10:06 P.M.

It shouldn’t have taken an hour and a half to reach the back of the hall. Not with the amount of space available and the relatively small number of people who had been able to cram themselves inside for Preview Night before the doors were closed. But that was a reflection of Comic-Con B.E.—Before Emergency—and this was travel through Comic-Con now. Walkways that should have been open were barricaded, some with as little as caution tape and “Keep Out” signs, others with full-on walls that had been constructed from cannibalized booth displays. Of the people Kelly and Stuart encountered outside the barriers, it seemed like everyone knew someone who had been attacked.

One girl had confessed in a whisper that she and her boyfriend had been right up front when things turned ugly, probably right near where Kelly herself had been attacked. “He got bit by this guy who ran away right after, like it didn’t even matter,” she said. “He seemed fine for like, ages, and then he started getting sort of shaky. And then he flipped out and bit me and ran away. Just like that other guy. Just like the guy by the door.”

Kelly and Stuart hadn’t said anything as the girl rolled up her sleeve and showed them the bite marks scored deep into her lower arm. Her boyfriend’s teeth had clearly broken the skin.

The girl had looked calmly between them as she rolled her sleeve back down. “I know what this is,” she’d said. “It’s the zombie apocalypse. We’re all going to die in here, because this is the zombie apocalypse. I’ll die before you do. I’ve already been bitten.” Then she’d turned and wandered away, like they didn’t matter anymore.

The barriers made a lot more sense as Kelly and Stuart resumed their slow passage toward the back of the hall.

They were almost through the last of the truly congested areas when three people came around a blind corner and stopped in the middle of the aisle, eyeing Kelly and Stuart warily. Kelly and Stuart stopped in turn, eyeing the trio right back. It was two men—one older, one in his mid-twenties—and a woman, clutching a tablet to her chest like it was the only handle she had left on reality.

“You don’t want to go that way,” said Kelly, breaking their small bubble of silence. “There’s nothing that way but scared people building cardboard walls and talking about the zombie apocalypse.”

“Which may be actually happening,” added Stuart.

“Which may be actually happening,” allowed Kelly, in a resigned tone. “Anyway. It’s not safe that way.”

“Maybe not, but we think we have a way to get the wireless turned back on,” said the woman.

Leave it to the geeks of the world to prioritize Internet access over staying alive. “The convention center is full of zombies, victims, and proto-zombies,” said Kelly slowly. “Maybe you should go for option number four, and walk away from the carnage, not toward it.”

“Or maybe we should make it easier for emergency personnel to coordinate with people inside the hall and keep everyone a little bit calmer by enabling their Facebook updates,” countered the younger of the two men. “Who are you, anyway? We’re not stopping you from going anywhere you want to go.”

“I’m Stuart; this is Kelly,” said Stuart helpfully.

Kelly groaned. “You just love introducing yourself to people, don’t you? You have to stop that.”

“I’m Pris,” said the woman with the tablet. “This is Marty and Eric. We appreciate the warning, but we really do need to get the wireless working again. It may be the best shot we have at getting out of here.”

For a brief moment, all Kelly could think of was the pale-faced girl with the bite on her arm and the resignation in her eyes. That girl had known what the real score in the convention center was. She had known that the time for hope was long over.

Somehow, Kelly couldn’t bring herself to make the same leap. “Fine,” she said. “You’ve convinced me—and since we just came from the front of the center, we can show you which way not to go. Let’s go turn the Internet back on.”

The older of the two men, the one Pris had identified as Marty, eyed Kelly suspiciously. “Not to sound like I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth, but why should we trust you, young lady?”

“Because I have a spear and you don’t, and right now, that means I’m a lot more likely to stay alive than you are,” said Kelly, in what she hoped was a reasonable tone of voice. She wanted to yell. She just wasn’t quite sure at whom. “Look, listen to me, don’t listen to me, it’s no skin off my nose. But if you really want to fix the wireless, you probably shouldn’t go sneering at anybody who’s actually willing to help you.”

