He nods and turns back around, "Glad I'm in the ‘us’."
I don’t say anything else, hoping he shuts up. He stops outside of a doorway and nods, "Same as last time. You ready?"
I shake my head. It's true, I'm not. I'm scared of losing the thing I can't live without.
He points, "I'll go first, stay close and the lights will come on for me, not you. Okay?"
He swipes and enters the large lab. The lights flick on, but we don’t get two steps before a man comes up to Bernie, "What are you doing here?" He's older with a gray beard. He's not my father, I can tell.
Bernie nods back at me, "You all are acting crazy tonight. This chick told me I wasn’t allowed to come in the building unaccompanied. I told her I don’t need a guard, but she won't listen."
The man glances at my gun and nods, "She's right. We are on lock down. The prisoner we have back there is Michael's."
Bernie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I guess I have to tell you too. Michael wants him injected with a 3507. He wants to be able to track him. He asked me to come do it."
The man looks confused, "A tracker? Why? The man's in a coma. He ain't going anywhere."
Bernie tilts his head, "That group of rebels may come and take him; Michael is sure they'll try the city gates tonight."
The man steps aside, "Just be fast. I don’t want anyone up here tonight." He gives me a look, "You stay with him."
I nod, confused at his gullibility. These people have lived safely in these walls too long. Morons.
Bernie walks us both to the back of the room. He scans the lab door, opening it for me. My gut kicks in when I see Will lying on the table. He's relaxed and clean again, naked from the waist up, with a large, white bandage on his chest.
When the door closes, I take a step towards Will but Bernie makes a noise, "No miss, you stand over to the side, please. I don’t want you interfering with my work."
I can tell by his tone, we are being watched. I step to the side, pressing my back against the wall and waiting as he grabs a huge needle from the case. He leans over the computer next to the case and starts typing. The seconds feel like hours. The ten feet between me and Will feel like miles. His breath is funny and forced. The machine next to him makes his chest lift and fall. It makes him live.
Bernie stands, grabbing the huge needle and glances at me, "Come hold his arm down, just in case."
I know it's the moment he's giving me to say goodbye.
I lay my gun against the wall and take the couple steps I need to, to be next to his bed. Hesitantly and slightly shaky, I lift my fingers to his forearm, holding his warm skin in my hands for what might be the last time. His stern smile flashes in my eyes, but I push it away.
Bernie leans across him with the needle, "He may jump, hold him down."
I nod, gripping tighter.
Will makes a funny noise, tossing his head a little. His eyes flutter for a second and hope fills me, but then he settles back in. Bernie injects the huge needle into his arm. Will tenses. I hold him still, fighting my tears.
I feel like a thousand whispers pass between my fingers and his arm. A thousand things I needed to say, or just one maybe. One thing to make sure he knows. I nearly lower my face onto his chest and close my eyes; he's become my human Leo. I can sob into his chest just like Leo's and feel the same safety and comfort. His arms wrap around me the same way. He makes the world be quiet for a minute.
I squeeze once more and a subtle smile creeps across his lips.
Bernie pulls the needle out. I don’t move though. I hold his arm, like it's the only thing stopping me from going nuts.
Deep down, I know nothing is going to stop me when he's gone. I'll kill everyone. I know that.
Bernie smiles like he's about to sell me something, "Okay, let's go."
He walks to the door. I let go of Will, turning my back slowly, and try not to feel every step.
Bernie closes the door, leaving nonchalantly.
The lights flick on, leaving it dark behind us where the door was.
The man with the gray beard walks towards us, constantly in the light as they switch on for him too.
"All done?"
Bernie nods, "Yup. Have a good night, Frank."
"Night, Bernie."
We get into the stairwell and Bernie slumps against the wall. He takes a huge breath, "Okay. We gotta find that HEMP."
I frown, "What did you inject him with?"
He grins, "A 3507. Now if they try taking him anywhere, we can find him."
"Is that going to hurt him?"
He shakes his head, "No."
We walk down the stairs, "Where is this black lab?"
He looks back, "I think it's across the street. Michael's got a secret lab he thinks none of us know about. I didn’t know it was called the black lab. The HEMP is under the lab, I guess." He jogs down the stairs, shouting back at me, "I assumed it was where he was making his monsters. I sort of lost interest in that, after I started seeing the mess we were making."
