Letters above a glass door, then another set of glass doors, then a desk with a staircase behind it going down. I repeated the words to myself, trying to stay calm. I was pissed at myself for losing the brochure with the map. I had nothing to go on but Dad’s words. We were flat on our stomachs in the dirt under the porch of a half-demolished barracks. I kept my eyes on the Hunters, just feet away from us, moving from building to building, searching. Cars rolled by, too. Mostly big old ones. Some had sheet metal welded over the windshields. I could hear gunfire not far away, but the street in front of us was calm. As soon as the men passed us by, I turned to the kid and we did a silent ten count before crawling out. He was getting good at it, which made me proud and sad both.
We ran as quiet as we could around the corner of the building and into a big open area where busted furniture and a dead truck sat in the high grass. I found the flag pole and then the water tower, just like Dad told me, but all the nearby buildings looked the same. Then I saw it, the big white building with the letters CDC above a broken glass door. I grabbed the kid’s hand and we ran for it. A big white building. Letters above the glass front doors, which were broken. Then another set of broken glass doors. Then a dusty desk. But no stairs.
No stairs.
Just a doorway walled up with bricks.
“GET DOWN! FLAT ON THE GROUND! HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEADS!” Three Hunters rushed in on us, guns pointed. We did as they said.
