Chapter Three:
***
Norah’s body was wracked with shivers despite the humidity. She was all at once freezing and burning up; shaking and sweating and so full of misery that she wished death would just come and take her.
She wrenched her eyes closed, lying under the stiff fire blanket atop her lab bench, her makeshift bed.
The storm had raged for days, pouring its contents into the hole in the ceiling, inundating the already flooded lab with more water. The door couldn’t keep it out.
She had tried to climb the pipes and plaster but found neither foothold nor grip that wasn’t slick with moldy slime.
Exhaustion had overcome her after the first day. The adrenaline she had been filled with to survive, to get out of the building, or stay and hole up, had left her. Norah hated that her decision had been taken away.
She sat up and reached for her water supplies, popped the top of a biodegradable bottle open and drank it down. It tickled her throat causing another coughing fit.
She struggled to contain the noise but always failed in doing so. The horrible shrieks had lessened as the rain stopped hammering the world.
Robert’s corpse was in the hallway, rotting in the water.
Norah lifted her flashlight and peeled her blanket away as she climbed down from the bench. Her boots landed in several feet of luke-warm water.
It took her a minute to tamper down the disgust and to find her balance. The room liked to spin around her when she least expected it.
She stretched out her toes, alleviating some of the discomfort that came with trudging around in wet socks.
Norah pushed her way through the detritus and left the lab.
Her eyes landed on the body; she was thankful that the storm had covered up most of the rot. She lifted her gaze to the dark grey sky as tiny raindrops fell over her. That slid into her eyes and down her cheeks.
She pressed her palms against the barricade and pushed. Some of the stucco and wood shifted, but most of it broke off and fell into the water.
And created a murky pool of rehydrated plaster around her shins.
Well, at least I have some light.
Norah tried to ignore Robert’s bloated body and the bugs that began to accumulate around him now that the storm had passed. Her scientific mind wanted to test the water, wanted to document the state of his deterioration in it, wanted to capture and chronicle the bugs for her fellows; but she didn’t.
Instead, she went back and grabbed her emergency kit and supplies and tried to climb the slick slope to the roof.
Her booted feet made indentations that gave way, and though her hands gripped the jagged edges of the wall allowing her to get halfway up at an awkward angle, her muscles ultimately gave out and she slid back into the waste.
Again,Norah told herself.
Again.
When she’d failed a third time, the clouds had grown thicker in the sky and the rain had become heavier.
I am a human being. I am a smart woman. I won’t let this wreckage win.She kicked the cement.
She went back into her lab and pulled at her bench, but found that it was anchored to the wall and immovable. Undeterred, she found a discarded piece of glass and cut her fire blanket in half; she then spun each part into a cord and tied the ends together.
Her fingers trembled. Her body shook.All I want to do is sleep.Her hands were raw and wet. Norah steeled her nerves and made a noose.
When she was done, she looked at her handiwork and laughed.
“Well, if this doesn’t work…” A shriek sounded in the distance followed by a beat of thunder. “I can always reuse it.”
But when she looked back up at the sky, and the raindrops misted into a downpour, she knew her time was running out.
