Omega Days (An Omega Days Novel) Read Online Free Page B

trembling and sobbing. In the hallway beyond the door, someone was moaning.
    The tracksuit woman kept muttering, “Got-to-got-to-got-t-t-to . . . P-police . . . Got-to . . .” She didn’t leave her place at the tiny window, just wrapped her arms around herself and pressed her nose to the glass, looking left and right and back again. Skye saw the rip in her tracksuit pants then, high on her inner thigh, and realized the woman was standing in a lake of blood. She and Crystal had run straight through it, leaving skidding, red footprints on the tile floor.
    “Hey,” Skye said softly, “you’re really hurt. You should sit down.”
    Crystal pulled at her sister. “What’s happening? Is Mommy going to be okay?”
    Skye pulled her close, pressing her sister’s face against her shoulder. The moaning in the hallway came again, followed by a metallic bang that Skye recognized. It was the sound of someone bumping against a metal fire extinguisher hanging on a wall. It happened all the time in high school, usually when kids were running or screwing around. The sound was followed by a kind of whispering, but a
wet
whispering.
    “Got-to-got-to-g-g-got-to . . .” The tracksuit woman paid no mind to the two girls or the spreading pool of blood. Skye put an arm around Crystal and walked to the hallway door, peeking outside.
    About twenty feet away, a girl Skye’s age wearing jeans and a San Francisco Giants jersey was moving slowly toward them on stiff legs. One of her feet was turned inward, and her head lay on her left shoulder as she stretched out one arm, pawing at the wall. Half her face was a red, ragged wound with one eye dangling from the socket, and her belly had been torn open. Ropy intestines hung down and trailed behind her, through her legs, making a wet, whispery sound on the tile floor.
    The girl saw them and bared her teeth in a growl, then picked up the pace.
    Crystal screamed as Skye hauled her inside, slamming the door, finding a snap bolt and turning it. The top half of the door was a window crisscrossed with safety wire, and the girl appeared there a moment later, pressing her destroyed face against the glass and smearing it. One hand thumped at the door, and her mouth opened and closed.
    They backed away. “She can’t be alive like that,” said Crystal.
    “I know,” Skye said. It was something from a movie, something that couldn’t be real. The dead girl in the hall thudded rhythmically against the door.
    The tracksuit woman made a soft “oh” sound and slid to the floor, lying slumped against the door. She stayed that way for a second, then fell onto her side in the red pool. She was pale and her eyelids fluttered. “Oh,” she said again, staring past them, and then she was still.
    “Hello?” a voice called from the hallway, muffled through the door. “Can someone help me?” It was a girl’s voice, and at the sound of it Skye saw the dead girl’s head snap left, and then she moved in that direction. A moment later there was a scream, a high wailing abruptly cut short. Skye squeezed her eyes tight and held her sister close, wishing to be back in her bedroom, in their safe little house in Reno, with Mom and Dad laughing in the kitchen. She wished it all away, wished it to be a nightmare from which she would scream herself awake, then sit in her bed shaking with nervous laughter.
    She opened her eyes to see Crystal looking at her hopefully, so she stopped her wishing and tried the phone on one of the desks. Every available line was lit. She dug the phone out of her back pocket and dialed 911. A recording informed her that all operators were busy with other calls, but to hold the line and not hang up.
    Crystal walked to the hallway door as Skye redialed, looking out through the smeared glass. “I don’t see her anymore,” Crystal said.
    “That doesn’t mean she’s not there,” Skye warned. The recording came on again. “Don’t open the door.”
    “I’m not stupid.” Crystal