"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke
In a matter of seconds, the crowd of students and faculty sprang into madness, spurned by the chance of freedom; they rushed for the exits out of the cafeteria and into the unknown. For while their chance at escape from Prescott and his hounds was not assured, it was a chance, and they'd take it if it meant they could be free.
Such was not the mentality of Juliet and her group. They instead formed around the trio who'd rescued them, waiting whilst some teachers had come over to secure the still yapping hound on the floor. One of the faculty members now relieved Chloe of the rifle she held, and they stood close to the sniveling guard, keeping him in check.
Juliet and the others had a hard time recognizing their saviors. They had no clue who the tall bluenette was, nor was the brunette ringing any bells. Yet gasps arose as they looked to that short-haired blonde, standing there beside them. The knife that she'd used to kill the guard was clutched in her hand, her pale white knuckles contrasted with the crimson red blood.
"...wait a minute, Kate? Is that you?" Dana cautiously asked, and the quintet focused their attention to the short-haired blonde in question. Aside for the noticeable lack of her trademark bun, they could still discern Kate from her hazel eyes and small stature, equivalent to the mousy brunette standing beside her. But where there once was a brightness to those sparkling hazel orbs, therein lied a coldness instead, a sharpness like that of jagged silver-hued steel, and that made them hesitate at calling this person Kate.
"Yes," she blankly affirmed, but they could not comprehend it. Then she was swiveled by Max over to where Chloe was, who'd begun looting the dead body of Drake's comrade. Marsh was beckoned by the brunette with a quick, "Help Chloe get what she needs," then shuffling over to the punk, that bloody knife still in her right hand.
"Is it just you five?" Max suddenly turned to them, and Juliet's quintet hesitated at the suddenness of the question.
"Yeah, it's just us," Juliet confirmed, "you're Max, right? Max Caulfield?"
"Yeah, that's me."
"You got any idea what's going on?"
"No clue, we," Caulfield gestured to herself and the two over yonder, "just got back to Blackwell and snuck in here, saw what was happening."
"Wait, you just got back? I thought you were still hiding in the dorms with Kate," Watson inquired. Max did not answer, choosing to look away.
The few faculty members and students that hadn't rushed out the cafeteria with the stampede were gathering their courage to venture beyond, with the few teachers still holding down the remaining guard at gunpoint. At least one of these teachers was on the phone with the police department, and no doubt the force would be here within the next quarter-hour.
"Look, we have to get the hell out of here," Max beckoned them, "get your stuff if you want, but hurry."
The quintet looked to their bags and unanimously agreed that it was not worth the weight to carry. They followed the brunette and her companions, the punk now armed with the dead guard's assault rifle, and the blonde still clutching her knife.
They made their way out the cafeteria, now into the hall. To their left was the main intersection—to their right, the north wing of the main building. No one dared to stare at the bodies littering the floor.
"Swing left, towards the doors!" Caulfield directed them, and they moved for the red exit doors down toward the intersection. There was a surprising amount of their peers lingering in the hallways, unsure of where to go, clinging to their assurances that the building was safe. These hopes were dashed, as a few students came running from the hall ahead of them from the school's south wing, screaming for their lives and ducking into the classrooms along the locker-decked halls.
"They're coming! They're coming from the second floor!" came the cry, and like rats the students scurried out of sight, into whatever corner they could hide in.
From where she was, Juliet beheld a most unusual sight; amongst the dispersing crowd of people, she saw Victoria and her two minions dive into the secretary's office, quickly shutting the door. Their own group of eight quickly realized those students were ducking away from danger and searched for the nearest cover.
"Get the fuck in here, now, all of you!" the bluenette barked, as the nearby door to the school's storage room was pushed open, and they rushed their way in, with Price immediately shutting the door and training her rifle at it, slowly skirting back. In the darkness, they all clamored about the tight space, a clatter arose as they tripped over themselves.
"Get over here, over here!"
"Fuck, I can't move!"
"Watch it, watch it—" clang
"FUCK! Aw shit that hurts—!"
"You good?"
"Yeah, I think so—"
"Shut up, shut up! They're coming!"
The voices hushed, and they collectively eyed the narrow slit under the wooden door, beaming the light from the hall into the pitch black they hid in. There was no sound except the slight creak of the shelves they hid behind, the muffled cries from outside having died out long ago.
They waited.
As her eyes adjusted to the light, Juliet could see the lanky, armed bluenette in front of her, in front of all of them, and what little light there was reflected off the polished metal of the carbine she held, still pointed towards the door. It might be from her own fright, but the reporter could see the rifle shake, held in that shuddering grip. Price was afraid. Someone began whimpering off to Juliet's left and was quietly hushed by another after a few seconds.
They were all afraid.
They felt it first, the drumming. Footfalls. A mob of them, moving closer. Some voices came, muffled, but growing louder. The girls braced themselves even tighter to cover.
