I didn’t quite process what he intended until he began to punch out the glass. I jumped in surprise, wincing as the glass trickled to the ground. It sounded as loud as gunshots to me, but I tried to assure myself that it was not nearly as loud as I thought it was. That, in fact, it was relatively quiet considering the circumstances.
He grabbed hold of the bag of guns, dragging it toward him. I hurried to help him as he unzipped the bag and we began to stuff it full of the chips, cookies, and candies stored within the machine. It wasn’t the healthiest assortment, but it was much better than starvation.
Cade zipped the bag tightly closed and sat back. I knew I should stop staring at him, stop watching the smooth play of skin over his lean muscles, but I couldn’t bring myself to tear my gaze away. There was no smug male pride in his gaze as he caught me admiring him. Instead, a fierce longing blazed to life with such intensity that I found I could no longer breathe. In fact, I could no longer recall anything exceptfor him.
It was the feel of Jenna’s gaze on me that finally tore my attention from Cade. I did not look at her; I was too ashamed to as I ducked my head and turned back toward the doorway we had come through. I had to force my thoughts away from him as I strained to hear anything, but it was eerily quiet in the large building. Too quiet.
Maybe I had only imagined that something was moving toward us over the garbage heap, but I didn’t think so. I knew what I had seen, and the complete and utter lack of animals was too hard to ignore. Animals knew things we didn’t. They sensed the impending approach of many different things and fled from them long before we did. I was beginning to suspect the aliens had the same effect upon them that an earthquake would, and that they were fleeing before we even knew the monsters were near. I was not about to ignore their more finely honed instincts in favor of my less than perfect ones.
“Bethy.”
Abby’s soft whisper alerted me to the fact that we were ready to move on. Thankfully Cade had donned his shirt again and was now toting the bag. Jenna had disappeared from the room, but Abby and Cade were impatiently waiting for me by another door. Cade ushered me quickly into the room. He closed the door behind us, throwing the room into complete darkness. Terror erupted through me as swiftly as a bursting dam; I took a stumbling step back as the overwhelming urge to flee encompassed me. I could feel the walls closing in on me, crushing against my sides, ripping the air from my lungs.
“Easy.” Cade’s breath was warm against my ear as he whispered the word. His reassuring presence gave me a small measure of comfort. I was at least able to keep myself from screaming or running away as I ripped my hair out. Then, to my horror and relief, light flooded the room. Abby was standing by the door, her hand on the switch.
“Abby…”
“It’s ok; there are no windows in this room,” Cade assured me.
I glanced rapidly around the room, not feeling at all relived as I took in the cramped, dark, and dreary space. It was a small bathroom with a urinal and a toilet. The sink was yellowed and dirty, the mirror cracked, and I was certain that it was only the stench of us that was blocking the stench of this room. For some reason, that I didn’t even want to begin to fathom, there was a large drain in the center of the room.
“It’s like we’re stuck in an unending dirty, stinky hell,” Jenna said softly.
I silently agreed.
“We can’t stay in here. It’s a dead end.”
Cade turned back around, he reached for the knob as the ground beneath our feet began to shake. My breath froze, a scream strangled in my throat. Sweat beaded my forehead as my jaw clenched in terror. Cade reached out and swiftly shoved Abby’s hand down on the light. It didn’t matter if there were no windows in this room; it was a relief to be plunged into darkness again. At least for themit was, it gave them a false sense of security. It gave me almost instantaneous heart palpitations. With the lights out, it felt as if the walls were creeping steadily closer to me once more. No matter how irrational the thought was, I could not turn it off.
The water in the toilet began to shake and splash as the ground shook and vibrated with a sudden, violent, wrenching motion. I jumped in surprise; a scream would have erupted from me if Cade had not slammed his hand over my mouth to stifle it. “Stay calm Bethy. It’s only going to get worse, and you are going to have to handle it if you want to survive. If you want your sisterto survive.”
I managed a small nod, and though I thought he was going to release me right away he clung to me, his arms strong and secure around me. It was the first time I sensed his fear, his uncertainty as to whether or not we would make it out of this alive. And if we were going to die, he was going to hug me one more time, and I was going to return it. I did not feel guilt as I took solace in his strong embrace for a brief moment.
He released me reluctantly, moving away as a loud crash resounded throughout the building, seeming to shake it on its foundation. It sounded as if something had just smashed into the large garage door. “They know we’re in here,” Abby whispered.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Cade muttered, his voice sounding distant in the small room. “They could just be going building to building. They may have picked up our scent recently, but they would have caught up to us again if they had been tracking us since yesterday. Either way, we can’t stay here.”
“What are we going to do?” Jenna inquired.
I was thinking the same exact thing as a small light flared into the tiny room. Cade was kneeling down, a penlight in his hand as he examined the drain intently. My heart plummeted, my head spun, and for a frightening moment I was truly terrified that I might pass out as a wave of dizziness cascaded over me. I wanted to shake my head, wanted to run screaming, wanted to rip out every hair on my head. Instead, I stood, my legs trembling as I struggled not to vomit.
Cade placed the penlight between his teeth as he started to feel around the edges of the drain. “Are you out of your mind?” Jenna inquired shakily. “We don’t even know where that goes. I’m not crawling through sewage.”
Cade lifted the light to something I had not noticed before. There was a shower head sticking out of the wall with two knobs beneath it. My eyes widened, hope sprang forth in me. For a brief moment, I forgot all about the danger we faced as my fingers itched to turn on that water and plunge beneath the wonderful spray. I didn’t even give a damn if it was freezing cold, it would be heaven. There was a dwindling bar of soap settled onto a metal dish. I wanted it. I wanted it badly.
“It’s a water drain. It’s not sewage.”
“You don’t know that,” Jenna breathed.
“I know that if we stay here, we’re dead.” As if to reinforce his words, the sound of twisting metal echoed through the air. It sounded as if the garage doors were starting to give out. “This is a town facility, there’s a possibility it might lead straight to the water treatment center.”
“You don’t know if it leads anywhere at all. You don’t know if it just dead ends. You don’t know if it doesn’t become so narrow that we can no longer fit through it.” Jenna was becoming slightly hysterical and her rushed words were doing nothing to ease my growing terror.
“No, I don’t, but I do know that we have to try.”
I agreed that we had to try, or at least theydid, but I was fairly certain that I was not going in that awful thing. Cade reached down, grabbed hold of the grate, and pulled it free with surprising ease. It rattled softly as he placed it on the ground. Cade shone the light into the darkness, peering into the hole. I wrapped my arms around myself trying, and failing, to ease the shaking that was starting to take me over.