TORMENT (41 page)

After exiting the last flight of stairs, Austin turned right and moved slowly down the hall, pausing when it opened up into the next room. The space beyond was huge. The floor and ceiling were constructed of huge pieces of timber, the kind that were plentiful when the mill had been built, but that people had paid a fortune for before civilization came to an abrupt end.

Large holes covered the floor where bolts had once secured heavy machinery. Aside from random pieces of junk, the space stood empty. Twelve-foot tall windows lined the left side of the room. Most were shattered. Glass covered the floor beneath them.

“Watch where you step,” he said.

For a moment, his concern moved her. Then she realized he wasn’t worried about her cutting herself. He just didn’t want her to make any noise. And neither did
she
. They took a circuitous route through the room, avoiding the windows and broken glass by hugging the back wall.

They found a large metal door on rollers at the other side of the room. It led to a small, twenty by twenty
space
, perhaps for storage. An identical sliding door was on the other side of the room, this one closed and locked by a large metal latch. After entering the room, Austin gave the open door a shove and it rolled quietly. When the door was closed, he twisted the lock into place.

“Seems like a good place to rest and figure out a game plan,” he said.

She nodded. The brick walls looked sturdy and the she doubted the killers could break down the metal doors. Four stories separated them from the world and provided a modicum of safety.

She looked out the room’s single, large window, watching the heat lightning silently cut through the orange clouds. “It’s kind of beautiful.”

He stood next to her. “I remember nights like this.
In the summer.
Seems like a dream now.”

A sharp scream reached up to them from below. Mia took a step toward it.

“Get down,” Austin urged, heading toward the window in a crouch before lowering himself to his stomach and sliding over the shards of broken glass. Mia followed his lead and slid across the floor, moving slowly in an effort to stay quiet.

At first all they could see was the red brick apartment buildings across the street and the ruins of a few pint sized skyscrapers beyond. But when they shifted closer to the edge and were able to see straight down, they froze.

Hundreds of killers stood around the building. They swayed and murmured, displaying a behavior neither Austin nor Mia had seen before—stillness. That might not normally have bothered them. The killers not killing made them look human again. The problem was that every single killer below stood facing the mill.

Hundreds of eyes scoured the building.

Mia slid away from the window, her chest rising and falling quickly. “They’re looking for us.”

Austin moved back. “But they’re not coming in.”

She turned to him. “They’re waiting.”

“For what?”

“For us to a make run for it.”

He frowned.
“Or for us to die.”

Mia agreed. Without food or water, it wouldn’t be long.
Maybe another day at the most.
If the horde lost its patience and stormed the building, probably a lot less.

49

“You still don’t think this is Hell?” Mia asked. She and Austin had retreated to the back wall of the sealed room and sat on the floor.

“That what you and Garbarino decided?” He traced his finger through the thick dust on the floor. “That this was Hell?”

Mia stayed quiet. The tone of Austin’s voice made her feel stupid for bringing it up.

“As a metaphor, sure, this is hell.
But
the
Hell?
Things don’t add up.” He rubbed a ball of dust between his index finger and thumb. “I went to Sunday school and I don’t see a pit of fire. I don’t see demons. People have changed, sure. Become monsters. But I’m sure there is a scientific explanation for it. We doused the world in radiation, exposed humanity to forces beyond our comprehension. This is the result.”

Part of Mia agreed with him. She’d never believed in God before and knew she’d only started considering the possibility because she felt afraid to die.
That’s not all
, she told herself, remembering the fates of their fallen friends. “What about Paul and Mark? What about Chang, and White, and Vanderwarf, and Collins?”

“And Elizabeth,” he said, his voice full of regret for not saving them.

“And Liz,” she said. “Why did some of them come back and some of them stay dead?” She leaned her head against the hard brick wall behind her. The grout dug into her skin, but the pain kept her alert. “Mark clearly believed. And he didn’t come back. Elizabeth was a child. The pastor knew she wouldn’t come back.”

“And Collins?
You really think the person responsible for turning the world to hell would get a jail pass? He ends up in hell, has a change of heart and is what, forgiven for bringing about Armageddon?”

She hit her head against the wall in frustration, hardly noticing the sting of splitting skin.
“Then what?
Why did some of them come back as...as one of
them
and the others not come back at all? And why aren’t there any children?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe it has something to do with genetics. Some people are susceptible to whatever change has taken place.
Something in the atmosphere.
Something we’re breathing. And maybe there are no children because of their size. Maybe whatever changed the
adults,
killed all the children?” He traced his finger along the floor, adding a curved line to his drawing in the dust. “Maybe the zombie movies are right and it’s a mutated disease.”

