“The road ends.” Orson frowned at her.
“It’s a hidden door, you idiot.”
“How do we open it?”
“I need to put in the code. From here, we walk, and you let Jasmine and Isabelle go.” This was the part where Nicky was going to learn if Orson could keep his word.
Orson got out of the truck and went around to the back. One of the rear doors was opened but Nicky couldn’t hear what was being said. She wished that Orson had locked her in the backseat. Back there was a monitor, which gave a direct feed from a camera in the rear compartment. She could have even flipped a switch to hear what they were talking about.
Orson returned to the front of the vehicle, looking unhappy. He opened the door to the back seat and grabbed the rifle with one hand and a backpack with the other. Hank, Isabelle, and little Jasmine came out from behind the truck shortly after. The mother and child looked terrified, which was in sharp contrast to Hank’s utter sereneness. Behind his large, dark sunglasses, his eyes were impossible to read. Although Orson’s suit was brand new and more expensive than what Hank wore, the blind man still looked a lot classier. Hank was even carrying a briefcase of all things.
Orson walked around to Nicky’s door and ripped it open. He used the key to unlock one of the cuffs, and Nicky’s arms fell to her lap, the blood rushing painfully into them and making them tingle. She had only a moment to rub her sore wrist before the opened bracelet was snapped back on it. At least her hands were in front of her now. The bastard yanked her out of the truck and started shoving her toward the rock.
“Orson? The keys,” Hank said calmly.
Orson turned and threw the truck’s keys. They landed in the dirt by Isabelle’s feet. Hank spoke a few soft, inaudible words to them, and then turned to follow Nicky and Orson.
Isabelle scooped up the keys and quickly placed her daughter in the truck. She hesitated for a moment, looking mournfully at Nicky.
“Go!” Nicky urged the woman. As long as she was still present, Orson could change his mind.
Isabelle scrambled around the truck’s bloody nose and jumped in behind the wheel, while simultaneously throwing closed the door to the back seat. The engine came to life with a roar, and Isabelle made eye contact with Nicky one last time before backing up. Her daughter, on the other hand, was covering both her eyes. Perhaps she did it on her own, or perhaps her mother told her to, to save her child some of the guilt that she would no doubt feel herself as she left Nicky behind.
Orson shoved her toward the boulder again.
Nicky found the piece of rock that jutted out. She placed both her hands on it and shoved sideways as hard as she could. The rock piece slid to one side revealing a lighted panel beneath. She tapped out the twenty digit alphanumeric code. There was no way someone could guess what it was or put it in by accident. It had to be memorized. The read-out flashed green, and then turned blue. Nicky placed her palm on the surface of the panel, and a paler blue light scanned down her hand. Not only did it read the swirls of her finger and palm prints, it also registered the heat her hand gave off, as well as her pulse. The scanner would reject a hand that had been cut off its owner’s arm. The security was a little extreme, especially considering one only needed a coded/fingerprint transponder in their vehicle to open the main doors, but it did discourage any hikers who stumbled upon it and stopped any thieves on foot. And if a thief had a transponder, it meant he could be tracked with its GPS.
A man-sized slice of rock jutted out from the rest of the boulder and slid to one side. The large garage-like door was the one used most often at this entrance. However, it did have a regular-sized door as well. Orson shoved her through it first, keeping a tight grip on the back of her shirt so that she couldn’t run off. As Hank followed after them, he snapped open his white cane.
“Feels big,” he commented, tilting his head this way and that. His voice echoed. The area was massive. It was formed in a rectangular shape with the corners cut off to make an eight-sided figure. Most of the wall was raw stone, supported by massive pillars of concrete and rebar at regular intervals along it. Off each of these pillars hung a bright, halogen light bulb, which lit the gently curving slope of the floor all the way down.
“It is,” Nicky told Hank. “It has to be. We have a tank down there that needs enough space to be able to drive in and out, as well as safely pass alongside something going the other way.”
“This place is huge. Why didn’t we drive the truck in?” Orson began marching Nicky down the grade.
