Chapter 11
The Water Door
"Okay so what are we looking for?" Rebecca asked as she walked through the door out of the room with the dead spiders. She and Billy took turns using the room as a toilet and now that she was done, they started moving.
"The Obedience and Discipline tablets," Liana answered as she swished her sharp tail back and forth, "And where are we going for our next move?"
"The water motif door whose key I just found at the near expense of my life."
"Yeah, sorry again," Billy cringed, "I should have given you the shotgun or something when I had the chance once you got in there."
"Don't worry about it. You guys still came through for me in the end."
"Yeah, but next time you might not be so lucky. From now on, we don't split up so this won't happen again." Liana suggested.
"Alright, but if for whatever reason we do separate, don't worry about it since I have this now," Rebecca concurred as she showed off her new MP5 sub-machine gun, "Next time those hunters won't get me."
"You know what I find weird?" Liana commented, "How Billy's the big tough military dude, but you're the one carrying around the grenade launcher, the bandolier, your pistol, and the MP5 when he's only carrying the shotgun and a pistol. Why don't you, Billy, give Rebecca your shotgun in exchange for the other bigness?"
"But I like my shotty," Billy said with a cutely sad expression for a moment making the girls chuckle. His expression changed when a thought popped into his head, "I'll take the 'nade launcher though if it bothers you."
"No way, man. Finders, keepers." Rebecca reacted while holding her weapon protectively.
"Fair enough, Becks. But seriously, if you ever need to switch if all that awesome crap gets too heavy, don't hesitate to ask." Billy offered.
"Thanks, I might take you up on that later." Rebecca answered as she opened the door to the main hall.
"Hey wait a minute," Liana stopped, "Did you guys ever go through that door?" she asked while pointing to one of the knight doors that seemed to lead to the front of the facility.
"No, last time it was sealed up by the swords." Billy answered as he changed course and walked to the door gripping his pistol. Rebecca followed suit, keeping in mind more monsters would probably sit in silence on the other side waiting for their prey to emerge. Liana suddenly tensed. Rebecca noticed and her adrenaline started pumping. The last time Liana tensed with that look of weariness and sense of presence, a hoard of giant tarantula babies tried to kill them in the hallway to the basement. And before that, she tensed up when she sensed the giant centipede coming. That look always meant something very dangerous approached them.
"Billy," Liana spoke softly standing as still as a statue, "Don't move."
"Why? What is it?" he asked, trying to obey her advice.
"There's a big hairy spider on you," She answered slow and calm. Billy turned white and gulped, "Just…don't make any sudden movements to scare it. I'll get it. Just don't move." Liana approached quietly as Billy started trembling.
"Where is it?" he asked shakily.
"Right…there!" Suddenly Billy felt a bite to the back of his neck. He yelped and ran to the corner of the room screaming his head off.
"Aaaa! Get it off me! Get it off me! Aaa!" When he turned around he saw Liana and Rebecca nearly doubling over with laugher.
"What the hell?" Billy felt the back of his neck looking for a bite mark and as he suspected he found nothing of the sort. Liana just played a trick and pinched him.
"You should have seen the look on your face!" Rebecca laughed. She nearly burst into giggles when Liana told Billy about the spider, especially since it didn't exist. Luckily for Liana, Rebecca can keep a strait face when she needs to.
"Come on, man! You think I'd actually get all serious and stuff over a little spider? I'm not arachnophobic." Said Liana trying to control her laughter
"But I am!" Billy complained, "So shut up! It's not funny!"
"Yeah, Lee! This is no time to laugh. This is serious." Rebecca said with the weirdest serious look ever. She stared at Liana like that for all of five seconds before they started cracking up. How could they not laugh after all? A big, tough, ex-marine screaming like a girl over a little spider? It's like the elephant screaming over a mouse. It's just funny.
"You all suck." Billy pouted as he followed the girls through the metal door.
Fortunately, nothing lurked on the other side for them. They basically ended up on the front porch of the facility. If the condition of the grounds had life and care, it would give whoever came a spectacular arrival across a long stone bridge above a tall cliff with elegant stone railings, which had now mostly diminished. Liana hopped onto one of the railings.
