“Got it.”
Erica lifted her end and the two of them stumble-walked the heavy thing back toward the door. Laughter began to fill the air outside, and her heart pounded harder once more. A sudden, booming shudder shook the walls; then another, and another. The volume of the laughter rose as the impacts continued until she heard the sound of splintering wood, and she realized their hunters had broken into the first office.
Her butt hit the door knob, and she had to scoot to the side to help slide the desk up to block the door. As she did, more banging announced they had moved to the locked door of the office directly next door. The cacophony of the crowd outside the door grew to the point that she didn’t realize her hiding partner was whispering to her until she felt his hand on her shoulder. She jumped, and bit back a scream as she felt his warm breath in her ear. “What?” she whispered back.
She felt his breath again, and was able to make out “…of here…” but the growing noise outside made whispering a ridiculous waste of effort.
Evidently, he came to the same conclusion. “Screw this,” she heard him say aloud, and the room was suddenly lit with the flickering of warming florescent lights. Erica squinted in the sudden brightness.
“What the hell are you doing? They’ll see the light!”
“This door is next anyway, and I need to see what I aim at.” He had his pistol drawn again, and had it loosely aimed at the door.
“How many bullets do you have?”
He nodded. “Good point.” He pressed something, and the bottom of the pistol slid into his hand. She saw the shining brass of a bullet at the top of it as he turned it to look at the back. “Looks like I have maybe half a dozen rounds in this one.” He slipped “this one” into the left pocket of his jacket, and pulled something from inside it. It was a twin to “this one” and he slid it into the pistol, then nodded. “Eighteen now.”
Sudden banging on the door caused her to jump. Heart pounding, she looked frantically around the office for something else to prop against the door. Her eyes lit on the credenza on the back wall. “Help me with this.” The door was beginning to rattle within its frame, and she knew it wouldn’t take long for the howling freaks outside to break in. He saw what she was after and nodded, holstering his pistol. Luckily, the wooden credenza was smaller than the desk, and so was light enough for them to lift onto its mate, adding more weight to the makeshift barricade. She looked around for anything else to put in the pile, but the only other furniture in the office was the chairs. She briefly considered it, but wasn’t sure if they would fit between the top of the credenza and the ceiling. “Holy crap!”
The banging and screeching was so loud now that she had to yell to make herself heard. “Follow me,” she shouted, pointing to the barricade. He looked at her like she was crazy as she climbed atop the desk.
The desk that blocked the door.
The door that was in the corner of the office.
Right next to the wall.
She clambered onto her knees on the credenza and poked her lacrosse stick up, lifting one of the acoustical tiles in the ceiling and sliding it to the side. Her prayers were answered as she saw a large enough area to climb into. She was startled by a hand on her leg. “No way that ceiling’s strong enough to hold us.”
“I know. Help me up.”
“But…”
“All we have to do is climb over this wall and into the next office. Now hold me steady while I get a tile out next door.”
He looked at her like she was crazy, but the banging on the door didn’t leave room for argument. He held her waist as she pried up a tile on the other side of the wall. “Got it. Let me go now.” The banging and shouting was so loud she had to shout. He let go, and she shimmied up, onto the lip of the dividing wall. “When you come across, drop the tile back in place and they might take a while to figure out where we went.” He nodded, so she spun her legs around, grabbed her stick, and dropped into the office next door. She quickly felt her way to the door to make sure it was locked, and as she did so heard her partner drop to the floor behind her.
“Now what?”
Inspiration struck, and she pulled out her phone. As the screen lit, she hesitated. There was a notification that she had a text from Ross. Do I have time to read it now? Booming on the door down the hall decided her. There were more pressing matters at hand, just now. She swiped the screen open and called up the list of applications. Finding the one she was after, she pressed the button and the camera flash turned into a flashlight. Adjusting the bar on the side until the light was a dim glow, she aimed it around the room enough to see what they had to work with.
