The Mountain Shadow

‘Quiet for now,’ Randall said. ‘But I’m completely with you on zombie vigilance. Prudence is the only wisdom, where the undead are concerned.’

‘Exactly!’ Jaswant said, returning to his chair. ‘I keep telling them. Plagues. Chaos. Situations like this. It’s always how it begins.’

‘Jaswant,’ I said, trying to keep Vinson vertical and open the door to my rooms, which was surprisingly difficult. ‘I’m gonna need more supplies. As you can see, I’ve got guests.’

‘You bet your foreigner ass you have,’ he laughed.

I opened the door and found Didier in my room, with Oleg, Diva, and the Diva girls, Charu and Pari.

They were all in costume. Diva was in a leopard-print bodysuit. Didier had abandoned his gladiator torso, except for a leather mask, but kept the tutu and tights. Oleg was a Roman senator, in sandals, and a toga made from one of my sheets. Charu and Pari were cat people, complete with tiny ears and long tails. Charu was Persian grey, and Pari was night black.

‘Lin!’ Didier said from his place beside Diva on a mattress on the wooden floor. ‘We were being fashionably late for the party, and we were stopped at a police roadblock before we got there, so we returned here, just as the whole city went into lockdown.’

‘Hi, Lin,’ Diva said. ‘Do you mind that we’re here?’

‘Of course, not. Happy to see you. This is –’

‘Randall, Miss Diva,’ Randall said. ‘And your beautiful face begs no introduction.’

‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

‘Hi, I’m Vinson,’ Vinson said, ‘and I found my girlfriend. She’s in an ashram.’

‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

‘This is Charu,’ Diva said. ‘And this is Pari.’

‘She’s in an ashram,’ Vinson said, shaking hands with Pari.

‘Is she like, possessed?’ Pari asked.

‘Or dying of an incurable disease?’ Charu offered.

‘What?’ Vinson asked, swaying as he tried to focus on them. ‘You know, I really gotta pee.’

I steered him to the bathroom and shut the door.

‘You look messed up, Shantaram,’ Diva said, standing up and offering her arms. ‘Gimme a hug, yaar.’

She hugged me, and sat down again next to Didier on the mattress. I looked at the mattress. It was familiar. I glanced through my bedroom door at my bed. The mattress was gone. The bare wooden bed was a coffin. My mattress was on the floor.

‘I hope you do not object, Lin,’ Didier said, drinking my zombie rations. ‘Since we are all stuck here for the Devil knows how long, it seemed like the only viable solution, to move the mattress here.’

‘Jaswant!’ I called out to the manager. ‘I have more guests. I’ll take everything you’ve got!’

‘That’s not how it’s done, baba,’ he called back. ‘You know that.’

‘Jaswant, it’s either me, or I’m sending Didier out there to negotiate.’

‘Apology accepted,’ he said. ‘The stuff is yours.’

He brought cardboard boxes into the room, and cases of bottled water. He returned with a gas bottle and a two-burner stove.

He shoved my journals and notes to the side, and installed the stove, lighting it with a battery-powered sparker shaped like a pistol. He turned the gas high and low and high again, as if releasing fireflies from a bottle.

‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

Jaswant bowed.

‘Restaurants are closed,’ he said, ‘and there’s no take-out, no deliveries, and nothing but what you cook yourselves, for who knows how long.’

‘We’re gonna need more to smoke,’ I said, at the door to my room.

‘That can be arranged, but it won’t be cheap, with this lockdown.’

‘I’ll take it all.’

‘There you go again. Haven’t you learned anything? You’re a menace to honest business.’

‘Didier!’

‘Apology accepted. I’ll bring the stuff along later. It’s in the tunnel.’

‘The tunnel?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s a tunnel, underneath this hotel?’

‘Of course there’s a tunnel. That’s why I bought it. Sikhs, surviving World War Three, remember?’

‘Can I see it?’

His eyes narrowed.

‘I’m afraid . . . that’s above your pay grade,’ he said.

‘Fuck you, Jaswant.’

‘Unless –’

‘Fuck you, Jaswant.’

‘Unless,’ he persisted, ‘the zombies break through, and it’s our final option. If I had that phaser pistol, we’d be on easy street.’

‘Enough with the zombies.’

‘You’re no fun at all,’ he said, walking back to his desk. ‘The stove is a rental. I’ve put it on your bill.’

I took a look at the barricade, thinking of Karla, waiting for the time to search again, and glanced back at the people in my room.

Oleg was going through the boxes. He pulled out some pots and pans.

‘Very useful,’ he said.

‘If only we’d saved a servant,’ Pari said.

Diva lost it, laughing so hard that she pulled her knees up to her chest and rolled herself into a very tight in-joke.

‘No need for servants,’ Oleg smiled. ‘Have you ever tried Russian food? You’ll go mad for it, I promise you.’

‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

Oleg had sent the T-shirts to Moscow, one to each non-identical twin, and by Didier’s rules he was free to get re-scented while he waited for Irina, his pheromone pilgrim, to respond.

The Diva girls liked him. Everybody liked him. Hell, I liked him. But all I could think of was Karla, out there, stuck in a building somewhere, with no security but her own.