Chapter 10
THIS DEFINITELY WASN’T ON THE SYLLABUS
The bathroom door swung the rest of the way shut with a quiet click, a sound far too gentle for how violently my heart was beating.
Sitting up, I pulled my knees to my chest.
The door might have closed, but what lay beyond was burned into my brain.
Three people dressed in military fatigues, armed, unconscious, and pale, had been crammed into the single-stall bathroom like discarded mannequins. The closest, a young man not much older than me, had a gash above his eyebrow. Blood smeared his temple.
From that single, horrified glimpse, I hadn’t been able to tell if any of them were breathing.
What if they weren’t?
Oh God. Had I just stumbled onto a murder scene?
My stomach pitched and rolled. For a long second, I thought I might throw up.
Breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. I clung to the action, forcing the nausea down. Forcing my brain to work. To process.
They weren’t campus security. The uniforms were all wrong. Campus security wasn’t in need of camo anything. I didn’t even think they carried real guns.
My unconscious friends had to be the military guards Bob had mentioned. The ones Landon had hinted at. Here because of whatever project Professor Stern was working on.
So who the hell had done this to them?
And why stuff them in a bathroom?
I glanced around, gulping air. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I eyed the closed door. I needed to know if they were alive. Needed to know I hadn’t just found dead guys in this college basement.
Using the wall for support, I hauled myself upright. My legs felt strangely weak, and a rock settled itself low in my gut. The idea of seeing those pale, bloody faces again made me lightheaded, but I forced myself to move.
I gripped the handle. Opened the door.
Another scream tried to rise, but I swallowed it, crouching beside the first guard. My arm shook as I reached for his neck.
Please, please…
Warm skin met the pads of my fingers, and my shoulders slumped, a sigh of relief escaping. He had a pulse. A strong one. He was alive.
I rocked back and balanced my elbows on my thighs, examining the others. They were all alive. Their chests rose and fell with shallow, steady breaths.
I hadn’t found a pile of dead bodies. Thank God.
But I had found bodies. Someone had still attacked them and stuffed them in there. I’d seen a dark figure running, but I hadn’t come across a single other soul. Hell, I hadn’t gotten a clear look at whoever was booking it in the hall, either.
Which didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact I needed to get help. Pronto.
Digging my phone from my back pocket with trembling hands, I raised it.
No signal.
A strangled sound lodged in my throat, half sob, half curse. Of course I didn’t have signal. Reception in the anthro basement was crap on a good day. A day without mysterious electromagnetic interference.
Plan B. Get out. Get help.
I glanced at the bathroom. No way could I drag them upstairs by myself. Not quickly. Not safely. But leaving them didn’t sit right, either. What if whoever did this came back?
Or…or what if they were still here?
I stiffened. That cold ripple of apprehension ran through me again, and common sense finally broke past the shock—along with the urge to run. If they were still there, then I was also in danger of being knocked out and stuffed into some basement crevice.
I had to get the hell out of here. I turned on jelly legs and staggered back toward the lab entrance.
Only to stop short as something crashed just beyond the double doors.
Thump.
My heart lurched. I slapped a hand to my chest.
Whirrrrrr-CLANK.
A metallic groan echoed through the door. Unnatural and high-pitched, like metal grinding against metal. Then another whoosh, like a hydraulic lift pressing down.
Then silence.
The hair on my arms stood straight up. I backpedaled, shoes squeaking, breath rasping as I stared at the doors.
Someone was in that lab.
No, not someone. Something.
I didn’t wait to find out what. My survival instinct finally kicked into overdrive.
I turned the other way and ran.
My backpack bounced behind me with each step as I sprinted deeper into the basement, aiming for the double doors at the far end of the hall.
I’d only been down here a few times, but I remembered the layout. The storage room waited beyond those doors. And the clean lab past that.
Another way out.
Behind me, that mechanical shriek sounded again—closer now. They were moving faster.
Clank. Grind. Whir.
I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see what was chasing me. Gaining on me, if the loudness was any indication.
I crashed into the storage room doors, and they squeaked once—short and loud—when I rammed them open.
The ringing in my ears muffled the sound as I stumbled forward.
A single white light shone down at the entrance, blinding me to everything except the concrete beneath my shoes.
I veered to the side and broke into a sprint, bolting past the first set of shelves until I reached the end, near the wall.
Only then did I pause, chest heaving. I pressed against the cold edge of the metal rack and gripped my book bag strap in a death grip. Hiding.
From what?
I didn’t know. All I knew was that my instincts were screaming and dread coated my throat. A waiting, ominous silence had fallen.
I squeezed my lips together to quiet my breathing and reached for my phone with shaking fingers. When I thumbed the screen on, wincing at the harsh blue glow, there was still no signal.
Damn it.
Panic rising, I shoved it back in my pocket and closed my eyes, the back of my head knocking against the cool shelf.
Okay. Think. Focus. Keep breathing.
I mentally mapped the room. Rows of shelves stretched across the massive space, all labeled and catalogued with meticulous care. I remembered from my first volunteer tour that the far side housed the more sensitive artifacts. The clean lab entrance waited just around the side of the shelves.
…and there was an emergency exit in there. Stairs. I distinctly remembered the glowing sign.