"Watch your step around here, guys," Liana informed while looking over the crumbling edge, "I don't even want to think about how far down that goes."
"Note taken," Billy thanked while looking around the area for anything useful. Rebecca found a small elevator that went to the third floor. It had stopped up there and she tried to call it down but the battery had been removed so nothing happened.
"Hey Liana, can you do me a favor?" Rebecca asked politely.
"Sure," Liana jumped to her side, "What do you need?"
"Can you climb up there and see what's around?"
"No prob. Be right back," Liana jumped to the first metal beam and gracefully climbed and leapt up the outside of the shaft with such speed she disappeared in a flash. A moment later, she peaked her head over the edge and called, "We've been up here before! It leads to the centipede room!"
"Okay, thanks! Come on down and we can go use the key!" Rebecca called back. Liana spotted something on top of one of the pillars below. She jumped off the tall elevator shaft and landed next to the pillar. She hopped, grabbed the top of the pillar, and did a pull-up to see what lay there.
"There you are!" she smiled as her tail snaked around the object and pulled it off the stone. She let go of the pillar and showed the object to her friends, "I found the discipline tablet."
"Hey, great," Billy commented, "Nice use of your tail too."
"Yeah, it comes in handy." Liana agreed as she let the tablet plop into her hand.
"Everything clear?" Rebecca asked.
"Yeah I think that's all there is around here." Billy answered.
"Okay, let's go then." The B.O.W. said as she went back inside the facility.
The trio entered the grand hall again and headed towards their destination, the humans feeling slightly safer in a place with lights and no cliffs to beware of. Rebecca and Billy didn't show it, but ever since they heard about the giant bat that stalked somewhere out there and could have snatched them up before they knew what hit them, they felt afraid to go outside. Of course they felt safer with Liana there, but natural fear and paranoia stayed with them like a haunting ghost. Mistakes happen and nobody can achieve perfection in fighting and protection, not even Liana. She couldn't kill the bat when she first ran into it. Well, she probably could've if she had the time to finish the fight. If she stuck around for the kill, Billy and Rebecca wouldn't have woken up and they'd be another pair of zombies for her to deal with.
They stopped at the staircase to the centipede room (the art room, their destination beside them) when they heard a sound. Rebecca knew it all too well: the giant cockroaches again.
"Wait here a second. I'll be right back." Liana said as she unsheathed the claws on one hand. She leapt up the stairs five at a time with the tablet in one hand. The hissing of the insects were replaced with their dying screeches. A moment later, the sound of a heavy metal door opening (the third knight door apparently) and a couple seconds later they heard it close and Liana trotted down the stairs to their side again, her claws sheathed in her fingers.
"All ready?" Rebecca asked as she walked into the art room.
"Yup. The room's safe and the second tablet's in place. The last one must be through there." She pointed to the blue door on the other side of the room.
"Right," Rebecca unlocked the door and tossed the key aside, "Into the unknown again." She opened the door, pistol ready.
Billy quickly strafed in and aimed his gun down the eerie hall to the right of the door. He scanned the hall, watching and waiting for something to attack. He heard only the buzzing of the faint lights above and only saw a dim hall full of cracks and grime.
"Clear." He informed, signaling for the girls to follow. Rebecca stepped out first, gun ready and Liana zipped behind them.
"Sense anything, Lee?" Billy asked. Liana concentrated for a moment.
"Nothing in the hall," she answered, turning to the door to their right, "Let's check in here."
The next room sat enshrouded in darkness, but not so much that they couldn't see. It looked like a surveillance room. It had to be with all the tapes, film, control panels and TVs there. They couldn't find anything that stood out in particular. Liana snuck around the corner and continued searching. She smelled something odd in the room. She found the source on the control panel and the floor. She recognized the smell and didn't even have to touch it to know what made the slimy substance: the leeches.
"Hey guys, I think there's leeches in here," she warned keeping a calm tone, "We should leave. I found a lot of their slime."
The trio frantically searched faster, knowing that any minute those little devils might come back. Someone had been using the equipment in there recently, but God knows who it could be in a place like that. Liana spotted a crank on one of the desks.
