The rough, grey concrete walls in the hallway were lit fairly evenly by the flourescent lighting overhead. Plastered upon the nearby tan colored doors were various colorful printouts. Somewhere within the corridor one tube giving light was producing a faint buzzing. Evan thought he could even see a slight wavering in the level of light in that direction. Voices from elsewhere echoed faintly with the slight breeze persisting in the building.
Esteban stood with Casilda to the right, a couple apartments down. They were speaking quietly. Not far behind them, the window was a gaping black void, the underside of a few slender tree branches just visible because of the automatic lights in the park blocks below. Beside them was one of the stairways that led to the ground floor, the edges lined with a thin barrier railing.
"Are they going to be okay?" Esteban asked, looking down the hallway as Evan approached.
"I think they'll be okay for a little while at least." Evan lifted the key for the restraints in his hand. "I thought it best for now that one of us out here keep this. As a safety precaution."
"Seems reasonable." Esteban frowned, concern on his face as he mulled over the thought.
"I told them that if Rob needs to have the restraints removed for any reason, they should come out and someone will be out here to help them."
"So one of us is going to need to stay out here at all times?" Casilda asked, her face still a little flush from her earlier embarassment. She averted her eyes from any direct contant with Evan's. "All night?"
"Maybe we can ask some of the others to do this too." Esteban ventured. "So we don't have to do this by ourselves."
"I hope we can." Evan said, thinking that Lucas at the very least would be willing to help. "We're only going to need to worry about this until help arrives, though. Tomorrow morning, according to the news. But Rob might not make it that long."
Somewhere downstairs there was some excited chatter, diverting the group's attention to the stairwell. The commotion quickly diminished, indicating that whatever had led to the noise, it was likely just a temporary flareup. Esteban finally turned back to Evan. "So what do we do now? Get some people to wait out here all night? Take turns?"
Looking out the window briefly before replying, Evan spoke tentatively. "Well, one of us is going to need to stay here for now. But one of us will need to get some more volunteers to stay out here until morning. We should also see if there's anything else we can do to make sure that Rob makes it that long."
"He'll definitely have my prayers at the very least, but is there anything more we can do?" Esteban replied. "I can't think of anything."
"Leon probably did all he could, but if there's anything more that could be done, he might know." Evan replied, thinking about how sudden the news of the outbreak came, and the likelihood that people would be adequately prepared in the first place. Compared to the residents of the Mansfield building, the people in Blackwood dorm were significantly less organized. They were just now getting a late start on all the things Evan's dorm handled as soon as this began.
"If he could do something more, wouldn't he have already done it?" Casilda spoke as if she didn't really want to draw attention to herself, still peering down the stair well. Evan had the impression she was doing it so that she didn't have to look directly at him.
"If he didn't have the right supplies, maybe there's something he couldn't do." Evan replied. "If he had something more, maybe he could. We won't know about that for sure until we ask."
