Thirst 4 Blood 2
Going Under
Episode Three
Panic!
"C'mon..." Victor said, pressing the buttons on the elevator. "Damnit! The elevator's down... and the stairs are blocked by that Safe Room. What next?" Jonathon paused a minute.
"We could, you know, just scale down the shaft." Victor shrugged.
"Risky... but our only option. Alright, help me get this elevator door open." He grabbed one door and Jonathon grabbed the other, the two prying hard on the doors, first only getting a sliver open, then finally getting a handhold and pulling the two apart. Maria came over and placed a long, thick piece of wood, probably from a bed, between the doors, propping them open. The elevator was below them. The three stepped into the elevator shaft just in time for the wood to snap, the doors closing and plunging them into absolute darkness.
"Fuck!" Victor cried.
"What's going on?" Maria shouted.
"Quiet down! I got this." Jonathon turned on his phone, the dim light illuminating the dark. "We just have to open the emergency hatch, drop into the elevator, and get into the next floor." They nodded. Sweeping over the elevator, they finally found the hatch and unlatched it. At that moment, the elevator creaked and the three froze.
"Did you guys hear that?" Jonathon whispered. They nodded. Slowly, they descended into the elevator, the red lights flashing now due to the "emergency" status.
"This door's locked too. C'mon, help me get it open." Victor and Jonathon pulled again, prying the doors apart. Suddenly, the elevator lurched a few inches, almost loosening their grip on the door.
"Shit! This thing's going to fall any second!" Maria assisted this time, pulling on Jonathon's side. The doors were finally open and Jonathon scrambled through, holding the doors at bay as Maria crawled inside as well.
"C'mon!" Jonathon cried, holding his hand out to Victor. The elevator lurched again, this time a few feet. The elevator was halfway down the door. Victor grabbed Jonathon's hand, climbing up and inside the door. They fell away from the doors, which slammed closed immediately after they'd stopped holding it. There was a loud creaking, then a whoosh as the elevator fell, and a crash as it plummeted to the bottom of the ship.
"We made it..." Maria said softly, sitting down to rest her muscles.
"We just made it down one story. Let's not throw a party..." Jonathon mumbled. "We have to keep moving. What floor are we on?" He looked up to the elevator monitor and found that the elevator was supposed to be on floor 11. "Alright, we're already eleven floors down. We just have to keep moving downward and we'll find the sub." The others nodded. "C'mon." They headed to the stairwell, finding that the Safe Room took up much of this stairwell as well. They had to crawl under it to get down half of the stairs, then they could make it out of the stairs.
They made it down about ten more flights of stairs before furniture impeded their path. Someone had attempted to make a makeshift barricade, proving only to impede the path of others.
"Well damnit..." Jonathon said. "We'll have to find another way down. We may have to split up." The others nodded. "Victor, you and Maria head to the left, I'll go to the right. We'll meet back here in about ten minutes. We don't have time to waste."
"Sure you don't want to take Maria? I'm more experienced with a gun," Victor commented. Jonathon shook his head.
"No, I'm fine. You guys go." They nodded and headed off down the left end of the hallway, Jonathon to the right. He searched through several rooms to no avail. At one point, however, he found the former security guard's office, full of said guards. He gunned them down and found a cache of ammunition and guns. Grinning, he put on two holsters for pistols and one for an assault rifle, which he took with him. He put his pistols away, wielding the automatic rifle, and set off again.
Finding nothing, he started back for the stairwell.
"Hey... you..." He turned, looking back into the security guard's office. Entering slowly, sweeping with his automatic rifle, he noticed someone in the cell that he hadn't seen before. "Let me out... please...?"
"What're you in there for? I don't want to let out a murderer." The boy inside laughed.
"No, no... It was a demonstration. I was here on a field trip. Apparently it's tradition for the guards to take one of our kids every trip and lock them up. When they did, though, they started getting sick. I was safe behind this big door. C'mon, just get the keys off the guard and let me out." Jonathon pondered this for a moment, then nodded, realizing that even if this WAS a killer, at least that'd give him weapon experience.
He unlocked the door and the kid walked out, smiling. He grabbed a shotgun and some pistols, holstering them in the same fashion as Jonathon.
"I saw what those things do. I need weapons too, right?" Jon nodded.
"C'mon. We're getting off the boat."
"How?"
"The submarine below deck. It should still be somewhat operational." The boy nodded and followed him down the hallway at a quick walk.
"What's your name?"
"Jonathon. You?"
"Leon. Nice to meet you." Jonathon nodded. They reached the stairwell where Maria and Victor were waiting.
"In the food court, we found a hole in the floor. It drops down a few levels, like three or four, but we could easily scale down those pretty fast, then get back to the stairwell." Jonathon nodded. "Who's this?"
"Leon. I found him in the security guard's office cell." Victor's eyebrows raised in surprise. "That's what I thought too. But he says its tradition or something. Looks like a regular kid to me." Victor shrugged. "Let's go." Victor and Maria led the way to the food court, a big, open banquet-typed area. There was a huge hole in the middle, caused by some sort of collapsing or something. Either way, it made for a nice way down. They each gingerly jumped from that floor down to the next, then the next, then the next, down a total of three floors. Finally, the hole had stopped piercing the ship and could descend no further.
Making their way out of the room they were in, they headed for the stairwell once more. They were able to make their way down a few more flights of stairs. Suddenly, there was a rumbling.
"What's that?" Maria asked quietly.
"You don't think they could've fired the missiles yet, could they?" Jonathon replied. She shook her head.
"No, but they will soon."
"Then what the hell...?" Suddenly, bounding up the stairs came a huge behemoth, ripping up stairwell as it went. "RUN!" The four sprinted down the hall, firing behind them as they did. The hulking monster came after them, ripping up pieces of the ground and hurling them at them, causing huge holes in the floor and walls as it did. Finally, they'd felled the creature, and it fell into one of it's own holes, denting the ground in the floor below. They jumped down the hole, the creature making for a nice landing pad.
"That thing was like a tank!" Leon said. Victor and Jonathon looked to each other, nodding at the name for the new creature, before heading back towards the stairwell. Which they immediately found was a ruined mess of sharp metal and wire, bent to hell.
"We're almost there! What floor are we on?" Maria asked.
"25, by my count," Victor replied. "We are almost there. We just need to find a way down."
"We'll have to head through this," Jonathon said, gesturing towards the metal.
"You sure?" Victor asked cautiously. Jon looked down and nodded.
"Yeah. No other way."
"Alright... I'll take your word for it. I'll go down first, make a nice little pathway. You guys just follow in my steps and make sure not to cut yourselves up too badly." The others nodded. He started down gently, the others following suit as he did. They were getting so close. 25. 26. 27. 28. On the 28th floor, the stairwell returned. They could easily walk down the grated metal stairs until they reached the bottom floor. Right outside the stairwell, they found a Safe Room, leading from the stairs into the hallway beyond.
"We ought to take shelter here, see if they've got anything," Jon said. They nodded and entered the room, sealing the solid iron bar behind them.
