A human hand
shot out of the darkness, reaching out for him. Bruce leapt back, and
sighed with relief as the zombie was stuck in a steel cage, unable to
leave its new prison.
"What you looking at me for?"
Bruce said to the moaning corpse reaching for him. "I"m not
letting you out!"
"Such compassion," the tannoy
blurted, and Bruce knew it was the bitch who had locked them in the
hospital.
Alyssa!
"Originally, I would let him out for the
fun of it, but I have a better challenge for you. As you can see, the
8th floor is dead of life, and the armory is quite empty of weapons.
It is a pity, that grenade launcher would have been terrific right
now." She cackled. "However, I ensured that there was a
shell or two for your shotgun. It is just a matter of finding them."
She laughed once again, venom in every breath.
"Why are you
doing this?" Bruce shouted, looking around him, observing the
corpses of two Bandersnatches and a few scientists.
Alyssa carried
on talking, as though she did not hear him. "If I was you, I
would just head to the 9th floor. Your friend already has."
Bruce
cursed her, and looked inside an office. Nothing seemed interesting;
just a dead woman holding a picture frame, a few papers scattered
across the room and an antique typewriter on a bloody desk. No guns,
no ammo, no Misty.
Footsteps.
Bruce ducked behind the desk, and
peered towards the doorway. The footsteps grew closer, and soon he
was looking at two of the cultists that had chased them. The leader
seemed fine, not a droplet of blood on his robe, but the other had a
small gash in his shoulder, and was still bleeding.
"Captain,"
the wounded one started. "It seems to be dead of life here.
Should we proceed further up the stairs and to the next test?"
The
Captain shook his head. "Not yet, Alexis," he ordered
calmly. "It was that thoughtless attitude that caused Seph"s
demise."
Alexis nodded, and Bruce raised his eyebrows. One of
them was dead, yet they seemed so careless about it, as though it was
meant to be.
Come on, he thought to himself. There is a woman who
has locked you in an evil hospital, there are zombies running around,
you have seen what remains of your copter and you are surprised that
these men are unaffected by the death of their comrade?
"It
seems we have no other choice," the Captain said. "There is
a high chance we can get the survivors, and perhaps the usurper that
Heiadross uses to test us."
Heiadross? Bruce shook his head.
This was getting stranger by the minute. He heard the footsteps
slowly fade away in the distance, and he sighed. With any luck, those
men would get killed with their other pal, and he could find Misty
and get the hell out of there. He exhaled. What were the chances of
it? It wasn"t as easy as it sounded, and he knew it.
"I
don"t care," he growled to himself. "I just want to
get the hell out of this cesspool!"
At that, he leapt to his
feet, and ran for the stairs leading to the 9th floor.
The 9th
floor was a blood bath. Bodies were shredded, and full of bullet
holes. Whatever had happened here, it had involved a civil feud
between the survivors.
Good, Misty thought, stepping over a man"s
head.
The only other door was one that led to a giant room with
small cubicle offices. The room was stuffy, and the ceiling was
covered in a white texture that looked sticky and silky. She knew
what it was as she witnessed eight zombies stuck in it, trying to
wriggle free.
Spider webs. Giant, sticky, horrible spider webs,
obviously made by giant, sticky, horrible spiders.
Taking
precaution, she ducked low, trying to shuffle her way to the door
labelled "storeroom" at the other end. If she was right,
there would be a crowbar to open the door with.
Crunch!
Turning
swiftly, Misty pointed her gun at the entrance, and groaned in horror
as the Purger"s men approached, minus one of them. Their leader
pointed at her, his face emotionless.
"You are coming with
us, for the good of Heiadross," he spoke, his voice giving her a
chill down her spine.
"Love to see you try," Misty
smirked, gripping her gun tightly. She didn"t want to kill him,
but if he touched her at all-
A scuttling noise echoed from the
Purger"s Captain"s area, and the two men looked around
swiftly, trying to spot the source. Misty knew what it was, and
prayed it wasn"t nearby.
"Captain!"
At that
call, it struck. A giant, black haired arachnid leapt from the
ceiling, snatched up the long haired one named the Captain, and shot
back to the ceiling. She shuddered as she heard his screams, and
blinked in shock as the guy"s partner was knocked backwards by
one of the creature"s legs. The man hit the wall, and lay
motionless.
Misty wondered if the hit had killed him, but she saw
his chest moving. The man was alive for now.
She turned once
again and carried on shuffling to the storeroom, breathing lightly to
prevent attracting unwanted attention. She moved lower to the ground
as she walked under the zombies on the ceiling, the arms reaching out
at her. She felt a tug at her foot, and spun her head around,
horrified to have a piece of spider web stuck on her shoe. Carefully,
she removed the web, using a letter opener on the ground.
