Frank opened the door marked Level 5 with forced nonchalance. He didn’t want to worry Selena for no reason. Though he hadn’t decided if he trusted her or not, and that bothered him. In his line of work gut reactions kept you alive, but his gut decided to cut communications with him regarding the woman.
“Alright, this level should be clear of all of the nasties, and the safeguard should be done with, so we’re in the clear,” Frank said.
Carson grabbed his shoulder. “How can you be so sure?”
Frank moved as he turned to face the group. “This is the first server floor; the mechanism is self-destruction by fire. Each one only has enough fuel to insure the machine is useless.”
Carson pressed on. “But how can you be sure they didn’t change something, make it so they whole place blows, or rabid chickens come after us? Or that the nasties are all dead?”
Frank stood back and took a good look at Carson. The guy was starting to unravel. Great, just what he needed. “Just trust me; this one will be a piece of cake.”
“Famous last words,” Lightfoot mumbled just loud enough for Frank to hear.
Frank turned the knob unprepared for the blast that forced the door open. Once more they landed in a pile with Frank on top, though this time he found himself face to face with Selena, and his gut was not the one talking to him.
“Is that a gun in your pocket or are you happy to see me?” Selena asked, a playful smile visible behind the mask.
Frank pushed himself up and off the woman. “Actually, it’s a--” Another wave came out of the room and Frank felt intense heat. Flames licked at him, and Selena screamed. Frank glanced down and saw blisters on her legs, which ruptured from the intense heat.
Lightfoot sprang into motion and moved people out of the way, as he slammed the door shut.
“Okay, boss, I think some of those nasties are walking around setting off flame throwers or something, they made some upgrades to the system without telling you. It looks like a bunch of walking Roman candles in there.”
Frank froze. What was he supposed to do? Look after Selena? Figure out a way to battle flamethrowers, and nasties on fire? At the moment, he just wanted a drink and something for the burns on his back and legs.
Selena pushed herself against the wall, tears streamed down her face and Frank watched as she reached up to remove her mask.
“No, don’t take it off,” he yelled in a voice not his own. There was worry and concern laced with something he couldn’t identify. He wrote it off as an adrenaline induced comment.
Selena reacted as if she’d been slapped, but lowered her hand just the same.
“I’m sorry I yelled, it’s just we think one of the ways to get infected is by breathing the air.” Frank leaned against the door in case any more blasts came their way, not to stop them, just lessen them perhaps.
“That’s a good theory, and to be honest I thought so too. I wasn’t thinking when I went to remove it, sorry, it won’t happen again. Though, if you’re right we have a problem. There’s no way to get out of here without exposing the rest of the world.” A note of resignation hung in her voice.
“It’s a bit late for that, sweetheart, we cracked open the doors into this place on Level 1 and didn’t shut them. Air has been getting out for almost an hour now,” Carson said.
Frank let his head fall back and it hit the solid metal behind him. A bit of warmth came through, but not the searing heat they’d felt when the door was open. He thought about what Carson said and realized he was right. Even if they managed to find a way out of here, what the hell kind of welcome would they receive?
Selena’s hiss of pain reminded him of her wounds and he grabbed his pack. A second later, he was at her side, tending to the blisters and burns with the utmost of care. He put some ointment on them and wrapped the worst.
When he finished she smiled at him and he couldn’t help but return it. Damn it, this was not the time. He went his whole life without giving a damn about anyone, but himself. Then he finds a woman with allergies in a pile of debris that his stomach decided to do flip-flops over that is about as useful as a glass of water to a drowning man. He ignored the fact he didn’t know if she could be trusted because she was likely a double agent.
“Well, they certainly changed something since I approved the blueprints for this level. It looks like they must be set to fire in bursts to save on fuel when they sense motion,” Frank said with a heavy sigh.
“What the hell is it with you and motion sensors, damn,” Carson whined.
“I didn’t want sensors on this floor, just something simple to destroy the data. What they put in there is overkill and I have no idea why,” Frank replied.
