Klein’s right. This is a game. Someone’s playing with us.
No, not playing. Toying with us.
Emily gritted her teeth. She didn’t like to be toyed with. Not one goddamn bit. But for now, she had to play. For now...
She had expected other doors leading to more rooms farther up the hallway, but was surprised to find none. There were indentations that had, from afar, appeared to be doors, but on closer inspection, were not. Either they were the only room in the entire place, or…
Someone’s toying with us. We’re being played.
This had all the makings of an elaborate setup. The whole strangers-in-a-room; a long, dark hallway; and nothing. A big, fat nothing. She was still thinking about what had happened to Klein. He’d survived the origins of the infection and yet became infected. Why? How?
So many questions. She had so many questions.
After about five minutes of walking, she still hadn’t encountered another door. Nothing to her right or left, at her feet and above. And Emily looked hard at the walls, too, still expecting to find something that resembled the creases of a door similar to the one that had opened to let them out. Something, anything to signal that they weren’t the only ones here.
But was that what she actually wanted? Did she really want there to be other prisoners besides them? It would be nice to know they weren’t the only ones there, the only playmates to whoever was behind this. Then again, more people meant more potential threats. She didn’t fancy the latter at all.
“Hey, guys?” Jeff, behind her.
Emily stopped and turned around. The teenager was standing just a few feet away and staring at her. Belinda was a good two or three yards behind him. Emily thought about telling her to make up the difference but decided it didn’t matter. If things went south, she didn’t need—or want—the other woman either right next to her or in her way. It was a cold, calculating decision, but she had to do it. She was fighting for more than just her own life.
“What?” Emily said.
“Should we go back?” Jeff asked.
“Back where?” Belinda said.
“Back to the room.”
“You can,” Emily said. “But I’m not.”
“But there’s nothing up there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We’ve been walking for ages.”
“It’s only been a few minutes, Jeff,” Belinda said. There was just a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“Feels longer,” the kid said.
“Well, it’s not.”
“I know. That’s why I said it feels longer. See the diff?”
“No.”
“Well, there is.”
“Go,” Emily said. She was getting sick of Jeff and, unlike Belinda, didn’t try to hide it. “You’d be safer with Stacy and Fisher.”
“You think so?” Jeff asked, apparently just as clueless when it came to detecting sarcasm as he did everything else.
“Sure,” Emily said, and turned to go.
“Hey,” Jeff said.
She ignored him and kept walking.
“Hey, come on,” Jeff said. “Let’s talk about this.”
She didn’t stop to talk about this. A part of her was glad to be rid of the kid. Except for the pen, he hadn’t really been very useful.
Heavy footsteps behind her.
Emily looked back and was surprised to see Belinda jogging after her. It must have been a while since the other woman had to exert so much effort, because she was already out of breath despite the short distance.
“Wait for me,” Belinda was saying.
“Oh, man,” Jeff said, before he, too, jogged over to rejoin them.
Emily sighed. And here she thought she was going to be rid of the kid. Or, importantly to her mental state, rid of his mouth.
“From now on, shut up,” she said to them, but mostly to Jeff.
The teenager opened his mouth to respond, but caught himself and just nodded instead.
Belinda didn’t say anything, either because she thought Emily’s comment was meant for her, too, or she just didn’t have anything to say.
Emily turned back around and continued walking.
And walked…and walked.
A minute later, and the hallway hadn’t ended.
Five minutes later, and it was the same.
Ten…
Twenty…
“How long have we been walking?” Jeff finally asked. Emily wasn’t sure what was more surprising—that the kid had gone against her command for him to shut up or that it’d take him this long to do it.
“Twenty minutes, at least,” Belinda said.
“Twenty minutes?” Jeff said. “Feels like an hour.”
“It hasn’t been an hour.”
“Again, that’s why I said feels like an hour.”
Emily pictured Belinda rolling her eyes somewhere behind her, but didn’t glance back to confirm. She walked on instead, because at this point, what else was she going to do?
The hallway continued, as did the walls to the left and right of her. The lights, as well, remained spaced out every 10 yards or so, its humming the only other sound other than their footsteps and breathing.
“I wonder what Stacy’s doing now,” Jeff said. Emily wasn’t sure who he was talking to—Belinda or her, or himself. Or maybe he was just talking for the sake of talking.
“Shhh,” Belinda said.
“Why?”
“Just shhh.”
“That’s rude.”
“Jeff.”
“Yes?”
“Can you be quiet for more than two minutes at a time?”
“That’s a silly question. I was quiet for way more than just two minutes before—”
The sound of machinery whirring, followed by blinding white light in front of them—from somewhere farther up the hallway, though Emily couldn’t tell how much farther—finally shut Jeff up.
So that’s what it takes?
