EIGHT #3
I check the basement for another exit, breath coming too fast under my bandana.
Storage door. Maintenance panel. There has to be something.
Old buildings like these always seem to have a never-ending gut to them.
Pipes, tunnels, service hallways, ways for workers to crawl under the world and fix things no one else would think about.
Above me, the Zeds are pressing closer to the hole.
Rotten fingers are clawing at broken edges, and one finally falls through.
I jerk back harshly as it hits the floor all wrong, its skull crackling grossly against the concrete.
Somehow, it still moves, because of course that’s my luck right now.
I drive my knife down into its skull before it can push itself up, then stagger away from the impact with panting breaths.
Blood runs down my palm, my knee is throbbing, my backpack feels too heavy, and the room suddenly feels like it’s closing in on me.
Absolutely not. I can’t let that happen. I haven’t survived six years, Mom’s white eyes, Maine leaving and never returning, packless heats, fever dreams, and the world becoming one giant shit show only to get trapped in a basement because I was looking for expired pills.
“Calm down and think, Dakota,” I hiss to myself, seconds before another Zed drops into the hole.
This fucker lands on its side and instantly starts crawling.
I don’t think, I simply act, throwing my knife at it.
It sinks wetly into its eye socket, the Zed pauses for only a split second before it starts crawling a little slower toward me.
Great. Now my knife is all the way over there and the fucker isn’t even dead.
“You’re an idiot, Kota,” I grumble loudly, because what use is there in being quiet now?
Another sound comes from above, but not one I was expecting. It’s not a groan, nor the creaking of the old building. It’s a voice.
“Kota?”
Everything in me stills as time freezes for a split second.
For one insane second, I think it’s Maine.
My mind conjures the possibility before I can stop it, gripping tightly with both hands, cruel and unrelenting.
Then reality comes and slaps it away, right before a head pops through the hole in the ceiling.
Kaito. Of course. Tell the guy not to follow me and he develops selective hearing. I glare at his worried face, fury and relief battling inside me so hard they might as well be the same thing. Then I snap, “Are you shitting me right now?”
He looks down at me from the edge of the broken floor, dark hair damp from the rain, eyes scanning quickly. He looks a little paler than before, which I’m considering hella rude given that I stitched him up and expected him to at least pretend he wasn’t going to ruin my hard work by being himself.
His gaze finds me first, and then he sees the crawling Zed, the broken stairs, and the dead hands clawing near the gap in the floor.
“Don’t move,” he calls down.
I give him a look that hopefully says more than words could. But just in case, I retort, “Oh, fine. Ruin my plans, why don’t you? I was about to host a Zumba class down here.”
Kaito’s mouth tightens, not quite with a smile but close enough that I want to slap him. Thankfully, he distracts me enough by asking, “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I reply bluntly. His gaze drops pointedly to my knee, then my bleeding hand, and then to the dust coating half of my body. I glare that little bit harder before snapping, “Don’t give me that look.”
“What look?” he questions, almost too innocently.
“A look that makes you think I’m lying,” I grit through clenched teeth.
He gives me a look now, one I don’t appreciate. “You are lying.”
“It’s not a lie,” I counter, pausing for a second. “I’m merely exaggerating the truth and leading it in a more convenient direction.”
Just then, a sharp sound cracks through the basement from the far wall.
We both fall silent, stilling where we are.
The Zed on the floor continues to crawl toward me, but that’s not what has my blood freezing in my veins.
It’s something else that I’ve heard that stalls my heart in my chest and forces my pulse into a rhythm that makes me feel sick.
A Runner.
I know it before I even see it. Runners don’t sound the same as the others.
They don’t drag, crawl, or shuffle. They breathe fast, wet, and excited.
Their bones creak and click weirdly from the way the virus tightens muscle and tendons, pulling them into something that moves too quickly for an already rotting body.
The sound comes again, a scrape from behind the maintenance shelves. Then a low, eager inhale. Kaito’s face changes, and I know he’s heard it too, and a horror like I haven’t felt in a very long time suddenly washes over me.
Because it’s one thing me being trapped here with a Runner nearby, but it’s another thing completely with Kaito here. He’s already wounded enough, and he’s going to ruin my handiwork all because he couldn’t stay well enough away.
Fucking Alpha.