27. Riot
Harry’s eyes were wide enough that I could see the whites, even through the grim shadows that painted us in black and white. “Go,” he whispered, voice a harsh grating over the screaming that spilled in from the room beyond. I scrambled to my feet with the help of Jessica’s grip on my arm.
“But…” I began.
“I said go!” Harry’s insistence had us scattering across the room with feet slipping on the tiled floor, but only when I reached the doorway we had come in through did I realise that he had no chance of holding the hostiles off alone.
The double doors buckled with the sound of splintering wood and warping metal, echoing throughout the canteen and stopping me dead in my tracks even as Jessica fought to carve us a way out. “It’s useless,” I told her, peering through the clearing dust brought up from the debris. “You’ll just lead us out into more trouble. The kitchens. We’ll go up through that broken vent.”
“And risk running into whatever killed that hostile?” Jessica hissed.
My original reply frittered away to nothing. “Oh,” I said softly, insides turning to water, “I think it’s far too late for that.”
A few feet from the broken doors lay Harry’s motionless form, having been thrown like a ragdoll. Among the dust and the remnants of our barricade, something crouched on all fours and gibbered in great huffing breaths. I swore under my breath.
“He’s done for,” Jessica whispered behind me. But I was already moving before I realised the meaning in her words, legs like lead carrying me across the room. At once the thing reared up and started its screaming again, and behind it a few other hostiles lurched and tried to scrabble through, but the majority, by now, were in the same state as the one that had almost crushed Harry.
I flinched at a blur of blood and hair and sinew that leapt at me from the corner of my eye, and prepared for the worst.
Then gunshots filled my ears and the creature on all fours dropped to the ground mid-pounce, oozing and shrieking its agony. I flattened myself to the floor, having just reached a groaning – but alive – Harry, and we both turned to see Jessica with her weapon trained on the thing.
“Get to the kitchen,” she said flatly. “If we’re going to do this, we do it now. I’ll keep it off us.”
For once, we didn’t dare disobey.
23. Truce
“How long have you been here?”
We sat at one of the cafeteria tables that the woman had righted from its position tilted awkwardly against the wall. Chairs, other tables, trays and debris from the bins lay scattered, like a whirlwind had blasted through there. A set of double doors at the back of the room led into a private area, and the one we’d entered through was barred. I leaned hard against the table, hunched in my lab coat while I eyed the vending machines on the walls – those that were still standing, anyway. I didn’t really care how long I had been there, but it felt polite to reply anyway.
“Not sure,” I mumbled. “Few days since it happened. Maybe two more before that. I was working in the lab.”
“Working on what?”
“Classified.”
“I am a part of the team that’s meant to be sorting this mess out. It is your duty as one of those scientists to tell me, right now, what was going on down there.”
I stared at her.
“Classified.”
She scowled at me for a few seconds, a prickly rage I only noticed out of the corner of my eye, and swiftly turned her attention to Harry, who leaned on the back of his chair with clear reluctance to get cosy with her.
“And what about you?”
“I’d say about three days,” he said. “I came to visit my father the day it happened. I’ve been here ever since. But now it’s my turn – what are you doing here?”
She tapped her fingers on the table and pursed her lips. “We were called in to deal with a breach of security. A dozen of us made it into the building before the internal system locked down. Eleven of us are dead. It’s just me now.”
I sat up in my seat.
“This show and tell has been lovely,” I said, “but either you shoot us and carry on or you join us. We were heading down to the ground floor. If we can get back to the labs…” I shrugged. “There are supposed to be more people down there. That’s all I know.”
The woman stared down at her hands. A minute passed, and she nodded.
“My name is Jessica Holmes. I suppose, at least for the time being, I should call you both allies. Let’s hole up for the night. Try not to get yourself killed.”
22. Little Bear
There is something particularly ominous about the hammer pulling back on a firearm. In the past few days I had crawled through an air vent, attacked a hostile face to face with nothing more than adrenaline and a letter opener, battled my way down a flight of stairs (though not without injury) and escaped certain starvation from a security suite full of monsters and a desperate IT technician. I had seen people die and come back; I had seen people already dead come back. I watched a man be torn apart by things that could have very well been his friends and workmates.
And yet, as whoever lurked behind us cocked that weapon, I froze. There is no fighting a gun. There’s no escape from a bullet – in a race, it would always be faster. Harry spun around, a glare in his eyes and a curse on his lips, but I silenced him with a hand on his arm.
“Good. Now the girl.”
I followed suit, slowly and carefully, my hands spread even though it made my balance even worse.
She levelled a semi-automatic handgun at Harry’s chest, taking one look at me and clearly figuring him for the real target. She was middle aged, inching towards forty, dressed in a navy blue uniform with golden embroidery on the arm, marking her as part of an organisation known as Little Bear Security Systems. “Put your weapon on the ground,” she said.
Growling something under his breath, Harry discarded his chair leg.
“You’ll wish I kept that if some of those freaks show up,” he said.
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” she replied curtly, shaking a lock of dark hair out of her eyes. “Now turn, both of you, and start walking. There’s a cafeteria at the end of the hallway that’s empty. We can talk in there.”
