Chapter nine.

A hotel room door was open, a black rectangle in the surroundings of grey. Olivia was careful of her footing over the uneven, rubble-strewn floor, gently nursing her wounded shoulder blade. Ash and dust were already collecting in the gash, and she ignored it as she looked in the doorway, squinting into the dark, her fists clenched around the blood-spotted length of lead pipe.

She ventured deeper into the room, as shapes became cleared, in the shadows. A rotted mattress hung in tatters through the mesh of a rusted, twin-sized bed frame, and mold spotted the walls, the damp, musty smell permeating the air. Olivia covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve, muting her coughing, and her footing was weak as the floorboard gave slightly. She stepped back in alarm, and retraced her steps back to the hall.

Broken, half-burnt furniture littered the hall; old chests of drawers, bed frames, useless chairs. As odd as it looked, it seemed to Olivia as if, quite possibly, they had been added to the fire.

She would be very happy, to be out of this place.

She found the elevator doors shut off, and sighed, her breath fogging the air around her, and she raised the pipe, set to wedge it between the panels, when something suddenly punctured the metal cover, and she stumbled back in alarm. The blade retracted, only to be replaced by another, the sound of guttural clicking echoing in the elevator shaft. More triangular holes appeared in the doors, the noise of scrambling among the severed cables, and, suddenly, silence.

Olivia turned to run, when there was clicking in the dark. Her eyes darted to the shadows of the hall in turn, her heart thundering in her chest. Something very large scuttled across wooden floorboards, and Olivia stepped back into her own, dark corner.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

A fleshy, pink figure had emerged from the dark room Olivia had decided not to traverse; long, pointed limbs trembling, as it bobbed along. It resembled a human, in some ways; chest up, crab walking steadily along on scythe-like bones, freakish extensions of the forearms and shins. The head- what Olivia assumed was, in any case- battered about between knocked knees, affixed to the torso at the wrong end, to be human.

It paused, in its teetering, legs stabbing forward, testing the floor. The creature shivered and stilled, the clicking echoing in the hallway. It pranced in a circle for a few moments, apparently aware of the floor rot, and at last continued forward, toward her.

Olivia held her breath, and it ached in her chest, as her mind spun with thought. She just prayed that there weren't more...

She leapt out of the shadows with a yell, and the creature stumbled backward in apparent surprise. It hissed, as it squared off with her, spindly steps stabbing backward as it swiped forward at her.

Olivia raised the pipe to fend off the strike, and winced as the shock stung, in her hands. She ducked another cut forward, and jumped from a downward stab. She lifted the pipe, bringing it down to drive the blade of the creature's leg into the rotting floor, pinning it. The creature wrenched at the blade, when Olivia drove the wedge in deeper, and dodged a strike from the opposite leg. She repeated her process, until the thing was hissing and clicking wildly, struggling and shaking with effort. Olivia took aim, crushing its hanging skull in a single strike. It collapsed on itself like a dying spider.

Olivia wiped her lips on her sleeve, and hoisted the pipe on her shoulder with a nod.

"Olivia?" Came a muffled call, and she jumped with surprise.

"Walter?"

"The stairs are... um... well, they're something of missing... !"Olivia darted for the collapsed stairway, and cursed. Walter looked down on her, his brows creased with worry, "Now what?"

"We're going to have to get down this way, Walter- this place is crawling with... things."

Walter's eyes rounded, "Things?" he squeaked.

"Yes. Now come on, I need you to think about how to get down, okay?"

"How did you get down?"

Olivia frowned, "You helped me down, Walter."

"Oh." Walter looked up, his eyes spanning the inside of the cluttered, skeletal staircase, "Hmm. Well, I suppose... "he paused suddenly, looking frightened, "did you hear that?"

"Hear what? I didn't hear anything, Walter. Walter, no!" Olivia exclaimed, as it appeared that he was readying himself for a jump, "No, it's too dangerous!"

"I want my pipe back, when I get down there!" Walter leapt forward, rubble raining down the expanse as he cleared the gap, his boots finding ground on the broken staircase. He slipped suddenly, his arms shooting out to grasp at the railing. He was panting with fear as he pulled himself upright, shakily making his way downward.

"Walter, that was so stupid!" Olivia hissed.

Walter grinned, abashed, "It was, wasn't it?"

The wood was beginning to crumble, the supports creaking, "Walter, get over here, now!" Olivia demanded, and Walter scrambled forward, his foot breaking the floorboards every now and again. The staircase suddenly gave, and he jumped, falling short of the doorway at Olivia's feet, scrambling against the wall, "I've got you! Hang on!"

