by Barry Solway
Jeff gripped his stick and glanced at the other two, then he signaled for them to go down the ramp. They crept a short distance to a switchback that continued downwards. They passed another switchback before they came to a door. Jeff listened for a moment. After a few seconds of not hearing anything but their own breathing, Jeff carefully cracked the door open. Sweat dripped from Mel’s hand where she held her stick too tightly, making the weapon slick.
The door swung open easily and they waited an additional moment before Jeff peered around the corner into the hallway beyond. The air was slightly cooler down there, but seemed even more stale, full of dust that never cleared. Jeff drew his head back.
“It looks just like upstairs. No sign of a door going to the other building. Let’s keep going down.”
They tried two more doors and Mel wondered how far down the building went. The tension grated on her nerves, she couldn’t help but think an army of aliens was going to pop out from the next doorway. Finally, they reached the bottom of the rampway, and the fourth door.
Jeff opened it, with less care than they had taken on the first one. Mel could immediately tell this one was different. Beyond the door was a large, dark room that looked full of machinery. Pipes and ductwork snaked along the ceiling and the walls. Immediately, Mel noticed the room was much larger than the hallways above. This space was shared between the buildings.
Much cooler air made her skin ripple with goosebumps. Their lights shone over the equipment, highlighting a control panel on one piece of machinery that contained a dim and dusty screen.
“It’s a control or maintenance room,” Mel whispered.
Jeff nodded. “Connects to the other building, too. Let’s find the stairway up.”
“Rampway,” Mel said. Jeff grunted in exasperation. “Sorry,” she muttered.
They walked between some large pieces of equipment until they were sure they were under the other building. They came to a far wall and a door, much like the one they had entered. Jeff motioned to Jon to push the door open, while Mel and Jeff stood slightly back, ready to react to anything that might happen.
The door pushed open without a sound, but Jon stumbled back anyway, waving his stick in front of him. When nothing happened, Jeff gave him a derisive look. Jon shrugged with an embarrassed expression, but they were all on edge.
They entered the stairway, or rampway as Mel thought of it, and slowly crept up. This was far more nerve-wracking than coming down. Mel’s ears were hyper-attuned to any sound coming from above, and they stopped at every switchback on the ramps to quickly peer around the corner before proceeding. Jeff didn’t even bother stopping at the first three doors they passed. Once they got to the fourth door, the one that should come out on street level, he paused. Mel saw him licking his lips and it made her realize how thirsty she was.
Jeff started to open the door but Mel stopped him. She pressed her ear to it for several seconds, listening for any sound. She couldn’t hear anything. Nodding to Jeff, she pressed herself against the wall. Jeff grabbed the door handle and pulled it open just an inch.
Mel peeked out into the hallway. She waited a few breaths, then motioned to Jeff to open it a bit further. The hallway looked almost identical to the other building and showed no signs it had been occupied in years. There was no disturbance of dust on the floor.
They couldn’t just stand in the rampway all day. Mel took a quick intake of air, then ducked her head into the hallway. She quickly looked both ways, then drew back.
“Clear,” she mouthed to Jeff. He nodded but it didn’t stop him from doing the same thing Mel had. Finally assured that no one was there, he took a step into the hallway and motioned to the others.
They crept down the hallway until they came to a left turn. This should take them to the main lobby and Jeff peered around the corner before motioning them forward. Mel thought she could already make out the lobby at the end of the hallway, even with the dim lighting. They stopped about ten feet before the lobby. The same random assortment of equipment and boxes were piled against a wall, but in the middle of the lobby were four large black barrels, with a small box sitting on top of one of them. Mel grabbed Jeff’s shoulder and pointed to the floor. The dust in the center of the room had clearly been disturbed.
Jeff nodded, then his eyes narrowed as he traced the disturbance across the floor. His eyes grew large as he looked down at the ground around their feet and then back the way they had come. Mel realized the truth at the same moment. The dust was disturbed along the hallway they had come down. They had been so focused on the lobby, none of them had noticed. About halfway back down the hall, some footprints ended at a door that was opened just a crack.
