Deep Below the Blue Ridge Mountains - The Lower Tunnel
The lower tunnel was narrower than the one above, the walls rougher. Water dripped from the ceiling, pooling in shallow puddles on the floor. The air was cool, damp, heavy.
Jimmy led the way, his flashlight cutting a pale cone through the dark. Caitlyn followed close behind, her boots splashing softly in the occasional puddle. Above and behind them, the collapse had long since faded to silence.
"How far down do you think we are?" Caitlyn asked.
"A couple hundred feet, at least." Jimmy scratched an arrow into the wall with his knife. "We follow the tunnel. It has to come out somewhere."
They walked in silence for a while. The tunnel sloped downward, then leveled out, then sloped again.
"Jimmy," Caitlyn said.
"Yeah?"
"What if we don't find them?"
"We will."
"How do you know?"
He stopped and turned to face her. The flashlight caught his face. Tired, bruised, but steady. He didn't answer right away. He let the silence sit, let the weight of the question settle.
Then he spoke.
"Because my best friend is up there. Nick. He's been a brother to me since we were in high school. He's not going to stop. He's going to find a way, or he'll tear this mountain apart trying."
He took a breath.
"Because Ashley is up there, the girl I love. She's going to be my wife someday. And she's going to be your mom. Not just in name, but in every way that matters. She won't leave us behind."
Caitlyn's eyes glistened.
"And because my family is up there." His voice cracked, just a little. "All of them. And I don't leave my family behind. Ever."
He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.
"And I'm certainly not leaving without you. You hear me? You're my daughter. And I don't care what it takes, we're getting out of here together."
Caitlyn couldn't speak. She just nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Jimmy squeezed her shoulder, then turned back to the tunnel;. "Come on. Let's go find them."
She followed, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
The tunnel widened into a low-ceilinged chamber, the walls streaked with mineral deposits. In the center, a shallow pool of stagnant water reflected their flashlights beams. The air was cold here, almost freezing.
"Stay close," Jimmy said.
Caitlyn stepped around the pool, her boots crunching on loose rock. Then she heard it. A soft, wet sound. Breathing.
She turned.
The pale one was already on her.
It came out of a crevice in the wall, silent as smoke. Translucent skin stretched over bones that moved wrong. Its eyes were sewn shut, but its head was tilted, tracking her heartbeat. Its mouth opened. Its teeth were sharpened to points, and it lunged.
Caitlyn screamed.
Jimmy spun. His flashlight caught the thing's body pressed against Caitlyn, its face jammed against her forearm. She was shoving it back, but its jaws were clamped down.
"Get off her!" Jimmy grabbed the pale one by the back of its neck and yanked. The thing was light, almost weightless, but its grip was unnatural. He slammed it against the wall. Once. Twice. On the third hit, its jaw unhinged, and it crumpled to the ground, twitching.
Jimmy didn't stop. He drove his knife through its skull, and the twitching stopped.
Then he turned to Caitlyn.
She was on her knees, clutching her forearm. Blood seeped between her fingers, dark and arterial. But that wasn't what made Jimmy's heart stop.
It was the bite mark. Two curved crescents where the pale ones mouth had sealed around her flesh. The skin around it was already turning an angry purple.
"No," Jimmy whispered. He dropped beside her. "No, no, NO!"
Caitlyn looked up at him, her face pale, her eyes wide with terror. "Jimmy... it bit me."
He grabbed her arm, examined the wound. His hands were shaking. Everything he knew about the infected told him what came next. Fever. Death. Turning.
"Dad." Her voice was small, broken. "You know what you have to do."
He looked at her. Really looked at her. Twenty years old. Scared. Brave. His daughter.
"No, we'll find another way." He said.
"Dad-"
"I said no." He pulled off his belt and wrapped it tight around her upper arm as a tourniquet. "You're not turning. You're not dying. Not here. Not like this."
"The bite-" Her voice cracked. "I'm going to turn. You know I am. Everyone does."
"I don't care what everyone does." He lifted her, one arm under her knees, the other around her back. She was light and he carried her like she was his own biological child. "You're my daughter now. You understand? I see you as my daughter, and I don't give up on my daughter."
Caitlyn sobbed into his shoulder. Her whole body was shaking. "I don't want to die. I don't want to turn into one of them."
"You're not going to."
"How do you know?"
"Because I have hope."
It wasn't logic. It wasn't medicine. It was pure,stubborn love. And for now, it was enough.
Jimmy carried her for what felt like an hour. The tunnel twisted and turned, but he didn't stop. He didn't put her down. His arms burned, his back ached. Sweat dripped down his face. But every time he thought about resting, he looked at her face, pale, eyes closed, breathing. He kept moving.