Which was great, since this definitely counted as an emergency.
Shit. Except I also remembered the lab room’s door had an electronic lock. The professor had said something about getting authorization if you needed access. I hadn’t.
My stomach sank, and I leaned my head back.
So I was trapped. If whatever I’d heard came in here…I was screwed.
That was it. I was about to join the unconscious guards crammed into the bathroom.
Or worse. I was about to become a permanent exhibit in the archive room.
But when I peeked around the edge of the shelf, I inhaled sharply. Wait. The far doors—the lab’s doors—were propped open. I wouldn’t need an access card after all.
Why? Who’d opened them? My brain snagged on the risk of unfiltered air damaging the specimens before lurching back to more immediate concerns. I couldn’t care about the artifacts. Not right now.
I cared about surviving.
Another moment passed. I didn’t hear anything. Either whatever had been following me had vanished…or I’d been imagining things.
Suddenly, I felt silly.
Maybe I’d just fled from a noisy HVAC system. The pipes down here were old.
Either way, I didn’t need to know which possibility was the truth.
It didn’t matter. I pushed off the shelf.
What mattered was getting the hell out of this basement.
Because even if I wasn’t being chased, somebody had knocked out some guards and stuffed them into a bathroom, and that could not be good—
BANG.
The double doors behind me slammed open. A choked squeak caught in my throat as I backpedaled, smashing myself against the shelf again. I barely felt the impact when my temple glanced off the frame.
I didn’t dare breathe.
So much for a noisy HVAC. That wasn’t an air handling unit that’d entered the room.
A harsh creak sounded, like rusty hinges being forced to move. My heart hammered.
CRASH.
I flinched as something shattered, a muted tinkle like glass or pottery hitting concrete. Seconds later came more: the heavy thud of boxes, the shriek of Styrofoam, the rending of cardboard. The shelf I pressed against trembled.
Whatever was in here was tearing the place apart. And they weren’t just vandalizing. No, this sounded rhythmic.
Deliberate. Methodical.
They were searching.
Destroying, too, in the process.
I gritted my teeth and pressed harder into the shelf. My fists clenched at my sides.
Then, beneath the sounds of destruction, came that other sound. That mechanical whir, low and guttural. A grinding groan.
The same sound I’d heard before. My heart seized.
I wasn’t running blind anymore. I had to see.
Slowly, so slowly, I inched around the corner. A crash rang out from the far side, and I dropped lower, instinctively ducking. The shadows between shelves swallowed me whole.
Clank. Whir. Rip. Thud.
And then—
A voice.
Not a shout. Not a murmur. Something…else.
Garbled. Digital. Warped like a bad radio signal, yet still undeniably a voice. That was speech.
Ice flooded my veins. Because that speech wasn’t…
Human.
Mechanical and deep, it spoke again, each syllable guttural and foreign. Another crash followed, this one accompanied by the pinging of smashing glass. I caught my breath, dizzy with fear. My pulse thudded in my throat, my limbs, everywhere.
What the hell was that? And what was I supposed to do now?
I backed another step into the shadows and checked my phone again. Still no signal.
Then, as I watched, the battery drained in real time. The screen went black. Not even the charge symbol flashed.
The air vibrated, buzzing along my skin like a live wire, stinging enough I sucked in a sharp breath.
I knew that feeling. It was the same thing I’d felt on the side of the road.
Overhead, the bulbs flickered once, twice, then the one by the doorway sizzled and popped, going out. I barely bit back my yelp as—one by one—the rest followed, plunging everything into pitch-black.
Only the light from the propped-open lab doors glowed like a beacon in the dark, still within running distance.
But could I make it?
Someone—something—had taken out three armed guards. I’d seen the blood on that guy’s forehead. Whatever was tearing through the shelves behind me…I didn’t want to meet it in a dark alley. Or anywhere, really.
Even if I made it inside, the lab doors stood wide open. One of those things could already be in there.
I had to think. I was trapped. The destruction grew louder, each crash marching closer, like it was working its way down the rows.
Any hope I’d held that this was just Professor Stern, bumbling around was long dead. Professor Stern had a soothing, NPR-on-decaf voice. This thing sounded like a blender and a V8 engine had produced a baby, and that baby was pissed.
I shoved my useless phone into my pocket and crouched low, shuffling along the shelving. I couldn’t make out much in the inky dark, but I kept moving, feeling my way along the metal frame.
Another crunch sounded, right on the other side of the shelf.
Way too close.
My legs shook with every step, but I slid along the racks, eyes on the end of the row. Almost there. Another few steps, and I was free.
Even better, I could see it now. There was a clear path.
The open lab doors waited. I wasn’t a sprinter, but I could hustle. I waitressed doubles on Saturdays. I had stamina. I could do this.
As quietly as possible, I jogged to the next set of shelves and flattened against the end cap. Holding my breath, I listened. More rustling. Then—
Silence.
For just a split second before a motorized whine shattered the quiet, followed by metal striking stone. Once. Twice. Three times.
Shit. Footsteps. Those were footsteps.
The garbled voice returned, and something primal clenched in my gut. Closer now. The shelf at my back shook with each thudding step. My legs shook along with it.
Screw this.
I broke and ran.