Everyone sat on the floor in a circle, with the lantern in the middle. Silent arguments were held: a flurry of expressions and arm and hand motions. Rose was clearly frustrated, unable to sign as quickly as the others, forced to spell out certain words due to her inability to use their proper signs. It often resulted in others ‘talking’ over her. Larson’s injured hand also tired quickly, compensating for the missing finger that restricted some of what he could say.
Claire didn’t follow much of the debate, which was generally between staying put or fighting their way out. She was ready to do either, and accepted that she had the least amount of experience in the group. She looked at the mouldy boxes and wondered if she should look inside them. They were the only things left, so they probably contained nothing but the most useless of items. Whatever scavengers had been there earlier, whether another team from their own community or complete strangers, they had been very thorough. Claire wasn’t sure why her eyes eventually drifted upward, but it was good for everyone that they did.
Snatching the lantern from the middle of the ring caused all eyes to turn immediately to Claire. She ignored them as she rotated the light in order to see the ceiling better. There, in the corner, mostly hidden by a shelf with an old box on it, was what appeared to be an attic access hatch. Having followed Claire’s gaze, everyone else saw it too. After looking around at one another and shrugging, they decided to investigate. It was likely just another dead end, but it was something.
Because they were unsure of the strength or stability of the shelving unit, Claire was sent up first, being the lightest and having plenty of experience with climbing. Back at the Black Box, she often scaled the crane they used as a lookout point, spending hours strapped into one of the seats they had installed along its arm. Compared to that, the shelf was nothing.
Half the box under the hatch all but disintegrated when Claire attempted to push it sideways. More of what was in her way ended up flattened as opposed to being moved aside. Crunching herself up on the highest shelf, Claire used her whole body to push up on the panel of wood that covered the attic access. For a few seconds, she thought that it was sealed in some way, that it would be impossible to find out what was beyond it, but then the panel gave way with a sudden pop that nearly caused her to lose her balance.
Everyone stood perfectly still, wondering if those out front had heard anything. After a couple of seconds without the glass being shattered, Claire placed the piece of plywood down to one side, and then Danny handed her a flashlight.
Shining the weak beam of light around the space, Claire saw there wasn’t much. The underside of the roof was low. Insulation puffed up between the rafters of the break room’s ceiling. She could make out the walls that made up the corner she was in, but the rest were beyond sight. Claire crouched back down and relayed what little she had seen. More silent discussions were had, although this time they were short-lived. They wanted Claire to explore more of the space if she were willing.
By wearing gloves and tying a scarf around her neck and lower face, Claire should be able to avoid touching the insulation. She hauled herself up into the attic, keeping the flashlight close at hand, and set out. She knew to keep her weight on the rafters, and not trust the strength of whatever was between them. In a manner that wasn’t too dissimilar to the way she had crawled down the hallway, she explored the narrow area she had found. At least this time she didn’t have a pack to worry about: her gear was left behind with the others.
Much of her exploration was proving unhelpful. The building stood by itself, so there wasn’t another to sneak into. The ceiling above her was the roof, and there weren’t any more hatches that she could see.
It was creepy up there. Only small patches were revealed by the weak flashlight, leaving the rest in darkness. It was all too easy to imagine that she wasn’t alone up there. Every time she came across a particularly large puff of insulation, she kept expecting to find something on the far side of it. What that something might be, she was never very sure, but even if it were an innocent sheet of forgotten paper, it would probably freak her out enough to cause a hasty retreat back to the break room. But there was never anything. It seemed that no one had been up there since the place’s construction, and none of the workers had forgotten any tools or other items.
Claire was thinking of giving up. She was frightened, and so far this was looking like just a lot of wasted effort. But then her light caught something along the wall she was following. A faint metal flash had her wiggling forward a little faster. There was some sort of panel along the wall, and when she pushed at it, slats creaked open a tiny amount, letting in small slivers of sunlight. It was some sort of ventilation grate. Claire jabbed harder at the slats, which hadn’t been moved in a very long time. They protested, but eventually opened further, allowing in even more light. Pressing her eye up to one of the gaps, Claire could see a little bit of the outside.
Mentally mapping her progress through the ceiling space, Claire figured she was along the side wall, opposite the one the break room was situated against. Studying the size of the vent, she thought she might be able to fit through the opening once it was removed. She couldn’t remember who had told her, but she had heard that if your head could fit through something, the rest of you could too. Of course, that could require some painful twisting, crunching, and compression in order to fit, but Claire thought the opening would be a little larger than her head, leaving her enough space for minimal squeezing.
Claire looked behind her, desperately wanting to go straight back to the break room, but she knew she should explore the rest of the ceiling space first. If there was something even better than the ventilation grate, she needed to know about it. Setting off again, she found her situation less terrifying. The knowledge that she had located something of interest, and that touch of sunlight—as weak as it was—had eased her thoughts.
Eventually, after finding nothing else up there, Claire happily made her way back to the break room. After sliding back out of the opening and crouching down on the shelf, she saw that the others had eaten a light breakfast while she had been gone.
