Behind Our Walls (11 page)

As they entered one of the last few rooms, they were caught off guard by the sound of movement coming from within the closet. Rowen trained his gun on the door as Sophie reached out and pulled it open.

A man huddled on the floor shivering, and Sophie suspected it wasn't from being cold. He looked emaciated, like he hadn't eaten properly in months. She knelt and held out a hand for him but he shied away from it as if from a predator. He waved his fist back and forth at them but his hand shook so badly that he couldn't even maintain the motion. Before long, his arm fell to his side and he began to cry.

"Hey," she said as she reached out again and put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, but with less severity than before. "It's all right. We aren't going to hurt you."

He looked up at the two of them as Rowen knelt down next to her, smiling as well.

"Sir, my name is Rowen. Who might you be?"

Sophie thanked herself silently for his inherent politeness, likely from his time in the military, and tried to put on an equally respectful air of friendliness for the guy's benefit. He looked back and forth between them, mouth opening and closing as if he was trying to find his voice, but no sound emerged. Finally, he took in a long, slow breath and spoke in a low voice that cried of severe dehydration.

"Ricco. My name is Ricco."

"Ricco, it is a pleasure to meet you, sir. This is Sophie. How long have you been up here?"

"I didn't know that I couldn't be here, I thought—" He was starting to get agitated again, his voice going up an octave or two as he tried to sit up. Rowen put out a hand to try to soothe him.

"No, it's all right. We aren't here to hassle you about that. Truth is, we aren't really supposed to be here either. But I don't think there's anyone left to care."

Ricco scrutinized Rowen as if he was expecting the punch line of whatever Rowen was saying to be delivered with an actual punch. He shook his head. "I haven't been able to find much food. Or water."

"I can imagine. Any other people?"

Ricco shook his head again. "A few times I thought I heard someone moving around out there, but I never saw nobody. Nobody saw me either."

"You did a good job staying safe," Sophie said. Ricco jumped, as if he had forgotten about her. "We can help you, we've got enough supplies. Why don't you wait here a while and we can bring you back some—"

"No!" Ricco quickly interrupted her. "I'm sorry. It's just that if you leave, I won't have any way to know if you were even real. Please, I'd rather just come along, if that's all right."

"Okay," Rowen said. "But stick close to us. We've got a few more suites to check out before we meet up with the others."

Ricco nodded and stood up with an agility that Sophie never would have credited him with. He brushed the dirt off his clothes and looked up at at them. Sophie saw the look of surprise on Rowen's face, mirroring her own as he shook his head and turned to lead them out of the room.

-27-

Sophie and Rowen sat on the cold concrete of what would have likely ended up being the food court. Ricco drank from the water bottle, given to him by Rowen. Clive and his group walked up, looking satisfied with their search.

"No big thing," Clive said as he fished around in his pocket for his cigarettes. "We did find these though." He pulled out a key ring and tossed it over to Rowen.

"Are these what I think they are?" he asked.

"Yup," Clive said. "We tested 'em just to make sure. Those are the master keys for the whole place."

Sophie let out a long breath, trying to stay calm. She had never thought the idea of a key could get her so excited. Rowen turned to her and handed them over.

"Keep those safe," he said.

The others trickled in over the next ten minutes. Everyone took notice of Ricco as they arrived, but no one said anything to him directly. He had a wide eyed look as he watched his universe explode around him.

Meredith and Lot were the last ones to show up and she spoke as they approached.

"We didn't find anyone."

"Well that's it then," Rowen said. "The place is empty."

"Did anyone find any supplies we could use?" Lot asked.

"There's a ton of condiments," one of the others said with a smirk on her face. "Some moldy buns and a few stray cans of food that rolled under some work benches. But for the most part everything is pretty well picked over.."

"Well I figured that we would have to go out on a supply run at some point," Lot said. "It would have been nice if there was a little bit more on hand, is all."

Lot turned his attention on Ricco. "How long have you been here, sir?"

"I don't remember."

"Seen anyone else?" Lot asked, echoing the line of questioning that Rowen had already given him. Ricco started to tuck his head down between his legs, as if the attention frightened him.

"I already asked him." Rowen stepped in to try and give him some space. "He's been keeping to himself for the most part, so I think it bodes well for us if he hasn't—"

"What are you going to do to me?" Ricco's voice was barely audible, but the abject misery in it stopped the conversation cold. Sophie felt completely taken aback at the apparent implication that they might hurt him, but also recognizing how much harder it was to trust people, let alone a small colony of complete strangers. What reason did he have to trust them when handing over the gift of his faith could potentially end in his own death?

"We aren't going to do anything to you," Rowen answered. "We're happy to be able to help you. There's even more to our group than what you're seeing here and assuming everything checks out, we plan on trying to start over here."

"You're welcome to stay for as long as you want," Lot added.

Ricco looked from face to face, clearly not believing any of it. Sophie noticed his legs tremoring, as if preparing to bolt if he detected anyone with the intent to do him harm. He looked like he wanted to be grateful, but had reached a point in his life where his experiences made him unable to do even that.

"I had a family," Ricco said. It seemed like everyone leaned in closer to hear him. Several minutes went by and Sophie thought there wasn't going to be any more to the story but he went on. "I consulted for a big bank before all this. People must have known who I was because when things started falling apart, some men broke into our house. They held guns on my wife and daughters and said that I had to help them get into the bank's vault."

Sophie felt her throat and chest constrict, tears starting to form as she guessed how this story would end. It was becoming more and more common, but still gut wrenching to hear.

