Then they were pelting up the stairs, the groans of thedead, echoing through the stairwell, propelling them onward. Rudy, holding hispants up with one hand, and his sword with the other one, narrowly missedslicing Chloe open with his sword as he turned a corner.
"Watch that thing, asshole," Chloe spat at him.
Joan saw his face turn bright red, and then they werepelting up the stairs again. Rudy made to open the door to the second floor,but from below Lou yelled, "Not that one!"
For a second, it looked as if Rudy was about to saysomething, but then he thought better of it. Huffing and puffing, he turned andwent up the next flight of stairs, his breathing becoming a sickly wheeze asthey moved. Amanda put her arm under his and dragged him to the third floorlanding.
"You ok?" Joan asked as Rudy bent over,planting his hands on his knees and gasping for breath. He nodded yes, and thenplaced his sword on the ground. He pulled his backpack from his back and beganrummaging through it.
Chloe moved to the door to the third floor, placing herhand on the handle. Then she hesitated.
"Go on," Clara said. "Open it."
With that, Chloe pulled the door open. She held herhandgun at the ready. Through the doorway, Joan saw a shadowy environment.There was enough light to see a room full of office cubicles constructed fromsix-foot high portable walls. It was dim, lit only by the little light that managedto sneak its way in through the walls of windows that ran around the north andsouth sides of the building. A row of offices, the doors all closed, dominatedthe west side of the building.
Joan moved into the office, stepping lightly on the graycarpet. It seemed as if the entire office was just waiting for the workers toreturn, as if at any moment employees would start showing up, coffee in theirhands and stories about their weekends on their lips. But that would neverhappen. She wondered if anything as mundane as a Monday morning at an officewould ever occur again.
Behind her, she heard grunting and groaning as Mort andBlake began pushing office furniture up against the doors. She tried to helpout, but the partitions were too heavy for her, so she cleared out everythingthat she could, swiping staplers, cups full of pens and pencils, and computerequipment onto the floor. The men had a nice barricade of partitions and deskspressed against the stairwell door when the first banging began. Long afterthey were safe, they continued to pile the furniture. When they were done, thecubicles had largely been dismantled, and their barricade almost reached theceiling, and they all stopped, panting and sweating in the heat of the office.
"We better search this place," Joan said."There's always multiple stairwells in a building as big as this."
Mort wiped a sheen of sweat off of his forehead with theback of his arm and said, "Yeah, you're right. We don't want a bunch ofthose fuckers to come sneaking in the back door."
In typical Rudy fashion, he whined, "I wish itwasn't so damn hot in here."
Chloe looked at him, annoyance on her face. "Youwant some goddamn air conditioning?" She raised her gun before anyonecould say anything and fired through the glass windows. The first bullet flewthrough the window cleanly, creating a tiny hole.
"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Joan yelled, trying to getChloe to stop.
Chloe fired again, two rounds, each one hitting adifferent window.
"Save the bullets, Chloe," Joan said."There are more important things to shoot out there."
Chloe said nothing. She picked up an office chair andwalked over to one of the windows she had perforated with lead. She hefted thechair and swung it at the window. The chair bounced off, but she swung again.This time the glass shattered. She threw the chair out the window, smiled andsaid, "There you go. There's your air conditioning."
The group looked at her. Joan wondered if she was losingit. Maybe they were all losing it. How long until Joan herself had some sort ofpsychotic tirade? Hell, she wondered how she could be so calm in a moment likethis, trapped in an office building, the dead surging below them and in thestairwell. Maybe this was her version of crazy, calm and reflective when shehad no right to be. Maybe going crazy was bound to happen to all of them.
"Let's reload," Lou said, breaking the tensionin the room. "Mort, Katie, Blake, you guys come with me. The rest of youguys see what you can find in here."
"Who put you in charge?" Clara asked.
Lou just smiled at her. "You want the job? You canhave it."
"Maybe I do," she said.
"Well, when we're all safe and secure, we can alltalk about it. In the meantime, why don't you go through those offices and seeif there's something we can use." Lou turned his back on Clara,discouraging further discussion. Joan could see that Clara didn't particularlycare for how the conversation had ended. But that was Clara, she would hate anyconversation or situation where she didn't come out on top or at the very leasteven.
Lou and the others loaded their weapons, quickly andefficiently. Then they were off. Clara stood fuming in the middle of the officefloor, the ground strewn with discarded telephones, computer monitors, andoffice supplies. Joan walked over to her and placed a reassuring hand on hershoulder. "Come on. Let's go check out those offices."
Reluctantly, Clara turned, and they walked up to thefirst office door. The nameplate read "Mr. Brown." Glass windowslooked out onto the office floor, but all of the blinds inside were pulledshut. Anything could be in there. Clara knocked on the door. It was an absurdgesture, but if there were something dead on the other side of the door, theknock should draw some sort of reaction. Joan and Clara put their ears up tothe door. There was no sound whatsoever.
They held their guns at the ready, just in case. Joanremembered to thumb the safety off. It was becoming more natural for her. Shedidn't know if that was a good thing or not.