Mel couldn’t even talk, her mouth was so dry. She wished they hadn’t come into this building at all and was regretting not listening to Jon, when it happened. The door down the hall flew open and two figures dashed into the hallway, both brandishing long knives. Mel barely had time to register that it was Marksman and the cyborg thing whose name she couldn’t remember. Jon pushed her backwards and yelled “Run!” as the two attackers closed the distance.
Jon and Mel ran into the main room, with Jeff bringing up the rear. Marksman swung at Jeff, but he wasn’t close and Jeff dodged back easily. The cyborg circled to Jeff’s right as Jeff backed into the lobby.
“Jeff, run! Get out of there!” she yelled. She didn’t believe for a second that Jeff could beat those two, especially the cyborg. Jeff backpedaled towards Mel and Jon but stayed facing the two attackers, waving his makeshift weapon. It was then that Mel noticed the two attackers weren’t following them into the lobby.
She scanned the area quickly. More disturbance in the dust on the floor. Strange, cat-like footprints going down another hallway to the west. A glimpse of something turning the corner at the end of the hallway, like a small dog. Her eyes glanced from the barrels and box, back down the hallway. Glimmering eyes shone in the shadows, a small head peering around the corner. One of the Things, she realized. Not fighters, but nimble, good with their hands and good with tech.
Her head whipped around to see Marksman and the cyborg retreat back the way they had come. Junkyard, she remembered. His name was Junkyard. And they were running away.
“We have to get out of here,” she said, panic rising in her voice.
Jeff stepped forward as if he intended to follow the two attackers. He was clearly confused about why they were running and Mel wondered for a moment if he thought they were afraid of him.
Jeff turned slightly back to her. “Why?”
Grabbing Jeff and Jon, she frantically pushed them to the west hallway. “Because it’s a bomb.”
Chapter 18
The boys stumbled towards the hallway as Mel’s words sank in. Fighting the urge to leave them behind, she pushed harder until they finally connected the dots. They raced down the hallway, with Jeff now pulling Mel. Halfway down, the bomb exploded. They were just passing an open office door, and Mel wasn’t sure whether she had already chosen to duck into the room or if the blast threw her in. Her arm wrenched out of Jeff’s grip, as she and Jon hit the floor. The ceiling fell around them, and she lost track of Jeff as the doorway collapsed. Choking on dust, she crawled along the floor.
A second, smaller blast followed the first one. The building groaned, sending chills down Mel’s spine. Turning her light to the wall, she saw cracks snaking from the floor to the ceiling as the wall slowly started to buckle.
“It’s going to collapse,” she said, her throat feeling like she had swallowed sandpaper. “We have to get out of here.”
“Where’s Jeff?” Jon asked. Mel could hear the fear in his voice.
“No idea. Maybe he kept going and got clear. Find a way out.”
Jon coughed, almost retching, but stood. Another groan, closer this time, and a section of the ceiling collapsed, revealing a dark hole that led to the second floor. The building seemed to vibrate, like a minor earthquake. Mel thought she could see the walls bending and sw
aying, but wasn’t sure if it was real or an illusion of the dim light and dust.
“There’s no windows and the door to the hallway is completely blocked. We’re trapped,” Jon said. Mel tried to ignore the panic in his voice.
“The hole,” she said, pointing. “We can go up. There were windows on the second floor.”
Jon nodded and looked up through the hole. Mel cleared some rubble out of the way and began dragging a desk under the hole. Helping her position it, he jumped on top of the desk.
“I have that cable,” Mel said. “Let me climb on your shoulders. If I can climb up, I’ll lower it and pull you up.”
