Chapter 7: Underworld
The underground catacombs were much larger than Jim had previously thought. As soon as both he and Skye gained access to the underground caverns, the two of them had walked for a full 40 minutes to explore the dark and dangerous uncharted caves full of skeletal remains of god knows who, avoiding various booby traps and other threats from the undead below. The two of them eventually came to a room, lit up by candles and a fireplace. The shelves built into the wall had various dolls on them, many of the dolls had worn out years before with missing eyes, shredded clothes. An old, rickety bed with worn off sheets and a pillow can be found next to the fireplace, Jim's inspection told him that the place seemed like a confinement chamber of sorts, judging by the metal gates and limited access points.
"Look at this place, they were keeping somebody down here. Confined and watched." Jim commented, he found a ladder on the other side of the room, he came up the ladder to inspect what was above and found it to be connected to a cabin in the forest behind the mansion. "So this is where they kept their hostages. Disgusting." Skye picked up an old family photo of tigers lying on the bed with names written on it "George", "Helen" and "Lisa", her foxy senses encourage her to look at the back side of the photo and found a hand written note on it, left by a little girl that said "We'll be together again. Love you mommy and daddy."
Skye puts the photo down and continued her inspection of the journal on the shelves next to the bed, to her deepest sympathy as well as fear, the journal belongs to the little girl in the family photo, it chronology her final days of sanity before the descent. "May 15th 1980, they gave me and mommy some shots. They said it's to prevent diseases on the island, but I feel dizzy and a headache made my head has been hurting for hours. (Skye skips ahead a few months) September 25th, 1980, they took me away from the mansion, I couldn't find my mom anywhere. They said that she will meet me for dinner. (Some sections later) I met my mom at dinner, face is the same but different inside. Something is not right. I have to escape somehow.(Some months later) I pills off her face-mommy' face now on me so when find each other she will know me."
Reading the journal was far too disturbing for her to bare. Skye put the journal down and urged Jim to move on and hopefully, finding a way to escape. The both of them exited the underground confinement area and made their way to a nearby crypt which consists of a stone sarcophagus with the lid being held in place by four large stones holding it down. At first, it all seemed like they had a breathing room to take in the sight of the well designed tomb. But they were soon locked in a deadly struggle when the mutated abomination that was once Lisa Tiger lumbered forward from the dark corridor in front of the team. The hunch on her back spawned a host of tendrils, growing slightly larger than her encounter with Judy Hopps. Lisa swung her manacled arms and smashed the two saintly raccoon statues without breaking a sweat. "I think this is what has been stalking us."
Jim said with apprehension, he brought his weapon up to high ready. "You think? I'll distract it. You pushed those stones over board." Skye cocked her pistol and fired off some rounds at Lisa, distracting the mutant from Jim for as long as her magazine and marksmanship skill allow. The polar bear on the other paw, was pushing the stones off the edge one after another while dodging Lisa's leap frog attacks. As he pushed the last the stone off the edge, Lisa landed right behind and prepare to tenderize his flesh, Skye fired a lucky shot into the eye on Lisa's hunchback. The tiger mutant jerked off from Jim allowing him to escape with his life. Eventually, all the stones fell off and the lit was popped up, revealing the remains of Lisa's mother, Helen Tiger. "M-o-th-er..." Lisa moaned out one last time, she reached into the sarcophagus and picked up the skull of her mother, then threw herself over the edge into the dark chasm below.
Jim and Skye can only watch her death from their positions, questioning whether did she survive the fall? Or did she end her life for good? "My god, hope that's the last of her." Said Jim, Skye didn't wait long to chime in, "Poor thing, all she wanted was her family and their escape. Maybe this will be her release from this prison." Jim couldn't agree more with a nod, the two of them then moved on from the crypt, finding their way through underground corridors until they come up to the entrance of the lab with plastic curtains and medical equipment lying around. The two metal doors with circular glass windows on them were locked tight, apparently to ensure that no leaks can make it outside the facility. Skye crouched down and inspect the locks with her lock pick gadget, the arctic vixen gently tapped on the right tension points to open up one mechanism at a time, "How long does it take Skye?" Jim grumbled at Skye while keeping an eye around them for any wandering zombies. "Just a little bit more. Aaand done."
The door turned inward and open the way for the two of them to move inside. Jim let out a sigh of relief since he didn't have to stand in one place for far too long. "Ladies first." He bowed down and gesture his arm in a courtly manner, almost joking at Skye, she simply scoffed at Jim's out of place sense of humor and take point for him. Leading the way step by step around the facility when they heard footsteps coming close to them. At first they assumed that it was zombies, roaming around to look for food, but Jim had heard these footsteps before. These were light, soft, paw padded, and judging by the intensity and frequency of the sound, it indicated two persons moving in a single column. Skye and Jim snap to the wall behind them and prepare to face off with whoever or whatever that might come at them, the vixen and polar bear shuffle closer and closer around the corner, until Skye quickly flipped out of her cover with Jim following close behind pointing their weapons and flashlights at their targets, the lights bounce up and down on the furry grey faces of two bunnies Judy and Jack, making Jim and Skye lower their guards.
