But Emily didn’t completely believe the crazy. She remained where she was, straddling his waist, hands still clenched into fists at her sides. Her right was covered in thick, red wetness, but her left had been mostly spared.
Heavy breaths hammered up from her lungs and out her gasping mouth. She didn’t remember the last time she’d had to exert so much effort to kill another human being. No, that wasn’t entirely true. There was that time in Beirut…
But that was before.
Before she left the life for Cole.
Before she became pregnant.
Before.
But here she was, again. It wasn’t exactly the same thing, but it was close. Certainly, it resulted in the same outcome: A man dead at her hands. Her hands. It was easier to forget when she had a gun or a knife or a golf club. It was more difficult to cast aside the images when she’d used another man’s eyeglasses as a weapon to end the life of another man.
No, she was going to remember this for a while.
So be it.
Emily stumbled up from Klein’s body, willing herself to slowly but surely control her breathing at the same time. She kept one eye on the crazy, expecting him to leap back up like Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger.
Gradually, Emily became aware of heavy breathing behind her. Heavier breathing than her own. She turned around.
The others were staring at her.
Stacy was kneeling next to Fisher, using the same handkerchief Fisher had used to stanch his bleeding nose earlier to do the same to his eyes. Both of them. Fisher’s pained groans were the only real sounds other than their heavy breathing. His head turned slowly left and right, like a blind man figuring out why he couldn’t see anymore. There was a pool of blood underneath his head; Stacy had kneeled over them but hadn’t seemed to notice. Or, if she did, she didn’t let the wetness along the legs of her pants get to her.
Belinda was standing next to Paul, who lay still on the floor. There was a big patch of blood underneath his head, too. Unlike Stacy, Belinda wasn’t tending to Paul. Either she didn’t know how or— No, that wasn’t it. Belinda wasn’t doing anything because Paul was dead. Emily couldn’t see his chest moving underneath his clothes.
“Holy shit,” a voice said.
Emily turned to her right. Jeff. The kid stood against the wall looking back at her, same as the two women. Except where Stacy and Belinda appeared frozen in shock by what they’d seen, there was something on Jeff’s face that Emily didn’t like. The teenager looked almost…impressed?
“What?” Emily said.
“You killed him,” Jeff said.
“And?”
“You used Paul’s glasses and you killed him. Shoved it right into his brain. Holy fuck. That’s probably the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen.”
Emily wasn’t quite sure how to reply to that.
Instead, she turned back to Stacy. “How is he?”
Stacy shook her head back at her. She didn’t have to say anything else. And maybe she didn’t want to because Fisher might overhear. He might have been blinded, but his ears were still working fine.
Emily looked to Belinda. “Paul?”
The other woman shook her head, too, but she answered with an uncertain, “I don’t know. I don’t think… I don’t know.”
Emily walked over and crouched next to Paul and felt for a pulse. She shouldn’t have bothered. Her original diagnosis was correct. He was dead. Klein had pounded his face into black and purple and red bruises, then slammed his head into the concrete floor. It was that last part that had ended Paul’s life.
“Is he alive?” Belinda asked.
“No,” Emily said.
“Oh.”
“Hey, guys?” Jeff said.
Emily glanced back at him. The kid had unglued himself from the wall and was standing slightly closer to them. Not too much closer—maybe he was afraid of her—but more than the last time she’d looked. She saw where he was looking and followed his gaze.
The door. It was still open. Except this time the hallway on the other side was no longer dark. It was flooded with bright lights, revealing more of the same steel construction that made up the room around them. At least, the parts she could see through the opening.
Jeff, of course, was the first one to voice the obvious. “So, uh, looks like we have lights, guys.”
Stacy stood up, leaving Fisher to move groggily around on the floor next to her. She looked toward the door, then over at Emily. The other woman didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Emily could read the question on her face.
“What should we do now?”
It was the same on Belinda, who took a quick step away from the door.
“What should we do now?”
“Now what?” Jeff said, voicing what the other women wanted to say but didn’t. He was looking at Emily as he said it.
“Why are you asking me?” Emily said.
“Because you did that,” the kid said, pointing at Klein.
“So?”
‘Because you did that,” Jeff said, as if that should explain everything.
Emily guessed it did.
She said anyway, “You’re the only man left now.”
“That’s not true. Fisher’s still alive.”
Barely, Emily thought, but didn’t think Stacy would appreciate that.
She said out loud, “You’re the only one still standing.”
“Oh, that,” Jeff said.
“So what are we going to do, Jeff?”
“Huh?”
“What are we going to do now?”
The teenager shook his head. “Hell if I know.”
“Great,” Emily said.
She turned and began moving toward the open door.
“Emily, wait,” Stacy said from behind her.
Emily didn’t wait, and Stacy didn’t try to stop her. Which was just as well, as Emily didn’t feel like fighting her off. Besides, she was too busy wiping her hands on her clothes to get rid of Klein’s blood. She’d forgotten what it felt like to have so much blood on her, but the memories were all coming back. That seemed to be a common theme these days.
