“Faster!” Jeff shouted.
I pushed harder, legs screaming, lungs on fire.
Ethan rounded the curve ahead of me, and I caught a glimpse of movement below—three, four, five figures stumbling onto the bottom of the ramp. Their silhouettes lurched against the blue glow of the tanks behind them. One of them moved faster than the others, its head snapping upward, locking onto the sound of our footsteps.
It started climbing.
“There!” I shouted, pointing ahead.
The hatch.
I grabbed the heavy metal handle and yanked. It screeched open on rusted hinges, cold salty air rushing up from the water below. The smell of the ocean hit my face, and for one second the world narrowed to that single opening—the way out, the only way out.
“Go!”
Ethan didn’t hesitate. He swung his legs over the edge, stood up on the ledge inside the tank, looked down once at the dark water fifteen feet below, and dropped.
Splash.
Jeff climbed onto the rim. Below us, halfway up the ramp now, the fast one scrambled on all fours—a woman in a shredded hospital gown, her jaw hanging loose, fingers clawing the concrete as she hauled herself upward with terrifying speed.
“Jeff—NOW!”
He dropped. Disappeared into the dark blue.
I grabbed the hatch and braced against the ledge, startedpulling it shut.
That’s when the first one reached me.
A hand—gray, swollen, missing two fingers—shot through the narrowing gap and almost seized my forearm. The thing behind the door snarled—a wet, guttural sound that didn’t belong in any human throat—and shoved its face into the opening. Milky eyes. Broken teeth snapping inches from my wrist.
I screamed and slammed the hatch against its arm.
Once.
Twice.
Bone cracked on the third hit. The hand turned limp, fingers twitching, and I kicked it free and drove the hatch shut. The thick seal clanged into place.
Something slammed against the other side immediately, and again. The metal shuddered in its frame.
My whole body shook.
More impacts hit the hatch. The dead piling against it, drawn by noise, by smell, by whatever broken instinct drove them toward the living. The metal held, but the sound of their fists and skulls hammering the other side filled the space above the tank like a drum circle from hell.
I forced my fingers open and dropped.
The water swallowed me whole—cold, heavy, tasting of salt and metal. It closed over my head, and for one disorienting second, the world became perfectly, mercifully silent. No moaning or banging, only the muffled rush of water and the thunder of my own heartbeat in my ears. I kicked hard and broke the surface, gasping.
Jeff and Ethan already treaded water nearby, both breathing hard, both staring up at the hatch above us where themuffled pounding continued—relentless, furious.
“Are you okay?” Jeff asked sharply, his eyes dropping to my arm.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “No bite.”
He held my gaze for one hard second, nodded.
The tank stretched around us—massive from the inside. Blue light filtered down from above. The walls curved away in every direction: glass and water and shadow. Below us, Frank circled slowly.