He woke up an hour later…to the very distinct sounds of gunshots inside the facility.
CHAPTER 39
KATE
Will was back, but he hadn’t come to see her. She wished that surprised her, but it didn’t. What she had with Will, however brief, was over a long time ago. Maybe there had never really been anything beyond that one night they spent together in that old house. Did she really expect one night to balloon into something…more? What a joke that turned out to be. On her, on him, on all of them.
She walked down the hallway, listening to her own footsteps echo up and down the concrete world around her. Sometimes she felt like a ghost, unable to distinguish her dreams from her waking world. Who’s to say which one was real?
Mandy, one of the little girls in the facility, appeared in front of her, leaning around the corner like an apparition. She was six years old, with a chipmunk face and cheeks that always looked rosy. Kate had seen her around often during the night, because Mandy liked sneaking out of her room to run around by herself. Kate supposed her mom didn’t mind the girl being out here alone. After all, where was she going to go?
“Hi,” Mandy said, her cheeks flushed red as usual.
“Hi,” she said back.
Mandy reminded her of Vera. When Carly came to see her, she never brought Vera along, which Kate didn’t mind. She hardly knew what to say to Carly, much less to Carly’s little sister.
Mandy pulled her head back behind the corner and ran away, soft footsteps fading.
She walked quickly past the Cafeteria, because there were sometimes people in there, even at night. She could hear them now as she walked past the always-opened doors.
Chattering. Endless chattering.
About what, she couldn’t imagine. What was there to talk about? Did they really think they were going to be safe down here for the rest of their lives? Even if that was the case, did they really call it living? It was almost comical how they were fooling themselves.
She had become used to the hallways, all of their nooks and crannies and turns, and no longer had to consult the maps along the walls. She had gotten lost often during the first month, each hallway looking exactly like the previous one and the one just around the corner. Especially in the Quarters area, with its three-finger-like design. That didn’t happen anymore.
The irony of Harold Campbell not having made it to his precious “bomb shelter,” as Luke liked to call it, helped to push her forward, steeling her resolve to do what she had to do. Will wouldn’t agree. Will would try to talk her out of it, but failing that, would he stop her some other way? She didn’t know. Despite all those days and nights and weeks on the road together, did they really know each other all that well?
For God’s sake, she didn’t even know his last name!
She didn’t know when she had crossed over from the Quarters area of the facility to Operations, but suddenly she turned a corner and saw the metallic glint of the steel Armory door at the end of the hallway.
How did I get here so fast?
She stopped for a moment to get her bearings. Her mind was wandering more and more these days, ever since she started dreaming about Mabry and his opaque white skin. Her mental fog used to be confined to her dreams, but Mabry and the confusion he brought in her dreams were starting to bleed into her waking life.
Mabry.
“What’s the point?” he asked her over and over again in her dreams.
There was no one around, but she waited and listened, checking to make sure anyway. She didn’t want to get caught in the Armory.
When she was sure no one was in the hallway with her, she hurried to the Armory, grabbed the door handle, turned it, and slipped inside.
The door was never locked. None of the steel doors in the Operations area were locked. Not that it mattered. Most of the people in the facility were already armed with handguns, and the kids were strictly forbidden from playing in the Operations area, though Kate had seen Mandy and the Steven boys wandering over here every now and then.
She stood in the middle of the room and took inventory.
The Glocks had their own separate rack. She was used to a Glock, though these looked a bit bigger than the one Will had chosen for her all those months ago. Not that much bigger, and it was still a Glock. She would recognize the same look and plastic feel of it even in the dark. She picked one up and held in her hands, and found it a little heavier than she was used to. Not by much. Most of the difference was in the width when she tried to put her fingers around the grip. It was a little wide, but she could still reach the trigger, and that was all that mattered.
She found a box of bullets, took out the magazine and began to load it. She didn’t bother with a second gun or magazine. One should be enough.
She had given up her own Glock a while back, during one of those dark weeks when she almost never came out of her room, even at night when no one was around. It was Will who had asked if she still wanted the gun, and when she said no, he had been eager to take it away.
She was feeling better now, much better. The realization of this new world — this “living”—gave her a clarity she hadn’t known in a while. She had Mabry to thank for that. He pushed her, cajoled her, until she accepted and embraced his question.
What’s the point?
She tucked the Glock in her back waistband and made sure her shirt draped over it. Most people carried guns around the facility, but even so, she wanted surprise on her side. Everything depended on surprise.
She opened the Armory door a crack and peered out, made sure no one was outside before going out and closing the steel door shut behind her. She walked briskly up the hallway, thinking about all the steps ahead of her, turning them over and over in her head.
It was a solid plan. She had been thinking about it for a while now, planning every little detail.
It was a good plan. It was a great plan.
And most of all, it was a logical plan. There was nothing emotional here. It was all logic. Sanity prevailing over insanity.
Order over chaos…
Ben had what she needed, so she walked back to the Quarters area to find him, seeking him out in his personal quarter. He wasn’t there. Opening the unlocked door, she found an empty cot in the corner. Ben was not very tidy, and the place looked heavily lived in.
He wasn’t in the Cafeteria either.
She suspected he was probably back in Operations, where he spent most of his time. She found him in the first place she looked — the Control Room.
Serendipitous.
It was as if all the stars were aligning, presenting the two things she needed to accomplish her plan in one place. Of course, it would have been nice if she had gone straight to the Control Room instead of looking for Ben elsewhere. It would have saved her some pointless walking, if nothing else. But that was nitpicking.
Rick was also there. He sat in a chair, looking at the rows of monitors that showed the clearing above ground. It was dark, but the moon was full and she could see black shapes moving in the clearing, darting in and out of the woods.
What were they doing out there? Did they know?
Of course not, she chastised herself. How could they know? She had thought about it and thought about it, but she hadn’t even known she was actually going to do it until just an hour ago.
She stood quietly in the Control Room doorway and listened to them talking, oblivious to her presence. She smiled. She had become good at this.