Pretty Much Dead Already, page 22
We keep moving.
The tunnel opens onto a storage bay lined with old garden tools and two-by-fours. Cass checks the door—locked, but not alarmed. He kneels, fishes a tension wrench from his jacket, and pops the latch with a flick.
“Showoff,” Rhett mutters, but there’s admiration in it.
Cass pushes the door open a crack, then waves us through. The next space is tighter, darker. I can hear the groan of the outer wall, the pressure of the undead siege just on the other side. Every breath tastes like dust and old sweat.
We pause at the bottom of a narrow staircase. Cass turns to me, voice barely above a whisper. “Once we’re outside, you stick with me. Don’t try to be a hero.”
“I’m not planning on it,” I say, but my voice is thinner than I want.
Cass grins, then presses the comm button on his headset. “Alpha to Bravo. We’re in position.”
A beat of static, then Jace’s voice: “Copy. Gate is clear. Good luck.”
We ascend the stairs, one by one, moving slow. At the top is a steel door with a peephole, the bolts so rusted it looks fused. Rhett gestures for quiet, then sets up on the left, pistol drawn. Cass nods at me, then pushes the door open.
The air outside is colder than I expected, the night alive with a thousand tiny sounds—wind whistles through razor wire, the distant pop of a gunshot, the low, endless moan of the horde. We slide out, backs to the wall, Cass leading.
The yard between the Fort and the target warehouse is maybe fifty yards. A no-man’s land of broken pavement, chain-link fence, and the scattered debris of every failed supply run that came before.
I crouch low, following Cass’s lead. Every step is a risk, every shadow a possible threat. Rhett brings up the rear, scanning with clinical precision.
At the edge of the yard, we pause behind a burned-out minivan. Cass peeks over, then ducks back. “Three infected, feeding on something. We can go left and hope they don’t notice, or we take them out now.”
Rhett surveys the terrain. “We’re burning daylight. Quiet is better.”
Cass nods, then signals for us to follow.
We skirt the edge of the lot, sticking to the darkness beneath the overhang of the old science building. The infected don’t see us; they’re too busy clawing at whatever fresh kill is at their feet.
We make it to the side gate—a patchwork of rebar, wire mesh, and what looks like two stop signs welded together. The lock is thick, but Cass has the key: a bolt cutter, heavy and awkward.
He sets it in place, then pauses. “Ready?” He whispers.
I nod. My heart is going so fast I can barely feel my hands.
Cass cuts the lock. The snap is louder than I want, echoing off the concrete. For a split second, I’m sure the entire horde will turn and come for us.
But nothing happens. The night just swallows the sound.
He pushes the gate open, hinges screaming. We slip through, one at a time.
On the other side, the world is raw and wide open. The warehouse looms ahead—dark, silent, promising everything and nothing.
Cass turns, gives me a look that is pure adrenaline. “See? Easy.”
I almost laugh, but then Rhett’s voice cuts in, sharp and urgent. “Heads up. Company, twelve o’clock.”
We duck behind a stack of crates, and I peek over the edge. A patrol—a half-dozen armed men, Viktor’s crew, moving in a tight wedge. Their faces are hard, eyes scanning.
Cass whispers, “We go now, or we don’t go at all.”
I grip the knife tighter, med kit banging at my hip. Michael is beside me, breath coming fast but steady.
We move, Cass at point, me behind is Michael, Rhett is last. We sprint the open ground, every footfall loud in my own head, every second a coin toss.
We reach the loading dock just as the patrol rounds the corner. Cass yanks me up and over the lip, then drops flat. Rhett covers us, gun aimed steady.
The patrol passes. For a moment, I think we made it.
Then a light flicks on, blinding white, and a voice shouts, “Hey!”
The next seconds are chaos—Cass rolling to his feet, hurling a chunk of brick; Rhett firing two quick shots; me slamming the med kit against the side of the dock, teeth rattling in my head.
The light dies. Silence, then shouting. But we’re already inside, running blind down the length of the warehouse, the echo of our footfalls drowned by the sudden storm of alarms.
We duck into a side room, slam the door, and collapse against the wall. Cass is laughing, wild and breathless.
