Recovery Efforts

The hallways pulsed red as Emily and Keller ran, each breath sharp and quick in the stale air. Sirens howled in the distance like wolves circling a campfire.

They ducked past a broken door frame, Emily gripping her makeshift glass shard like a dagger. Keller had a fire extinguisher clutched tightly in both hands, his face pale but focused.

“Sector 7 is this way,” Keller said, glancing at his tablet. “We can cut through Medical Storage and bypass the main corridor.”

Emily let out a sigh and nodded.

They pushed forward, staying low and moving slowly. As they turned a corner, a low growl stopped them in their tracks.

Three infected stood hunched near the vending machines, twitching erratically. One of them—a woman in a lab coat—jerked her head up. Her eyes were glossy black. Her jaw opened, unhinged.

“Maybe they can’t see us, you know, like…in the movies. If we don’t make a sound we should get passed them,” Keller said, his voice shaking.

“No, you idiot. They’re not freaking Zombies,” Emily said pulling Keller back. “I saw these things with my own eyes. They can definitely see us and we can’t outrun them if they do.”

Keller looked down, then back at the extinguisher. “I have an idea.”

They retreated around the corner. Keller twisted the nozzle open slightly, just enough for the gas to hiss out like a slow leak. He carefully set it down, then took off his lab coat and draped it over the extinguisher’s handle.

“What are you doing?” Emily asked.

Keller took a glass beaker from a broken cart nearby, crouched, and gently tapped the beaker against the floor, leaving it near the extinguisher.

“Sound bait,” he whispered. “They still react to noise right? They’ll follow the noise and the gas will obscure our scent and make it at least hard for them to see us.”

Emily stared at him for a beat, then nodded. “Smart.”

The hiss of the gas grew louder. One of the infected twitched, then turned sharply toward the sound.

The beaker fell over—clink.

All three infected howled and bolted toward it, teeth gnashing.

Emily and Keller sprinted down the alternate hallway.

Fortunately, they didn’t ran into other infected until they reached Leland’s office. The door had been busted open, jagged edges of the frame splintered from within.

Emily carefully took a slow peak inside and immediately regretted her decision.

Papers were scattered like feathers all over. The assistant’s upper body was slumped against the wall, headless. Blood trailed upward from the gaping wound in her neck, seeping onto the mounted TV screen behind her.

The TV flicked eerily with static, barely showing the faint glow of a children’s cartoon: The Life and Times of Juniper Lee.

Emily didn’t flinch. She scanned the room and her eyes locked on the small figure trembling beneath Leland’s desk, her arms over her mouth.

Cassie’s wide eyes met hers.

Emily dropped to one knee. “Come here, baby. Slowly. Stay low.”

Cassie crawled out from under the desk, her hands shaking.

Suddenly, the assistant’s body twitched.

The infected woman still had jaws clamped around the mangled neck, eyes wild and unblinking.

Cassie let out a gasp—too loud.

The infected assistant’s headless body snapped around.

Emily grabbed Cassie. “Run!”

The infected woman lunged, shrieking as she tried to grab Cassie’s legs. Emily used her glass shard to piece into her arms. But they wouldn’t let go. Keller took Cassie’s arms and started pulling while Emily continued hammering the assistant’s hands until she teared the skin and bone off. But it barely slowed her down.

Even without her head and now her hands, she went after them.

They barreled out of the office, the assistant right behind them, screeching through the halls like a banshee.

“We need a bottleneck!” Emily yelled.

“There—elevator shaft!” Keller pointed.

They ducked into a service corridor and through a narrow opening into a mechanical room. Keller slammed the door shut and slid a metal rack against it.

The door shuddered behind them as claws scraped against the steel.

Emily held Cassie tightly as the girl cried into her coat.

“It’s okay,” Emily whispered. “We’ve got you.”

“I saw him,” Cassie cried out. “It was Mr. Everett. She was… she was helping me choose a cartoon to watch. Then…he bit her head off. Why did he do that?”

Cassie continued crying while Emily comforted her.

Emily’s stomach dropped. Everett. She remembered the name.

He was an EMR from St. Mary’s hospital—disappeared after biting Cassie. Victor believed that Leon Mitchell infected him and that should have been the end of it.

But why was Everett still alive.

Was this another evolution?

They turned to see the hallway open into a larger corridor—one that would eventually lead to the Nest’s outer perimeter. Then they heard some noises up ahead. Keller stopped, gesturing for Emily to stop as well.

“Wait,” he said. “I heard something…”

Suddenly, the far end of the corridor exploded in a rain of shattering glass and concrete.
Two figures—blurred in speed and fury—crashed up from below the platform, bursting through reinforced glass like meteors. The force was enough to rupture the floor beneath them, though somehow the section Emily stood on held firm.

She ducked instinctively, shielding Cassie as fragments rained past them. For a split second, she caught a glimpse —dark armor streaked with blood, a trailing claw, maybe a wing, maybe a blade —something inhuman.

And then they were gone.

"What the hell was that?" Keller whispered, breathless.

Emily didn’t answer. She clutched Cassie tighter and looked down the ruined corridor.

She didn’t need to see their faces to know. One of them had to be Zero and whoever the second person was, they were trying to stop him.

“Let’s get back,” she muttered. “We have to get back to Victor.”