Carson laughed, “You don’t know why? Are you really our leader and yet that stupid? Do you have any idea what kind of crap they have going on in here? That data would be worth millions and put Hooks in prison for his next fifty lifetimes. You bet your ass he made sure they incinerated this floor.”
Frank didn’t say or do anything as Carson’s comment sunk in. The idiot was right again. Frank hated that, but at the moment, Hooks was at the top of his hit list. When, not if, he got out of here, he would pay a special visit to that creep.
“We can’t wait here, there has to be something we can do,” Lightfoot said.
“Yeah, you can go in the room and find out if you’re fireproof. Let us know how that works out,” Carson taunted.
“Enough, I don’t have the time, energy, or patience to deal with your crap. We’ll give it a couple more minutes and check in again.” Frank went back to his spot against the door as he glanced at his watch. Every minute felt like an eternity.
“I only took this job for the cash. I wanted to save up and go back to school,” Selena said wistfully.
Frank tilted his head and smiled. “You’ll go to school, don’t worry. I’ve been in worse situations than this.” He smiled as he lied to her. “What are you going to study?” he asked, trying to keep her hopes up.
“Out of curiosity, what situations have you even been in worse than a skinny ass silo, with no way to go but down, booby traps on every damn level, and the friggin undead coming at you?” Carson asked casually.
“Shut up, Selena was about to answer a question, you pig.” Frank smiled again, something he found himself doing a lot the last few minutes. Either he was going to die soon or he’d been infected.
With a coy grin, Selena answered, “Medicine, I have my nursing license, but I want to be a doctor. My employer got an offer to come here and continue his research and asked me to come with him. Now I wish…well it doesn’t matter, does it?” The smile she forced onto her face told Frank more than words could, she’d given up.
Time’s up, he thought, as he saw the numbers on his watch tick by. “It does matter,” he said as he stood to check the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lightfoot with a knowing grin on his face.
“Lightfoot, wipe that smile off your face.”
“Yes, sir.” He even saluted, which both Selena and Frank chuckled at.
The door opened and the change in temperature was noticeable. No more nasties running around which was good, and when he focused, he could hear a clicking sound, but nothing happened.
Their fuel tanks must be empty, Frank thought.
“I’m pretty sure it’s safe, but I’m going to make sure first. If you hear me scream…”
“We’ll make sure to shut the door and leave you in there,” Lightfoot cut him off.
“No, come and see what the hell is wrong and save me.” Frank winked at Selena as he entered the room, his newly loaded FNP at the ready.
The floor was littered with ash and charred bits of things, he’d rather assume were once office chairs or desks. The walls were completely destroyed, then again that’s how security was designed. As soon as the alarm went off, tiny signals were sent to micro-bombs in the wall. There were no roof, so this left anything within the office exposed to the flames, including the scientists. Frank wondered if Selena’s boss was in here, he hoped not.
He cursed himself again. Attachment caused you to think in terms he couldn’t afford in his line of work. Then again, if things happened the way he suspected they would, nothing would matter in a couple of hours.
Something hit him from behind and he spun to see one of the nasties coming at him. Bright white teeth against a blackened face. All the clothes and skin were gone from its body, only a few well-done organs hung within a well-done ribcage.
A bony hand reached out as it fell to the floor. Frank kicked its head across the room and willed his heart to stop pounding. In the center of the room, the air thickened with soot and ash. Frank was thankful for the mask, but irritated at how much it cut down on his visibility.
He heard a click and jumped in the opposite direction to huddle behind the frame of a filing cabinet. When nothing happened, he gathered the one nerve he had left and stood once more. Not a sheet of paper or usable computer was in sight. The outlines of what were once people, or possibly something else covered the ground. He no longer felt the need to count after thirty.
These men and women were scientists. They’d been brought here by him, or someone just like him, with promises of saving the future, curing cancer, rainbows or ponies. As he looked down, he thought of Dr. Covington, and wondered what became of him.
Arthur sprinted up the stairs when Smith screamed. By the time he arrived, she’d emptied her M4, but it still clicked as she held down the trigger. He grabbed her, the gun, and then looked into the room ahead.
