Page 10 of All Your Days
“Arm.” Huey insists, holding out his hand for Rebecca.
She complies, but barely, letting them collect their hair, saliva, and blood samples with only a little bit of fuss. She’ll be moved down sooner rather than later, no doubt about it. She’s too far gone to stay, with the risk that she’ll turn at any moment.
It’s not a perfect system—the risk is there for all of us, even with our testing here. We never know exactly when the switch will flip. If nothing else, it gives the residents an illusion of safety.
The line moves quickly with Huey helping Tobias take the samples. Until one resident bumps another, sending both their food spilling over the floor. In a flash, it’s on, the residents jumping on the excuse for violence.
“Oi! Break it up!” Goontie booms out, smashing the bars with his baton.
Thisis the other reason why I looked the other way. If there’s a choice between a brawl or an orgy, I’ll always pick the second—and one or the other is inevitable down here. Sometimes both. What else have they got to do with themselves?
The fight continues until one resident is on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. Huey makes notes, while Kennedy aggressively stares down the mob egging on the fight. I edge away from them all, back to Kelly huddled in his corner, tears running down his cheeks.
“Will he be okay?” Kelly whispers, unable to take his eyes off the unconscious man on the floor.
The man's face is already so swollen, it’s impossible to recognise him. But the shallow rise and fall of his chest is still visible.
“Yeah. He’ll be fine. You’ll be sent to your rooms after lunch and locked in so we can deal with this.” I reassure him, or at least try to.
I almost want to reach through the bars and offer him some kind of comfort. But as much as I might take some risks, even going so far as to play cards with him, I know better than to reach between the bars. There has to be some lines.
“Thank you.” Kelly whispers eventually, when he finds the ability to make his feet walk to Tobias to give samples and take his food, under the watchful eye of Huey.
I let the thanks roll off me. It feels wrong. I didn’t do anything more than what I thought was right.
“I’m gonna go see the boss.” I tell my crew, needing to get out of here. It’s been too long underground and it’s making my skin itchy.
“Actually, before you go see them, can you run these to the labs?” Huey asks, capping the last sample vial and placing it carefully in its allocated spot. “Save us the trip, yeah mate?”
I hesitate at the door, eyes flicking between the cart and the smirk on Huey’s face. He knows exactly what he’s doing. My obsession with the pretty-eyed lab grunt has escaped the notice of my crew—all of them except Huey. He caught on a year or two ago, when I was keeping an eye on Eli during a visit from the armymen, though I reckon he suspected before that. He’s been at me ever since. Telling me to make a move instead of creeping on him from a distance.
Huey’s lived at The Facility his whole life. Try as he might, he doesn’t get it, not really. Doesn’t get why I like to keep to myself. Why I don’t ‘make a move’ on Eli. His attempts to push me into doing more are getting less and less subtle and this is just another one of his tricks.
It’s like he can see the way my stomach has tightened with nerves and excitement at the idea of going to the Labs.
Part of me wants to say no. To tip the cart over and stroll out. But I don’t, because that would be a fucked up thing to do, and my days of being a petulant teenager are long over.
Huey’s got me over a barrel and he knows it.
“Yeah, right. Too easy,” I grit the words out and snag the cart, dragging it from the room.
The Labs and then Command. What a fucking day.
Chapter three
Jacob
Guards work on everylevel of The Facility. We’re not just there for general security—our main job is to keep the residents safe in case our system fails and someone turns without warning. For one reason or another, my crew rarely gets assigned to the Lab and Ag levels.
On one hand, it’s a good thing, because being underground all day is the worst. On the other hand, it’s fewer hours in a day that I can keep watch over Eli.
It’s a special kind of torture that I put myself through. At least I’m not alone in my awareness of him—he manages to attract the attention of every available person in the compound. He takes advantage of it, too. But he doesn’t always seem to appreciate the dangers lurking around the corner for a pretty face like his.
Moby knows. It’s why the older scientist keeps him close in the Labs all day. I don’t know the scientist well, but I do know that he came to us from another Union facility from across the country. And I get the distinct feeling that he’s seen things like I have. Things that you don’t forget, and can make you see monsters hiding in every shadow.
It’s not even just the zombified. Humans are fucking awful.
After all, it was humans that released the virus into the world.
