“That, too. But this is my primary job.”
I’m getting really sick of you.
The Voice laughed. “You say that now, then you always end up thanking me later.”
You remember things way differently than I do, Cole thought even as he looked around the room.
He was in some kind of employee lounge, and he only guessed that part because he’d turned left and run toward the STAFF area of the facility instead of GUESTS. The presence of lockers along the walls, not to mention the chipped tables, a small kitchenette, and cheap metal chairs contributed to that conclusion. Posters with blocky letters proclaiming BE PROFESSIONAL and THE GUESTS ARE ALWAYS RIGHT took up space on the walls. It wasn’t an especially big room, but could easily accommodate twenty or more people at one time.
Like the hallway, Cole couldn’t find anything that looked like security cameras or intercoms anywhere. He did find four bodies greeting him upon entry.
“This company needs better health benefits,” the Voice said.
Cole couldn’t exactly disagree with that.
Puddles of days-old dry blood were scattered across the floor, but when Cole pointed his shotgun at each and every one of the figures, none of them popped up like the one in the hallway had. Only two of the bodies had bloodshot eyes, while the other two didn’t.
“Looks like a fight,” the Voice said.
Yeah, looks like it.
“So, who won? Or lost?”
Good question.
“I know, right?”
Shut up.
Some of the lockers were open, but most of them were closed. Names, written on brown tape, were stuck on each of the locker doors as if a place like LARS couldn’t afford something more elaborate for its employees.
With no obvious threat, Cole took a second or two to check the radio again. He didn’t think it would work, but it was worth a try. If nothing else, he just had to make sure.
The radio squawked when he pressed the transmit lever, which was a good sign.
“Emily,” he said into the radio. “You there? It’s Cole.”
There was no response, which was not a good sign.
He tried again anyway: “Emily. Come in. Emily.”
Nothing.
Not a damn thing.
“Don’t worry about it, chum, it’s not like Emily doesn’t know how to handle herself,” the Voice said.
The Voice was right. (“Of course I’m right,” it said.) It didn’t make him worry for her well-being any less, though. He’d made Emily stay topside to keep her safe until he could make sure the underground facility was the sanctuary they’d been hoping it was.
That was the plan, anyway.
Now, he had lost contact with her. Maybe temporarily, maybe permanently. Worse, he was stuck in a room with God knew how many crazies outside waiting for him to poke his head out in order to cut it off. Because that was exactly what they’d been doing all this time—waiting for someone to come down that elevator.
“And you just happened to be the idiot,” the Voice said. “Let’s try to avoid that in the future, shall we?”
Yeah, let’s.
Cole put the radio away—it didn’t work now, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work later—when he heard, “You did pretty good out there. Let me guess: Ex-soldier?”
Cole searched for the origin of the voice. But like back in the hallway, there were no hints to where it was coming from.
That was frustrating. Incredibly frustrating.
As if she could hear his thoughts, the female voice said, “It’s in the walls.”
“The walls?” Cole said.
“The speakers you’re looking for. They’re inside the walls. You can’t see them because that’s the point. Along with the cameras.”
“What cameras?”
“Again, the cameras you can’t see, because—”
“—they’re inside the walls,” Cole finished.
“I guess you’re not as dumb as you look.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I like her,” the Voice said, laughing.
“The cams topside turned off to conserve power, but they switched back on when you tripped the sensors inside The Welcome Room,” the female voice said.
“Sensors?” Then, “Let me guess: The sensors we couldn’t see.”
“Again, not as dumb as you look.”
“I take that back. I think she’s insulting us,” the Voice said.
She’s definitely insulting us.
“I knew it!”
Cole continued to scan the walls and ceiling for signs of a hidden camera or speaker. He came up as empty this time as he did the first, second, and third time. It was annoying not being able to see who he was talking to.
“Who are you?” Cole asked.
“Selina,” the voice said. “But you can call me Sal.”
“Sal? S-a-l or s-e-l?”
“S-e-l would be more like sell.”
“So S-a-l, then.”
“Bingo.”
Young, Cole thought. I’m talking to a kid. Or someone in their twenties.
The question was, was that good or bad?
“Let’s wait until we meet her face-to-face first to decide,” the Voice said.
“So what are you doing down here?” Sal was asking him. “And how did you know about LARS in the first place?”
Cole didn’t answer right away. Instead, he crouched next to the body closest to him. A man in his twenties, wearing the same gray overalls as the other LARS staffers he’d seen in the hallway. Or, at least, Cole assumed the man was in his twenties because it was hard to tell from just one half of his face. The other half had been caved in by a wrench that lay nearby. GRIFFIN was written on his name tag. The part of Griffin’s face that Cole could make out was frozen in shock.
“That’s the problem with psychos,” the Voice said. “They’re always jumping out at you when you least expect it.”
Among other problems, Cole thought.
“Anton,” Cole said out loud as he stood up.
“Anton?” the woman who called herself Sal said. “What about Anton?”