Shadows danced across the sliver of light, and Price adjusted her aim, still shuddering. The voices were still indiscernible, but they could tell the hounds were right outside the door. The chorus moved past them, further down the hall.
Juliet then realized they were moving towards what would be the cafeteria.
The shouting spiked, and was immediately followed by the roaring of gunshots, bursts of fire echoing down the hall and ringing off the floor. They all collectively flinched as the staccato intensified, then ceased just as abruptly.
Watson clutched the sides of her head as her ears rang. Beside her, the silhouettes of her friends shuffled as far as they could from the terrible noise.
Shouting started up again, and the footsteps passed the sliver of light heading towards the intersection and what would be the girls' freedom. The dreadful noise diminished, until all they could hear was the slight ringing in their ears.
They waited, then collectively jumped again as the shots sounded once more, falling off erratically. The straggling pops and bangs grew fainter, fewer, until there was silence again.
Clinging to the shelves, they huddled close, and waited.
Ears perked for the slightest sound.
Seconds ticked by, one after the other.
Juliet watched as Price, rifle still in hand, stood from where she had been crouched and slowly approached the door, a smaller silhouette—Max—following right behind her. Spurred on, Juliet herself rose from where she hid, and heard the shuffle of her friends doing the same. Slowly, everyone gathered near the door.
"Slow and steady, Chlo," whispered Max, the shadow of an arm reached for the doorknob, "I got it," the bluenette hushed back.
The bolt was turned, slowly. Then with a slight pull, Caulfield cracked the door open and what small amount of light flooded into the darkness. Chloe edged her head out to see beyond the door and down the hall with her carbine at the ready, doing the same for the opposite side.
"Go," the bluenette hissed, and she darted out from the threshold with Max and the others following suit as they raced for the intersection. No one dared to look towards the cafeteria, focused on hustling out and along the wall towards the red doors, their ticket to safety. The armed punk waited at the corner for all of them to stack up behind her before turning, and clumsily slid into another corner now right beside the exit, peeking through the small glass windows in the wooden door frames.
In the moment that she looked, Price witnessed an armed group of hounds coming from the outside. They were climbing the courtyard steps in front of the street and looked to be heading right towards her and the rest of their group.
"Ah shit—!" she swore, turning and gesturing wildly for Max and the others, "They're coming from outside, we gotta move!" and the eight of them scrambled across the intersection, searching for a place to hide. It was with desperation that Chloe charged the secretary office's door, slamming the handle down and driving herself into it, busting it open.
"Get in, get in!" and the girls dove into the space, with the bluenette slamming the door as the last of their group passed the threshold, engaging the door lock for good measure.
"Oh fuck, oh god—!" Dana wheezed, curling underneath the secretary's desk. Beside her was Stella, Kate and Brooke huddled close together, having taken their spots behind the large secretary's desk as well, and Juliet and Alyssa crouched near the cabinets beside them, "that was fucking scary, man."
"Wait, wait!" and they waited, then heard the muffled sound of the entrance doors swinging open, and a mob of footsteps soon after.
"Get up to the second floor, let's go!" came a crisp order, and the hounds shifted away from where the girls hid, towards the stairs at the end of the halls. They were going up to the second floor of the main building for now.
"Alright, I…I think we're good," muttered Max, rising from behind a cabinet, "that was too close."
"Ya fuckin' think?" Dana swore, "One wrong move, and we would've been dead!"
"We should get the hell out of here, while their up top," Brooke spoke up, "w-we could skirt along the building, and make a break for it before they see us."
"But what if there's more outside?" the cheerleader shakily sputtered, "What if they see us from up there? They'll tear us to pieces before we can blink."
"Not if I cover," Chloe countered, clutching her AR close, "I—I can keep them pinned, and let you all get to safety before they can shoot back."
"What about you," Alyssa asked, "who'll cover you when you have to run?"
"Then…then fuck it, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
"No one's sacrificing anything," Max pointedly ordered, "we're all going to get out of here alive, that's the plan."
"How?" Stella wondered, "how are we gonna get out of this? Dana's right, they could be anywhere, there's nowhere to run," she lamented, "we'd be better off waiting for the police to arrive."
"You think they stand a chance against what those bastards got?" Chloe bit, "Pigs'll get shredded before they could even get out of their cars."
"There's got to be a way out of this," Max reasoned, "maybe we just—"
"Jules?" Dana blurted, and the others turned to see Watson pressed up against the door to the principal's office, "Jules, what the fuck are you doing?"
"Victoria, you in there?" Juliet knocked on the door, "Victoria, it's me, open up!"
Confused, the rest were surprised as the handle was turned as the Queen made herself known, Courtney and Taylor were hovering just behind her.
"Christ, aren't you a sight for sore eyes," Chase remarked, "at least you're still in one piece."
