Still Breathing

Chapter 24

Heart of Darkness

The corridors stretched out before them, a grim, featureless labyrinth bathed in the sickly green glow of emergency lighting. Rose tried to breathe through her nose, to ignore the pervasive stench of decay and chemicals that thickened the stale air. Every shadow seemed to twist and writhe in her peripheral vision, every distant echo of dripping water or settling metal making her heart lurch into overdrive.

They moved as quietly as they could, strung out in a tight line with Chris on point and James bringing up the rear. Rose was acutely aware of every scuff of boot on concrete, every rasp of cloth against skin. Each sound seemed magnified, bouncing off the close walls and announcing their presence to whatever horrors lurked in the depths.

Suddenly, Chris held up a fist, halting their progress. He cocked his head, listening intently, then gestured for them to take cover in a shallow alcove. They crowded in, hardly daring to breathe, straining to hear past the hammer of their own pulses.

There. A wet, squelching sound, accompanied by a low, mindless moan. The icy finger of dread trailed down Rose's spine as realization dawned. Infected. Close, and getting closer.

They readied their weapons with shaking hands, eyes fixed on the bend in the corridor. Rose's palms were slick on the grip of her knife, her mouth dry as a bone. Beside her, Sebastian shifted into a combat stance, his salvaged pistol held rock-steady before him.

The moans grew louder, the dragging footsteps nearer. Rose's heart was in her throat, her blood turned to icy slush in her veins. This was it. They were about to come face to face with the nightmares that stalked these halls. No running, no hiding. Just raw, bloody survival.

Around the corner they came, a knot of lurching, misshapen forms clad in the tatters of lab coats and scrubs. Their faces were twisted masks of hunger, mouths gaping and flecked with gore. They spotted the huddled survivors immediately, milky eyes lighting with feral anticipation.

"Well, hello there!" Tobias called out, his voice high and tight with false cheer. "You folks look a little lost. The cafeteria is that way, and I hear the meatloaf is to die for. Literally."

Despite the gut-wrenching terror, Rose felt a bubble of slightly hysterical laughter lodge in her throat. Leave it to Tobias to crack wise in the face of man-eating monsters. The boy's one-liners were going to get them all killed one day...but damned if they didn't make the whole "end of the world" thing a little more bearable.

The infected clearly didn't appreciate Tobias' stand-up routine. They lurched forward with renewed vigor, gnarled hands grasping, jaws snapping. The sharp report of Sebastian's pistol cracked the air, dropping the lead monster in a spray of blackened blood and brain matter.

Then they were on them, a tidal wave of gnashing teeth and gouging fingers. Rose lashed out with her knife, feeling the sickening resistance as it sank into putrefied flesh. She ripped it free with a spray of gore, pivoting to bury it in the eye socket of another lunging ghoul.

Beside her, the others fought with grim precision, blades flashing and clubs smashing. Fallen infected piled up, but always more came to take their place, an endless tide of reanimated corruption.

Rose lost herself in the battle, her world narrowing to the burn of her muscles, the wet crunch of breaking bone, the hot splatter of tainted blood on her face. Time lost all meaning, the seconds stretching into eternity as she slashed and stabbed and tried desperately not to die.

Finally, blessedly...it was over. The last infected fell with a wet thud, its skull caved in by a vicious swing of James' fire axe. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the survivors' heaving breaths and the distant drip of unseen pipes.

Rose sagged back against the wall, her knife falling from numb fingers. She was shaking, adrenaline and exhaustion warring in her system. Sebastian was at her side in an instant, his hands gentle as they skimmed over her, checking for bites or injuries.

"I'm okay," she managed, her voice alien to her own ears. "I'm...we're okay. We made it."

"But my dry-cleaning bill is going to be a bitch," Tobias quipped, plucking ruefully at his blood-soaked hoodie. "Do you think the apocalypse has an installment plan?"

The laugh that burst out of Rose's chest was more than a little unhinged, but it felt good. A release of tension, a reminder that they were still human, still alive. The others joined in, the sound echoing strangely off the blood-streaked walls.

"Come on," Sebastian said at last, his hand finding Rose's and squeezing gently. "We need to keep moving."

They picked their way over the sprawled corpses, doing their best not to look too closely at the ruin of what had once been human faces. Rose's stomach churned, but she swallowed hard against the surge of bile. She had a feeling this was just the beginning, a mere taste of the horrors to come.

As they ventured deeper into the facility, the air grew colder, damper. Puddles of stagnant water dotted the floor, and a pervasive smell of mold and chemicals thickened in their nostrils. Rose couldn't shake the feeling that they were descending into some subterranean hell, a nightmarish underworld where the normal rules didn't apply.

Abruptly, the corridor ended in a massive set of double doors, the heavy steel marred by dents and gouges. A single sign was bolted above the handles, the red lettering stark and ominous in the pallid light:

LAZARUS CORE LAB - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

Rose's heart thumped painfully against her ribs as the realization set in. This was it. The beating heart of the horror, the womb of the nightmare that had spilled out to devour the world.

The truth awaited them beyond those doors. Along with God only knew what fresh terrors.

Sebastian stepped forward, his jaw set, pistol at the ready. With a last, searing glance at Rose, he grasped the handles and pulled.

The doors swung open with a tortured shriek of rusted hinges...

And Hell gaped wide to greet them.