Thirty-One
Simone
“Got a new fit, Moni?” Aaron said.
I smiled at him with happiness I didn’t feel. “Apocalypse chic. It only took the end of the world for me to become a fashion girlie.”
He gave me a pitiable smile, then patted my hand. “Eat something,” he said, sliding a pack of peanut butter crackers across the table.
“Where did you get these?” I asked.
“Mind your business, girl,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. He pushed his glasses up on top of his head and arched a brow. He was leaning forward and Nana’s ring swung back and forth with accusation. “You got a problem, Simone?”
“You’ve been gambling, even in all this?”
I hadn’t wanted to say it, but the words couldn’t be swallowed.
It didn’t matter, not when the courtyard was filled with more zombies by the minute. To say nothing of a sociopathic corrections officer who’d decided to torture us for amusement.
But that was exactly why I had to say something. He was gambling now, almost proving what I had never allowed myself to believe was true.
He swiped his hand over his head and knocked his glasses off. Chuckled humorlessly. “That’s why these things stay broken.” He met my eyes. “I just wanted to do something for you, Moni, like I always have.” He grabbed the crackers. “But if you don’t want them—”
“Thanks, Aaron,” I whispered. I opened the pack, flaky peanut butter falling off the crinkled cellophane.
I put a cracker in my mouth and chewed it robotically, the salty-sweet peanut butter poison on my tongue.
But Aaron smiled at me, patted my hand again, and like always, I swallowed the cracker down like I hadn’t been able to do my words.
“I love you, Moni,” he said, squeezing my hand.
He was the first person, only person, to ever say those words to me. Nana showed her love but never said the words. Every time I’d heard them from Aaron was a little piece of proof that I was worth something.
My gaze found Rubin, who wasn’t looking at me, but who was fully aware of me.
Went back to Aaron and shaped my mouth to say words that were second nature.
But I didn’t get a chance to say them.
Rubin
One second, I was forcing myself not to look at Simone. The next, there was a low hiss and a pop, and the cafeteria started to fill with thick white smoke.
“Tear gas!” Damian yelled.
I was moving before thought and pulled my shirt off as I ran toward Simone and pushed the material against her nose.
Eyes burning, I guided her out of the common area and then to the kitchen and over to the sink. I doused the shirt with water and pressed it to her face, then did the same to mine with a rag that was under the sink.
“Aaron—” she said, her weak voice breaking off into a cough.
“Can take care of himself,” I grunted.
“Krye, this way!” It was Besnik and I followed the sound of his voice, my hand tight on Simone’s arm as I moved. The smoke seemed to be getting thicker and every breath was labored. I could barely see, but forced my eyes open and pushed through the smoke and into a dark hallway.
“They’re funneling down this hall,” Arben said.
“Yes, to get to the kitchen, but we’ll pass out if we stay. Get whatever weapon you can.”
I had my knife in my hands and Arben grabbed the one hanging from Simone’s side.
As one, we moved down the corridor, the emergency light dim and casting the hall in macabre shadows.
I often hated the harsh overhead lighting, one of the many petty tortures that the institution inflicted.
It would have been useful now, but I didn’t have them, so I’d have to rely on my ears.
I tuned out the screams, the shots, tried to find what was underneath.
“There’s something up ahead,” Arben said.
I’d heard it too, a soft scrape that was wrong in all this chaos. I let go of Simone’s hand and put my face against her ear. “Keep the shirt against your nose, take shallow breaths. Stay close.”
I let my lips linger near her ear but then moved when I saw the shadows up ahead. They weren’t a trick of the light.
It was them.
“We keep a tight formation and take them down,” I called to the men.
“It could be hundreds, krye,” Lorik said.
“Yes, it could be.” I tightened my grip on the knife.
Thousands even, but I didn’t say that out loud. It didn’t matter how many there were. I would not die in this dark hallway cowering.
“Aim for the head, destroy the brain. Stomp on them if you have to, but make sure they stay down,” I yelled as I moved forward.
The men already knew that, as evidenced by the way Arben gripped the knife.
The hallway was tight and narrow, but that worked to our advantage.
One down, another down, then another, then another.
The corpses were falling into a stack, making a new walkway.
It was difficult standing on the tiny mountain of flesh, and every time I pushed down my foot dug into soft deadness, a floor made of concrete and what used to be humans.
My eyes stung from the gas, but the farther we got down the hall, the fainter the effects became.
Soon my muscles were burning from the exertion, my hands slick with the red-black goo that spurted from those things.
I didn’t look back, couldn’t let myself look back.
Damian was fine. The men were fine. I was fine.
And I hadn’t given Simone permission to die yet, so she was fine too.
When we reached the end of the hall, I looked left, right, saw that both hallways were empty, then looked back and saw the stack of corpses and the men behind.
“To the left,” I said, and we moved.
This walk was much, much easier, and I felt something like relief.
Until the lights went out.