lowered his head slightly, unable to look at the yawning barrel of the Sig.

Walker touched the automatic to his forehead, and he heard a soft rumbling sound. Barber had filled his pants.

‘Please,’ the MP sobbed.

Walker fired once.

The bullet punched in a portion of Barber’s skull, ripped through his brain, and erupted from the back of his head.

He went down like a butchered calf in an abattoir, blood spouting from the hole in his forehead, his body quivering.

Jenny Kenton was lying close by. A bullet had punctured her left eye, blasting the lens of her dark glasses back into the riven socket. Pieces of glass had been forced into the blood-filled hole. Vitreous liquid was spilling down her cheek. Another bullet had punched in two of her front teeth, and ripped away most of her top lip.

Her blonde hair was matted crimson.

Beside her, Trudi was trying to crawl away on one arm, the other having been practically severed at the elbow by a 9mm round. The shattered bone protruded whitely amidst a bleeding pulp of flesh. Another bullet had torn off her right ear: just the lobe remained attached to her head, her earring still hanging from it grotesquely.

Walker shot her in the face, and moved on.

Something crunched beneath his feet and he noticed that several teeth lay on the floor. Blown from other dead mouths by his well-placed bullets.

‘You fucking cunt!’ screamed Craig Levine, turning to face him.

Walker raised the 225 and shot him twice. One bullet entered his mouth and exited through the back of his neck, severing his spine, killing him instantly.

Ray Taylor was slumped over a table nearby, eyes open accusingly. His body had been punctured by more than a dozen shots.

Others, either wounded or hiding, knew that all they could do was wait.

Walker moved swiftly around the room, overturning tables, looking for those who sought to evade him.

He shot in the head each one he found.

As he made his way back towards the main entrance of the ballroom, he realized how hard he was finding it to breathe. The smoke in the room was now choking him too, and he was sheathed in sweat. He took a glass of mineral water from one of the tables as he passed and drained its contents, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Hot work.

Walker heard breathing. Low, guttural, close by. To his left.

He noticed that two tables had been pushed together on their sides, as if to form some kind of rampart. A bloodied tablecloth had been drawn over the top.

Walker could see bullet holes through both the table-tops and the cloth.

He stood still, ears alert for the sound.

He heard something else: a faint whimper.

He raised the Scorpion and aimed it at the two tables. Taking hold of the cloth, Walker pulled it away and looked down.

There were two of them hiding there.

The man had been hit in the shoulder, but it looked as if the bullet had gone right through.