Swallowing down the irony of her leading us right where we were intending to go, I shuffled after Harry, the woman with the firearm in our wake, watching.
21. Cat and Mouse
At first, silence was our only companion.
We passed offices inhabited by nothing more than empty desks, some still scattered with odd bits of paper or photographs, as if they had been cleared out in a hurry. Then there were stock rooms littered with boxes of stationary, open elevators and countless conference areas littered with splintered chairs, tables and upturned bookshelves. I wanted to comment to Harry about how empty everything seemed, wondering where all of the hostiles had gone, but I was afraid that even opening my mouth would bring them running. I kept pace with Harry as best I could, his reddish hair always in view, but he was naturally faster and had to pause and hold out his arm at one of the corners.
“There’s one just about to leave,” he whispered, and I craned around in time to see a shredded suit shuffle out of view. I let out a breath of relief.
“We need to find the stairs,” I said, “and I’ve got a feeling that they’re where he’s going.”
Harry nodded. “Guess we have to follow him. I’ll go first, you come after about ten seconds, okay? I’ve got a weapon and I can move faster.”
I hated to admit that he was right. Until I could get some real rest I wouldn’t be able to keep up with anyone, let alone jump a hostile. (Not that I considered myself an expert on it) So, warning him unnecessarily to be careful, I let him stalk away down the corridor. According to the map a central stairwell could be reached just around from where the hostile had been wandering. Ten seconds should be enough time for Harry to creep up on it and put it out of its lingering misery.
I had counted to eight when the commotion began, though I forced myself to stay in place until a further two seconds had gone by. Then I hobbled forward, but the increasingly familiar sound of Harry swearing in his anger reached my ears, along with an enraged screech. I moved as quickly as I was able, bursting out in time to see dark blood on the floor mingled with whatever was left of the chair leg.
“Harry?” I tottered down the steps at the top of the stairwell, nearly losing my footing, and sagged to sit down as he finally came into view. He was coated in bile and blood and the smile he gave me was tired.
“I got it,” he murmured, beckoning me down. “Come on. I checked the corridor and it’s clear for now. They all must be down on the ground floor where that scientist was.”
I took his hand, grimacing at the foulness that covered it, and allowed him to walk me to the floor below. We passed a still, gruesome figure on the way. I craned to try and see who it had been and if I recognised them, but their face was lost in the ooze.
“The cafeteria should be at the end of this corridor if we hang a left,” I said. Harry nodded.
We made it halfway down the hall when an audible click sounded behind us. We froze. A female voice whispered,
“One more step and I’ll put a bullet in you both.”
20. Loot
We spent a further couple of hours in the safety of the security suite; I fought not to fall asleep while Harry flitted about to scavenge whatever he could from the little room. He recovered a half empty bag of potato chips, a bottle of stale water and some chocolate bars stashed in the desks (there were other bars, bizarrely, hidden behind one of the television sets). It wasn’t much – wasn’t enough by any means – but it might as well have been a feast for my empty stomach. By the time we left I was able to hold my own weight again without nausea forcing me to the ground, but I moved mostly because the meagre snack had awakened my appetite. Harry led the way with his chair leg to hand, but I waved him away from the door.
“Wait,” I said, and he raised an eyebrow over his shoulder at me. I walked carefully to the far wall, where a bird’s eye view map of the building hung behind some glass. Rather than smashing it like I figured Harry would have, I lowered it from the wall and delicately slid the paper out. Recognition dawned in his eyes and he followed me to the desk, where I used a pen to track our location down to the ground floor.
“It’s still a ways to go,” Harry said, but I wasn’t even looking at our destination. I circled an area a floor below us. “What are you… oh.” He laughed despite himself.
The cafeteria would be difficult to get to, but if we made it we might find ourselves with somewhere to sleep for the night and a decent meal on our hands.
“Let’s go,” I said, following Harry out through the door, vigilant for any small sound. We headed off down the corridor at a pace not quite faster than a hobble.
On the cameras, I failed to see the horde of hostiles piled up against the cafeteria doors.
19. Breaking Out
Harry, I learned, had lifted the keys from one of the drawers near the wall of security cameras, but it wasn’t his discovery that interested me as we weaved over to one of the desks. He sat me down in one of the chairs, which swivelled sickeningly as I collapsed down. My head lolled back against the leather. I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Well?” I asked. “What did you want to show me?”
“Look.” Harry vaulted over the desk (it was much less smooth than he anticipated, one ankle catching on the corner of the table) and limped up to the cameras. On his toes, he pointed with his good hand at a screen towards the top left. I squinted at the greyish image of a large entryway, all chrome and steel, with elevators, a reception desk and – I furrowed my brow when I noticed – a scattering of bodies that moved and twitched occasionally.
“That’s gross,” I said. “What’s your point?”
“Not them.” Harry gestured further, at one of the elevator doors which yawned open. I struggled to focus on it. A few seconds passed and a white-coated figure poked its head out, wary of the shifting bodies.
“Oh,” I said, arching an eyebrow as I tried to recognise the scientist. Before I got a chance they – she – was out, sprinting towards a tiny sign for the stairwell to the basement floor. One of the hostiles screeched noiselessly and lunged at her, but she was through and away before it could even get close, others following on unsteady legs. “Oh,” I said again.
