Entry 27

ENTRY 27

Blood rushed to my head, so intense I thought I might pass out. I wheeled around, searching for something, anything, to use as a weapon.

The EKG cart I’d kicked aside was a few steps away. I dashed for it and grabbed the edge, using all my might to swing it around toward the door.

I felt the impact shudder the cart before I saw what it had struck—the Host, already past the threshold. The metal edge had hit him in the gut, doubling him over the equipment. The doorway behind him was packed with reaching arms and blank faces. Though my thighs screamed, I put all my force into driving the cart forward, shoving him into the others, through that doorframe, and onto the stairs.

The momentum of the heavy cart packed him and the others back through the doorway. Roaring, I gave a final shove, the cart flying away from me, hurtling through the frame.

Then gravity took over.

The cart seemed to fill the walls of the stairway, blasting down the steps, smashing everything in its path. Meaty crunches and wet gasps.

I didn’t wait around to admire the damage.

Swinging the bulging bag up onto my shoulder, I sprinted for the rear stairwell. I didn’t have time to be cautious—I just threw open the door and staggered inside, pulled by the weight of the bag. If the Hosts had made it into the rear stairwell as well, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. My breaths rang off the walls, loud panting that sounded like the breathing of a Host. In fact, the echoes made it sound like there were Hosts all around me.

At last I reached the ground floor and pushed the door open, barely keeping to my feet as I tumbled forward.

Patrick waited in front of the loaded gurney, his mask tube trailing back to the H tank, now stacked with the others. His shotgun was raised and aimed at my head.

“Chance,” he said calmly. “Hit the floor.”

I was too exhausted to argue or even ask. I let my muscles go slack, let the heavy bag tug me down until my chest slapped the tile.

The shotgun exploded overhead, and I rolled to my side to see three Hosts behind me fly back, ripped to pieces by the expanding spray.

Those breaths in the stairwell hadn’t been my own, echoing back at me. They’d been the Hosts right behind me, their outstretched hands inches from my back. Sprawled there on the cold tile, I shuddered.

For a moment we stayed perfectly still. The echo of the shotgun rang up the stairwell and through the building, making it—I hoped—impossible to source. We waited until it died away, then sprang back into motion.