Noah was led into yet another empty mirrored hallway. There were doors spaced evenly down the length of the corridor, all the way to the far end where a larger set of double-doors marked the end of his view.
The doctor walked swiftly down the hall. Lights above each door would turn green for a second as he passed, but he didn’t stop at any of them until they were approximately halfway down the passageway.
He paused outside the door and looked at Noah, who was just standing there with his clothes clutched in his arms and a wretched cast to his features. “Wait here with the other uncured students. Somebody will fetch you when we are done treating everyone else, and you will be brought to more suitable accommodations.”
With that, he pushed the door open and stepped aside for Noah to enter.
Noah did so slowly, gazing at the doctor with the knowledge that this was probably his last chance in a while for him to take the edge off his hunger, but in the end he didn’t do anything. He lowered his eyes and trudged inside.
“Good day,” the doctor said, and turned back towards the treatment room.
Noah immediately turned to watch him leave, barely taking a moment to observe the new room. As soon as the doctor had moved out of sight, he knelt quickly to the floor and dropped one of the shirts from his clothing bundle on the edge of the doorframe before the door could fully shut. The door bumped gently against it and remained unlatched by a single inch, and a small smile graced Noah’s face.
Noah stood and turned around to face his fellow infected students. Two of them were looking at him with concern, the third was grinning in pleasant surprise, and the fourth was sitting in a shaking wreck on the floor in the corner and didn’t seem to be paying any of them any attention.
There were several metal folding chairs leaning against the wall to his left, so he grabbed one and unfolded it before plopping himself down.
The three kids across from him had already set up chairs for themselves. There were two girls and two boys with him in the room, though the second boy was the one on the floor. One of the girls was wearing a coat that would have been entirely too hot and bulky for the current temperature, had Noah not known that she was just as numb as he was. She was smiling.
“What did you just do with the door?” she asked knowingly.
“None of the doors here have handles, or have you not noticed?” Noah said, playing along. “I’d like to be able to leave if I so choose. I’m just giving myself the option.”
She grinned mischievously. “Eh, that method works, I suppose. Personally, I’d go about it in a different manner.”
“Yeah? How so?”
She reached into one of the pockets in her coat and pulled out a box of matches, bigger than the small pack Brian carried around, then pointed at a small white disk in the ceiling that had a flashing red light. A fire alarm.
“I dunno if that would work,” Noah finally said after he got over his surprise. Am I the only person who doesn’t carry around matches? “They would probably forget we’re even here.”
She smirked. “Yeah, I’m counting on that. Once most people have evacuated, I’ll initiate stage two.” She pulled out an entire hatchet from another pocket. “The doors look all industrial, but they’re really just wood. I checked.”
Noah shot a glance at the door and his eyes widened. There was a small gash taken out of it to reveal a pale wooden interior.
“Uh, I can’t say I expected you guys to have already come up with an escape plan,” he muttered. Okay, I’m not the weird one. She’s like Brian with his backpack, except worse. Also, she apparently thinks it’s normal to test the material of something by taking a chunk out of it.
“Just her,” the other girl said quickly. “We’re not involved in this.”
“Aw, don’t be like that,” she said, slinging the hatchet up to rest casually on her shoulder. “It’s just in case.”
“How did you even smuggle a hatchet in here? That thing is a weapon,” Noah said incredulously.
“They didn’t have a security check.” She smiled widely.
“They’re probably more worried about us trying to eat them than about us pulling an axe on them,” he pointed out.
She frowned. “Eating them?”
Everyone else in the room looked at her, including the guy sitting wretchedly in the corner.
She looked around with an uncertain smile. “Am I missing something?”
“Apparently,” the guy sitting beside her said. He had shaggy brown hair hanging out from under a white baseball cap. “We’re all basically zombies; not sure how you haven't realized that by now. What did you think that kid was doing?” He jabbed a finger at the cadaverous student in the corner, who in turn gave him a dirty look.
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She stared around at them like she was waiting for someone to laugh. “Y’all aren’t…?”
“No, we’re not pulling one over on you, and yes, the sickness does manifest some very zombie-like behaviors,” the other girl spoke up. “Not that I’ve personally experienced any of the more distasteful symptoms, but I’ve seen it happening. You need to be hurt in some way for the effects to kick in, and apparently infected people won’t attack other infected people.”
“Oh,” she said. “Is that why…”
They all looked at the guy shaking in the corner.
“Yeah,” the shaggy-haired kid said. “I was with him when it happened. He sprained his ankle real bad getting off the bus. There must have been some delayed aspect to the injury, because he only started getting really crazy once we had been in the waiting room awhile.”