“There might be a safe place down there,” Harry said. “We should keep going.”
While I agreed, I wasn’t sure I could even get out of the chair. “You go,” I said, and he shot me a glower that almost shut me up. “Look, I’ll only slow you down.”
Harry perched on the edge of the desk. “We’ll stay as long as you need,” he said. “But I’m not leaving without you.”
I threw up a smile to hide my gratitude. “You’re an idiot,” I said.
18. Waiting
I sat with my back against one of the computer desks, away from the ruined corpse of the hostile and the flickering images on the security cameras. “I think we should try to break the lock on the door,” I said, tilting my head back against the wooden unit and closing my eyes in an attempt to stop the world from sliding about. Not that I was fit for breaking anything. Or running anywhere. My stomach was beginning to complain, to put the ironic little cherry on the top, and I wondered when we would find something substantial to eat next.
“We can’t,” Harry replied. He had been standing with his hands braced against the desk I was leaning against ever since we’d seen Blake get dragged down by the hostiles, screens reflected in his eyes. “You were right, before. If we make too much noise we’re done for. Once we break that door open we can’t close it again. We’re exposed. We need to find a spare set of keys.”
“There’s a spare set on one of those cameras, if you can make it out between what’s left of Blake’s fingers,” I said, frowning. “Though I wouldn’t much recommend trying to get to them. Oh wait. That’s right. We can’t anyway.”
A creak of wood told me that Harry had finally taken his weight off the desk. I could hear him rifling through papers a few feet away. “What are you doing?” I said in a drawl, eyes too heavy and head throbbing too much to go and help. I didn’t feel afraid anymore, though. Not of what had happened to Blake; not of the creatures that were undoubtedly waiting to bash our heads in outside; not even of dying of starvation locked in a room with nothing but corridors and offices to watch. I was content to float there in bleak acceptance, snatching at passing thoughts and turning my head only very slightly at the faint sound of Harry moving something.
But it was curious, I thought, that there were no security cameras showing the laboratories. I had always known that they were private to the point of being secretive, but it seemed foolish not to monitor the undoubtedly expensive equipment down there. I was just considering the possibility of an independent security system when a hand grabbed my shoulder and shook me.
I stirred and grumbled.
“Hey.” The voice seemed distant, like they were shouting through glass.
“Hey! Wake up!”
I swore softly and, with more difficulty than there should have been, I opened my eyes. Harry stood over me with a set of keys in his hands.
“Where did you get those?” I slurred.
“Never mind that,” he said. “You need to look at this.”
17. Maze Runner
I rattled the door in its frame and tried a second time to twist it open. Heavyset and solid, the wood barely moved. “Well, that’s great,” I whispered and carefully dropped to one knee, fishing around in my pockets for something I could use to try and pick the lock. Not that I had an ounce of experience in the matter, but the only other options available to me were much less subtle.
“What happened?” Harry swept up behind me.
“He locked us in here,” I muttered, feverishly taking out a few hair clips pinning my bangs away from my face. “Bastard must have been planning this all along.”
I bent one clip and tried to insert it into the lock, squinting to focus. So absorbed was I in my fruitless efforts to free us that I didn’t notice that Harry was moving until his good shoulder rammed into the door beside me. The vibration swatted the hair clips out of my hands and I rocked back on my heels, staring up at him agape. “What the hell are you doing?” I demanded.
Harry slammed his good hand into the door. “Blake!” he shouted. “I knew it! Shit. I told you this would happen didn’t I?” His face was flushed as he turned to glare at me for a second before smacking the door again. “Blake! Come back here you piece of shit!”
I struggled to my feet, tottering a bit, and grabbed for Harry’s arm. “Stop,” I told him, voice low and rough. “You’re going to–”
He pushed me away before I could get the words out, and with head spinning and stomach churning I fell into one of the desks, knocking the computer screen over where it smashed on the carpet with a muted shatter. The ruckus finally caused Harry to whip around, finding me leaning against the desk and holding my head.
“Crap… I’m really sorry,” he began. I waved him off.
“You need to be quiet,” I said. “Every time you let your tantrum get the better of you it lets them know we’re in here.”
As if on cue, footsteps, some shuffling, others dragging, thundered outside, and something struck the door with a wet slap.
“See?” I hissed as other assaults bombarded the frame. Shadows began to flicker beneath the gap in the wood.
Defeated, Harry trudged over to the desk next to me and sank into a chair, staring at the security screens. “I was just visiting,” he muttered. “I was never meant to be here.”
“I was supposed to be in the labs,” I replied. “If I had been I’d be dead long before now. That’s where it started, as far as we know.”
Harry stood up suddenly, craning forward against the desk as the hostiles outside swarmed about the door. “I can see him,” he muttered.
I turned around to gaze at the security screens. Sure enough, on the CCTV, ran Blake Warner, weaving through corridors empty of threat now that it had all been redirected towards us. “That son of a bitch,” I said under my breath.
“He always planned for this, I bet.” Harry rubbed at his eyes.
“Doubt he expected us to help the process along quite so much though…” I glanced across at him. He dropped his hand and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Where’s he going, though? You think he knows about a bolthole or something like that?”
