Cat lowered her mask and nearly called out, “Hello?” But that would have given her away. She figured there was a very good chance that the person with the whistle already knew that she was here, but it would be foolish to draw attention to herself, just in case the person was unaware of her presence.
She told herself that she might be worrying about nothing. Maybe this place was packed with living soldiers, waiting to rain down hell on the zombies outside the stadium. They’d be surprised when they saw her. She’d tell them her story and they’d commend her on her narrow escape, invite her to leave with them when they departed.
But that bad feeling was back. Her scalp was itching like crazy. This felt wrong on every level. She had no idea what was waiting for her up ahead, but she was almost a hundred percent positive that it wasn’t a squad of soldiers.
Cat stood there for a while, listening to the zombies pound on the door, getting her breath back, recovering her poise. She cleaned the knife automatically and put it away. She thought about drawing the gun again but she didn’t want to provoke an attack—if there were soldiers here, and they saw someone advancing with a gun, they might open fire defensively. Better to advance unarmed until she knew what she was dealing with.
When Cat was back to normal, she looked around. Her eyes had adjusted to the gloom but there wasn’t much to see, just the concrete walls of the corridor. There were lights overhead but they were switched off.
The tunnel ran straight ahead of her, then turned to the right. Cat took a deep breath and walked to the turning. She stuck her head around the corner slowly, not sure what to expect. But all she found was another stretch of corridor.
Cat glanced back longingly at the door. She almost wanted to open it and throw herself into the arms of the zombies. At least she knew what would happen to her if she did that.
But suicide was not an option for the determined Cat Ward. And her imagination would only run riot if she sat here and waited—in her experience, there were no horrors any worse than the ones you could dream up inside your own head when you were scared and had too much time to think.
So, with another deep breath, Cat turned the corner and set off deeper into the heart of the stadium, surrendering herself to the mysterious, menacing vagaries of the maze.