The door to the stairs at the opposite end of the hall was wrapped tightly with a chain and lock. Jenn had to act fast. She told her father to stay put and then ran back to Eddie. A search of his pockets produced the keyring she was looking for.
“Hold this.” She gave her father the gun. “Cover me.”
He started to say something, but Jenn was already several strides out into the hall. She had the lock in her hand when another round of gunfire erupted from the other end of the hall. She didn’t look back to see if she was the target; instead, she focused on trying to find the right key. The lock shook in her hand as she worked through the ring. She didn’t take a breath until a key slipped in the full length of the cylinder and turned.
“Let’s go!”
Jenn had the door open, begging her father to run faster. The shooting continued at a sporadic rate. Screams echoed along the hall as people dropped to the ground at the other end. Jenn slammed the door closed as the first of the gunmen broke through the crowd.
Pale light cascaded down the stairs from small windows along the outermost wall. Jenn moved two steps at a time, pulling her father along the way. She took back the rifle and was having trouble keeping a grip on it. Her mind raced with the possibilities of what she should do next.
She guessed Isabel turned her guns on Chris and the others as soon as the opportunity presented itself. The alarm had gone out, and she’d obviously sent the gunmen up to handle things. Jenn’s few remaining rounds offered little hope that she could storm in and take on whatever protection Isabel had left. Jenn had no good answers to her problems when she finished her descent and came to a halt.
“Dad,” she said between deep breaths. “This is probably going to get ugly.” He nodded. “Isabel has the rest of my group.”
“She’ll kill them,” he said in no uncertain terms. “She won’t hesitate.”
Jenn slid her face along the door, bringing an eye to the edge of the thin strip of glass at the center. There was a flurry of moment along the hall, but she took note that the push bar was unchained. Her mind raced, but she had no idea what she was about to do.
“I’m open for suggestions,” she said.
Tom took a step back to get a good look at the hall. He studied the way and scratched his head. “They don’t know what you look like,” he said. “Half of them have never seen me.”
“So?”
“I say we make for Isabel’s room like we belong here. Hear me out,” he said stopping her before she could object. “You have a gun. The only people allowed to carry guns are the ones who support Isabel directly. Several of them are women.”
She eyed him closely as he finished.
“It’s only got to get us down the hall,” he said.
Jenn didn’t like it; she didn’t like it at all. The problem was she didn’t know what else to do. She could wait it out, but that would give Isabel time to figure out what happened and put together a group to hunt down her and her father. Making a run for it was out of the question. She couldn’t bring herself to leave Jake and Alicen even if she could leave Chris. The truth was she didn’t know how they would get out of the building to begin with.
Jenn nodded and took a deep breath. She had the presence of mind to count her rounds. The five remaining bullets would have to be used sparingly. The chances were that she would run out of ammunition long before she ran out of opposition.
“We need to take advantage of the chaos.”
She knew her father was right and confirmed her agreement with a nod. She took one last gulp of air and pushed open the door. They were moving fast but trying not to run. Jenn kept the gun at the ready.
The figures rushing to and from Isabel’s double doors paid little attention to the oncoming duo. It wasn’t until they were midway down the hall that the first signs of trouble arose. A series of gunshots forced Jenn to the ground. Tom pushed in behind her and got down on his knees. Jenn brought the rifle to bear, but neither the gunman in front of the double doors nor the small group at the far exit focused on her.
The gunman at the door fired into the room, and then turned to run. Two shots hit him squarely in the back. The impact slammed him into the wall, and he slid to the floor, dead. Jenn wasn’t sure what to do. The group near the exit pressed against the wall and started down the hall. There were five in all, each armed with a handgun. The group had Jenn in their sights, but their focus was on the double doors.
“Are your people armed?” Tom asked. He pressed himself against the wall and encouraged Jenn to do the same.
“No.” She shook her head. “They took everything we had before they let us in.”
“If you want a look, we better get it now.”
Jenn wasn’t convinced it was the right move. She considered letting the advancing group have a try before she stuck her head in the door.
“Aw, hell.” Tom stood up and ran.
“Dad? What the—”
Jenn was up after him. He stopped outside the doors, and Jenn slammed in behind him with a nasty glare. She was going to voice her displeasure when a figure leaned out around the doorframe and fired two shots at the advancing party. Jenn decided it was now or never.
She spun around the open door as a figure pushed out for another volley. Jenn had the rifle at the ready. She met the shooter with her barrel directly between his eyes. Her finger tightened around the trigger when a sudden recognition of the dark skinned face caused her to release.
“Jenn?” Jafar’s thick accent stunned her. “Get in here.”
“Dad, come on.”
She waited for her father and then pulled him in as Jafar leaned out behind them and fired. The room was a mess. Most of the tables were turned over and several lifeless bodies littered the ground in between. The wall of windows along the exterior was shattered. Chris’s head popped up, and he locked eyes with her. He was holding a gun, pointing the barrel directly at Isabel’s forehead.
“Some things have changed since you left,” he said.
