Chapter 116 - 115: Eleven Floors of Nonsense

Chapter 116: Chapter 115: Eleven Floors of Nonsense

The stairwell door groaned open onto the eleventh floor, and Kai immediately stuck his head through the gap like he expected something to jump out and personally greet him.

"Clear," he announced, sounding faintly disappointed.

"You wanted it not to be clear?" Ben asked, following him through.

"I wanted a little consistency. We just spent twenty minutes on twelve. I was building momentum."

"You swung an axe twice."

"Twice with feeling, Ben."

Penelope shouldered past both of them, katana still loose in her grip. "You two are the reason Erik drinks his coffee black. No sugar. Just spite."

"That’s not spite," Kai said. "That’s a man who’s given up on joy."

"I can hear you," Erik said from the front of the group, not turning around.

"I know," Kai said cheerfully. "That’s what makes it fun."

Killian said nothing, but Penelope caught the faint pull at the corner of his mouth as he scanned the hallway ahead — the closest thing to amusement she’d seen out of him since they’d left the penthouse that morning. It wasn’t the composed, professional half-nod she used to get from him back when she’d still been Ms. Wolfe and he’d still been Mr. Remington, signing off on quarterly reports. This was different. Quieter. Like he was still deciding what to make of all of them.

She filed that away and didn’t examine it further. There wasn’t room for anything more than curiosity right now, and even that felt like a luxury.

The eleventh floor corridor stretched out in front of them, identical in layout to the one above — cream walls, brass sconces, doors spaced with the kind of expensive uniformity that made every hallway in the building look like it belonged to the same anxious architect.

A low, wet groan rolled out from somewhere near the end of the hall.

"There it is," Kai said, brightening. "See, Ben, the universe listens."

"The universe doesn’t owe you a zombie every ten minutes."

"The universe absolutely does. I’ve been very patient."

Erik lifted a hand, and the banter dropped instantly — not gone, just paused, filed away the way a conversation gets set down mid-sentence when something more important walks in.

The creature came around the corner dragging one leg, what remained of a hotel uniform hanging off its shoulders in strips. It hadn’t noticed them yet, too busy colliding blindly with a decorative side table.

"Dibs," Kai whispered.

"You said that on floor twelve too," Ben whispered back.

"And I delivered on floor twelve."

"You didn’t. I did."

"I inspired you."

Penelope pressed two fingers to her temple. "I genuinely cannot believe I missed this while I was locked in a jewelry vault."

"You missed a masterpiece," Kai said, already stepping forward.

He crossed the distance in three quiet strides, axe rising, and brought it down clean across the back of the thing’s skull before it ever turned around. It dropped without ceremony, folding sideways into the side table it had just been assaulting.

"And that," Kai said, resetting his stance, "is called technique."

"That’s called it not seeing you coming," Ben said.

"Semantics."

Erik exhaled through his nose, the closest he ever came to a laugh, and continued down the hall without comment.

A door near the elevator bank creaked open a few inches, just enough for a pair of eyes to appear in the gap.

"Are you — is it dead?"

"Very," Kai said, wiping the blade off on his pants. "Extremely. Overachieving levels of dead."

The door opened further. A young man, maybe early twenties, stood in gym shorts and a t-shirt like he’d genuinely believed until this exact moment that staying inside meant staying uninvolved.

"What is going on? I heard people screaming last night and then nothing and I didn’t know if I should—"

"Dead people are walking around eating the living," Penelope said. "That’s the short version."

The man blinked at her like she’d answered in a different language.

"The long version’s the same," Kai added helpfully. "Just slower."

"Is this — are you guys, like, some kind of task force?"

"We’re the people who happened to wake up early," Erik said. "That’s the whole qualification."

"So you’re not going to—"

"No," Killian said, before the man could finish the sentence they’d all heard six times already that morning. "We’re not evacuating anyone, we’re not guarding this floor, and we’re not coming back to check on you."

The bluntness of it made the man’s face fall in real time, the hope draining out of it visibly enough that even Kai’s easy expression sobered a little.

"Look," Kai said, softer than before, "head shots kill them. Sound draws them. Lock your door, don’t be loud, and don’t trust anybody who isn’t already in your apartment with you, because in about a week the scary part isn’t going to be the zombies anymore."

"What’s scarier than zombies?"

"Your neighbors," Ben said. "Once the food runs low."

The man looked like he wanted to argue that. He didn’t.

"Get some water stored," Penelope added. "Fill anything that holds liquid. Do it today, not tomorrow."

The door shut. A lock turned. Somewhere behind it, the scrape of furniture being dragged into place.

Kai fell back into step beside Penelope as they continued down the corridor. "You know, for someone who used to make interns cry over a formatting error, you’ve gotten surprisingly gentle with the apocalypse survivors."

"I told him his neighbors were going to turn on him within the week."

"That’s gentle for you."

"I didn’t call him an idiot for standing around in gym shorts during a zombie outbreak."

"Progress," Kai said solemnly. "Big brother’s proud."

"Big Brother? You’re a few months younger, Kai."

"I am taller than you...okay fine. Little big brother is proud of you."

Ahead of them, Erik and Killian had already reached the next intersection of hallway, checking the branch that led toward the fire stairs on the opposite end of the building. Erik glanced back once, taking in the three of them — Kai grinning, Penelope rolling her eyes, Ben trying and failing not to laugh — and something in his expression eased, just slightly, before he turned back to the task at hand.

"Focus," he called back, without any real heat in it.

"We’re multitasking," Kai called back. "Focus and morale. It’s a skill."

Another growl rose from further down the hall, closer this time, and the humor sharpened back into readiness in the space of a single breath — the way it always did with them now, laughter and violence sitting close enough together that neither one canceled the other out anymore.

"Ben," Kai said, hefting the axe again. "Care to lose your dibs streak?"

"I’ve never lost a dibs streak."

"There’s a first time for everything."

They moved toward the sound together, still bickering, and somewhere behind them Killian watched the three of them go with an expression he didn’t bother to name yet — not quite a smile, but close enough that Penelope, glancing back for just a second, caught it anyway.