“Shh. Look.” Harry was focused on the CCTV, where a monochrome Blake ran with clumsy feet around a corner and, slowly and disjointedly, into the next screen across. “I don’t know where he’s going. Emergency exit, maybe? The labs? It’s anyone’s gue– oh, damn.”
Blake had opened a door perhaps too confidently and had walked right into the open arms of a hostile. His tiny digital form succumbed under the weight of his attacker. Harry watched. I couldn’t.
16. Teamwork
Despite having spent the majority of my time working in the research facility’s laboratories, I had never kidded myself that the rest of the building wasn’t equally as impressive. Heck, Dr Hacohen’s office had been evidence of that much, being that I had lived in it for a couple of days. Even so, as the door swung open into the security centre, it was enough to have my breath hitching in my throat. The lights were down, the large room illuminated by a wall of curved screens, and in the gloom I spotted a desk on its side, a few rotating chairs and half a dozen computers. With all of the screens combined we got a comprehensive layout of the facility, above and below ground. My legs moved without my permission, such was my interest, and I was past Blake before I knew what was happening.
Harry glanced over to look at me, fire extinguisher held at shoulder height. “What are you–”
He barely got the words out before something collided with him, tackling him to the ground. A rough snarl bubbled through the air; I thought I heard myself swearing but it was drowned out by the creature’s attack on Harry.
I didn’t think I could do much to help with my head pounding and vision blurring at the edges but, with a cursory glance at Blake to find him glassy eyed and agape, I found myself with little other choices. Harry was cursing and clubbing at the hostile with the fire extinguisher, though his bad wrist prevented him from getting any leverage on the thing.
“Hold on!” I called, tottering into the security suite as quickly as I could and frantically trying to free the letter opener from my belt. Harry gritted his teeth and struggled to throw the creature off.
“No problem,” I heard him grate over the gurgles and filthy nails trying for his throat. “I’ll just hang out here ’til you’re ready.”
Berating myself for my uselessless, I finally got the weapon in my hands and darted forward to help. Unfortunately I forgot about my tumble down the stairs not an hour prior and the result was something like a sack of potatoes coming to the aid of an octopus. I barely remember falling on top of Harry and hostile both, fireworks going off behind my eyes, but Harry’s grunt of surprise at least told me he was still breathing. Other than that, nothing.
The stink of putrid flesh filled my nostrils. I awoke on the floor of the security suite. Harry stood over me with a bottle of water, flicking a few drops into my face while his injured arm was cradled against his chest. “Good. You’re alive,” he said.
I wiped at my face. “What happened?”
He nodded to my left. Slowly turning my head, I made out the prone figure of a hostile with a letter opener driven through its ear. My eyes widened. “Did I do that?”
Harry’s laughter was surprising in its unexpectedness. “No. But you dropped that thing when you fell. I managed to get hold of it.” He held out a hand to get me on my feet, which I took gratefully.
“Any help from Blake?” I croaked, taking the bottle from him to gulp down some water.
“No,” he replied. “Coward even closed the door to stop from having to look at what was happening.”
“Great,” I mumbled, making my careful way over the door of the security suite. “Hey, Blake!” I called. “It’s all safe now.” I reached for the door handle. It wouldn’t budge.
15. Favours
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Harry shook his head.
We stood clustered in an empty corridor just beyond the fire door Blake had come through to find us. He had assured us that this section of the building, while tiny, was safe. Despite Harry’s suspicions, I believed him. Besides, we had already checked that the other doors and exits were barricaded or blocked, leaving only the single locked room we stood before.
“I wish this was a joke,” Blake muttered, fingering the set of keys he had taken out of his pocket.
I slumped against the wall; while the nausea had died down I probably shouldn’t have been moving around much. There was nothing for it, though. I just hoped we could find somewhere to rest soon. “So,” I said slowly, “you’re telling me that you let one of those things into your only bolthole in the building.”
“Not on purpose!” Blake’s cheeks coloured pink. His raised voice must have reached the hostile in the room, for the door began to rattle in its frame, like something had bumped into it.
“Either way.” Harry glowered at him, cradling his sprained wrist. “You want us to help sort it out?”
Blake rubbed at the back of his neck and nodded. “It’s a security room, so there’s CCTV cameras in there too. We could take a look at the rest of the building if you wanted.”
“You said you worked in tech support.” I looked up at him expectantly. He stared at his keys.
“I do,” he muttered. “I found this place full of bodies. Took it over because the cameras were still working.”
Harry let his arms drop to his sides and glanced around the corridor. “I don’t see any bodies around here, or hostiles. You must have moved them. So why can’t you deal with this one by yourself?”
I watched Blake’s mouth open and close like a fish in a bowl. A jab of guilt hit low in my stomach; I pulled up off the wall and hobbled over to stand by Harry. “Does that really matter?” I asked him. “We can get a look at the CCTV if we help out.”
He turned us away so we could talk without Blake eavesdropping. To his credit, the other man didn’t press us to include him in the conversation. “I don’t trust him,” Harry whispered. “C’mon, he can barely look either of us in the eye. And he attacked me.”
