Chapter 17: The Cold Hall

Cal Merrick walked the cold-storage warehouse alone on a Tuesday afternoon, with a clipboard and a safety vest.

He was there to survey it as the standby medical lead.

That was the story, and it was also the truth, which made it easy to say.

The building stood in an industrial yard in the valley, behind a chain-link fence and a row of empty loading bays.

Inside it was cold even in the sun.

A single caretaker had let him in and then wandered off to smoke by the dock.

The air smelled of damp concrete.

Cal stopped in the middle of the main hall and stood there with his hand on the clipboard.

For three weeks he had woken to that exact smell, and he had never once been in this building.

He made himself keep walking.

He checked the exits.

Two loading doors, one fire stair, a blue steel door at the back of the hall that led to a short corridor and a second room.

The second room had a floor drain, a stack of folding chairs and a row of high windows painted shut.

He crouched by the drain.

His mouth was dry.

Somewhere in the building a door scraped open, and a woman's voice floated through the hall.

"Quietly," it said. "We're early."

Cal killed his headlamp and stepped behind the stacked chairs.

Camille came in through the blue door in a long camel coat, with two men a few steps behind her.

One was thick through the shoulders and kept his head down.

The other was thin and turned his face aside to cough, a wet, rattling cough that echoed.

Cal's skin went cold.

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