We both looked at the door to the supply room. The door was cracked but we could hear them.
"Grab the guns…" she said. I ran down to the racks and packed what I could, loading the empty guns and packing more ammo. Vera was doing the same, tacking on a few grenades.
"Can we hold them if we stay here?" I asked, partly because I didn't want to go out there… the guns looked so powerful…
"No… they'll set off the booby traps and the forth pipe with drop the bomb… it'll destroy the entire basement."
"Are you SERIOUS?!" I shouted. She gave me a look, and snapped a clip into a semi automatic.
"Come on." She said. We ran out to the door. Vera locked it shut and set the brick back into place. I could hear the cashing and gargled screams coming down the hall.
"Is there another way out?"
"This way!" She said. We ran. We ran in the opposite direction we had come. But they were gaining… the sounds was getting louder and loud until we had to shout.
"Here!" Vera slammed into a door that looked like it belong to a safe. Big metal door… that unfortunately was locked. Vera and I both swore, glancing down the tunnel.
"Up here!" Vera suddenly leapt into the air landing on the wall, and then sprung off it gripping the ledge of a shaft. She pulled herself up and then peeked over. "Hurry!' I threw my bag and my gun up. Vera pulled a rifle around her shoulder and let off a few rounds down the hallway, telling me they were at a uncomfortably close distance. I jumped and grabbed a pipe, and pulled myself up. I stood up, balancing and jumped to the ledge she was shooting from. I rolled into the wall, safely landing on the ledge.
"go go go!" she shouted. We crawled along the ledge until we reached the vents. I kicked the grate in motioning for Vera to go through first. She dove in as I spun and let loose a rapid fire. I saw the infected drop.
"Keep going!" I shouted, diving in after her. "Faster!" I heard the infected get closer. Were they in the shafts?
"AHH!" Vera screamed as the shaft under her gave way and she dropped out of sight.
"Vera!" I peeked over the edge. I saw Vera on the floor of the room below in the center of a cloud of dust. "Vera?! Vera can you hear me?!" I heard her groan. "Don't move, I'm coming down to you." I slid my feet around and dropped down next to her. She was curled up on the floor, swearing left and right.
"Anything broken?" I asked.
"Everything…" she rasped, "my wrist…" She tried to sit up and I helped her. She cradled her hand.
"We lived through everything so far…" I said.
Gaahahaaaa!
We both snapped our heads around. The door to the empty room was getting pounded on and would only last a few minutes.
"You were saying?" she muttered. I looked back up at the shaft. To high. I looked around the room. There was a door but nothing to climb to get to the shafts. I ran over to the door praying it wasn't locked. It was metal so I wouldn't be able to shoot through it if it was… unlocked!
Piperoom? A dead end. I swore.
"Vera we gotta get back up into the…" I started, but stopped. Vera was standing. She was on two feet, loading a gun, facing the door that was starting to come apart.
"Vera?" I started for her but she turned around and my blood went cold. Her eyes seemed sunken in, dark and red. Her skin had lost all color, but even from where I stood I could feel something… something familiar. She was going into hyper mode. I felt fear settle into my veins, a cold hand around my chest. We were trapped with no way out and she was sliding into the fight or flight mode and flight wasn't in Carper's blood. I remembered what her brother had told me… just before I headed up the stairs. Carper's blood is immune to the infection… but hyper mode takes that advantage away. At the time, I just blew it off. Ok I got it, don't let her go into hyper mode. But it was much more than that. If Vera went into hyper mode now, I would loose her. I didn't know if she was still fighting off the bad blood in her veins from her first bite. But she was weak and battered now and if she slipped into Hyper mode in that state… than my grave would be this room right here. If she got bitten in hyper mode, she wouldn't become just infected… she would just loose the knowledge of knowing the difference of humans and zombie… and kill them all.
"Vera?" I said carefully. I took a step forward. She kicked her backpack at me. I flinched, my hand twitching on my gun. I don't care if you knock her out or lock her up… I knew Alex was being literal.
"Take them. Get them back to my brother." She said. My throat closed on me. I couldn't breathe… couldn't speak.
"We can make it to the vents Vera…" I said.
"Dani…" she said, locking her gun, "Don't make me tell you twice." I could see it in her eyes… she would point her gun at me… what was she planning to do? I had to do something. I had to replace the fight or flight with something else. Pain, surprise, anger… anything. Anything to get her focus off of our dire situation. A rock settled in my stomach as I raised my gun…
"Come on…" she said and opened the pipe room door again, "we'll hold them off in here…" I hesitated, not sure what she was getting at, "Or maybe we can climb the pipes to another shaft…" she said. I nodded, but still didn't move.
The screams from the front door were pushing me to make a decision. Stay out here and ward off the infected? Or get locked in a small room with Vera on Hyper mode?
"Vera… you need to calm down. You're slipping." Was all I could do.
"Dani! Get in here!" She yelled. I looked once more at the door being torn down and then followed her past the door.
Suddenly, Vera's hand was behind my neck. She shoved me hard forward and I stumbled trying to catch myself. I heard the clang of the door closing before I hit the ground.
"VERA! NO!" I jumped on my feet, vainly going for the handle. I heard gunshots. "Vera! Stay out of that hyper mode! Stay out of it! Think of your family! Think of your brother! He needs you!" The shots continued, along with the screams and gargles. I took the butt of my gun and started to slam it into the door handle… but it didn't work.
