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Luke puts a finger to his mouth, and I clam up. We wait a few seconds, but no one comes in our direction.
“We can’t stay here.” Luke points to the far corner of this fenced-in area, where I can see the upper lip of another loading dock. “There. It’s our best shot right now.”
“Okay.” I get up from my knee, still holding a crouch, as I follow Luke to the sliding metal door.
There’s no lock on it, so that’s good, but the thing looks rusted shut, which, of course, is not.
“Help me. Even if we can get it up six inches, you can crawl under and get help.”
Luke sinks into a squat, gripping the edge of the panel to try and force it up.
Glowering at him, I shake my head. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“Then you better help me get this thing up so I can come with you.” He strains, pulling at the gate.
I step in alongside Luke and offer everything I have to pull up the sliding dock door.
It creaks slowly. We’re struggling for centimeters at this point, but then suddenly, it breaks past whatever was stuck in the track and flies open.
“Fuck, yeah.” Luke takes my hand, ducking us under and through the door. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The area around the warehouse is about what I expected. As we run along the side of the building, trying to stay out of view, I see several of those abandoned shipping containers.
A plethora of graffiti and garbage greet us out here, too, and to the east, the sun is starting to come up.
“Shit, we were out longer than I thought.” Luke directs me through a short run to a collection of those containers, and we pause.
“Stay here. I just need to look around quick.”
He holds up his hands, and I don’t like the thought of leaving him, even for a moment, with the current health status he’s in.
But I stay because it would just take even longer if we argued.
Rushing around the forward side of the container, Luke is gone for twenty-five seconds, having counted them in my head.
“Okay, I think I actually know where we are.” He looks hopeful, and that’s a damn welcome change. “You were right about it being Pelican Trails. I can see the stupid fucking logo faded on a truck to the west.”
“Okay, okay. That’s something.” My heart rate kicks up as I consider we might actually be free of this place. “What are we near?”
“The old shipping company always advertised being off Highway 12 at the edge of Hildale Port. So, considering that’s east…”
Luke looks toward where the sun is coming up on our right.
“We need to go that way. That’ll take us closer to the highway itself. That’s probably where the main office is. Maybe a phone line will still work.”
I nod, but then my damn logical brain starts finding all the holes in our plan.
“What if it doesn’t? Can we follow the highway somewhere?”
With a sigh, Luke nods, standing straight and walking closer to the edge of the containers we’re hiding between.
“Yeah, we can. I think.” He offers a subtle head shake and shrugs. “It’s going to be a hell of a walk, though. They needed space for this place. We aren’t by the town proper.”
I grip his bicep, meeting his eyes.
“It’s better than nothing, Luke. Let’s go.”
Resolution floods his expression, and Luke puts a hand on my cheek, sweeping his thumb back and forth before grabbing my hand and ducking us low again.
