Doomsday Rebirth novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Outside

I did not go to the Commissioner's office.

"In the morning," I told the dark ceiling, and the loudspeaker answered with a long crackle and then nothing.

The guards in the box looked at one another.

They didn't stop me.

They didn't stop Ezra either, when he slid down the steel door and sat with his back against it.

Tuck found us a few minutes later, out of breath, with a kitchen lantern in each hand.

"Boss said lights on," he said. "Gillian said lights on. Somebody's got to."

He hung one lantern on a hook beside the wire window, and the little glass square filled with yellow light.

Down on the ramp I could see Dexter.

He had found the electrical cabinet in the ramp wall, a tall steel box with a dead lock.

He had wedged himself inside it and pulled the door to by its edge.

Grey shapes stood outside, scraping.

He wasn't shouting anymore, because he'd learned that the sound brought them.

I watched for hours.

I did not enjoy it, which surprised me.

Ezra put a coat over my shoulders again, and I leaned against him, and neither of us spoke.

Sometime past three, Tuck fell asleep sitting up.

Ezra dozed too, with his chin on his chest and his hand around mine.

When the light came, it came grey from the lake.

The shapes outside gave up one by one and wandered off down the road.

One stayed.

It stood at the foot of the ramp with its head turned toward the cabinet.

"Open it," I said to the guard.

"Ma'am, the Commissioner said to keep it shut."

"He didn't say for who." I picked up the axe. "I'm going out."

"Gillian," Ezra said. He was awake. "Tell me first."

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