“I gathered.”
“Jenn?”
She turned in time to catch Alicen as she slammed into her and wrapped her arms around her. Jenn dropped the gun and returned the hug. Jake was close behind his sister, smiling from ear to ear.
“We thought we lost you,” the boy said.
Jenn shook her head. She located Michael and Sarah with Jafar near the doors. “No chance,” she said.
“It makes sense now,” Tom said as he came to a stop by his daughter. His eyes were on the kids. “It makes a lot of sense.”
“There’s not much time for introductions,” Jenn said, turning her attention back to Chris.
He looked at her father and nodded, not willing to ask where her mother was.
“I don’t suppose he knows a safe way out of here?” Chris asked.
Jenn turned to her father but found him focused on the broken windows.
“That will draw them out,” Tom said walking toward the glass. “There’s no getting out now.”
“What’s he talking about?” Chris asked.
Jenn shook her head. Tom reached the wall and looked down at the streets far below.
“I’m afraid this rescue will be the death of all of us,” Tom said. “Come see for yourself.”
Jenn followed her father with Alicen in tow. Chris pulled Isabel up and urged her to walk. Tom never moved, his eyes locked on the view below. Jenn came to a stop beside him and looked out.
The street looked alive. The entire view shimmered as a ripple moved along the road from one side to the other. It took a moment for Jenn to realize what she was looking at. They moved like a well-oiled machine, an uncountable number of figures. The forms rushed across the street and poured into the hotel. The sheer size of the mass overwhelmed her and a single question trickled out of her mouth as a sudden dread crept into her mind.
“What is that?”
Her father never looked up, his mind equally engrossed by the sight, but he provided an alarming reply.
20
They swarmed over everything. The infected moved with an unimaginable precision that could not be misconstrued as anything else but coordination. They crawled out from every doorway and broken window of the buildings along the main drag. There was no denying the implications of what it all meant.
“They’re communicating with one another.”
Chris heard Tom, but it took a few seconds for the words to sink in. He thought back to the woman beyond the fence outside Dumont and Jafar’s warning in the recesses of the survivors’ cave. He forced Isabel to stop moving.
“Why are they out in the light?” he asked dumbfounded.
“They’ve evolved,” Tom replied. “They’ve built a tolerance to it.”
“You won’t make it out of here alive,” Isabel said, trying to resist his grip.
“Shut up,” he said. “If we don’t make it out, you don’t make it out.”
Chris pushed her toward the back wall and kept the gun trained on her head. He motioned her toward the corner so he could get a look at the view below. He found something far beyond what he imaged. The immensity of it hit him in the gut, and his thoughts trickled from his lip.
“There are so many.”
His attention was on the amassing army of infected, but he saw Isabel’s movements out of the corner of his eye. Chris turned in time to see her bring a small pistol up from underneath her pant leg. He pulled the trigger without thinking. The resulting shot struck her in the chest, and the impact threw her back against the wall. She slid to the ground, smearing blood as she went.
“So much for a bargaining chip,” Tom said.
“She was going to shoot me,” Chris said in his defense.
Jenn brushed it off with a wave. “We’ve got bigger problems, remember?” She pointed out the window.
Another shot from Jafar pulled Chris’s attention back to the hall. He took one last look at Isabel’s slumped body and then headed for the door.
“There’s either the fire exit or the elevators.”
Jafar nodded.
“It will be a long climb down the elevator shaft.”
“Don’t forget what we left on the bottom floor,” Sarah said. “Why don’t we hole up here?”
“They’ll get in eventually,” Tom said. “We’ve been holding them off for months. They keep those damn zombies down there to hold us in place.”
“How can this be?” Chris asked. “What happened to the mindless creatures? How’s this happening?”
“They’ve evolved,” Jafar said, repeating Tom’s assertion. “Everything that’s ever walked the earth has evolved.”
“But not like this,” Chris said. “They’re sick, remember. It’s a disease. That’s what we were told before everything fell apart.”
“What did they know?” Jafar countered. “If they knew so much, why didn’t they stop it?”
“We really don’t have time for this,” Jenn reminded them.
“All right,” Chris said, turning his interest to Tom. “Why would they be able to get in now?”
“I’m guessing the people Jenn let out upstairs will make a run for it.” Tom scratched the patchy bristles around his chin. “They’re being shot at by Isabel’s group. They’re not thinking. They won’t try the elevators, they’ll use the stairs.”
“We tried that,” Michael said. “They’re blocked off.”
“Isabel sends people down with guns during the attacks to hold the infected and keep the dead at bay. Without them there,” he shrugged, “who knows how long the barricades will hold.”
“How long could they hold out that way?” Jafar asked. “There’s no way they have enough ammunition.”
“You’re asking the wrong guy,” Tom said. “I know supplies were getting short. Isabel was looking for a way out.”
Chris scanned the room. “The people trying to get out on the stairway exits will draw a crowd.”
“Might be our only chance,” Jenn said.
