Just then, something stirred from the rubble inside the stairwell, several yards away. Someone was moaning, still alive! The creature shrieked and dove into the wreckage. Tears streamed down her face as she listened to the poor man’s screams. She didn’t see his face. All she saw was the Flesh Rotter dragging something out of the debris. More creatures appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, fighting over the man like a gang of rabid dogs fighting over a bone. She turned away as they tore him apart.
Slowly, the outsider lowered his arms and led her away from the bloody onslaught. They made their way as far from the creatures as they could get, and found refuge inside a utility closet, packed with brooms and cleaning supplies. He grabbed a metal rack and propped it against the door, though she didn’t know what good it would do considering what she just saw.
“We should be safe in here,” he said quietly.
They stood there for several minutes, neither one saying a word. The outsider found a crate. He emptied out the contents on the floor and turned it over, offering her a place to sit. She didn’t take it.
“Who are you?” she said. What she really wanted to ask him was what the hell that was back there? Why didn’t the Flesh Rotter attack him? But first thing was first. Baby steps.
He ran a hand over his face. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Do you remember anything?” she said. “Anything at all?”
“I remember you,” he claimed. “I remember being cold, opening my eyes and seeing you . . . then I was here.” His face hardened, his eyes darkened. “What is this place? Where did you bring me?”
“I didn’t bring you to the silo,” she stammered as he crossed the distance between them. Every step he took forward, she took back. “It wasn’t me—”
“Don’t lie to me,” he growled.
“I’m not,” she insisted. “We found you on a junk run. You were trapped inside some kind of tank.”
“Junk run?”
She could tell by the look on his face that he had never heard of a junk run or a silo. How long had he been down there, she wondered?
A shriek sounded from outside the room. He lowered his voice and said, “How do I get out of here?”
She swallowed; every cell in her body was trembling, even her eyelids. “You can’t,” she said. “It’s impossible.”
He didn’t like that answer. He punched the wall, denting it. “What is this place?” he snarled.
“It’s called the Nest. It was built after the breakout—”
He looked at her. “What breakout?”
“The Black,” she said. “The plague that killed the world.”
His eyes deepened, the wheels in his head turning. “The Black? You mean Operation Blackout?”
She gave him a funny look. How did he know that?
“Yes,” she uttered. “But how . . .”
He turned away from her, turning his back to her. “How long have I been away?” he asked grimly.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Do you know anything?” he snapped, and then, “I’m sorry. I just . . . I just want to get out of here.”
He wasn’t the only one. She inched away from the wall, a bit relieved that he didn’t crush her neck the way he did Dr Carter’s. “The elevators won’t work in a power outage and the stairwell’s been destroyed,” she said. “There’s another on the other side of the silo. We can try it, but we’ll never make it to the Vault if it’s been sealed.”
He faced her, his brows drawn into a v. “What do you mean Vault? What is that?”
“It’s a bomb shelter within the silo,” she explained. “It’s on the top level along with the evacuation chambers. It’s the only way out.”
He mumbled something underneath his breath and tightened his fist. She thought he was going to punch the wall again, but instead he bit his knuckle, biting back the words he wanted to say. He was angry and she was frightened, and neither one of them knew what to do.
“There has to be another way,” he urged.
“I already told you, there is none—”
There was another scream, followed by a series of shrieks.
“Then how did they get inside?” he said after the shrieks had settled.
It was a good question. If they didn’t enter through the evacuation chambers, then there had to be another way out, unless—the Flesh Rotters were inhabitants of the Nest; other people that had been infected and changed overnight, just like Dr Carter. For all she knew, the outsider could be playing her just like he had her mentor.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, reading the expression that bubbled to the surface.
She debated on accusing him of killing Dr Carter but decided against it. The last thing she needed to do was upset the outsider during a power outage, surrounded by Flesh Rotters and nowhere to run. Whether she hated to admit it or not, she needed him more than he needed her. It was the only way she was going to survive. And all she had to do was convince him he needed her, too.
