Authors: Dena Nicotra
“He said he wanted to get his hands on a good weapon.”
“What?” I felt my heart speed up in my chest.
“He watched you from the window last night, when you used your slingshot on Mic. He thought it was a good idea to have something more than a golf club. He wanted something that he could use to protect us.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sighed raggedly. “I told him that we would look for something together in the morning because I was tired. He got so upset with me.” She trailed off and then covered her face. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed silently in her hands.
I looked from Giz to Mic, and both of them looked completely lost. I sighed loudly, unable to hide my agitation. “Has anyone looked outside?”
“No.” Giz and Mic said at the same time.
“Why not?”
“We just hadn’t gotten that far yet Hailey,” Mic said with an edge of irritation in his voice.
I pulled my slingshot from my pocket and turned to the door without saying another word. As I bounded down the halls I continued to call his name. Mic was running behind me, shouting for me to wait.
“I’m not slowing down, Mic. If you want to help, step it up.” I said this without looking over my shoulder. Why they hadn’t looked outside yet was beyond me. I ignored the elevator and pushed open the door to the stairwell. I took the stairs two at a time as he continued to speculate behind me.
“If there are any simps outside his odds of survival will be marginal.”
“Mic, do me a favor and shut the fuck up, okay?”
“Look, I don’t want anything to happen to the kid either. I am just stating the facts of the situation, and the risks associated with going out of the building during the day are not necessarily worth the repercussions! If the simps discover we are here and that we are not terminal, they will most likely storm the building. Do you understand that?”
I reached the bottom of the stairwell and pushed the heavy door, marked with a giant green number one. It opened to the lobby, just to the right of the main reception desk. The double doors were ten yards directly in front of me. I quickened my pace.
“Mic if you think I’m going to sit back while a child may be outside in need of help, you’re a bigger asshole than I thought. I’m all for saving my own skin, but he’s a kid – maybe nine or ten years old, and you’d just leave him out there?” He didn’t get the chance to answer.
“Get down!” I said in an urgent, low voice.
There were two men in maintenance clothing outside. Their backs were to the doors so they hadn’t seen us. I crawled behind the reception desk and quietly pulled open the bottom drawer. I needed something to use as a projectile. The only thing I found was a half-eaten energy bar and a box of medium ridiculously small binder clips. That wasn’t going to help. I turned around and sat with my back to the metal desk. My breath was ragged from the stairs. Mic was hunched over a hand-held tablet the size of a cell phone. His index finger was moving frantically over the screen. “What are you doing?” I whispered.
“If they’re simps, I’m going to attempt to shut them down. I made an adjustment to my app last night but I haven’t had a chance to test it. This is as good a time as any.”
“If it doesn’t work, you’d better be ready to run,” I said with a grunt as I pulled my knees up a little so that I could grab my knife from my boot. Just then I heard a “psst.” sound, which came from the doorway behind us. The door was cracked just a hair and I caught the distinct dark eye of a small child. A sense of relief flooded through me. Jacob was alive. He must have gotten stuck down here when he tried to go outside. I tapped Mic’s back and motioned to the door. Mic gave a reassuring smile to the child and then raised his finger to his lips to tell him to be silent.
“Is it ready?” I asked as quietly as I could.
“Yes, but I’ll have to get a little closer I think.”
“I’ll back you,” I said.
“On three?” I nodded in agreement. On his count, we crawled out from behind the reception desk and began to slowly inch forward. I positioned myself to his left and ducked behind the first large chair I came too. Mic did the same on the opposite side. I held my breath and watched as he tapped twice on the little screen. The shorter of the two fell straight back, hitting his head on the entry doors, which caused them to open. The warm air rushed in and the second maintenance man stood in the doorway. I could see him clearly from where I sat, and just hoped he hadn’t spotted me yet. His head tilted back and forth reminding me of a dog responding to a strange sound. Mic was not visible from his position, but he looked up and I held up one finger to indicate that there was still one standing.