"Vera! Do you hear me! Open this door!" but over the gunshots and yells I could barely hear myself. I slung the gun across my shoulder and began to climb the pipes. I scanned the walls and the ceiling for any kind of vents… there! I jumped, clambering up pipes, and kicked in the grate, crawling through the vents once again.
The gunshots had stopped but I heard Vera yelling, cursing. No ammo did not mean the end of the fight for her. I had to get to her… I had to get to her and stop her. I crawled as fast as I could through the vents looking for a way out looking for a flood of light to fill the dark space. I was crawling in dirt and grunge but at the moment I didn't care. Vera was the only thing I could think about. It didn't take long before I kicked out another grate, now starring at bare tunnel we had first come in. I saw infected go for the door a few yards away, and I pulled my gun around and fired from my back in the shaft. They dropped before they got through the door, joining a few more motionless bodies that marked which door I wanted.
"Vera!" I jumped down, landing badly on my ankle, but I knew I had run on worse. I kept my gun up as I went down the tunnel to the door that had been torn apart. Infected bodies lay motion less outside the door, and leading in. I threw myself against the wall, brought my gun up and spun around. Inside lay ten, twelve motionless infected, a handful more outside where I was standing. Vera was standing down two more infected who had been standing still, hissing at her. She had a knife in one hand, and a crow bar in the other, her gun on the floor on the other side of the room. Her back was towards me.
"Vera, get out of the way!" I yelled, aiming my gun. Vera didn't move. "Vera! Get down!" But she didn't move. The infected hissed, and charged, throwing their limp bodies as her.
Vera swung upwards was the crowbar, catching one in the jaw. She leapt in the air and kneed the second one, both of them stumbling back. Vera flung the crowbar back, the hook catching the first one around the neck. She jerked him hard forward, running her knee deep into it's stomach. From across the room I heard a round of cracks and a gargled scream followed. Cracked ribs meant nothing to an infected that was about to eat. The second one grabbed a fist full of her hair from behind, and I fired. It dropped, and Vera sunk her knife deep into the seconds shoulder. Again his hissed and screamed, pulling away but only for a second. It jumped for Vera knocking them both down. The infected scrambled on top of her, snapping it's jaw open and shut, as if eating the air. Vera had her hands across his throat, holding him off.
I ran forward and jumped, latching onto it's back, and used my momentum to rip him off of Vera and thrown him into the wall. More sickening cracks. The infected collapsed to the floor still snarling. He looked up and locked eyes with me. He opened his mouth to let out a yell, but we never heard it. He got a chunk of lead down his throat before the room fell silent. I turned to Vera who was trying to stand up.
"Vera!" I hissed and ran over to her. She propped herself up on the wall, gripping her knife. I knelt down beside her and pried her fingers away from the knife. "Vera concentrate, come on, breath." I told her.
"Get out…" She hissed, "Get out, while… you can!" I reached for her but she slapped my hand away, "Idiot!" I could see a strength returning to her… I could see her eyes illuminating. I was loosing her. I knew once she was in hyper mode… only Alex could pull her out… I had to stop it.
"Vera!" I snapped. I saw her hand go for her gun. I grabbed her hand and bent her writs backwards… her bad wrist. The one she fell on. I held it as long as I could, let her scream for as long as I bared and then let go, jumping back to my feet and aiming my gun at her. She cradled her arm.
"Son of a…!" she yelled. I waited for her to gain her breath, every second more tense than the one before it. My aim becoming tighter and tighter around the trigger… "Thank you…" she said quietly.
"You alright?" I asked, gun still raised.
"I… I don't think this is working…" she said.
"What?" I looked over my sights, now focusing on her instead of my aim. She looked up, and I saw her eyes had softened. The color had returned to her face… the adrenaline rush has cured her blood for good. I could see any trace of infecting had left. Now it was simply exhaustion and broken bones.
"This… this isn't working. We won't make it back at this rate. I'll… I'll kill you before we do." I lowered my gun.
"Um… no." I said, "I may look easy to kill but I'm not exactly a quitter…" I tired… but I didn't get a smile.
"You have to take my bag… get it to Alex…"
"I thought that was the plan all along…" I said.
"You need to leave… now. Leave me…"
"Um… ya… awful plan." I said. I went over to her and pulled her to her feet. "We're extremely stealth if we've made it this far. But now we're slow and bloody. I saw we change tactics."
"Dani you have to…" she started. I looked at her.
"You ever read the Bible?" I asked. She stopped, startled.
"What?"
"Particularly the Noah's ark story." I said.
"Dani…"
"See God said he would flood the world, to punish the people. But there was a good guy still left. Noah. He built an ark and the animals came, two by two. The flood came and Noah's ark saved them."
"Dani. Can you just…"
"There's a time in our paintball tournaments where there literally is no way into their flag because they got all points covered. You can't sneak your way in cause there's no cover. You can't send your best man in cause he's outnumbered even with the team covering him."
"will you please stop…"
"Operation Two by Two. No more stealth. You flood the sons of bitches." She looked at me, finally understanding. I wondered if she would agree, or still fight for her plan. Her plan meant giving up so…
"I'll get the backpack." She said. I smiled.