"Same to you," Juliet replied, "you got any idea about this whole shit-show?"
"No, I'm just as clueless as you are," the pixie blonde looked back to her two friends, "we tried running, but look where that got us."
"We can still get out of here, y'know," Chloe suggested, "we just got to time it right."
"It's too risky to go through the main entrance," Max countered, "we need another route, somewhere they won't expect."
Victoria brightened at the notion, "I think I can help you all with that," and she stepped aside, her trio moving from the door to somewhere inside the principal's room. With renewed purpose, the eight of them followed.
There seemed to be an immediate difference in the room once Juliet and the others stepped inside Wells's pristine abode. The chairs for any guests had been pushed off to the side, the same for the large mahogany desk and Wells's personal chair. Gasps arose as they discovered Wells himself, laying on his side against the bulky desk. A bottle of whiskey lay on the ground beside him, and a bloody rag was draped over his obscured head. He was still as stone.
Juliet and the rest of the girls spared the body a moment's pity, then ignored it, choosing to move on.
Chase had placed herself and her two aides just opposite to the shifted furniture, looking at something next to one of the shifted bookshelves surrounding the room. Upon closer inspection, it became clear that they beheld a perfectly carved out section of the wall. Concrete stairs extended downwards, spiraling, towards what could only be described as near pitch black, the light from the office being the only form of illumination before the plunge.
"Look at that, Fat-Man Wells had his own personal dungeon, ain't that wonderful," Price joked, and the girls anxiously snickered.
"How did he get this? Was this always here?" Max wondered.
"Maybe it's one of those shelters they built during the Cold War, in case the bombs fell," Chase guessed, "the point being, we wait this out down there, and come back out when it's all over."
No one objected to the promise of safety.
So with Chloe guarding, the ten of them filed down the stairs, holding hands upon shoulders so as to guide them through the lack of light. Max and Kate led them on, slowly, brushing their hands against the wall so as to avoid tripping.
They stepped down those concrete stairs, eyes slightly adjusting to the absence of warmth. Caulfield was up in the very front, the cold walls leading her and her caravan down to what ought to be the shelter. She, like the rest, moved cautiously, awaiting a sign that their efforts were to pay off.
There!
Eyes zeroed in on the slight brightness that gave shape to a curve in the proceeding steps. Their sanctuary was close. The pace of their lurking picked up as the light grew brighter, clearer. An entryway with one last door stood before them at the bottom of the spiral stairway, the bright fluorescents shining through the small window in the center of the door's steel frame. Invigorated with the hope to be away from assured danger, Max clutched the handle of the door and pushed it open, rushing headlong to safety—
She froze mid-step, and nearly tripped over herself.
The room was large, and spacious. It was not intricate, by any means; just a simple rectangular space buried deep in the ground. There were no outlets, no sub-caverns, just a plain concrete chamber with four sides and a ceiling and floor. The door they came through operated on a sort of hydraulic system that maintained the entrance's security, closing it shut when not forced open.
This was excluding what lied within said room, as the girls took quick notice of when barging into the shelter. Crates, shoulder-width and roughly a foot high, stacked upon each other, were placed in the center of the room and reached up to the ceiling, and had narrow walkways for one to tread in between them. Along the walls, stretching from just beside the door and circling the entirety of the space, there lay racks upon racks of firearms, various rifles and automatics secured in their slots. Above those racks, in storage cubicles built just above them, were clusters of steel helmets, plate carriers, combat vests and so forth.
In front of them, some of the crates had been pried open, their contents being smaller canisters stuffed with ammunition. Shiny brass bullets shone brightly compared to the dullness of the other objects surrounding them, and like moths to the flame the girls slowly approached. Max took a knee, bending down and taking a single round in her hands, idly smelling the heavy tang of metal and damp concrete.
"What the hell?" came a murmur from behind the brunette, and she turned to see the same bewilderment adorned on Dana's brow, "What is this place?"
"I don't think this is an ordinary shelter guys," Stella commented, observing the many guns lining the walls, "but hey, it's a shelter nonetheless."
"No shit," mumbled Brooke, "but it should be empty, shouldn't it? Why is all this stuff here?"
"They're using it," Taylor suggested, and everyone caught on as fear crept in her words, "They're using this as a place to store their weapons, in case they need more. They're gonna come back down here when they run out, and they'll find us."
The hydraulic door was suddenly pushed open, and the girls sprang away, recoiling from the newcomer.
"A'ight, I sealed the top with one of the shelves, they ain't gonna find us—" and Chloe stopped at the exasperated looks sent her way, "…what? What're y'all looking at me like that for?"
Her bright blue eyes looked to the weaponry surrounding them, widening at the sight.
"Oh, oh shit."
A/N - Abandon all hope, ye who tread further in search of a peaceful resolution.