"That's odd," she thought, "Pretty out of place." She was about to pick it up when she heard the disgusting sound of sliding masses behind her. She turned around and saw the leeches rise up and form the shape of a human.
"Run!" she warned her friends as she kicked the monster back against the rack of tapes. Suddenly, the wobbly leech imitation of a human solidified over as its slime made some strange grayish-brown weak skin. The form of leeches opened the skin on the lower part of the head, creating a mouth. Inside the gaping hole sat at least a dozen of the little freaks, all with their tiny fanged mouths open on their bellies awaiting their dinner. At the same time the monster quickly stretched its arms across the room in attempt to grab Liana. She unsheathed her claws and cut off the appendages. The leeches that received a direct hit died while the rest attached to them broke out of the skin and slithered back to the rest of the hoard still standing to recreate the arms.
When Billy and Rebecca heard Liana's warning, they automatically turned to the direction of her alcove. The second they saw the dead leeches hit the walls they ran out into the hall. They wanted to help but the only weapons they had that would do any significant damage to the thing could also hurt or kill Liana in the process. Besides, when Liana told them to run they knew from experience that they better follow orders. They didn't worry too much about her though. She handled one of the "leech-men" before without too much trouble when she looked for them after finding the anti-virus.
Liana leapt at the thing and started slashing at its head and chest. With every blow she delivered leeches died and holes in the skin emerged, but the large amount of leeches remaining just filled in the space. Interestingly enough, the skin didn't regenerate. It might have if she wasn't busy hacking it open and widening the holes. Eventually very few of the group would exist to "heal" the form's wounds (or crawl on their victim and attack individually) and they would retreat, but it takes time to do so. Liana decided she had no time to finish it off because she smelled another large group coming into the hall somewhere. It could mean big trouble for Billy and Rebecca. She had to injure the "leech-man" enough in one hit to slow it down and make an escape. She dove her clawed hands and sharp tail into the center of its chest making sliced pieces of the leeches from the inside push out the back and stick to the wall with a combination of their clear slime and yellow insides. The backs of her hands touched inside the abomination and just as quick as she dove her weapons in, she pushed her hands apart and her tail up before the little monsters had time to bite. This caused the thing's torso to rip vertically into two and the weakened head sever apart to pieces. With the "leech-man" reduced to piles of fist-sized horrors all over the alcove, she darted away and out the door, slamming it behind her before the thing had a chance to regenerate and follow her.
Liana ran into the hall to meet Rebecca and Billy. She smelled more leeches ahead, a lot of them and coming closer. They were unpredictable and extremely dangerous. She had to warn her friends because even with their weapons the leeches could cause a lot of problems especially since Billy and Rebecca can't sense where they will come from. If the leeches' large numbers don't form a leech-man, they are even more dangerous because killing one large form comes with more ease than trying to kill countless small things crawling all over you and the floor.
She had to hurry. The first leech-man could find and follow her any minute.
"Rebecca! Billy!" Liana called out, "There's more leeches here! Get back! They're around the corner!"
Billy rounded the corner before he could react to Liana's warning. Sure enough a leech-man wobbled towards him. Its feet and hands couldn't count as appendages. The ends of the legs and arms just spread out on the bottom like amoebas, making a disgusting squishing and gushing sound as it walked. It elongated its arm to grab Billy but his quick reflexes allowed him to dodge it. At the same time he dropped his pistol and pulled out his shotgun. He fired once and the monster received a hole in its gut and a good shove ten feet backwards and to the floor. Billy quickly grabbed his 9mm pistol and holstered it while running back to the girls.
No one can blame him for feeling scared at the sight of that thing. After all, last time he ran into one of them he was half-dead from the T-Virus and it would have killed him in his period of weakness if Liana hadn't shown up in time.
"Where the hell did that come from!" he asked in an almost panicked tone while pressing his back up against the wall. Billy mentally kicked himself for running away. He could have killed the thing if he started shooting it while it was down and vulnerable. He ran back to the wall mostly out of fear but also because of the habit he inherited from battlefields while in the Marines. You fire once (or fire a small burst if you have an automatic weapon) then move for cover so your enemies don't have much of a chance to shoot you.