Ricco went on, in a deadpan voice, as if shutting his emotions off from his brain just so that he could get through the telling. "I tried telling them that I didn't have that kind of access and that even if I did, what good was money going to do them anymore?"

Sophie looked around and saw the same look of pained empathy on everyone's faces. It was like bearing witness to everyone's private moment of reflection set against Ricco's monotone delivery.

"They shot my wife first. The man who did it, he didn't kill her outright. First, he shot her in the leg. I guess they thought I would take them more seriously. I kept yelling at them that I couldn't do anything, but he still shot her in the stomach. They made me watch her die, held me down and forced us to look into each other's eyes as she was...as she was going. Then my daughters—" His voice finally faltered just as Sophie was about to reach her own breaking point. She didn't want to hear any more of the story. Still, she saw every unspoken detail as clearly as if she had been telling it herself.

The silence hung in the air like a physical weight. Sophie wanted to say something, anything that would change the subject away from the misery that had become a staple of all of their lives. In the end, Lot spoke softly to the rest of them.

"One of the groups still isn't back," he said.

Meredith looked up, as if noticing for the first time. She nodded, not looking concerned. "Daniel isn't here. He went off with one of your people. Not surprised he isn't back yet. I'm sure he's poking around in the nooks and crannies, trying to figure out the best way to shore this place up."

Lot nodded, but looked concerned. He jabbed a finger at several of his people. "You two, come with me. We'll see if we can track them down. The rest of you stick around in case they show up. If we aren't back in a half hour, send someone after us." He nodded at the other two and they began walking off down the corridor.

"They were checking out the lower levels!" Meredith called out after them. Lot turned his head enough to nod, and they carried on. Sophie blinked away the tears, trying to shake the images from Ricco's story. She needed to clear her head, find something else to focus on.

"Wait!" she called out. Lot paused and turned as she jogged to catch up. He nodded without trying to argue and the four of them headed for the service stairs.

"I'm sure it's fine," Lot said. "Nobody else has found anyone, but you never know who might be hiding out down here. Stay behind us, Sophie."

At the bottom of the stairs, they pulled out flashlights. Lot raised his gun and aimed the light down the barrel as he slowly advanced. They took a left and began down the corridor. A gust of air flowed past them, making Sophie shudder at the sensation. She fully expected to stumble into a small horde of people, huddling down here and ready to attack.

Despite her fear, there was no sign of anyone. No sound of footsteps or movement other than their own. The wind in the tunnel accentuated the emptiness of the space and made Sophie feel like they were stepping out onto an alien planet. They began to hear a new sound as they walked, a steady dripping of water somewhere which echoed around them, progressively louder as they walked. She had never imagined that the sound of water could be so terrifying. She winced with every impact as it echoed off the walls.

She ran into something ahead of her and realized that Lot had stopped.

"What?" she hissed. He reached out to her to keep her from stepping forward.

"Shh!" he hissed at her and in the dim light she could see him cocking his head to the side, straining to hear. "It sounds like someone crying," he said and resumed leading them down the tunnel. After a few dozen paces, she began to hear it as well, the ragged inhalation of air followed by the pathetic sobbing. The sound echoed around them and seemed to bend as they walked.

After another dozen paces, they came to a large set of doors with a bench next to it. Daniel sat there, trying to comfort the other guy, the one who was crying. Sophie shifted her gaze from one to the other.

"Guys?" she asked. "You all right? What's going on?"

Daniel raised a hand and pointed at the doors. Sophie, Lot and the others stepped forward and pushed their way through. The last thing she wanted was to see what, in this nightmare of a world could reduce a grown man to terrified tears. She also knew that she didn't really have any other choice.

Not anymore.

-28-

It was immediately clear upon opening the door what had been causing the breeze. They walked into a large service bay and could see a garage door at the far end of the room. It had not been closed completely and the gap, several feet tall, was allowing air to come rushing through. Only after recognizing this did Sophie notice the smell and wondered that they hadn't picked it up on the wind, far earlier. Something was definitely not right. Despite the cool air flowing in, the room had an uncomfortable, warm feeling to it with an underlying smell of decay. They swiveled their flashlights around to look for the source but she wasn't sure if she even wanted to find it.

Shoved into the center of the room was a pile of human remains, nearly ten feet high.

"What in the Christ?" Lot asked, voicing what the others were almost surely thinking themselves. Some of the bodies looked to be in an advanced state of decay and some seemed to be more recently deposited. Why anyone would go to the trouble of dragging them down here was beyond her.

"Do you think they killed each other?" Clive asked.

"If they did, then who collected all the bodies and left them like this?" Lot asked. "What..." He trailed off without finishing the thought, looked around with a dumbfounded look on his face and spoke again. "Well, I guess the good news is that it looks like the place is ours for the taking." He paused, clearly waging an internal debate with himself. "Before we start bringing people over here, we need to clean up this mess."

"Do you think that Ricco guy could have had anything to do with this?" Clive asked.

Sophie answered. "No way. He looks like he would have a hard time overpowering a child, let alone anything like this."

The door opened behind them and they all spun around as Daniel and his companion come in.

"We found them like this," Daniel said.

"I'm guessing that door is on a motor," Lot said as he walked towards it, likely trying to change the subject. He knelt down to peer underneath it. "I can see that it slopes up to the parking lot." He stood back up and redirected his flashlight into the room. "There's got to be a manual release mechanism. I'll see if I can find it."