LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (31 page)

She had known that finding food was imperative. The gnawing pain from her empty stomach was enough to convey that message loud and clear. But for two days, since she had begun to despair at the loss of Tony and the appearance of the group of creatures at the front gate, she had just been too scared.
 

The passage above was narrow and dark, but it led into the interior of the building. How far, she didn’t know. And she wasn’t sure if she could make it up or down the vertical shafts. She had only seen one, but it looked too smooth and slippery for her to manage easily.
 

She knew that her only chance at finding food—and maybe at finding a way out of the building—was either up or down. But the fear had continued to paralyze her. The thought of finding one of those … things … in the closed, dark space. It was too much.
 

In the entire time she had been trapped, she had never considered leaving. The streets below teeming with monsters, the stairwells dark and dank, full of danger. Her enclave was safe, and it was secure. Above all, she knew her father was still in this building somewhere, and she harbored the hope that he might still be alive, against all odds.

But after the quake and the tsunami, she quickly realized two things: that she couldn’t survive here indefinitely without food, and that this building, no matter how strong and well built, couldn’t possibly survive for long. She could hear the building groan and could feel it sway slightly as large pieces of concrete tumbled from further up and buildings around them shed their cement skin in giant slabs.

So she had to find a way out. It was her only chance to survive. And she knew the tunnels were her only shot.
 

The large gap in the wall where the window used to be caused her to shoot worried glances toward the gaping hole as she dragged a large table into place in the center of the office. The breeze passing through the space smelled of smoke and sea water, and she stared briefly at a glowing orange hue that lit the sky to the south and east. She had felt the explosion as the mountains had erupted far to the south, and could now see the glowing embers of their fury far in the distance.
 

Grabbing her small pack with her meager supplies—the taser, a bottle of water, and her coat—she scrambled up the table, ignoring the better vista from her perch of the ruined and water-covered city below. Her hands found the lip of the opening and she inhaled slowly three times. Her mother had always been good about teaching her ways to calm herself.
 

She suppressed the desire to allow tears to flow at the thought of her mother’s face. Of the memories of the hugs and stories. Of soft conversations at night with the lights out and even of screaming matches over inane subjects.
 

She allowed herself to indulge in the belief that her mother had survived. That somehow, America wasn’t affected. That it was just Vancouver or just Canada. That was easier.
 

America was America, after all, right? They built offices like this, with guards and guns. They had big airplanes with missiles and tanks with big guns. What match were the undead to military power like that?
 

In the head of a small girl, this fantasy made sense.
 

She patted her pockets one last time, shifted the weight of her small backpack on her bag, and pulled herself into the dark, narrow air duct above the office.

I had acquired a small entourage.

It was fun. Like the old days.

I wandered left, they followed.

I wandered right, they followed.

I stopped to stare at a tree for no apparent reason, they stopped as well.

It really brought back some memories. Mindless people following my every move, eager to see what I’d do next, with no thought to why it mattered.

Ah, Hollywood.
 

But as in the old days, eventually, it got old.

I made my way up the long hill on the north side of the town, managing to only pick up ten or so followers. It wasn’t unexpected, as they tended to herd together and follow those who showed initiative, eager to discover whether that outlier had found a source of food. So I allowed it.
 

Particularly since I didn’t have much of a choice.
 

The road led up and curved to the right, a thick shock of trees on the right hand side of the road promising to hide us as we approached the dam. The woods appeared devoid of the creatures, although I knew that looks could be deceiving. Our goal wasn’t to empty out the area—it was to simply make it passable.
 

If my plan for truly emptying out the area worked, we would have plenty of space once I got through the dam.
 

Slowly and awkwardly, pretending to reach my hand out as if clutching for food, I managed to check the time, biting off a vulgarity and covering it with a moan. Behind me, my entourage moaned as well.
 

Good lackies, I thought.

I was thirty minutes late. All my dicking around in town had cost a lot of time, and Rhi and Ethan had been exposed on this end of town now for longer than we had planned. Although if the gunshots I had heard before were any indication, they may have had issues long before arriving here.
 

A faint breeze shifted the smell of smoke from the still-burning conflagration in town—my trial run for a distraction. I could still hear the alarm blaring from the bank in town, and I hoped the battery would last just a little longer.
 

Ahead, the outline of the dam facility was becoming clear. A large gray cement wall, with a deep set metal door. Surrounding by mangled and warped fencing, and sporadically planted shrubbery, several small parking spots marked the pullout for the administrative building. A narrow, one-way road continued past the administrative entrance and up, over the peak of the large concrete structure.
 

Toppled roadsigns warning of one-way traffic and falling rocks lined the side of the road, as the trees to our left thinned out and eventually gave way to the encroaching rock wall that met the end of the road where the dam began. Turning slowly, I saw that we were out of view of the town. I scanned the trees closest to me for signs of more zombies. It was clear.

Sigh.

Time to rid myself of my fans.
 

It was such a love-hate relationship, sometimes.

But on the flip side, it would be really nice to get out of my entrail coat and clotted blood mask.
 

The charnel house attire parted as I allowed the carbine to rise, stock firm against my shoulder. Flipping the selector switch to semi-auto, I sighted the weapon and fired carefully, taking down the closest of my admirers first and carefully placing shots in the heads of each of the remaining creatures. None of them got close to me. The shots echoed loudly against the rock wall but I listened approvingly as they bounced from the rock into the chaos of the alarm. Even the sharpened auditory senses of the creatures wouldn’t be able to hone in on the location of the shots amidst the echoes of the ravine.
 