"I don't know! This place is full of surprises!" Rebecca answered.
"Yeah and we better kill that one now," Liana suggested, "Because I didn't kill the one back there and I think I hear it coming."
"Oh great, we're cornered," Billy said in frustration. He thought fast and came up with a plan, "I'll take this one out. Rebecca, you watch the door we just came out of. That is where you smell them from right, Lee?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, so Rebecca if you see anything come out of that door you blow it away with your grenade launcher," he told the cop. He then began to inform the other girl, "And Lee, you're only backup in case something goes wrong. I don't want to risk you getting hit with a grenade or a shotgun round. I'll take out the one in the hall. My shotgun can kill it faster than your claws. We need to kill this thing fast or we could get in big trouble if both get close at the same time."
"Agreed and I'll keep a good eye on you two." Liana nodded. Billy nodded and ran out to confront the leech-man again.
Now the monster had filled the hole up by distributing more leeches to the "wounded" area to even itself out, but it was skinnier and probably more fragile much to the advantage of Billy. He pumped his shotgun and fired at its chest. Because the distance of the shot was further away it didn't knock the thing over, create as big a hole, or push it back as far. Billy fired again and the monster's torso stretched back from the hit momentarily as if it tried to lean back and touch its head to the floor. However the legs kept it moving forward and the torso pulled back up again.
"Damn it, this would be a lot easier if it felt pain." Billy said to himself as he cocked his weapon again and fired a fourth round, splitting it in half. The torso and legs toppled to the floor. The leeches that made the legs popped out of the skin and slithered back to the remains of the body to recreate the bottom half. Billy was about to fire again when the torso stretched one of its arms and grabbed his neck. Billy let out a surprised yelp and it quickly pulled him down to its open mouth. Just as fast he shoved his weapon in its slimy mouth and fired. All the creatures that made up the head died instantly in their own little explosion. He even heard one.
"Heh, funny timing," he thought, "Must have been Rebecca's grenade." Billy managed to release himself from the arm's grip and fired two more times into the thinned-out weak monster. Hardly any leeches remained, luckily, since Billy had to reload his shotgun anyways. The few monsters that lived retreated. The human didn't pay attention to where they went since he had to check on the girls and make sure they were okay.
"Hey Becks! Lee! You guys all right?" Billy called while trotting back to their position. He turned the corner and saw smoke clearing to show a gaping hole in the wall showing the inside of the surveillance room. Some of the equipment managed to stay intact, "Becks?"
"Yeah we're here." Rebecca answered coughing and waving the smoke away from her face.
"Okay," Billy sighed with relief, "Lee?"
"Present!" Liana chirped from the blown open room while raising her hand like an excited kindergartener.
"How come you're not affected by the smoke and what are you doing in there?" Billy inquired.
"Because I can hold my breath for a long time now and I'm looking for survivors."
"Lemme guess, you're bored?" he asked while loading his last seven rounds into his shotgun before he holstered it on his back.
"Yes. Ah-ha! There's one!" she said as she stepped on a leech, killing it in an instant.
"Ewww! Liana, that's gross! It's all over your foot now!" Rebecca complained, "Quit stepping on them and clean off your foot. God, it's like I'm babysitting a five-year-old."
"Why are you nagging at me? Billy's got leech guts on him too." Liana motioned to the yellow substance on Billy's face and shirt because of his close range shots at the leech-man. Billy hadn't noticed probably because of his preoccupation with his friends' well-being. Rebecca didn't notice either since she only looked at him when the smoke still clouded some of her vision.
Liana tore off one of her shirtsleeves and tossed to Billy for him to use as a clean-up rag, even though the sleeve wasn't very clean (just cleaner). But then, how could you have clean clothes after shooting zombies and other monsters for countless hours in the middle of the night.
"Yeah, but he didn't make a mess of himself on purpose. He was just defending himself and got icky."
"Same with me, then." She said as a rebuttal while tearing off another piece of her shirt to use as a towel for her slimed bare foot.