Danny? she asked, noticing his absence.
Bathroom, was Jon’s simple answer.
There was unlikely to be anything of interest or use in there, so he was probably using the bathroom for its intended purpose. Some of the others had likely gone too, meaning it would not smell very pleasant. Claire was glad that her own bladder had gone dormant from the stress. While they waited for Danny to return, Claire was handed her portion of the breakfast they had decided on, and ate it sitting on top of the shelving unit. She was informed that the shadows were still outside the windows.
Once the team was all present and accounted for, Claire told them about what she had found, including the fact that she might be able to fit through and get outside if the grate were removed. Jon asked if she thought the rest of them could fit through, but Claire had to admit that she doubted it. Maybe Rose could, but it was unlikely any of the guys would be able to get through, not even Larson who was the lankiest of them. It was decided that Claire and Rose had to try to get out, to see what was lingering in front of the store.
Claire waited, surrounded by the insulation, as Rose clambered up, followed by Larson. Even though Claire was quite certain he wouldn’t fit, they needed someone to relay messages should it prove impossible for Claire and Rose to get back inside. All three of them had been given what tools the group had brought, which were now dispersed among their pockets for carrying.
Back at the ventilation grate, the three of them set to work. Removing the inner plate proved fairly easy, since it was held on by some nuts, for which they had the correct size of wrench. The outer plate was more difficult. They could get at the back of the bolts holding it on easily enough, but the heads of them were out of reach, the slats too narrow for more than a pinky finger to be wedged between them. Of the four bolts, only one was easy to remove. Rose simply pushed it out, using a screwdriver to po
ke it the rest of the way once it was within the wall. They heard it clatter down on the pavement below, all three of them wincing. They waited, but no footsteps or shuffling groans came to investigate. The rest of the bolts took more work. They were wiggled and turned back and forth in an effort to loosen the wood’s hold on them. Claire even tried chipping at the wood a bit, but it was thick and it would take a long time to cut out the bolts. Larson eventually crawled back to the break room to get some sticky blue tack he thought Bryce had packed. He had, and by sticking a gob on the end of a screwdriver, they were able to unscrew the bolts, albeit painfully slowly.
A second bolt, and then a third clattered to the pavement below. Each time, the three up in the attic space paused to listen. The last bolt, along the bottom, they left on. It turned out they could use it to hold the outer plate after they had popped it out of the opening. If the grate had fallen, it would’ve been a lot louder than the bolts. All three of them took turns peering out at the section of parking lot that was below and at the other nearby buildings. Larson tested to see if he could fit, but decided the opening was too small, that it would be far too painful to try to get through it.
It was decided that Claire would exit first. She had to remove her belt in order for her waist to wriggle through the opening. Larson held her arms, lowering her as much as he was able. With his arms filling the opening, and his head jammed up against the wall, he couldn’t see Claire and had to trust that she was ready to be dropped when he let go.
Claire landed lightly on her feet, the slight crunch of leaves and pebbles putting her on the alert. After a speedy scan of the area, she reached up to receive her belt and, more importantly, her knife.
Rose took a little more time getting through the opening, as her hips were slightly wider. Claire waited, knife in hand. Once Rose was on her feet, and her hammer passed down to her, the two young women headed toward the front of the building. They stuck close to the wall, pausing as they reached the corner.
Claire looked back at Rose, who nodded that she was ready. Holding her breath, Claire peered around the corner. The air in her lungs escaped with a whoosh as she immediately became confused. She stepped around the corner. Rose followed her, fearing the worst.
“Mannequins?” Rose spoke as soon as she registered the same thing that Claire was seeing. “Why…?”
“Go tell Larson. I’ll let the others know.”
Rose didn’t leave right away, she walked with Claire to the door and made sure that all the figures were indeed mannequins and not just someone posing as one. The lack of clothing on all of them made it pretty obvious, but both Claire and Rose were unnerved.
Claire stepped in through the door.
“Hey, guys,” she called, knowing she didn’t have to raise her voice very much. “It’s safe.”
“What the fuck?” Jon shouted once he was outside and saw the mannequins for himself.
“Someone must have seen us go in there last night and decided to be funny,” Bryce suggested.
“Do you know how much time we’ve wasted?” Jon was pissed. He lashed out at one of the mannequins, booting it in the stomach. It sailed out into the road where it landed with a clatter, its head and arms popping off on impact.
After how silent they had been all morning, this felt like entirely too much noise.
“They might still be watching us,” Larson pointed out, clearly trying to get Jon to calm down.
Instead of shouting again, he raised both of his middle fingers and pointed them in all directions for the benefit of anyone watching.
“No one we know would do this. There must be strangers in the area,” Danny observed. “Should we head back to the container yard and warn them?”
That was a serious question. Heading back again, this time without food, would feel like an even greater loss of time. And while setting up the mannequins had been a cruel joke, it wasn’t as if they had been attacked or were in any danger. If they were still being watched, they could have all been shot by now, but hadn’t been. This whole thing might have been to study their reaction, or a way to keep them inside while the person or people who set up the mannequins moved out of the area.
