Rewriting the Apocalypse novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Sublevel 3

Jo did not scream this time.

She stood in the door of the little room with her palm over her mouth and looked at the scuffed leather.

Behind her, Eli said her name once, very softly, and then nothing else.

"Somebody was here," she said. "A week ago. Maybe more."

"Yes."

"You knew."

"I knew there were others in Sublevel 3. I didn't know it started this early." His voice shook. "In the first life, you were the first one they kept. That's why you were the one they counted over."

"So who's down there now?"

"I don't know. Let me find out."

"We find out. Both of us."

He opened his mouth to argue, then looked at her face and shut it.

He pulled a white plastic card from his jacket and held it out between two gloved fingers, stretched at arm's length.

"My keycard. It opens the service lift at the end of the hall. It takes you down one floor, and then it's a straight run to the glass."

"Why are you giving it to me?"

"Because you'll want to open that door, and you shouldn't have to ask me."

She took the card without touching his hand.

The service lift was a gray steel box behind a door marked Linen.

It took them down in silence.

When the doors opened, the air was colder and smelled of antiseptic and old copper.

A corridor ran ahead of them, lit in a flat, shadowless white.

Along the left wall was a row of heavy windows, and behind each was a bare cell.

Most of them were empty.

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