"No," Rebecca sighed in frustration, "You don't need to kill those random leeches because they aren't threatening you, so you're just being stupid!"
"Becks, have you noticed she's only trying to justify it to annoy you?" Billy asked while trying to contain his laughter. Apparently Rebecca didn't notice Liana giggling to herself.
"Let's go." Rebecca said in defeat after a long pause. She turned to her left and walked back down the hall. Billy and Liana just chuckled after her.
"Hey Billy, I got a couple glances of you fighting that leech monster. Good job. That thing didn't stand a chance, not against your shotgun of doom." Liana complimented.
"Heh, thanks. I killed him faster than you could have." He answered while sticking his tongue out.
"Yes and you're gonna get more target practice in just a second."
"Yeah I can smell them too. God, their stench is potent." Rebecca commented.
"You're telling me? I'm the one with the better senses, so it really sucks for me." Liana added as they reached the door where the scent came from.
"Okay, how many are in there?" Rebecca asked readying her pistol.
"I don't know," Liana answered, "But we can take them no matter how many there are."
"Uh-huh. Billy you take the left and I'll take the right." Rebecca ordered ready to turn the doorknob of the paint-chipped wooden door.
"Gotcha." Billy winked twirling his pistol. Rebecca nodded then burst in the door like lightning with her human comrade. Luckily the closest zombie staggered too far away to do her any harm. She aimed for a second then fired a clean shot to the head and did the same to its ally in the corner of the room.
At the same time behind her Billy fired two bullets at two enemies in different areas of the room. He fired them one after the other in what seemed like half a second, landing perfect hits into their skulls: instant kills.
"I'm jealous Mr. Marksman," Rebecca pouted playfully, "You're so pro with your aim. I wish I could do that."
"Thanks, it's all just experience. You're pretty good for a rookie though."
"Found it!" Liana informed so abruptly it made the other two jump. They turned to the right and saw she had snuck in and was looking at something on the workbench. The dark room they were in was filled with tables and tools. A corner had a couple rusted drums full of something they didn't want to check (if it had anything in them at all.) On the other side of the room stood some shelves filled with more various tools and such and a pile of more of them in the corner. Billy spotted some shotgun rounds on one of the shelves, so he took it with a smile. The walls had cracks and stains all over. The flickering lights caught the presence of a few windows.
Billy and Rebecca came to the little workbench with the only light that worked the way it should in the room. Clamped in a vise was the last of the tablets: obedience.
"This must have been what that random crank handle was for in the video room." Liana thought. Luckily for them, she didn't need the handle to open the vise. She quickly pulled the vise apart and caught the tablet.
"Now we go to the observatory right?" Billy asked.
"Uh-huh, but first we have to check the room at the end of the hall. We haven't gone in there yet. We might find something useful." She answered as she walked out of the room towards the "possibly useful room". The others followed quick enough to see her break the door down with a quick kick.
"Liana, would you stop vandalizing the place?" Rebecca sighed as she followed her in.
"Me vandalizing? Did you forget who put that giant hole in the wall with a grenade?" Liana laughed.
"Touche." Rebecca admitted.
The door led to a smaller hallway with two doors. One to the right on the opposite wall and one to the left at the end of the hall. The hall was brighter than the other room with a few functioning lamps on the walls.
"I smell a little something in the left door, but it doesn't smell like there are any zombies in the other one." Liana informed.
"Yeah, I don't smell anything potent. Let's go in the non-smelly room first since it's closer anyways." Billy said while opening the door to the right.
As expected from the absence of a rotting odor, nothing laid in wait there for them. The brighter room and pleasant atmosphere gave them a calm and relieving feeling, a nice change from what they've been seeing recently.
It was a nice little bar. People hadn't been there for a while, apparent because of all the dust the room collected. A small wooden table sat to the right of the door. To the left stood the small bar with stools. In the back of the room were a few nicely crafted windows showing the nearly pitch black night outside. The ceiling had a single fan that rotated ever so slowly. A grand piano sat lonely near the corner of the wall on the opposite side of the bar. Even a sheet of music sat out on the small shelf above the keys. The room looked as if the people inside had just disappeared, but then a lot of the rooms looked like that.