I grip the gun tighter and follow him to the bottom of the stairs. He stops and smirks, "I wonder…" He walks to a door, swiping his pass at the scanner. It doesn’t open. He gets a grin on his face, and drops to his knees, and pulls something from his pocket. He works on the scanner for a minute and then scans his pass again. The door opens. He gives me a look, "Kill anyone we see in here, that’s our only option."
I nod and walk in after him. He says it all grim and frightened, but I planned on that anyway. I don’t tell him that. He already looks at me like I'm scary; we don’t need to make it worse. I pass him my gun, "Don’t shoot unless I say shoot."
He swallows and nods. I pull my bloodstained knife out of my boot and creep ahead in the long corridor. It's narrow and lit with sporadic, round wall lights. They are dim and orange, and remind me of the light in Brian's bunker. I grip the knife, creeping along the wall, listening to everything and nothing, all at once. I don’t like narrow hallways, I decide this now. I like the openness of the forest. This feels like I might never escape or the walls are going to close in on me. Bernie's careless footsteps are the thing I hear until a cough fills the silence. I put a hand up, halting Bernie.
I glance around the corner ahead of me, seeing a man with a gun and his hand against his lips. He coughs again and leans into the wall. I tuck the blade behind my back and walk toward him slowly, not making any sounds. He yawns and closes his eyes for a second. I almost stop and wait for him to open his eyes, but the coward in me pushes on. I pull the blade softly, not making a sound, and swing it wide as I reach him. His eyes fly open, but it's too late. His jugular is hit. He drops his gun, but I catch it as he slumps along the wall, bleeding out. I sling the rifle over my shoulder and tiptoe further down the hall. I reach a door and look back at Bernie. He pulls out the screwdriver he had before and drops to his knees, fiddling with it like the other one. He scans and the door unlocks. I push it open, peeking around the corners for movement. The area is completely dark. I step in and the light flicks on above me.
"I hate this city."
Bernie closes the door, standing under the light with me. The hallway only goes one way, so I walk ahead with the lights announcing me to anyone who is ahead. I can't see into the black oblivion of the rest of the hallway.
My breath speeds up with my heartbeat. I don’t know that we're in the right place, or that we'll see anything that helps. I don’t know if that was the last time I'll ever see Will alive. I don’t know anything, but that my feet don’t want to take any more steps, and my heart is aching like there is no tomorrow. Granny used to say that, ‘like there is no tomorrow.’
I stop when the lights show a door. Bernie opens it and closes it, "No."
We move ahead, keeping a close eye on the darkness, and the fact it isn’t moving or making noises.
My body hair is standing on end. I have a disturbing feeling that the infected are going to pop out any second. They always manage to when it's dark and creepy and you're lost. They may be brain dead, but they have an uncanny ability to time their arrivals.
My hands start shaking as I round another corner. Bernie is opening every door he sees, but is still moving along behind me. I reach the end of the hallway and glance back at him. In the white light of the spotlight, I see the frustration on his face. I feel it too.
We're wasting time. Will could be dying upstairs, Anna could be getting discovered, or Jake and Sarah could be fighting for their lives at the house. He sighs and messes with the scanner on the door and opens it. There is a flight of stairs before us. The lights are the dim, orange, round ones—thank God.
Bernie smiles, "About time." He walks ahead into the dim light and looks down over the edge of the metal staircase. It looks flimsy, and when we step on it, our steps echo.
I shake my head, "I don’t like this."
He shakes his head, "Me either." He starts down the stairs, but I grab his arm, "Let me go first."
I slip past him, wiping sweat from my brow. My footsteps are slightly quieter than his on the metal stairs. I walk toe first, looking down over the edge the entire time.
A red light starts to flash above our heads when we're halfway down. I look back at Bernie, "We've been discovered."
He frowns, "How do you know?"
I point at the flashing light, "Same alarm as the breeder farms."
He shrugs, "That goes off all the time. Random things make it go off."
I shake my head, "Not when I'm around; it's always me." I start to run down the stairs, wishing Leo was with me. His senses don’t get messed up by the buildings, he's a wolf through and through. I'm only a wolf in the woods. My eyes and senses are distracted by the building closing me in.
When I get to the bottom of the stairs, I see a panel and steam just like the boiler room at the farms. My belly starts to ache. I lift the rifle, looking around the room. Pipes and bits of machinery make up the room. The walls are dank with sweat from whatever these things are and the heat they're making.