The steel door groaned on its rusted hinges as Zarek shoved it open and stepped into the hotel’s subterranean loading bay.
The air was cold and sharp with diesel and damp concrete. Fluorescent strips flickered overhead, buzzing like dying insects. Behind him, Elsa stumbled over the threshold with her left arm pressed against her ribs.
Three claw marks had torn through Elsa’s sleeve, and dried blood stiffened the fabric around her upper arm.
He didn’t slow down. The new sword rested across his shoulder, and he kept noticing how little effort it took to carry. Under his skin his muscles felt dense and quiet, like an engine idling.
Two floors up, the jammed panic bar on the fire door had snapped with less effort than it should have taken. Minor increase, the system had said. He wasn’t sure he believed it.
"Wait... please." Elsa’s face was pale and slick with cold sweat. "I need to sit down for a second."
He stopped beside an iron pillar and looked back. "If you sit, you stay here when I move."
"My arm is burning." Her fingers dug into the torn sleeve. "It feels like there’s fire under the skin."
He leaned the sword against the pillar, stepped over, and took her wrist, pulling her hand off the wound with no gentleness at all. She winced and bit her lip. Three parallel cuts, swollen and angry, but no black edges and no rot.
"It’s not infected. It bleeds because you keep moving it. We’ll get a kit in a minute." He dropped her arm. "Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open."
She glared at his back but said nothing. She leaned against the pillar and made herself breathe slowly and stand straight. She had learned enough since last night to know that weakness in front of him was an invitation to be left behind.
The bay had two levels: a raised platform where delivery trucks parked, and a lower staging area packed with pallets, plastic crates, and industrial shelving.
Near the far wall, behind a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, sat the hotel’s emergency supply depot. Through the mesh he could see crates of bottled water, first-aid kits, and boxes with emergency markings.
The gate stood open, but the way in was blocked.
A forklift had plowed through the frame of a multi-tiered shelf and brought down a tangle of steel beams, pallets, and engine parts in a six-foot wall across the entrance. The driver was still under it, half-crushed beneath a girder.
Zarek put his hand on a six-inch crossbeam and shoved. It didn’t move. It was easily several hundred pounds of iron sitting right on the access point.
"We can’t get through that," Elsa said quietly, limping up behind him. "You’d need a crane. Or six men."
He studied how the pile was holding itself up. Haul out the main beam and everything above it would come down, a long ringing cascade that would shatter every window on the level and ring like a dinner bell for whatever was out in the streets.
I want the supplies. I don’t want a horde on my heels.
Then he saw the gap. Thirty inches of space ran along the floor between the underside of the forklift and the concrete wall, and it was plugged by two iron-bound shipping crates wedged together like corks in a bottle.
Each crate looked heavy enough to weigh a couple of hundred pounds. Wedged together beneath the forklift, they were supporting part of the collapsed shelving, and simply dragging them out would have been a terrible idea.
He crouched beside the first crate and worked his fingers beneath its iron-bound edge. He couldn’t lift the entire thing cleanly, but he didn’t need to. He only needed enough clearance to break its contact with the floor.
He drew a breath and heaved. The crate rose a few inches, its metal bands scraping against the concrete. Strain tightened his shoulders, and he felt the effort through his arms, but the weight shifted.
The moment the bottom cleared the floor, he flicked his wrist. A soft chime sounded in his head, and the crate vanished.
He straightened and rolled his shoulders, heart beating a little faster, hands steady. System Space isn’t just a backpack. It’s a way to make things disappear. He’d find out what was in the crates later.
Elsa stared at the bare concrete, then at him. "How did you do that? Those crates... they couldn’t move."
He didn’t answer. He picked up the sword and pointed it at the gap. "You first."
"What? Why me?"
"The gap’s tight and your arm’s hurt. If something’s waiting in there, it goes for you. I step in while it’s busy."
The logic hit her like a slap. He wasn’t even hiding it. She was something to send ahead of him, like a canary.
"You’re a monster." Her knuckles were white on the pry bar.
He stepped closer, his shadow falling across her. "I’m the reason you’re still breathing. Go, or stay here and see how long that lasts."
She swallowed. She looked at his unblinking eyes and knew he meant it. She bit her lip until she tasted copper, dropped to her knees, and crawled.
Inside, the cage was cool and untouched by the fire upstairs.
Elsa scrambled out from under the chassis with scraped knees and her heart slamming against her ribs. She raised the pry bar and swept the dim enclosure. Nothing moved. The air was still, heavy with the smell of sealed paper boxes.
"Clear," she whispered, and slumped against a stack of pallets.
He slid through behind her and brushed concrete dust off his knees. He didn’t check on her. His eyes were already on the shelving.
He didn’t grab everything. He skipped the blankets, the spare clothes, and the bulky lanterns, and went straight for what mattered: two industrial first-aid kits, a dozen sealed bottles of water, twenty high-calorie ration blocks, five rolls of bandage and antiseptic.
Each box vanished from the shelf the moment his hand touched it, with a soft chime.
Within three minutes, he’d stored enough rations to last them weeks, several days’ worth of bottled water, and enough medical supplies to deal with ordinary injuries. The supplies were useful, but the water wouldn’t last forever. Finding a reliable source would have to be a priority.
He pulled one first-aid kit back out and dropped it in her lap. "Wrap that arm. Fast."
She stared at the kit, then at him, trying to work out what he wanted. Then she started to open it.
On a back wall, a small metal locker caught his eye. He forced the latch with the tip of the sword and pulled out a black plastic hard case.
Inside lay a heavy flare gun and four red flare cartridges. Zarek turned one over between his fingers before returning it to the case.
A flare would announce his position to anything nearby, which made it a terrible choice for a quiet escape. But it could also draw monsters away from a location or start a fire somewhere he didn’t want to approach himself.
He snapped the case shut and stored it with the rest.
"Zarek..."
Elsa had stopped with the bandage half wound. She was staring at a small reinforced metal door set into the concrete behind the racks.
"What?"
"Listen," she whispered.
He went still. He crossed the floor without a sound and stopped three feet from the door.
On the other side of the steel came a slow, rhythmic knocking.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It wasn’t the frantic clawing of a mutant. It was deliberate and metallic, a heavy iron tool striking the door from the inside at measured intervals. Then a voice drifted through the vent grille above the frame. It was raspy and dry and clearly human, but the rhythm of it was wrong.
"...eighty-four... eighty-five... eighty-six..."
He lowered his stance and tightened his hand on the sword.
Behind them lay the clear route back through the loading bay, along with every supply he’d come for. He could leave now and lose nothing.
Instead, Zarek studied the lock.
Someone had been shut behind that door, striking the metal at measured intervals and counting aloud in the dark. Whether they were trapped, hiding, or waiting for something, he had no way of knowing.
Elsa looked at him. "We’re leaving, right?"
He glanced at her, then back at the door.
"In a minute."
A grin spread across his face. He’d come down here looking for supplies. He hadn’t expected to find something that might be worth even more.