around the corner, toward the front door. Neither one of us had to debate the merits of getting down and crawling through that basement window. That violated two rules of living in Undisclosed: 1) never put yourself in a spot where you don’t have an open, and
We reached the front door and John said, “Plug your ears.” He pointed the shotgun at the locks on the front door and blew a grapefruit-sized hole in the wood. We pushed our way inside.
105 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
It appeared the feds left behind anything that would take more than five minutes to load onto a truck. Boxes of medical supplies and biohazard suits and filters for biohazard suits and every other thing lined the main hallway, abandoned in the evacuation. Halogen work lamps were set up on stands here and there, a few of them still on, blasting bluish beams through the shadows of the huge corpse of a building. We pushed the front door closed and dragged a huge metal cabinet in front of it.
Out of breath, I said, “We could have relocked that door but somebody blew a hole in it.”
“I’m sorry, princess.”
“And by the way, those shotgun shells in the RV? They weren’t there waiting for us because a guardian angel dropped them from the sky because you needed help. They were there because somebody else, somebody who believed in being prepared, paid for them with their own money. Keep that in mind the next time you get yourself in a bind and somebody is there for you with bail money or a sofa to sleep on. It isn’t providence. It’s generous people who work hard jobs to buy things you can take.”
We were jogging down a main hallway now, heading deeper into the building. John said, “Search one of these crates. See if you can find some fucking antidepressants.”
“All right, all right—”
“Seriously, it’s an emergency. I’ll cram them down the barrel of the gun and blow them right into your brain.”
We moved in silence for a moment and I said, “How did we screw this all up so badly, John?”
He shook his head. “We always find a way.”
We had to stop to climb over a knocked-over pile of plastic storage bins in the hall. I said, “Damn, the feds left in a hurry. They got overrun? By infected?”
“Not exactly. I told you Falconer had to spring me out of here, we had to blow a huge hole in the wall to do it. They had us in like a big gymnasium and we saw a couple of liquid oxygen tanks along the wall and we’re like, ‘Let’s blow that shit up and get the hell out of here.’ It worked but I guess in the confusion a bunch of the infected they were holding here got loose and they decided to just leave town and let the situation sort itself out.”
“Wait, you’re the reason the feds abandoned ship? Jesus, John.”
“Well I feel like it’s their fault for trying to hold me. They should have known that shit comes with consequences.”
John clicked three shells into his ridiculous tri-barreled shotgun, glancing nervously back toward the front doors. Nobody came crashing through. Wait, was the armed, angry mob scared to come in here? That couldn’t be a good fucking sign.
“AMY? ANYBODY?”
Echoes bounced off moldy walls. The building seemed five times bigger on the inside. It had the tangled floor plan common to all hospitals, seemingly designed by someone who believed in the healing power of watching confused visitors aimlessly wander around hallways. It didn’t help that all signage in the place had faded, or been stolen, or painted over with graffiti. We came to a “T” in the hall.
I said, “Which way?”
“When I was here earlier I—HEY!”
John took off running to his right. I followed, the heavy green mystery box banging off my legs as I ran. I considered dropping the stupid thing.
“What? What did you see? John!”
We skidded to a stop at the end of the hall.
“I saw somebody.”
“Was it a… person?”
He shook his head, in a way that meant he didn’t know.
“Are you sure you saw them?”
“Is that an elevator?” It was. Down at the end of the hall. The doors were closed. “Probably no power to it though, right?”
I said, “I think you might be wrong. I rode in it. They had me down in the basement for a while.”
“They did? You didn’t tell me that. What’s down there? Surely nothing worth complaining about, or else you would have brought it up by now.”
“Don’t know. They had me knocked out the whole time and then put a bag on my head when they hauled me out to go to quarantine. I don’t want to shake your faith in government but I’m thinking this REPER is kind of a shady operation. Find the stairs.”
There was no need to debate getting on the elevator, thanks to rule number one I mentioned just a moment ago. You get on one of those things, and you’re sealed up and somebody else is controlling where you go. All of these rules were learned from terrible experience.
John said, “Boom. Stairs. Right over there.”
We jogged toward the stairwell door and at the exact moment John’s hand grabbed the handle, the elevator dinged behind us. We heard the doors slide open.
From behind us, a tiny voice said, “Walt?”
90 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed
I very nearly pissed my pants. John saw the look on my face and spun around with the shotgun. He led the way, and we inched toward the now-open elevator. Inside was a little girl. Long, black, straight hair. She wore a filthy nightgown.
John said, “Holy shit. What are you doing here?”
I said, “John, back up…”
The little girl looked at me and said, “Don’t be scared.”
“Anna?”
She nodded.
John said, “You know her?”
“Don’t lower the gun, John.”
“Do you want to hold it? I’m not pointing a shotgun at a toddler.”
Anna said, “Why are there so many holes on that gun?”
I said, “What do you want?”
“I can take you to see Amy.”
“Is she here?”
Anna nodded, silently.
John and I exchanged a look.
Quietly, he said, “Okay, I admit she’s pretty creepy.”
I whispered, “Man, if this was a horror movie the audience would be screaming for us to get the fuck out of here.”
“Well, they’d be thinking it. They wouldn’t
“She’s downstairs,” interrupted Anna. “Your dog is here, too. Get in.”