“I know the Nest like the back of my hand,” she said, “If there’s a way out, then I can find it.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Not so fast,” she declared. “Not until you tell me who you are. I saw you—I saw what you did, you killed that Flesh Rotter. You crushed its throat single-handedly. No ordinary man could do that.”
The outsider had no answer for her, at least not the one she was looking for. “You were in trouble,” was all he said.
Maybe he didn’t know, or maybe he was lying, but one thing was for sure, if he hadn’t intervened, she wouldn’t be standing here now, having this conversation. Only she didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Sure, she was still alive. But for how long? It was a question she didn’t want the answer to.
Chapter Eighteen
The Vault was crowded, the mob angry, cramming around the entrance, guarded by the last of the watchmen, a handful of men who were just as terrified as the others. And though the doors had been sealed shut, locking out the threat, the chaos had just begun.
“How did this happen? Where did they come from?” Came one question after the next. “Are any others infected? Did they even check?”
Jax stood among the watchmen, searching their faces, waiting for one of them to step forward with an answer, but when he looked, catching the eyes of his comrades, they were all looking at him.
“Captain,” said one of the guards. He was twice as old as Jax, twice as experienced, but he wasn’t a captain. Jax was. “What’s your orders, sir?” the watchman whispered.
Jax didn’t know. He was so used to his father giving the orders that he never considered giving them himself. More questions were flung his way: Where’s his father? Where’s Arlington? What were they going to do about the Nest, and the others still locked inside it? He wiped the sweat from his brow; his face was soaked, his clothes drenched. They would be fine, he told himself. The Vault had been created for such scenarios. Designed for a mutiny rather than an infestation, but still they would be safe there. It had plenty of space, not as much as the Nest, but enough to house some of the families and plenty of food to last them for a while. But it was after “a while” that he worried about.
“Jax.”
A woman stepped forward. He recognized the soft features of her face among the fierce crowd, Mrs. Harper, Ben and Karma’s mother. A delicate frown touched her lips. Perhaps she sensed he was about to have a mutiny of his own.
“We need to arm ourselves,” she said. When she spoke, the others quieted and listened. “The Vault has an armory. Can you access it?”
He stumbled over his words. “What? Oh. I . . . I think so—”
“Arm yourselves?” squawked one of the watchman. “The armory’s for the watchmen in case of emergency.”
“This is an emergency,” Mrs. Harper snapped. “We still have family and friends trapped down there with those things. We are more than willing to fight
for them.”
The crowd shouted and barked their concurrence, throwing their fists into the air. Madness was written all over their faces.
A watchman whispered in his ear. “Look at them,” he said. “If you open the armory, we’ll lose control of them. They’ll risk it all.”
As much as he hated to admit it, the watchman had a point. The crowd was restless and mad with grief. And though unlocking the armory sounded like a good idea, he couldn’t get the image of those things out of his mind, scuttling up the walls, snagging people from the stairwell and carrying them off, picking them off like flies. If he opened the doors, he would be endangering them all.
“Jax, your father’s still down there,” said Mrs. Harper. She took a step toward him, separating herself from the crowd. “So is Karma and Ben, and Mrs. Dugan’s daughter, and Mr. Phillips grandson. Beth Bridges still has her entire family trapped down there, too—” As she went through the names, the faces in the crowd sank.
“We all have someone that needs our help,” she said. “If you do nothing, then it’ll only get worse.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said one of the watchmen; a young buck who Jax had trained with, Zinc. “Did you see those things? I don’t care who you are or who’s down there, there’s no way I’m opening those doors!”
The other watchmen agreed. “If anyone is still alive, rest assured they won’t be for long,” one of them said.
“Which is my point,” Mrs. Harper said. She looked at Jax. “You think it’s bad now, just wait. The Flesh Rotters will spread their disease and then what will we do? There will be too many of them, they’ll overrun us, and we’ll never get back the Nest.”
