Chapter 7: Cannibals like hide and seek
Slowly we're heading for the main part of the story :) Again thx for all your reviews, they mean an awful lot of me, but I hope u do understand that there are some points where I can't follow your wishes ;3 pls forgive me
[Alice]
"So does everyone agree with it?" Conan asked and looked around in their group though Alice saw he knew no one really agreed with it; however his question was answered by slow nodding.
They all had sat down on some tables near the windows they hadn't used to block the door and while they discussed their opportunities everyone threw a glance through the windows to the schoolyard from time to time. It was abandoned because most likely the teachers had guided the students out through the main entrance where they would now stand together as a group and slowly the teachers would recognize that some were missing, as far as their little group could tell the headmaster, Kobayashi-sensei, the janitor, the whole 4a and well of course their group would be missing; the dead people included. Also Conan and the others came to the conclusion that the people outside probably already called the police and hoped they would arrive soon.
"But we need to tell them what we know!" Mitsuhiko had added when Conan said it and of course he was right so there was no way they could just wait inside this room until someone came to rescue them. Also they decided it would be far too dangerous to call anyone to pick them up by breaking the window. They doubted those Cannibals were intelligent enough to open doors or windows but if they would hear glass breaking within this room, they would attack it and then the open window would be their gate to infect the city.
Again Alice threw a glance at their blockade in front of the door; it hadn't collapsed but likely just because nothing from the outside had tried to come in yet. She looked back at her group, the last minutes they had spent going through all this and they came to the conclusion there was only one way, they needed to leave the room and escape through the main entrance. This door and the fire door, which was blocked now, were the only ones they could unlock and lock themselves since they had special locks.
Alice ran her hand through her hair, past her bow and down her neck. She was freezing and sweating at the same time and her heart was beating fast. She gulped, this was how she always felt when she was scared, he body started to feel too small and she longed for her old body, though this time she felt even worse than usually when she was scared. She gulped again and tried to get rid of this chocking feeling then she spoke, more to find out if her voice would work "ok the let's go, we should take the chance as long as it's quiet outside."
Slowly everyone got up from the tables and they started to unblock the door, as silent as possible. "You're ok?" Conan asked while they carried away a desk and she saw his eyes slowly panning her face like they searched for a hint of… well of what? "Yeah, I'm fine." She replied though it was a lie. Obviously she wasn't fine, not even close, but Conan hadn't asked her to find out if she was fine like one is fine while having a picnic, it was a 'fine' like not showing any symptoms of a disease. And at the moment she didn't and that cheered her up, at least enough to avoid her legs collapsing in fear.
As soon as they had unblocked the door their group went back to its normal formation. Conan leading it, Ai with Mitsuhiko behind him followed by Ayumi, Akito and Genta and at the end Alice who closed the door behind them. In her whole life Alice had always thought fear is easier to bear when one isn't alone, a group could grab the last glance of hope and make it grow. Like a snowball they could pass it around till it grew enormous, but in this night there didn't seem to be any last glance of hope so they just kept silent, worried looking around and exchanging glances, everyone searching for hope in the eyes of his friends, but seemingly no one found any and so they just made the fear grow. Conan kept looking around corners, Alice kept looking back and whenever they heard the smallest trance of a noise they all winced and didn't move for ages.
No wonder that Alice threw a look at her watch that said it was close to midnight; that meant they had needed 20 minutes to leave the classroom and reach the end of the corridor. As soon as they reached its end Conan peeked around the corner and so their group stopped walking again what gave them the time to exchange worried looks. Suddenly this was interrupted by Alice gasping. She just gasped because she saw Conan's eyes widening and though he was able to suppress a sound of surprise Alice was not. "What's there?" she whispered that low the usually Conan, who was standing maybe 2 feet away from her, had no chance to hear her but since the whole world seems to be drowned in unnatural silence he hissed back "Don't know… something is there in the corridor."
For someone who wasn't scared to death the following must have looked very amusing. The group of kids was shocked, but without moving or making a sound. So Ai clenched her teeth, Mitsuhiko widened his eyes, what made him looked like a little owl, Genta raised his fists, Ayumi closed her eyes and seemed to shrink and Akito threw an angry glare at Alice like it was her fault. And Alice… she walked up to Conan, she didn't wanted to, she just felt unwell all alone at the end of their group so her legs had started to move. When she recognized herself walking she needed something logical to do so she peeked around the corner too. Conan was right; there was some kind of shadow that didn't seem to belong to the others. It was tall and thin and slightly moving, like a human who was… "hung" Alice mouth formed the word without making any noise but Conan understood though. He nodded and reached out his hand. "Borrow me your flashlight?" he asked still glaring at the shadow and Alice handed it over. Her only question was "what if the light catches its attention?" and Conan hesitated "we need to make sure it won't follow us when we turn our backs at it so I have to find out what it is… in case it recognizes me… run." Alice wanted to protest, but he ignored her and pressed her lightly back behind the corner. Then he walked around the corner and left the others, first when he seemed to be sure whatever was there wouldn't spot his friends he switched the light on.
