“I won’t speak for Grant,” Lucy interjected, glancing in his direction, and he nodded his thanks. “But for me? Don’t you dare make me feel guilty for having hope that my family is alive. That doesn’t take away from your grief…”
“I’m not a monster,” Salem interrupted, lowering her finger, her voice still on edge. “I’d never take that away from you. I want you to be right. I want them to be alive. Who do you think I am?”
Lucy stood up. “I don’t think any of us know who we are anymore. And maybe we should be allowed some time to figure it out.”
It was truth, spoken in kindness. This sudden detour from the ordinary unmoored them from reality and thrust them into a disquiet about the future too difficult to digest. Underneath it all was a permeating worry that their time too was short and that they were treading water until the next wave of loss and horror crashed down on them. Lucy could see it on all their faces, playing out in the blank-glances, the dark circles: The sagging weight of loss.
Grant opened his mouth to respond, but then he turned his head and he opened the door wider. The snoring had stopped. There was rustling on the speaker and they knew what that meant. The man was waking up.
“Food is our first priority,” Salem said. “We can stay put and away from the cameras if we have food.”
They had listened to the office sounds for fifteen minutes. Spencer left and came back twice. He hummed and mumbled to himself, but the specifics of his one-way conversations were indecipherable. None of his current actions struck them as alarming or worrisome; he had not fired the gun again or sent menacing messages out over the intercom. In many ways, they hoped he stayed away from the intercom, lest he should ever notice it was helping them track his every move in and out of the office.
“So, we need to get to the cafeteria,” Lucy stated. “And we can’t just waltz through the hallway.” It had been a bit since Lucy had checked her phone; she had set it on one of the couches and she grabbed it, but the low battery light blinked and blinked, warning her and threatening her. But there was still nothing but silence. Lucy shoved the phone in her pocket and willed it to keep itself alive for a little bit longer. She didn’t even know if cell phones were working, if her wish was wasted.
“Go up the ladder,” Grant instructed. “Boiler room is on the inside of the gates. It’ll be easy, as long as Spencer doesn’t leave the office. If he goes on the move, we should abort the trip and head back.”
“Agreed,” Salem said.
Back they trudged to the journalism room where the door was kept ajar with the doorstop. It was easily ten degrees cooler in there with the open roof funneling in wind and elements. The trio worked to move the tables back under the skylight and then drag the ladder upward.
Grant went first, pulling himself up to the roof with sheer upper body strength, his legs following after. Lucy went next, bracing herself each time the ladder wobbled under her weight the higher she climbed. When she reached the top, Grant lowered his arms and pulled her up and she scrambled to the hard surface the second her legs could catch the side of roof. For a prolonged moment, she rested on the cool roof, flat on her belly against the tar. Then she stood and blinked.
Scanning the landscape, Lucy’s shock caused her to nearly stumble backward through the hole in the skylight. She regained her composure and took a step forward. The sky was altered, filled with the bright yellows, purples and pinks of an early-morning sunrise even though the sun had been up for hours. Above the colorful hues, the rest of the sky was dark and dense with smoke, and as Lucy opened her mouth to call down to Salem she could feel a sharp taste on her tongue and in the back of her throat. Everything around her took on a subtle orange tint—as if she were wearing thin filtered glasses. The effect of the colors and the smoke and the orange created a dreamlike atmosphere—otherworldly.
She clamped her mouth down and took a tentative step forward. Then another. Walking to the edge of the roof and peering down on to the parking lot below to the dozens and dozens of deserted cars, dead bodies, discarded backpacks, and other personal items littering the area. It was then Lucy realized the earth was strangely quiet, just like Clayton had said. There were no planes in the sky and no cars rushing down the street. The screams and torment of the survivors from yesterday were all gone. Only a few sporadic sounds remained—a crash, a sudden car alarm—and their appearance was jarring, unexpected, frightening, causing each of them to jump and seek out the source with their hearts pounding with fear.
She closed her eyes and listened to the wind. From miles and miles away, she heard the distinct sound of a dog barking.
Then she realized with sadness that she must have imagined it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They climbed down into the boiler room and out into the small walkway that connected the room with the main hallway. With their hearts racing and their ears trained on the intercom, they moved with cautious precision. And when they rounded the corner to the hall, Grant leading the front, Salem huddled at Lucy’s elbow a few steps behind, they all stopped short and gasped.
Splayed out on the tile was a dead man. He had brown hair and was wearing a blue button-down shirt, jeans, and a walkie-talkie was still in his hand. A thick key ring with at least fifteen silver keys dangled from a belt-loop. The man still looked like a man, but his skin had a greenish and cloudy quality along his bloated cheeks and extremities, as if he had been submerged in a vat of soured milk.
This decomposition was not normal. Not even the Ebola virus could arrive without symptoms, kill in minutes, and reduce the body to rotting tissue within an hour. Lucy knew if her father was around, he would be looking at this virus with curiosity, examining it with a scientist’s eye, and she longed for his strength and whatever answers he could give her. Not having him within reach was alarming—she had questions. Who would answer them?
It was difficult to look away, despite the disgust. Grant coughed into his shoulder and then leaned forward, inspecting and assessing the body. He dropped down and squatted, turned his head away from the stench, and started to reach forward, his eyes watering.
“What the hell are you doing?” Salem asked.
With one quick motion, Grant unhooked the silver key ring and swiped it off the belt-loop with a small tug. The keys jangled in his hand and he held them up triumphantly. “Master keys. Locker keys. All keys. This,” he jangled them, “is a treasure.”
“I wonder why his body was left here,” Lucy said out loud.
“One of the last adults to get sick, probably.” Salem crossed her arms over her body and looked up and down the hall with nervous, shifty eyes. “Come on, I feel exposed.”
“Wait,” Grant said and his shot up to the cameras. “Where’s Spencer?”
They all strained to listen, but the office was quiet.
Then they heard the ring of a telephone. One long ring, another long ring. Then Spencer answered it—off somewhere in the office, away from the microphone.
“The phones!” Lucy exclaimed and she reached her pocket, scrambling. Pulling it free, she stared at the screen, waiting for dormant text messages to start pouring through. A beep signaled that she had a message and Lucy clicked on it quickly. Salem’s name popped up. I’m in the building. Journalism room? But that was all.
“What? What did you get?” Salem asked, leaning over to look at the screen.
“Just you. From yesterday.” Lucy didn’t even try to mask her disappointment. She dialed Ethan’s number. After five long seconds, the call clicked in. “It’s ringing! It’s ringing!” she said and she took two long strides back down the side walkway toward the boiler room, shoving her left hand over her left ear out of habit, even though there wasn’t any noise to drown out in the background. After four rings, it kicked her to voicemail. Ethan’s voice on the message was bright and chipper—and so clear, like he was standing right beside her. She wanted to cry.