“That’s how I know about LARS.”
“I see.”
Cole walked over to the next body. A woman in her thirties, also wearing gray overalls. DAWSON was stenciled across her name tag. Unlike Griffin, she had blood-red eyes that stared up at the ceiling and at Cole as he hovered over her. She lay very close to Griffin, and there were blood splatters on her clothes. Either she’d killed Griffin and then gotten murdered in turn or…What did it matter? She was dead. They both were.
“Dead as a doorknob,” the Voice said.
“Do you?” Cole asked out loud.
“Do I what?” Sal said.
“See.”
“It’s not rocket science. You’re not one of our investors, that’s for sure. That means you knew Anton from his government days. Which then means you’re definitely ex-soldier. Probably ex-Army. You don’t look like a leatherneck.”
“What does a leatherneck look like?”
“Not like you.”
Cole smirked. “Who are you?”
He finished his exploration of the employee lounge with the final two corpses. They leaned against the lockers almost side by side. Coagulated blood pooled underneath them, gathered where they had bled out. The one with bloodshot eyes had a knife embedded in his neck while the other one, with blue eyes, had gotten stabbed through the abdomen by a screwdriver. Repeatedly. From what Cole could see, the uninfected employee had tried to crawl away, only to give up before dying from blood loss.
“I already told you,” Sal was saying through the invisible speakers.
“I mean, who are you really?” Cole said.
“The woman who just saved your life.”
Cole thought about going through the lockers. What were the chances LARS allowed their employees to carry weapons down here?
“Really?” the Voice—the one that spoke inside Cole’s head and
that only he could hear—asked.
Probably not.
“That’s open to debate,” Cole said out loud.
“No, it’s not,” Sal said.
“Sure it is. I had it handled.”
“Not from where I’m sitting.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Sitting.”
Cole heard a slight chortle. That was for his benefit, because Sal didn’t have to broadcast it.
“Didn’t you hear that standing desks could lengthen your lifespan?” Sal asked.
“Must have missed that study.”
“It’s true. I’ve lost ten pounds since I started using a standing desk.”
“Good for you. I’m guessing there’s a lot of empty standing desks around you right now.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that I just had to blow away two of your coworkers and saw even more dead ones outside?”
“That’s entirely possible.”
“So who are you, and why are you still alive when everyone in this place has turned psycho?”
Sal didn’t answer right away.
“What’s the matter?” Cole asked. “Psycho got your tongue?”
“Is that what you call them?”
“Psycho. Crazies. Same difference.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t really matter what we call them. They’re still infected.”
“You know about that?” But do you know why?, he wanted to ask but didn’t. Cole figured he’d keep as much secret as he could, doling out only what he needed to in order to get himself out of this mess.
“Shouldn’t have put yourself into this mess in the first place,” the Voice said.
That boat’s sailed.
“You could have retrieved it. Remember, you decided not to run right back to the elevator.”
I couldn’t leave. I had a job to finish.
“Excuses.”
Good excuses.
“Still excuses.”
“Helloooo,” Sal was saying from somewhere behind him in a singsong voice meant, he was sure, to annoy the shit out of him. “You saw the body count out there? I’ve been living with that for the last five days. Though it feels like five years down here.”
“You know what’s happened aboveground?”
“We get CNN down here, too. Even more channels than what you’d normally get up there, actually.”
“Is that good?”
“Not for productivity, no.”
“So what’s the point? What do you want with me?”
“You don’t know?”
“How could I know the motives of a strange voice coming through a bunch of hidden speakers?”
“It’s simple: I want to get the hell out of here.”
“So why haven’t you?”
“Helloooo. Have you seen what’s out there?”
Cole smiled. “You need me.”
“I need that shotgun of yours. And that pistol. And whatever you got inside that pouch.”
“She can definitely see us,” the Voice said, as if Cole still had any doubts.
“No, you need me,” Cole said.
“Whatever gave you that silly idea?”
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Say that you need me, and not my weapons, to get out of here.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t, then I won’t help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Sure you do.”
“No way, no how.”
“If you didn’t, then you’d have made your way to the elevator already. But here you are, stuck ten floors below the surface, waiting for someone to come rescue you.”
The speakers remained quiet.
“Am I right?” Cole asked.
More silence.
“Say it,” Cole said.
“Say what?” Sal said.
“You know what.”
“No.”
“Yeah, you will.”
“I’m not going to say it.”
“Say it.”
“No.”
“Say it!”
Silence.
Five seconds went by.
Ten…
“Say it,” Cole said again.
“Okay, maybe I do need you to get me out of here,” Sal said.
Cole grinned triumphantly.
“But you also need me to get back up there to your friends,” the woman finished.
“What?”
“The elevator…”
“What about it?”
“I shut it off,” Sal said. “And I’m the only one who can turn it back on. Without me, you’re stuck down here.”