Chris headed for the door, stopping short of the hall. He popped his head out for a view of the layout. As best he could tell, two people remained huddled close to the exit door. A series of movements in the stairwell spoke to the actions of the escapees.
“What do you think the rest of the people will do?” Chris asked. “The ones in the common hall on the floors below us.”
Tom shrugged. “How the hell should I know? They might all lose it if word spreads that Isabel’s dead.”
The remark gave Chris an idea. He handed his gun to Jafar and headed back to the windows. He had Isabel’s bloody corpse hanging over his shoulder when he returned. He leaned out far enough from the doorway so his face could be seen from the exit.
“You might want to look for a new line of work,” he shouted and then tossed Isabel’s body out into the center of the hall. Chris took his gun back and gave his idea a few minutes to work. He looked back out into the hall, and the gunmen were gone.
They moved in a coordinated group toward the center of the hall. They kept the kids in the middle, surrounded by a mass of guns much larger than they had when they started. They reached the elevators and spread out to cover both directions of the hall. Chris focused his attention on the doors closest to the south end of the hall, convinced it was the same shaft they came up.
Jafar and Michael managed to get the doors open, revealing the darkened plunge that waited. Chris wedged one of the acquired rifles between the doors and peered over the edge. The light from the hall only reached a few floors down. A smile crept across Chris’s face at the sight of the narrow rope ladder daggling out in the center of the shaft. He slung his newly acquired shotgun over his shoulder and reached out for the rope.
Jafar went first followed closely by Sarah, then Michael. Chris held the others up. There was movement at the far end of the hall, and he didn’t want everyone stuck out on the ladder if someone decided to come have a look. Several people popped out into the hall, but none of them advanced. They were scared and unarmed. Cries for help filtered between gunshots and frantic shouts echoing from the stairways.
“They’re all running for it,” Tom said. “Damn fools.”
“What else do you want them to do?” Chris asked sharply. “They’re terrified. They’ve been held hostage here. It’s a natural reaction.”
“Let’s worry about what we’re going to do,” Jenn said.
Chris felt a pull on the ladder. He wouldn’t be able to hold it once Tom and Jenn got on. “Jake, get on there.” Alicen was standing between her brother and Jenn.
“I don’t want to climb,” Alicen said, pushing herself behind Jenn. “It’s too far.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Chris said. “You have to go after your brother.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I really don’t care what you want to do.”
“Enough,” Jenn said, peering over her shoulder at the little girl. “I’m coming right after you. If I can do this, so can you.”
Alicen tossed the idea around and slowly nodded. Jake already had two hands on the ladder. He encouraged his sister with a smile and stepped off the edge of the hall out into the shaft. Chris braced himself and pressed his feet against the open elevator doors. He held onto the ladder with both hands.
“Let’s go,” he said urging Alicen to move. “As soon as Jake’s head disappears.”
Alicen watched from her position behind Jenn. Jake kept his eyes focused on each rung as he moved down, but he managed to look at her before he disappeared.
“Nothing to it,” he said.
Alicen took a few hesitant steps forward and then maneuvered herself in front of Chris. She grabbed hold of the ladder and stepped off. The little girl climbed with the skill of a monkey, disappearing a few seconds later.
“How are you going to do this?” Jenn asked as she prepared to climb.
“I’ll figure something out,” Chris replied between grunts. The combined weight on the ladder was pushin
g his strength to the brink. “Get on there before I lose it.”
She stepped over his leg and ducked between his arms. “Make damn sure you make it down there.” She grabbed hold and started to climb.
Chris leaned back and pulled with all his might. He felt his grip slipping and knew he couldn’t hold on for much longer. “Go” was all he managed. Tom didn’t waste time arguing. He was less cordial than his daughter was, squeezing between Chris’s arms. He’d stepped onto the ladder, and Chris’s strength gave out.
The ladder swung away from the elevator door as Chris fell back on the floor. He listened for a scream, but nothing echoed up the shaft. The size of Tom’s eyes spoke volumes. The old man was moving, but the swing kept his pace at a slow crawl.
A group of people pushed their way in through the exit at one end of the hall. They appeared more interested in the remains of Isabel’s personal rooms than the elevators. A trickle of interested parties at the near end of the corridor captured more of Chris’s attention. No one had pushed out into the hall, but the flow of people making their way down to the lower floors concerned him. If Tom was right, the more people tried to get out of the stairwells, the more likely the infected would get in.
Chris pulled the rifle out from between the elevator doors and spread his feet to hold it open. He tossed the extra rifle on the ground behind him. Tom had descended far enough to be hidden by the darkness. There was nothing left to consider; the group had chosen its fate.
Chris steadied himself and leaned out. He started to fall forward when terror grabbed hold of him. He held his breath and steadied his aim. Both of his hands hit a ladder rung at the same time and he grabbed hold. His body swung forward and for a moment, he was suspended in the darkness as the elevator doors closed behind him.
The Decaying World Saga Box Set [Prequel #1-#2 & Books #1-#2] Page 38