Except the light coming from behind the corner Alice couldn't see Conan and she didn't dare to peek around the corner, but he just didn't made any noise anymore. Conan also didn't seem to move judging from the edge of the light cone that was lying motionless on the floor. Through Alice head all those horrible but possible things rushed that could explain why he didn't move and finally she couldn't stand it anymore. Without wasting time by looking she walked around the corner and she felt her friends following her.
Their group froze too, some feet ahead Conan was standing and illuminating something white and humanlike, he wasn't moving just glaring at it like he'd been hypnotized. Before Alice could gasp she recognized what it was and slowly Conan, who must have heard them, turned around; his eyes emotionless looking at them and he was still illuminating the white thing. "It's a skeleton." He declared like a student who was asked to solve a task in class and pointed at it. "The school skeleton" he added and slowly his look turned pensive "I… I thought it was a corpse." And finally Alice understood that also Conan had been pondering about all those horrible things that could lead to such a shadow and now that he'd seen this skeleton, a thing they'd all seen in their daily life, it had shocked him that there was nothing shocking.
Alice and the others burst out in laughter; loud and with wet eyes they were laughing and Conan was still illuminating the skeleton looking sheepish. Still laughing Alice walked up to him and grabbed his hand to lead him back down the corridor, she couldn't help herself but she had too, at this moment he really looked like a 7-year old boy who needed help to understand what had happened and this look of his made her laugh even harder. While they finally reached their group he seemed to have sorted everything in his head and gave his friends an angry and embarrassed glare. "Haha, very funny" he said with a sarcastic voice to make his friends stop laughing. "If you won't shut up they will know where we are " he reminded them with a highly red face, but Ai just replied" are you sure they'd dare to come near this creeeepy skeleton" and ran the back of her hand over her wet eyes and now even Conan started to laugh.
It took them some moments to calm down but finally they started to move again but after this everyone felt obviously eased. They weren't walking in their usual formation they just walked through the school like they did every day. Ever and anon one of them looked around but except of this they were even chatting. "Here" Conan reached out his hand that held Alice flashlight "take it back, it didn't brought me any good" he added smiling a little embarrassed. "Keep it, yours is broken, right?" Alice replied as Conan slowly took the watch back. "Yeah… Haruka smashed it down on the floor… well she smashed me down, to be exact." Alice smiled but it made her stomach tense "it's so horrible what's happening here" she mumbled and ran her hand over her arm, it was still bleeding. "You're ok?" he asked again and she sighed "yehesh! As long as you stop looking at me like I'm about to die I'm happy as a clam."
[Conan]
Pretending to be annoyed Alice walked up to the head of their group and left Conan back. He knew she wasn't really annoyed but he also understood that she didn't want to talk about this anymore, whenever he asked her he reminded her of the fear and he was sorry for that but he couldn't just wait till anything happened or not. "And… is she ok?" Ai asked and appeared from behind him, since their group was walking through the school more relaxed Ai had taken the place at the end of it. "At least she says so" Conan replied and from Ai's face he could tell she was as worried and doubtful as he was and suddenly he had an idea.
"Ne Haibara, you're some sort of doctor aren't you?" he asked and as expected she looked at him and raised an eyebrow "some sort? Well yes, I studied medicine." She answered a little bugged. "Can't you examine her?"
"Iie" she shook her head and even though her answer came quickly, what made him think she also thought about this, she seemed to become pensive. "Usually I could, but I'd need any kind of equipment… Though…" she hesitated and looked up to Alice what made Conan bend over to her "What?" he didn't care what she wanted to say, not even if it was good or bad he just wanted any information. "I'm just thinking… since we got this SMS from Naomi and Kita I can't get rid of the feeling I know this kind of disease."
"Really? You mean… You've heard of an illness that makes people really eat each other?" unbelieving Conan scanned his memory for a case where he heard about cannibalism but he seriously could only think of one and this was a case of ritual murder somewhere in a slum. "Well yes and no…" she started "before my research team in the organization came up with the receipt of APTX4869 we did some research on those old 'magic tricks' used by healers… just like Naomi and Kita mentioned in their SMS. One of those receipts we used on mice made them… well kill each other and occasional they even eat the corpses of their fellows… But they also showed other symptoms. They grew stronger and seemed to become resistant against pain, but at the same time they lost color and their immune system wasn't able to heal injuries anymore…"
"Did you find a remedy?" Conan asked and turned fully around to Ai and stopped walking "n… no, the mice died before we could come to any useful results so we gave up on it… It's just that their injuries don't heal, you see?" she asked and grabbed his arm to pull him on. "Yes ok I got it, but you need to have any clue how we can help them!"