Chapter 6. Emily
The man that had just turned their little haven in the middle of nowhere into a big, vulnerable hotspot almost got himself killed. The only reason he didn’t, as far as Emily was concerned, was because she had other things to worry about.
More precisely, other crazies.
The twenty-something man was running toward them, having been given the “go-ahead” by Emily to do so. She hadn’t actually verbalized the permission, but she assumed that was what he interpreted her lowering her gun hand.
“Who’s coming?” Greg, walking briskly next to her to intercept the new arrival, was asking. “What are you talking about? Who’s coming?”
“Bloodies,” the man said. “Bloodies!”
“Bloodies? What the hell’s a bloody?”
Emily didn’t know why Greg was still asking the question. It was damn obvious who the man was referring to. What else could bloodies even reference but the psychos (as Greg nicknamed them) or crazies (as Cole had)? It was the eyes. The bloodshot eyes and burning scleras that birthed this new name, among many.
Instead of replying to Greg, the newcomer twisted around in mid-stride and pointed back—
—just as the first one emerged through the wide-open space between the now-useless semi-truck and the warehouse wall.
“Him!” the driver shouted. “Him, and more like him! Bloodies! Fucking bloodies!”
The “bloody” was a tall, lanky man in a plaid long-sleeve shirt and well-worn Levi. Both articles of clothing were covered in dirt and dark spots that Emily didn’t have any trouble recognizing as blood. He was holding something that looked like a combination sword and spear in his right hand as he burst through the gaping hole and into the building.
…a combination sword and spear…
The same bladed object had pierced the side door earlier, spilling someone’s blood on the other side, only seconds before the semi “knocked” on their door.
“Fuck my life,” Greg said almost breathlessly.
Emily didn’t waste her breath. Instead, she lifted her gun.
The psycho slid to a stop, bloody red eyes widening at the sight of the Glock, and Emily remembered what Cole had said:
“They’re crazy and bloodthirsty and they’ll chop you into a million pieces, but they’re not stupid,” he’d said last night when they were gathered inside the parked Bell, waiting for morning sunlight to finish the trip to LARS. “As far as I know, they’re not any stupider than they were before the infection.”
“Are we sure about that?” Bolton had asked.
“About which part?”
“That they’re not smarter?”
“You mean, did they get smarter after being infected?” Zoe had asked, sounding almost…what was the word?...terrified, maybe, by the mere suggestion.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” Bolton had said.
“I don’t think so,” Cole had said, and he’d seemed pretty sure of it.
Cole was definitely not wrong when he said the crazies were insane but not stupid. The man charging into the warehouse was proof of that. As soon as he saw the Glock in her hand, he skidded to a dead stop and was trying to turn around when she shot him.
Her round struck him in the scapu
la and spun him.
As he fell to the floor, Emily ran forward and shot him again, this time in the small of the back. The crazy struck the floor and tried to get up. She wasn’t sure how—he was already bleeding from both wounds—but he wouldn’t stay down. He also maintained his grip on that spear-sword of his. It looked like a flagpole, one side of it grinded into a lethal point.
The man snapped a quick look over his shoulder, one bloody-red eye glaring at her.
She shot him in the face.
He collapsed and, this time, stayed down.
“The chopper. Which one’s yours?” That was the semi’s driver asking Greg behind her.
“What?” she heard Greg say.
“The chopper you came in. We need to get to it. We need to get the hell outta here.”
Emily walked quickly back over to them. She could see Bolton and the others piling out of the office in the background. Everyone except for Dante and Ashley, who stayed behind.
She focused on the driver. “How do you know about the chopper?”
The young man turned around. “What?”
“The chopper. How do you know about it?”
“I saw it flying over Terry Flats this morning.” He looked from Greg to Emily. “What? You didn’t think anyone saw you?”
Emily exchanged a look with Greg. She imagined he was thinking the same thing: Goddammit!
“Who else saw us?” Emily asked the driver.
“Everyone with eyes in Terry Flats,” the man said.
Emily looked back to the wide, empty spaces around the parked semi. They still had one standing wall, but it was useless without the other one.
She turned to face the driver again. “What’s your name?”
The man stared at her as if she were speaking in a foreign tongue. “Huh?”
“Your name. What’s your name?”
“Tommy. Tommy Lansing.”
“Okay, Tommy Lansing. When you said they were coming—the bloodies—how many are you talking about? How many is ‘all of them?’”
“Maybe it wasn’t all of them, but it looked like all of them.”
“From town?” Greg asked.
“Yeah. It was kinda hard to miss your chopper up there. I just got here first because I was in the big rig and hauling ass. I don’t know why, but the bloodies don’t drive. Maybe they forgot how.”
No, they didn’t, Emily thought, remembering how Cole had phrased it:
“It’s about the thrill of the kill. They don’t use guns or long-range weapons. They prefer melee weapons. Knives. Bats. Swords. It’s primal. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen more than most people.”
Fall of Man | Book 3 | Firebase: Page 5