“You need a transponder to open the big door.” Which was the truth. “Not all those vehicles have one.” Which was a lie.
Orson seemed to accept this. He looked all around him as he walked, keeping one hand on Nicky’s shoulder and the other on his gun. He looked like he expected an ambush to be sprung at any moment. Nicky knew there would be no such thing.
Around and around and around they went. Nicky wasn’t a regular at the White Box, but she knew how long the tunnel was. Her group’s leader had made them jog up and down the thing as exercise, while everything was still being set up over two weeks ago. Her group had been brought in from Texas and she greatly missed the place now. There, the team was a lot smaller, more personal. Everyone knew everyone else and followed orders with no confusion, but the place was more relaxed.
Down and down and down they went. The tunnel was as silent as a tomb. The only sounds were their footsteps and the tap and click as Hank’s cane hit the floor.
Farther and farther and farther they went. The closer they got to the bottom, the stronger the smells became of oil, grease, gas, and exhaust. Even with all the engines shut down, the odour created by the vehicles was strong enough to linger for a long time. It reminded Nicky of her father, who had died when she was eleven. He had worked as a programmer, but spent much of his free time in the garage, tinkering with his car. She had no interest in cars herself, but the smell of them always made Nicky think of him. Her brother had been the car guy, but he died at the age of sixteen, not long after getting his driver’s license. Hit head-on by a drunk driver who walked away without a scratch. Nicky’s brother had died slowly, crushed against the steering wheel, while her father, who had been in the passenger seat, died instantly. A friend in the backseat survived, but he had to spend the rest of his life as a paraplegic. It was probably then that Nicky started to believe something was wrong with humanity, and it only got worse from there. That’s probably why she wasn’t totally opposed to Marble Keystone trying to make a drastic change.
“How much further?” Orson hissed in her ear. He was the kind of human who needed to be blighted from the face of the earth. Swept clean. That was the problem with Keystone’s plan: it didn’t discriminate, didn’t kill the bad to leave the good.
Nicky didn’t bother to answer, because after a few more feet, they were able to see the bottom.
“Whoa.” Orson forgot about Nicky for a moment as he took in the sight of the massive garage. It was roughly the size of an airfield. Although some support walls strategically placed around made it impossible to judge its real size, it was still impressive. Nicky remembered being amazed the first time she saw it.
“This way.” She led them toward the elevators off to the side.
Orson walked up to the regular-sized ones and pushed the call button. It lit up, and then quickly went dark again. Orson frowned and tried again.
“They shut them down.” Nicky pointed to the little window above the elevators. Every time Orson pressed the call button, the letters ‘Err’ showed up in red. “I know how to get in, don’t worry.”
She led the men over to the massive service elevator. Looking through the gates, Nicky could see that it was currently several floors down. It would do.
This time when Orson pressed the call button, he was met with a buzzer sound.
“It’s shut down too,” she informed him. “We have to use a ladder.”
“I’ll go first. You follow,” Orson ordered her. “Hank, you
okay coming down last?”
“I’ll be fine, just direct me to it.” Hank had his head cocked to one side as if listening to something. Nicky couldn’t hear anything over her own heartbeat.
She opened the gates and pointed out the service ladder to Orson.
“That’s a long way down,” he said, not quite able to keep the fear out of his voice. “But at least there are lights.”
The service elevator had only limited lighting in it due to it being a cage, so a lot of lights had been built into the sides of the shaft. Orson got on the ladder and began moving down.
With her wrists still handcuffed, Nicky carefully placed herself on the ladder.
“You try anything, and I’ll pull you off and let you fall,” Orson warned her.
Nicky wasn’t going to try anything; she needed her concentration for climbing. Besides, it would be pointless.
With careful instruction from Nicky, Hank managed to get onto the ladder above her. She almost warned him not to look down, and then almost burst out laughing at how stupid that would have been.
Climbing down that ladder felt like climbing down into hell.