Even as she thought that, she’d reached back and snatched the pen from her pocket and had clicked the fine point out of its housing. She palmed the writing instrument so it was hidden, with the back of her palm facing the blinding white light and whoever might be on the other side.
Here we go…
She lifted her other hand to shield her eyes even as she heard Belinda and Jeff scrambling against the hard floor behind her. She wasn’t sure where they were going or what they were doing, but they were really being loud about it. Or maybe that was just her senses running on overdrive as they sensed danger.
The whirring noise was the result of metal gears grinding against one another. Something, somewhere in front of her, in that pool of white light, was moving. Had it always been in front of her? If so, how had she missed it? From what she could tell, whatever it was, it couldn’t have been more than ten, maybe less than that, yards ahead.
How did I miss that? How did I miss that?
She was still trying to figure that out when the light began to dissipate.
Emily palmed the pen tighter, ready to make use of it for all it was worth. She was again reminded that it wasn’t much of a weapon, that in terms of lethality, it didn’t have much to it. But then again, neither had Paul’s eyeglasses, and she’d made pretty goddamn good use of those. By comparison, a pen with a sharp point was an upgrade.
Or, at least, that’s what she told herself.
And it worked to boost her confidence.
A little.
Slowly, very slowly, she could see again. Except all there was to see was a glowing, rectangular—
Opening.
Another opening in the shape of a door.
The machinery she’d heard whirring was this thing in front of her. There hadn’t been anything before that. Had it just blinked into existence?
She straightened up—she’d went down into a slight crouch without realizing it—and could hear Jeff and Belinda doing the same behind her. They were breathing hard, just like she was, anticipating w
hat was to come next.
Here we go…
“Where’d that come from?” Jeff asked.
Emily didn’t bother answering him.
“I think I’m blind,” Jeff said. “Anyone else blind?”
“Shhh,” Belinda said.
“Okay, okay. Geez.”
Emily ignored their back-and-forth and began walking toward the opening. It couldn’t have been more than twenty yards in front of her, though it seemed farther somehow.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Jeff called after her. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to walk toward the light?”
Emily didn’t reply. He wasn’t wrong. Walking toward an opening that had appeared out of nowhere was a very bad idea. The smarter move would be to turn and run back to the room where she’d woken up. They were mice in a maze, being led around by an unseen hand.
But that was the problem. The mice could stay where it was and not play the game, but it would also not find the cheese. And if it didn’t find the cheese, it would starve to death.
Emily had no intentions of starving to death.
And she sure as hell wasn’t going to make her unborn child suffer the same fate.
So she kept moving toward the light, steeling herself for what she’d find on the other side. Knowing that this was the game—this was the plan of whoever was behind this—and yet, and yet, unable to stop herself from playing it.
Because she had to find out. And to do that, she had to play the game to the very end. If only Cole was with her. All of this would be so different.
If only Cole was with her…
Cole, where are you? I need you right now, sweetheart. I need you in the worst way. So where the hell are you?
Cole
Chapter Nine
“Is he dead?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. He’s just hurt.”
“He looks more than ‘just hurt.’ He looks dead.”
“Well, he’s not, so stop saying it.”
“I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking.”
“No, you’re not. No one’s thinking that. Right? Right?”
He wasn’t dead, but he wished he were. No, that wasn’t true. He didn’t wish he were dead, because a dead man couldn’t throw himself into the joys of fatherhood. Which was something Cole didn’t think he’d ever get the chance to do, but here he was…
…which was where, exactly?
Dead. Not dead. Somewhere in-between.
Bleeding a hell of a lot, that was for sure.
“Tell us something we don’t already know, chum,” the Voice said.
The Voice. The goddamn voice. Even in near-death, Cole couldn’t rid himself of the nuisance.
It laughed. “Now you’re just being mean. Face it; you like me.”
No, I don’t.
“You need me.”
No, I don’t.
“Then why am I still here?”
He didn’t answer.
“What’s the matter? Truth got your tongue?”
Oh, fuck off.
The Voice laughed because it could afford to. It was entirely in his mind. If Cole were to try to laugh like that, he would probably lose a few extra pints of blood. That was something he couldn’t afford right now. Heck, he couldn’t even give up a pint.
Half a pint.
Less.
Way, way less.
“Just lay back and let them do all the work, chum,” the Voice said. “It’s not like you have a choice anyway.”
The Voice wasn’t wrong about that last one.
“Just the last one?” it said in response, somehow managing to both laugh and snort at the same time. But of course it could do that. It didn’t really exist, after all, and if it didn’t really exist, then it didn’t have a corporeal tongue that had to obey the laws of the universe.
“Someone’s going off the deep end,” the Voice said.
You?
“Do you think it’s me? Or you?”
Let me think about it.
