Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,111
to me, about how she made you feel the warmth in her eyes, in her smile. How she was a real person, and how Vivian was a great character.
But even if I could think of what to say, my throat won’t work, thick with emotion and choked with the fact that nothing feels like enough when someone has sacrificed themselves for you.
I still don’t know what to say.
Cuellar, of all people, says it for us.
“She was one in a million,” he says, swiping at his cheek with the knuckles of one hand. “A total class act, a true-blue broad.” He lifts the water bottle. “Let’s not let her down. She died for us. Let’s make it worth it.”
We all nod, lift our water bottles or mime holding a glass, and toast Janet O’Shea.
* * *
? ? ?
Once we’ve rested, we all agree there’s literally nowhere to go but up. The first floor is already a dead end, and besides, those exhibit hall doors didn’t seem all that secure. The second floor we just left is absolutely not an option, it’s overrun with zombies, so that leaves only the third floor.
Which, we know, will have the zombies from the balcony. But that’s still way fewer zombies than on floors one and two. If the barriers at the top of the escalators hold.
If.
Our plan, such as it is, is to explore the back-office hallway of the third floor. It’s the only area of the third floor we haven’t tried, to see if we can find an office window to signal the army or SWAT team, whoever is massing at the loading dock to try to get into the exhibit hall floor.
Plus, as Simon has noted, the freight elevator might go all the way up to the third floor, in which case it would be somewhere back in that hallway, given the layout of the building. And that makes sense because it would allow the convention center staff to not only bring all the heavy stage scaffolding, theatrical light rigs, cameras, amplifiers, and stacks of speakers to the second floor, but also continue up to the balcony level to deliver the sound and mixing boards.
And if we can find the freight elevator, we can take a direct ride down to the loading dock.
Even so it will be better to try to signal first, so we don’t all arrive just to get shot.
So many things can go wrong with this plan, but it feels so much better to simply have one, to be making a move.
I hit the stop button again, which starts the elevator.
The elevator rises, and we all stand in the bunched turtle formation that Janet taught us, weapons bristling toward the doors.
Imani has Janet’s drawer plank.
“If we pass another defibrillator, I wanna grab it,” Annie says, hugging her used defibrillator to her chest.
“Okay, Annie,” Simon says. “That’d probably come in handy.”
“When we get to the third floor, we might see Linus.” Annie’s voice is smaller now, shrinking into itself, emotion squeezing it tight.
We’re all silent, and I’m certain our minds are all in one of only two destinations. One, thinking about Linus, the horrid yell he made—the sight of him disappearing in the bodies that converged to feed on him. The noises—
Or two, we’re imagining what he might look like now. Either truly dead, or infected, stumbling along on fed-upon legs, cataract-fractured eyes, seething snake-egg skin.
“Be prepared for it, but try not to dwell,” I say. “He’d want us to save . . . everyone.”
Annie nods, and hugs her defibrillator case.
The elevator voice says, “Third floor,” and the doors slide open.
At first everything looks clear. We move out onto the landing in front of the elevators.
The barricades at the tops of the escalators have been partially dismantled. Not as if they’ve been cleared intentionally, more as if a battering ram has struck at them. Chairs and cleaning products and even the plant have fallen over.