“Told you,” he pants, “Never boring.”
I look at him, then at Rhett, then at Michael, still clutching the kit to my side.
We’re alive. For now.
Outside, the sirens wail. Inside, the four of us breathe, hearts pounding, ready for whatever comes next.
The mission has started.
There’s no going back.
Chapter Twenty: The Great Escape
Lira
We crawl deeper into the warehouse. Every footfall is swallowed by the endless dark, the concrete beneath cold and gritty, thick with oil stains and the calcified remains of a thousand abandoned lives. Cass takes point, ducking his head to peer around every stack of crates, shoes barely whispering against the dust. Rhett covers our six, big hands never leaving his sidearm, shoulders hunched so he looks like a question mark carved in flesh. Michael moves in a tighter orbit to me, fingers brushing my elbow at every turn, eyes darting between the path ahead and the corners above—searching for tripwires, I guess, or an exit that isn’t an open grave.
After a hundred yards the corridors squeeze down, shelves rising over us in two-story cliffs, box after box blotting out the last of the outside light. The only illumination is Cass’s dim penlight, which he fires up with stubborn optimism even though the batteries are chewing air. We pass through a narrow choke, freezer units dead and open, then into a breakroom that stinks of old cigarettes and even older bodies.
Cass edges in first, crouching behind a water cooler. He waves us forward with two fingers, then gestures at the floor. “Booby-trapped,” He mouths, aiming the beam at a tripwire strung lazy and low across the threshold. Whoever set it was either cocky or confident nobody would get this far.
Rhett drops to one knee, inspecting the setup with clinical detachment. He flashes Cass a look—maybe respect, maybe irritation.
“Claymore’s fake,” Cass whispers. “But the canisters are real. Tear gas, by the smell.”
Rhett nods, then crawls forward, tracing the wire with a fingertip. It’s all so quiet—all so deliberate. The tension is a membrane stretched over bone, and I barely inhale for fear of snapping it.
Michael tugs at my sleeve, eyes flicking back to the door. His lips press together in a thin, urgent line. I want to tell him that I’m not scared, but my blood still tastes like coins.
Cass sets a boot on the wire, just enough to test it. Nothing. He slides the knife from his boot, keeping it flush to the ground, and slices the tripwire in one slow breath. It sags, the force spent, and the four of us exhale for the first time in minutes.
We slip into the breakroom, closing the door behind us. Rhett lifts his head, listening for pursuit; Cass pokes around the vending machines, hands quick and greedy. He finds a pack of jerky—three years expired, but the kind that could outlive most of us.
He tosses it to me without looking. “Fuel,” He says. “Eat something.”
I take it, fingers numb. The first bite crumbles in my mouth—salt and dust and a hint of what once was teriyaki. I chew, because to spit it out would be to admit fear.
Cass pops a sugar packet from the coffee counter, pours it straight into his mouth, and grins at me, tongue grainy with white. “You see? Gourmet.”
Rhett slides over, unpeeling a ration bar, and splits it four ways. He hands me a piece with a nod. “Five minutes.”
Michael doesn’t eat. Instead he roots through the cabinets, fishing out a half-box of nitrile gloves and a bottle of hand sanitizing gel that could double as accelerant. He tucks it into the med kit, then sits on the linoleum with his back against the fridge, knees drawn up to his chest.
For a while, we just breathe. The infected haven’t found us yet, but every so often the building creaks, or something scurries behind the walls, and Cass’s shoulders bunch up like he’s preparing for impact.
Rhett checks his pistol, magazine out and in, then lowers his voice to barely a hush. “Next move?”
“Loading dock,” Cass says, already rolling the map out on his thigh. “South end, two flights down. That’s where the good stuff hides. They probably have it penned behind a cage.”
Rhett’s eyes scan the blueprint. “Last intel said Viktor’s men had a checkpoint at the top of the stairs.”
Cass shrugs. “Well, either we’re lucky and they’re dead, or we’re unlucky and so are we.”
He glances at me. “Trained for hand-to-hand, Birdie?” We both know the answer, fuck no. I was a porcelain doll, my only training was what to say and how to look pretty. Well, I'm not that precious little doll anymore. In the last few months I've seen and done things I never thought I could do, this is just another notch on my belt.
