Jake Morrison's Arc

Chapter 3 of 54

Marisol worked fast at the counter. Jake checked the doors one more time. The front barricade held. The broken side door had a shelf jammed against it now. For the first time in hours, nothing pounded the glass. He let out a slow breath and turned to the back storage room. "I need parts," Marisol called. She held up a stripped circuit board. "A tuning capacitor. Copper wire, thick. And a speaker cone that isn't blown. I can't finish without them." "Where do I look?" Jake asked. "Boxes. Shelves. Anything back there." She pushed hair off her face. "I don't know what they stocked. Nobody labeled the storeroom for the end of the world." Jake pushed into the back room. His light swept over ransacked shelves. Boxes lay torn open on the floor. Cables spilled from bins. He knelt and dug through the mess. He found a bag of thick copper wire in the second box. He pried open a taped carton and pulled out a small radio, still boxed. He cracked the case and worked the speaker loose. The capacitor was harder. He tore through three more boxes. Nothing. Then he spotted a parts bin high on a shelf. He climbed a lower rack and reached up. His fingers closed on a strip of small components. He read the tiny print. Capacitors. He grabbed two. That was when he saw it. Above the shelf, a metal vent panel sat in the ceiling. One screw hung loose. Jake pushed the panel. It swung up into a dark duct, wide enough for a person. He carried the parts back and dropped them by Marisol. "Wire. Speaker. Two capacitors." Her eyes went wide. She grabbed the copper first. "These are right. All of them." She looked up at him. "How did you find the capacitor?" "Luck. And a ladder made of shelves." He wiped his hands. "There's something else. A vent in the ceiling back there. Big enough to crawl through." Marisol stopped stripping wire. "Where does it go?" "Don't know. But this is a strip mall. Those ducts run the whole building." Jake crouched beside her. "The supermarket. The other shops. If we can move up there, we're not trapped between two broken doors anymore." Marisol soldered a lead and pressed it flat. Static hissed from the small speaker. She smiled for the first time since he'd met her. "It works. Weak, but it works. I'll keep it running." "Good." Jake stood. He looked toward the back room, toward the open vent in the dark. "Then finish the signal. And bring the bat." Marisol tucked the radio under her arm and grabbed her wire cutters. She followed him to the storeroom. Jake climbed the shelves again and boosted himself into the duct. Cold air pushed against his face. The metal creaked under his weight. Ahead, the tunnel ran black into the rest of the building. "Stay close," he said. Then he crawled forward.