Return

Picture frames line the walls at intervals. Plaques on the wall next to each door show an individual name, conference room, or the standard bathroom sign. All have room numbers on top and, giving them a look from her position, she can tell that the numbers increase the further away from her the rooms are. The director’s office must be behind me, she thinks hoping it is not on the other side of the stairwell.

“What do you have on your side?” Lynn asks the teammates behind her.

“Hallway ends and opens into some kind of foyer or larger open area,” her teammate responds.

Lynn stands quietly and turns around, tapping one of her team behind her and signaling for them to switch positions. The exchange is completed in almost total silence. The swish of cloth rubbing together is the only indication of movement. Looking at the hallway in the other direction from her new vantage point, she sees that the hallway does end after short distance, opening up into what appears to be some kind of reception room. The tiled hallway gives way to carpeting and the room ahead opens up to the sides. Two desks sit on the carpeting looking out in her direction with a large, shut door in the far wall between them.

Something just does not seem right. There are the words ‘CDC Director’ but they seem to be placed oddly. At first they seem to be on the wooden walls directly above the desks but placed too high. Then they seem to be floating in the air. The light bulb hits. The reception room is fronted by a glass wall with double glass doors leading inside. The writing is on the glass in front. Lynn also sees a thin beam of light peeking out from under the large door set in the far wall. So, that office must have a view of the outside. That will be convenient for searching, she thinks wondering if those glass doors are locked.

“Sergeant Drescoll, this is Jordan on the third floor. I have sound and movement coming from the other side of my door,” a voice whispers in the radio, startling Lynn and sending her adrenaline into overdrive.

“Can you identify what it is?” Lynn hears Drescoll respond to the call.

“Do not open that door,” Lynn quickly whispers into her mic.

“Copy that, First Sergeant. Break. I don’t know what it is but it sounds like something shuffling on the other side,” Jordan answers.

Lynn rises and stares over her shoulder at the stair door. What they came looking for, well, at least the location it should be in, is tantalizingly close. They are not really discovered yet but it is only a matter of time if one or more of the night runners are prowling around. She stands wondering if she should continue and head to the director’s office or pull them back. Her competitive and ‘can do’ mindset compels her to continue; get the files and get out of there. The hackles on the back of her neck rise as she suddenly hears a low growl and a faint sniffing from down the hallway in the direction she is facing. The green glow of her night vision goggles picks out the faint outline of a nose poking out from one of the open doors close by.

Oh shit, she thinks looking at the nose apparently sniffing the air. She stays absolutely motionless. Don’t make a sound. A soft grunt emits from the direction of the night runner at the room’s entrance, followed by a very low, deep growl that fills the otherwise silent hall. Tension fills the air. The soldiers kneel in the darkened hallway like stone statues, poised and ready. Not knowing if they have been found out or not. Waiting for the shriek that will signify their presence is known and alert other night runners.

Lynn sees the soldiers kneeling before her looking from the room, to her, and then slowly back again, waiting for her call to action. She waits hoping the night runner will not smell or hear anything and retire. Regardless, we’re done here, she thinks waiting for the balance to shift one way or the other. Not knowing how many are in here but thinking along the worst case scenario of many. The knowledge they seek is not worth the life of a single soldier in her mind. Or is it? The question runs through her head. If we can gather knowledge that will save others down the road, well…. That line of thinking leaves as the night runner by the door emits a loud shriek, echoing loudly in the in the hall. The team’s scent has apparently reached its nose and it has determined something was indeed here.

“They’re onto us,” Lynn says into her mic. “Hold the doors! We’re on our way out.”

The suddenness of the shriek startles the other soldiers into a form of paralysis. They hold there as the night runner quickly emerges from the opening and out into the hallway, turning in their direction with its first step. Lynn, having slowly raised her M-4 to her shoulder, fires a burst at the night runner. Rounds follow the sharp popping and slight bucking of her rifle out of the barrel, streaking toward its intended target and impacting its skin and bone with solid thumps. The steel collides with its chest, neck and just below the nose, flipping it over backward with a flowering blood spot marking the entry into its chest and a spray of blood from its neck and head covers its face. Shrieks ring out from within the room as more night runners begin pouring out into the hallway.

The explosion of her weapon firing startles the soldiers out of their paralysis and they begin introducing steel into the air down the hallway, dropping the first two night runners that emerge into the hallway, their bodies hitting the linoleum floor hard, sending tremors through the floor and felt beneath the soldier’s boots.

“Move! Now!” Lynn calls out. “I’ll cover.”

The soldiers quickly rise and rush the very short distance to the door, throwing it open and yelling “friendlies” as they do. Lynn reaches down and taps the one kneeling beside her on the shoulder, signaling for him to exit as well. The night runners come out of the same door and her vision picks up more coming from doors further down the hallway. This is going to get ugly quick, she thinks squeezing the trigger lightly and feeling the confident buck against her shoulder. The familiar smell of gunpowder fills her nose but goes unnoticed in the quickly building, furious battle. One more night runner is flung backwards and to the side as her rounds hit the mark, the ones behind slow to side-step around it. She begins side-stepping toward the fire door being held open by one of the soldiers guarding it. Fire, step, fire. Each of her bursts sending a night runner to the floor. Blood splashes against the walls and tile, creating psychedelic spray patterns, quickly making the footing treacherous in the hallway beyond. A couple night runners slip in the forming pools, causing them to lose their balance, but barely noticed as they catch their footing and charge on.

The flash of rounds being fired and the tinkling of empty shells on the ground add to the general uproar and violence. Strobes begin to emit from the open stairwell door, evidence that someone is firing back from within into the growing horde. Shrieks, howls of pain, gunfire, a growing haze of smoke, and alternating flashes of strobe light fill the hallway to excess. That, combined with the now frantic radio calls coming through her ear piece, forces Lynn to concentrate on getting them out of here and getting them out now.

“I’ve got movement on the fourth floor,” Drescoll’s voice comes through.

“They’re trying to get through the door on the third,” Jordan calls out. “Don’t know if I can hold this shut much longer.”

“Sounds and movement by the second floor doors,” another voice calls out over the radio.

This whole place has come alive, Lynn thinks. We’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest. She makes the door with a multitude of night runners lying dead on the hallway floor but more are coming. Many more. She did not think it could get any louder but the shrieks fill even more of the hallway as a horde of them charges her way. To the point where she thinks her head will come apart from the noise.

“Close the door!” She yells above the din to the soldier that was holding it open for her and firing one- handed down the hallway.

The door swings ever slowly closed, the pneumatic swing arm above slowing the process. Lynn fires two more bursts into the hallway, hearing the rounds strike without seeing where or what. How could I miss though? She thinks. They practically fill the hallway. She yells for the teammate to head down as she covers the now shut door. The soldier on the other side of the landing holds the other door closed with all of his might.

“Go, I’ve got it covered,” she yells to him.

He releases his grip and turns for the stairs behind her. The door immediately swings open and she sends rounds into the opening, her rifle barking and echoing loudly in the enclosed space. The door opposite swings back closed. Lynn realizes there is gunfire further down the stairs from the other landings.

“They’re trying to come in,” Jordan’s voice yells in the radio. “Better hurry if you’re going to make it.”

“Hold tight, we’re on the way down. Drescoll, you good?” Lynn asks in the radio and starts down the stairs covering the doors on the landing above.

“They’re trying to get through but we’re holding ‘em for now,” he responds.