The barn loomed ahead, a monstrous silhouette against the bruised, twilight sky. It was vast and desolate, smelling faintly of old hay, decay, and the sharp tang of rust. The roars behind me were fading into labored, guttural moans, replaced by the sickening, all-consuming thought of what Marcus was doing to keep them away. I didn't let myself look back.
Don't think about it. Keep moving. One foot in front of the other. For Eli.
I rounded the side of the structure, the loose, sharp gravel scraping a frantic rhythm beneath my worn boots. The back wall was a patchwork of cracked siding and overgrown, tenacious weeds. I scanned the area, my eyes burning from exhaustion and strain, searching for the faint, crucial shape of a "tracker."
Then, I saw it.
Tucked near the foundation, partially hidden by a curtain of invasive ivy and the shadow of the barn's massive frame, was a rusted metal box—the kind used to house irrigation timers or electrical components, nondescript and utterly ordinary. But bolted onto the wood directly above it, dusty and nearly invisible, was a small, three-pronged antenna: The Tracker—a whisper of the outside world, a signal buried for the time when it was needed most.
I sank to my knees and gently lowered Eli to the ground, propping his small, limp body against a stack of discarded, water-warped wooden pallets. His skin felt like a radiator, blazing with a fever that no amount of sweat could break. It was the full infection now, fighting against every defense his young body had left, trying to remake him into one of them. I smoothed his sweat-drenched, sandy hair back, murmuring useless, desperate promises.
"Just a little longer, Eli. We're almost there." I whispered, more for myself than him.
He didn't stir, save for a slight, almost imperceptible tremor running through his frame. His lips were cracked, and his breathing was shallow, hitched—the sound of a small engine struggling to turn over.
"Freeze him." The grim, final verdict echoed in the sterile chamber of my mind. It was the only chance; a forced stasis until the antidote—the vaccine—could be found. Ok, how do I know that? Oh yeah, my dead sister with the secret life as a scientist, military weapon, with clandestine friends, told me. I laugh bitterly at how crazy my life has become.
"Hurry. Hurry." I chant to myself. Every second he burned was a second the pathogen advanced, anchoring itself deeper into his brain tissue, erasing the boy I had grown to care about.
I pulled the crumpled paper from my pocket. It was slick, heavy with my own sweat, and marked with a faint, dark smear of Marcus's blood—a constant, terrible reminder. I unfolded it carefully, the sound like tearing dry parchment: 3-12-78.
The Door
I knelt at the base of the tracker box and began clawing away the dead leaves, soil, and years' worth of other debris. The metal box was cold against my scraped knuckles. My fingers hit something solid, a distinct, yielding metal. There was a faint seam in the ground, a square outline barely visible beneath the packed debris. I dug faster, my fingernails breaking and bleeding, driven by a raw, primal need to uncover what lay beneath.
Finally, the edges of a sturdy, steel access door were fully exposed, hinged flush to the earth, camouflaged with a layer of textured dust to blend in with the soil. It was precisely where she said it would be.
There was a keypad recessed into the center of the lid, surprisingly clean, protected by a weatherproof, opaque cover.
I wiped my trembling, dirt-caked hands on my worn jeans, took one deep, shuddering breath, and lifted the cover. A faint, steady amber light lit the pad beneath. I punched in the combination: 3-1-2-7-8.
The keypad immediately glowed a brilliant, victorious green. A quiet, mechanical hiss came from the door seal, the sound of pressure being released, air exchanging. I pushed the heavy metal up. It opened with surprising smoothness, revealing a black, damp hole descending into the earth.
Cold, dry air wafted up—a blessed sensation against the choking, feverish heat of the night and Eli's body.
The cold. The freezer.
I peered into the darkness. There were concrete steps leading down, sturdy and wide, lit dimly by a warm, unseen light source far below. This wasn't a homemade shelter; this was engineered. It only solidified the terrifying, brilliant genius of Lily Thorne.
I turned back to Eli.
He was exactly where I'd left him, breathing shallowly, his face pale and contorted in a silent, internal battle. He needed to get down there now, before the fever claimed his consciousness entirely, before the sickness won the final battle and broke his last connections to the person he was.
"Hey," I murmur. "Field trip's almost over, okay? Just hang on."
I slipped my arms under him, hoisting his body over my shoulder in a firefighter's carry. The weight was manageable—he was a small boy, starved thin by the apocalypse—but maneuvering down the steep, narrow steps with an unconscious person was another matter entirely. My heart hammered, threatening to burst through my ribs.
I took the first step down, my boot grating on the concrete. As my head cleared the opening, the door's internal light fixture, a small, clinical lens mounted on the underside of the lid, activated. A small, silent beam of infrared light washed over my face.
"Retinal Confirmation Required," a synthesized, calm female voice echoed from the unyielding concrete walls, sounding impossibly distant from the chaos of the surface world.
I lowered my face into the scanning light, holding Eli tight, my cheek pressed against his burning skull. The seconds stretched into hours.
Then, the voice returned, crisp and definitive: "Confirmation: Lily Thorne. Welcome Home."
The door's hydraulics whirred, and it began to sink with a sound like a great sigh, sealing us in. The last shaft of twilight vanished, and the world above, the infected, Marcus, and the desperate flight, was suddenly and completely gone.
For the first time in years, I felt safe.