“Good idea. Better silence it while you’re at it, though. Wouldn’t be a good thing to have it ringing while we’re in here.”
She nodded. “Now, help me move the desk.”
They repeated the process three more times, leaving their pursuers farther behind each time, and the noise level dropped as they did so. They finally reached an office where the light of her phone revealed nicer furnishings than the others had had. They were a much higher quality, and the room was decorated with paintings and a wet bar. “Must be the big guy’s office.”
Mr. Pistol only grunted and headed for the desk. Erica laid her phone atop the desk and sighed. This one was heavier, and it was all she could do to lift her end and move it a few steps at a time. They finally settled it beside the wall, and as Erica looked up, she noticed her companion’s attention was focused on something behind her. She turned to see what he was looking at and saw a metal box on the wall. It was about a foot wide, and two feet tall. “What is it?”
“I think it’s a key lockbox.”
Comprehension dawned. She pulled the handle on it, but it didn’t budge. “It’s locked.”
He immediately started going through the drawers of the desk. “Maybe the boss is careless with the keys?” Erica grabbed the phone and shone the light where they could see in the drawers better.
But they had no such luck. Tucking the pistol into a shoulder holster, her companion went to the box and ran his hand along the top of it. “Damn!” Then he cocked his head and put his hand back on top. He seemed to tighten his hand then grimaced. He put his other hand up beside the first, tightening it as well, then bunched his shoulders and pulled. With a crunching of drywall, the box came loose from the wall, anchor bolts and all.
Erica arched her eyebrows. “Wow.”
He shook his head. “Cheap drywall. No big deal.”
Down the hall, the screaming mob had evidently given up on trying to figure out how they’d gotten out of the lit office, and were now attacking the next door. “Now that you have it off the wall, can you open it?”
“Not here,” he said. “But I have an idea. For now, let’s keep going the way we were.”
They clambered over the wall again, and this time found themselves in a restroom. “Shit.”
“What is it?” Erica asked.
“Public restrooms don’t usually have locks.”
She turned her phone toward the door and saw he was right. They could still hear the insane giggling from down the hall, banging and screeching. “Now what?”
He handed her the lockbox, drew his pistol, and walked toward the door. “Turn the light out.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Relax, lady. I’m just going to take a peek.”
She turned off the flashlight app. “It’s Erica.”
“What?”
“My name’s Erica Chapman. No need for you to keep calling me ‘lady.’ With everything that’s going on…” She let it trail off.
She heard him grunt acknowledgment. “Call me Matt.”
She opened her mouth to reply, then stopped. What was she going to say? Pleased to meet you? Under the circumstances, it just seemed inane. Seconds later, she saw a sliver of dim light and heard the volume of the eerie laughter increase as Matt slowly opened the restroom door. It opened farther and she saw him stick his head out, t
hen he stepped back and she heard the quiet hiss of the pneumatic door closer as he let it shut behind him. Erica turned the phone back on. “What did you see?”
He looked grim. “There must be thirty or forty of them out there. A bunch of ‘em are working on breaking down the doors, others are running around the showroom tearing stuff up. There’s no way we’re gonna get past ‘em all.”
Erica swallowed. “I don’t suppose you have any more bullets than what you mentioned earlier?”
“No ma’am, I don’t. Never expected to be fighting off a whole town full of zombies.”
“Zombies?”
“Well, whatever the hell they are.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I do have an idea. But it’s risky.”
“Riskier than staying here and waiting for them to get to this door?”
“Not when you put it like that. Outside this door, just a few feet down the hall to the right, is the entrance to the garage. If we’re quiet, we can probably get to the door without anyone seeing us.”
Erica swallowed at the thought of stepping into that hallway. At the same time, she knew that each minute brought their pursuers closer and closer. “All right. Let’s go.”
He shook his head. “Not quite that simple. The door is one of those heavy, metal things. There’s a chance it could make some noise when we open it.”