"You can put me down," she whispered once.
"No."
"I'm too heavy."
"You're not."
She was quiet for a while. Her breathing was shallow, but steady. Jimmy could feel her heart beating against his chest. Still beating. Still her.
"Dad," she whispered.
"Yeah?"
"I'm scared."
"I know. Me too."
"What happens if I start to turn?"
Jimmy's throat tightened. "That's not going to happen.
"But if it does-"
"Then we deal with it together. Just like everything else." He adjusted his grip, pulling her closer. "But it's not going to happen. I'm not losing you, Caitlyn. Not today."
She didn't answer. She just held on.
He walked on.
After a long while, the tunnel gradually transitioned from rough limestone to smooth concrete. Vents hummed in the walls. Emergency lights flickered overhead.
Then the tunnel opened into a staging area. Concrete floor, steel beams, crates stacked against one wall marked with the HELIX logo. A computer terminal sat dark on a metal desk. Beyond it, two hallways led deeper into the mountain.
Jimmy gently set Caitlyn down on a crate, keeping a hand on her shoulder to steady her. She was shaky but uprite.
"How do you feel?" He asked.
She looked at her arm. The bite was still bleeding, the skin around it and andry purple. "Like I'm dying."
"You're not dying." He turned to the crates. "Let me look at that."
He knelt In front of her, gently unwrapped the belt tourniquet, and cleaned the wound. She hissed through her teeth but didn't pull away. He found bandages and antiseptic in one of the crates, and wrapped her arm.
"There," he said. "That'll hold."
"For how long?"
"Long enough."
He helped her stand, then immediately lifted her back into her arms, one under her knees, the other around her back. Through her clothes, he could feel her heartbeat again, pressed against his chest.
"Jimmy, you don't have to-"
"I know." He carried her toward the two hallways. "But I'm going to."
She rested her head on his shoulder and let him carry her.
Jimmy stopped at the junction. Left or right.
He walked to the terminal, but it required two hands to examine. He set Caitlyn down carefully against the wall, propping her so she wouldn't fall.
"No power," he said after a moment. "Which way?"
Caitlyn pointed to the right. "That one."
"Why?"
"Because left feels wrong."
Jimmy almost smiled. "Good enough."
He lifted her again, one smooth motion, her chest pressing against his, her heart thumping, and took the right hallway.
The right hallway sloped downward, concrete giving way to rough-hewn rock again. The emergency lights grew dimmer, then stopped altogether. They switched to flashlights, but Jimmy didn't set Caitlyn down. He carried her and held the flashlight between his thumb and index finger.
Fifty yards. A hundred. Two hundred.
Then the hallway ended at a massive steel door. Industrial, with a wheel in the center like a bank vault. A keypad glowed faintly on the wall beside it.
Jimmy set Caitlyn down again, this time leaning her against the wall where she could watch. He examined the keypad. Six digits. Scratched into the wall beside it were three numbers: 8-4-1
"Someone marked it," he said.
Caitlyn leaned heavily, her good arm wrapped around her chest. She was pale, sweating. "Maybe it's a trap."
"Maybe." Jimmy thought for a moment. Then he entered the date of the outbreak: 0-8-1-4-2-3
The keypad blinked green.
A click. The wheel turned on its own, and the massive door swung open.
Beyond it: darkness. And the distant hum of machines.
Jimmy turned, scooped Caitlyn back into his arms, and faced the open door.
He didn't step through immediately. He looked down at her.
"This is it. The Nexus might be on the other side. Mercer could be somewhere inside. So could the AI."
Caitlyn nodded, her jaw tight.
"But we don't know where the others are. Ashley, Nick, Jenna. They could be above us, below us, or on the complete other side of the mountain." Jimmy glanced back at the dark hallway they'd come from. "We can wait here for them. Or we can go in alone."
"Waiting means Mercer has more time. Or he runs, if he's even in there."
"Going in alone means we might not come out. And with your arm..."
Caitlyn looked down at the bandage. The bleeding had slowed, but she could still feel the bite. A throbbing, burning reminder. "I don't know how much time I have. If I'm going to turn... I'd rather turn trying to finish this than sitting in a dark hallway waiting to die."
Jimmy's chest ached. He wanted to argue. He wanted to tell her she wasn't going to turn. But he didn't know that. He couldn't promise that.
So he did the only thing he could do.
He raised his rifle with one hand, the other holding her up so she could walk with her weight on him, and they stepped through the door.