Animatus II: The Descent
Notes: Thanks for the reviews and your patience. I'm back in town now, so here's an update.
Previously:
"Smooth," Spike muttered to himself. Buffy followed after him, but was less successful in her landing.
"Ow," she muttered, looking up at him from the floor.
He smirked down at her and extended his hand. "Need some help, Slayer?" He asked.
"No," Buffy shot back, ignoring his hand as she pulled herself up to her feet.
"Sublevel Three?" Spike asked as they began descending the stairs.
Buffy nodded. "And with any luck, we'll find the anti-virus."
Chapter Eight: Footsteps:
The room disappeared in a haze of smoke as Faith and the soldiers opened fire on the zombies blocking the door to the stairwell. The gun shook in her hands as she pressed her finger back on the trigger. Though she knew that the gun was the best way to kill zombies, she preferred a stake to any other weapon. The splintery feel of the wood in her hand was like home; however, the gun felt cold and empty. Faith's eyes stung and her mouth filled with the bitter taste of gunpowder. The moaning of the zombies faded into the popping of bullets shooting out of the barrel of her gun and into the room. Releasing her finger from the trigger, she glanced around the room. A path had opened before them to the door.
"Come on!" Mark yelled, leading the group forward. Faith followed behind Jay with Diego following behind her. Her heart was thumping wildly in her chest. The zombies had started closing in around them again. But the path to the door remained unobstructed. Mark reached it first. Punching a code into the number pad next to the door, he waited impatiently, bouncing back and forth on the heels of his feet until the door slid open silently.
"Look's like we're in," Jay said, grinning widely.
Faith forced a smile back at him, though she found herself regretting the trip down into the Initiative more and more. She could sense that Diego felt the same. They poured through the door. Mark punched the code into the opposite number pad just as Diego slipped through. The metal doors slid closed, blocking the zombies from chasing after them. Faith closed her eyes, willing her pounding heart to calm. "What's this?" She heard Diego ask.
Opening her eyes, she looked down at the floor, where Diego was pointing at a metal grate. Her eyes followed the wall up to an opened vent. "Zombies?" She asked warily.
"Moving through the vents?" Mark shook his head. "I hope not. That wouldn't bode well for us."
"Would they even think to travel through the vents?" Jay questioned.
"Do they even think?" Diego furthered.
"Sometimes I wonder," Faith muttered. As she looked down at the grate lying on the floor, a strange feeling overcame her.
"There could be survivors down here," Mark theorized.
"That's true," Jay nodded. "Traveling through the ventilation system would be easier than trying to dodge all of those zombies."
"We don't even know how many there are on the other floors," Diego added. "This entire place could be swamped with them."
"Positive thinking," Faith reminded him. "Talking about the possibly overwhelming number of zombies facing us isn't helping me with that."
"I agree," Jay smirked.
"Do you hear that?" Faith asked suddenly, her Slayer hearing picking up the sound of boots striking the stairs.
"Hear what?" Mark asked warily.
"Sounds like footsteps," Faith muttered confusedly.
"Coming up or going down?" Diego asked, lifting his gun and glancing down the stairs.
"Going down," Faith answered, her brows furrowing as she wondered why zombies would be moving away from them.
"That doesn't make sense," Mark said.
"Unless they're not zombies," Diego reasoned. "Could be those survivors we were just talking about."
"Let's get moving," Mark commanded. "We'll catch up with them either way."
Faith followed from the rear as the three soldiers walked ahead of her. Her gun hung limply in her hands and she felt her eyelids starting to flutter closed. She was exhausted from the stress of trying to reenter the Initiative. Though she had Slayer strength and stamina, the whirlwind of emotions that had been running through her mind and body since the death of Buffy was starting to take its toll on her. She had felt numb at first, unable to comprehend the fact that her lover had been so cruelly ripped away from her. Gradually, other emotions had started to surface. She was angry with the Powers that Be for allowing Buffy to be taken from her and for allowing such a warrior to fall. She also was angry with herself for failing to protect the one person in the world about whom she cared.
