Tunnels and Planes

by Christina Rozelle

  “Hallelujah, praise Jesus.”

  Murray helps me up inside of the branch-off to the left, and I collapse beside him. “I’m not . . . gonna make it,” I tell him.

  “Nonsense. If there’s one thing I know for sure, Grace, it’s that you’re just as much of a soldier as I am. You may not think you can fight, but you can. You may not think you can survive, but you can. And you will.”

  Thirty-Two

  “Girl, we gotta rethink this plan,” Jade says, breathless. “It’s too far. There’s no way we’re gonna make it one more floor even, much less three more to the Cross . . .”

  I want to object, tell her I can, but the truth is, I don’t even have the strength to object.

  “If we could make it to the stairwell,” she mumbles to herself, “That might be easier, right?”

  “Maybe . . .”

  “We gotta see where we are, and how close we are to the stairs. We also need to find more weapons because I’ve only got three rounds in my nine.”

  “How did you . . . find me?”

  She’s quiet for a moment before answering. “Someone told me where you were, that you needed help. I got a message . . .”

  “From who?”

  “I don’t know. But come on, let’s keep going and see where this leads. If we don’t move fast . . .”

  She doesn’t say it, but I hear the words in her silence. If we don’t hurry, we won’t find Logan or Syd—at least not alive.

  The thought of it makes me rise to all fours behind Murray, who’s already crawling forward.

  “There ya go, muchacha triste. You got this—just keep moving.”

  The first vent we come to is secured too tight to remove by hand. Jade listens for a few seconds before lifting her foot and giving it a good bash. It flies off the ceiling and clanks against the floor, as an unexpected lurch from my stomach makes me vomit all over the wall beside me.

  “Holy fuck, you are not doing so hot,” Jade whispers. “We gotta find you a doctor.” Then she mumbles something angry in Spanish before peeking down into the room below us. She leans back in, a huge grin on her face. “We couldn’t have landed in a better spot, girl.”

  “Where . . . ?”

  “One of the control rooms. We should be able to find useful stuff in here. Plus, it’s not too far from a stairwell. We gotta go down the hall and to the left, so . . . let’s hope the test subjects haven’t made it here yet.”

  There’s doubt in her tone, but we both know the only option is to remain optimistic. If not, we might as well give up and die right here.

  Jade hops through the hole, and I hear her feet slap the floor below. “Ow, fuck. That stings.” There’s the sound of metal objects clattering to the floor, and something being wheeled closer, so I take a deep breath and rise to all fours again.

  “Right behind you, Grace,” Murray says, though I still can’t see his face in the dark.

  “Thank you,” I say. “For not . . . leaving me.”

  “I’ve never left you, Grace. Thank you. For letting me help you.”

  I peer into the red-lit room below me and make out Jade’s blue pigtails hovering beside a metal table. “Can you hoist yourself down, momma?”

  “Think so. Yeah.”

  I grip the edge of the hole, then let myself drop as slowly as possible, feet dangling at least six inches from the top of the thing. Jade takes a stance with her feet spread apart, holding on to the edges of it. “I won’t let it move. Just drop.”

  I let go and plop to the tabletop like a wet noodle, knees buckling at impact, and I almost fall over the side, but she catches me, pushing me up onto it. “There ya go, good job. Okay. I’ve got an idea.” She taps her temple, glancing around the room filled with weird looking machines and electrical stuff.

  “Bingo. Stay there.” And she races off to the corner of the room to pry at the edges of a silver panel on the wall.

  I’m confused by how taking the wall apart will help us but, too weak to ask, I observe from the tabletop. She glances around, then races to the other side of the room to snatch a tool of some sort from a box, then she heads back to the wall to pry with leverage now. An edge of the metal plate pops away from the wall, then she repeats the process all the way around until the entire panel clanks to the ground. And when she pulls out two rifles, then two more, a huge smile on her face, I realize there’s much more to Jade than I realized.

  “How did you . . . know those were there?” I ask.

