Chapter 17

Meagan poked another body while Steve watched. "Do you, uh, know what you're doing?"

"No."

"Oh. Okay then." He stood silently, even slipped his hands in his pockets. "You need any hel--"

"No."

"Hey," he said, kneeling down, "you okay?"

Meagan held up wallet and looked at the floor. Steve's eyes took a moment to focus as he stared at the ID, too used to scanning wide open, sunny spaces. But when they did he finally understood. "Oh Meagan, I'm sorry..."

He rested his head on her back and she let out a tiny laugh. "I always hated this guy." Then she looked up at Steve. "Why am I so sad?"

"Because I think this reminds you of everyone you know, everyone whose whereabouts and condition you're unsure of. Like your family. I'm sure the...problem, hasn't spread that far. Both of our families live in remote areas, I'm sure they're okay. But, you know..."

"I know, we have to go." She got to her feet with Steve’s help and dusted off her pants. She smiled weakly and took his offered hand, letting her old boss' wallet fall to the marble floor.

They made it through the last few sets of doors without stopping, each section littered with bodies with no giraffe in site. When they approached the final door in the Skywalk, just 75 feet from the Tower, Meagan had an epiphany.

"The Fornicorner!!" she shouted.

"Bless you."

"No!" she laughed, smacking his arm. "The fornicating corner!" She pointed excitedly to a fence diving the Tower from the train tracks. Steve followed the fence line down a hill to the base of the Tower to a very small door.

"There’s an entrance!"

"Not just AN entrance! The Fornicorner is where people used to go to have sex because it's out of camera range. The only way to see it is from the outside! That's our way in!"

She hurried down the hill against the fence line to the door, Steve and Milo following close behind. "God bless you, filthy restaurant guests!"

"Let me," Steve said, pulling out his wallet. "I’ve always wanted to try this."

Meagan had already noticed the door was unlocked, but she said nothing and let Steve have his moment. And when he finished and pulled the door ajar, she even gave him a congratulatory kiss on the cheek.

The door opened silently, and Steve entered first, staring straight across a beige and blue mezzanine. He could see the main security machines and the elevators, but no people.

“This is strange…” Meagan whispered, walking over to the railing. The mezzanine was a series of bridges that looked over the gift shop, with elevators on one side and security entrances on the other. She looked down out over the store and turned to Steve. “Doesn’t anything about this scene strike you as strange?”

Steve shrugged. “Everything about everything strikes me as odd today. Enlighten me.”

“Well, yesterday was a Friday, in August. What does that usually mean?”

“It should’ve been busy here…”

“But there aren’t any bodies here. And...” she said, walking back to the middle of the mezzanine, “there aren’t any stanchions out to queue people. The Tower opens at nine am, and Elise and I didn’t hear about the giraffes until five pm yesterday. That means that the little buggers might be organized, but they don’t move quickly. They’re inefficient. It took them eight hours to cover what we did in four.”

“Well yes but if we’d stopped at every house to strip the flesh off everything living thing we saw, we’d of taken eight hours too.”

“But they’re just wandering. They’re not moving in any distinct pattern. Out to Scarborough, then back downtown? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, I,” Steve stopped as Milo began wailing at the door. “Oh shit, Milo sees something!”

They followed the cat to the door as it cried and meowed away, fearing the worst. Meagan braced herself as she approached the door, searching for a lock, when suddenly, from the Skywalk doors, emerged a very tired looking Holden.

“It’s Holden!” Meagan cried. Then behind him came Elise, guns pointed. “And Elise!! They made it!!” She shoved the door open and Steve turned around to keep watch on the mezzanine.

“Try to keep your voice down,” he said, and Meagan blushed and nodded. Then she turned back to the Skywalk and waved frantically.

When Elise saw her she didn’t looked surprised, just relieved. Of course Meagan knew how to get here, and exactly which door she could just waltz right into.