Ahead stood a giant white warehouse, a dead supermarket. So rare was it to see these behemoth buildings without their lights blaring out twenty-four seven. The mood grew optimistic in the back as I let the engine build and turned into the car park.
Two cars sat in the wide expanse of tarmac, their bonnets up, abandoned by their owners.
Circling the shop took over ten minutes in the car. The place looked locked up tight, the doors sealed, shutters down across the front. Still, we hadn't spoken about what had occurred to hasten this leg of the journey and I wanted to keep it that way until we'd got Chloe's wounds under control and I’d had chance to figure it out for myself.
Toby agreed to stay with the car and sit in the driver's seat with the engine running, ready to pick us up at a moment’s notice.
Zoe insisted she came with us, so joined Andrew, myself and Matt as we got out at the rear of the building to examine the delivery entrance.
A small high window at the rear was smashed through within minutes, our success rewarded with an alarm we were all a little surprised to hear. I ventured in, rising on Matt and Andrew's interleaved hands.
Inside I found utter darkness, the rage of the alarm incessant and not helping to tune my vision to the pitch black.
Not knowing what I was to land on, I lowered myself down from the ledge and my feet found something solid. The porcelain of a toilet bowl I soon found out, as my foot traced its smooth edges.
Inside, the alarm was bass and high at the same time, assaulting not only my ears but my stomach as well. If I had eaten in the last day, I would have emptied my guts again.
The deep blackness was so complete. Touch alone got me through the cubicle and out of the wider room where the darkness seemed to only deepen, the last of the moonlight shut out.
I don't mind admitting I was petrified as the tone of the alarm changed. I guessed I was out into the main cavernous warehouse, but there were no lights to guide me, the emergency batteries having worn down the previous night.
Despair tightened its grip with the last of the light as the door closed at my back and my pace slowed further. Like a fireman in a smoke-filled room but less practiced, I waved my hands in front of me in methodical circles, fingers curled into my palms for protection.
My left fist caught a solid wall. So did my right and I realised I was in a corridor and not the main hall. My mood fell even further, head splitting with pain, peaking each time the klaxon cycled through its infernal rhythm.
Time pressed its urgency and I could sense Chloe's blood pumping from her injuries, her body draining with each step I failed to find some way to get her inside and her injuries dressed.
My knuckles rasped against something hard, a cold handle. Joy flared as I turned. The door opened, but I sank to my knees when the echo resounded deeper. The repetition was overwhelming, the noise pouring over me.
Tears rolled when light burst into being. A car smashing through from the outside. The room lit from the source of the attack, my hand unknowingly reaching for the gun.
9
Forcing my eyes wide, the roar of the engine died back below the siren's scream. As dust and smoke continued to billow from the sudden outburst, I watched silhouettes rush from the new opening. Heads turned wild, this way and that, searching something out.
The first figure carried another cradled in their arms. Chloe, I soon realised, in Toby's hold. With Lily at her back, a deep relief lifted my mood.
In the new light I saw I was in a side corridor, the group of three already out of view. Hurrying forward, the gun pushed deep once more, my despair forgotten to the shouts of my name just high enough to register.
I appeared in the angle of their vision and saw the relief on Toby's face and a pained, pale complexion on Chloe's as she lay on the floor.
Lily knelt in a stance we'd only just seen. Chloe's face was still intact, albeit grey and drawn. Our friends huddled around, each shouting calls trying to reach above the others, but we all knew the aim.
I watched as they scattered, leaving me transfixed on Lily forcing blood-red rags around the patient's hand, a pool already forming beneath.
Out of my daze, I split from the scene, helpless to react to the constant pour of blood. Instead, I raced off through the pristine aisles, the tops of the rows lit just enough to help navigation.
I returned with an arm full of torches, battery packs bulging from pockets. Back at Chloe's side, I listened to Lily's calming voice and caught sight of her hand clamped down, her fingers red with Chloe's blood.
My gaze fixed to Lily’s breathless stare as she looked up.
Striding off once more, I found Toby by the medicines as he squinted in the near dark. His hands felt across the shelves. His face upturned as I pushed the lit torch into his fingers.
Still I headed on and found Andrew wielding a chair, attacking a tall metal panel by the front entrance. Despite his desperate swings, the alarm still screamed out and a rainbow of weak LEDs continued to dim with each pulse of the speaker.
I lit the panel with the torch beam and Andrew turned, his face alive with fright until he saw me and he said something I had no chance of understanding.
I was off again, but I only went a few steps before stumbling into a