Emily wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but a long hallway to the left of her and a solid block of concrete to her right wasn’t it. There were lights evenly spaced along the ceiling, giving her plenty to see with.
A tentative voice came from back inside the room. “Emily?”
She didn’t answer. Emily was too busy waiting for something to happen, for someone to jump out at her.
Something.
Anything.
The hallway to her left seemed to go on forever, but of course that was impossible. She thought she could just make out other steel doors on the left and right of the corridor, but she’d need to get closer to be sure. And there may or may not be something at the very end.
Maybe.
Or not.
Only one way to find out…
Again, from behind her: “Emily?”
She looked back into the room at Stacy, standing just slightly inside.
“What’s out there?” Stacy asked.
All it would have taken for the young woman to find out was to take a couple of steps forward. She didn’t do that, though (Smart girl), and instead stood where she was, waiting for Emily to answer.
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “There’s just a long hallway on one side and another wall on the other.”
She returned her focus to that same long hallway, unwilling to take her eyes off it for too long. Because something, or someone, was going to jump out of the darkness at her. She knew it. She knew it.
And yet…
“Should we go out there, too?” she heard Belinda asking.
“Go ahead,” Jeff answered. Like Belinda, neither speaker came close enough to the door for Emily to glimpse their movements out of the corner of her eye. There was still just Stacy brave enough to stand behind her.
“What are you going to do?” Belinda asked.
“Stay here,” Jeff said.
“With them? With him?” Emily wasn’t sure if the well-dressed woman was talking about Fisher or Klein with that last part. Him could be either men.
“Yeah, there’s that…” Jeff said.
“We can’t just leave Fisher,” Stacy said.
“Do we have any choice?” Belinda said. “Can he even see?”
“I’m not sure. But we can’t just leave him here.”
“Not sure if we can help that,” Jeff said.
“We can.”
“How you figure?”
“We can stay with him.”
“For real?”
“Yes.”
“No offense, but we just met.”
“He saved Paul’s life.”
“And I’m sure Paul’s thankful for that, but he’s dead. What do you think, Belinda?”
“I think I want to see what’s out there,” Belinda said. “I don’t fancy staying in here forever.”
Footsteps, just before Belinda followed up on her words by appearing next to Stacy at the door. She peeked out. First right at the nearby wall, then left up the seemingly endless hallway.
“What do you see?” Emily heard Jeff asking.
“It’s just a long hallway, like she said,” Belinda said.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no one out there?”
“No.”
“Are you su—”
“Oh, shut up. Stay here, if you want,” Belinda said before she stepped outside into the hallway behind Emily.
“Wait for me,” Jeff said, followed by the quick patter of footsteps as he ran over. “You coming?”
“No,” Stacy said.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t look sure.”
“I’m sure. You can go if you want, but I’m not leaving Fisher behind.”
“I don’t think you can help him.”
“Just…go.”
There was a brief pause before Jeff said, “Sorry.”
Stacy didn’t respond.
Out of the corner of her eye, Emily watched the kid peering out like a groundhog trying not to get its head cut off.
“Yup. That’s a long hallway of nothing, all right,” Jeff said. “Not scary at all. Nope. Not even a little bit.”
The kid’s got a way with words, Emily thought with some slight amusement. It almost made her not want to punch him in the face. Almost.
As far as she could tell, there was at least 100 meters between where she stood and where the hallway ended. But even that was a wild guess, because she had no idea if there even was an ending. For all she knew, this was some kind of endless maze, more of the “game” that Klein had refused to play.
Klein…
The fact that he’d been infected after refusing to “play” made her wonder if one had something to do with the other. Or was she trying desperately to find correlation in two separate incidents?
But she knew one thing for certain: Klein had turned. After surviving the initial infection, he turned anyway. That shouldn’t have happened. How did that even happen? And if Klein could turn, could they? Could she?
Emily put a hand down on her stomach. Could the baby?
“Emily?” Belinda said. “What now?”
“Yeah, what now?” Jeff chimed in.
In lieu of a verbal answer, Emily acted. She took a couple of steps up the hallway, just far enough to put her hand on the open door and pull it toward her slightly. She wanted to get a better look at the other side. Except there wasn’t anything to look at. Certainly, nothing that even remotely appeared to be a handle or key card or any kind of latch on either side of the steel slab. She couldn’t even find a latch on the door itself or a striker plate of any type on the doorframe.
For a second or two, Emily stared at the door. It didn’t make sense. Doors had latches and levers to open and close. But this one… This one didn’t have a damn thing. So how had it stayed closed? For that matter, how had it opened by itself?
“What do you see?” Belinda asked.
“The door,” Emily said.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“There’s no way to open or close it from either side.”
“Huh?” Jeff said. “I don’t get it. Then how’d the door open? Who opened it? How?”
