Here's part 3! Things are getting intents!
Meena had heard faint sounds of someone approaching and had grabbed Johnny as soon as he was within reach to drag him out sight of the of whoever was coming. Once they had ducked around a decrepit wall, she hesitated and Johnny took the lead. He didn't have any more clue of where to go or what to do than her, and ended up hiding them amidst a number of large piles of equipment parts in a particularly shadowy corner. Cramped together and facing one another, both were two scare to try and make a get away out of fear of making noise. Both were focused on trying to hear the gangsters, Johnny much less successfully than Meena judging from the strained look on his face. Meena gave it a sparing glance as she tried not to let her mounting panic take control. She had to stay focused. She wasn't sure just how sensitive the rabbit's hearing was or how it rivaled with hers but she wasn't taking any chances, their main advantage right now was that they were trying to keep quiet while the two approaching animals were speaking without fear of being heard. From what she could hear, Sammie was with the gruffer sounding animal (whom she had heard be called Chuck) and was once again trying to convince Chuck they weren't alone. She strained to hear the details of Sammie's frantic babbling, but her concentration was interrupted by Johnny's whisper.
"Wot's goin' on? Can ya' hear anythin'?" His curiosity finally got the better of him and poor gorilla couldn't hear anything useful.
Meena blinked at him a few times before once again putting all her effort into listening. "I can only hear two of them. The rabbit and I think the other's a sheep, I keep hearing bleating." She reportedly diligently in a soft voice, slightly frustrated she couldn't said anything more useful. "I don't know if they have any guns or anything. But their not very close ye-"
"WHAT THE-" Both teens froze up at the exclamation that was plenty loud enough for both to hear. "When did this happen!" The rougher voice bellowed out. Johnny felt his stomach drop as he realized the thug was right where they had been and was almost definitely referring to the massive hole where the trio had fallen through the floor. Wide eyed, he looked up at Meena and saw the same look of dread on her face.
"I told you!" Sammie was practically screeching. "I told you I heard something was going on! But nooooo! You were all 'it's just an old building, Sammie,' 'You're overreacting, Sammie,' 'Boss'll be mad if we don't finish working, Sammie.' Well how mad do ya think he'll be if someone got down here and found out about-" The rabbit was shushed and the two gangsters started talking in more hushed tones.
Johnny couldn't hear a thing they were saying and gave up quickly opting to instead trying to see if he could read Meena well enough to clue himself in on what she was hearing. Her scared, still expression didn't tell him much and did nothing to ease his nerves. His hands were shaking as he tried to keep a level head, but fear was tampering with his rational. What was the rabbit going to say before being cut off? What if he been wrong earlier and they really were hiding bodies or something sinister? Johnny took a shaky breath and wished is father were there with them. The gang leader gorilla would know what to and probably wouldn't even be phased by the creepy building or whatever these lesser gangsters were hiding. As it was, Big Daddy was not there and all Johnny had was himself on the brink of a panic attack and Meena whom, for all her good qualities, wasn't a very calm animal to begin with. Johnny mentality steadied himself, reminding his scattered brain that they just had to hold out until Ash came back with help. He glanced back up at Meena to check on her. To his surprise, the frightful look on her face had been replace with one of interest. Prompted be curiously, he leaned in, silently asking what she was hearing.
After a moment more of careful listening, Meena whispered. "They're really superstitious." She hushed hoping this was something they could use. "The rabbit said something about ghosts being here."
Johnny gathered up his courage and peeked around the edge of the wall. "Well maybe we can scare 'em off 'n buy us some time." He breathed as he looked around. He could see the vague shadows of two figures in the distance and counted his blessing the two dangerous animals were in a place where they could see him. Yet.
His eyes had long since gotten use to the dark and he could see a few more details about their surroundings. One thing that caught his eye was the thick and falling apart piping that was lining the walls. His eyes followed the pipes over them, an idea formulating in his head. It was interrupted be the sound of the two figures getting close. Johnny yanked himself back so he was properly hidden behind the wall, panic starting to rise. He glanced around and up when that idea that had been trying to get to him finally struck. Looking up, he saw a piece of piping that was disconnected. Nudging Meena to silently get attention, which had be focused on praying to whatever powers might be listening, he shot her clever smile and pointing up to the piping. Meena gave him a confused look, but still complied and reach her trunk up to retrieve the bit of piping. It creaked louder than either liked as the elephant maneuvered the pipe end down, but nevertheless, Johnny got ahold of it and brought it close to his face. He waited for a minute, trying to listen and figure out how close the two gangsters were to them.
A ghastly groaning sound echoed throughout the dingy part of the basement the gangsters were searching. Both thugs jumped and their anxiousness skyrocketed. "W-w-w-what was that?!" Sammie stuttered, his voice a few octaves higher than normal
"It was probably nothing." Chuck's response lacked sureness. Just then, another bone chilling groan rattled the very piping of the old theater storage, sounding as though it was coming from everywhere all at once.
Sammie looked around frantically before shaking his head. "Oh hell no! I'm not dyin' here! Not me, not today!" He all but muttered to himself as he hurriedly doubled back, Chuck silently following close behind.