“Not on purpose,” I said. “I believe his story. Besides, we didn’t interrogate each other like this. We’d not have lasted a minute if we had. And if we can get into that room we’ll be a lot better off.”
Harry fell silent, presumably to think. I could smell the sweat on his skin and could track faint, premature laughter lines around his eyes. We didn’t have much to laugh about now. “Fine,” he conceded after almost a minute. Straightening up, he turned to Blake and nodded. “We’ll deal with it. There’s gotta be a blunt object around here somewhere.”
“Fire extinguisher.” I nodded a few feet behind him to where the red cylinder was fixed to the wall. “I’ve used one of those before. They work.”
“Right,” he said. “But you, Blake, have to open the door. No buts. I’m not having something lunging at me when I could have just walked away. Understood?”
Blake swallowed convulsively. He ducked his head in another nod – I don’t think he really trusted himself to talk at that point. Harry turned away to grab the fire extinguisher. I backed off, not wanting to get in the way while I couldn’t help out, and Blake fumbled with his set of keys.
Harry gave the go ahead. Blake unlocked the door, giving it a gentle push. It opened on silent hinges.
14. I.T.
Harry grabbed his weapon from the ground and pulled himself to his feet. I tried to follow but, sickened by a wave of dizziness, had no choice but to lie back, propping myself up on one arm. I watched him, jaw clenched.
“You’re hurt too,” I said, trying to bite back the slur in my words.
“Nowhere important,” he whispered back, weighing the table leg in his good hand and nodding approval at himself. “I’ll go and see what it is.”
“I should come too. What if there’s more than one?”
“And what if there’s more than two?” He sighed. “You’re not in any fit state to help me right now, besides. Stay here, I’ll be back in a second.” Then, straining to make sure the footsteps were still present (they were), Harry padded to the stairwell and crept away out of sight. I sagged against the backpack and tentatively felt for bumps and bruises on my skull, flinching as I found an egg shaped lump at the back of my head. I wasn’t going anywhere for some time.
Harry had been gone for a few minutes while I drifted in and out of daydreams, fighting to concentrate, and it finally occurred to me that I lay in perfect silence. My breath hitched. I waited.
Then, beneath me, a blunt crack echoed up the set of stairs, followed by the scrabbling of feet, masculine voices and a great deal of swearing and accusations. “Harry?” I called, forcing myself past the nausea to get myself sat up. More footsteps came racing back up the stairs. I patted the ground around me, my pockets, my coat, but couldn’t find the letter opener in time.
Harry rubbed at his cheek as he came back into view, expression like thunder, table leg gone. Behind him shuffled a middle aged man – he wore a dirty white shirt and a tie was still knotted loosely about his neck. His lips, bloody from a punch, had already begun to swell.
“You hit me,” he said sourly.
Harry shook his head. “You deserved it.” His gaze flicked around to me. “He tried to jump me.”
“Can you blame me? I thought you were one of those monsters.” The other man dabbed at his red lips with his sleeve.
“I spoke to you. They don’t speak.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
I rubbed my aching eyes. “Can we not?” I asked before they could continue to bicker. My heart kept fluttering in my chest. I took long breaths to stay calm. “You’ll draw attention from some really nasty shit if you keep this up. Now who the hell are you?” I squinted at the newcomer.
He cleared his throat and wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Blake Warner. I work in tech support. I stopped the fire alarm.”
“He says, anyway,” Harry muttered. I waved a hand to shut him up.
“Thanks,” I said. “But how?”
“I can show you… but only if you help me with something.”
“Of course,” I said. Harry scowled.
“Wait,” he said. “With what?”
Blake smiled. It bordered on painful. “Come with me.”
13. Panic
We wedged the fire door shut behind us and made a run for it. Sirens blitzed through my eardrums and my backpack bounced against my lower back with every step I took. Harry, his lips moving in colourful swears muffled by the alarm, jumped the stairs two at a time in front of me. The emergency lighting bathed him in shadow but I could see the sweat glistening on his forehead. I twisted around to check whether we were being pursued – the noise was bound to have drawn unwanted attention from somewhere – and, seeing nothing, I refocused my efforts on escape.
I lost my footing as I turned back. Stumbling, I lurched forward and began to fall.
“Harry!” I called a warning but he couldn’t hear me over the droning sirens. I crashed into his back and we both tumbled down the stairs. My head cracked on something hard.
Then nothing. A curious ringing in my ears.
It was quiet when I came to. My neck lay cradled against something soft; the backpack, I noted a second later, but turning to check caused a wave of nausea to crash through my body. I groaned. A few short feet away, squinting through the werelight, Harry glanced up from where he had been using one of the sleeves of his shirt to bandage his wrist.
“You okay?” he whispered.
“What happened?”
“You fell into me. Think it’s just a sprain, but you cut your head open.”
“Sorry. Damn.” I reached up to rub my eyes and a flare of pain went off like a firework behind them. “Shit damn.”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself.”
“We can’t afford to stop,” I said. “The alarm, we have to–”
“It stopped just a minute after you fell,” Harry told me. “I don’t know why.”
“Maybe those scientists managed to–”
“Shh. Wait.”
“What is it?”
“Can’t you hear that?”
I strained my ears.
Below us, distinct now that we sat in silence, came the steady drum of footsteps.