He shut the door and leaned against it. “Those aren’t offices.” Arthur fumbled to reload the rifle.
“What the hell was that? Please tell me it wasn’t what I think it was,” Smith pled.
Arthur didn’t respond. He took a mental inventory of what was in his bags. Not thinking about the other room seemed like the best course of action for right now.
“Answer me, dammit! I came here with my husband, because I was told I’d get to work with you. I’m one of the few people in the scientific community who believe in your work, but if this is the kind of crap you’re mixed up in, I overestimated you,” Smith yelled.
Arthur wanted her to be quiet. “Look, I was approached by them to study rocks, for God’s sake. I had no idea about anything else they were doing. Hell, I just arrived here about five hours ago, I haven’t even unpacked. I need you to stay focused.” Arthur handed her the M4, reloaded, and set it to burst.
“As for what that is beyond this door, off the cuff I’d say that it is experiments gone wrong,” Arthur said.
Smith nodded. “Gone very wrong, I’d say. Benson went through here. Do you think he knew or just ignored it all?”
Arthur knew that no matter how much someone tried to blind themselves to the atrocities; there was no way to do it successfully – unless you knew about it.
“I think he knew about it, but we need to keep moving. Keep your eyes open, this floor will definitely have some sort of badass security protocol in place. You know something like this would destroy Sunset if it got out to the media.” Arthur checked Dixon’s Sig, and pulled the door open.
“Right, as opposed to developing something that’s transmitted by air, kills, and then reanimates you,” Smith mumbled.
Arthur agreed with the validity of her point, but didn’t say anything. The focus for now had to be survival.
The floor was lined with eight rows, extending the width of the corridor for about eighty feet. The rows were comprised of large capsules of a sort, more like hanging bags with clear solution inside of them. A person or what at one time was a person, was in the center of each capsule in some sort of stasis.
Arthur noticed with irritation that the lights flickered, as usual. He paid more attention to them this time, because he dared not look at what surrounded him. The on and off pattern of the bulbs seemed purposeful, almost as if it was being done on purpose.
“Smith, you know Morse code?” he asked.
“No, why?”
“Just curious, keep moving, we need to get out of here before--”
The words were out of Arthur’s mouth a second before a snap echoed throughout the room and one of the hanging coffins hit the ground with a splat. Then another, and another… Arthur realized someone was toying with them.
The hooks holding the containers in place were being released around them. Within seconds, over a dozen bodies surrounded them on the floor. He wondered why they would do this. They were mutated dead things, not a threat.
Then one of them moved with a small twitch at first, a spasm, and then full body animation. When the shock wore off, Arthur took in the sight of dozens of bodies made grotesque by experiments, with removed limbs, organs, eyes, patches of skin, and they had attached other things in place of them. What made the scene truly horrific was the fact they were getting to their feet, or using their hands as they ambled toward him.
Smith started to panic again and Arthur yelled at her, “If you empty that gun, we’re both going to die. I get that you’re scared.” He stopped talking to take careful aim and take down a man with two feet stitched to his elbows, and another with some sort of lizard-like skin grafted onto his chest. “I am too, but you need to calm down.”
“Right, dead things persevered for reasons unknown, but we can assume they weren’t good ones, are coming after us. I’ll just take a seat, because this is something people see all the damn time,” Smith hissed.
Arthur took out two more, unsure what to call them. They weren’t like the things they referred to as contaminated, because they were dead first and then reanimated. This brought into question how they were infected, since they didn’t breathe.
Smith fired off several rounds and managed to take down a few more. Arthur finished them off, grabbed a new magazine to slip into his Sig, and watched with relief as Smith did the same. He moved forward, pushing her along. He noticed her reading the plastic labels on some of the intact pouches.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
Arthur stared at her with an incredulous expression. “This doesn’t make any sense to you?”
“Okay, nothing makes sense, but what I mean is the labels don’t make any sense. They’re years old in some cases. Seem to be bodies donated to science, but what’s been done to them is nightmarish at best, and serves no scientific purpose.” Smith stared at one body in particular as she spoke.