“Besides, she hasn’t stabbed me or anything yet,” said Stuart, in what was probably intended as a helpful tone. “She sort of saved me, actually, when those freaks first came breaking into the hall. You know. Before we realized that they were zombies.”

“We still don’t know that ‘zombie’ is the right word to use here,” said Kelly.

Eric rolled his eyes. “You’re not one of those people who calls it ‘the Z word’ and refuses to say it, are you? Look: If what we’re dealing with here is that disease people have been whispering about in the blogosphere for the last few weeks, then ‘zombie’ is the best word there is. Are they alive? Yeah. But they weren’t at one point, and if they get hold of you, you won’t be for long. That’s zombie enough for me.”

“Semantic arguments won’t turn the wireless on,” said Marty.

“Then let’s go,” said Pris, and started walking. Marty and Eric followed her.

Kelly and Stuart exchanged one last look. Then they fell into step beside the trio, starting back the way they’d come.

 

* * *

10:10 P.M.

Patty was still asleep, slumped against the replica of Indy Rivers’s desk. Matthew had joined her, slipping reluctantly into a light doze. Only Elle remained awake, sitting with her back to the room’s thin plywood door and listening to the sounds of the convention center outside. Lacking anything better to do, she had her phone out and was using the memo function to type out a message.

Sigrid—

If you have this, it’s because someone has given you my personal effects. (That may be wrong. I can never remember the difference between ‘effect’ and ‘affect.’ That’s your job.) I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you alone. I’m sorry I didn’t come home. But I’m not sorry that you aren’t with me, because I’m scared, Sig. I’m scared enough that having you here would just scare me more. I’d be so afraid of losing you that I wouldn’t be able to breathe. It’s better this way. Really.

You’re probably watching this on the news by now. Comic-Con is a pretty big deal, and something like this happening to it has got to be a headline. I’m sorry if you’re scared for me. If it helps at all, I’m scared for me too. That probably doesn’t help. I wouldn’t want to know that you were scared. I’d want to be there to hold you, and to take the fear away.

Patty stirred in her sleep, making a small protesting noise as she rolled over. Elle looked up, eyes narrowed. Patty didn’t move again, and Elle went back to tapping laboriously away.

I love you, Sigrid. I haven’t always been as good at showing that as I should have been, but it’s true. If I make it out of here, everything’s going to change. No more letting agents or focus groups run my life—run our life. I promise you. I am so scared, but I have never seen things as clearly as I do right now.

Yours always, Elle.

Elle hit “save” and put her phone back into her pocket, slumping against the door. She felt better for having written the letter, even if the odds were good that Sigrid would never see it. It was the sort of thing people did in horror movies, usually right before they got eaten. She’d always thought they were idiots for attracting the attention of whatever force controlled the narrative. Now, though, she finally understood why they did it.

They did it because it felt like closure, and when you already felt like you were going to die, closure was just about the only thing left to aspire to. She closed her eyes, picturing Sigrid’s face, tight with concentration or lit up from within as she laughed. Elle smiled a little. Sigrid was always beautiful, even when she was angry.

Holding the image of Sigrid’s face firmly in her head, Elle relaxed against the door and finally let herself drift into sleep.

 

* * *

11:11 P.M.

It took only an hour to get back to the front of the hall. It was faster partially because Kelly and Stuart knew the lay of the land now—where the blocked halls were, where the clusters of scared or wounded people had built up—and partially because they were going against the flow of traffic. Almost everyone was heading for the back, where the bathrooms and the food court were, and where there weren’t any bloodstains on the carpet.

Yet.

Kelly found herself eyeing the shadows with her hands clenched tight around her spear, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Pris and Eric walked almost carelessly, not seeming to realize how much danger they were in. Even Stuart seemed more relaxed now that they were in a larger group, like that was going to make any difference to people crazy enough to attack with their teeth. Only Marty seemed to understand how dire the situation really was. He walked quietly, with his bat swinging ready at his side.

