Rewriting the Apocalypse novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Not Allowed

They left Bess's before dawn, because Jo would not put her at risk for a second night.

Bess pressed a roll of cash into Sam's hand and kept the stranger from Sublevel 3 at the clinic, where a retired surgeon friend could look him over.

"Go," Bess said. "Come back when you've done something about those people."

The motel was a flat gray row of doors off Route 23, with a buzzing sign and a vending machine.

Sam took the room on the left.

Jo took the room on the right, and Eli took the chair by the door.

"You can have the bed," he said.

"I'm not sleeping."

"Then neither am I."

He sat with his hands in his lap and his back to the wall.

Jo sat on the bed with her knees pulled up.

Neither of them said a word for a long time.

Somewhere past midnight, she heard a car door close in the lot.

Eli's head turned.

"That's not Sam," he said.

"How do you know?"

"Sam walks heavy. This is two people, and they're trying to be quiet."

He was already on his feet.

Jo reached for the lamp, and the window exploded inward.

Glass sprayed across the carpet.

A canister bounced off the floor and spat white gas, and the room filled with a sharp chemical smell.

Eli had her by the arm before she knew he had moved.

It was the first time he had touched her since the alley, and he had done it without thinking.

"Don't breathe!" he said.

He dragged her into the bathroom, slammed the door and shoved a towel under it.

Jo pressed her sleeve over her face.

Outside, boots hit the motel door.

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