***
Orson reached the top of the service elevator and jumped onto it with a loud bang. When he looked back at Nicky, he looked very pleased with himself and with what he had accomplished so far. When Nicky was close enough, Orson grabbed her off the ladder and tossed her across the top of the elevator. She tripped over some of the many cable jacks and fell, badly twisting her ankle. She cried out as pain shot all the way up her leg.
“What was that?” Hank’s voice had a sharp edge to it. The man was on high alert.
“The bitch fell over.” Orson reached for Hank and helped the older man off the ladder.
While Nicky hobbled over to the service hatch, Orson guided Hank around and over all the cable jacks. Because the elevator was so vast, it needed many synchronised cables to lift and lower it. Orson pulled on the lever, which opened the hatch. He shoved Nicky through the opening without warning.
As she fell, her elbows banged into the sides, and her chin off the edge. All her facial wounds flared with an angry, red-pain at the shock. She just managed to grip the lip in time to slow her fall, or else her legs would surely have broken from the drop. Still, even lowering herself to her full length before dropping, caused bolts of pain to lance up from her ankle when she hit the floor. Tears sprang to her eyes as she rolled to one side, whimpers escaping her despite her mind’s protests to such weakness.
Orson hit the elevator floor next to her with a clang. He didn’t get hurt at all. Hank didn’t either, thanks in part to Orson half catching him when he dropped. Nicky managed to get upright, standing on her good leg. Hank was hyper alert now, more so than he was at the top of the elevator shaft. His head turned this way and that, in sharp, jerking movements. Orson didn’t share his fear and swaggered over to the doors.
“Are you on your feet?” Hank whispered to Nicky.
“Yes,” she whispered back and nodded out of habit.
“Is what I think, beyond those doors?”
“Yes,” she spoke even quieter. When she had made the deal, Nicky knew what had happened to this place. Internal fighting had led to a group of the upper management fleeing the premise. Nobody knew how many got out, because they hadn’t heard from the escapees yet. All they knew was that they had been found out mid-escape, and plan Zed had been put into effect.
All the exits were shut down, and all the internal doors were opened. Even the ones that held back their test subjects.
***
Orson slid open the gate and grabbed hold of the outer doors. They were easy to pry open. If he had looked back at Nicky and Hank just then, maybe he wouldn’t have done it, but he hadn’t.
The doors opened into the bright halls of the White Box. Although there were no people, everything looked the same as it always had. Nothing appeared amiss. Orson left the cage elevator with the walk of a confidant man. Nicky watched him look left, and then look right. To the right, his expression quickly fell.
“YOU BITCH!” he had time to scream, right before the zombie pounced on him.
With white lab coats flapping out behind them like strange wings, a dozen zombies swarmed around Orson. The man screamed, firing the rifle erratically, but getting only body shots. They began to tear at him.
“If I toss you, do you think you can reach the opening?” Hank could barely be heard over Orson’s cries and the zombies’ frenzied attacks.
“I don’t know if you’re that strong.” Nicky looked at the man she had thought of as evil. Maybe he wasn’t evil, just not good.
“For this I am.” He took off his large sunglasses and directed his face to her as though looking her right in the eyes. His eyes were milky and useless, but they still had life in them. Nicky could read honesty in those eyes, and a humbleness that was extremely unsettling. “Hurry. Before they spot us.”
Nicky placed her hands on Hank’s shoulders, and he looped his fingers together into a stirrup. Nicky placed her good foot on them, wincing as weight was put on her bad ankle.
Hank shouted at the top of his lungs, using everything he had to raise Nicky up into the air. For a blind man, he had perfect aim. The top of Nicky’s head and her upraised arms passed through the opening. Before she could fall back down, she slammed her hands into the mesh grid, gripping tightly with her fingers. Her left middle finger, and right pinky and index all got popped out from her effort, but she held on with a scream.
“If you see my wife or kids,” Hank called up. Orson’s screams had stopped, and the zombies would soon be on Hank. “Tell them… Tell them anything they’ll believe.”
