TWENTY-TWO #2
Ewan skids to avoid tripping over its legs, and he mutters, “That was efficient.”
“Leave me a review on Google,” I mumble back.
“Five stars,” he jokes. “Bloody awful customer service, though.”
“Still counts.”
We keep moving, and the sounds behind us change. The Zeds are still there, staggering into the left branch, but there’s a sound that comes from under their dragging feet.
Something fast.
Something light.
Something wrong.
My stomach drops, my pulse skyrocketing under my skin. Ewan hears it too, and he stops so suddenly I almost run into him.
Runner.
The word isn’t spoken out loud, because it doesn’t need to be. Somewhere in the darkness ahead, something skitters over concrete. There’s a click of nails. A pause. Then… nothing.
My grip tightens around my knife as Ewan slowly lifts one finger and points toward the ceiling. I stop and listen. At first, I only hear water and the distant horde behind us. Then I hear another skitter. This one from above us. Wait, no. Not above us. It’s coming from the pipework.
The tunnel walls are broken into sections, giving access to service crawl spaces and cable runs. Plenty of places for something fast and hungry to move through without staying where eyes can follow.
“Oh, slay,” I whisper. “Ventilation with claws and teeth. Love this for us.”
Ewan’s mouth barely even moves as he tells me, “Left wall. Ten feet.”
I put my trust in the information before I decide whether I even trust him, and just in time, because the Runner explodes from a broken service opening exactly where Ewan said it would.
I’m already moving.
The Runner hits the wall where my throat was only mere seconds ago, and Ewan swings a rusted pipe he picked up at some point, cracking it into the Runner’s ribs.
The impact knocks it sideways, but it doesn’t drop it.
Of course. Runners never have the manners to die on cue with the perfect amount of dramatic flair.
The fucker twists and shrieks, an ear-splitting sound that pinches at my eardrums, but I drive my knife toward its eye. It jerks back at the very last second, and my knife slices through its cheek instead.
“Oh, you bitch,” I hiss.
“Again with that top-notch customer service,” Ewan mutters, backing up as the Runner scurries forward, blood pulsing down its cheek now.
One glance behind me tells me the horde of Zeds are closer now. A little too close for comfort.
The tunnel has one narrow door on the right. MAINTENANCE ACCESS 3B. The handle is rusted beyond measure, but the frame still looks like it’s in working order.
“Door,” I blurt.
“Yep, I can see it,” Ewan volleys.
Fucking hell.
“Open it,” I instruct sharply.
“Oh. I was hoping you’d ask me to tap-dance or something. Maybe even sing,” he says.
“I would much rather be eaten by the Runner,” I tell him, not even sure if I’m serious or joking at this point.
Ewan moves while I keep the Runner’s attention.
It watches me with cloudy eyes, head twitching unnaturally, limbs a little too long to be considered normal, and mouth split viciously around an animalistic snarl.
Not quite dead, but not exactly alive either.
Just NOVAC’s idea of a funny little punchline with teeth and a hunger for flesh.
I feint left, and the Runner lunges. I drop low, kicking its knee, and the joint bends all kinds of wrong. It crashes into the wall in a heap, claws scraping sparks off an exposed electrical panel.
Ewan yanks the door open harshly, the sound bouncing off the walls, right before he blurts, “Inside.”
“You first,” I insist.
“Dakota,” he groans.
“You’re taller,” I explain quickly. “Block the doorway.”
His expression tells me he has several complaints to make and not so very nice comments, but his survival instincts, bless them all, veto each and every one of them.
He ducks into the maintenance room, and I follow after him, slamming the door just as the Runner hits it from the other side.
The whole door shakes, rattling hard enough that I feel it in my bones.
I look around, but the room is black except for Ewan’s flashlight splitting across shelves, old tools, plastic bins, and a dead generator. A second door is stationed at the far end of the room, but it’s locked. Obviously it is, because nothing in an apocalypse is easy. Well, other than dying.
“Please, I beg of you, tell me you have a key,” Ewan pleads.
I shake my head. “No. But I have rage.”
“That could work,” he answers quickly, a little more enthusiastic about it.
The Runner slams into the door again and, behind it, the Rotters arrive. They add to the weight, truly testing the integrity of the door. Hands slap metal, nails scrape harshly, and mouths snarl against the small gap under the frame.
Gritting my teeth, I start shoving a shelving unit toward the door, my knee compiling several complaints to the State.
Ewan hurries to join me without hesitation and without uttering a single word.
