Cheryl swiped her card on the door that led into the storage room and Hannah raced towards the service tunnel door. Once close enough, Hannah reached for her card which usually hung off her belt and came up empty. Her friend tried hers, but it didn't work.

"Shoot!" Cheryl cried, hitting her fist on the door. "It's our only way out."

Hannah's heart raced, and a sharp pain settled deep in her chest. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. If she didn't come up with another idea, they'd meet the same fate as the others. They were dealing with creatures that doors couldn't stop. They kept going until they broke in.

Her friend paced the room, swearing and cursing, making Hannah more and more agitated. "Shut up! I need to think," she snapped. Chewing on her thumb nail, she considered their options. They really had no idea how widespread things were now. Did the dtation have emergency phones?

They needed to find Xavier and then hopefully get out of the station with his help. During the plane ride over, there was a town or a base about 200 miles out, towards the ocean. If they could fill up one of the trucks and take gas, then maybe they could make a run for it? But she knew there was a storm rumbling it's way through, so whether that was possible she didn't know. All she knew was that their lives were on the line.

Every step they took through the station was risky. They had to contact the outside and demand that someone send them help immediately.

Where the heck was Xavier? She knew he had weapons, but the security office was a few floors above them.

"Hannah!" Cheryl shook her shoulder. "Please, tell me you have a plan."

"I'm thinking. I'm thinking." She stepped away from her friend, trying to envision the entire station in her mind, and she couldn't do that with Cheryl badgering her. If her friend's access card didn't work and she didn't have hers, then they would have to find someone who had one that could get them into the tunnels. That meant going back the way they came. "We have to go back out there."

"What?" Cheryl shrieked. "Are you crazy?"

"We have to get an access card that works. We can probably search the lockers in the change room. Someone may have accidentally left theirs behind."

"Are you sure we can't just stay here until someone else comes? The doors are locked and they can't see inside here."

They could, she supposed, but they had no food and no water. The kitchen pantry was by the cafeteria. This was the spare parts storage for the science equipment. There were a few janitorial supplies on a cart in the corner that didn't fit into the other janitorial room, but it's not like they could drink lysol to stay alive.

Hannah waited for her panic to escalate, but instead she settled into a strange surreal feeling, almost like dissociation, here but not here. It's like she'd slipped into a dream state, moving through a white hazy cloud.

"No. You don't get to disappear on me," Cheryl said, bopping her on the shoulder. "You need to talk me through this."

Hannah shook her head, gathering in her thoughts. She was the boss. She didn't have the luxury of giving up. Cheryl was depending on her to get them out of this. And she was going to do just that.

"Okay. We can go back to the doctors in the lab and get one of their cards."

"Let's just stay here, please. I'm sure someone will come along soon."

"We need to get to the top level and see what's going on, whether any help is coming. I have to find Xavie and kick his ass for leaving me in that room," Hannah said, tightening her grip on the broom handle as she contemplated leaving the safety of the room. Could their luck go okay a second time?

Taking a step towards the door, Hannah leaned forward and pressed her ear against it, attempting to hear if anyone was nearby. All sounded quiet. Reaching out, she turned the handle and poked her head out. As soon as she did so, there was a thud at the door that led into the service tunnels.

"Damn it!" a voice yelled, "Run, Jewel, run!"

"Are they in the service tunnels?" Cheryl mouthed to Hannah.

Hannah shrugged her shoulders. They shouldn't be. All doors that led into the tunnels were on card access only. How was it spreading so fast? First it was the boy, then it was Flynn and Judith. But they took time to die, and then even more time before they came back. Was it more lethal from the newly turned than the boy? Or had his infection not yet reached the full potential because he'd been frozen for so long and most of the virus, or whatever it was, was still dormant? Was that why he'd been frozen?

"God, none of this makes sense," Hannah muttered.

"Is someone in there?" the voice yelled from the other side of the door. "Can you talk?"

The two girls huddled together, unsure of what to make of the newcomers.

"Should we answer?" Cheryl whispered, clinging to Hannah's arm. Carefully, Hannah wandered towards the door with her friend in tow.

"Please answer us. They aren't that far behind—Ah, screw it," the male voice said, shoving the door open and almost bowling the girls over as the two newcomers rushed inside.

"Don't close—"

The man slammed the door closed behind them before Hannah could finish her sentence. A second later, a heavy object thumped against the door, growling.

"Oh, thank god, you're not one of them," the new girl said, pulling the two girls into a tight hug. "I thought we were goners." Another thud at the door made her scream. "There's like ten of them in there."

"No," Cheryl yelled, stomping her foot. "Just no! That's our only way out, damn it!"

"What do you mean?" the guy asked.

"She means they are out there too, you dolt!" the girl snapped, as she pulled a hair tie off her wrist and curled her hair up into a bun. She looked as though she was getting ready for war.

"Where did you guys come from?" Hannah asked, trying to assess whether they had been bitten or not. They had no blood on their clothes, so she surmised that they were fine.

"The truck bay."

Oh, that wasn't good. That was where they wanted to go. "How many did you see?"