It was hard to really focus on watching for an attack. Even with most of the people in the hall busy moving toward the rear, there were enough of them around to make it difficult to know whether something was dangerous or not. Some enterprising souls had turned to looting, either through smash-and-grabs, or simply by strolling up to booths that had been abandoned and starting to fill their complimentary Comic-Con bags. Stuart grimaced every time they passed a looter, probably thinking of his own unguarded wares. His life was worth more than all the weapons on his table, and he seemed to know that, because he didn’t say anything about going back. Privately, Kelly hoped he did get looted. Maybe if a few more people had been armed when all this started, they wouldn’t be locked inside now.

When they reached the last broad open space before entering the maze of narrower aisles leading to the locked doors at the front of the hall, Kelly stopped. “All right,” she said. “Where, exactly, are we going?”

“There.” Pris pointed up to the large glass windows that overlooked the convention center floor. “There’s supposed to be an access panel on the wall under them. We can use that to see whether anyone’s in the control room, and if not, we can try to do this manually from down here.”

“Why can’t we do that anyway?” asked Stuart.

“Because if there is somebody up there, we don’t want them to start hitting switches randomly when the alarms go off. And trying to turn the wireless on manually will trigger a bunch of alarms, at least according to the instructions I have.”

Kelly looked at their destination and sighed. “Right.”

From an architectural standpoint, Pris’s goal made perfect sense. It was a natural recess between two of the large doors leading to the lobby. There were usually trash cans and small kiosks set up there, reducing the chances of people wandering over and prying open the access panel out of simple curiosity. It was a great place to put a backup system. It was also shadowed, providing no clear line of sight, and close enough to the doors that the biting people had probably taken refuge there.

“It looks dark and stupid,” said Stuart dubiously. “I’m not really sure we should be going anywhere near there.”

“We probably shouldn’t, but we have to if we want to get the wireless on,” said Pris. She straightened up, mouth set in a thin, hard line of determination. “People need to be able to communicate with the outside world. As bad as things are, they could get worse. We need to have hope.”

Hope. What a funny idea that was. Kelly looked from Pris, so determined, so convinced that this was worth whatever it cost her, to Stuart, so scared, so ready to run back to his booth and hide from whatever was coming. Dammit. This was Comic-Con. It wasn’t supposed to be hard on anything except her bank account. “Supposed to” never changed anything. This was how things were, and what came next was up to her.

Kelly Nakata had always wondered what it felt like to truly understand that she was going to die. But here and now, in this place…

If this was the zombie apocalypse, no one was coming to let them out. They were already compromised, already potentially infected, and no sane person would open those doors ever again. If this wasn’t the zombie apocalypse—but ah, that was the problem, wasn’t it? There was nothing else that this could really be. It made too much sense. It fit the facts too well, and that meant that everyone inside the building was going to die there. They could die scared and hiding, doing nothing. Or they could try to make things a little better in whatever way they possibly could.

Kelly gave her spear an experimental twirl. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered, before saying, more loudly, “All right. Marty and I are the best-armed, so we should go in first, in case of trouble. Pris, you’re next. Eric and Stuart, you bring up the rear, make sure nothing comes up from behind us to try getting in the way.”

“What do we do if something does come up behind us?” asked Stuart.

“Hit it until it stops coming,” said Kelly. “Pris, you do whatever it is you need to do to get the wireless back online.” The few people who were in earshot were turning toward them, suddenly interested in what they were hearing. It figured that mentions of a working Internet would be enough to get people’s attention, no matter what other crap was going on at the time. “This is where we start moving, or we’re going to get mobbed.”

“Who died and put you in charge?” asked Marty, sounding half-amused.

“My Jedi master,” said Kelly dryly. Then she started walking, heading toward the shadowy nook where Pris claimed the wireless access panel was located. The rest of the group followed her. At this point, what else were they supposed to do?

 

* * *

11:13 P.M.