“Don’t think too long, chum. You’re already hanging on by a thread. And that thread is getting weaker and slimmer and thinner by the second.”
The Voice. The stupid voice.
But damn if it wasn’t right.
He drifted in and out of consciousness, never quite sure where he was or who were hovering over him, or talking. The voices were familiar, but he couldn’t always place them. They often overlapped, too many people trying to get a sentence in but never letting each other finish. Or, at least, that’s what it sounded like. He could have been wrong.
He probably was wrong.
Reality was elusive, and Cole spent as much time trying not to cough up blood as he did staying awake. After a while, he realized it was just better not to try either things and let the blackness come.
The Voice, unfortunately, refused to leave him alone even then.
“You’re really hurting my feelings now,” it said.
Bullshit.
“I have feelings, too, you know.”
No, you don’t. You don’t even exist.
“Now that’s just mean!”
Oh, shut up and die.
“You first,” it said, laughing uncontrollably.
Voices.
More voices.
Not the Voice, but others. Too many for him to pick through. All he knew was that none of them were Emily’s.
What happened to Emily?
Where was she?
How did he fail her so badly?
“Being mostly dead didn’t help,” the Voice said.
Shut up.
“Why?”
I’m trying to think.
“You’re doing a lousy job of it.”
I said shut up.
The Voice laughed, but it did shut up. For a while, anyway.
Cole used the momentary respite to focus on the faces gathered around him. He was lying down on something soft. Maybe a mattress. Or blankets. Or clothes. The what didn’t really matter, just the softness of the material underneath him.
He was still bleeding, but not bleeding out. That was good. Bleeding out was bad. Really bad.
“Master of understatement, this guy.”
I thought I told you to shut up?
“You say lots. I don’t always listen.”
It didn’t feel like he was bleeding out anyway, but he could have been wrong. After all, it wasn’t like he could turn his head or even look down at the rest of his body. He was stuck staring up, because turning in any other direction hurt too much.
“That’s a bad sign.”
You’re a bad sign.
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
Sure it does. It’s you that doesn’t make sense.
“I beg to differ. I make perfect sense.”
Faces came and went. Some soft, others hard. Black hair. Blond hair. Oval shaped. Square. Light, pale skin. Dark skin. Sharp nose. Squatty nose.
And voices. The voices continued.
Talking.
About him.
About Emily…
“You need to stop the whole fading in and out routine, chum. One of these times, you might not wake up again.”
That’s not going to happen.
“And why is that?”
Because I need to stay alive. I need to find Emily.
“Why don’t you try making the first part happen first.”
I need to find Emily…
“You’re a broken record.”
…need to find Emily…
The Voice sighed. “It’s like talking to a wall. Only less constructive.”
So stop.
“I can’t.”
Why not?
“Because you need me to.”
Do I?
“Yes.”
I don’t believe that.
“You don’t believe a lot of things, but that doesn’t make them less true.”
“I can’t believe he’s still alive. He’s
lost so much blood.” Zoe. That sounded like Zoe.
“Never underestimate a man’s stubbornness when there’s a woman involved.” Bolton. He was sure of that. The gruff voice couldn’t have belonged to anyone other than the chopper pilot.
“I think it’s more than that, old timer.” Dante. The kid.
“What else is there?”
This one was harder to pinpoint. Male. Was it Greg? No, not Greg. Greg was dead. Cole had seen his body as he was running out of the warehouse after Emily.
…running out of the warehouse after Emily…
“Emily!”
He sat up. Or tried to. He might have made it, if large and calloused hands didn’t grab him and push him back down against his will. He resisted. Or tried to. It wasn’t a fair fight whatsoever.
“Whoa there, son, you’re gonna pop your stitches.” Bolton, hovering over him, more facial hair than Cole remembered.
There was a second figure next to him. Not Dante or Greg, but a stranger. One wearing Army BDUs. Twenties. A crew cut. Cole searched for a name tag on the man’s front chest, but couldn’t locate one. Clearly a soldier, once upon a time, but perhaps not anymore.
“Do what the old man says,” the ex-soldier said. He glanced back. “Doc. He popped a couple of stitches.”
“I told you, I’m not a doctor.” Zoe, appearing between Bolton and the soldier. She looked haggard, blonde hair wrapped tightly in a severe ponytail behind her. Her hands were speckled with red paint.
No, not paint.
Blood.
His blood, in all likelihood.
“I thought you were a doctor,” the soldier said to Zoe.
“I’m not,” Zoe said.
“You put him together pretty good for a civilian.”
“I’m lucky I didn’t end up killing him.”
“Well, that’s disheartening,” the Voice said as it laughed.
No shit.
So it was Zoe that had been taking care of him. He would have preferred Emily, who had actual military training, but as the saying went, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Fall of Man | Book 4 | The Tide Page 7