Crying from pain, fear, and Hank’s sacrifice, Nicky hauled her battered body up onto the top of the elevator. She turned around, thinking that maybe Hank could climb the mesh sides, but the moment she spotted his upturned face, he was buried beneath a swarm. There were far more than a dozen now. A single gunshot came from the pile. Nicky cried out again, possibly from fright, but she couldn’t actually identify the emotion it was coming from.
A zombie, whose legs appeared to have been crushed, began crawling up the mesh wall. Its dead eyes were locked on the opening and Nicky.
Nicky pulled away from the hatch, toward the ladder. She couldn’t close the hatch behind her because she would need help from someone on the inside to do that. With her body screaming at her from all points, she hobbled for the ladder.
***
Climbing was agony. Her fingers were disjointed, her ankle swollen and throbbing in time with her face, her elbows were battered, and her wrists were still cuffed and sore. Up she climbed though, spurred on by the need to survive. She had come here planning to die, but now there was a glimmer of hope. Perhaps she could make it.
Never looking at the top, not wanting to see how high above her the edge was, Nicky climbed. Below her, the zombie with the crushed legs pursued her up the ladder. He had been Nicky’s leader when they got transferred here from Texas. His name was Bloomberg. She recognized him despite the fact that half his face was gone.
The ladder was never-ending, just on and on, up and up. One step at a time, just one horrible, terrible, agonizing step at a time. Nicky wouldn’t even look down now. She didn’t want to see Bloomberg’s horrible face looking up at her. Hands, foot, foot, hands, foot, foot. Just keep climbing.
Nicky’s hands suddenly reached the upper edge of the ladder. The top of the climb. As she began to raise her head to look up, Bloomberg latched his hand around her bad ankle like the Jaws-of-life. She shrieked at the pain that exploded from the sudden pressure.
Bloomberg pulled; his two arms stronger than Nicky’s entire, ruined body. Together, they began to fall back into nothingness.
19:
Bryce Christopherson – Days 14-17
Bryce didn’t like sleeping in the tent. It was scary and uncomfortable. There was one small tent in which Bryce, Larson, Becky, and Bryce’s mom had to sleep. The gr
ound was lumpy through the sleeping bag, Larson snored, Becky would wake up crying twice a night, and Bryce’s mom was coughing a lot. That was the worst: the coughing.
Bryce had asked his mom several times if she was okay, and she had always said she was, but Bryce knew better. He had heard his mom and Uncle Jeffery talking, and he remembered him mentioning that she was sick.
When they had left the White Box, it had been raining. Bundled up in their ponchos, they had run off into the woods. Bryce’s mom had said that they were supposed to meet up with other people. They wandered through the dark and the storm for hours until Bryce’s mom admitted she was lost. The storm had disoriented her. They never reached the cave where they were supposed to meet the others.
As quickly as they could, they set up the tent. That night, nobody bothered with the sleeping bags; they were too wet, and there wasn’t enough room to take off their soaking clothes. Bryce and Larson huddled next to Maggie for warmth. Bryce had slept that night, though not much and not deeply. The constant drumming on the canvas kept him awake and the cracking of the lightning made him jump every time. Becky had been let out of her carrier, but she clung to their mother, terrified of the new place and the loud sounds.
The storm died down by morning, and they packed up the tent before the sun completely rose. Bryce’s mom led them in circles, trying to find the cave at which they were supposed to meet. Wherever it was, they didn’t find it.
“Who are we supposed to be meeting?” Bryce asked. The ground was mushy, making walking extra tiring.
“Other members of the family,” his mom answered distractedly.
“My dad?” Larson prompted.
“Yeah. Yeah, your dad.” Although she said this, she sounded like she wasn’t really listening to them or even herself. Most of her energy was being spent looking all around them.
Becky, who was walking on her own, was having a blast. She liked to jump in the muddy puddles and stomp on the moss. Bryce had to keep grabbing her hand to keep her from running off.
Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) Page 35