Chapter 8: Take Me

Evelyn POV

"Ah—Jake , what are you doing? I'm your girlfriend—"

The woman's scream tore through the hallway, followed by a man's voice, cold and ruthless.

" Lila, the rescue team is here. We have to go. Don't worry, I'll never forget you."

"Jake— no! Please—"

Bang.

Two men grabbed the woman and hurled her out the door.

ROAR.

The second she hit the ground, a pack of zombies swarmed her and piled right on top.

"Sons of bitches."

I pressed my eye to the gap in the door, watching her struggle helplessly, her body already soaked in blood. Above the hallway, the two men dropped from the elevated walkway and bolted down the corridor.

"Damn it."

They'd thrown her right outside the storeroom where I was hiding. Using her as bait. Cold-blooded bastards. I prayed I'd never cross paths with them again.

Once the zombies finished with her, they'd hit this door next. It wouldn't hold long. I had to move.

I crossed to the window and pulled out the rappel rope I'd prepared in advance. Twenty-third floor — I'd never planned on taking the stairs. I clipped into my harness and rigged the line to go out the window.

"Hey— can you take me with you?"

I was still working the rope when the girl with the glasses spoke up, her voice shaking and barely audible.

I glanced at her once and kept moving.

"I know an internal staff corridor that leads out of the building. And there's a large stockroom — the supermarket's back warehouse on the ground floor."

A few seconds passed. Then she spoke again, careful and quiet.

My hands stopped. She was smart. She knew exactly what I wanted. I wavered.

"Evelyn." I gave her my name. I wasn't walking away from that stockpile.

"I'm Joanna. Everyone calls me Jo." A faint note of relief entered her voice, and she took a small step closer.

"See that military base over there?" I pointed toward it and tossed her a harness and carabiner. "I'll get you that far. That's it."

Jo looked down at the gear in her hands, then out at the base, hesitating.

“It’s okay. A group of survivors just got inside. They’ll clear the zombies out soon. The base has plenty of supplies,” I kept my voice low.

What I didn’t tell her was that three months after the collapse, this military base in the San Francisco Bay Area would become the only safe haven left in this part of California. Every other refuge had either been overrun by zombies or wiped out in the waves that followed.

Jo gave a slow nod.

"What floor is the stockroom on?" I asked.

"Eight. But the eighth floor has no windows." She answered tensely, watching me work the rope.

“Alright, you go first. We’ll get in through the seventh-floor window…”

I tied the rope to the heavy-duty shelving and shot one reluctant glance at the truck.

Jo's eyes went slightly wide. Then she steadied herself, buckled into the harness, and shoved her laptop into her backpack.

"Power's out, signal's dead. Why are you still carrying that?" I caught the motion and couldn't make sense of it. No electricity, no internet — dead weight, less useful than a loaf of bread. She'd left everything else behind and was holding onto that machine like it was the only thing that mattered.

"This one's different. It's my lifeline." Jo said, not offering more.

I shook my head and let it go.

I watched Jo work her way down the rope, then turned toward the door —

Bang.

Zombies down the hallway slammed the door open. They’d heard my footsteps. The ones that hadn’t gotten to the woman yet charged straight for me.

As I kept sliding down, all the zombies gathered by the window, reaching out their rotting hands and roaring nonstop.

What I hadn’t seen coming was that one of the zombies grabbed the rope and shook it violently.

The heavy rain had stopped. Humans were mutating, and these zombies were evolving too…

The violent swaying made Jo scream out of instinct.

"Shut up!" I hissed down at her, gripping the line as it jerked under my hands. A scream would pull every zombies in range, which was far more dangerous than a swinging rope.

She caught on fast. Jo crushed the panic down, squeezed her eyes shut, and swung herself hard into the seventh-floor window.

Crash.

Glass exploded inward. Jo tumbled into the hotel room. The jerk on the rope nearly tore me off the wall. I held on, heart hammering.

If I hadn’t been greedy, I would’ve been inside the military base already. I wouldn’t be hanging here with my life hanging by a thread.

But when I thought about the long grind of this apocalypse, how supplies would only grow scarcer and harder to scavenge, my resolve hardened.

For Ethan and me, having enough supplies to survive this apocalypse — a little risk was nothing.

Thankfully, I made it safely onto the seventh floor too.

This was a single hotel room. With the nonstop heavy rain, every guest staying on this floor had fled upward to higher floors long ago.

That was why I hadn’t broken through a window on the ninth floor. After the storm, fewer people on the lower levels meant fewer zombies.

I unclipped my harness and crept quietly to the door, peering through the crack to check what was going on out in the hallway.

The hallway outside was dim, eerie, and empty.

But I could hear footsteps above us, scattered and uneven. Jo's screaming and the breaking glass had done their damage.

"Eighth floor — we take the stairwell," I said quietly. Jo's face had gone the color of chalk. She nodded.

"Stay quiet," I told her, tightening my grip on the aluminum bat. "Any loud noise and we get a lot more company."

I eased the door open and moved toward the emergency stairwell.