“So we either wait here for them to find us, which they will do eventually. Or we go for the garage where we might have a chance.” Erica looked at him. “I’d rather do something, than just wait here to die.”
“All right.” He took the box from her again. “Turn the light out and follow me.”
Chapter 56
Charles Griffe
I Thought You Forgot Me
With shaking hands, Charlie pulled his cabin key out of his back pocket. Four days. It had taken him four days to get from the bar on Deck Seventeen back down to his and Felicia’s cabin on Deck Seven. Four days since he had seen Felicia run crying from that fancy restaurant. But after all the distractions, he’d finally made it. Chris and Tabby stood to either side of him, flanked by all the others in their growing group. Everyone watched up and down the corridor nervously.
Charlie slid the key card into the door slot, and with an audible click, the locking mechanism disengaged. He pushed the door open. There was a very faint breeze filtering in from the open balcony, a peace offering from the crisp November night. “Felicia?” he called quietly. “Felicia, it’s—”
With a scream, a form rushed at him from the darkness of the cabin. He had time to recognize Felicia’s wild red hair as she swung a long and slender club of some sort at him.
Charlie raised his right arm to block without thinking, and was rewarded with an intense pain from the cut on his chest. It was followed by the even more intense agony of Felicia’s club cracking against his raised forearm. He cried out in pain as Chris pushed past him into the cabin.
She’s infected, boy. Gonna have to put her down.
Charlie dropped to his knees, pulling his injured arm into his chest, heart pounding at his father’s observation.
Chris stepped between them. “Wait, lady!”
But Felicia didn’t wait. With another scream, she swung her club at him as well, once, twice. She swung wildly as they pushed their way into the cabin. Chris managed to grasp the club and wrestled her to the ground. She continued to wail helplessly.
“Lady? Felicia? We aren’t going to hurt you. We’re with Charlie. Charlie’s here.”
“It’s no use,” Charlie spat. “She as crazy as the rest of them.” The words were bitter, but Charlie was a realist. “Come on, knock her out and let’s get out of here before her screaming attracts attention.”
It would be a shame to lose Felicia. It was difficult in today’s day and age to find a woman who really understood him like she did. Most of them were too caught up in all that feminism crap and didn’t appreciate how hard it was to be a man.
He looked at the way her breasts strained her T-shirt as Chris struggled to hold her down. Such a shame. He looked speculatively at Tabby.
Nah. Too skinny. And don’t forget how bad she cut you.
Charlie shook his head. As much as he hated to admit it, Dad had a point. No, Tabby wasn’t right for him. Not refined enough to appreciate what he brought to the table.
“Charlie!”
With a start, he realized that he’d been staring at Tabby, and she was waving her hand in the dim dawn light.
Chris evidently wasn’t as certain that Felicia was lost to them. “Charlie, she isn’t like the others.”
“He’s right,” Tabby reinforced Chris’s observation. “She’s not laughing.”
Charlie turned back to look more carefully at where Chris sat astride a struggling Felicia, holding her hands above her head. It was true. Felicia thrashed in obvious terror, eyes wide enough that he could see them even in the dim pre-dawn light filtering in through the balcony curtains. But there was no laughter—none of the ever-present rictus that marked the crazies for what they were.
“Felicia?” He stepped closer, kneeling beside her so that she could better see his face. “Felicia, baby, it’s me. It’s Charlie.”
Her eyes shifted to him and her screaming stopped. She looked confused for a moment and her struggles paused.
“Hey, baby. It’s me. I got here as quick as I could.”
She jerked her head from Charlie to Chris. She started to strain against his grip again, opening her mouth to scream.
“Felicia!” Charlie was more insistent now. “Don’t scream. You’ll attract the crazies.”
But she didn’t stop. She opened her mouth again and took a breath, drawing in to scream again.
“Don’t do it, Felicia.”