From his hiding place around one of the walls, Johnny moved the piping away from his mouth and placed a hand over the opening. He chuckled soften to himself when he heard the two thugs practically scream from fright. If his life hadn't been in danger, he would have considered this fun. Meena was listening almost gleefully, smiling for the first time since entering the retched building. She caught Johnny's attention and gave him a million watt smile. "They're leaving! They're going back to the dig site!" She her voice was a little louder and less restrained as relief rushed through her. Johnny leaned around the edge of the wall again to watch their retreating shadows. "They'll probably be back soon. We need a game plan." Despite being incredibly relieved to see the other two animals leave, he stayed focused. Johnny wasn't about to lose sight of how dangerous their situation was. He turned back to face Meena. "Right, think we should find a bette' place to hide or try to find a way out?"
"We could go back to the hole. Maybe you can make it up before they get back." Meena offered. Johnny gave her an perplexed look, trying to figure out why she'd suggest that. After a moment of processing, he spoke up. "... But you'd still be here."
"Better than both of us being stuck down here." She reasoned shyly as she wrung her hands. Guilt had long since settled in her stomach, and an evil little voice in the back of her mind blamed her for this hold ordeal. She had been one to cause the floor to break. And now Johnny was trapped down here with her despite having a fighting chance of climbing out. It was just like flooded theater incident all over again. 'You got stuck and nearly drowned everyone! Now you've fallen into this mess and dragged your friends with you. If it weren't your fat ass,-'
"No." The mean little voice was silenced by Johnny's sure voice. Both to Meena's relief and disappointment, continued. "No way in hell I'm leavin'. Will figure somethin' else out, yeah?" He words had a harsh edge to them, as if scolding her for having even suggesting it. The stern glare he was giving her clue her in that he would probably shoot down any idea that involved them being separated. Meena's gaze fell out to the side sheepishly. She glanced around breifly before her ears flared out as an inspiration hit.
"I have an idea."
The idea had been fairly straightforward; use the creepy old props and whatnot in the basement to make it seem haunted, scare the superstitious gangsters away from the building, use their method of escaping to leave the building. When the two teenagers started looking around, they equally amazed and disturbed at the props they were able to find. They put their experience as stagehands to good use, quickly setting up ugly wooden cut outs around every turn. Johnny climbed up on some wooden supports above to hang chains that he could shake ominously while Meena used her hearing to make sure no one was close./span/div
div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"span style="text-align: center;"As soon as she heard approaching footsteps, she signaled Johnny who was sat up on a wooden beam and hidden in shadows. From his hiding spot, Johnny could see Meena below where she was hidden from the gangsters behind piles of discarded machine pieces and other odds and ends, but he couldn't see the gangsters themselves. That was probably a good thing, it meant he was most likely out of their sight as well. With the pipe end positioned up next to him and chains well with in his reach, the gorilla was all set up to give those thugs the scare of their lives. Johnny leaned over and cupped his hands around the pipe end, giving a low, ghostly sounding groan. He heard a couple of surprised yelps from far off a grinned. He glanced down and saw Meena smiling as well before she waved another signal at him.
This continued for a good few minutes, and Johnny really was getting into it. He started putting more of his body weight into shaking the chains hung up and was confident the two thugs were close to there breaking point. Unfortunately, so was the wooden support he was sat on. With out warning, there was a sudden snap from under him and the gorilla yelled as he fell, clattering in the cruelly ungiving cement floor below.
"Johnny!" Meena gasped and at side in a heartbeat, picking him off the floor and straining in the poor light to check him for injury.
The fall had knocked the wind out of the gorilla but hadn't done much damage, and was currently the least of his problems. "Over there!" Johnny just barely heard a voice coming in their direction and hoped against hope he heard wrong. One glance at Meena's terror stricken face made it clear he had not. The nook that Meena have hidden in had had many barriers as to keep her out of sight, but now it met they were trapped. As running footsteps came their way, Johnny accepted his fate and stood up defensively in front of Meena, as if he could somehow shield her from whatever was about to come next. Heart pounding like a jackhammer, Johnny mentality prepared himself for what was coming, his whole body went shaking in full on 'fight or flight' mode when he saw two vaguely shaped shadows from around the bend getting closer and closer. He held his breath was tense up in anticipation for whatever was going to happen.
"Ahhhhhhhhh!" Both teens jumped at the sound of a frightful scream. Squinting in what little light there was, they saw the shadows scatter into shapeless movement, neither able to make out what was going on. Johnny heard something clatter to the floor as if someone was knocking stuff over and heard general panicked commotion.
"...wot's goin' on?" He finally whispered to Meena. Looking behind him, he saw the elephant looked just as befuddled as him.
"I don't know. I just hear a lot of screaming and bleating. Wait, hang on, ...they're running away again." Her face scrunched up in confusion and concentration as she softly spoke. Her mind tried to piece together what on earth scared the thugs off. She focused on listening as hard as she could for a few more seconds before her attention was stolen and her eyes suddenly lite up. She looked at Johnny with a beaming smile that nearly split her face. "I hear sirens!"
Nice to know that their skills at Moon theater of sneaking around back stage an der using special effects helped them out here. Next, let's check on Ash!