The first bloody-lipped man came lunging out of the darkness as soon as Kelly and Marty stepped off the carpet and out of the protection of the overhead lights. Kelly didn’t make a sound. She just swung her borrowed spear low and hard, hitting the man across the stomach. He moaned, a sound that was chillingly familiar, thanks to a hundred zombie movies. Kelly froze.

And Marty brought his baseball bat down solidly on the man’s skull, which caved in with a horrific crunching sound. The man stopped lunging for Kelly and fell, leaving chunks of bloody gore on Marty’s bat. For a moment, everyone was silent, each of them trying to wrap his or her mind around what had just happened. Either zombies were real, or Marty had just killed a man. Either Marty was a murderer, or he was a savior. The contradiction was too big to be absorbed, and so without saying a word, they all dismissed it.

“Let’s move,” said Kelly.

They were almost to the wall when the second pair came charging out of the dark, just as silently as the first one—but unlike the first one, they started moaning before they were hit. One grabbed for Pris, who screamed, a short, startled sound. The other went for Kelly.

Moving fast, Kelly whirled and slammed the butt of her spear into the man who was reaching for Pris. He staggered back a step, but otherwise didn’t seem to notice. That was when Kelly flipped the spear around and thrust the point into the man’s throat, pinning him in place long enough for Eric to slam his crowbar into the back of the man’s head.

That was when the third man sank his teeth into Kelly’s shoulder. Kelly screamed and swore at the same time, trying to wrench herself free. She succeeded, briefly, but that was long enough for Marty to close the distance and beat the man off her with his baseball bat. Kelly clamped her hand over her wounded shoulder, staggering a few feet away before she turned to look back at the carnage.

The man kept moaning even as he died. It wasn’t until his skull cracked that the sound stopped, replaced by limpness and eerie silence.

“Kelly?” Stuart hesitantly touched her uninjured shoulder. “Are you okay?”

No, you asshole. I’m bitten, and we both know what that means; we’re not idiots here. Kelly forced herself to look toward him, smile wanly, and lie. “Fine,” she said. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

Not one of them believed what she was saying. But Stuart nodded with quiet resignation, like he understood why she needed to lie, and that seemed to speak for the whole group. “Good. Let’s get moving. I think we’re almost there.”

Nothing else attacked them as they finished crossing the distance to the wall. Kelly was half-expecting there to be no access panel at all, and was quietly relieved when she saw it, industrial gray steel creating a patch of darker shadow on the wall.

Pris walked to the hatch and pried it open with her fingernails. There was a red emergency phone inside. She lifted the receiver, checked her tablet one last time, and hit the “0.”

All that was left to do after that was wait.

 

* * *

11:16 P.M.

Lesley jumped when the phone rang, nearly toppling out of the office chair where she’d been dozing. On the floor, Unis lifted her head off her paws before climbing to her feet, tail wagging cautiously. Sometimes the phone meant it was time to go Out. Unis thought that Out would be a lovely idea. The Woman had been still for too long, and the smells from outside were not the comforting kind, not grass or food or home. Outside the door smelled like blood and fear and peeing, and Unis wanted to get The Woman away from here if she could.

“What in the world…?” said Lesley. She fumbled around the large control board until her hand hit what felt like a phone receiver. The ringing stopped when she picked it up. She brought it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hello!” said a female voice, half-laughing with relief. The voice grew distant for a moment as it said, “Guys! Guys, I got somebody! There’s somebody there!”

“Thank God,” said a male voice. “Tell them we’re stuck in here.”

“I’m stuck, too, and I can hear you,” said Lesley. “Who’s this?”

“My name is Pris Garrison. I’m here with some of my friends in the hall. Please, do you work for the convention center? We’re locked in. Can you let us out?”

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Garrison. My name’s Lesley Smith. I’m a journalist from the UK. I flew out to cover the convention, and when things went pear-shaped, I somehow found myself locked up in here. I was sort of hoping you’d called because you were about to rescue me.”

