“I’m Rex. Is this all the help you have?”
“Yes.” She looked around. “Where’s the other driver?”
“Jack’s sick. He’s resting in his truck.” He scowled at her and the cadets. “Shit. There’s no way we’re getting out of here tonight.”
“These young men are some of the brightest, most ambitious people in the country.” She sent him a glare then climbed the stairs to the dock. “If you’ll get one of the trucks backed up, we’ll get you out of here as fast as we can.”
Rex stomped toward the cab of Jack’s truck and banged on the door. A few seconds later it rolled forward then began to back toward the dock. Grace keyed in the code to unlock the steel overhead door of the freight elevator, pushed it up then keyed in the code to open the elevator doors. They slid aside and she and the cadets stepped inside. She pressed the down button then turned around and pointed at the doors behind them. “We enter the storage area through those doors.”
They turned as the elevator stopped and the doors opened, revealing another steel overhead door. Grace keyed in the entry code and then pulled the door up. “This is the storage room. The forklift is parked over there.” She pointed to a corner. “It's electric and should be charged.”
“I’ve operated one like this before,” Luke said. He started it, then drove it onto the elevator.
Grace rode up with him. When the doors opened, Jack’s truck was already backed up to the dock. Its door was up, revealing a full load of plastic wrapped pallets.
“Is all this for us?” Grace asked.
“Yup,” Rex answered. “The produce is in the back. The frozen goods up front. Let me know when you’re done.” He walked to his truck, leaned against it and lit another cigarette.
Luke maneuvered the forklift into place and picked up the first pallet of plastic wrapped cases. Turning, he drove onto the elevator and they took it to the lower level where she had him leave it in front of the walk-in refrigerated unit.
“I’m going to put a cobbler in the oven in the shelter galley, and then help Neal and Mark unwrap boxes and organize them,” Grace said to Luke. “If you run into any problems up there let me know.”
Luke smiled. “I’ve got this.” Smiling, he drove away and disappeared into the elevator.
Two hours later the cobbler was cooling and the last of the produce and frozen goods were in their respective storage areas. Grace rode up with Luke so she could thank Jack. When she arrived on the dock he was already driving away and Rex was backing his truck into place. He climbed out and stayed by the cab, watching her and Luke while he smoked.
Luke shrugged and opened the back of the truck. He climbed back onto the forklift and got back to moving pallets.
Grace rode down with him and he reassured her that he could handle Rex. He dropped the first load, and she used a box knife to cut the plastic wrapper around the cases. Neal and Mark shooed her away, insisting that they would do the heavy work and put the cases of canned and boxed foods where she wanted them.
Luke made trip after trip. Finally, an hour and a half later he dropped the last pallet. “Ms. Walker, Rex is waiting for you to sign the invoice.”
“Thanks, Luke. I’ll be right back but you guys can help yourselves to cobbler and ice cream. I set it out on the buffet in the dining hall.” She pointed to another open door as she headed toward the elevator. As soon as she stepped out, Rex held up the electronic invoice. She took it and barely had time to scribble her name before he snatched it out of her hands, hurried to his cab and drove away.
“Nice doing business with you too,” she said, as the snow began coming down faster. She looked at her car and decided to park it in the faculty only parking garage. With any luck Mr. Edgar would never know she’d used it. She grabbed her suitcase, placed it on the elevator before closing the sliding doors and getting back into her car. At the garage she left her headlights on as she jumped out, pushed the door up and pulled inside.
Parking, she reached for her purse then remembered it was on the floor. Holding her keys in one hand she slid out of the car and walked around it, intending to open the passenger door and gather her belongings. As she reached the back of the car, the sound of clicking and rotten fruit reached her. Debating whether to get back in the car or run, she turned on the small flashlight attached to her keys and swept it across the darkness at the far end of the building.
