Zombies

Chapter 14-Scales

I slept fitfully, dreaming of a familiar, terrifying voice. A voice I feared.

-must run. must flee-. It whispered. Was it a command, or was it a cry for help?

I sat up in bed, knowing intuitively that if I wasn't out the door in five minutes I'd be late for work. 

I ran up the stairs since the elevator would have taken much longer. I was huffing by the time I reached the top. As it turns out, the head cook was named Elizabeth. Alina's mother rushed everyone to get this way and that. I was barely in on time, but she still raised an eyebrow at me before putting me to my station for the day. I luckily wouldn't have the breakfast shift again for the entire week. So sleeping in would be possible. It would have to be if I kept seeing the men who were quickly organizing a life outside the control of the base. The night before they'd discussed ways to freedom. Tonight they'd make a decision.

The inner circle would remain in their rooms for breakfast. They wouldn't have to get up and look presentable for something so trivial as the first meal of the day after all. 

Soon enough I would have a place of my own, under the rule of someone who wouldn't discriminate between the powerful and the unpowerful. Those with 'less useful' gifts, and the ones who were ungifted would soon be able to have their own say in their way of life. However that was supposed to happen. 

"Could you send this to Alina, dear?" Elizabeth approached. "And this to Dr. Charleston's assistant, you know, Estelle."

I had seen her but hadn't known her name until just then. She had been nearly invisible during lunch the previous day and hadn't been there during dinner. She was probably the only person who couldn't make the highest ranking in all of the base work to make her any less timid or even visible. Estelle was probably the only one who Iris hadn't formed a strong opinion about. 

I went to Alina's room begrudgingly. Elizabeth had to have known the animosity between her daughter and me. She had done this, for whatever reason, on purpose.  

I walked down the hall to the bedroom areas, the hall ended in a crossing 'T' the perpendicular top of that 'T' was the bedrooms. The hall to the bedroom area was wider and higher than the other places. I looked down both ways and found that both ends had windows. 

There were no directions, but there were names on the doors of who occupied them. I went the wrong end looking for Alina's and had to turn around, but not before looking out that window. There was an open field, and just barely in view was the entrance to the base. Guarded by men and women sitting atop towers so that the zombies couldn't reach them. I didn't see the helicopter that flew us in, but I didn't expect to. I turned to the field and saw the plains that went for miles. I was sure someone said we lived somewhere in Nevada, but this was greener than I'd been expecting. Los Angeles was a desert, and I'd associated the rest of Nevada as such. But this place, though more barren than many other places I'd been to, was better than what I had imagined. I could even spot some trees in the distance. There were some large rock formations that seemed tall enough from here that they might be able to hide someone. Maybe they would look more imposing closer up and at the same level.

I turned away from it and noticed the last door I had passed without really noticing what the sign had said on it: "Barracks". That must be where Liam slept. 

I scurried away from the place. I wasn't sure if he was in there, but I wasn't apt to see him see me sneaking around, looking for Alina's room, and getting distracted by the scenery.

I found her room, but not before a couple of guards passed, noting my apron and newly acquired bronze pin, then moving on. I knocked and heard Alina give some vague permission to enter.