Coffee was still her primary goal, however, and she continued the hunt into bins, boxes, and cupboards, but to no avail. She was about to open an upper cabinet when one of the freezers kicked on with a click and hum, scaring her half to death. One hand pressed to her chest, she leaned against a counter, trying to recover. Her heart hammered in her breast like a bird beating its wings against the bars of a cage. When the rhythm returned to normal, she moved on to opening boxes and plastic crates piled by the outer door, marveling at the amount of food needed to keep forty-four people alive.
Well, forty-three, now. Or is that forty-two? The thought came ugly, unbidden, and she recoiled, disgusted with herself, wondering where the hell it had come from. Childish laughter, light and cruel, lit along the edge of her mind and she slapped herself.
She stood there, panting, dissecting her thoughts and wondering if she were going insane. Her cheek burned where she’d struck it. She needed to move, needed to do something, or she was going to lose her mind.
Spastically, she began tearing open the lids of boxes, ripping open bags, knocking canisters, jars, and pots off of shelves. Tears trickled down her cheeks as jars tumbled to the ground and broke, scattering sugar and salt across the floor. The kitchen was filled with the reek of vinegar and cheese, the must of dried spices, the malted smells of rice and flour. Gasping, she hurled a box of dried milk across the room. It burst into a cloud of white powder and she gagged as a sickly sweet smell reminiscent of infant formula floated on the air.
“Jesus H. Christ on a stick.”
Anne froze at the voice, slowly turning to face the bulging eyes of Pete Ozment. He stood in the doorway to the hall, one foot holding the outer door open. Trailing behind him was a large cart with boxes stacked three deep.
“Anne? What in blazes are you doing?”
Her mouth opened, unable to articulate a sound at first. Granules of powdered milk floated downward in the space between them. Finally, when his eyebrows hit the top of his hairline, she said simply, “I was looking for coffee.”
“Coffee?” He pushed the cart into the kitchen. It made small grinding sounds as it crushed salt and sugar crystals beneath its wheels. “This whole damn thing is full of coffee. I just busted my ass to bring back a hundred pounds of it from the warehouse and you wrecked my kitchen while I was doing it.”
She stared, fish-mouthed, at the boxes, then up at Pete’s frowning face. She couldn’t help herself, and started to laugh. He looked as if he was going to explode, then threw his head back, put his hands on his hips, and started to laugh, too. More tears, from laughter this time, cascaded down her face. She choked out an apology in the middle of her cracking up.
“Coffee.” He shook his head as his laughter wound down. “The girl wanted coffee.”
They looked around at the mess she’d made and then they both got the giggles again. As Pete put his head back to guffaw once again, a large figure suddenly appeared in the hall behind him. Anne gasped.
Following her gaze over his shoulder, Pete started to turn, making it only partway before the figure raised an arm, then chopped down like a gate swinging shut. Something hit the cook on the top of the head with the sound of a wet hand-clap.
Pete made a burping sound, then took two tripping, tipping steps backward into the kitchen, sprawling across his cart and knocking boxes to the floor. Blood spilled from a rift in the crown of his head. His feet kicked once like a toy thrown to the ground.
Anne looked down in horror at the body, unable to comprehend what she’d just witnessed, then screamed as the bulky figure that had loomed in the doorway moved into the kitchen. A scream joined hers, playing counterpoint to the water-bright laughter in her head as the arm rose and fell.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Carla looked up from her microscope, annoyed. The noise that had broken her concentration, she realized, had crescendoed from a distant murmur into a collection of shouts and pounding feet that was impossible to ignore.
She frowned, only just remembering that Anne had gone in search of coffee for the two of them. She glanced at the clock . . . Jesus, she’d banished the poor woman almost an hour ago. Her mind, keen and pitilessly logical when it came to matters of biology, moved sluggishly in other circles and it took her a minute to connect the possibility that the fracas outside and the fact Anne hadn’t come back yet might be related. She hesitated, then hurried for the door.
A crowd had bunched at the far end of the hall. Voices, punctuated by the occasional gasp or moan, filled the air. A primal sense of shared fear and crisis emanated from the group, causing doors to open and heads to pop out into the corridor. Carla took small, hesitant steps, drawn magnetically to the gathering.