Issue #4 “The Plan”

Chapter 4 — One Way Out

The pounding on the walls felt relentless, a constant drumbeat of something inhuman closing in. The metal door shuddered with each impact, and Harper swore he could hear the groan of steel starting to give. The air inside the storage room was stale and heavy, the dim glow of the overhead bulb barely strong enough to cut through the shadows.

Harper leaned against the metal shelf, clutching his side where a dull ache throbbed from his earlier fall. His breathing was shallow, more from tension than pain. Across the room, Ethan paced back and forth like a caged animal, knife still in hand, his fingers twitching as though he expected something to burst through the door any second. Renee knelt on the floor near the wall, her metal case open, tools scattered across the grimy floor as she stared at the vial of dark, almost black blood she’d taken from the infected man.

“That door isn’t gonna hold,” Ethan muttered, dragging a hand through his disheveled hair. “We’ve gotta move before they find another way in.”

“There’s nowhere to go,” Harper said. “You saw the windows — they’re everywhere.”

“Then we make a break for it,” Ethan snapped. “Get to my truck. It’s just outside.”

“You think you’ll make it?” Renee cut in without looking up. “There’s at least twenty of them out there now — more on the way.”

“I’ll make it,” Ethan shot back. “I’ve been through worse.”

“Yeah?” Harper said, his voice sharp. “Like what?”

Ethan glared at him. “I don’t sit around waiting to die.”

“No one’s dying,” Renee interjected, her voice calm but firm. She held up the vial of blood, turning it slightly in the flickering light. “But if this stuff spreads the way I think it does… we can’t just run blind.”

“You keep saying that,” Ethan growled. “But you still haven’t told us what this stuff is.”

Renee exhaled through her nose, shoulders tensing. “I don’t know exactly,” she admitted. “But I’ve seen something like it before — outside of Missoula last year. Small town, maybe five hundred people. A flu outbreak — only it wasn’t the flu. People started getting sick — headaches, fever — then they’d collapse. Two days later… they’d get back up.”

“You’re telling me this has happened before?” Harper said.

“Not like this,” Renee muttered. “In Montana, it was contained before it could spread. But this… this is faster. More aggressive.” She set the vial down and rubbed her temple. “This isn’t just a virus — it’s something designed to mutate fast. Something engineered.”

“Engineered?” Harper repeated. “You mean… man-made?”

“I think so,” Renee said. “And whatever it is… it’s spreading faster than we can outrun.”

“Then what’s the play?” Ethan asked. “We just sit here and wait for those things to break down the door?”

“I’m not saying we wait,” Renee said. “But we can’t just run blind, either. We need to think.”

“Thinking’s not gonna stop them from getting in here,” Ethan growled.

“Neither is getting yourself killed,” Renee shot back.

The room fell silent except for the rhythmic pounding against the door — steady, persistent. Harper rubbed his face with one hand, feeling the grit of dried sweat on his skin.

“Alright,” he said finally. “What are our options?”

“We can’t go through the front,” Renee said. “Too many of them.”

“The back window’s busted,” Ethan added. “And there’s more of them back there, too.”

“Hold on,” Harper said, pushing himself away from the shelf. He moved to the far side of the room, near the metal utility sink. Above it, a small vent — no more than a foot wide — was bolted into the wall.

“Think we could get through that?” Harper asked.

“Not a chance,” Ethan scoffed. “Unless you wanna crawl out in pieces.”

“Wait,” Renee said. “What if we don’t go through it… what if we draw them to it?”

Ethan narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“We don’t need to outrun all of them,” Renee said, her voice quickening. “We just need to thin them out.”

“You’re talking about bait,” Harper said.

“I’m talking about distraction,” Renee corrected. “We open that vent, leave something loud inside — a radio, something with sound — and sneak out the back while they’re drawn to it.”

“Risky,” Ethan muttered. “Too many moving parts.”

“You got a better plan?” Renee shot back.

Ethan opened his mouth, then closed it.

“I can run for the truck,” he muttered.

“You’ll get torn apart before you even get the door open,” Harper said.

“Fine,” Ethan growled. “The vent idea — what’s the distraction?”

Renee rummaged through the shelves, her fingers pulling through old boxes and forgotten junk. After a few moments, she pulled out an old battery-powered emergency radio, covered in dust but still intact.

“This,” she said. “We crank it, leave it in the vent… then head out the back.”

“And head where?” Ethan said. “Even if we get out, Lakeshore’s not exactly packed with places to hide.”

“There’s an old truck depot a block east,” Harper said. “Abandoned for months — but it’s fenced in. We can lock ourselves inside and figure out what to do next.”

“Sounds like a death trap,” Ethan muttered.

“It’s better than dying here,” Harper shot back.

“Alright,” Renee said. “We move fast. No noise. We open the vent, crank the radio, then we make for the depot.”

“And if this plan goes to hell?” Ethan asked.

“Then we improvise,” Renee said grimly.

Ethan snorted. “Great.”

Renee knelt by the vent, unscrewing the metal grate with a screwdriver from her case. The pounding at the door intensified, the metal starting to bend inward. Harper swore he saw fingers pushing through the gap near the lock.

“Faster,” Ethan muttered.

“Almost there,” Renee hissed. She wedged the vent cover free and shoved the radio inside. With a twist of the crank, static crackled through the room.

“Now!” Harper barked.

Renee twisted the volume knob to full, letting the garbled voice of a distant weather broadcast fill the room. Static howled, distorted words spilling from the vent.

“Go!” Renee shouted.

Harper shoved the back door open and stepped into the alley, the cold night air burning his lungs. The street was dark, the distant glow of streetlights barely illuminating the fog rolling in from the lake. They moved fast, Renee clutching her satchel close to her chest. Harper kept one eye on Ethan, who held his knife tightly in his fist.

The figures pressed against the front window jerked to attention. The noise from the vent had drawn their focus — several of them peeled away from the glass, shuffling along the side of the building toward the sound.

“Move,” Harper whispered.

They crossed the street, sticking close to the shadows. Behind them, the low growls and shuffling footsteps grew fainter. Harper’s pulse pounded in his ears.

The depot came into view — a rusted chain-link fence with a broken gate hanging ajar. Harper bolted forward, tugging the gate closed behind them.

“Lock it!” Ethan barked.

Harper grabbed a length of chain from the ground and wrapped it around the gate’s frame, hooking the padlock tight.

For a moment, everything was quiet.

“You think they’ll follow?” Ethan asked.

“They will,” Renee said. “But not yet.”

They sat in the shadows, breathing hard, staring out into the foggy streets.

“We need to figure out what’s happening,” Renee said quietly. “Because if this spreads outside of Lakeshore… we’re out of time.”

“I think,” Harper muttered, “we already are.”

The sound of distant screams carried faintly on the wind.

To Be Continued…