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The door clapped shut behind therounds on the shaky, grainy i into the botto of unreality to the whole thing She wasn’t sitting in thewithon a co the front doors of the old building The guy to the left of Josh had the flashlight on his gun, the bea it was riding a , wooden front doors Flashlight guy grabbed one of the old, tarnished brass handles and pulled Locked Josh knocked and said, "Hello? My naot a tea our assistance to OGZA Is anyone in there?" Nothing They all stared at the locked door like a bunch of chi your updates until the feed cut out a little while ago Are any of you still at this location? Princespawn? Direwolf?"

Aun at the ground The kid with the flashlight shouted, "I can pick the lock" Another voice yelled, "No, you can’t" Everyone screa to be heard over their ear protection

Josh yelled, "They probably got it barricaded There’s probably soo around Everybody stay sharp"

The vieung back up to shoulder level again, and the Hipster Zoht bea boarded-up s and drifts of dead leaves blown against the foundation Looking for another entrance

Watching through the video feed was frustrating Whenever the flashlight beao coht-vision capability She peered up over the laptop and out of the windshield of the RV in ti The trailing guy, the one who had the night-vision goggles and looked about thirteen years old, eeping his gun behind the their six, just like he saw somebody do in a movie Or cartoon He rounded the corner and Amy and Fredo were now truly alone

"So," she said "How fast can this thing go?"

Fredo said, "Depends on howhandles like a blimp"

Amy returned to her laptop and in the video feedthe group had stopped un camera eak and she could barely pick up words over the background noise Every ti was drowned out by a sound like crashing ocean waves The noise cleared up enough for her to hear Josh say "Where?"

She faintly heard Flashlight Guy yell, "Right there, man Behind the wheelbarrow"

She couldn’t see what they were looking at, Josh had a frustrating habit of pointing the gun caun at his feet, or the cloudy sky, or right at the head of one of his friends By the tiht was on his hands and knees, studying the ground in front of hied in closer, around a rusty wheelbarrow somebody had pulled out of the way, and Alass had been bashed out, probably decades ago But if it had been boarded up, it wasn’t now

Wind howled into thebits of their conversation

"--no way they just left it like this--"

"--don’t see anybody--"

"--hello? Can anyone hear ht aiuy with the Vietnaot down on his hands and knees, and writhed into the building, the jagged bits of broken glasshi happened A up as she watched the dark baseun-caestured that the coast was clear Josh was next, but the caun to somebody so he’d have his hands free to crawl in The vieirled around as the gun was handed back and forth, and then aat a dim room that looked like an old cafeteria with a faded black-and-red checkerboard tile floor The vieung back around to the , then to the floor nearby where a sheet of ancient plywood bristling with curled nails had been tossed aside

Josh yelled, "They did have it barricaded Souy crawled through the , someone off camera said, "Told you, man They evacuated, prob’ly for the same reason the feds did We prob’ly passed ’em on the road comin’ here"

Josh said, "You sound relieved, Mills"

"Man, e didn’t get an answer I thought ere gonna find this place full of dead bodies"

"Me, too"

"Hey, if you’re suggesting we abort, you convinced me"

Loudly and clearly, Josh said, "Not until we do a sweep of the building" A recorded for possible posthu of six was inside the cafeteria now Somebody shouted, "Well, we know they was here Left a lantern behind"

The careen propane camper’s lantern in the corner Soht it?" They didn’t After about teninto the laptop ot it lit

Lantern in hand, they ventured out of the cafeteria and into a hallway Flashlight Guy went first, Josh right behind hi a soft glow and distorted shadows around the group The teah this ridiculous SWAT teauns would lean on opposite sides of the door frame while Josh kicked in the door Both times the roo about SWAT procedure, but knew fro that he never checked the corners to his right and left when he entered the new rooms It seeuys really easy to auys knew even less about hoalk through a building with guns than she did They reached a door ain, and took a flight of stairs down to a subbasement They reached a short hallith so rate instead of aThe kind of door you saw in a prison

It was standing open

Through the door, the guys entered a hallway that to Aopen Inside each one they checked was a bed, a sink and a toilet

A tuberculosis patients down here

On caun ca there was, for so short of a severed clown head