Together, we jam it under the handle. It won’t hold long, but long is a luxury I’ve never been able to afford in this new world. I only need useful.
“Far door,” I say, already crossing the room with a limp I can’t disguise as well as I could before.
The lock is old. Mechanical. Better than electronic, at least. I drop to one knee, dutifully ignoring the throb it sends through my bad leg, and pull my picks free.
My hands are shaking like an angry vibrator, but it’s not enough to stop me.
It’s enough to irritate me, sure, but we move on in a world set out to kill us.
“Steady,” Ewan says, and I glare up at him.
Only, he’s not looking down at my hands. He’s looking at the door behind us, a random pipe suddenly in his hands, and his body angled between me and whatever comes through.
“I swear on all that is baked and delicious, if that was some kind of emotional support, I’m going to stab you the moment I have this door open,” I warn.
“Noted,” he says.
The lock sticks, and I breathe through my nose, which happens to be yet another bad idea.
Apparently I’m full of those these days.
My scent is still all levels of wrong, heat, fear, pain, and sweetness mingled together under old blockers.
My body seems to have decided that enclosed tunnels, Runners, and separation from the others is a glorious recipe for biological betrayal.
“Fucking A,” I whisper.
Ewan starts humming then, and I freeze.
“What are you doing?” I blurt, eyeing him like I’ve been stranded with the crazy Alpha of the group. Hell, I very well could be. That would be just my luck.
“I’m being incredibly normal, thanks for asking,” he volleys, right before he continues to hum like we’re not in a predicament that might see us eaten.
“You’re literally humming Danger Zone in a murder cupboard,” I complain.
“If you want to be technical,” he counters, “it’s actually a maintenance cupboard.”
“Ewan,” I groan, praying for patience I don’t think I’ll receive in time before I stab him in the thigh.
Thankfully, the Welshman senses it, and he tells me honestly, “It’s an old song. Helps me count.”
The Runner body slams the door again, and the shelving unit shifts. Ewan keeps humming under his breath, low and steady. Not too loud or distracting.
Rhythm, I realize.
Four soft beats. A pause. Four more.
It dawns on me what he’s doing two seconds before my hands realize.
They steady almost instantly. Not completely, but it’s enough to get the job done.
I turn the pick, lift the pin, and the lock clicks.
The far door opens into a crawl-like utility passage with a low ceiling and a strip of long-dead emergency lights above.
I look at Ewan and he stops humming.
“That wasn’t for me,” I say carefully.
“Of course it wasn’t,” he agrees lightly.
“Good.”
“I was simply serenading the generator,” he informs, and my eyes close for a split second.
“The generator is dead,” I point out, as if he didn’t already know.
Ewan nods. “Yeah, I know. It’s a tough crowd. Getting a lot of those these days. Business is tough.”
Before I can react to his words, the shelving unit comes crashing down behind us, and we both bolt through the door.
The utility passage slopes downward. Too far downward for my liking. It empties into a service tunnel under the main delivery route, where steam pipes line both walls and the air is warmer, damp enough to stick to my skin.
My body chooses that moment to react, and heat rolls under my clothes. For the love of God, not now. Please, not now.
I press my free hand against the wall for one second, letting the cold condensation bite into my palm. Ewan stops several feet ahead, not turning fully and not staring. He simply waits because he notices my footsteps have stopped.
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
“Sure,” he answers. “I was just admiring the pipework. Very good craftsmanship.”
“Try a little harder,” I mutter.
“I mean, it’s very emotional pipework, you know?” he tries.
I shake my head once, shutting my eyes tightly. “Try a little less.”
The Runner screeches behind us before Ewan can attempt more conversation, and we’re forced to keep running.
The lower tunnel is worse. Sound folds back on itself until the distance becomes completely meaningless.
The Runner could be ten feet behind us or fifty.
Zeds could be above, below, or inside the fucking walls at this point, and that thought sends my pulse slamming so hard that I feel it in my teeth.
Ewan grabs onto my sleeve again. Not my skin, but my sleeve. He lets go just as quickly before pointing to a side recess. We duck into it as the Runner shoots past the main tunnel, way too fast to stop, claws scraping over concrete as it misses the turn.
For one stuttered breath, the Runner is in front of us rather than behind. Good. That’s better.
I step out and throw my knife, the blade sinking into the back of its skull. The Runner drops mid-movement, skidding across the wet floor until it hits a pipe with a wet clang, right before silence falls. Not a real silence, but enough.