  “I have my ways. I’ll explain more when we get out of this, momma. But these fuckers have weapons hidden all over. This panel is probably remote control operated—but not anymore. Ha. Fuckers.” She clicks the safety off one of them, then hands me one, and places the other two beneath the table I’m sitting on.

  “Now . . . what?” I click my own safety off, sizing up the military grade M16.

  “Now?” She gives the table a push and wheels me forward. “We roll on out this bitch. In a blaze of bullets, if we have to, muchacha.” Her bottom lip quivers, and I know she’s as terrified as I am, but her strength dredges up more of my own.

  “Okay.” I take a deep breath, rolling over to my stomach, and I place the butt of the weapon at my right shoulder.

  Jade wheels me over to the sliding metal doorway, hand hovering over a red button beside the door. She stops, glances at me, and adjusts her grip on her M16. “We have no way of knowing how many of them are out there, if any.”

  I lay my hand on her arm. “Dead if we do . . . dead if we don’t. Open the door.”

  With a nod, she crosses herself and kisses her thumb, and the act brings me immense comfort, as though Eileen had just blessed me herself. I take a deep breath and steady myself on the table, feet hanging off the end.

  “How good’s your aim?” she asks me.

  “Good enough.”

  With a nod, she slams her fist on the button, and the door whooshes open to the earsplitting alarm, and to a ragged, naked, snarling cadaver, whom I nail in the forehead, sending it splattering against the wall.

  Jade peeks out into the hallway, firing two rounds, then she races to the end of my table and wheels me out the door. We pass the three still bodies and blood splatters at breakneck speed, as a group of them turns down the corridor ahead of us, full speed, and also nude, which actually makes them quite a bit more disturbing.

  “There’s some behind us, too, girl!” Jade screams, firing behind her.

  “Keep going!” And I take aim, nailing the five of them in the head, one by one. Murray trails us, but keeps up, and though I know it’s ridiculous, I worry about his safety.

  When we get to the pile of bodies at the end of the corridor, Jade wheels me around them, crunching over a bloody hand. To my horror, the next corridor is worse, scattered on both sides. Jade reaches beneath me while she races, then sets another M16 beside me on the table. She fires behind us until she empties hers, while I empty mine into the oncoming crowd, tossing the weapon aside to grab the next.

  We weave around the bodies of the dead, but the ones behind us are gaining speed. One of them dives for Jade as I reach back and draw my firearm. “Duck!” I tell her, and when she does, I nail the unclothed corpse in the forehead.

  Why are they all naked?

  “Right there, girl!” Jade says. “Jump!” She takes my arm, and adrenaline does the rest. We bolt to the left, into an open stairwell, and Jade slams the door shut behind us. Red emergency lights blink in a circular pattern, and my heart beats even louder than the alarm as bodies pummel against the other side of the door.

  There’s a snarling above us, then a small one dives from the top of the stairs, landing on Jade. I rip her up by her hair and throw her against the wall, then splatter her brains against it next.

  “Jesus fuck,” Jade says. “Let’s hope there aren’t any more up here. And thanks, girl. I undere
stimated your badass.”

  “Murray!” I call out, because I’m going to die anyway, and Jade already knows I’m nuts, so who the fuck cares anymore? “Where are you!”

  “Who’s Murray?” Jade asks me. “I keep hearing you say his name, but . . . I don’t see anyone, momma.”

  “You . . . can’t.”

  “Up here, Grace,” he calls from above us, in the dark. “All clear. Let’s move.”

  “Uh, Grace?” Jade says. “Do you know how cr—?”

  I whip around to face her. “Don’t you fucking say it!” I scream. “Don’t you . . . fucking . . . say it . . .” And I start up the stairs toward my friend.

  “Okay, muchacha, my bad, my bad. I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter . . . if you can’t. He’s going to help us . . . anyway.”

  Thirty-Three

  Murray pulls me as Jade pushes up the last flight of stairs to a doorway that reads S1 in black stenciled letters. My head throbs from the continuous alarm, and my body feels like it’s shutting down. Heart palpitations and shortness of breath. Dry mouth and tremors. Nausea and vomiting still, though I have nothing left but air and mucus. The muscles in my stomach contract again at the door, and Jade pauses, hand on the knob, while I go through the dry heave motions.

