Now if you two are done playing this fun question game, we need to hurry. Like before, we go quietly.”

Brown steps to the door, looking over his shoulder to stare at Hayward. The last time they had to do this, the cadet nearly crawled up his ass. Seeing that he’s not about to be impregnated, Brown opens the office door and again checks the hall. The shiny waxed floor stretches for a short distance, several closed doors along its length. Brown slips into the hall. The quiet inside the building is in direct contrast to the tumultuous noise on the other side of the thick walls.

Stairs lead down into the core of the building, each floor mostly an open floor plan with picturesque windows overlooking green fields. Brown inches down the stairs, both hands wrapped around his sidearm. Hyper-alert, he listens for a snarl or footfall: anything to indicate that there are others in the building. The experience in Pineville taught him that the infected aren’t always running around screaming their heads off. Brown takes each step cautiously, forcing himself to go slowly, but wanting to get to the doors quickly before the infected racing through the campus decide that they’d like to check out the bookshelves to find their favorite one.

Brown pauses at each floor, glancing through the study tables and easy chairs arranged in groups around glass-topped coffee tables. The well-lit open rooms have few shadows where anyone can hide, but that also means that they can easily be seen through the large picture windows. He feels exposed descending the wide staircases that wind through the middle. He finds no one, the expanses with their gleaming fixtures, polished floors, and furniture in perfect position looking like they’re only for show.

He can’t believe the same shit is happening again. He knows that he was lucky the first time. Escaping from one city seemed improbable, but if this is indeed happening across the globe, then staying alive among millions of them would be impossible. He’s pretty sure he emptied his jar of luck on the first escapade.

Steady…steady. One thing at a time.

The cadets descend behind, their boots issuing only an occasional clop. Brown doesn’t know if the two are bad luck because they happened to be with him when it all started, or good luck for having made it through Pineville. With the exception of the faint shrieks from outside, the interior is completely quiet; the air hushed as if it’s holding its breath.

Behind them, a loud but muffled tone suddenly pierces the silence. Brown drops to his knees, instantly turning toward the sound, his handgun snapping to where his eyes are looking. Hayward sheepishly reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone.

“You have to be fucking shitting me!” Brown whispers sharply. “Are you just some special kind of stupid? Silence that thing.”

“I did,” Hayward counters. “Apparently the emergency broadcasts don’t silence.”

“I’d say they’re a little late with that message. Turn it off.”

He observes Clarke hastily pulling out her phone to turn it off, just as the warning tones begin.

Although muffled through the walls, emergency tones begin riding the air along with the screams, coming from hundreds if not thousands of phones.

“Well, hopefully they didn’t hear it or think anything of it,” Clarke states.

Brown glances out of the windows to witness several infected in the wide field dance crazily in circles, searching for the source of the noises that sit in their very pockets. The tones must have silenced as the rave party in the lawn stops, the infected looking momentarily confused before resuming their search for others to attack.

“Is there anything else? Alarms set on your watches? An unquenchable desire to start playing a trumpet?” Brown asks the two cadets.

They shake their heads, Hayward with his eyes downcast and looking particularly ashamed. The cadet’s feelings of inadequacy return, remembering all of his prior gaffes.

“Look, son. Don’t let it get to you. Acknowledge and own the mistake, put the lesson in your bag of tricks, and move on.