Arthur noted it was male on top, but goat legs had replaced the bottom portion. He thought of the mythical creature Pan. Aside from an attempt to bring back ancient mythology, he saw no reason for any of this.
“I remember reading an article in a journal about meshing humans with other species to see which ones blended together the best. Sounded like it was far from actual human trials,” Arthur said, “what I don’t get is why they came back. They’re dead, so how the hell did they inhale anything?”
Smith looked at him with a horrified expression. She ran to one of the back walls and read dials and knobs that meant nothing to him. As she did, his heart almost stopped when he realized whatever the security measure was on this floor, it hadn’t kicked in, unless it was dropping giant water balloons on them, which he doubted.
“They weren’t dead; they were in a state of suspended animation. According to the notes on the files, they were put into this condition seconds prior to death. They’ve been feeding them a solution mixed with oxygen from here.” Smith turned with unfocused eyes.
“Okay, that’s horrible, but it certainly explains how they came back so quickly, and supports the airborne contaminant theory, so now let’s get out of here.” He grabbed Smith and dragged her a few feet before she yanked her arm away.
“I can’t leave them like this, it’s inhumane.” Smith fired her weapon at the rows of hanging bodies.
“Are you insane? Do you want to die?” Arthur yelled.
“I have no intention of dying, but if it were you in one of these bags, would you want to be left like this?” Smith started firing, not waiting for a response.
Arthur yelled at her to aim for the head at least, so they weren’t releasing them from one hell, only to unleash a whole new one on themselves. She didn’t hear him, but after the third warning she did her best. Doing a quick count, he realized there were well over a hundred bodies, and more bags still hanging.
He squatted as he took aim and blew the heads off the ones Smith missed. His ears rang and he needed to stop every few minutes to reload his weapon. When Smith’s magazine emptied, she tossed the weapon down and used the Walther P99 until Arthur handed it back to her, newly loaded. He didn’t know when their positions reversed, but for the moment, she was kicking ass, so he went with it.
The Sig worked like a charm and he decided not to think about how desensitized he’d become to shooting someone in the head and turning a blind eye to the gore and bone bits flying in every direction. Or how a well-placed bullet ended up with the skull erupting in a shower of dark colored brain matter.
One especially nasty shot got one of the hybrids in the teeth. Arthur watched as the lower jaw was knocked loose, but not free. A gaping hole in the center of its face let a tongue slither its way out as if locating them like a snake would.
One look at their white water logged eyes and he knew without a doubt that their vision had to be close to zero. His theory about their smell attracting seemed to cement further. Whatever it was, he didn’t care. They were gaining ground, and he knew some sort of horrible security measure would kick in soon unless the moved their asses.
Smith yelled, “I need more ammo, dammit.”
Arthur struggled with the magazine in the Sig and had to use his Baby Eagle to take out one of the former bags of meat four feet away from them. The things might not move fast, but when in a horde, it didn’t matter. They could overcome you in seconds.
“Great, I’ll reload it myself,” Smith whined.
“Don’t get pissy with me. You’re the one who decided to free the damn things, and your aim sucks long range,” Arthur yelled.
No response came his way and he glanced over as he let the empty Baby Eagle magazine slip out as he fumbled around for another. Smith was holding the patch he’d taken off of her husband. Tears slid out of her eyes and her hands shook.
Arthur took out three hybrids; one was harder than it should have been due to the metal plate stapled to the top of its head. More were coming and he didn’t have time to be empathetic to what she was feeling. He should have tossed the patch, but he thought she might want it later.
“Hey, you need to keep it together. Look around, they’re going to gain on us in less than a minute.” A bullet shattered a woman’s face. “Please, I need your help,” Arthur begged.
“You should’ve had the balls to tell me.” With that, Smith slammed a magazine into her gun and sprayed the oncoming masses.
Arthur thought they might make it out of here after all, until he noticed the ceiling seemed lower. All the gunfire left his ears numb with a ringing sensation, but he felt it in the ground. Some sort of mechanism was at work lowering the ceiling.
“Crap, Smith, we gotta move. The ceiling’s going to crush us.”