12. office_31_a.jpeg
Testing connection
Connection successful
Security breach
Uploading
Formatting
Office 31A located
Screenshot obtained
All roads lead to Rome
All roads lead to Rome
All roads lead to Rome
All roads lead to Rome
All roads lead to Rome
[Photo manipulations courtesy of the lovely Shiloh Davison.]
11. Stairwell
Harry and I hadn’t accounted for the noise the elevator would make. As we squeezed our way out through the broken doors, a shriek of protesting metal nearly turned my insides to water. I stood panting in the corridor, computer in my backpack and fists clenching and unclenching, wishing for composure while my new friend clambered out beside me. Once he was free we made haste down the hallway, Harry in front with his impromptu club, me coming up the rear struggling to free my letter opener. The top floor was a labyrinth of doors, beige walls, waste paper baskets and weaving corners. It might have looked normal but for the smears of black and red on the plaster, the chipped paint, the flickering lights.
“That’s not going to do much,” Harry warned, flicking a glance over his shoulder at me and my weapon. “By the time you get up close and personal with those things they’re already eating your face.”
I frowned. “I fended one off with it already. Face hasn’t been eaten so far,” I said. He didn’t respond. I opened my mouth to push the matter further, suddenly irritable over my apparent lack of preparation, when Harry’s arm snapped out to stop me in my tracks. We skidded to a halt at a turn in the corridor; a warped T junction in the offices. Ahead of us, dimly lit in red and green, lay a fire door. Beyond it, I knew, a stairwell would lead to the lower levels. There was no sign of the scientists but, as we held our breath and strained our ears, something was gurgling around the corner in our blind spot.
Slowly, knuckles white on his table leg, Harry craned forward and peeked around into the connecting hallway. His breath came out in a whoosh of relief.
“What is it?” I said.
“Trapped.” He stepped out into the open, rolling his shoulders. I followed, swallowing hard and sticking unashamedly close as I followed his gaze.
Someone – the scientists, I hoped – had barricaded the doors down this arm of the corridor. Nearby one of the hostiles, still passive due to not having noticed us, was trying to escape its prison. But it’s grimy arm could do little against the chairs, filing cabinets and water coolers hoarded up against the entrance. Still, its fingers groped and reached through a crack in the door, its mouth glugging and slurring nonsense. Harry beckoned for us to continue towards the fire door.
“It looks like they went that way.” I nodded at the barricades.
“This is quicker,” he assured me, reaching out to push against the door.
“Shit, wait–” I grabbed at his sleeve a moment too late.
Harry stepped into the stairwell, triggering the fire alarm.
10. Elevator
“I’m Harry Jensen. Nice to meet you, I guess. Shame about the circumstances.”
“Yeah.”
We huddled together in the elevator after levering the doors shut to prevent intruders. Harry sat with his table leg in his lap. I did the same thing with the Macbook. Both of our eyes fixed on the doors rather than each other; I suppose nobody really cares about etiquette when making eye contact can distract you enough to get you killed. But from what I had already seen of him, Harry Jensen must have been lurking around up here for about the same length of time as me. His reddish hair was dishevelled and his clothes hung more loosely on his tall frame than they should have. He was in dire need of a shave, a wash, a good sleep and an even better meal. I became suddenly glad that I couldn’t see my own sorry state in the mirror.
Harry drummed his fingers along his table leg. We sat in silence for a while, breathing.
“You’re wearing a lab coat,” he muttered eventually.
I nodded.
“A scientist, then.”
“A student,” I corrected. “I’d have been a scientist in a couple more years.”
“How did you get all the way up here, in that case? All of the laboratories are underground… not that I’ve visited any.”
“I was trying to warn them.” My voice came out hoarse. I tilted my head back against the elevator cage. “When everything went wrong. I managed to get up here before the hostiles really started to cause problems. We… we thought the building would just be evacuated. We never expected this.”
“Hostiles? And you sound as though you’re speaking for all of science-kind, you know.”
“They’re what we called those things wandering around out there. You killed one.” I frowned. “And maybe I am. Probably aren’t any other scientists left now.”
“I saw three running down the corridor just a couple of hours ago. They didn’t look… wrong. Not like the others.”
Fingers twitching convulsively around the Macbook, I tore my eyes from the elevator doors to face him. “You saw them too?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Man, it’s a relief to know I didn’t imagine them. You… you have no idea.”
“They can’t have taken the elevator down.” We had tried the buttons when we first ran inside. Nothing. None of them worked – someone must have triggered the emergency switch.
“The stairwell, you think?”
“It’s the only logical idea. We should follow them, but… what about you? You haven’t told me what you do. Other than being creative with a table leg, that is.”
Harry cleared his throat and smiled sheepishly. “Oh, nothing interesting,” he said.
I barked out a laugh. “In a research facility. Right.”
He shrugged. “I’m just the son of one of the rich guys. I was only here as a visitor when this all kicked off.”
“Oh,” I said, already backtracking. “Damn, I’m sorry. What about… I mean, y’know… your father?”
Harry shook his head and began climbing to his feet.
“That doesn’t matter anymore. But now that introductions are over, I want to get out of here. Let’s get going.”