She listened carefully to the footsteps that she could hear echoing up the stairs. She wondered if they were following the footsteps of other people who were trying to survive within the Initiative, or if they were following the lumbering walk of zombies searching for fresh meat. Though her group was moving quickly, the footsteps ahead of them remained out of reach and Faith wondered how far ahead those people were. The stairwell was dimly lit with blue emergency lighting. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the lack of light, but she wondered how the others were adjusting. Though they carried flashlights, they did not use them in the stairwell for fear that the light reflecting off of the walls would attract trouble.
She wondered what Giles, Willow, and Tara were doing at that moment. She imagined that they had left the barracks and had traveled to Los Angeles with Angel. The idea of assisting Angel in his quest to help the helpless sounded appealing to her, but she knew that she had to finish her life in Sunnydale before she could move on. A part of her would always linger in its streets with the ghost of her lover. Once she had recovered the anti-virus and ensured that the zombies could not spread anywhere else, she would join the remainder of her friends in Los Angeles. She smiled at the thought of considering Willow, Tara, and Giles friends, though she could not picture herself being happy again without Buffy. However, she knew that she had responsibilities as a Slayer. She had to continue, if not for herself, for those people that she was destined to protect.
"What do we know about Sublevel Three?" Faith asked to divert the group's attention from the constant moaning of the zombies. The sound was enough to drive anyone insane. Faith could feel it crawling underneath of her skin and she shivered in disgust.
"Only what some of the surviving scientists deemed to tell us," Diego answered, shaking his head angrily. "You know, they bring all of this on the world and then they act as if they're not responsible for what happened. They created these things. But they wouldn't tell us anything without sufficient…well, questioning," he finished lamely.
"Something tells me this interrogation wasn't so peaceable," Faith smirked.
"Not really," Mark grinned.
"Sublevel Three was where the scientists worked on experimental projects approved by the military," Diego continued. "Everything down there was confidential. Scientists working in neighboring labs had no idea what their fellow scientists were doing. They only knew about their projects. Fortunately, we managed to capture some of the people working on the Animatus virus."
"Apparently, a lot of scientists were involved in the project. It was incredibly important for the government," Mark added. "High priority stuff."
"The labs, where the virus was created, are located in Corridor H. It's quite a maze down there," Diego said. "It might take us a while to find it once we get there. Some of the passages might be blocked."
Faith nodded. Silence fell between them again and she noticed that she could no longer hear the footsteps that had been echoing up towards them. The fear that zombies might be waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs clutched at her heart, but she shook it away. She had to focus on placing one foot in front of the next. Otherwise, she knew that her heart would cave under the fear of the unknown lurking before her. They almost had reached the bottom of the stairs. Soon, they would enter Sublevel Three. Though a maze of corridors awaited them, Faith was confident that they would find the anti-virus. She only hoped that they would all make it back out of the Initiative alive.
…………………………
"Sublevel One," Spike announced as they past another sealed door guarded by a number pad. "Almost there, Slayer."
"Thanks for the narration, Spike," Buffy grumbled.
"I'm just trying to keep things interesting," Spike said defensively. "It's too damn quiet down here. All I can hear is those zombies. It creeps me out," he shuddered.
"Big, bad Spike is afraid?" Buffy asked jokingly.
"Oh, like you're not," Spike scoffed.
"Maybe a little," Buffy admitted. "Do you hear that?" She asked suddenly. She stopped walking, holding her hand out to prevent Spike from continuing past her. He smirked, knowing that her hand would not stop him if he desired to continue, especially in her deteriorating condition, but he stopped as well. He could sense that the Slayer was rapidly succumbing to the zombie virus. He wondered if she would last until Sublevel Three. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead and she gulped down air as if she could not suck in enough to fill her lungs. Her skin looked paler than a vampire's and her hands were trembling slightly.
"You feelin' okay, Slayer?" He asked.
"I asked you a question," Buffy said sharply, shooting him a harsh glare.