  “All we saw was the one in here,” she says when I’m finished. “Means someone closed this after. Means . . . we are walking into a war zone.” She secures her firearm. “I’m afraid for you, Grace.”

  I am, too, but I’m more afraid for Logan, Syd, and Missy, which is the only reason I’m still standing. Murray places his palm on my back and pats me softly. He says nothing, and I sense the climb up the stairs took a toll on him, as well.

  “I’ll . . . be fine,” I tell Jade. “Where are we?”

  “Near the entrance to the Lounge. And we’re almost out of ammo. We’ll have to get to safety somewhere, and find more weapons.”

  “Logan . . . and Syd.”

  “I know, girl, I know. But I have no idea where to look.”

  “What time is it?”

  “No clue. It was nearing three a.m. when I found you. Might be close to four, four thirty now—we’ve been at this for a while.”

  “The Lounge. They might be . . . in there.”

  “Then we will go there, but . . . we don’t know what we’re going to find, momma.”

  “Only one way . . . to find out.” And I nod toward the door.

  Jade’s bottom lip quivers, and she gathers me up in her arms. “I love you, Grace. I hope we get out alive.”

  “I love you, too. We will.”

  Though I feel the weight of a lie in my heart, Logan once told me to be optimistic. And I’m just delirious enough to give it a try under these circumstances.

  “Ready?” Jade asks.

  “Ready.” I lift my weapon, knowing that if I have to fire the thing standing up, it’ll probably knock me over. I glance to Murray, and he nods his ready.

  Jade unlocks the door and pushes down on the handle. She opens it an inch, and the scene through the crack makes my blood run cold. Bodies everywhere, some in pieces, and blood—so much blood. Twenty or more naked beasts, and now, fresh ones with clothes on, race around the place, chasing the unarmed people.

  “There.” I point to a fallen guard with lines shaved into the side of his head, the one who I met when we got here and then again at Rudy’s. He has an AK-47 strapped to his torso, which is now legless. His arms reach out, grasping at the terrified people, who seem to be trapped in here. All of the doors to the shops are closed. The sign by the cafeteria, which reads Now serving: Vegetable Soup and Macaroni & Cheese is splattered with blood. The escalators still run, with piles of parts and pooling blood at the bottom, cycled back around to the top, where every step is now red.

  “You stay,” Jade says. “I’ll get it and come back for you.”

  “No. We go together.”

  With a sigh, and another cross of herself and kiss to the thumb, Jade swings the door open and fires at the ones nearest us. I lean forward—I’ll need all my body weight behind it—and fire at a dead man in overalls and a red checkered shirt racing toward me. I nail him in the jaw, and the recoil knocks me off balance, but not too bad.

  Jade struggles to free the weapon from the guard as a frothing monster blindsides me from the left, pinning me to the ground. Murray yanks at him from behind while I use every bit of my strength to hold him up by the neck. His yellow teeth, streaked with blood, chomp inches from my face, and his hands try to dig into my stomach through my T-shirt.

  “Grace!” Jade screams, racing toward us. She gives the thing a bash to the skull with the butt of the AK, then again, and again, until he’s limp, skull dented in on one side.

  “Holy shit, girl, are you okay? Did it bite you? Scratch you?”

  I shake my head as she helps me from the ground. “Jade!”

  She spins around to peg our oncoming attacker with a round to the nose, and he flies backwards into another, then Jade yanks me toward the doorway to the Lounge. Piles of bodies, everywhere. I’m terrified I’ll find my friends in one of them.

  At the entrance to the Lounge, we’re met by a woman, shrieking, blood gushing from an open wound in her neck. A guard appears behind her, but he’s not holding his gun. He jumps on her, ripping a chunk out of her shoulder.

  Jade blasts him in the head, and after a moment’s struggle with her conscience, the woman, too. She removes the AR from his back and hands it to me, and not a moment too soon. More of the skins appear, more rotted and gruesome than ever, but slower, thank the gods. Jade and I take aim, and with one shot from me, and three from her, we clear a path to the Lounge.