But he could see she was going to. Just as she started to scream, he slapped her. It wasn’t often that he’d had to slap her, but on those few occasions, it had startled her into silence. This time was no different. Just as when he’d had to slap Mrs. Ward, the shock of it had stopped her. And just as when he’d done it before, the rest of his group were staring at him again, judging him. “Again? Seriously? What is it about this situation that you people don’t understand? We draw attention to ourselves, we die.”
There they go again. Judging you. Like they’re better than you. Just because they don’t have the balls to do what needs to be done. You know they probably won’t survive this, don’t you?
For once, he agreed with the old man. He ignored their looks and turned back to Felicia. “You’re okay, aren’t you baby?” Charlie saw her eyes flit from his face to Chris’s, then Tabby’s. Finally, they came back to him.
“Charlie?”
“Yeah. It’s me, baby.”
“But, your face. I didn’t recognize… When did you start growing a beard?”
Charlie reached a hand up and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “There hasn’t been a lot of time for shaving, baby.”
He nodded to Chris, who released his grip on her hands and got off of her. “Sorry, ma’am. You had us pretty scared for a minute there.
But Felicia ignored him and leaned into Charlie’s embrace. “I thought you forgot me.” She sobbed into his shoulder.
Chapter 57
Interludes
Nell Gavin was working the late shift doing maintenance upgrades on the hosting servers. It was a job that most of her friends poked fun at her for, but she actually preferred the odd hours. The upgrades pretty much ran themselves. They took anywhere from several minutes to a few hours, and all she had to do was keep an eye on the servers and make sure nothing went wrong. The thing she loved about the job was that while the updates ran, she had time to write.
Writing was her passion, and while it didn’t pay as much as her main job did, she had hopes for the future. Her laptop was cranked up, and she was busy pounding the keys when the phone rang.
“Sentinel Technologies Data Center,” she answered.
“Hello, my Nell. It is Francis. How are you this lov
ely evening?”
Nell grimaced. She had recognized Francis Kouassi’s accent as soon as he’d spoken. He worked on the day shift, and was as big a sleaze ball as she’d ever seen. He was constantly hitting on the women, and she had complained about him to management on more than one occasion. Nell figured he must have incriminating pictures of someone for him to still have his job.
“What do you need, Francis?”
“I am outside the front door, and I am afraid that I have lefted my wallet at my desk. It is having my security badge in it. Would you mind to let me inside?”
“Isn’t Bill out there?” Bill was the security guard that patrolled the building during the graveyard shift. He was a huge, burly man, a former pro wrestler according to the rumors.
“I have been knocking and I am not seeing him.”
She didn’t want to have to be in the same room with that misogynistic little prick, but she couldn’t think of a decent excuse to refuse. She sighed. “Fine. I’ll be down in a minute.” She hung up before he could reply. Looking back at her laptop, she finished the paragraph she was working on. Little weasel can wait a couple of minutes. She even took an extra minute or two to read over what she had written, making sure there were no glaring errors. Finally deciding she couldn’t stall any longer without being too obvious about it, she went downstairs to let Francis in.
She heard the screaming as soon as the elevator doors slid open. “What the hell?” She ran to the lobby and froze at the sight before her. Bill had returned, and was pile driving Francis into the pavement. He held the smaller man upside down by his legs, and as she watched, he lifted Francis up, and smashed him down. It must have been going on for at least a few minutes, for Francis’s face and head were bleeding profusely from several scrapes and cuts.
Bill laughed as he slammed the little man into the concrete again, and Francis cried out in pain and shock as he tried to protect his head with his hands. He was only partially successful, covering his head as well as he could, but unable to protect himself fully as the weight of his entire body came down on his neck. As the security guard raised him up once more, Francis caught sight of Nell staring from inside the lobby. He screamed something, but it was so fast it was difficult for her to make it out. It took a second for her to realize he was speaking another language. “Nell! Helping me! Dear God, helping me!”
Chucklers (Book 1): Laughter is Contagious Page 25