I click the safety on the battered comm unit, trying to sound tough through a mouthful of jerky. “I can improvise.”
Cass grins, all teeth. “Good. That’s the only qualification that matters.”
“Keep coms open,” Rhett says, snapping his radio to his sleeve. “If it gets ugly, split and regroup at the GATE 6 marker.”
I nod, heart beating double-time.
Michael glances at me, eyes soft. “Stay close,” he says, voice for me alone.
“Always,” I say.
We move.
The stairwell is an echo chamber, every footfall a threat and a promise. We descend in single file: Cass at point, light off now, moving by memory and moonfall through the slits in the steel. I’m behind him, then Michael, then Rhett—always guarding the rear, always one step ready to turn and fight.
Halfway to the landing, Cass halts so fast I nearly slam into him. He holds a fist up, then spreads his fingers: three, two, one.
Just below, voices. Not Viktor’s—too whiny, too local. These are goons, scavengers, maybe even the same morons who set the tripwire.
Cass motions to Rhett, who slides forward with the silence of a stalking cat. Below the rail, I can make out shapes: two men arguing in the half-dark, one holding a pipe, the other smoking through a hole in a rag over his mouth.
“Don’t like it,” the rag-mouth whispers. “Saw movement on the east roof. You said there’d be no patrol.”
Pipe Man scoffs. “Relax. No one uses the side stairs. And if they do, they’re dead before they reach the—”
He doesn’t finish. Rhett drops off the landing and lands silent behind them.
The first man doesn’t even turn before Rhett’s zip tie is around his throat, pulling him down in a tight, controlled arc. The rag-mouth reacts late—turns, pipe raised—but Cass is already on him, a flash of steel catching the man’s wrist and sending the pipe spinning across the tiles.
They don’t scream. Both are trained, or used to violence, and neither gets a word out before Cass has his palm over Rag-mouth’s mouth, knife at the base of his skull.
I wait, frozen, as the two men are rendered to the floor, sleeping or dead. Michael is next to me, and I feel him tense, but his hands are steady and he’s already checking the pulse on Pipe Man, then— shrugging, like it makes no difference at all.
The second man twitches, then goes limp.
Cass wipes the blade on Rag-mouth’s jacket, then stands. “That’s it?” He whispers. “Two?”
Rhett listens to the silence, head cocked. “Two here. More by the loading dock, probably.”
He drags the bodies into a janitor’s closet, then signals us forward.
We move faster, buoyed by the rush of violence and the small, sick thrill of not being the one laid out on the linoleum. The stairwell opens onto a long, shadow-choked corridor, and at the end is a big metal door: LOADING only, stenciled in block letters, the O smeared to a convincing zero.
We pause, breathing slow.
“Prep,” Rhett instructs, and Cass checks the pistol, hands me the knife again.
Cass whispers, “You on the door with me?” and I nod.
I’m sweating. My hands want to tremble, but I force them flat on my thighs, palm after palm. I tell myself I’m ready, but inside it’s all static.
Rhett sets up on the right side of the door, gun level. Cass pulls me to his left, shoulders squared, and gives a count—one, two, three.
He throws the door inward.
The scene is chaos: three men, two with makeshift spears, one perched on top of a crate with a shotgun. There’s a pile of food and medicine on a pallet, all still shrink-wrapped and gleaming in the emergency lights.
Cass doesn’t wait for the welcome party. He barrels forward, knife out, as the shotgun man shouts something and tries to level the muzzle. I sprint after, so close behind Cass that I nearly trip on his heels. The first spear is a joke—aimed too high, easy to sidestep. Cass grabs the man’s wrist and vents the blade into his side once, twice, twisting for emphasis. I hit the second with the butt of the med kit, as hard as I can, and the shock vibrates up my arms so strong I think I’ve broken something, but the man drops, clutching his stomach and gagging.
The shotgun goes off. The sound is a bomb in my head—a single, bright flash that turns the whole world white.
When my hearing returns, I see Michael on the ground, blood pooling fast from his upper arm. Rhett is kneeling beside him, hands already clamping the wound, but I can hear the wet, sucking sound of air where it shouldn’t be.
