Deliquesce
Chapter 3: Code
Warnings: Language and stuff
Disclaimer: Yeah, I actually own it.
Song: "Black Milk" By Massive Attack
A/N: Toldya it would be up quick. Here ya go, next one is on its way!
Turrislucidus: Ooh yummy!
AutumnEmberlynne: Hey! I just realised my characters name is like, a third of your username and that's pretty cool. Thank you for the review.
We found the storm drain, and Jackson managed to pry it open with the crowbar. We each jumped down, and Spencer helped me. It was dark down here, but we didn't have a flashlight. Daniel produced a lighter from his pocket, sparking up a cigarette before using it to illuminate the area a bit. We walked down the dark tunnel-like thing with damp floors and walls and eventually found a steel door at the end, and a small box attached to the wall.
"Can I bum one?" I asked, and he passed me a cigarette. I put it up to my mouth and he held the lighter up against it. "Thanks."
I took a drag. Inhale. Exhale. Dear god, it was good. The one most stressful month of my damn life, and I hadn't had a single one in the whole time. I suppose quitting is great, but nicotine withdrawals make zombie apocalypses about eleven percent more stressful than they already are.
"Alright." Daniel said, blowing a gust of smoke out of the corner of his mouth while holding the cigarette in the centre. "So we have his birthday. March 29 1971. 0329. 2971. 0371." There was a series of beeps as he typed in each of the combinations, and none of them were right.
"What date was the factory opened?" Spencer asked.
"April 12 1996." Daniel answered immediately. "We have 0412. 0496. 1296." Those didn't work either.
"Fuck." Daniel said.
"Excuse me," Spencer said quietly, and then proceeded to bash violently on the metal door with the crowbar. It didn't even make a dint. He frowned. "Yeah. Fuck. Anything else you can think of?"
"He doesn't have a wife, no children. So that takes out birth, marriage and anniversary dates."
"I don't think we should try too many times. There might be a limit, in case someone is trying to break in. Which we are. But yeah." I said, taking a drag.
"Maybe it's engraved somewhere? Like on the building of the wall? Maybe?" Daniel asked desperately.
"We could look. I highly doubt it, but we have nothing else to try." Veronica said, and the group began to walk away. I stayed behind, and entered the combination 1 2 34. It beeped twice, and the door opened. Just like that.
"Um. Guys." I pointed to the door with the cigarette in my hand.
"What the fuck." Daniel whispered.
"1 2 3 4. 1 2 3 fucking 4." I said.
They all just stood there in wonder.
"You guys suck. I am better than all of you." I said throwing the cigarette butt onto the floor. "Since I guessed the code, I get dibs on the best room. Let's go."
I walked in, and they followed me. Veronica stayed there.
Veronica was sweating. It was cold. I frowned.
"You okay?" I asked, looking at her.
Her mouth opened, and closed. She didn't look well.
Daniel suddenly stepped forward, drawing his knife.
"When." He asked.
She laughed, and collapsed into a sitting position on the ground. "It wasn't a fucking nail. In the house."
Everyone was silent. She rolled up her jeans, exposing the nasty wound, black veins visible all around.
"Turns out we didn't even need Ember here, if I was gonna die anyway."
"How long do you think you have?"
"Look at me. I've been feeling like I'm being stuck in a bloody furnace for the past ten minutes. You can see it travelling up my leg, anyway. A few hours."
"Would you like us to stay with you until it happens?" Jackson asked quietly.
"No." She said. Her eyes were beginning to tear up. "I'm going to die. I'm actually going to die. I didn't think this would happen. And now it's going to. And it's just.. I was so close."
Jackson walked over to her quickly and embraced her in his big arms. She pushed him back after a while, wiping the tears that streamed down her cheeks.
"I'm going to get up. You're going to boost me up. And I'm going to shoot myself in the head in the courtyard."
Jackson's jaw tensed, but he nodded, walked down to the opening of the storm drain, and positioned himself to boost her up. She stepped onto his hands, shoulders, grasped the top and pulled herself up with those strong forearms and she was gone. She didn't glance at the rest of us.
We stood there in shocked silence. Jackson walked back, his face tense. He pushed past us.
"We need to move on." He said.
We all walked inside quietly, the joy of our recent breakthrough forgotten. One less person now.
Inside was a completely bare, brightly lit white corridor with a door at the end of it. We went through the door, and up the flights of stairs until we reached another door. I opened it quietly, slowly, wary of what was inside. I peeked out, and it was completely empty. A room, dark coloured and dimly lit, lined with unlit furnaces.
We went up a small set of stairs off to the side, out the door, and emerged in another white hallway. The walls were curved. The floor tiled. The lights bright. I looked around in wonder, at the pristine and untouched building. Everything out there was rotten now. Used, destroyed and discarded. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes. It smelt clean. Sweet. Fresh.
My eyes opened as I heard the group continue to walk forward down the corridor, and I followed behind them, no longer the leader. We were are silent, and walked gently, almost as if we were scared to spoil this newly found perfection.
"Where do we go?" Briley whispered.
"I don't know." Jackson said. We paused. "I guess we locate the supplies. Try to find a map maybe. Then.. I don't know."
"I think we should do a check of all rooms first. Just to make sure no one, or nothing, is in here. Then locate the supplies. This place is big. We should split up. There are lots of maps around on the walls, so don't worry. There's an elevator anyway. So if that works, which it presumably does, then you can just use that. We'll meet somewhere in an hour. Meet here, wherever here is."
I looked around. "Nut sorting room. That's what it says on the door there. Just try to get back to the nut sorting room in.. half an hour?"
Daniel, Jackson walked up the corridor, and Spencer and I walked the opposite way. He went into one room, and I kept walking after nodding a goodbye to him.