“Rose and Claire should go back while the rest of us go on,” Jon said.
“What? Hell no,” Rose told him. “We’ll all keep goin’ together. They might want one of us to head back to camp so that they can follow us.”
“And if we split up, both parties are in more danger,” Bryce sided with her. “This was annoying, but they didn’t try to harm the six of us. In smaller teams, that might not remain true.”
Jon pushed over another mannequin, annoyed with the whole situation.
“Come on, let’s stop wasting more time with these things and get going.” Danny started walking, prompting everyone else to follow. “Besides, a few of the dead have been drawn to the noise.” There were only two zombies coming, and they were both so mutilated that they could barely walk.
Rose and Claire slung their packs onto their backs; Danny had brought them out. The zombies in their way were easily dispatched.
***
They had travelled the rest of the day, but couldn’t make up for the time wasted that morning, and so hadn’t quite reached the area they were to search. The only time they stopped, was to go behind a house where it was known that a small vegetable garden once grew. It had been a planned stop, for the garden had gone wild, and sometimes edibles could be found there. They took only what was ripe, leaving the rest to grow again the following year.
“This time we pick a place that we know has two exits,” Jon said as the sky turned from pink to purple.
They agreed upon a particular bungalow. Not only were there front and back doors, but the bedroom windows could all be opened and were large enough for everyone to be able to escape. They could also see clearly through the glass should it turn out that they were followed by the mischief maker. Unless the place was completely surrounded by hostile forces in the night, they would be all right.
They set up their sleeping rolls in the hallway, where they were out of sight from all windows and had quick access to several rooms. They also set up a watch rotation, which they should have done the night before, but had been too arrogant, figuring that the light sleepers would have been woken up by anything coming in or banging on the glass. Each of them was to spend an hour and twenty minutes watching over the others during the night, covering an eight hour window. Claire took the first watch, too alert to sleep.
It was strange being the only one awake. She sat at the end of the hallway that opened up to the living room, where there was the most light coming in from the moon and stars. They had closed all the doorways along the length of the hall, so that the sleepers beside her were in darkness. It was a very lonely feeling. She was glad that Bryce was the one nearest to her, because he breathed quite audibly in his sleep. It wasn’t quite a snore, but it let her know that he was alive and close at hand. It also helped cover the ticking of their shared pocket watch, which threatened to drive her mad.
It was hard not to peek around the corner and out the living room window every five seconds. Claire glanced out on occasion, sometimes leaning even farther to see through the kitchen entrance, and out the sliding glass door at the back of it, but mostly she resisted. If the dead were to shuffle by, she didn’t want to be spotted by them.
With nothing to do, the hour dragged by, and the twenty minutes seemed to pass even slower. As nothing continued to happen, Claire began to find herself growing sleepy, the day’s exertions catching up with her. She stayed awake though, pinching her skin any time she thought there was even the remotest chance of nodding off.
When her time was up, Claire carefully stepped past her sleeping friends to where her bedroll was positioned at the end of the hall. She gently shook Jon’s shoulder, waking him up for the next guard rotation and handing him the watch. He groaned softly, clearly still tired, but he got up to do his job.
As Claire settled down to
sleep, she was glad he had taken the time slot after hers. Knowing that he was watching over everyone made it easier for Claire to fall asleep. It wasn’t as deep a rest as she hoped to get, however.
All night, every time the guard was changed, Claire woke up for a moment or two. Her senses remained alert, so that nearby noise, even someone trying to quietly get up or lie down, caused her to waken. Jon rolling over at one point beside her, also caused her to wake up for a few seconds. She guessed this was why those with experience hadn’t wanted to set up a guard rotation the night before. No one slept well.
When morning finally came, Bryce, who had taken the last shift, didn’t wake anyone up, but let them sleep as long as they wanted. It wasn’t for much longer than his time slot. The sunlight highlighted the early hour whenever they partially awoke. Once Larson decided to get up, they all did.
“Is there a water source near where we’ll be searchin’?” Rose asked as they packed up their gear.
Jon said that there was.
“We’ll need to boil more water once we settle on a base camp.”
Their equipment wasn’t as sophisticated as the setup used in the container yard, meaning steam would be wasted and it would take longer to refill their containers. They would also need to find firewood, but that shouldn’t be too hard. Many buildings had things to burn if you didn’t care about keeping them intact.
They searched the house before leaving, as it seemed this place hadn’t been picked clean. Claire and Larson each took a small pile of towels from the linen closet, and everyone took a pillowcase to use as an overflow sack. Food was the priority, but there were other things the container yard could use more of. Had they a cart, they would have taken all the linens, including the dusty bedspreads. Whatever fabric wasn’t used for its intended purpose, could be turned into clothing or used as patches. Jon made sure to note the location of this place so that another team could return in the future.
Survival Instinct (Book 5): Social Instinct Page 15
