her feet and back to the competent officer she used to be.
They went through the rest of the underground area together. Sarah got a handle on herself and managed to participate in checking and clearing each room. Once they were sure the place was empty aside from the two of them, they commenced a cursory search.
“We’ll go through it as best we can right now. The geeks will bring in lighting and do a more thorough job after they clean up the kill site,” Xavier said offhandedly as he walked through what looked like an office with her.
He flashed his light around the empty room. All that was left were a wooden desk and some other furniture. A rolling chair. An empty filing cabinet.
Sarah took her time, looking closely at each joint of the wooden desk. Her persistence paid off when she saw a glint of something metallic.
“There’s something wedged in here.”
Xavier was at her side in an instant. “It’s a wire. Look, it shows under the desk for an inch before disappearing under the carpet.” He shined the light downward, following the path of the wire. “Why leave this when everything else in the place had been stripped?”
“Let’s see what it leads to.” Sarah bent down to examine the carpet. “We’re in luck. They used commercial carpet tiles in here.” With the tip of her utility knife she lifted the edges of the squares covering the thin silver wire as she spoke. Sure enough, the wire made its way from the desk, directly toward the wall. “This is weird.” The wire ended at the wall, disappearing behind it.
“Can I borrow your nightstick?” She handed it over to him without comment. “Stand back and hold the light for me,” Xavier directed, and Sarah followed his lead. He took a swing at the sheetrock with the business end of the stick, breaking through the thick gypsum board as if it were paper.
When the dust settled, he shined his light inside the wall, following the wire’s path upward toward a small grate at the top. The grate was no more than five inches square. Using his own, much larger knife, Xavier pried off the plate and reached inside.
“Camera. Video feed must’ve gone to whatever equipment was on the desk. Most likely a computer. I wonder why they’d wire the office? We should check for surveillance equipment like this in the rest of the place. Could be the former residents were a touch paranoid.”
Once they knew what to look for, it was easy to spot similar view ports in all the other rooms on the subterranean level. In the fifth room they searched, they caught a break.
“Looks like someone missed a DVD in the shuffle to get out of Dodge,” Sarah observed, picking up a shiny silver disc that had fallen behind a piece of furniture. “I wonder what this will tell us?”
“Secure it for now. We’ll check it out after we finish here.”
“Yes, sir.” She gave him a mock salute along with a grin that he answered ruefully. Command came easy to the man, it was plain to see. She didn’t take offense but wanted to remind him gently that she wasn’t one of his soldiers. The nod of his head told her without words that her message had been received.
They finished up with the lower floor. They hadn’t found a lot belowground except for the disc and the camera. Sarah hoped that would give them a good solid lead. They needed one about now.
Although she’d encountered two of the creatures on the premises and now they’d faced a third belowground, they hadn’t found anything to tell them why or how the zombies had gotten there. Whether it was just dumb luck that the creatures were attracted to the building or whether they’d been stationed there on purpose was still unclear. The basement rooms were suspicious, but whoever had cleaned them out had done a thorough job. It was hard to tell what the rooms had been used for. Only a few pieces of ubiquitous office equipment had been left behind.
The disc was their only hope to somehow connect the building with the creatures and whoever might have unleashed them.
“I’m guessing whatever was here last week cleared out after you were attacked upstairs,” Xavier said, breaking into her musings as they headed back toward the ladder. “They probably left that one behind to guard whoever might come after. Or maybe he was just a mistake. Whichever is the case, I think the