“You don’t get it, do you,” Belinda said.
“Get what?”
“You don’t get it yet. Klein got it. But you still don’t get it.”
Jeff sighed. “Feel free to explain it to me like I’m five.”
“It means Klein was right,” Emily said before Belinda could reply. “Someone is playing games with us. Someone is pulling strings. They built this place and put us here. And now they’re running us around like mice.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t know, but I’ll ask them when I meet them.”
Emily stared up the hallway. The long and empty hallway.
“Man, this is not good,” Jeff said. “I mean, it wasn’t good before, but it’s way even more not good now.”
Emily looked over at the kid and smiled. “You think so, Jeff?”
The teenager returned her gaze with a puzzled expression. “Why? You think this is good? ’Cause it don’t look good to me.”
Emily wanted to laugh. Not at Jeff, specifically, but at this entire situation. She’d been in some absurd circumstances in her life before, but this one was…something else. She didn’t know what that “something” else was yet, though.
And Klein was very much correct when he said someone was toying with them. Now, that same someone wanted them to walk down the corridor to whatever awaited on the other end. With that in mind, the smart move was to go back into the room with Stacy and Fisher. Except that was exactly what Klein had done before he was infected. They hadn’t talked about blood types—the topic had never come up, and Emily doubted any of them knew why they’d survived the infection that had claimed most of the world’s population—but if she had asked, she would have gotten the same answer: Everyone in that room had O negative blood type.
And yet, Klein had turned anyway.
How?
But that was just one of many questions she had to answer. She thought she knew one thing for certain: Klein was right. Someone was messing with her.
And when she found who it was, she was going to mess with them right back.
Chapter Eight
About ten feet and thirty seconds later, Jeff said, “Hey.”
Emily stopped and turned to look back at him. The kid was holding out a pen toward her. It was plastic, cheap, with teeth marks along its length. Clearly, Jeff had made good use of it in the past.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s a pen.”
“I can see that, but why are you giving it to me?”
The teenager shrugged. “I was holding onto it—you know, just in case—but I get the feeling you’d be able to use it, uh, better than I ever could.”
Emily smiled and took the writing instrument. It wasn’t a knife or a gun or anything just as dangerous, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. She’d upgrade to something better—more lethal—the first chance she got, but right now, this would do.
The pen housed blue ink with an equally blue rubber grip at the front of the barrel that felt surprisingly thick. She clicked the push button at the end, and a fine point slid out of its housing. Sharp enough to pierce flesh or pop an eyeball. Not that she needed something too sharp for the latter, but the quality of the piece surprised her. She’d expected the ink to flood out as soon as she clicked it.
Emily retracted the point and slipped the pen into one of her back pockets. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Jeff said. “Just, uh, don’t point that sharp end at me.”
“I’ll try.”
“Appreciate it.”
She turned around and continued
leading the way. Slowly, because there was no point in rushing. For all she knew, it was pitch black on the other side of the corridor. Or maybe there was no other side. There could just be…more concrete floor and metal walls and bright ceilings.
She shivered slightly at that last thought.
Jeff was somewhere behind her—far enough that she couldn’t feel his breath against the back of her neck, for which she was grateful—while Belinda hung even farther back. Stacy, of course, had stayed behind in the room with Fisher. Emily didn’t envy the woman, but she had to admit, she felt a grudging respect for her. Stacy had never said what she did before all of this, but Emily wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it was something in the health field. The woman seemed to really care about Fisher’s well-being. Emily couldn’t say the same and didn’t feel much regret about abandoning him. She didn’t know the man. Just like she didn’t know Klein or Paul.
Or Jeff and Belinda, for that matter, but she kept those thoughts to herself.
The only sounds were the soft tap-tap-tap of their shoes’ soles against the hard floor and the buzzing of the lights above them. And there were their heartbeats. Emily could hear her own, along with Jeff’s and Belinda’s behind her. Or maybe that was all Jeff’s, beating loudly for both of her companions.
…her companions…
Emily wasn’t sure how long that was going to last. Neither the boy nor the woman had anything significant to offer her besides possible sacrificial lambs. Though maybe she should give Jeff a pass; he did, after all, contribute the pen that was in her back pocket. Sure, it wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was something. And right now, something was better than nothing.
“Man, it just keeps going, doesn’t it?” Jeff was saying behind her.
“What?” Emily heard Belinda say. The woman had definitely put some space between them, because her voice was noticeably more distant than Jeff’s.
“I said, it just keeps going,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“But that can’t be right. Right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Man, this is weird.”
“You can say that again.”
“Man, this is weird.”
“I was kidding, Jeff.”
“I wasn’t,” Jeff said.
The kid was right. This was weird. It seemed like one long hallway in front of them with the room they’d woken up at the very end. There was nothing between it, and whatever was out there besides a steel plated door that had no mechanism for opening or closing. And that wasn’t even the oddest part of all this.
Fall of Man | Book 4 | The Tide Page 6