I checked the next door I came across, and poked my head in. There was a set of contraptions in yet another pristine white room, with a purple ceiling. Otherwise, nothing. I close the door and kept walking. Down a flight of stairs. Down another hallway. Poking my head in each door. Nothing each time. Every room was a surprise. A completely new and increasingly strange thing. I wasn't too sure if the man who used to own this place was a genius or just downright insane. He was probably dancing on that line.
I soon came across a glass door, with a button next to it. The elevator. I pressed the button and it opened with a satisfying, sanitised ding. I stepped in cautiously, and looked at the buttons that lined the walls. Shit. That's a whole lot of buttons. Inventing room. Bubblegum room. Everlasting candy room. Whipped cream. Chocolate room. Clockwork oranges. Lick-o-rice. What the fuck was that even. Rice that you lick? Bottom secret room. Top secret room. I shrugged, and pressed the 'Top secret room'. Sounded interesting, anyways. There were honestly so many choices that it didn't really matter what room I chose.
The doors closed with a whoosh and suddenly the elevator took off more quickly than I could yell out 'Fuck!'. It suddenly turned a sharp right, leaving my stomach somewhere to the left. It went down, and up again, and by the time it stopped I was on the ground in the corner just trying not to throw up, my head in my arms. I heard footsteps and humming and soon realised that someone had stepped into the elevator with me.
I looked up quickly, shocked. I was even more shocked to see a tall… person with a long navy blue coat and even darker navy blue pants on. That's all I could see from down here. I jumped up.
"Um." I frowned. Confused. Shocked. Not too sure what the hell to say. Who are you? Where did you come from? Are you a man or a lady?
The stranger continued to hum and glanced over to me, flattening down his chocolate colored bobbed hair. I think it was a guy. Like, the humming sounded pretty guyish I think. I stared at him with my mouth open, eyebrows furrowed and he stared right back at me, smiling and humming.
He was pale. Like, really pale. Paler than me. Paler than Dita Von Teese. Paler than an albino's ass. His eyes were wide and round and purple. Purple.
"You're a new one." He said, and momentarily looked away to press a button.
I shut my mouth. "W-what?"
"Come to get the bills? I told ya, I don't have the paperwork. You're gonna have to wait 'till next Tuesday. I told yer boss, Clinton."
The elevator whooshed off again, and I sat back down in the corner, but continued to stare up at him.
"Who the fuck are you." I asked.
He giggled. "Oh shush. You know."
"Willy Wonka?" I asked. Holy shit. I guess this guy was just downright insane.
"That's it! Now go tell Clinton to get off my back will ya."
The elevator stopped and he walked out, giggling again. We were in another hallway. I managed to scramble myself together enough to get out and follow after him, feeling a tad nauseous.
"Um." I said again, still unsure of what to say. He walked fast, and I had to jog to catch up with him. I reached out and grabbed his arm and he suddenly stopped, as if awoken from a dream and looked down at me.
"It appears as if I have gone so nuts I can now feel my hallucinations."
"I'm not a hallucination." I said, shaking my head. My eyes roamed over him, properly this time. Over his weirdly attractive face. The high collar, with a 'W' brooch in the centre, holding it together. His patterned shirt, the chain that I assumed to be a pocket watch that hung over the buttoned pinstriped vest and matching pants. For the first time in the past approximately 134 seconds, I realised that this dude was actually hot. He smelt really nice too.
"Take a picture, it will last longer." He smirked and shook his arm free. My face warmed. "Oh! I'm not a hallucination! That's what they all say." He giggled.
"I'm not a hallucination, you crazy motherfucker."
"Sure." He said.
"Alright. Ask me something that you possibly couldn't know."
"But how would I know if my subconscious is just making it up or not?"
"Do you know german?"
"Yes."
"Russian?"
"No."
"Menya zovut Ember i vy urod. See. You can't make that up. Because it's a legit thing."
He narrowed his eyes, not saying anything.
"Kak dela? YA v poryadke. YA tol'ko chto vernulsya iz zombi-apokalipsisa, tak chto ya ustal."
He blinked and then his face fell.
"Oh." He said. "Sugar plums. You're… real. But how. What."
"No shit sherlock."
"I feel very awkward right now." He said with a straight face.
"You should."
"I'm very conflicted right now. I'm unsure of how to approach this matter." He continued, in a low monotone.
"Yep."
"How did you get into the factory?" He asked.
"Don't set your code a next time, dipshit." I said.
"How did you know about the door?" He tilted his head.
"My friend Daniel's father helped build this place or something, and knew about it."
"There are others?"
"Yes. Four others. Daniel, Jackson, Riley and Spencer. Also a dead person in your courtyard by the way."
"Why did you come here?"
"Where else do we go. If you're not aware, there's an entire zombie apocalypse outside. Basically the whole country is dead, or a zombie. Barely any resources. No one is coming to help us. This was the only place that looked safe, that we could get into." I said.
He blinked. "Oh. Alrighty."
"So… can we stay? I mean no offence, but if you say no to them, they'll probably just kill you. Like I don't care about staying. Because I'm new to the group and am quite prepared to die out there anyway. But they've kinda been going for this for who knows how long. So yeah."
"What if I don't want them to stay. I'm quite happy alone."
"Dude you were hallucinating."
"Don't diss it till ya try it." He giggled.
"Still. I mean. Come on. Please. You have no idea what effort it took to get in here. We are five of a very small handful of the last humans in the United Kingdom."
"Bring me to the others." He said.
"Manners?"
"What's your name?"
"Ember." I said.
"Ember." He shot a sickly sweet smile at me, his voice dripping with honey. "It would be an unspeakable kindness if you would, pray take me to the others you speak of. I would be much obliged if you do so."
"Sure." I shrugged.