James slammed the door shut behind them; the sounds of furniture scraping against the old tile floor followed as the men slid a heavy steel desk in front of the entrance. Then they stopped, slowly and silently backing into the darkness of the room until they hit a tall wall. They knelt down in the pitch black. The only light that spilled in came through the small cracks under the front door and a small decorative piece of glass at the top.
The noise on the outside roared toward them as the stampede of bodies filled the street. The light from the rattling door was blocked out as bodies pressed against it, crowding into the street and around the Suburban. Windows broke; sheet metal gave and crumpled—the sound of bending metal mixed with the wails of the Deltas.
Jacob held his breath; gripping his rifle tight, he drew it into his lap. He could hear the panting breath of his friends. Someone opened a bottle and chugged water before passing it on. Jacob took it and drank, not realizing how thirsty he’d been until that moment. He passed the bottle on and looked at his watch. The sun was already hanging low; it would be dark soon. They’d been running and fighting most of the day.
The frenzied mob continued in the street, still surrounding the vehicle and looking for its occupants. “We need to get to high ground,” Stephens whispered.
The snap of plastic, and the room filled in a soft, blue glow. Rogers crept forward with a blue chem light. Holding it in front of him, he waved it through the room. He leaned over his pack and removed his night vision goggles and dropped them down over his eyes, passing the chem light off to Stephens. James stood up, placing his left hand on Rogers’s right shoulder, both men now with goggles dropped down over their eyes. They moved into a hallway that led off the main room. Stephens stood in place and waved the rest of them forward into the hallway, taking up the rear with the chemical light.
“Why don’t we have more goggles?” Jacob whispered to Stephens.
Stephens placed a hand on Jacob’s back, urging him into the hallway. “Sorry, Best Buy was all sold out.”
The team moved deeper into the building, the smells of mold and decay filling the spaces. Noticeably absent to all of them was the smell of death. They walked past a bank of elevators, which were blocked off with yellow and red tape. Jacob’s feet kicked and scuffed at broken floor tile. The blue chem light reflected off of a high ceiling covered with water stains. The building had obviously been closed and empty for a long time. On the wall between the elevators was a posted directory listing department names: human resources, legal, payroll. Past the elevators Rogers located a steel fire door, with stairs stenciled across it in black.
The big man let his rifle hang slack as he pressed down on the push bar. A metallic clunk echoed through the space, followed by a loud squeak as the door opened into the stairwell. Rogers pressed against it, holding it as James slowly crept through and went up the stairs to the top of the first landing. The others filed into the dark damp space behind him. Once they all were inside, Rogers slowly closed the door behind him and pressed it shut until the latch caught.
Rogers rotated the goggles away from his eyes and clicked on his flashlight, filling the space with bright white light and causing the others to squint and look away. Rogers examined the door then secured the mechanism with two long zip ties he’d removed from his cargo pocket. He looked up at James, who was leaning out, staring almost vertical at the stairwell over their heads. The bearded soldier rotated off his own goggles and sat down on the upper step.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“I feel like I’ve been here before,” Jacob whispered to Stephens.
Stephens pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah, another time and place, huh? We haven’t done too good, have we? What has it been? A few months? And here we are back in a stairwell, trying to hide from them.”
Jacob ambled to the steps and sat down next to Jesse. “The more things change… the more they stay the same,” he said, smiling.
Marks gave them time to catch their breath and to drink water before he got them back to their feet and continued patrolling up the stairwell, pausing at the landings to secure each door with more zip ties.
At the fourth floor, they held up while James and Rogers cleared the roof exit then looked back in, signaling them up. This was one of the tallest buildings within view. Even at only four stories, they could see down onto neighboring rooftops. The sun had already set and the western sky was a deep orange and red. James led them down the center of the roof against a mechanical structure filled with vents and exhaust pipes.
They dropped to the ground, relaxing the heavy packs on their backs. The men sat heavily and stretched their legs out straight in front of them. Marks and Stephens moved away toward the edge of the wall with their maps out, trying to orient themselves while conducting recon on the area with the binoculars.
James used a shirtsleeve to wipe away
