Rewriting the Apocalypse novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Sublevel Four

Sam found the extra floor in forty minutes.

The deputies had been through Sublevel 3 twice, and every plan on file said the building ended there.

Sam stood in the linen lift with the control panel off and a flashlight in his teeth.

"The cable's too long," he said, around it. "It's rigged for one more stop."

"See the relay?" he added. "Somebody wired a floor in and painted over the button."

"Can you open it?" the prosecutor asked.

"I can open anything with a battery."

He touched two wires together, and the lift dropped.

It went down a long way.

Jo stood in the corner with Eli beside her, wearing his plastic ankle monitor and the clean shirt Bess had made him iron.

Two deputies waited with their hands on their holsters.

The doors opened on cold air and a smell Jo knew at once.

Antiseptic, old copper and fear.

Sublevel Four was a single corridor of cells, narrower than the one above and lit in the same flat white.

There were no windows into it, and no signs.

Every cell door was shut.

"Hello?" said a deputy.

Something moved behind the nearest door, a scrape and a muffled cry.

At the far end of the corridor, a man in a gray lab coat stood at an open wall panel.

His hand was on a valve wheel.

He turned his head and saw them.

"Don't," he said. "Stay back. Everything in here goes to sleep in thirty seconds, and I can make it a long sleep."

The deputies froze.

"Faulk's cleanup," Eli said quietly. "She kept one tech on call for exactly this."

"Put your hands up!" a deputy shouted.

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