"Well if there was ever a place in this facility for taking a break, this is it," Billy commented as he and Rebecca holstered their pistols, "Anyone for a drink?" he smirked as he zipped to the bar.
"Billy! This is no time to be drinking!" Rebecca scolded with her hands on her hips.
"Oh, on the contrary Doll-face," he said as he looked around the shelves for his favorite liquor, "This is the perfect time to drink. We're in a crisis, after all."
"Exactly! So no booze! You need to keep every ounce of your wits here or you could get yourself and the rest of us killed," Rebecca complained while setting her grenade launcher down and approaching the counter. As she continued to nag about what even the smallest intake of alcohol does, Billy barely listened while he found a bottle of whiskey and examined the year. He gave it a small smile and a nod as he opened it and poured himself a glass as Rebecca's speech continued on, "You'll only cause problems. You're an ex-Marine, Billy. You should know better."
"But alcohol is the cause and solution to all of life's problems." Billy countered Rebecca's lecture while raising his glass of whiskey to his lips for a drink.
"Don't forget the cause part of that, Homer Simpson." Liana said as she snatched the glass away with her prehensile tail and set the tablet down on the counter. She startled Billy a little. She always had a tendency to pop up out of nowhere right next to him.
"Is it your hobby to sneak up on people? You're gonna make me piss my pants someday." Billy said as he watched her walk passed him to the sink. She set the booze down and grabbed another glass from behind her with her tail and placed it in her hand. She turned on the faucet and poured clear (luckily) water into it.
"Here you go. This'll hydrate you," She said like a cheery waitress as she shoved the glass in his hand, "Drink up!" Billy rolled his eyes and started drinking in disappointment.
"Lee, why do you gotta spoil all my fun?" he complained, "And who needs hydration? Hydration's for losers." He took another gulp.
"Yeah it's so loser-y that it makes you live." Liana said sarcastically as she handed Rebecca a glass of water as well, receiving a quick thanks from the cop. Liana gulped down her own glass too as everyone stood in silence as they drank. She noticed Billy's whiskey still sitting by the sink. Out of curiosity she bent over and sniffed it, then cautiously stuck her tongue out to take a taste. The second her tongue touched the liquor, she felt like puking.
"Eww! Ah, gross!" she exclaimed while spitting into the sink and drinking straight from the faucet in attempt to remove the horrifically bitter taste in her mouth. Billy just laughed at her while setting his empty water glass down, "How can you drink that stuff?" Liana asked with a look of sickly disgust on her face before she continued to guzzle water.
"Cuz I'm a man! I can handle firewater. Cuz I need my firewater which you just now dumped down the sink you stingy little person!"
"Little? I'm almost as tall as you!" She retorted while giving him a refill on water.
"And I'm hungry too, damn it! I want bacon!" Billy said gruffly.
"Yeah some hot food would really hit the spot." Rebecca said while dreaming of a hot meal.
"Quit talking about meat, you'll make me hungry again." Liana warned.
"Yeah and we don't want to see that, you necrovore." Billy said into his glass during a sip.
"I prefer 'scavenger' thank you, Sir Make-Up-A-Word."
"Yeah, okay, sorry Lee. So, did you find anything in here?" Billy asked.
"Not really, but one of the walls is hollow." Liana answered.
"Really? Where?" Rebecca inquired putting her empty glass down.
"Right over there," she motioned with her head to the wall next to the bar, "Here I'll show you. I found this by accident while you gave your booze lecture." Liana led Rebecca to the wall and slowly walked across it, knocking on it the whole way. They heard a lower tone of the sound for a few feet then the sound went back to normal.
"Nice work, Liana." Rebecca complimented.
"Thank you," she said politely as she scratched an "x" into the wall paper of the hollow spot with the sharp "nail" of her index finger, "But we'll take care of it later because right now is break time."
"Indeed, break time it is," Billy added while rummaging around the cabinets under the counter, "Hey I found some grub!"
"What did you find?" Rebecca asked, walking up.