“We don’t need the Nest,” Zinc sputtered. “There’s enough transports to evacuate us all. I say we get out of here while we can.”
“And where would we go?” she countered.
This time, no one argued with her. No one knew.
“The Vault will keep us safe, but for how long?” she went on. “It won’t keep us alive forever. And then what? Board the transports and drive into a Dead World we haven’t lived in for decades? If you think there’s a lot of Flesh Rotters here, wait until you get out there. Believe me, I’ve heard the stories. We all have.”
There were murmurs of agreement and the nodding of heads.
“Now is our time,” she said. She was no longer talking to Jax, but to the crowd. “I say we take back the Nest, reclaim our home. It may not be easy, we may even fail, but if we run like chickens, it will only be a matter of time before we die. And not only will we die, but we will die as cowards. I know what you all thought of my father-in-law, Crazy Old Man Arthur, you used to say, but as crazy as he may have been, he was right about one thing—I’d rather be crazy than helpless and blind.”
The memory of Crazy Old Man Arthur brought smiles to some of the long faces, and Jax was convinced that they had chosen the wrong captain. He saw points to both sides, and he was just as scared at the others to open the doors and face the monsters that awaited them, but if they didn’t act now, he feared he would never muster the courage again. He thought of his father. If the shoe were on the other foot, what would his Old Man do? Somehow, he knew the answer.
He pushed Zinc out of the way and started off.
“Where are you going?” he called out.
“To unlock the armory,” Jax said. “They may be monsters, but they’re not invincible—”
Just as the crowd was about to cheer, just as fists of triumph were thrown into the air, a loud blow sounded from all around, killing their celebration. It was as though the entire dome rattled with a force they could not explain. The floors shook, the walls rattled, the entire Vault quaked. Everyone screamed, running from something they couldn’t see. Jax ordered everyone to the back of the compound. It was the Flesh Rotters, he was sure of it. They were trying to break their way inside. He took a stance, aiming his rifle at the doors. The other watchmen took positions next to him.
Zinc’s hand trembled on his gun. “I hope you’re ready for this,” he uttered.
“Looks like we don’t have much of a choice,” he mumbled back as the banging grew louder.
Jax couldn’t tell if they were shaking from fear or from the vibration of the Vault as something tried to plow its way inside. There was no time to arm the others, no time to come up with a plan. This was do or die—
There was a sudden explosion as debris came raining down over their heads. The watchmen jumped for cover as half the ceiling came crashing down. The banging hadn’t been coming from behind the doors like Jax thought, but from up above. Beams came tumbling down, filling the space with smoke and rubble, as a large hovercraft soared down and landed in the center of the Vault, zooming down like a spaceship. Thankfully, no one had been killed during its outrageous entrance.
Jax scrambled to his feet, clinging onto his gun, covered in dust and debris. He rubbed it from his eyes and read the yellow words printed across the hull of the ship: Silo Zero.
Another silo?
He didn’t know whether to feel relief or fear. He never heard of Silo Zero, and according to the baffled looks on his fellow watchmen’s faces, neither did they. With a hiss and a sprout of steam, a ramp was lowered beneath the hovercraft, revealing a bright, white light beyond it. Jax was captivated by it, hypnotized, transfixed just like everyone else. Half the watchmen dropped their guns. The others emerged from the back of the compound, eyeing the vessel with a mix of emotions, curiosity and fear, surprise and outrage.
An old woman with a cane appeared at the top of the ramp, manifesting like some kind of alien or angel, he couldn’t say which. She had to be the oldest woman he had ever seen. Her hair was white, shining like gold beneath the luminous glow of the hovercraft, encasing her face like a cloud. A white suit, conservative and as crisp as a watchman’s uniform, hugged her old bones, not a wrinkle on it. Not like her face that was covered in them. The only thing youthful about her was her eyes, hidden behind a pair of cool, dark shades, way too young for her generation.