I gripped my knife tighter and watched Mic frantically moving his finger over the screen. The maintenance simp strode forward, stepping over his partner.
“Humans, I can sense your presence. If you are injured, I can assist you. Please come forward so that I can assess your level of injuries and ease your pain.”
Mic looked up at me, his face full of desperation and apology. He shook his head. His code wasn’t working. I exhaled a silent breath, and waved my hand signaling him to get further back to hide himself. The simp was moving closer. I positioned myself in a crouch and glanced back to make sure the door was closed to the small room that concealed Jacob. To my relief, it was closed. This simp wasn’t getting past me if I could help it. He was a big “man” with a goatee and a potbelly. I said a silent prayer, and then stood up. His emotionless eyes met mine, and then he lunged forward in my direction. His unnatural speed was something I’d anticipated. I threw my blade and it lodged in his beige uniform just below the place a human heart would be. His head did a strange up and down, jerking motion and a dark spot began to spread out. The biogenetic fluids used to protect the inner workings of a simp had shocked me at first. In fact, the first time I took one down I was convinced I had killed a human, but the color isn’t quite the same. It’s much darker and thicker than human blood — like a mixture of black oil and old blood.
The simp reached down and pulled the blade from his abdomen, allowing it to drop to the floor. It continued forward in a labored gait. I was reminded of a late night zombie movie, and had to force back a wave of terror to get my body to move. “Get the knife Mic!” I yelled, as I began to move backwards. The thing continued to move closer, and out of my peripheral vision, I saw Mic scrambling to collect my blade. I felt the wall behind me and knew I had backed myself into a corner. In one blur of motion, the maintenance man was nose to nose with me. The surreal aspect of those deliberately yellowed teeth distracted my thoughts for a moment as it revealed them in an ugly snarl. I fought back the urge to beg for my life. This wasn’t a human being with a sense of compassion. There would be no mercy. The next thing I knew it had me by the throat and was raising me off the ground. I was bracing my own hands around its thick wrist and trying desperately to get a breath of air in my lungs. I kicked my legs wildly hoping that I could get some leverage that would relieve the searing pain that my body was experiencing.
I was faintly aware of Mic’s presence behind him and Jacob’s screams. My vision dimmed just as it released its grip on my neck and I fell to the floor. The simp landed on top of me, his scratchy goatee resting on my cheek. I pushed with as much strength as I could manage and then Jacob and Mic were there to assist. I pulled myself up and gulped in several deep breaths. My lungs felt like they were on fire. “Can you move?” Mic asked urgently.
“Yes.” I croaked. “Just give me a second.”
“We don’t have one, Hailey. Give me your hand.” Jacob was yanking my knife out of the simp’s back as I got to my feet, and then I realized what Mic meant. The parking lot was filling with simps. It looked like an angry crowd, all heading straight toward the doors. A fresh surge of adrenaline pumped through my veins, and I moved with renewed urgency.
Jacob handed me the blade and the three of us ran. “Stairwell!” I huffed. There was no time to wait for the elevator, and I pushed Jacob in front of me.
“Go kid, run!” I didn’t have to tell him twice. The boy was holding the railing and his little legs were pumping as fast as they would go.
“Get to the third floor, we have to warn Giz and Barbara!” Mic said. Voices began to echo below us from the lobby as we climbed, and I knew the simps were in. There was no way to get to the basement now. When we reached the third floor, I saw that Barbara was in the hallway. She fell to her knees when she saw Jacob. He ran to her arms with the two of us shouting for them to get moving. Giz walked out from the cafeteria very casually and when he saw the frantic looks on our faces his temperament changed.
“Barbara, get your golf club and bring it to me. We need it to wedge it in the door handle, I directed.” She nodded and grabbed Jacob’s hand. “You stay with me kiddo!”
“Mic, help me get all the equipment!” Giz squeaked.
“There’s no time for that, Giz! They’re coming!” I said.