Cass and I double back to cover them, but the last guard throws down his weapon and bolts for the exit, screaming into the dark.
I lunge after him, but Cass catches my arm. “Let it go,” he hisses. “We need the supplies.”
The man’s gone, footsteps echoing up the corridor, until the only sound left is Michael’s breathing—high, wet, terrible.
Rhett looks up, face shaded in crisis. “Lira, med kit. Now.”
I drop hard by Michael’s side. The blood is bright, arterial, and there’s splatter on the floor but not the wall, which means the shot was close and shallow. I fumble the kit open, hands slippery.
“Gauze,” Rhett says, and I press the pack to the wound. Michael’s face is bone-pale, but his eyes track me, alive and keen. “Cut sleeve,” he instructs, voice shaking in the way you’d expect from someone who’s just been shot.
Cass crouches over my shoulder, loading rounds into his pistol with one hand while covering us with the other. “We got five minutes, maybe less, before that guy brings help,” he says. “Whatever you do—make it fast.”
I fish through the kit, find the hemostat, and clamp it to the worst of the bleeding. Michael’s teeth click as the metal bites, but he doesn’t scream.
“I need you to hold still,” I whisper, and Michael smirks at me. “Now you care about medical compliance?”
Rhett barks a humorless laugh, and together we patch, tape, and wrap as best we can. The blood slows, but not enough.
“Adrenaline,” Michael rasps, and I remember the little brown bottle. I pop the cap with my teeth, draw the syringe, and jab it into the outside of his thigh.
His whole body jerks, and suddenly there’s color in his cheeks again.
Cass is already hauling boxes onto a dolly. “Ready for the fun part?” He says, tossing the pistol to me. “We have to haul ass, literal sense. Everyone wants what’s in here.”
We move. Rhett and I half-carry Michael, the pain making him limp and sweat but not slow. Cass pushes the dolly, the crate of food and medicine rattling hard over every seam in the corridor. We retrace the route—up the stairs, through the breakroom, past the corpses in the closet. At the top, the alarms are louder, and I hear the pounding of feet somewhere on the main floor.
“Back entrance?” Rhett asks.
Cass shakes his head. “They’ll expect it. We do the roof.”
He turns down a hallway, dropping the dolly and grabbing a fire axe from its mount on the wall. “Up the ladder—go!”
The four of us scramble, me last, every muscle raw with adrenaline and fear and the need to outrun every single worst-case scenario my brain can pitch at me. The ladder is ancient, bolted to concrete that crumbles under my grip. I can barely feel my hands, but I keep climbing, shoving Michael ahead of me, praying his legs don’t fail. Rhett is behind, trying to keep Michael from toppling backward while at the same time urging me up, up, up. Cass is already at the top, hacking at a rusted hatch with the fire axe.
Shouts bounce up the stairwell, first distant, then too close. The words blend into animal sound, but I catch “They’re here!” and “Shut the goddam door!” before the footfalls hit the landing.
Cass finally gets the hatch open, the squeal loud enough to draw every set of living and dead ears in a mile radius. He jams the axe in to prop it, braces himself, and reaches down to haul Michael, then me. I scramble after, knees catching on the metal, sweat soaked through my borrowed vest. Rhett shoves the crate upwards, grunting as his arm strain to hold it up. Cass grabs it, huffing as he tosses it to the side before leaning back into the hatch.
On the roof, the world is howling wind and distant red strobes of alarm, the infected outside the perimeter already in a feeding frenzy. The city stretches away in busted concrete veins, dark except for the occasional tongue of fire in the night. The wind cuts so hard it shears the thinnest layer of sweat from my skin.
Cass pulls Rhett out last, then yanks the axe and jams it in the hatch, wedging the door tight. From below, the pounding starts up instantly—a drumbeat of fists and boots and rage.
We run.
The roof is slick with moss and oil. Cass leads, hunched low and fast, hauling ass with the crate tucked under his arm like a football, with the rest of us scattered behind. Rhett has Michael by the waist, practically carrying him, but Michael’s pushing off, blood still leaking but nothing in his face but fury and focus.