Mel climbed on the desk, then sat on Jon’s shoulders as he squatted next to her. Grunting as he stood, Jon’s legs shook slightly with the effort. She had the urge to slap him; she didn’t weigh that much. It made her wish Jeff were there, which made her wonder if he had even survived. Squashing those thoughts immediately, she refocused on the problem at hand. Her head poked through the hole and she was able to see into the room above. Bracing herself, she shifted to stand on Jon’s shoulders. This put her arms easily into the room above them and she was able to drag herself the rest of the way in.
Mel looked for the window, but a section of the ceiling had dropped down and covered half the wall on that side. Everything shifted and groaned; Mel wasn’t sure if the floor would hold their weight for long. She quickly uncoiled the cable in her backpack and fed it down to Jon. While she couldn’t pull Jon up, she braced herself and he climbed up to her.
As Mel closed her pack, she looked longingly at the water. An urge to rest for just a minute pulled at her, when they heard muffled crashes and the floor tilted beneath them.
“Hurry, the window,” Mel said. “Help me move this crap out of the way.”
They pushed on the section of ceiling that had collapsed and got behind it to the window. The window had shattered, leaving a ragged opening that led to the street about fifteen feet below. The floor tilted and more cracks appeared in the walls. Grabbing a chunk of the fallen ceiling, she smashed the rest of the glass out of the way.
“We have to jump.”
“Tie the cable to something,” Jon said.
“No time.” Mel pushed the last of the glass out of the way and threw her legs over the window sill. Jon fumbled with the cable, trying to find something to tie it to as the floor buckled beneath him. Ignoring Jon, Mel slid out the window on her belly to hang from the edge. She heard Jon yelling and a cloud of dust shot out from the window above her. Willing herself to let go, she dropped to the concrete below.
She landed hard and fell backwards onto her butt. Pain shot up her right ankle and she winced at the thought of how bruised her butt was going to be. She shrugged it off; it wasn’t the first time she’d been bruised.
“Jon!” she called, unable to see anything through the dust. Finally, a form emerged from the window and she scuttled sideways to get out of the way as Jon dropped next to her. He collapsed on the sidewalk, coughing heavily.
Mel bent over him. “Are you okay? Can you walk? We shouldn’t stay here. They might come back.”
Jon pushed her away. “Get off me,” he growled. Another spasm of coughing made him double over. “I need to rest for a second.”
Mel looked around. She really didn’t want to wait in the street. For starters, the building might collapse. But there was still the risk that the other team was out there, hunting them.
“Across the street. That door over there. We can hide.” It would be better than sitting in the street. Hiding would get them out of the sun, too, as Mel realized how much hotter it felt than when they first landed.
Jon reluctantly agreed and she helped him across the street and into the other building. Pain shot through her ankle, but it was manageable and she ignored it.
They collapsed inside the door as additional clouds of dust shot out from the doors and second and third story windows of the building they’d just escaped. Mel looked up and down the street before closing the door, but didn’t see anyone. Maybe they thought she and Jon were dead. Maybe Jeff was.
She stopped herself. Jeff had been in front, farther down the hallway. He could have made it to the intersection and gotten out that way. She refused to believe he was dead. But Jeff wouldn’t know whether she and Jon had made it and she didn’t know where Jeff would come out of the building. Would he look for her? What would his next step be?
It was obvious, actually. They should rendezvous with Beats and Nick, somewhere between here and the city center. And Mel didn’t want to be in the city alone, especially if anyone on the other team showed up. She was confident she could walk, but didn’t want to risk running on her ankle.
Mel took the square cloth out of her pack and removed her boot. After wrapping the cloth around her bad ankle, she pulled her boot back on. “We should go. We need to meet up with Beats and Nick.”
Jon lay on the floor with his arm thrown over his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“What?”
He sat up but didn’t look at Mel. “I’m staying here. This is what we should have done from the beginning. I’m not playing this stupid game anymore. You go run around the rat maze if you want, but I’m staying here until the game ends.”
Mel started to argue, then belatedly remembered she had the same thought when Marksman and Junkyard had attacked them. That they should have followed Jon’s advice and just hid from the beginning. Biting her lip, she decided not to tell him that.