“There has to be time, we have to!” He ran back in the cafeteria and Mic chased after him. “Here!” Barbara said, tossing me the golf club. I wedged it through the handle just as an Asian male face filled the glass in the window within the door, “Here’s Johnny!” He exclaimed, and although his voice was slightly muffled by the door, it scared the crap out of me. He/it was pulling the door, and I feared it wouldn’t hold. I backed up and then turned to run to the cafeteria.
“Let’s go, they’re already at the stairwell door!” Just then the ‘ding’ of the elevator caught my attention. Oh my god, I’d secured the door but had forgotten about the elevator. As the doors opened, I saw a mass of faces. They had packed in as tight as they could to get to us. Barbara and I nearly collided as we scurried down the hall back to the cafeteria. Jacob was in the doorway, urging us to hurry. I didn’t dare look back, knowing there was a ton of them behind us. There was a lock on the cafeteria door, and I latched it. Jacob and Barbara were hiding under a table in the far corner, and Mic and Giz were stuffing their equipment in their bags. My eyes darted for an exit, but I knew there wasn’t one. We were now trapped with the simps banging on the door. It was a matter of minutes before they got in.
“What are we going to do?” Jacob wailed.
Mic finished zipping his bag and very calmly looked up at the ceiling. I followed his eyes and knew what he was thinking.
“Giz, help me,” I said as I started sliding a table. We’ll have to stack two in order to reach.” Mic said.
“Barbara, get a chair and smash it into the vending machines and load what you can in this.” He threw her a plastic grocery bag that Giz had used to store some extra cables in. Giz collected the cables and slung them around his neck. The pounding on the door grew more intense as we worked to position the tables, and then Mic climbed up first and pushed the ceiling tile back. He then reached for Jacob’s hand.
“You first, little man. You’re the lightest, and we’ll need you to get that vent grate off from the inside.”
“I’m on it,” said Jacob. His little face filled with determination. It seemed like forever for him to get up there and pull that grate back. Barbara went next, handing the sack up to Jacob and then Mic lifted her up so that she could pull herself in. Giz followed, after Barbara pulled up the equipment bags he held up for her to grab. “Your turn,” said Mic.
I handed up my backpack to Giz and then worked to pull myself up. The space inside the vent was cramped and dark, and I directed the others to move back to make room for Mic. Just as he climbed in, I heard the door give way.
“Go, go, go!” He ordered. He didn’t have to tell us twice, we all knew they were inside and that they would be coming right up after us. They were strong enough to go much faster than we could, and knowing this created an unspoken urgency. We were all crawling as fast as we could. The reverberation of our knees slamming the slick metal resounded like thunder. The shaft made a sharp turn and Jacob announced that he could see a light up ahead. “I think it leads to an outdoor patio. Remember Barbara? It’s that one we go to sometimes to look out at the street.”
“Yes Jacob, I remember sweetie. Can you see a grate?” Her voice sounded tiny and it echoed through the small space. We were all stopped in the metal cavity and I was gritting my teeth to fight back the waves of claustrophobia.
“Wait a second,” he said. We could all hear his little knees pounding along as he crawled quickly. “Yes! Whohoo!” He exclaimed. The sounds of rapid knees approaching someplace back behind us made my heart start pounding.
“Come on you guys, it’s open. You can jump down here!” The little boy’s voice was distant, but I knew that it meant he was safely out of the vent shaft and on the ground. We took our turns climbing down to the narrow patio and then surveyed the options. There was a locked sliding glass door, which led to the maternity ward, according to Barbara. We were still three floors up and the ground below wasn’t exactly close. The simps were in the shaft and coming our way, so there was precious little time to consider the options. There had to be at least twenty of them that I had seen in the parking lot, so that meant that the likelihood of them spreading through the hospital in search of humans was pretty high.
“I think we can jump to that trash bin,” said Giz. He was leaning over the railing and looking below.