D. MacHale - Storm

“What?” she snapped, obviously peeved.

“We were just talking,” I said.

It may have been true, but it was a totally lame excuse. What had been going through my mind was a lot more than conversation.

“I don’t care,” she shot back, sounding as though she actually did care. “You can shower with anybody you want.”

“We weren’t showering,” I argued. “I was finishing up, and she was next.”

Tori laughed as if I had just offered the weakest explanation ever.

“And she was in a hurry, so she was helping you dry off so she could get in faster, is that it?”

“No! She was, well, I don’t know what she was doing. She wanted to talk. I didn’t ask her to dry me off.”

“You didn’t stop her either.”

She had me there.

“Look, Tucker, I don’t care. If you and Olivia want to hook up, that’s your business. But be careful. You’re the one who said we’re all in this together. If you piss Kent off, I can’t help you.”

“I don’t want to hook up with Olivia,” I said. “It just… happened.”

Tori scoffed. “Yeah, I saw that.”

She turned and walked away, then glanced back and added, “Put your pants on and meet us at the radio. Jon’s got it working.” With that, she left.

I was torn between the embarrassment of what had just happened and excitement about the radio. I ran back into the locker room to get my clothes and saw that Olivia was in the shower, casually shampooing her hair as if nothing had happened. I have to admit, I didn’t look away at first. I’d never seen a naked girl taking a shower before. Or a naked girl doing anything, for that matter. The sight froze me for an instant. Olivia looked at me and smiled.

That rocked me back to my senses. I turned away and grabbed my clothes.

“The radio is working!” I called to her.

“Be right up!” she called back, but it didn’t sound as if she was in any hurry to finish her shower.

I took my clothes out into the hallway and dressed quickly. Whatever had happened, or hadn’t happened, between Olivia and me meant nothing. The bottom line was that I had been stupid, and it probably destroyed my friendship with Tori. She had trouble trusting anyone since her mother abandoned her and her father. She had no friends in school and spent most of her time alone. I was the one person she finally put her faith in, and I totally let her down. I kept telling everyone how we had to trust each other, and I ended up being the least trustworthy of all. It was a miserable, lonely feeling.

Olivia turned off the shower. The last thing I wanted was to be alone with her, so I finished dressing fast and took off for the emergency room.

Kent and Tori were standing behind Jon, who sat at a keyboard and a computer screen, just as he did in Portland. The sight of an active screen was jarring because I hadn’t seen anything electronic for weeks. I had no idea what any of the numbers or different colored modules meant, but Jon did.

I looked at Tori. She kept her eyes on the screen. Just as well.

“Is it the same voice?” I asked.

“Shhh!” Jon admonished.

I listened and was stunned to hear the same woman’s voice coming from the speaker near the ceiling. It was not only the same voice, the radio signal was much stronger, and we were able to hear the entire message.

“We are the survivors. We have been bloodied, but not beaten. To all of those who have been attacked: Know that we will fight back. Join us. We will take you in and keep you safe. Hundreds have already arrived, and more are arriving every day.”

The message was slightly different from the one Tori had pieced together. The earlier message hadn’t mentioned anything about the number of survivors who had joined them.

Jon was frantically writing as the woman spoke.

“North thirty-six degrees. Twenty-six minutes, twenty seconds. West one hundred fourteen degrees. Thirty-one minutes, fiftyseven seconds.”

“Bingo, we got it,” Jon exclaimed while writing furiously.

“Please use caution, for we are being watched. Trust no one. We will fight for our home. We will repel the murderers. We have strength in numbers. The survivors will stand together. Do not hesitate.”

That was it. The message repeated one more time and was replaced by static.

Jon waited a few more seconds to make sure it was definitely over, then powered down the radio. The screen went dark, and we were back under lantern light.

“It’s pretty much the same message on the same frequency,” Jon announced. “Including the coordinates. There were a few additions about how many people they’ve got and to use caution. The message repeated five times.”

“Could it be a trap?” Kent asked. “Like with Faneuil Hall? If we’re not supposed to trust anybody, why should we trust them?”

“It could be,” Tori said thoughtfully. “Or it could be a lifeline. There’s only one way to find out.”

A shrieking scream shattered the quiet of the empty hospital.

“Olivia!” Kent shouted and took off running.

I grabbed the lantern and followed, with the others close behind.

Kent sprinted into the emergency room and nearly knocked Olivia down as she came running out. She had on scrubs and a towel wrapped around her wet head. She was in tears as she ran into Kent’s arms.

“Somebody’s back there!” she cried frantically.

Kent hugged her and looked back to us.

I glanced at Tori, who finally looked back at me. Whatever Olivia had seen, it was more important than the incident in the shower room.

“Do you have the gun?” I asked.

She reached behind her back to pull the Glock from under her sweater.

“Who is it?” I asked Olivia.

She was in a full-on panic and could barely speak through frightened, clutching breaths.

“I don’t know,” she managed to garble out. “A man.”

She pulled away from Kent and ran in the other direction.

Kent said, “I got this,” and ran after Olivia.

“Sure,” Tori said sarcastically. “You go, Kent. We’ll take care of the boogeyman.”

I flicked off the lantern and put my headlamp on. The light it threw wasn’t as good as the lantern’s, but it was focused forward, which meant we weren’t blinded by it. I took a few steps deeper into the emergency room, listening for the sounds of any movement.

“Hello?” I called out. “Who’s back there?”

There was no answer.

I steeled myself and walked forward, slowly.

Tori raised the gun and stayed with me.

Jon trailed close behind.

The light from my headlamp played over the hanging drapes that separated the treatment areas. Somebody could have been hiding behind any one of them.

“We’ve got a gun,” Tori said loudly. “Come out before somebody gets hurt.”

We reached the first hanging drape. I reached out and yanked it aside to see… an empty bed.

“Dude, don’t be stupid,” I called out. “We don’t want to shoot you.”

We reached the second drape. I wished that the throw of the light were wider. I feared that somebody might be lurking beyond the edges of our sight. I reached out and yanked the second drape aside.

Again, only an empty bed.

Jon said, “Maybe she was wrong. It could have been one of those dummies they practice CPR on.”

I liked that explanation. I sure hoped it was true.

We approached the third drape. I reached out to pull it aside…

…but the drape was yanked back before I could touch it to reveal a deathly pale, skeletal man with wide, haunted eyes. His mouth was open as he let out a pained moan.

Jon screamed.

Tori lifted the gun, but I pushed it aside as the man took a step forward… and collapsed at our feet.