"Peanuts!" Billy pulled up a basket full of packages of peanuts, "I hope you're not allergic."
"Nope," Rebecca answered taking a package, "Hey Liana, I assume you don't want any."
"True," she said taking a seat on one of the stools, "These aren't made for nuts and stuff," She snapped her jaws at the air next to Rebecca playfully a couple times showing off her sharp set of teeth, "I used to like them though when I had a normal mouth." She rested her chin on her crossed arms, letting out a small melancholy sigh remembering and wishing for the past.
"Hey Becks," Billy said with a mouth full of peanuts, "You said you can play the piano, right?"
"A little, yeah."
"Well how about if you play a tune for us," Billy suggested in hopes to lighten the mood and cheer Liana up by moving the attention of her mind to something else, "Try that piece that's sitting there on the little thinga-ma-jig."
"Well, I'll try but I'm not that good at trying to play something I've never seen," she set her water and peanuts down and sat down on the bench, "Huh, doesn't even have a title and it's pretty short too. Maybe the other pages are missing…Oh well, less to worry about," She looked over the notes for a minute, following them with her fingers playing on the air above the keys, "Okay, here goes nothing."
She slowly tried playing but unfortunately she was very off key most of the time, making Billy and Liana snicker. She came to the last notes, a little finale on the keys with combined notes. It being the most complicated part for her, she stopped a moment trying to put her fingers on the right keys. When she pressed down the sound was the most off-key you could go and very loud and low at the same. Her friends burst out laughing as she got up and sat down on the stool next to Liana, blushing with embarrassment.
"I told you I wasn't that good."
"But you didn't mention you were horrible!" Billy cackled like a crazy old man.
"You're mean!" Rebecca pouted half-playfully, half-irritated.
"Sorry Rebecca, but that really was pretty bad," Liana giggled, "But don't worry I totally would have done worse since piano playing is all Greek to me. But I'm sure if you had some practice on it you'd be really good."
"Thanks." Rebecca acknowledged. Their conversation stopped when they heard the piano again. They turned around and saw Billy playing the piece. His rough hands gently played the piece that sounded like the conclusion of a waltz. Before the girls could say anything, suddenly the hollow part of the wall Liana found moved aside showing a secret cellar.
"Well isn't that a neat trick. Thanks Billy! You saved me the effort of having to break the wall open." Liana smiled.
"You can play the piano?" Rebecca said mostly to herself. After a moment she started cracking up, "You can play the piano!"
"What? Am I weird or something?"
"It's just kind of funny because you're this big bad-boy ex-marine and you play the piano like a dainty little girl."
"What do you want me to play it like a tough guy? That would be horrifying! I'd probably break the piano too."
"I know and it was very loverly, but it still looked kind of funny." Liana chimed in while looking around the dusty cellar. Countless bottles of wine were stacked up on the shelves with barrels in the corner. One of the barrels had eight magnum round sitting on it. At the end of the cellar were more barrels, some empty bottles and a battery.
"Could have used that for the busted elevator if we had to," Liana thought to herself, "Oh well, luckily I'm more useful."
"I found some bullets, they don't look small enough to be for your 9mm pistols though." Liana said holding them out to her comrades.
"Oh yeah those are for .357 magnum! Too bad I don't have one on me though." Billy informed.
"Well I'll keep them for you in case we find some." Liana said pocketing the ammo.
"Alright, so we done here?" Billy asked.
"Yeah pretty much," Liana walked out and to the counter again. She grabbed the tablet, "Here you guys take some nuts," she snagged a handful and stuffed them in Rebecca's fanny pack as full as she could, which wasn't very much because of the cluttered state of her pack, "You'll need some food to get through this seeing as how we have no idea how long we'll be stuck here or investigating or however you want to say it."
"Good idea. Thanks Liana," Rebecca nodded as she slung the grenade launcher over her shoulders again, "So we all ready to keep going?" Her friends gave an affirmative answer, "Alright then let's go." They all walked out of their safe zone and into danger again with their guns ready.