She took a step forward, using her cane to guide her, their mesmerized faces dancing off her sunglasses.
“Arlington,” the old woman crowed. “Where’s Arlington Greenwood?”
* * *
There was a sound, a shriek—a scream.
Ben flinched at every noise, twirled at every shadow, stepping over bodies, avoiding severed limbs, trying hard not to slip on the puddles of blood that soaked the floor as he tried to find a way down to the lower levels. As soon as the doors had shut to the Vault, it was total chaos. Flesh Rotters attacked from everywhere, every angle, snagging people right off their feet and dragging them away. The only reason Ben was lucky enough to be alive was because he was smart enough to hide. He hid inside a cabinet in the watchmen’s quarters, listening to the horrid, blood curdling cries of those being slaughtered outside it. He felt helpless to help them, but he’d be no good to his sister if he was dead. If she was still alive, that is.
“Karma,” he hissed as he crept through the darkened hallways of level fourteen. When the stairwell had ruptured, half the people fled to the upper level before it collapsed, and dead or alive, he was determined to find her. But no matter what he told himself, he couldn’t shake the guilt. This whole thing was his fault, he knew. If he never stole the journal to begin with, they would never be in this predicament. He felt used, he felt stupid and ashamed, and most of all, he felt helpless, hopeless even.
“Karma?” he called out again, trying to ignore the carnage beneath his feet. If he didn’t find his sister, he would lose his mind, just like his grandfather had.
He came to the end of the hallway, where the stairwell had broken away, and peered over the edge. A pit of blackness stared back at him. There was no way anyone could survive that fall—
Something grabbed his ankle. He yelped, peering down into the terrorized face of the old patriarch of the Nest, Arlington Greenwood. He was stretched out on the floor, covered in blood, his lips p
uffy and blue; a slash across the bridge of his nose revealed bone.
“Help,” he pleaded from a puddle of red, reaching out to him. “Please . . . help me . . .”
Ben sank to his knees. He couldn’t believe it; the old man was alive! He tried to pick him up, but he shrieked in pain. It was then that he saw the gash in his abdomen, exposing half his intestines—
There was a shriek. Ben turned back to him, his hands covered in blood. A sudden thought occurred to him.
“Karma?” he whispered, knowing Arlington was the last to have seen her. “Where is she? What did you do with her?”
Arlington’s head swayed back and forth, all the color drained from his face. He kept mumbling to himself, over and over. “Help me . . . please . . .”
“What did you do to my sister?” Ben snarled. “Tell me where she is—”
Something banged against the wall farther down the passage. The floor began to quiver beneath his feet. Something was coming, bounding down the hallway. He could hear it coming, slamming into the metal walls. With no time to run, Ben slid behind a series of pipes propped against the wall, disappearing into the shadows behind them.
Arlington reached out to him weakly, sobbing, spittle dripping from his swollen lips. “Don’t go,” he cried, pleading with the last of his strength.
“Don’t leave me here! Please, don’t go . . .”
His face went suddenly blank, his eyes wide, and then two black hands grabbed his legs and yanked him back, dragging him out of sight. Ben closed his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks as he listened to the painful howls of his old ruler, echoing through the hallways like a siren. Several dark shadows raced past him, joining in the feast, and together they tore apart his body like a rag doll. Ben listened in silent horror, wishing he could block it all out.
The old man’s screams didn’t last long.
Chapter Nineteen
Before leaving their hideaway, Karma and the outsider rummaged through the utility closet, managing to find a flashlight in the process and a roll of duct tape she used to wrap her ankle with. They even managed to scrap together some weapons, a busted broom handle and a hammer they found in a tool box. She doubted they would do much good against a Flesh Rotter, but the hammer wasn’t her only weapon.
The Black (The Black Trilogy Book 1) Page 13