I wrinkled my nose in distaste as I watched Daniel cut a piece of flesh off the dead unranked zombie. "Do you really think Nina is going to get anything useful out of that? It's been dead for a week."
"No harm in trying," he replied, finally standing up and turning away from the headless zombie riddled with bullet holes. It wasn't the only dead zombie we'd found during our brief search. This place had put up quite a fight, and over a dozen had been beheaded, and blood pools showed other unsuccessful attempts.
Blood spray from the unranked Nightstalker was in too many places to count. The guards had clearly been trying to stop it but must not have managed a clean headshot. I looked around the area, trying to figure out if it had attacked at night—which might explain the guards' less-than-stellar aim—or if it had been extremely fast and very hard to hit.
Everything was in disarray, making it impossible to tell what time the attack had taken place. I'd have to check some bedrooms to see if the beds had been made or left a mess, not that such a detail meant much. People like Nicky only made their beds when they wanted others to wonder if something was wrong with them.
Shaking my head, I jogged over to the largest building. We'd already called out and received no response from anything other than zombies, but doing a quick search might yield other clues.
As soon as I entered the building, I knew I wasn't going to find any survivors. Every door—even heavy reinforced ones—had been forced open. The unranked zombie must have been able to hear or smell the people hiding.
I paused by one room, whose door had been broken like the rest, but no bloodstains were present. My nose confirmed that no human had spent more than a few minutes in here for over a month. Had this zombie learned that food could hide behind doors, and now figured it had to check every one?
The farther I went, the more I became certain that the zombie was like a fox in a chicken coop. It wouldn't stop with just one kill and be content to feed—it continued hunting and broke into any room whose door wasn't already open.
On the upper levels, the bodies didn't show any signs of feeding. Just a few scratches and bite marks from when the zombie had killed them and immediately left. They hadn't survived long enough for the virus to spread and turn them. I left the building, discouraged by the sheer amount of senseless death inside.
Daniel started to enter another building but backed out of the doorway, shaking his head. "Do you mind checking this building? There's...a bit too much blood for my comfort."
"Yeah, although I don't think we're going to find anyone. It looks like the zombie checked every room it could find."
"Thanks. I noticed that as well, but I can't stop hoping that someone managed to hide."
As soon as I reached the doorway, the scent of blood hit me like a tidal wave. No wonder Daniel didn't want to step foot in here. I'd never smelled so much blood in the air before. I didn't want to see the carnage that would have led to something like this, but the hint of urine meant there was a chance—a super slim chance—that the overpowering odor had overwhelmed the traces coming off a hidden survivor.
The scent of blood was so strong I couldn't even tell how old the urine was. Over a dozen zombies still lingered inside, feeding on the bodies and wandering around lethargically.
"Is anyone in here?" I called out. "If there aren't any zombies close to you, just yell 'here!' and I'll come find you."
All I could hear was a flurry of zombie growls as they suddenly thought I might be human. After spending far too many minutes kicking zombies outside to play, I closed the door and wedged a chair against it to keep them out.
Like in the other building, the doors had been battered open. The one exception was a heavy steel door, but a nearby hole in the drywall proved that this zombie was adept at bypassing the obvious routes.
Bodies were everywhere.
There must have been enough of a warning for people to reach what should have been safe rooms, but it had left them sitting ducks against this monster. I flatly refused to enter the room of dead children and headed for the stairs instead. Only the Nightstalker had gone up the stairs, none of the other zombies, so that was my next destination.
The thick odor of mostly-dried blood wafted down the stairs, warning me to not expect any survivors. Yet, the hint of urine persisted. My steps quickened as I began checking the rooms. There were just as many bodies up here as had been downstairs. Hundreds of lives lost.
Yet, the scent of urine was stronger, although strangely muted. It was very faint, even for my nose, and thus, nearly impossible to track. I reached the end of the hallway and came up empty. There was no third level.
I frowned and crossed my arms as I gazed back the way I'd come. I was missing something. I knew it.
The rooms were all the proper size, with no areas to indicate a hidden area. Besides, I already knew this zombie would have clawed its way through the walls. Numerous scratch marks along several walls had me slowly walking down the hallway, suddenly intent.