"More dead than alive," the man said, a sheen of sweat rolling down his forehead. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Haven't you already figured it out by now, Darius. They are zombies," the girl said, rolling her eyes.

"I've told you to lay off the drinking, Jewel."

"No. She's right," Hannah said, coming to the girl's defence. There was no other explanation for them. Zombies were people who came back from the dead and that's exactly the situation that was happening here.

"So what do we do now?" Jewel asked.

"We stay here," Cheryl said, "right?"

Hannah paced the room, walking in and out of the aisles. The others watched her as they gathered in a circle in the corner, away from the banging door. With each thump, Hannah jumped, her heart pounding erratically. A stormy tornado of anxiety ripped through her system.

"What about down?" Hannah suggested. "Xavier mentioned the warehouse and the hydroponics bay."

Darius shook his head. "It's too wide open, and I saw some coming around the corner from that direction when we jumped in here."

"Are those things everywhere?" Cheryl asked, her eyes filling with fear.

"It would appear so," Hannah said, still unable to come up with a solution for where they should go.

According to the latest information that meant nowhere was safe. Could their floor have the least amount of the diseased? Maybe they should just return to her lab, and she could still try to figure this thing out. The only downside was that the room had big bay windows. They wouldn't be able to hide.

"Did you guys see Xavier?" Hannah asked.

"I walked past him while he was on his way to the Director's office," Jewel said. "He told us to lock down the truckbay, but it was already too late."

Good, he was still alive. That asshole.

***

Xavier looked down at his friend, David, who was lying motionless on the floor after their scuffle with a knife sticking out of his head. He kneeled down and grabbed the man's access card as he wasn't going to be needing it anymore and retrieved his knife. "I'm sorry."

Suddenly, he felt drained, like all the energy in his body had been zapped. The last thing he expected was to be killing his friends. And he knew he was going to have to account for it. Account for why he didn't just restrain them in a part of the facility until help arrived. But David had him on the ground and would have bit him and he wasn't ready to die or turn, or whatever it was called. He needed to get to the security office and then find Hannah and nothing was gonna get in his way.

After he stood up, he started to run in the direction of the office, but then slowed down. The last time he moved so quickly he was taken by surprise. That couldn't happen again. He needed to think smart, even if his heart and mind were racing away on him, as he tried to find out how he was going to get the station under his control again. The director didn't seem to be coming up with the answer, so someone else was going to have to.

Before rounding a corner, he stopped and listened carefully. There were cries coming from behind him, but all sounded quiet in front. Xavier poked his head around the corner and saw that the coast was clear. He just had to make his way down to the end and his office was on the right.

When he reached the end, he almost bolted around the corner but skidded to a halt, and pressed his back up against the wall. "Slow down," he murmured. If he didn't, he'd get himself killed.

He held the button down on his vocera and opened communication between everyone, reminding them to take shelter if they hadn't already, and then he did a roll call on the guards remaining. Xavier breathed a sigh of relief, happy when most of his crew answered back, minus Derrick and Steve.

"Clint," Xavier said into the vocera. "What's the situation in the clinic?"

"We're trapped in an isolation room, but we're okay."

Xavier poked his head around the corner and saw that the coast was clear to their security door. There was no way he'd be able to track down Hannah safely, without knowing more about their situation.

Upon hearing a noise just down the hall where'd came from, he shoved open the security door and dashed inside, quickly shutting it behind him. He held his index finger to his mouth when Kevin opened his mouth to talk and pointed towards the hallway to indicate something or someone was out there.

Kevin nodded and brought up the hallway on the monitor. A group of people in brown overalls stumbled their way down the hall, bumping into each other, but not griping about it.

"Are they all..." Kevin started to say, letting his voice trail.

Xavier squinted, trying to get a closer look. "Zoom in."

His heart fell as he recognized friends that he has had drinks with on numerous occasions. People he's worked with for years. It was moving faster than anything he'd ever seen. Not even a stomach bug caught on that fast in a school.

"Have you seen Hannah recently?" Xavier asked.

"No, but Cheryl tried to use her card on the service tunnels not that long ago."

"Where?"

"From the storage room on Lab level."

"Bring up the room."

Xavier crossed his fingers, hoping she'd be inside. Kevin scanned the room with the camera, but they could only find Darius and Jewel. No signs of Cheryl and Hannah. "Would it be so hard for that girl to stay in one spot?" he griped.

"It's possible they are in the corner under the camera? We do have the odd blind spot."

And sure enough, out walked Hannah into the center of the room, her hands pressed together in front of her mouth as though she were praying. Xavier watched as she paced the length of the room and then back out of view of the camera. The tension that had gripped his body eased slightly knowing she was okay.

"So what next, boss?" Kevin asked, spinning in his chair to face him.

"The Director won't let us bring out the weapons. He wants us to corral the beasts."

Kevin's jaw dropped and his eyes widened. "Does he even realize how bad it is?"

"I tried to tell him, but he won't listen."

"So what do we do?"

"Have you tried contacting the centre for disease control again?" Xavier asked, tapping his hand on his hip restlessly. What was the director thinking? It made him think of every creature horror movie where the mayor refused to listen to reason.