She
wrapped her hand around the door handle to the storeroom and pulled.
Suddenly, the door flew open, knocking her on her back as a zombie
with two bullet wounds and a labcoat came fell out, and started to
crawl at her. As though it was a trap, the zombies suspended on the
ceiling fell to the ground around her, moaning and reaching out to
grab her. Shaking like a leaf, Misty gripped her gun and fired twice,
destroying the head of the zombie from the storeroom. Before she
carried on, she grabbed the key in its hand, only noticing it due to
the glint of it.
Quickly, she crawled away, feeling the zombies
clumsily pursue her. She rushed herself inside her head, urging
herself to get to the staircase before the zombies caught up. As she
got to the door, the smell of fresh death hit her, and she forcefully
held in the bile rising up her throat. She turned her head, and as
the zombies got close the door shut automatically.
She studied
the door with curiosity, and as she turned her head her heart leapt
with joy. Before her was a man; a man wielding a shotgun and with a
stained shirt. The man had black hair which had become scruffy
quickly, and had a slight tan. The man grinned and held out his hand
for her to grab.
It was Bruce!
Smiling, she accepted his hand,
and gasped as he pulled her up easily. She looked around, and noticed
something was wrong. She remembered the man who lay still, breathing
but not concious. He had been knocked back, and had hurtled through
the air into the wall. Now he was gone.
"Bruce, do you know
where that man went?"
Bruce blinked and smiled. "You"re
welcome." He shrugged his shoulders as she rolled her eyes. "I
don"t know. The other guy is over there, wrapped up nice and
tight. I take it he is dead by the puncture wounds in his neck."
She
decided not to look. "The other man. Did you see him when you
got here?"
Bruce shook his head. "Our good friend "The
Captain" is the only one I saw when I came here."
"We
have to get out of here," Misty said, dismissing the man. "This
key should open the door up there."
Nodding, Bruce ran to the
staircase, and up the steps to the door. Close behind, Misty
followed. Bruce taken the key from her as she got to the top, and
unlocked the door.
As it swung open slowly, she started to regret
it as they both were staring at the barrel of a grenade launcher,
held by an angry woman.
Alyssa was furious. They were not
meant to make it. They were supposed to die, like the others. The
cultists died, the zombies died, Dr Oldring died; why didn"t
they?
"You think you can just get away with this?" she
snarled at them, feeling powerful as they dropped their weapons and
raised their hands. "You were supposed to die!"
"What
is going on?" the man asked sternly. "What is your
problem?"
Alyssa felt rage flood her body, and without
hesitation, she bashed the girl in the stomach, and sneered as she
fell to her knees, coughing and moaning in pain. She was scaring
them, she knew it.
"I"ll tell you what my problem is,"
she snapped, watching Bruce"s face twist in hatred. "Nobody
appreciates my work, and you are among those ignoramous". You
don"t deserve to live!" She treated him to a grin. "And
you won"t. Know why? Because I am going now, and if you dare
follow me, I"ll blow your freaking heads off!"
She used
her launcher to force them to go inside, the man slowly helping the
girl up, leading her away from Alyssa.
"Good people,"
she mocked. "You got that part right."
Alyssa turned,
and started to make her way out when she noticed something. Didn"t
the girl have a handgun?
"Stupid bitch," she heard
muttered from behind.
Shocked and afraid, Alyssa turned on the
spot, about to fire-
- and suddenly she was falling down the
stairs, the grenade launcher lost down further flights of steps and
into a fire raging below. She hit the floor, and Alyssa cried in
pain. Her shoulder was killing her, the pain unbearable. She glanced
to see it, and saw a hole in her labcoat, blood trickling out of it.
She had been shot.
Before she could respond any further, a blurry
shadow stood over her, and with a swift movement of the foot she was
out cold.
Bruce stood in shock for a while, the events sinking
into his head. They had been led into the room under grenade launcher
point, and as the bitch, Alyssa, was about to leave he had grabbed
Misty"s handgun, cursed her and fired once, aiming for her head.
However, he had been in a rush, and the shot had been off target.
It had been a hit, but not a kill, which was a shame. If there was
anything that woman deserved, it was to die.
The coughing of Misty
brought him back to his senses, and he helped her up to her feet. She
seemed fine; alittle winded by the hit but apart from that she was
healthy.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked.
"She
flinched as she touched her stomach, and groaned quietly. "I"ll
live, thanks. Nice shooting, Tex!"
Bruce held back a grin.
"Afraid not," he replied. "She is still
alive."
"Well," Misty smiled weakly. "We can
change that."
As Misty walked to the staircase, she
gasped.
"What is it?" Bruce asked worriedly, feeling his
spirit sink.
Misty turned to face him. "She is gone!"