9. Surprises
The carpet in the corridor muted my footsteps but the backpack on my shoulders jolted with each stride I took, its contents clinking together obnoxiously. I bypassed rooms with closed doors, not wanting to be left out in the open but wanting even less to be stuck inside with whatever might be lurking in there. My trip through the ventilation shafts had already shown me that not all of the rooms were as harmless and empty as they seemed – and, truthfully, I hadn’t expected to get this far, so I couldn’t remember which ones had been safe. The elevator, I knew, was just around the corner from here; a glint of chrome and silver not fifty metres from my starting point. No sign of the small group in lab coats now. No sign of anything, really. I inched towards the corner of the corridor, the elevator in sight–
And froze when a wheezing, shuffling figure cut off my path, leg dragging horribly on one splintered ankle. She wore a business suit but the blouse was stained and crusted with grime. Blonde hair escaped from a once flawless bun; her head ducked down towards the floor, like she was watching where she was going. She stirred from her stupor even as I stared, nostrils flaring at the scent of me.
My breath hitched in my throat. I reached up to grasp my pack, stifling any telltale noise it might make, and made a hasty, blind backtrack. My eyes never left the hostile, even as she turned this way and that, questing me out. If she managed to focus on where I was… well, I’d already seen evidence of what the creatures were like. Firmly batting away memories of the break room, I held my breath and sought out any immediate refuge. My back hit a door which promptly gave way under my weight, opening soundlessly and sending me spilling into the room beyond. I caged my scream in my throat, fingers scrabbling for the door handle. I managed to close myself inside just as the once-woman looked up.
Silence.
I slipped out of my backpack and hunched against the door, knees pulled up to my chest. I found myself in a conference room, its large, expensive table turned on one side to act as a barricade. Some of the varnished wood had gouges in it, revealing fresh timber beneath. It was completely empty. Lopsided footsteps moved closer, bubbling breath hissing close to the keyhole. I bit the sleeve of my shirt to keep from losing my nerve. She might just shuffle on past, freeing up my pathway. Or she might notice me and burst into this room (which clearly had no working latch on the door), and then…
Lost in my own panic, I didn’t notice that her wheezing had stopped. I bit my lip hard enough to taste copper and redoubled my efforts to keep the door shut… but the hostile’s attempt to break in never came. Instead she screeched, a sound long and furious which cut out abruptly with the thock of a blunt object. Something hit the carpet in the corridor. I waited five seconds, maybe ten, then finally found the strength in my legs to get up. With shaking hands, I prized the door back open and peeked out.
A young man stared back at me, a broken table leg held in his hands.
8. Courage
I don’t remember picking myself up off the ground. I don’t remember hauling myself back into the ventilation shaft, or how many tries it took before I could find the strength to pull myself forward. I don’t remember arriving back at 31A. When I came back to myself I was lying on my side in the office beneath the desk, as if playing hide and seek with school friends. My cheeks were wet and, when I finally sat myself up, I could barely lift the Macbook onto my lap. The world kept sliding out from under me, carousel-esque. But very little of this registered to me. I kept thinking of the white-coats I’d seen darting towards the elevator. Nothing had leaped out to attack them – but then again, nothing had attacked me either until I let my guard down and put myself in harm’s way. The hostiles, I started to discover, were undoubtedly dangerous… but only once their attention locked onto you. The white-coats knew it too. And odds were good that they were headed downstairs.
If the labs were secure, there could be a whole treasure trove of sanity and people down there.
And I only had to fight through a building of hostiles to find it.
I pressed my eyes shut, buried my face in my knees and wept again.
When I left 31A for good I didn’t go unprepared. Climbing back into the vent, this time I hauled my supplies with me in a backpack I had pilfered from the coat rack. Into it went the Macbook, the tablet and whatever was left of Dr Hacohen’s stash of goodies. The letter opener stayed tucked in one of my belt loops. I considered bringing the coat this time – it’s strange how one’s identity can become attached to a particular item of clothing. Without the coat was I even really a scientist?
The break room, still quiet after the scuffle, was a mess. Orange juice, blood and vomit mingled together on the laminate flooring, and the still ruin of the hostile’s corpse lay slumped on its back near the counter. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I lowered myself down and moved, slipping now and then, towards the cupboards. The stench of decaying flesh invaded everything, cloying in my throat and working its way into nose and mouth and chest. I gagged, even as I pulled what food I could from the cupboards and stuffed it into my pack.
For a while I pondered on breaking into the vending machine. But if it made too much noise I’d be dead before I even begun, no matter how securely I’d closed the door. So, like an idiot, I paid for my snacks.
That done, I crept to the door and, slowly, glancing over my shoulder to check that the corpse really was a corpse, I eased it open.
The corridor was empty.
I stepped out, turned left, and ran.
7. Company
The last day or so have been a bit like wandering through a dream. Silent but for the rain, isolated but for the hostile that tried to claw through the door. Even the panic dampened after a while, fading and warping into normality. If I hadn’t seen or heard anything for hours, everything might be back to normal, right? Maybe this was just a short-lived mistake.
Or maybe I was insane.
Either way, complacency made me adventurous.