The bright LED beam lit up a figure in the corner. It covered its eyes and let out a shrill screech. Goosebumps covered her arms. It moved toward her and she ran. The first step out of the garage her foot slipped on the snow and dropped the keys. Terrified, and doubting she could outrun this thing, she grabbed the overhead door and jerked it down. It hit the ground just as the creature landed against it on the other side. The entire door shook and bent outward. She ran, taking a shortcut across the grass with her instincts urging her to get to the safety of the shelter beneath the cafeteria.
The snow thickened, blinding her. She ran into something. Hands grabbed her and held on. She fought to be free while other bodies pressed up against her, surrounding and trapping her. She’d been taught not to scream when startled but opened her mouth to do just that when a hand covered it, muffling the sound.
“Ms. Walker, stop, stop.”
The sound of John Martinez’s voice broke through her terror although his Spanish accent was heavier than usual. Shaking, she nodded. His eyes were solemn, his face tight with nerves. She squinted her eyes against the blowing snow. “Damn it, you scared the hell out of me. What are you doing out here? It’s not safe.” She kept her voice low as she reprimanded him.
John glanced around then leaned down the few inches that separated them. “Is Luke still at the cafeteria with Neal and Mark?”
“Yes, and we need to get there. Something attacked me in the faculty parking garage.”
“Something attacked the dorm, too. We need to be quiet and keep moving.”
The dim light of a nearby lamp post lit up the area around them. Grace recognized Luke’s younger sister, petite, blonde haired Megan Matthews, and her best friend, Sherry Jones, as well as another taller freshman, Susan Johnston. Two senior cadets, Stephan Greco and Damien Moretti stood at the back of the group, guarding them. They towered over the shorter members of the group, and could have been twins with their Mediterranean good looks—dark hair, Grecian blue eyes, and finely sculpted features.
The other cadets crowded close. Their faces pale and scared in the dim light. They carried baseball bats or hockey sticks, but none wore coats telling her how quickly they’d left the dorm.
Afraid to speak and draw attention to them she beckoned to them and led the way.
They bunched together and moved silently, leaving plenty of room between them and the deep shadows beneath the trees. The cadets, usually a loud and talkative bunch when the instructors weren’t around, didn’t speak as they moved. Their silence more than anything told Grace how truly scared they were and that with every second that passed time was running out for them.
They’d reached the library when eerily shrill howls echoed around them. The group froze and several of the younger cadets began to cry. They were hushed while John, Stephan and Damien urged everyone to keep moving. The cadets at the back ignored them and ran. Most of them scattered into the trees but four ran into the library.
“I’ll go after the ones in the library,” Stephan said.
“I’ll go with you.” Damien sent a signal to John. “We’ll catch up to you but if we can’t we’ll barricade ourselves in the reference room. I know the entry code.”
John bumped his fist then grabbed Megan’s and Sherry’s hands and pulled them in the direction of the dock.
Grace grabbed Susan’s hand and ran with her. They’d only gone a hundred meters when something charged out of the shadows and tackled Susan to the ground. Grace grabbed the hockey stick Susan dropped and attacked the creature, hitting it so hard it rolled away. In a blur, it attacked again. Grace hit it over an
d over. It swiped at her legs but she jumped out of the way and kept hitting it. Several more creatures ran out of the shadows swarming Susan, biting and clawing at her, tearing away large pieces of her flesh. Blood sprayed into the air, turning the snow pink as Susan’s screams joined the screams of the cadets who’d fled into the trees.
John grabbed Grace’s arm and dragged her away. “It’s too late. You can’t save her.”
She struggled to break free and return to Susan, but in her heart she knew it was too late. She allowed him to push her to the front. He grabbed Megan’s and Sherry’s hands, forcing them to keep up with him. The cadets’ screams of pain and the howls of the creatures’ rage came from the woods increasing their terror
At the dock, she opened the sliding doors and waved John, Megan and Sherry into the elevator ahead of her. Looking back, she saw the creatures were only a few meters from reaching them. The smell that accompanied them and the clicking, popping sounds they made terrified her in a way she never experienced before.
