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simple-minded, dead, furry faces on the other side of the glass, glaring back at her.
    And then the stranger joined in, his large, heavy-set body shaking inside the yellow suit. It was then that Ellis knew her saviour’s identity: his laugh was legendary, definitive even through the mask.

CHAPTER TEN
    He pulled the light from his headgear, set it on the centre table. He changed the setting, creating a makeshift lamp.
    “Looks good on you, Abe,” Ellis said, pointing at the suit.
    Abe looked Ellis up and down. “There’s a locker room full of them near the doors to E Block. But I’m guessing you’re more of a scrubs kind of girl.”
    Ellis smiled faintly. Dropped her head, ran her hands through her hair. Even if she could get over to that locker, it would be pointless to don a suit now, after she’d been exposed to the infection. And the scratches from those animals...
    When she looked up, she saw that Abe was perhaps thinking similarly: Ellis no longer looked into a visor; Abe’s face smiled back at her, the mask in his hands.
    “Fuck it,” he said.
    He made a face at the cats through the glass.
    Ellis laughed so hard she thought she might burst. The laughter gave way to sobbing.
    Abe held her as she cried. Ellis curled into his broad shoulders and sturdy chest like a little doll. She could feel the warmth of his body even through the yellow plastic. Even his smell, that ‘sweaty man’ odour, was welcome. This was exactly what she needed: comfort and security. Safety.
    “Where were you when they sealed the lab?” she asked him, tears still trickling down her face.
    “E Block,” he said. The accent was American but milder than Blake’s Southern drawl. “When the lights went down and they locked the doors,” he continued, “it got pretty crazy down there. There were people screaming at me. Begging me to open the lab room doors, but I couldn’t. They were locked tight and my card wasn’t working.” Abe looked away. “I just had to leave them.”
    Ellis reached forward, touched his arm. “Abe, there was nothing you could do for them.”
    “Really, Ellie?” He seemed angry. “I work security. I should have stayed, found some way through. Done my job right .” He lowered his face into his hands. “God, their eyes staring back at me through that glass...”
    Ellis squeezed his shoulder.
    “What about the others?” she asked cautiously.
    Abe looked up. “Ellie, you saw what happened to that Jenkins guy. And those animals... whatever infection got them is spreading fast. There’s a lot of those... things roaming the corridors now.”
    “Is there anyone left?”
    “Only us.”
    “What about... Blake?” Ellis had to ask.
    Abe couldn’t look her in the face. “I met him outside E Block. He was hurt but still alive. We tried to find a way out, but it was no use. My card wasn’t working on any of the doors we needed. One of the airways looked promising. There was a gap, and I thought I could crawl in, somehow. Make my way through the system, climb to the top, and get help. But that shit’s easier to do in the movies.
    “In the end, Blake got sick.” Abe sighed, looked at his gun. “Ellie, he went the same way as Jenkins. I had no choice...”
    Ellis swallowed hard.
    Abe continued: “I was here in the canteen when I heard you.”
    Ellis looked at the cats again, scraping at the glass. “Sorry,” she said.
    “It’s okay,” Abe said. “Kinda nice, getting a chance to do my job right.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Ellis was hungry. Ravenous. Even with all that happened—that was still happening—she was famished.
    Maybe it was the scientist in her, thinking through the consequences of not eating. Her body would become malnourished. Exhaust its fat reserves, move onto muscle mass. She’d get weaker, suffer vitamin deficiency. She needed to eat.
    Abe was sleeping.
    She thought back to all the things he’d told her. The people in E Block. Blake. They’d been murdered . That was the long and short of