The kid looked up with surprising clarity filtering up from the depths of his sunken eyes. “I tried to go after one of the doctors before they were done treating me, but next thing I knew, I was in this room.”
“My man, you should have waited until they were done,” Noah sighed.
The kid shrugged his thin shoulders miserably and buried his head in his hands. “I’m aware.”
“I know what it’s like,” Noah tried to comfort him. “You probably didn’t feel like you had an option.”
The kid started to nod and say something, but then tremors overtook his body and he no longer seemed in a state capable of continuing the conversation. Noah’s gaze lingered on him for a moment, and he felt a faint perverted comfort that somebody was more visibly ill than himself.
He turned away as two sets of footsteps approached from outside the door. Noah glanced quickly at the thin gap through which the hallway was visible, afraid that someone had already discovered his makeshift doorstop, but the footsteps continued down the passageway without slowing down.
Thinking he was safe, he stood and crept to the door to peek through the crack. The same doctor who had taken him to the room he currently resided in was now leading another student down the hall. Noah watched them continue all the way to the double doors at the end of the corridor and pass through them when the light turned green. The doors closed automatically behind them. A minute passed before the doctor returned, now unaccompanied.
Noah withdrew from the gap and prayed it was slim enough to pass under the doctor’s notice as the sound of his footprints grew louder. He passed by once again without noticing anything was amiss.
He’s not exactly expecting to see a barely ajar door, and the mask he’s wearing probably doesn’t help matters.
Noah’s brow furrowed as he pulled back into the room. He hoped it was nothing, but he couldn’t help but wonder why all the Insight employees were still wearing masks when they supposedly had a cure for the infection. He tried not to be too suspicious. They're perfectly entitled to be cautious, and it would probably be inconvenient to have to constantly suck the dust out. Plus, it could just be normal company practice. I’m sure there’s all sorts of other hazardous materials around this place.
Noah forced his expression back into a neutral position as he sat back in his chair. “It’s just the doctor walking by. Nothing to be worried about.”
His thoughts went to his friends, still awaiting their treatment, and he realized unhappily that since they were statistically likely to be properly cured, he wouldn’t get to see them again until Insight decided to release him. I can at least send them a text message so they know what happened to me.
He patted down his pockets for his phone and felt a pang of nervous tension when he came up empty. A moment later he remembered it was still wrapped up in his clothes, so he grabbed the bundle and quickly tugged the device out from the folds of a pair of jeans.
He typed out a message to fill them in on his current situation and hit send. He was unsure what difference it would make, but good communication never hurt anyone.
A few seconds later he received a message in return from Brian. Don’t panic. We’ll figure out how to get to you.
Then a message from Leah: DON’T EAT ANYONE.
Noah smirked and sent a dinner plate emoji in reply, then sobered as he realized that Brian was probably going to try something dumb. Just get yourself cured, he wrote. Don’t worry about me.
The lack of an immediate reply only served to make him more nervous about whatever his friends were planning.
Noah grumbled to himself and leaned back in his chair. He put his phone away and gazed around at the other students. “I never introduced myself. I’m Noah.”
“Clarissa,” the girl still holding the hatchet said.
“Violet.”
“Mark.”
They all glanced at the fourth student in the corner, but he didn’t seem interested in sharing his name.
“Is he okay?” Clarissa asked.
“He’s hungry, I guess,” Mark said.
“And?”
“He currently feels like his very life is being drained out of him,” Noah flatly informed them. “It’s honestly quite impressive that he hasn’t passed out yet. If he stays conscious, the next non-infected person to enter this room is probably going to be eaten whole if they’re not prepared.”
“You look nearly as sick as he does,” Clarissa pointed out. “How come you’re fine?”
“What makes you think I’m fine?”
“Well, you’re holding a conversation, for one.”
He smiled. “I guess I’m not as desperate as our friend here.” He thought about sharing that he’d already had quite the nice meal last night, but figured there was no need to freak them out. If they weren’t hungry, they wouldn’t understand.
“Anything interesting happen today?” he asked the room instead. “Or just more of the usual?”
Mark snorted. “Nah, same old, you know.”
“I got jumpscared by a corpse in Oakridge’s cadaver lab after I coughed on it,” Violet announced.
“That must’ve been exciting,” Noah said.
“Yeah. It threw me aside and ran out the door. Not sure where it is now.”
“Probably out living its best life,” Noah said.
“Yeah.”