The trio walked down the hall to the rusty metal door. The scent of decay on the other side didn't nearly have the strength a full rotting corpse does, so their minds eased up a bit. They opened it to show a decently lit room with rust, cracked walls, lab equipment and tables. Some super computers sat on the other side of the room. In the middle of a room stood what looked to be a metal booth. Some of the metal tables looked like they had a good dose of dried blood on them, either that or lots of rust.
"Well isn't this a pleasant little place." Billy said sarcastically while he and Rebecca holstered their pistols.
"Well at least there's something useful here." Rebecca said with optimism as she took a first aid spray from the surface of a wooden table to their right. They all walked around the haunting room to see if they could find anything. Rebecca wandered into the booth and saw what looked like an autopsy table. Once again, she couldn't tell if the red stains were rust or loads of old blood. She figured for the worst by seeing a pile of scalpels, forceps, and other tools used by a pathologist. On the other side of the booth sat a wooden table with two handgun clips. She pocketed them and put the red herb under the table into her medpack. She noticed what looked like bone fragments strewn on the floor along with a couple heavily decomposed rats. The bones were nearly picked clean by them it seemed.
"What on earth was going on in here?" Rebecca thought to herself. Much of the facility felt like a cold case and this was no exception, "Rebecca, you probably don't want to know." The whole building stood as a nightmare and it felt like it more so every time she found more of the horrific truth.
"Well, nothing new around here." Liana reported.
"Same here. I think it's time to go to the observatory." Billy suggested. Rebecca nodded and let Liana lead the way out and towards the observatory.
The trio walked towards their destination wondering what they would encounter next. Liana already knew some of it already since she woke up on the other side of the facility. She felt a little like their search ended as a waste of time when they could have moved on faster by using her strength as a short-cut by jumping up on the roof and down to the other side of the observatory. But at least they found ammo and much needed medical supplies. And the break gave some nice bonding time and calmed their nerves from the twisted monsters and experiments done to create them. Liana smiled at the memory of the happenings in the bar for a moment, then looked down at the tablet in her hands.
"Well we might as well use this now," Liana thought to herself, "At this point it would probably be faster than me giving them piggy-backs over the observatory."
They hiked up the stairs to the room with the dead giant insects. The humans couldn't help but feel curious about where Liana woke up.
"Maybe she could show us." They thought. At the same time they felt a little guilty at this idea. They thought it would be as if they were doctors at a mental hospital interested in the behavior of their patients and not caring at all that they had a disorder. But knowing Liana, she would probably not mind and show them everything for the sake of investigating more of the experiments and use it to bust the corporation. Unfortunately, they hadn't kept the evidence they found. They could only carry so much after all. Their own safety was their first priority. That means medical and weapons. Hopefully they could find hard evidence of Liana's case and use that as a backbone for their story. If only they had a camera it would give them harder proof and more of it.
Liana opened up the metal knight door and stepped into the observatory. The walkway around the upper part had boxes stacked up high. The door on the other side was locked, but they hoped that the third tablet would fix that problem. And if not, they always had plan B: Liana. They climbed down the ladder on the side onto the grilling of a floor. A wall of electronics sat opposite the giant telescope and the three hollows for the tablets. Two were filled with the discipline and unity tablets and the other sat empty until Liana set the last one inside. After a moment or two the building jerked, making the three yelp in surprise. They felt it lower down until water nearly seeped through the grating.
They climbed up the ladder and tried the once-locked door to find it open. Rebecca pushed the heavy door open to see a bridge leading across a wide river to a tall church.
"Hey if we lowered down, then what's through the door we came in?" Billy asked as he pushed it open to find out. His eyes widened when he saw a small group of more infected primates in the area where he and Rebecca first found Liana. They screamed at him showing their yellow-toothed mouths dripping with discolored saliva. They raced at him and almost reached him when he slammed the door on them and stumbled backwards. He tried to slow his breathing down and calm his pounding heart as the crazed carriers pounded on the door, futilely trying to open it and reach their tasty-looking prey.
"Careful there, Billy," Liana warned, "Evil monkeys aren't your friend."
"Heh, yeah," Billy smiled awkwardly, "Coming." He trotted back to his friends and readied his pistol for whatever lay outside in the open night.
