Chapter 17
He stumbled into the lobby, its blaring music battering his rattled senses. A motion to his right made him turn his head and look.
The smoked-glass of the front doors showed the silhouettes of three people. They stood there, clawing and banging at the doors. Were they drawn by the lobby’s blaring music? Were they ZapPow! employees, come to the office to work? He didn’t know. But something about their postures, something in the nature of their movements—slow and mindlessly repetitive—made Shane sure of one thing: they were infected.
He ducked low and hurried across the lobby, staying close to the far wall so that his shadow had no chance of reaching the smoked glass. He made it to the door on the far side, reached for the handle with one hand, dipping his other hand through the pocket slit in his coveralls, fishing for his keys. He pulled the keys out, thumbed through them for the key to this door, found it and jammed it into the keyhole. He turned the key, and pulled the door open.
And came face to face with another man.
In that initial moment, Shane’s brain took in a few quick details. The man was short and portly, a few inches lower in height than Shane, at least twenty or thirty pounds greater in weight. He had close-cropped hair on the sides of his head, but his high, gleaming forehead indicated a receding hairline, which meant the short haircut was probably a cover for his baldness. His face, from the nose down, was covered with dried blood.
And his eyes were bloodshot and dead.
As if to erase any doubt, the man let out a moan and reached for Shane with both hands. Shane swung the door shut mid-moan, slamming it on the man’s fingers. He heard the bones crack, saw the second finger bend backwards, but the moan rolled forth as steady as if the man didn’t feel a thing.
The man forced the door open, and Shane stepped back. He had the keychain in his hand. He jerked the chain loose from the coil housing, swung the heavy ring around his head like a bull-roarer, and whipped it into the man’s face.
The ring busted, sending keys flying like shrapnel. The impact opened a handful of cuts on the man’s face and bloodied his eye. But it didn’t slow him down. He caught Shane by the collar with one hand, and reached forward with the other.
Shane stumbled back, dragging the man off his footing, using their combined momentum to keep the man from getting a two-handed grip. They banged into the edge of the reception desk, the force great enough to knock the air out of Shane’s lungs, to drive his shoulders and back up onto the desk’s surface. Shane brought his knees up between them, holding the man back.
The man pressed forward, his weight sliding Shane across the desk. He reached with his neck, trying to bring his teeth to Shane’s face. A fleck of spittle dropped from his mouth onto Shane’s chest.
Shane got his foot flat against the man’s chest and shoved as hard as he could. There was a ripping sound of Shane’s collar giving way, and the man flew backwards, crashing onto his back on the floor.
Shane turned on his side, snatched up the receptionist’s stapler. He threw it at the portly man with all of his strength. It hit the man above his right eyebrow, ripping a flap out of his forehead. A trickle of blood started, running into his eye.
The man got back up as if he hadn’t even noticed.
Shane darted a glance at the desk, saw a mug filled with pens. He grabbed the mug and threw it, the pens spraying out as it flew.
The mug glanced off the man’s head, spun through the air, and smashed into the smoked glass of the front door, cracking it.
And that caught the attention of the people on the other side of the glass. They started beating their hands against the doors with renewed interest, making the glass rattle and shake. The crack grew in length with each blow.
“Fuck,” Shane said.
He turned onto his knees, picked up the receptionist’s computer monitor, yanked it loose from its chords. And then he jumped off the desk, bringing the monitor down with both hands, smashing its edge into the man’s bald head with all of his strength.
The man’s head split beneath the edge of the monitor. He fell onto his back and didn’t move.
But the people on the other side of the glass were now throwing themselves against it bodily. The crack grew, spreading out in several directions like a spider’s web.
Shane ran back toward the door to the hallway. He tried the handle, but it had locked again.
“Fuck!” he said.
The keys were spread out all over the floor, scattered across the carpet in a wide spray. He dropped to his knees and started snatching them up, looking at the numbers printed on them. He knew the hallway door was stamped with the number 14L.
There was a loud cracking sound. Shane paused in his search, turned a horrified look to the glass doors.
The spider-web cracks had spread almost all of the way across the affected panel of glass, and the glass itself was bulging inward at the center. As Shane watched, a crack in the glass raced to the panel’s edge, and abruptly the whole panel gave way, shards raining down to the floor.
A thin man, his hair dyed a vivid pink, was at the front of the outside group. He fell forward as the glass gave way, impaling himself on several jagged shards sticking up from the panel’s frame. Another man fell forward with him, landing across his back. Before the second man could get to his feet, a woman in a plaid skirt, her hair pulled back in twin braids, lurched across his body, making her way inside. There was another man behind her.
“Fuck!” Shane said.
He snatched up another key, saw that it was printed with the number 26J. This was the key to the cleaning company lounge, to open the door if you didn’t have a keycard. He gripped it in his sweating palm, went on searching for 14L.
The woman had reached the portly man whose head Shane had split. She didn’t stop, just lurched past him on her way toward Shane.
“Why don’t they fucking go after each other?” Shane said. “Fuckers!”
He heard a moan from across the back of the lobby, and glanced in that direction. Black Hoodie was just emerging from the tunnel, his face smeared with blood up past his eyebrows. V-neck was close behind.
Shane looked back at the keys around his knees. He’d already looked at them all, and dropped them in a pile. Where was 14L?
He scanned the nearby area. And he saw it, resting near the foot of a cardboard cutout of a weasel in a leatherjacket. He crawled to it quickly, snatched it up. Then he looked back at Twin Braids.
She’d closed to within a few paces of the hall door. He wouldn’t have time to unlock it and slip through before she got to him.
He picked up the cutout, gripped it in both hands. He let out a yell, ran toward Twin Braids, holding the cutout like a shield. He smashed it into her, knocking her off her feet, shoving her back. She crashed into the man behind her as she fell.
Shane ran back to the door, jammed 14L into the lock. He twisted the key, but he hadn’t gotten it far enough in. The key bent without moving the lock’s tumblers.
“Fuck!” he said, almost lost to panic. Black Hoodie was only a few steps away.
Shane carefully bent the key back to a semblance of its original alignment. He jammed it the rest of the way into the keyhole, gingerly turned it. The handle unlocked.
“Thank fuck!” he said, jerking the door open.
Black Hoodie reached for him, moaning, his fingers brushing Shane’s back. But Shane whipped himself around the door, and slammed it shut behind him.
He stood at the door, gripping the handle in both hands, ready to hold it if they pulled.
The door shook and rattled. A few blows even glanced off the handle, jolting it in Shane’s hands. But hitting the handle wouldn’t open it, and none of the people tried to use a key.
Shane let go of the handle, took a few cautious steps back. A few more blows against the door, but they weren’t getting through.
“Thank god,” Shane said, leaning up against a wall,
his hands braced on his knees. He took a few minutes to catch his breath, looking down at his hands.
His hands. His bloody hands. The left hand was still covered by a rubber glove, but the right was bare. He’d lost that glove to White Shirt, up on the fifth floor, and now Polo Shirt’s blood had splattered all over his bare skin.
“Fuck,” Shane said, panic gripping him.
He ran down the hall and kicked open the bathroom door.