Chapter 5, Part 9

Bleakly

The kid was taken care of, at least as far as I cared to take care of him. I’m just a caring guy.

I unclipped my handheld from my collar and explored a little deeper into the warehouse.

The place was clean for an abandoned warehouse in that part of town. Floors looked to be swept pretty regularly; there weren’t any crates or barrels lying around. That was weird. I let my guard come all the way up and started looking for something to explain what the inexperienced saps Otto’d suckered were up to.

A few rooms in, the demeanor of the place changed entirely– carpeted floors, functional-looking lights. I found a wall-mounted control pad and toggled a few switches. Lights dutifully came on in the room I was in– revealing what appeared to be a decently-furnished breakroom with a window on the far wall. I toggled another switch and light blazed through the window; I immediately registered movement on the other side of the window and threw myself behind an office chair.

 I lay there a couple minutes, trying to figure out what the commotion on the other side of the window meant.

All right Tommy boy. This is a warehouse. There’s most likely a big ol’ factory type room thing on the other side of that window. Whatever is moving around is either unable to come get you, unwilling to investigate, or simply doesn’t care.

Plus, caution isn’t my thing.

I stood up and walked over to the window. It was one-way glass, so maybe that explained why whatever was on the other–

What. The. Hell.

The atrium-sized room opposite the window was full. Full of zebras.