Arthur picked up the bags and cringed at the lack of ammunition they had left. He yanked Smith by the back of her suit, using his strength when she refused.
“Leave me here, the only reason I kept going was the hope he was ahead of us, waiting for me,” she cried.
“Did he love you?”
The question had the intended effect and caused her to lose her balance as she tried to look indignant. He used the momentum and forced her to the exit.
“If he loved you, then he wouldn’t want you to die, not like this,” Arthur continued.
They needed to bend after a bit, and behind them, the sound of gushing water could be heard as bags burst and pipes broke. A collection of liquid, blood, gore, bone, and organs sloshed around their feet. He glanced back and saw the things being compacted, no sense of self-preservation as they were slowly compressed by the hydraulics lowering the ceiling.
Arthur fell to his knees, Smith followed suit. Arthur tried not to think about what they were wading through. As soon as the door came into sight, he reached up and turned the knob pushing at the same time. Smith went first and Arthur’s foot was caught. He twisted and turned until it came loose. His ankle looked like ground beef, and he worried about the contaminated fluids soaking into his flesh.
Smith pulled the first aid kit out and threw it at him as she made her way up to the next level.
“Good luck, Dr. Covington.” And she was gone.
Arthur pulled out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and doused his ankle with the contents, squeezed an entire tube of anti-bacterial ointment onto it, then wrapped it in gauze. He fell back on the floor to try to detect if he felt anything strange in his lower extremities. His hands trembled, heart pounded, and his mouth was as dry as the Sahara, but he chalked that up to terror and the adrenaline rush.
He waited a few more minutes before condensing his two backpacks into one. He made sure to keep the vial, flash drives, and rock samples, as well as other tidbits he’d collected. He was down to four magazines for the Sig, two for the Baby Eagle, and three for the FNP9 he’d grabbed.
He pulled out his map and noticed Level 9 didn’t have a designation. Crap, he thought, as he got to his feet. Smith had no idea what she was heading into. For that matter, neither did he, but he’d learned from experience that floors with no designation were likely scary places.
Frank glanced to Selena. “You know how to use that?” He indicated the gun she held.
She nodded. “Point and shoot, right? Not that hard.”
“Right, then you won’t mind releasing the safety?” he asked.
She fumbled for a second or two, but did as asked and smiled at him when it clicked. He resisted the urge to grin back, facing forward instead. Level 6, held the dormitories and showers floor; likely to be full of people and the remnants of poisonous gas; another of his favorites. At least this time, he knew what to expect.
“Let’s get going, we don’t have all day.” Frank opened the door to the same annoying flicker of emergency lights. The lower they got, the worse the electrical system seemed to be.
“Hey, check her out!” said Carson staring a particularly well-endowed nasty heading their way. “Come on over here, I bet you got some life left in you,” he continued in a leering manner.
“Grow up,” Lightfoot said, as he put a bullet in the poor woman’s head.
“Carson, this isn’t the time or place, show some respect,” Frank said, not wanting to be one-upped by Lightfoot in the gentleman category.
The gunfire drew the attention of several others. In less than thirty seconds, a wall of half-clothed and naked nasties headed toward them. The hallway was less than six feet wide, since bedrooms, bathrooms, a few supply closets, and other various rooms filled up a majority of the space. Frank took a breath to fight off the claustrophobia once more.
He let the air out of his lungs and heard the telltale clang of a grenade hitting the ground, and didn’t bother to glare at Carson. Instead, Frank threw himself over Selena as the explosion made his eardrums rattle and strands of singed flesh and blobs of rotten human bits landed on top of them.
Frank rolled over with his FNP at the ready and took out two as they crawled toward him. Their fingernails snapped off as they attempted to drag what remained of their bodies across the tiled floor. Only about six had been taken down with the blast, many were maimed; the rest unharmed continued their forward momentum.
“What the hell is going on? That’s…that’s not normal,” Selena said, her voice bordered on hysterical.
“Selena, get behind us, we’ll take care of this. Carson, that was sloppy, no more grenades, we can’t risk one of us taking a hit.” Frank pulled the trigger and hit a nasty in the ear. Water logged skin flew off the side making it look as if it had been scalped.