"Stop it, stop it. Get those lights off of our faces now!" Jack cried out to Jim while holding a paw in front of his face to shield his eyes from the bright light. "Sorry about that. But we thought that-Never mind. Anyway, did you two find anything?" Jim embarrassingly scratch the back of his head as Jack and Judy exchange their findings to the other two. "Well beside the fact that we nearly got killed in an aquarium by an overgrown B-movie monster. Not much. But at least here, I think safe to say we are getting closer to discovering what went down here." Said Judy with an even more depressed tone. The four of them continued to look around the facility for something else of interest. On the way, they came across a holding cell with a familiar looking fox sitting inside. Judy hopped up to the bars on the door to take a peep inside, to her amazement and relief, it was Nick, sitting there on the bed waiting for a miracle to occur. "Nick! Nick! It's us, we're here to rescue!" Her excitement and high pitched bunny voice caught Nick's attention and he ran to the door to see her cute face.
"Carrots? You're alive! I thought I wouldn't see you again. Listen, somebody knocked me out and drag me here." Judy quickly reassured Nick that he would be busted out of prison in no time, which in turn he agree with. "Don't worry Nick, Skye and Jack will break you out. Jim and I will scout ahead." Nick nodded and give her a thumb up but not without some precaution. "Be careful Carrots. I have a feeling that somebody has been misleading us this whole time." Skye and Jack then tried their best to release Nick out of the holding cell while Nick and Jim continued onward to the nearby labs. The bunny and polar bear came to a morgue, just a few short meters down the hall, the freezer system here had broken down years ago. The plastic bags remained on their racks and shelves, hastily zipped up by the HAZMAT teams. There were corpses of equines, boars, bunnies, tigers and all sorts of animals who worked here once.
Their name tags were all that was left of their identity, their clothes had been drenched with the stench of the corpses. Judy counted the racks, there were exactly 10 racks, each can hold a total of 15 corpses, multiply the number and the body count reached 150 gruesome deaths within the lab. "Sweet cheese and crackers. They were trying to hide this catastrophe." Jim avoids sniffing the air, fearing infection from airborne diseases, instead, he put on a gas mask for both him and Judy. "It looks like their central nerve system was destroyed. Along with the parasite infestation inside it. How could anyone thought this was a good idea to research bio weapons?"
But the respite was still far away, Jim and Judy soon came across a presentation board room with a camera, projector on the table, the film was still loaded on the device. The room had been ransacked by somebody, the file cabinets had been pulled out and the papers were rifled through, reports and observations of experiments lay all over the floor of the dark room, lit only by the projector's light. Judy reeled the film back to the beginning and press the play button to see for herself, what went wrong down in the lab. The film turned out to be a product presentation, showcasing the various experiments ranging from simple zombies to the ferocious dogs as well as the snake and the vicious beast in the aquarium. "Report #1141: Product showcasing."
Begins the narrator whose voice sounded oddly familiar, could it be? "Product No.1 Roamers. (A sample image of a zombie is shown) This product is considered to be a test bed model, therefore, failures are excused. The Roamers have no particular special attribute other than its durability. Several of our staff have been brutally mutilated by these things, and they ate the corpses with the vigor of a religious priest. They prefer to travel in a pack and when left isolated without food source, they will go into a sort of hibernation. The parasite in their body will release a chemical fluid to preserve their bodies from decay. Overall, the Roamers have insect like intelligent and it is unable to take orders or think creatively, therefore it has no practical use as a Biological weapon." The presentation continued with the showcase of the canines.
"Product No.2 Cerberus. (A photo of a wolf mutated into a Cerberus zombie with long, sharp claws and increase dexterity on its paws) The canine mutation strands seem increase dexterity and leaping power. The increase in length of their claws allows them to tear up their targets in one strike, this strand shows great potential and applications and therefore require further research. There have been defects in the mutation strand as well, some of our early test subjects became savage and reduce to running around on all fours." Judy noticed the voice of the narrator sounded suspiciously familiar, she could tell it belonged to a bunny, it also sounded like the narrator was in his early 20s. The footages also showed Judy what went wrong with one of the experiment, on day labeled "March 22nd, 1996", a viral outbreak occurred when the insulation system inexplicably failed. The virus leaked out of their storage and reanimated the corpses of the dead staffs and deceased victims. One by one the outbreak began to overtake the facility and eventually the island. Pondering her questions, Judy was reminded by Jim to continue on to the nearby lab containing the latest batch of mutants and hair raising experiment. And worst, the truth was waiting for her there...