The largest one, the one that had attacked Susan clambered onto the far end of the dock. Beneath the lights its skin was pale with thick blue veins snaking over it. Its mouth was round, puckered and covered in blood. When it howled, it exposed circular rows of sharp jagged teeth. It skittered toward them, its joints clicking with every step and its mouth making a sickening popping sound as it opened and closed.
Mesmerized by its strangeness, she fumbled for the pad and keyed in the code. The steel door began to descend. The creature glanced up. She saw rage in its eyes when it looked back at her. It sped up, scurrying toward them. She instinctively moved back, her arms out to either side, forcing the cadets to move back until they bumped into the wall.
“Come on, come on, close,” Grace chanted, as if her words could make the door drop faster. Megan screamed when the creature leapt the last two meters toward them. John pushed passed her, grabbed the door and using all his weight and strength he forced it down. The lower edge locked into the groove at the bottom of the frame, sealing it just as the creature crashed into it.
Everyone screamed, including Grace. She collapsed against the wall, her head down, her heart beating out of control. The sound of scratching and banging came from the other side of the door. “What the hell are those things?” she asked, her voice shrill and filled with the hysteria she didn’t even try to control.
John tried to close the sliding doors. “How do I close these?”
Grace keyed in the code. They closed, and she pressed the down arrow. A few seconds later they reached the lower floor and the doors behind them opened. She waved them out then locked the elevator on the lower floor, secured the doors and took several deep breaths, forcing herself to speak calmly. “Come with me.”
In the dining hall, Luke, Neal and Mark looked up from the tables where they sat wolfing down bowls of dessert.
When Luke saw Megan and the tears on her face, he jumped to his feet and hurried toward her. “What’s going on?” He grabbed his sister and glared at John.
John held his hands up. “We were attacked by something at the dorm.”
“What do you mean attacked? Who attacked you?” Luke asked, holding Megan away from him, examining her for injuries.
John stepped closer to Luke. “Your uncle called Megan. He made her put him on speaker so everyone could hear him. He said an infection like Ebola, but much worse, is in Chicago. It’s spreading rapidly and is turning people into monsters that hunt and kill other people.”
Megan dried her tears. “I told him you were here at the cafeteria where the shelter is located. He told me to get to you and for all of us to stay here until he sends someone to get us.”
“They killed Susan.” Sherry’s voice trembled with fear and her body shook from exposure to the cold. “Ms. Walker tried to help her but more of the monsters came out of the trees and swarmed her.”
“I think it was the same thing that I almost hit on the road earlier. Another one was in the faculty garage when I parked my car. I closed the door so it might be trapped in there.” Grace pulled a chair out for Sherry then took the one next to her. “Luke, how does your uncle know so much about what’s going on in Chicago?”
“He works at the CDC,” Luke said.
“He said he’s in Chicago,” Megan said, the love and fear she felt for her uncle in her voice.
“There are over sixty cadets left on campus. Where are they?” Mark asked.
“That arrogant prick Jefferson Mitchell refused to believe Dr. Matthews. He talked most of them into staying in the dorm,” Sherry said.
Grace rested her chin on her fist and watched Sherry. It always surprised her when the young girl spoke her mind. Stunningly beautiful with black hair and soft gray eyes, she was model perfect, tall and always well groomed. She spoke boldly and sometimes with a quirkiness Grace found amusing. She likened her to a character in an Oscar Wilde novel. Very proper on the outside with her real character hidden on the inside.
“Megan, Sherry and I only managed to talk seventeen cadets into coming with us but they panicked and ran when we heard howling coming from all around us. Most of them ran into the woods but four of them ran into the library.” John set the hockey stick he carried on the table. “Stephan Greco and Damien Moretti went after the ones in the library. They’ll try to get here if they can. If not, they said they’ll lock themselves in the reference room.”
“We heard screams coming from the dorm when we were less than a hundred meters away from it.” Megan dropped the bat she carried. It made a loud clattering sound then rolled away in an arc.
