Chapter 8 — The Voice Outside the Wall

We reached the stairs before the last shutter closed.

Tess shoved the slowest donor through.

Shaw and I held the metal panel long enough for Lena to bring the others under it. Then we let go.

The shutter hit the floor.

We had lost the shortest route to the clinic.

Outside, gunfire began along the north wall.

“Where’s Bell?” I asked Shaw.

“Administration, probably.”

“Can he stop the lockdown?”

“Yes.”

“Can anyone else?”

“From the gate-control building.”

I looked down the corridor toward the sealed passage.

Bell had divided the city into sections.

Whether he meant to trap us or contain the danger no longer mattered. People couldn’t reach their children. Nurses couldn’t reach supplies. The men at the wall couldn’t bring reinforcements through the locked service routes.

We moved out through a side exit.

The courtyard was full.

Some residents carried bags. Others carried nothing but the person they had come to find.

A woman shouted that the western gate was open.

Shaw shook his head.

“It’s been welded shut since the generator fire.”

I climbed onto a bench.

“Don’t go west!”

A few faces turned.

“The lower water-treatment yard has a separate service road. We need vehicles there. Anyone who can drive, go to the motor pool. Anyone who can carry someone, stay with Dr. Ortiz.”

A man shouted, “Why should we listen to you?”

“You don’t have to. But check the western gate before you send your family toward it.”

He hesitated.

Then he took two other men to look.

Tess was already moving.

“I’ll get the vans.”

“Take Ben and June.”

She nodded.

Eli appeared at the far end of the courtyard, leaning on his cane.

“You’re supposed to be upstairs,” I said.

“Everybody keeps telling me that.”

He held up his radio.

“The east service road runs to an old municipal treatment plant. They’ve used it for equipment storage. A maintenance crew checked it last week.”

“Is it clear?”

“According to the crew.”

“That’s better than nothing.”

Shaw took the radio long enough to call the motor pool and confirm the route.

A mechanic answered.

Then a burst of static.

Then the voices outside the wall grew louder.

Shaw and I reached the perimeter maintenance shed by following the southern fence.

The behavioral-range speakers were powered from a locked cabinet inside.

I recognized the fittings.

Mercy Ridge used the same equipment Graham had attached to our bunker stairwell.

Just larger.

Much larger.

I opened the cabinet.

The sound was coming from a remote feed.

A rack of amplifiers filled the lower shelves. Beside them stood a monitor showing four grainy camera views.

One showed the transfer station.

The warehouse.

The loading bays.

The place where Tess had been bitten.

I leaned closer.

A small red light blinked above the label OBSERVATION TWO.

They had watched us.

They had known because someone had seen.

Shaw looked at the screen.

“I was told those were recovery cameras.”

“They were.”

I switched off the amplifiers.

The nearest voices stopped.

Beyond the north wall, the gunfire continued.

I couldn’t undo what the speakers had already brought.

At the bottom of the cabinet was another playback unit.

A familiar child’s voice whispered through its tiny internal speaker.

“Please don’t leave.”

Ben.

I pulled the memory cards from their slots and put them in my pocket.

Then I cut the outgoing signal cable.

“We’re done,” I said.

Shaw checked the fence.

“We need to move.”

Three white trucks stood near the motor pool.

Graham was beside the first, arguing with Tess.

I stopped walking.

For one foolish moment, I was back in the bunker.

His coat. His gloves. His voice telling her to be reasonable.

Then Tess shoved him against the truck.

“Keys.”

“You don’t know where that road goes.”

“You do. Start talking.”

He saw me.

Relief crossed his face.

He actually looked relieved.

“Rowan. Thank God.”

I held up the cards.

“We found the cameras.”

His expression closed.

“You don’t understand the operation.”

“I understand the trucks. Open them.”

Two residents stood behind him.

Shaw rested a hand on his rifle.

Graham opened the rear doors.

Four people sat inside.

One had a black eye. A young man held his wrists as if the restraints had only recently been removed.

Tess helped them down.

Graham leaned toward me.

“I brought them somewhere with food.”

“Did you tell them what you were trading?”

“You think they’d have lasted out there?”

“Give me the route.”

He glanced toward the north wall.

A heavy impact sounded beyond the clinic.

Then another.

“The east service road,” he said. “Stay right at the culvert. Left ends at the old quarry.”

Eli wrote it down.

I took the dispatch folder from the cab.

Lists. Dates. Fuel allotments.

Human beings reduced to the space they occupied in a truck.

“Shaw,” I said. “Keep him with the vehicles. Don’t let him leave.”

Graham reached for my arm.

I stepped away before he touched me.

We were loading the second van when Bell’s men arrived.

There were three of them.

The leader pointed at Tess.

“She comes with us.”

A mechanic holding a fuel can stepped between them.

“No.”

The man shoved him.

The can fell.

People scattered as the fuel spread across the concrete.

I moved toward Tess.

Behind her, a man in a laundry uniform stumbled out of the crowd.

He wore glasses.

One lens had cracked.

Something black and wide filled the eye behind it.

“Tess, left!”

She turned.

The man caught her jacket.

I drove my shoulder into him and pushed her clear.

His hand closed around my forearm.

I felt the bite before I saw it.

Pressure.

A sharp, sickening pull.

Shaw dragged him away.

Tess grabbed my wrist.

Blood ran between her fingers.

For a second, she stared as if she didn’t understand what she was holding.

Then Shaw fired.

The man fell.

Bell’s men backed away toward the administration path.

I looked at the punctures.

A woman near us started crying.

I pulled my arm from Tess’s hand.

“Don’t touch the blood.”

“Rowan.”

“Everybody needs to know.”

“No—”

“Tess.”

I made her look at me.

“I’m bitten.”

Eli had heard.

He stood beside the van with his notebook still open.

I wanted to say something that would make his face change back.

Instead, I took three steps away from the crowd.

“No one comes close,” I said. “Not until Lena checks me.”

She examined me behind the motor-pool office.

Tess stood on the other side of the doorway.

Eli sat against the wall.

I could see both of them.

Lena cleaned the wound and looked at the clock.

“How long?”

“Twenty minutes.”

She asked me to follow her finger with my eyes.

My head already hurt.

Maybe it was fear.

Maybe it wasn’t.

“Tell me the truth,” I said.

She sat back.

“There’s a dose in the clinic’s emergency cabinet.”

“The suppressant.”

“Yes.”

“Can it stop this?”

“No.”

The word landed harder than the bite.

Lena reached for a clean bandage.

“It may delay it. With a fresh infection, sometimes we gain several hours. Sometimes we gain less.”

Eli pressed his hand against his mouth.

Tess didn’t move.

I looked toward the vans.

People were still climbing inside.

“Then several hours,” I said.