"What am I supposed to be listening for?" Spike rolled his eyes.
"Footsteps," Buffy said. "I thought that I could hear footsteps echoing down from above us."
Spike sighed and listened. At first, all he could hear was the moaning of the zombies wafting through the ventilation system. However, after a few moments, he became aware of an echoing pounding noise reminiscent of booted feet. "Sounds like four people," he stated. "Or zombies."
"You think they're following us?" Buffy asked.
"Could be," Spike said.
"We need to keep moving," Buffy replied as she continued down the stairs. Though she would never admit it to Spike, she was not sure how much farther she could go. Her legs shook as she descended the stairs. She always had known that she would die some horrible death because of her calling as the Slayer. But she had not envisioned a fate as horrible as the one that lay before her.
"You don't look so good," Spike stated, casting a sideways glance over at her.
"I'm fine," Buffy brushed him off.
"I'm sure you are," he smirked. "Slayers can be so stubborn," he added under his breath, knowing that Buffy could hear him.
They past the door to Sublevel Two and continued down the stairs, ever aware of the footsteps following after them. Though Buffy knew that there were survivors in the Initiative, she was convinced that the footsteps trailing them belonged to something else entirely. "How big is Sublevel Three?" Spike wondered aloud.
"I don't know," Buffy answered.
"It could take us a while to find what we're looking for," Spike continued.
"What're you trying to say?" Buffy asked, casting a wary look in his direction.
He grinned widely. "Maybe we should split up once we get down there."
"No way," Buffy shook her head.
"What?" Spike asked. "I won't betray you," he claimed. "You'll just have to trust me."
She nearly stopped at his words, remembering a moment not long ago when Faith had spoken the same to her. Faith and Anya had come to the dorm where she, Willow, Tara, and Riley had been holed up, waiting for death. Though Buffy had not believed Faith's claim that she could rescue them, Faith had simply smiled and said, "I guess you'll just have to trust me."
"What?" Spike asked, noting the faraway look on her face. "Did I say something?"
"No," Buffy shook away the memory. She had been angry when she had first seen Faith walk through the door. But she quickly had noticed how frightened Faith had seemed. Her anger had faded into something else – a wary acceptance. "We're not splitting up."
"Don't trust me?" Spike laughed. "That's alright. But I still maintain that we'd cover more ground."
"Be that as it may," Buffy commented, "we're sticking together. It's safer for both of us."
"You're already infected and I'm a vampire. I think we're pretty safe," Spike smirked.
"That doesn't mean they won't try to eat us," Buffy noted.
Spike frowned. "I hadn't thought of that."
"Might want to start," Buffy suggested. "I don't imagine it would be fun."
"Here we are," Spike announced as the door to the third Sublevel of the Initiative loomed before them. Buffy smiled, but her smile quickly faded. The world started to spin around her and she found herself crashing to the ground. Her knees slammed into the floor and she grimaced in pain. "Hey," Spike said, rushing over to her. "You alright?" He asked. Before she could answer, the raw taste of bile crept up her throat. Turning away from the vampire, she closed her eyes as a stream of blood issued from her mouth. Her shoulders trembled from the exertion and, when she had finished, she leaned back against the wall exhaustedly. Spike looked down at her pale, drawn face. "You're not going to make it, are you?" He asked.
Buffy smiled sadly and shook her head. "I don't think so," she answered candidly.
"Bullocks," Spike muttered. Glancing back up the stairs, he contemplated leaving the blonde Slayer there to die. He started to move away, but stopped. Something nagged at the back of his mind and he realized that he could not leave Buffy to such a fate. Looking down at her, he saw her for what she really was – a scared girl with nothing left. "Bloody hell," he cursed. "Did they give me a sodding soul with this chip?" He wondered as he bent down and scooped the Slayer up in his arms.
"What're you doing?" Buffy asked, weakly attempting to push him away, while Spike tightened his grip.
"I said that I'd help you," Spike replied, "and I'm going to. I don't care if I have to carry you the rest of the way through this bloody compound. Now let's find the cure."