My trip to the break room taught me for the second time not to let my guard down. But this time I had no barrier between myself and the monster.
I didn’t hear the juice carton clap to the ground, didn’t see the wave of orange sluice across the wooden flooring. My eyes fixed on the bloated face hurtling towards me, torn, chewed nails outstretched to claw and rip. A sheen of sweat covered the hostile’s skin, blue veins pricking out on its cheeks. It was male, but nothing like sense remained behind the filmy eyes.
My conscious mind had completely forgotten about the letter opener tucked into my belt but, as luck would have it, my subconscious still had my back. I clutched my improv. weapon, the steel burning against the hand which came up to defend myself. What would have otherwise been a pathetic swat at teeth and foamy drool became a deep cut. Instinct was unforgiving. The hostile’s teeth clattered off the letter opener, the blade slicing into either side of its mouth. It howled, though I don’t know whether from pleasure or pain, for it lapped at the ruddy blood dribbling from the wounds with a black tongue.
Like a fool, I dropped my weapon. The hostile’s hands came up to clutch at the ruined flaps of its mouth. Gibbering, it tore at them, satisfied as long as it was rending something, too primal for self awareness to intrude.
Bile rose at the back of my throat. Our experiments had worked too well.
My hip knocked against the kitchen counter; I hadn’t even noticed I was backing away. Hands fumbled, slapped, closed around something large and rounded along the side of the unit. The fire extinguisher did not detach without a fight but I brought it up swinging, slamming it into the hostile’s skull without prejudice.
It didn’t even seem to feel the pain, still gnawing at its face as it staggered and slumped to the wooden flooring. With a scream that was almost a retch, I brought the metal cylinder down again into the pale dome of its head. Something gave way with a sickening crack. It twitched once and fell still.
Shivering, I turned away to bring up most of what I’d pilfered from the refrigerator before weaving towards the break room door to slam it shut against any further intrusions.
Through a sliver of space, just before the door clicked shut, I spotted three figures darting for the elevator. They were clean, their movements fluid. Human.
They carried weapons and wore lab coats.
6. Break Room
I learned some things today.
1. Do not attempt to climb into an air vent while drunk. You will fall off the rotating office chair.
2. The floor of Dr Hacohen’s office is very hard.
3. While scientifically proven, it is very true that alcohol lowers one’s inhibitions, and it is perfectly acceptable to lie sobbing in the fetal position in the midst of the world ending.
4. Drinking on a stomach filled with bonbons and dread is a bad idea.
Darkness haunted the office again by the time I felt anything like brave or well enough to try the air vent a second time. On this occasion, at least, I was smarter about it. I realised, for a start, that I was still wearing my lab coat, which would tangle around my legs if I was going to be climbing and crawling. That had to go. I shrugged out of it and rifled through the doctor’s desk, taking the letter opener as a means of defence. Then it was back to the chair.
Another thing I learned today: I need to work on my upper body strength.
I dealt with the cover of the vent easily enough – I even managed to get it all the way off now that I was sober – but the office chair wasn’t nearly tall enough to get me in a comfortable position to climb in. A lot of scrabbling, sweat, awkwardness and just a little begging, and I finally found myself panting in the dusty space. My breath echoed metallic against the narrow walls. It would have been easy to lie there for a while longer (a couple of days without food meant that a kitten could probably have killed me if it had felt the urge). But that wouldn’t do me any good in the long run. I got my elbows and knees under me and, thanking God that I was narrow shouldered and on the scrawny side, I began to crawl.
Air vents are underrated parts of office buildings. They’re the veins and arteries that connect everything together, keeping the air flowing and the temperature regulated. They’re also dirty as hell and pretty disgusting in some parts, though after everything I’m sure my delicate senses will cope. I wriggled the length of one vent which spanned, I assumed, down the entire corridor. At intervals I could peek out through offshoots into other offices. Some were empty and abandoned, barely touched. Others had been ransacked.
Some were not empty. I held my breath and shuffled past those as quietly as possible, careful of even a mote of dust that might fall through the slits in the vent cover. One look at the shuffling figures and I knew none of them were like me. I moved on.
At the end of the ventilation shaft I found one last opening, this one plunging straight down. Peeking through the cover, I seemed to be lurking in the ceiling of what could only be a break room. A few tables littered the space, some of the chairs knocked over. But the counters were untouched; I spied cupboards, a coffee machine, a vending machine, a microwave and a refrigerator. The lights had been left on and the door to the room stood wide open.
It was easier to lower myself in thanks to the tables. I pointedly did not think about getting back. My feet touched on varnished wood which creaked alarmingly. Wincing, I scurried down as quickly as I could and headed straight for the fridge.
Like stepping into Aladdin’s cave.
Sure, most of the fruit and veg was a little soft but that just meant I’d have to eat it first. After demolishing a pear I found a tuna sandwich and, caring nothing for expiry dates, ate it right there in front of the open door, bathed in its cool glow. How long the electricity would last was anyone’s guess, so I’d have to clear the fridge out soon.
I ate until my stomach started to hurt. I was just lifting a carton of orange juice to my lips when a rattling breath in the periphery of my hearing shocked me into glancing around.
The hostile in the doorway screamed and lunged for me.
Midas Plague 