I lowered the weapon and absently changed the magazine while I scanned the tree line again for signs of Rhi and Ethan. Pulling the coat off completely, I threw it on top of the mask in the ditch next to the road and made my way over the fallen fence and toward the door, continuing to scan the surrounding area carefully, listening for movement as I approached the entrance.

Several high voltage signs had fallen to the ground near the entrance, which was shrouded by a steep overhang. A mossy walkway led from the broken fencing, through the small parking lot, and up to the steel doorway. As Rhi and Ethan had described, the door itself—a thick metal job with visible rivets—sat askew in the frame. Cracks spiderwebbed from the corners of the frame, and on closer inspection, the entire building sat slightly less than plum—the lines off by several degrees. On the side of the door, an old—now dead—card reader sat on a dull, dirty white wall.
 

Beneath the card reader was evidence that I might have arrived too late.

Two sets of footprints led through the mud and the fallen leaves—a larger pair and a smaller—up to the door. They were spaced out oddly, as if the larger pair of feet were staggering, or leaning on the smaller.
 

Bloody handprints and a long, dark streak of liquid blood was smeared on the wall.
 

It was fresh.
 

And there was too much of it.

***

The door swung open easily. Not a good sign, I thought, holding my rifle ready and training it forward, scanning from left to right slowly.
 

A long, dark hallway led straight ahead, further into the center of the dam. The small amount of daylight that streamed through the open door illuminated several closed doors on either side of the hallway, a string of non-functioning fluorescent bulbs running the full length of the corridor, and multiple thick, crumbling cracks in the walls. A thin trickle of water ran along the right hand side of the passage, hugging the wall and draining off somewhere in the distance.
 

And along the right wall, the fresh blood appeared in regular intervals—a hand print here, a streak of smeared red there. A wounded person can come down this hallway recently. Shrugging out of my pack, I dug out the small flashlight that attached to the barrel of the carbine and secured it, checking it once to make sure the batteries were still charged.
 

I slowly pulled the heavy door back in place, lifting it up and jamming it back into the frame. It grated against the concrete with a shriek, but when I pushed at it, it held. Hopefully strong enough to hold back a few of those things at least. I didn’t want to be flanked in these hallways.
 

I hoped those prints were Ethan’s and Rhi’s—otherwise, I might have just sealed them out of the doubtful safety of the shelter.

Swallowing my concern, I moved quickly forward. My footsteps echoed off the confined walls, and the steady sound of dripping and draining water accompanied my approach. The light from the halogen bulb attached to my weapon cast sharp shadows against the far wall as I reached the end of the first hallway.
 

The corridor dead-ended into a set of stairs with a metal hand railing stretching down on the left, and up on the right. A sign to the left of the stairwell read “Operations Center, Second Floor” and below that “Pump Controls, Sub Level 1.” This, of course, didn’t help me one whit. I had no clue where the survivors were supposed to be hiding. I wasn’t supposed to be here alone, after all.

Biting off a curse, I leaned out over the gap in the stairs and shined my light up and then down, scanning for movement or evidence of inhabitation. There was only the sound of dripping water.
 

Still searching for evidence of blood, I chose the left hand stairwell, watching the walls and floor as I descended, light casting more shadows as it passed through the metal wire of the stairwell floor. Below, I thought I heard the sound of something passing through standing water, and I stopped, ears straining to catch another sound. Nothing.

I listened for a full minute, keeping my light still and my breathing slow.
 

Still nothing.

As I lifted me left foot, preparing to turn and go up to look for blood on the upward stairwell, I heard it again. Faint and quiet, but definitely movement.
 

I’ll take door number one.

Discarding caution in favor of urgency, I took the stairs two at a time until I reached the next floor, a single hallway extending further into the dam itself. Orienting myself, I realized that this corridor would likely run directly into the center of the span, underneath the roadway and toward the pumps and other machinery.

I played my light against the walls briefly, but saw no movement. I had to follow the sound.

Taking the stairs quickly again, I went down two more floors until I found the flooded area. The stairs had taken me down as far as they went, and the bottom floor was nearly eight inches deep in water. In the far distance—deeper inside the dam—I could hear the very clear sound of rushing water. Nearest the stairs, I saw a vending machine and a small water cooler, both empty. The vending machine’s front was hanging crookedly at an angle, and I nodded once to myself.
 

I was on the right path. These had both been raided. I must be getting closer to people.

The corridor extended deep into the dam, stretching out and curving slightly to the right, keeping the visibility low, to about thirty feet.
 

Then I caught the sound again. I angled the light toward the bend, trying to catch a sight of the person or thing making the noise, but nothing was there.
 

High above, the sudden clamor of a heavy metal door being swung open echoed in the confined space.
 

So that lasted a full ten minutes, did it?

I hoped that it was Ethan and Rhi, but in my heart I suspected otherwise. Somehow those things had found me.
 

Playing the light against the walls and staying to the side of the passage, I moved carefully past the first open door to my left, scanning it quickly and taking in the machinery before continuing on. The entire complex on these levels appeared to be mechanical. Pipes and conduits ran the length of the ceiling, and large industrial instruction posters lined the walls. Doorways were marked obscurely with rooms like “PumpLock12E” and “GravFeedGH.”

I could have been in a gynecologist’s office for all I knew. Everything looked foreign and difficult to understand, much less control or manipulate.
 

The sound of movement in the water hit my ears again, and I turned quickly, scanning the hallway again.

This time it was closer.
 

But how was that possible?