“We aren’t safe here. The other team could track us.”
Jon shook his head. “Seriously? You really think they care about us that much? They’re just trying to win the game. They set a trap that we walked into, so sure, blow us up. They aren’t going to spend time hunting us down. Especially in this heat. It would be stupid.”
Mel looked away. What Jon was saying made sense, but something about it bothered her anyway. She was trying to figure it out, but Jon kept talking.
“Do whatever you want. Your boyfriend’s probably dead anyway. Maybe you can start dating Beats.”
Mel’s face hardened. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m not giving up. Our best chance is to get the whole team back together. If you’re too scared to go on and want to hide here, fine. But you can do it by yourself. I’m going to the rendezvous point. If you change your mind, you should join us.”
Mel angrily grabbed her backpack and slid it on, then turned her back on Jon. She didn’t know what she expected him to say or do, but he didn’t respond or try to stop her. Which was fine with her. Stomping to the door, she threw it open, not bothering to check the street. She turned right and walked up the street, resisting the urge to look back.
While she walked, she pondered the last few hours. They had nearly died in a collapsing building. Jeff might be dead. Jon was hiding, which could come back to haunt them all later. And a thought struck her, a realization about why Jon’s actions bothered her so much. He didn’t want to play the game, didn’t care whether they won or lost.
Competitiveness had always been a part of her life, as a gymnast and a dancer, for as long as she could remember. Yes, she wanted to survive, to save her friends and get them all home. And she didn’t want to disappoint the others; they were counting on her as part of the team, and she had been trained to always support her teammates.
For the first time, she realized how much she wanted to win.
***
The next hour varied between boredom and bouts of terror. The air and city were deathly still, so the slightest noise would send a shot of adrenaline through Mel’s system and make her jump for cover. But most of the trek was uneventful and the heat sucked the energy out of her body.
Her ankle gave a constant reminder of her weakness, although she’d had worse. She once competed on a sprained ankle, unwilling to let the team down. They lost that meet anyway, but at least it hadn’t been her fault. The pain in her body wasn’t the real problem. Bitterness at Jon’s behavior c
rept in. The fact that he left her alone, that he hadn’t tried to stand with her and work as a team. She knew it wasn’t just about Jon, but he was the most convenient target at the moment. Her parents had done the same to her, and her last boyfriend had too. Even Jeff had left her. Reminding herself that it wasn’t his fault didn’t make the dark thoughts go away.
A ring road surrounded the city center and the grid pattern of the larger city merged into it. An elevated highway cut through the ring heading north and south. Taking cover under one of the underpasses, she groaned in pleasure at the blessedly cooler air. A nice cool 100 degrees, she thought.
She checked the map again. Beats and Nick should be on the same path as she was, but coming from the opposite direction. Depending on how fast they were moving, she expected to run into them any time. Her biggest concern was if they were trying to hide from the opposing team. But she couldn’t imagine Beats being very sneaky.
She ate a bit of food, although she wasn’t hungry. Forcing herself to ration the water got harder with every passing minute, but she was pleased to see that over a third of her supply was left. Now that she was being more careful, she thought she would be able to make it through the day. If this thing did go over twelve hours, water was liable to be the least of her problems.
Leaning her head against the cooler concrete wall, she closed her eyes. She shouldn’t wait long, but she was tired and sore. A few minutes rest shouldn’t hurt.
A scream jerked her awake. Had that been real or had she been dreaming? How long had she been asleep? The scream hadn’t been close and she had no idea where it came from with the echoing in the city. Then another one. It wasn’t Beats, but could it be Nick?
Gathering her stuff, she crept out from the underpass onto the main road. She almost staggered at the force of the heat coming off the concrete, but pushed the discomfort away. Turning west, she decided to stay on course and look for Beats and Nick. She had no idea what she could do if they were in danger, but hopefully she could be of some help.