Frank fired again, this time landing the shot in the thing’s forehead. He glanced at his watch and wondered why the security deterrent hadn’t gone off. Then again, it may have, and the noxious gas didn’t affect the nasties, since it didn’t destroy the brain.
Something to his right made him stop firing and look. One of the nasties was coming out of a storage closet. Frank fired, causing congealed blood and bits of cranium to paint the walls. The nasty slid to the floor and landed a few feet from Selena.
She screamed and Frank rushed back to her. He didn’t see any immediate danger from the small room, but her line of sight was enough to let him know there was more than a dead body causing her hysterics. In slow motion, he watched as Carson and Lightfoot worked in tandem taking the things down. These were former friends and co-workers of Selena’s. She was pointing at them, calling out their names. Frank didn’t have the slightest clue how to handle the situation, so he just put an arm around her and told her to put her head down.
Lightfoot finished a magazine, pulled out a new one as Carson took a step forward with a grim smile, and fired three shots in rapid succession. Three bodies fell on top of an ever-higher growing pile. Lightfoot stood and Carson took a moment to reload his weapon.
The sight was grotesque at best. No horror movie could do justice to the rank fluids flowing on the ground, or the smell that permeated the air. Rot, death, decay, those were all words to try to describe it, but at the moment, none of them seemed powerful enough.
“Boss, I think we got most of them in the hallway, should we clear the rooms?”
Frank glanced around, his ears rang and his hand ached from gripping his weapon so tight. He moved his hand and lifted Selena’s head. “You okay?”
Water filled eyes looked back at him. “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay, they were my friends.”
He nodded and gave her a small smile. Moving away from her was harder than expected, but he had a job to do. He grabbed the door handle of the first room he found, Henderson/Logan was stenciled on it. Frank knocked on it and heard something scratch and moan in return.
Lightfoot came up next to him with a question on his face. Frank stared at the knob and waited. It turned, but the door never opened. “These doors were designed not to clog the hallway, they all open inward, which means the nasties inside won’t be able to get out.” Frank tried to step over as much of the chaos and body parts around him, but on occasion, he felt his foot slip into something soft and squishy, but he refused to look down to see what it was.
“I think most of the ones we were dealing with were from the shower room. There’s a body stuck keeping the door open. Carson, clear it.” Frank put a bullet in the head of the one at his feet and kicked it out of the way. Whatever they were now, person was not one of the possibilities.
Carson entered and Frank heard a few shots go off, and then the man reappeared. “All clear, boss”
Frank continued forward. A hand reached out from the pile and gripped his foot. Yanking it away, he fired into the mound of bodies below him, but the fingers still opened and closed. Out of frustration at his situation and the inevitable, he grabbed the hand and pulled hard. A sickening pop sounded as the entire arm came loose. He dropped it like a dead snake and moved a few feet to the side. Something groaned beneath the fleshy carpet he stood on.
“Jesus, what the hell’s going on?” he yelled, as he fired a more bullets into the mound of rubbery skin, and slick liquids.
Frank glanced over his shoulder. “Be careful where you step. I think we have a biter under here.”
“Great, hope it doesn’t bite the chick. Last thing we need is dead weight,” Carson said.
Lightfoot stepped out of the way, as Frank spun and punched Carson in the jaw. Then he swept a foot under his legs. Carson looked at the vacant faces and body parts he was lying in, and then looked up at an angry Frank.
“Several times, I warned you, but none of them worked, so tell me what the hell I need to do to get you to stop acting like an ass and to do your job?” Frank pressed the muzzle of his FNP into Carson’s cheek to emphasize his point.
Carson stared back up with angry eyes, and raised his back leg so it hooked under Frank. Frank felt himself land hard after being flipped. Something jabbed him in the side and he prayed whatever it was didn’t infect him. He wrestled with Carson who tried to straddle him. Frank pulled a knife out of a sheath on his right thigh and jabbed into the meaty portion of Carson’s quad.
Blood flowed freely and Carson dropped the crusty skull he was about to pummel Frank with. “You bastard, you stabbed me!”