John stepped on it, quieting it before he picked it up and put it next to his hockey stick.
Sherry rested the end of the bat she’d carried on the top of her shoe. “Your uncle warned them if they stayed behind we couldn’t let them in later. He said they’d become infected and expose us. Jefferson didn’t believe him and he made fun of the younger cadets for being scared. You know how it is—the younger ones want to impress him until they figure out what a jerk he can be.”
Grace had heard enough. “Luke, we need to lock this building down. Right now.”
“Yes, I agree.” Luke pulled out a chair and helped Megan sit down. “Stay here.” He sent a silent signal to his friends, and they returned it.
Grace stood up. “We’ll be back in a few minutes. While we’re gone, I want all of you to try to call 9-1-1. If you can’t get through, try to contact your parents.”
Two
“We’re going to secure the building and I’ll show you the rest of the shelter.” Grace led Luke to a door near the elevator and unlocked it, revealing a stairway that led up to another locked door. She climbed the steps ahead of him, opened the door and stepped aside so he could enter her office first. “I know I secured the outer doors and lowered the shutters before I left yesterday but Mr. Rogers has the codes to open them and so does Mr. Edgar. We need to change them.”
They passed through her office and unlocked the door into a long hallway that separated the supply elevator and her office from the kitchen and the cafeteria.
At the supply elevator, and the emergency exit at the end of the hallway, she made sure the doors were locked and the outside shutters were still down. “Someone here has to have the codes in case something happens to me. I’m going to trust you and Mark with them but neither of you are allowed to use them without my permission. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll pass them on to Mark.”
Grace nodded. “Okay, this is the supply elevator we used earlier. As you know it has two doors. This one opens into this hallway and the storage room on the lower level. Another set of doors on the opposite side open to the dock. I’ve already locked the outer shutter with a new code. After we used the elevator to bring in the supplies, I locked it into place and locked the doors and the lowered shutter. I’ll give you those codes later. Right now we need to change the code on this shutter.”
She pointed to a number above the door. �
��This is door one. The other doors are also numbered. The new code is an ampersand followed by the year the academy opened, a percent sign, an asterisk, and the door number last.”
Luke nodded. “Okay, I’ve got it.”
She had Luke change the code on the supply elevator while she watched him. He keyed it in correctly reassuring her that he was the right student to trust. They passed into the cafeteria and changed the code at the front doors then secured the other doors and returned to her office where she grabbed a stack of books before they returned to the lower level.
She set the books on a table and checked on the other cadets. Neal had the situation under control having served Megan, Sherry and John bowls of cobbler and ice cream. She sent him an approving smile before she led Luke away.
She pointed to the far wall. “You all know where the dorms and showers are located.” She smiled. “One for females and one for males. The Edgars don’t really believe in the coed life.”
Luke smiled. “No kidding.”
Grace nodded. “I’m going to show you three areas that only I know about.” She led Luke through the storage room to the back corner behind the shelves. Facing the wall she opened a concealed door and stepped through it. He followed her, and she gave him a few seconds to look around while she sat down and typed her password into a computer. She pulled up the security program and locked everyone but herself out of the system.
Luke sat down in the other chair and she told him her password and explained the system to him. “Mr. Edgar has always been paranoid about workers and cadets stealing food from the kitchens. This security system was installed in his office when the new cafeteria and emergency shelter were built. Mr. Manning put this one in the shelter without Mr. Edgar’s knowledge. I’ve just locked him out. Now, only we have access to the cameras on the inside and outside of this building. There’s also radio equipment in here and a manual. I haven’t had time to read it, so I don’t know how it works.”
“I know how to operate it and so do Mark and Neal.” Luke watched the bank of monitors. “Holy crap, what is that?” He leaned closer to the monitor then pointed at a figure on the dock. “Do you see that thing, Ms. Walker?”
Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds Novella): Resistance Page 2