  The long hallway is littered with body parts and blood trails, and a stumbler at the very end. I raise my weapon to shoot, but Jade stops me. “We need to save the ammo for when there are too many. I’ll get this one.” She races off down the hallway toward it, and I have a whole new respect for this tough bitch when she doesn’t even hesitate before giving it three good bashes to the skull.

  I do my best to run, but even with Murray’s help, it’s more like a trot. Even that surprises me, though. Maybe Jade isn’t the only one who underestimated my badass. I’m not dead yet, and I’m still moving forward.

  “Behind you!” Jade calls.

  Murray and I spin around to a runner, tearing ass toward us, and I take my stance. When I fire, it knocks me back, and I miss the fucker entirely. So much for badass. Murray helps steady me as I brace myself on the wall and aim again, pegging the dead asshole in the left eye about a foot from me. Its blood splatters on my face and in my mouth, making me gag. But at least I don’t have to worry about getting infected, right? That’s one hell of a silver lining.

  Murray takes one arm and Jade takes the other, and they lead me down the last section of hallway to the right. The usual sound of thumping bass is replaced by the shrill alarm, the sounds of rapid fire and screaming. Instead of cigarette smoke and sweat, the acrid, sour smell of gunpowder hangs in the air, along with the rusted metal scent of freshly spilt blood. The second black curtain is riddled with bullet holes, partially fallen from its attachment along the ceiling. In the pit of my stomach, I fear the worst. They’re dead. We’re trapped here. We’re already dead, too.

  The dancefloor is a blood fest—history repeats itself. The turntables are smashed against the floor, the DJ with the goatee and aviator shades is in pieces around them. There are more undead than I can count, and more rising from their temporary stillness after death. One remaining guard pulls the trigger of his firearm to an empty mag, seconds before becoming a shrieking meal. While the dead rip him apart, I scan the vicinity for blonde hair and a black faux-hawk, but see none, to both my relief and desperation. Where are they?

  With no other live ones around, the living dead zero in on our fresh meat.

 
“We gotta go!” Jade’s yanking jump-starts my adrenaline again, along with Gideon’s voice in my ear. Run, baby. Run.

  We bolt up the ramp, and Jade clears a path, shooting two clothed runners and bashing the skulls of three more skins with the butt of her M16. The horde behind us grows closer, and Jade fires, taking two of them out before emptying her weapon. I offer her mine, because I’m near-worthless, and she tosses hers aside to take it from me, blasting the one closest to us.

  When we get to the bar floor and the melee there, I almost cry when I see them—there, in the stripper cage I’d been snatched from, are Logan and Syd, surrounded by at least ten of them, but they’re alive. Thank the gods they’re alive.

  “Hey, fuckers!” Jade yells, and the dead whip their bloody heads around. She takes the clothed ones out first, then signals for me to follow her around in a circle to lead them away from the cage.

  “Grace!” Logan yells, waving.

  A body on the ground grabs my bare foot, and I yank it away, stumbling over another.

  “Over there!” Logan points, and I follow his finger to ten feet ahead of me. Slumped over a table, in what’s left of green fatigues, is a headless body wearing a katana with a blue handgrip I’d recognize anywhere. I yank it from his torso, spin around, and unsheathe it, slipping the strap over my shoulder. It’s a fluke, but I’ll take it.

  Jade is backed into a corner near the closed stairwell to the Alley, bashing her empty firearm against one, with another approaching. I race toward her as fast as I can, but my body is giving out, my legs weak and wobbly. A shot fires, and a round whizzes past my ear, taking one of them out, and I turn to see the shooter.

  “Kelly!”

  “Grace!” She races toward me, trailed by Mando.

  Jade takes out the monster in the tan suit jacket with one final bash to the skull, and when he hits the ground, I’m saddened to find it’s Ryan, the guy who’d actually been nice to me fully nude. Jade meets me and hugs me, as Kelly and Mando fire around the room, taking the rest of them out with speed, and precision.