She gripped Walter's arms, hauling him up with all of her strength. There was a crack, as more of the stairway tumbled loose, clattering as it fell. Olivia experianced a blinding flash of burning pain as it struck the back of her head, and her grip slipped, before she tipped forward, her knees clipping the doorway as she fell.

She felt the firm impact of the floor as she hit, then the weight of the wreckage land over her, and finally the ring of the lead pipe striking cement sending her senses into silence.

xXx

Dust, not ash, clotted the blood on her damaged elbow, as her head twitched aside, blinding pain shooting across her forehead. She issued a small gasp and opened her eyes, fleetingly at first, until she could blink herself to her senses properly.

For an entire moment, she contemplated never getting up again.

Rustling movement drew her attention, and she held her breath, blurred senses struggling to sharpen in the dark. The flashlight beam glanced off the ceiling, and she willed herself to shift from her lying position. She could see, now, that she had been pulled out from under the stairway wreckage, and was reclining on a thinly carpeted floor.

"Hmm. Interesting," Walter was muttering to himself, and Olivia released her breath.

"Walter," she uttered weakly.

In a few moments, he was checking her pupils with the flashlight, and nodding affirmatively, "You're quite well-constructed, agent Dunham. A fall like that could have killed anyone less hearty- excluding yours truly, of course," he lowered the flashlight, letting her blink in the dark as he helped her sit up, "easy, now."

"Walter, what happened?" Olivia questioned, "where the hell are we?"

"I made a tremendous error in judgment that nearly killed us, firstly," Walter replied wryly, "but as for where we are..." he shrugged a shoulder in the shadows, "your guess is as good, if not better, than mine." He pointed the flashlight at a pile of assorted wreckage and garbage, continuing, "I've been looking for anything that might help us, to pass the time. Admittedly, it's been futile."

Olivia raised a hand to rub the back of her head, finding tender bruises, "Why didn't you scout around, try to find out where we are?"

"I couldn't leave you!" Walter exclaimed, "no, no that certainly wouldn't do, Peter would never forgive me."

Olivia found herself smiling, shaking her head slowly, "Thanks, Walter."

"And I need your help, in any case," Walter left her sitting to return to his rummaging, a tin can rattling across the floor, "you promised you would help me rescue Peter, and I'm not leaving you until we do. Until then, it would probably be best if the both of us didn't have to share a weapon, in this hell-hole."

Olivia let him continue with his absent-minded chattering, as she thought. Hell. That might explain it. She could be dead, "Walter," she interrupted, and he paused in his one-sided dialogue pertaining to Black Jack to listen, "do you think that's what it is?"

"What's what?" Walter questioned in return, bewildered.

"Do you think we're in hell?"

Olivia waited in the stifling darkness for his answer, and he returned to rifling as he uttered a small, innocent "Nope."

"Then... what is it?"

"It's a sheet test."

"A what?"

"A sheet test. They used to give us something called the sheet test, at St. Clare's. they put us in a room with an empty cot and a stack of blankets, and simply commanded us to make the bed. The problem was, the bottom sheet would never fit. Sometimes we'd end up ripping the thing, I remember one time when I was so careful, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't make it fit."

"If you knew it was too small, why didn't you just give up and tell them it was too small?"

Walter shrugged a shoulder, "there are many strange things, in the minds of the mad. I guess what they were teaching us was that no matter how hard we tried to force ourselves to fit, in a society that was threatened by our existence, we would never make it, in the rest of the world. If a sheet that was too small was enough to set us off, there was no way we could function, on the outside... it's the sort of conditioning they give you, when they know you're not going anywhere. 'Don't even try to help you, anymore."

Olivia watched him for a few moments, a he scuffed about, in the wreckage, "Things were really terrible there, weren't they?" she questioned.

Walter glanced up at her, then let out a sigh, smiling around at their settings, "about as bad as this," he replied.

Olivia smiled back wryly.

"Well, look at that!" Walter exclaimed, pulling something from the heap, "treasure!" It was an old crowbar, the red paint peeling away from the rusted iron, "this should come in handy, don't you think?"

"Definitely," Olivia admitted as he rose with it, polishing off a few of the paint chips with his sleeve as he weighed it in his hands. He approached and handed it to her.

"Happy birthday."

"Walter, are you sure...?" Olivia said uncertainly, taking the implement from him.

Walter nodded, "I've got my pipe, it's done me nothing but good. Besides, you deserve nice things." and Olivia laughed.

xXx