Cassie huffed as they got Carl down onto the floor beside the service counter. “None of us is safe anymore. We’re all screwed.”
Nick didn’t want to argue with the girl and Cassie obviously didn’t want to talk about what had happened; at least not right now. There was no point prodding her.
“Okay,” he whispered to her. “Get some sleep and we’ll talk in the morning. Don’t go wandering off anywhere, okay? Stay close.”
Nick headed back towards his spot between Eve and Pauline. He looked around for Jan and the other prisoners as he went. The three of them were huddled together on the floor by the restaurant’s exit doors. Jan seemed to be having a heated discussion with Dash, but both lowered their voices when they noticed Nick’s presence.
What are they talking about? Are they plotting something?
Nick settled back onto his spot on the floor and took a deep breath. His breathing was still laboured after the punch Jan had delivered to his ribs. The guy was big – huge – no doubt about it, and if it came down to violence Nick wasn’t confident what the outcome would be.
“Hey,” said Eve in a whisper. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he lied to her. “I’ll tell you about it in the morning. Just make sure you and Pauline don’t go anywhere in the night without letting me know first.”
Eve shuffled across the floor so that she was only inches away from him. “Okay,” she said. “Same goes for you. No sneaking off again without telling me first.”
“Deal.”
Nick stared up at the ceiling and wondered what the morning would bring.
Chapter Eleven
The alarm woke everyone.
Nick leapt to his feet in an instant. His heart beat like the footsteps of a thousand sprinters. He spun around on the spot, disorientated and confused.
“What’s happening?” Eve cried out from the floor.
“I don’t know. Something tripped the alarms.” Nick grabbed his coat up of the floor and put it on quickly.
“But I thought Dash turned them off,” said Pauline, hurrying to her feet along with Eve.
Nick looked over and saw that Dash, Jan, and Renee were still huddled in the corner by the doors. They seemed just as confused as everybody else. But that didn’t mean they knew nothing. He marched over to the prisoners and pointed his finger at them. “Did you do this?”
Dash shook his head. “Do what, man? Why would we set off the alarms?”
“I can’t imagine why you do most of the things you do. Why is it going off again? I thought you disconnected it?”
“Nah, man. I just smashed up the console and shut off the intruder alert. The alarm is still intact. I just cut the link between the broken window and the siren. It was an ancient piece of shit. Piece of cake.”
Nick shook his head in despair. “So what set it off again?”
Dave came storming out of the ‘STAFF ONLY’ door, shouting and cursing. “What’s going on? Why is the alarm going off again? And why is all the power off?”
“There’s your answer,” Dash said to Nick. “If the power went out then the security system probably went over to a battery system or something. It tripped the alarm all over again.”
“So what do we do?” Nick demanded.
“Disconnect the battery power and the whole system will be dead.”
“Well, we need to do it quickly before any infected people find their way to us.”
“Nick?” Eve tapped him on the shoulder.
“Not now, Eve.”
“Nick!”
He shot her an irritated glance. “What?”
“I think that ship might have sailed.”
Nick spun around to see what she was talking about. It soon became very clear.
Standing at the many windows of the café, peering in with their bloodshot, swollen eyes were dozens and dozens of infected people.
Carl shook his head frantically. “We…are…screwed.”
All at once, the infected mob burst in through the windows. Their bodies hit the ground clumsily, embedding themselves with shards of glass. But they got back to their feet quickly.
It felt like the room was closing in.