"Yes… well some mice got back to normal after a little accident… One man who worked alongside me poured his Coke over one of the cages and the mice were alright within minutes… but this was when our research was nearly over and it were only mice, not humans… but Kudo what worries me is…"
"Hmm coke you say?" he mumbled and interrupted her "I wonder what in a coke…"
"Kudo!" she grabbed his shoulder and turned him around to her "their injuries did not heal!" she said slowly to make him understand and finally he got what was wanted to tell him. "When I asked Lilly if she was ok her arm was still bleeding…" he said and both looked at Alice. She was talking to Ayumi and ran her hand up to her arm; the cardigan that covered her wound had a huge red stain on it.
"She is infected" Conan mumbled and though he felt the fear about Alice increasing his stomach relaxed. At least now they knew it. "Yeah…" Ai agreed and with a lowered glance she followed their group again, seemingly it didn't cheered her up that know they knew it. "But how… the others must have been infected within minutes… why is Alice still ok?" Conan asked following Ai who glared at Alice again, her look was so worried that it surprised Conan when she spoke and her voice still sounded calm and calculating.
"There is just one reason why this is possible… one thing that distinguishes her from the others."
"APTX4869" he closed the sentence for her. "Yeah… something within it seems to suppress the disease" she explained and because Conan smiled released she shook her head "it doesn't mean it will stop it fully… Ok listen I'll give you a little digression concerning diseases. Most diseases are triggered by little bacteria, so to say little animals. Those animals run through your body and, depending on what kind of disease it is, they do you no good. If these bacteria, like in Lilly's case, come into a body where a drug is already doing its job, like here APTX4869, hey start to connect themselves with this drug, so to say the drug mutes the bacteria; it changes."
"So you mean that Lilly is infected, but the disease in her body is different from the disease the teachers and students got?" he asked and Ai slowly nodded "yeah… though we don't know how it changed…" she admitted and now Conan got why Ai was looking so worried up to Alice.
In his head the thoughts were running. He understood now what Ai was up to say. Though Alice was infected they couldn't tell what would happen to her… or when.
"So we aren't any smarten then we were before?" he asked and felt as fretful as before. He hated it not to have a single clue; it made him feel like he needed to run and find something that would help him to find out about everything that goes on. "I wouldn't say so." Ai said and look at him "let's just keep an eye on her. Maybe we can rank the rate the disease changed when we… well keep an eye on her."
Conan slowly nodded though he didn't like the way it sounded. Alice was no mouse in a laboratory but he knew Ai felt the same and he really didn't feel like starting a fight with her for something she felt guilty about too so he kept quiet. Something else was more important at the moment anyways… should they tell Alice about it?
"K…Kudo-kun… what's that?" it was the horrified tone in Ai's voice that made stop and look up.
[Ai]
While Ai and Conan had their talk about Alice Ai always tried to keep orientation so she could tell that they were close to the corridor to their own classrooms when she saw it. The door to the auditorium was off its hinges. Instantly their group slid closer together. They all understood that one of the cannibals had done this.
"Everyone keep quiet" Conan ordered and walked up to Mitsuhiko who was standing closest to the door. He gave Mitsuhiko a light push to show him to walk on and signalized the others at the same time to wait. While Mitsuhiko tiptoed by the door Ai understood Conan's plan. He wanted the guide one by one past the door, as silent as possible, so whatever was in there would simply not hear them. Ai felt eased, it could work, the auditorium was huge. Within there was a big stage and between this and the door was a even bigger auditorium so if the cannibal wasn't right beneath the door they could make it.
Within a minute Conan had guided nearly everyone past the door, only Alice and Ai were left and since Alice signalized her to walk Ai didn't saw any sense in discussing with her and wasting time so she walked and reached the others within seconds, though she had sworn it had been ages. Now it was Alice who walked up to Conan and by the time she was on the level of the door with him both winced. Ai couldn't tell why but Alice petrified and Conan and she glared at each other. A silent fight seemed to start between them, he signalized her to walk on, she shook her head, he pointed his finger at the other just like he wanted to order her to walk on and she rolled her eyes and walked up to the door of the auditorium to peek into it.
Conan wiped his hand over his face like he was barely able to stand how much she annoyed him then he threw a meaningful glance at Ai; it seemed to tell her that he and Alice would care about whatever caught their attention and Ai should bring the others out. And then Conan and Alice just vanished inside the room and left back an Ai with a group of kids behind her, not knowing what to do now.
Don't forget to leave a review to help me improve :) (Honestly, leave one or get eaten ;E)
