Children of the Plague

Chapter Eleven: Just Like Home

Chapter Eleven: Just Like Home

Lanni lumbered through the sliding chain-link and razor wire gate, leaving it open against her better judgment. It had been open all night, but with Alex's protections in place, a physical barrier was a redundancy. It would be fine until she came back through tomorrow night. An offspring would plough right through the thing, anyway, and a host wouldn't even notice it. It would only stop a pack of husks until they realized they could raise the handle and slide it open.

The Manhattan Department of Corrections rose like a castle on her left. Newly dubbed the Manhattan Penal Colony as a joke, the moniker stuck, and had been shortened to the MPC.

She dragged the bin up the short flight of steps to the loading docks. It should have drained the last of her endurance, especially after her interminable evening, but plenty of work needed doing before she could rest. With no one else to count on for help, the responsibility all fell to her.

The bin wouldn't navigate some of the corridors here, so she began by unloading the contents into smaller laundry carts. That done, she jogged back up the ramp to close the gate. Excuses to the contrary, the world had become rather intolerant of corner cutting.

Better safe than getting everyone killed for my laziness.

She plodded around the corner to the loading ramp with the grace of Frankenstein's monster. With her legs feeling like jelly, each step must have registered on the Richter scale.

I really need some rest.

She decided to leave the carts on the docks until later. Alex hid this part of the MPC from everyone but her, so it would be safe from visitors. This loading dock and the warehouse area inside were her safe zone within a safe zone.

Or so she thought. About a third of the way back to the docks from the gate, she heard voices. She stopped and sank to one knee against the wall, making a smaller target.

Two men stood beside her salvage cart, drinking bottled water and examining the fruits of her night's labor.

Hmm... The beer must be bad, after all.

She didn't know how they got there, or how they missed seeing her, but she had little choice but to wait for them to leave. Alex could simply make them forget if they saw her, but why make more work for him? Men seldom noticed what was right under their noses, anyway. Her mother had said so often enough, and Lanni was discovering that mom was right.

The slightly taller one in the track suit, Leonard, laughed louder than anyone ought to, and raised his water bottle to his lips. Mitchell, his slightly chubby, curly haired companion, raised his bottle, too. They discarded their empties, and pushed the laundry cart into the building.

She was upset at losing her loot, but she realized they were doing her a favor. It was meant for them, anyway, and now she wouldn't have to sneak it into their pantry.

The bigger problem was their presence here. If they could find this place, Alex's wards must be gone. If this one was gone, what about his barriers that created the safe zone?

"Alex?" she whispered as the two men vanished around a corner with her cart.

No answer.

"Great. Of all the times to be busy..."

She left her frame pack on the asphalt beneath the loading bay, and hopped up onto the dock. How would those two explain finding their haul? It would be problematic if Alex's protections started working again, and they couldn't retrace their steps.

Why were they away from the dorms at this hour, anyway? They were up to something, and she wanted to know what. But Alex had to come first. The laundry-cart mystery would have to keep until later.

She wasn't looking forward to seeing Alex. It wouldn't be a pleasant visit, but she couldn't put it off any longer. She'd have to judge when she saw him if she could delay for a bit longer. Not that it made any difference, but now would be a very inconvenient time to lose his help.

Out of habit, she looked into the two other wheeled carts as she walked by, and did a double-take. It was her loot. It was all there, minus the bottles they just drank. So what was in the bin they took? This was getting strange. She decided Alex would keep for a few more minutes, after all.

The two men were easy enough to follow. They chatted the whole way like a couple of girls. She and Martha had never been that bad, had they? At the main stairwell, she saw their lamplight fading down a long, descending hallway behind two open, steel doors.

Her breath caught, and she stared at the doors like she'd never seen them before. She passed this spot several times every day, including twice in the last twenty-four hours, and had never seen anything but a blank wall where the doors now hung.

It was another safe zone, put there to keep her out.