A soft choking sound came through the receiver. After a moment, Lesley realized that it was Pris, laughing.

“What?” she asked sharply. “I assure you, this isn’t funny.”

“I know! I know. That’s why I’m laughing. Look, I’m sorry we can’t save you, but maybe you can still help us. Do you see a big gray button labeled ‘wireless controls’? It should be on the left side of the main control panel.”

Lesley abruptly understood why Pris had been laughing. Sometimes the universe was so cruel as to become comic. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you with that, Ms. Garrison.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I’m legally blind. I can see well enough to get myself around, with the help of my dog—she’s here with me—but I can’t read a label on a switch in this light, and I don’t think you want me to start flipping things at random.”

There was a moment of silence before Pris said, “Okay. That’s…okay. I can get things back online from down here, but I need you to not touch anything, no matter what starts beeping or flashing. Can you do that? We’re hoping that if we can get the wireless back on, we might be able to call for help.”

“I’m blind, not stupid,” said Lesley. “I can manage to keep my hands to myself while you do whatever needs to be done.”

“Sorry,” said Pris, sounding abashed. “I didn’t mean…anyway, thank you. It’ll just take me a second. Thanks for your time.”

Suddenly, the thought of being left alone in the little locked room was unbearable. “Is there anyone else with you?” asked Lesley. “I’d like to talk to them, please. If you don’t mind.”

“Um, sure. Hang on.” Pris’s voice got distant for a moment as she said, “She wants to talk to somebody else.”

There was a scuffling sound, and a male voice came on the line, saying, “Hello?”

“Hello. My name’s Lesley. I’m locked in the control room at the moment, although I’m afraid I won’t be able to help Ms. Garrison with getting the wireless back on. What’s your name?”

“Marty,” said the man. “There are three other people here, besides me and Pris. Stuart is helping Kelly bandage her shoulder. Eric’s keeping watch.”

“One of you has been hurt, then?”

“Yeah. Kelly got bit pretty bad getting to this phone. She’s not bleeding as much as she was, but even a little bleeding is too much when you’re trapped in a big-ass convention center with no medical supplies.”

It was ironic. Lesley’s tour of the convention center had included the locations of all the first aid and disability assistance checkpoints…and they were all outside the central hall. With the doors locked, everyone was stuck. “I hope she’s all right.”

“Ma’am, not to be rude, but I don’t think any of us is all right at this point.”

“I’m afraid that might be true.” Something started beeping. Lesley turned toward the sound and saw that a large red light had snapped on in the middle of the center control panel. “Whatever Ms. Garrison is doing, it appears to be having some effect. There’s a red light on up here—no, wait. It’s just gone yellow, and now it’s flashing.”

“That’s a good sign.”

“I hope so. What were you hoping for this Comic-Con, Marty? If I may be so bold.”

“I’m a vendor. I was hoping for some good sales, and maybe a bargain or two if I got time to do any shopping for myself.” Marty chuckled darkly. “Well, the stores are open. Too bad there’s nobody to take my money.”

“No one taking money at Comic-Con? Truly, it is the end of the world.” It was meant to be a lighthearted joke. Somehow, it didn’t quite come out that way. Lesley cleared her throat. “The light’s gone green now, if that helps anything.”

“It might. Pris! Try the Wi-Fi.”

There was a pause, and then Lesley heard the voice from before, whooping in triumph. Someone else laughed. Whatever Pris had done, it must have worked, then. Not that it did her any good at all. She was still alone with her dog, sitting in the dark, and feeling increasingly unsure that any rescue was coming.

“Marty? Are you still there?”

“I am, yeah. Thanks for all your help, Lesley.”

Don’t hang up; don’t leave me alone up here in the silence, thought Lesley frantically. Clearing her throat, she said only, “It was nothing, really. All I had to do was sit still and not touch anything. Fortunately for you, that happens to be a talent of mine.”

