the phone and dial for reception to ask them to get an ambulance but there's no answer. No-one's picking up.
I'm standing in the bathroom door again now, half-dressed. Helen's not moving. I've got to do something but I can't bring myself to touch her. Christ, I think she's dead. What the fucking hell is happening here...?
Now I know that I must be a real spineless bastard. Poor girl's lying dead in front of me and for a split second I feel relieved. Now I might have a chance of salvaging my life from this mess. I can tell them that I was in the room next door and I heard her fall down so I came in to help and I found her like this...
Hold on, maybe that will only make things worse. My things are all over this room. Not just my clothes either, there will be hairs and fingerprints and God knows what else all over the bed and probably all over and inside her too. Fucking hell, what if they say I did it? What if they think I pushed her over in the shower to keep her quiet about what we'd done together?
Got to get out of here. Can't stay here any longer.
I grab my things off the bed and run to the door. I try and leave the room but then I see her body again and my conscience tries to make me stop and help her. But I'm too fucking scared. I open the door and go out into the corridor.
There's another body on the floor. Jesus Christ, it's a porter. I don't want to get any closer to him. I can see his face and it's all twisted and contorted with pain and there's blood on the carpet around his mouth.
There's another body further down, just outside one of the rooms. It's Steve Jenkins. I sat opposite him at dinner last night.
I can't handle this.
I let myself into my room and sit on the end of the bed.
I can't hear anyone.
I try the phone again but no-one answers.
I'm scared.
I'll wait here for a couple of minutes then I'll go and find help.
James Harper cowered in his hotel room for more than two hours before finally plucking up courage to go out and look for help. The smell of burning forced him into action. The hotel kitchens were on fire.
He searched the entire building but could find no-one else left alive. His colleagues, the course tutors, the guests and the entire staff of the hotel were dead.
Chapter Three
SHERI NEWTON
Of all the shifts I have to work, this has to be the one I hate the most. I can handle starting early in the morning and working through the day, I don't mind starting in the afternoon and working through the evening, but this I can't stand - sat here from one in the morning until nine. It's not too bad at weekends because there's usually plenty going on, but on mid-week days like today the time drags. There's no comparison, this is definitely the worst shift, and today it's even worse than usual. There are usually always two of us in on lates but Stefan called in sick so I've been sat here on my own for seven and a half hours. This morning there's been nothing to do and hardly anything to see. Between two and three o'clock the pubs and clubs were clearing out so there was some activity on the streets for a while, but after that everything went quiet until around seven-thirty. That's when the daily crowds of commuters started to arrive and that was when I had to start paying attention to the screens again. This job is all backwards - I want to be busy at the start of my shift, not at the end of it when I'm too tired to concentrate. By seven-thirty my eyes are starting to go. Okay, so the work's not physically tiring, but sitting here in front of seventeen screens watching CCTV footage of a shopping centre, an office block and the surrounding streets is enough to put anyone to sleep. Still, as I have to keep reminding myself, it pays the bills. Just about. It's easy money really. I don't have to do anything much. Even if I see something suspicious all I have to do is call the police or centre security. They do all the dirty work. I just sit up here and watch them.
Like I said, at