I rechecked the rooms, ensuring their sizes matched what they should be, yet came up empty again. I hadn't found anything—not even the source of the urine I could still smell. That alone told me there was something hidden around here.
Obstinately, I went back into all the rooms and located the one where the urine was the strongest, which happened to be some sort of oversized janitorial closet with a ladder sprawling into the hallway.
My eyes lingered on the ladder that had pushed the door open from the inside. No bloodstains marred the walls or floor. My gaze traveled and lingered on a trap door in the ceiling, the same kind that led into attics.
Could someone have successfully hidden in the attic space? Against an unranked zombie that likely had no concept of "up"? A thread of optimism rose in my mind.
If chaos had hit as quickly as I thought, there wouldn't have been much time for people to realize the safe rooms were death traps. Could a panicked handful of people have been late and locked out, forced to take shelter in a janitorial closet, only to notice the unlikely refuge above? It was unlikely, but someone had been peeing around here, and it wasn't me.
I set the ladder up and took a careful sniff along the seams, confirming at least one person was up here. I could only smell one—a boy about ten years old—but I was hoping there were more even though my nose said otherwise. Surely more than one child had survived...
I knocked on the door above my head three times. "We're rescuers from Graydon Stronghold. Are you okay?"
There was silence. Just as I was about to try pushing the door open, I heard shuffling.
"Are—are you real?" a young voice asked, raspy and full of exhaustion.
"If I wasn't real, I wouldn't be here," I replied logically while refraining from giving a sarcastic comment.
Something rustled above the door, followed by the sounds of heavy things being pushed away. With a creak of the hinges, the door lifted, revealing a tear-smudged, gaunt face that blinked blearily at me.
"I guess you look real," the boy said, his eyes not quite focusing, likely from hunger or dehydration.
"Glad to hear that," I replied dryly. "Is anyone else up there with you?"
"No." He sat down by the door as if out of strength.
I pulled my backpack off and dug inside. I didn't want to share the dried fruit I found in Spokane, telling myself they were old and likely unfit for human consumption, but I had a couple of MREs that would be edible. I passed two to the boy who immediately grabbed them and started tearing them open.
"Do you have water?" I asked, knowing he wouldn't have lived this long without it but also aware that he could have run out.
"Just a drippy pipe," he replied.
I remembered seeing water and food in the safe rooms just down the hallway. "Wait here. I'll be right back. Don't come down the ladder yet."
I darted to the nearest safe room and grabbed a few canteens and some dried meat before hurrying back.
"Here," I said as I set the item on the edge.
He dropped the food and grabbed the canteen, drinking like he was dying of thirst. Once he finished draining it, he exhaled heavily. "Thank you."
Getting him out of here wouldn't be easy. Not only did I want to prevent him from seeing slaughtered friends and family, but we had to convince him to come with us. And we still didn't know where that unranked zombie had gone.
"Stay up here while we check the rest of the area. Don't come down until we tell you, okay?"
"Okay," he mumbled around a mouthful of dried meat.
I took the ladder down just to make sure he stayed up there. "Close the door until we knock again."
He obediently pushed the door closed. I set the ladder on the floor and went outside to find Daniel.
The Terror wasn't hard to find; he stood by the truck and gazed at the sky as if trying to forget the devastation he'd seen here. Still staring at the clouds, he said, "It looks like only a couple of vehicles got out. Most must have been in bed when the alarms sounded. We really have to stop this zombie. It ripped the walls open if it couldn't get through the doors. Most Strongholds aren't designed to stop something with that kind of strength."
"If that's your main goal, then we have a small complication," I said.
"Complication?" he asked, finally looking at me.
"There's a boy in an attic," I said, pointing a thumb over my shoulder at the building. "He's safe, but I'm not sure we'll be able to convince him to come with us. Not unless he sees for himself that everyone he knows is dead, and that would scar him for life."
"There's a survivor?" he asked, giving me a dumbfounded look, unable to believe what I'd just said after seeing so much bloodshed.
"Go see for yourself if you want. He's a bit dehydrated and more than a bit hungry, but I left him water and food. He'll be fine for a while."
"I don't want to leave a child in this place while we hunt for—"
A warped Nightstalker scream came from the west, followed by several gunshots. Even before the echoes faded, Daniel and I were racing for the truck.