A thought struck Mia hard. “Or something we ate.” She looked at Austin. “Elizabeth only ate the food we brought with us. I didn’t see Mark eat anything local either. What about Collins?”

“I didn’t notice,” he said. “I haven’t eaten anything but what we brought.
You?”

Mia knew the answer to that question as soon as she’d thought about food.
“Cheez-Its.
At the church.
I shared a pack with Garbarino. Took another for Liz, but she never got to eat it.”

“Then maybe it’s the food.”

Mia stared at the floor.

He gave her a pat on the knee. “But I doubt it.”

She smiled at his kindness. “It was worth it, anyway. They were so good.”

Austin chuckled. “You see? I can’t believe this is hell when we can still laugh. How could hope exist in hell?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Hell seems the perfect place for false hope.” She sighed and added, “You still think we can escape? Find survivors up north?”

“It’s less likely now that we’re surrounded, but yeah, I think there are other survivors out there. We just need to find them.”

It seemed a fantasy to Mia. How could people survive in this world? But she and Austin had. And if they could figure out a way past the killers outside and leave the city behind, maybe they would find survivors. “Canadians,” she said.

“What?”

“They’ll probably be Canadians.” She looked at him.
“The other survivors.”

He smiled. “
French
Canadians,” he said with mock disdain.

She smiled. “My mom’s parents were French Canadians.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Mia nearly let out a loud laugh, but contained it. Despite her fear, the hunger gnawing at her belly, and the still fresh sadness of losing Elizabeth, she thought Austin was right. There still was hope. And that was something, wasn’t it? If this were Hell, how could hope exist? “Assuming this isn’t the actual Hell, what about God?”

“What about God?”

“Does He exist?”

“If he does, he’s a sadist. The world was bad enough before. Believe me. Collins trusted me. I heard a lot about what goes on in the world that the general public never knows. It was a sick, sick place.
And now?
What kind of creator lets his creation go to shit? I’m not perfect. I’ve done bad things in my life, but I couldn’t let a perfect stranger die, let alone be tortured for eternity. We’re supposed to be God’s children, right? How can someone who lets this happen to their children be good? Never mind worthy of worship.”

Garbarino’s words came back to her. “It’s a choice.”

“What?”

The memory of Garbarino’s sacrifice filled her thoughts. He had no fear of death when he sacrificed himself to save them. And she envied that confidence as much as she longed for Austin’s hope. “That’s what Garbarino thought. It’s a choice.”

“Free will?”

“I guess.”

Austin stood and rubbed his hands on his pants, leaving streaks of dust. “That’s an excuse that people who believe in God use to excuse the inaction of a creator who doesn’t care enough to save his creation.”

She looked to where Austin sat and saw a smiley face drawn in the dust. How could he be so optimistic in the face of death? After all the people they’d lost already?

Austin approached the window slowly, hugging the brick wall on the left side of the room. He appreciated the conversation. It provided a welcome distraction from the fact that they were surrounded by enemies. But they needed a plan and they needed one soon. If they were going to survive this, and he believed that they would, they would have to move before they got too weak from hunger and thirst. If they could navigate the city, maybe find an abandoned grocery store, he thought they could resupply and keep moving.

The killers below hadn’t moved yet. They just stood still, staring at the building.

“What are they doing?” Mia asked.

Austin stepped away from the window and leaned against the brick sidewall. “Waiting, I think.”

Mia started toward him, walking slowly, careful not to step on any glass. “Waiting,” she said, stepping over a floor board that looked loose.
“For what?”

The wall behind Austin shook from an impact and bent inward.

Mia scrambled further away from it. “Is the building coming down?”

Austin never got a chance to answer.

Before he could realize what was happening, the wall exploded. Austin raised his hands to block his face as bricks burst into the room.

One of the bricks struck Mia’s shoulder and knocked her to the floor. She winced as she pulled herself back up. A jolt of pain shot down her arm, but she forgot it a moment later when she saw a large hand reach through the hole in the wall and wrap around Austin’s head.

“Run!”
he shouted, his voice muffled
. “RU—”

His voice was replaced by a sudden crack.

Austin’s head burst. Skull fragments and brain matter oozed from between the oversized fingers. Austin’s body went limp as blood poured over it.

Mia screamed like never before, wrapped in a blanket of primal fear, her mind retreated and terror was all that remained. She screamed again, but was cut short by the half face of Henry Masters, leaning in through the hole, his perpetual grin sending chills through her body.

She stepped back, body shaking, voice trembling as she wept.

As Masters watched her, she noticed his eyebrows were turned up instead of down. Despite his horrific state, his eyes revealed something other than the pure hate his body radiated.
Sadness.