"It's doing us no good. We've already been told there's a storm that's preventing them from coming out here. We're on our own for a few days at least."

"Okay. With the site in lockdown, movement will be minimal between floors. Where is the biggest concentration of them? Maybe we can find a spot that has the least and move the crew there."

Xavier walked over to the schematic maps on the wall with a pack of thumb tacks. "The first was the boy in the lab, and he's still there to my knowledge."

Kevin checked the cameras and confirmed that thought.

"Then Judith and Flynn were in the morgue on the science floor," Xavier said, pushing in two thumbtacks. "Then we found a few in the warehouse."

Soon, there were pegs all over the maps on every floor, and it seemed like it was an even match on every floor. How that was possible he didn't know. So now it was a pick and choose type of thing.

"Let's try to do a headcount and see if we can find out who's still alive," Xavier said, pulling a chair up to the desk. "Let's start with the top floor and work our way down."

After some searching, they found just under half the crew still alive. The other half were either the undead moving around or still hadn't animated yet. That was a hard statistic to wrap his head around. He was supposed to keep the station safe, and he hadn't done that. But it didn't help that he couldn't pull out the tools needed to do his job.

"I think the best place to hold up is the dining hall. We have access to the washrooms and the kitchen with the pantry. We can use tables to barricade the main doors," Kevin suggested. "Even putting a broom across the pull handles should be enough to slow anything down. But do you think it's wise putting us all together?"

"It will be easier when it comes time to abandon ship to all be in the same place, which means we should try to stay as close to top level as possible."

"But that would mean moving food there too," Kevin commented. "And the amount we need is more than we have time to carry."

"Damn, you're right. I guess we'll have to stick with the cafeteria on the living floor as the one on the lab floor will be too small." The only problem with that is moving the crew about the station without getting attacked. And how was he supposed to get Clint and Corey out of the clinic when they were stuck? That should be his main concern, considering they may need Corey if anyone was injured. He'd have the medical bag with him.

"Jared, what's your location?"

"I'm on my way back to the office."

"Negative. Head towards the clinic. We need to get Clint and Corey out. I'll meet you there." After he spoke to Jared, he turned back towards Kevin. "Show me the clinic again. I need to know what we're walking into."

Leaning closer to the monitor, Xavier noted that the door was propped open by a body lying across it, and about four of those things inside. It looked like the ones who had previously chased him had made their way there.

"Take a gun," Kevin said. "Screw the boss. We're at the highest threat level."

Xavier stared at the locked cabinet as a battle raged within. Taking a gun and using it would mean turning against his fellow crew members. This wasn't like an outside hostile takeover. This was friendly fire so to speak. But he knew that happened sometimes, as much as he wished it didn't, but it's never happened on his watch, aside from having to contain a drunk and even then you just put him in a hold and put him in the tank for the night.

And while he knew saving them should be his highest priority, he knew that trying to put them in a tank or a room, without someone getting hurt, would be next to impossible. As soon as they would try to push one inside, one from the inside would attack them. The only hope they had was to either kill them, or find a safe location to wait it out. Maybe it's like rabbies where it eventually kills them.

"Have you seen Judith on the cameras lately?" Xavier asked as he opened the cabinet. He'd take one with him just in case it was needed, hoping desperately that he wouldn't have to use it. He already killed one person and he didn't want another on his conscience if he could help it.

"She's still outside the storage room where Hannah is."

"Damn, I was hoping they would be starting to burn out or decompose or something."

Kevin leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. "She's still pretty spry unfortunately. Do you want me to go with you?"

"No. I need you to keep an eye on the camera, but we're going to switch to the ear piece communications. I need you to be my eyes and ears." Xavier grabbed a few clean earbuds from the container. "I'm going to provide a distraction to empty the clinic. I'm going to need you to direct Clint and Corey safely to the cafeteria on the living level."

"What about you?"

"After we get them out, I—" His voice was drowned out by a scream coming from the hallway. "Damn it!"

Kevin already had his hands flying on the keyboard, bringing up the camera outside. Clara, one of the admin assistants to the Assistant Director, was running down the hall, clutching her arm, with a few of the dead running after her.

"Can't we get a moment's peace?" Xavier said, groaning. "As soon as she reaches the door, let me know. I'm gonna pull her in."

"What if they get inside?" he asked, swallowing hard.

"We should have time to get the door closed."

He'd only have a split second to act. If he got it wrong, they were all dead. He tilted his head side to side stretching out the kink that was taking hold. Jared was already on his way to the clinic and if he didn't get there soon, then he'd have another dead guard on his hand too. Could he afford to do this? What if it got them trapped? He shifted his weight and grabbed the handle reluctantly, still unsure.

"If you want to save the crew, you might have to let her go. She's already bit."

"We don't know that."

"Do you want to chance it?"

"We have to." Letting someone die a brutal death wasn't who he was.

"Okay, I'll count ya down. One. Two. Three. Now."

Xavier took a deep breath as he pulled the door open, yanking her inside.