Frank felt around for his FNP and wiped it off on his pants when he found it. “Damn right, you didn’t seem to show much hesitation in trying to crack my head open with that head that you were holding.”
Frank stood, the smell of rot around him getting stronger. The ground beneath seemed to move and something writhed. More groans and another hand reached out for Carson’s thigh. A bony finger stuck itself in his wound, and the head of what once was a woman appeared. She opened her mouth as Carson screamed.
He held out his hand to stop her, but Lightfoot put a bullet between her eyes before she bit his fingers off. “You’re welcome,” Lightfoot said with disdain.
Frank wanted the group to keep moving, so he grabbed Selena. He carried her to the end of the corridor. A thoughtful act he did without thinking. When he placed her down in the small recreation room, she thanked him with a smile. He gave her a lop-sided grin back, surprising himself at how natural it felt. Something was definitely in the air.
The bodies in this area were different and Frank knew why. They lay on the ground in awkward positions, hands grasping their throats. When the gas went off, they didn’t have the protection the others did, they died instantly. At least they didn’t get infected.
They never stood a chance, Frank thought.
He was about to continue on when he saw one of them rise from the couch like the woman who appeared from the pile of bodies. A thought occurred to him. “Carson, bandage that leg, those things smell blood.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Carson asked.
“It’s a hunch, but in case I’m right, do as I say, or do I need to kick your ass again?”
When there was no response, Frank glanced around the room at the moving bodies. The blood covered fronts and frothy mouths were from the gas. More moans and more rising bodies. Selena said something incoherent and Carson stayed back to bandage his leg.
“Lightfoot, you ready to do this?” Frank asked the only person he trusted to watch his back.
“Always.”
The two men made quick work of the poisoned workers who moved toward them. Frank used as little ammo as possible since he was running low, and he knew the others had to be as well. He hoped if they could make what they had last until Level 13 that they could restock, though he knew the odds were stacked against them.
Lightfoot took down the last one by kicking it in the stomach. The things abdomen tore open and viscera cascaded out in a black colored fount of liquid. The injury didn’t stop it. Frank was unfazed by the scene having seen so much already, but Selena wasn’t.
“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on before I have a goddamn heart attack?” she asked.
Lightfoot knocked the thing to the ground and crushed its head beneath his foot. Frank made sure there were no more surprises heading toward them before he approached Selena.
“The honest answer is we don’t know. Our goal is to get to Level 15, find a particular person, and then get the hell out of here. As for these.” He motioned to the bodies on the ground. “We have no idea. We ran into the first one as soon as we hit reception, and it’s been a battle ever since.”
Selena looked at the bodies with her expression a cross between interest and disgust. “They’re dead, but still moving. It makes no sense.”
Frank moved toward the door and guided her by the elbow. “I know, but keep that mask on. The only two things I can tell you is whatever made them sick is in the air, and can be transmitted by a bite.”
Frank dropped his hold on her arm when he realized what he was doing. He turned the knob in his hand. “Level 7 is next, it’ll be a bitch, because the layout is all over the place. We’re also likely to run into lots of nasties because of the cafeteria, recreation rooms, and other things they constructed to help people forget they were under tons of dirt.” Frank himself tried to forget that fact.
Lightfoot stepped up to him. “I know we don’t need more things to worry about, but I’m getting low on ammo.”
Frank nodded. “Me too, but I’ll figure something out.” He just didn’t know what yet.
No armory levels, ammunition storage lockers, or anything else was there that might help them. He grunted in frustration. If they listened to him when they drew up the blue prints, there would have been ammunition on every other level in some secret location. The designers and board members at Sunset Inc. agreed it was overkill and nixed the idea.
Some saw Frank as a weapon enthusiast and others saw him as a nut. He didn’t care what others thought of him. He only wanted to work on something that would make a difference, maybe even save a few lives, or take some in particular. He wondered what Selena would think of his ideology, then remembered she was a nurse and aspired to be a doctor, so to her life was sacred. Frank stood for everything she hated. The realization saddened him, but he sucked it up and moved on.