“Still, we appreciate it. If this gets taken care of before the end of the convention, come look me up. I’m at Marty’s Comics and Games, in row 2100. I’d like to meet you in person.”

“I’d like that, too,” said Lesley quietly. Goodbyes would have felt too final—and given the circumstances, they probably would have been. So she said nothing more as she took the phone from her ear and dropped it back into the cradle, cutting off their conversation.

Alone in the silence once more, Lesley Smith put her hands over her face and wondered when it was going to end. If it was ever going to end.

 

* * *

11:30 P.M.

“How’s your shoulder feeling?” Stuart took a step backward, wiping his bloody palms against the seat of his pants. There’d been so much blood. He wasn’t sure how much blood was safe for a person to lose. He was deathly afraid that he was about to find out.

Kelly offered him a small smile. She could feel the bloody fabric of her shirt sticking to her skin, and she knew the situation wasn’t good. “It hurts like hell,” she said. “I’m glad we got the wireless back on.”

“Me, too. I’d hate to have waded back into this mess for nothing.”

Kelly’s smile strengthened. It was good, she decided, that he’d introduced himself without being prompted; it was good that she’d gotten to know him, even if it was only a little, before things went all the way wrong. “Hope’s not nothing. Remember that, okay?”

“What?” Stuart blinked, expression turning alarmed. “Why are you talking like that?”

“I got bit, Stuart. You remember what that girl said. I’m as good as dead.”

“No, you’re not. The real world doesn’t work like that. The real world—”

“She’s not wrong.” Pris’s voice was very soft. Kelly looked past Stuart to the other woman, realizing as she did that she hadn’t even noticed when the cheering stopped. Pris was pale, and the hand that held her tablet was shaking. “It’s all over Facebook and Twitter. People are calling this the zombie apocalypse. Actual people, who aren’t trapped inside here. They’re saying it’s an outbreak. The government didn’t lock the doors, but they’re not going to let anybody unlock them because we’re all already written off as dead. Infected.”

“See? It’s the zombie apocalypse, and in the zombie apocalypse, once somebody gets bitten, they’re not your friend anymore.” Kelly held out her spear, waiting for Stuart to take it. “Go. Find a back door, find a way out of here, and go. Tell people we got the Internet up. Maybe if we make enough noise from inside, they’ll have to open the doors.”

“Kelly, we’re not leaving you.”

“Yes, we are.” Marty stepped up behind Pris, who shot him a relieved look. “I’m sorry as hell that you got bit helping us out. I’d take it back if I could.”

“Would you take my place?” asked Kelly.

Marty looked away. They should kill her; all the zombie movies he’d ever seen told him that they should kill her. And he couldn’t. That would be the final step toward making this all real, and he couldn’t.

“I didn’t think so.” Kelly sighed. “Stuart, please. You saved my ass by setting up shop where you did, even if you don’t have a damn clue how to use the weapons you were selling. Let me save yours. Get the hell out of here.”

“I don’t want to go without you,” said Stuart quietly. He reached out as he spoke, and took the spear gently from her hand.

Kelly smiled. “I don’t give a fuck what you want.” Somehow, the words sounded like an endearment. Her attention swung to Marty. “Look out for Stuart. He needs a lot of looking after.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Marty.

Pris sniffled, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and said, “I’ll make sure everybody knows what you did. How brave you were.”

“You do that,” said Kelly. “Now go.”

She stayed where she was, tucked into the shadowy nook off the main wall, and watched as the other four turned and walked away. Stuart glanced back at her several times. She forced herself to keep watching until they vanished around a corner and were gone. Then she sighed, all the straightness going out of her spine as she sank, cross-legged, to the floor. Her shoulder ached. Her feet hurt. She was so tired. So, so tired. Maybe she’d just stay there forever, she thought. Maybe that would be for the best.

Kelly Nakata closed her eyes, letting her head list forward, and waited to stop caring about what was going to happen next. She was small. She’d lost a lot of blood.

It didn’t take as long as she might have thought.