After an hour or two of walking and a couple of wrong turns group stood beneath a manhole cover in the sewers. According to Studwell, they should be next to a place called the Poseidon Elementary School. After the apocalypse happened, the school was converted into a command center and supply depot for survivors who were willing to go extreme measures to ensure their safety within the small community.
Danny could only hope that they were sneaky enough to get what they needed and get out safely.
From what Studwell and Mindy said it would be difficult but do-able. According to them, there were a lot of guards stomping around during the day, but not so much at night. Because of ghost activities at night and not a lot of people wanting to be out in the dark, Atlantis didn't seem to think having a lot of guards stomping around was necessary. Despite that, Mindy warned them that they still needed to be careful.
The people of Atlantis were extremely paranoid.
If anyone so much as suspected there were intruders around then all the alarms would be set off.
"This should be it; we're right underneath the center of Atlantis, the old school should be directly above us," Studwell said and Danny turned to the group.
"Okay, remember the plan; we need to stay quiet, stay hidden, and stay together." He instructed. "We find what we need and get the hell outta before here anyone even knows we're there, got it?" He asked and everyone nodded. Satisfied, Danny removed the manhole cover. They were quick to get out of the sewer and hid in the bushes near a building. They waited for a couple of seconds before Studwell and Danny peaked out to the streets.
It was dark and quiet on the streets.
"Where's everybody? There should be guards patrolling." Studwell frowned when he didn't see any guards and Danny was in agreement. There was nobody out there. If this was a command center and supply depot then Danny expected it to be well guarded.
"What, are you disappointed?" Bucky glared at the doctor for trying to jinx them.
"It's just strange, is all." He glared back but Sandy shushed them.
"I see one, by the door." She whispered and pointed to a tall man standing next to the stairs that led up to the front of the school. He was just standing there, doing nothing. Danny's eyes narrowed and he pulled out his sword.
"Okay, Bucky and I will sneak up, try to take him out quietly, and the rest of you wait for our signal and then follow us over; everybody got it?" "No shooting unless there's no other choice."
"Got it." He promised and they crept forward. Once they were close enough, Danny readied his sword and snuck up to the guard. The teen moved quietly, but just as he was about to strike, he suddenly froze.
"What the fuck?!" He yelped loudly in shock. Bucky was about to shush him before he saw what made the boy curse so loudly. The guard turned around and was revealed to be a reanimated infected. Danny quickly chopped him in the face, killing him. The body dissolved as the rest of the group came out of hiding. Danny looked at all of them and saw they were all thinking the same as him.
What was an infected doing inside here?
Atlantis was supposed to be the most secure place in Bikini Bottom. Before anyone could say anything, however, more infected were approaching.
"Get inside, fast!" Danny yelled and everyone ran inside the school Danny closed the front doors behind them. There didn't seem to be anyone inside. They run up the stairs and burst through a door into a hallway of lockers. Studwell and Mrs. Puff quickly closed the doors, just in case.
"Fuck! Do you think they saw us?" Kwan hissed fearfully as his eyes darted around, scared that an infected was about to jump out and kill him.
"I don't think so; I think we're good, for now, at least." Danny sighed, trying to wrap his mind around what just happened.
"What the hell happened here? I thought this place was supposed to be secure!" Sandy snapped.
"What always happens, I guess." Mindy shrugged. "In the end, the dead always win."
"Oh, man, we are so screwed now..." Dash shivered, looking seconds away from a panic attack.
"No, this is good." Studwell grinned, much to the others' shock and confusion.
"Did he just say this is a good thing?" Patrick frowned.
"Look at it this way; before, everyone in Atlantis was smart and they had guns, but now they're dumb and they don't," Studwell explained with an ever-growing smile.
"I agree." Bucky agreed. "So long as we don't let 'em box us in, we can still do this, the plan hasn't changed."
"The plan hasn't changed?" Dinkleberg almost laughed bitterly. "Every time infected show up, the plan changes! Do you even have any idea how many of them are out there?!"
"No; you wanna do a headcount, or do you wanna get what we need and get the hell out of here?" Sandy scowled and Dinkleberg backed down but still didn't look happy about staying here.
"I think I know which way to head." Mrs. Puff told them and the group followed her down a dark hallway, passing many classrooms along the way. As they walked along the halls, Dash suddenly stopped by a door. Danny noticed this and stopped, trying to see what was wrong. Dash was staring intently at a boarded-up door marked with a large red X. Danny frowned as he approached the door and could hear several zombies growling and moaning inside.
That answered his question about how much of Atlantis was overrun.
If their supposed supply depo was filled with the undead then it was safe to say that Atlantis had indeed fallen. They decided to keep moving and catch up to the others. Eventually, they reach a door at the end of the hallway. Danny cautiously opened the door and when he was sure it was clear, the group entered the abandoned classroom. There wasn't a lot in this room aside from a few desks, chairs, and a chalkboard.
At the other side of the classroom, Danny noticed a door that was marked as an armory.
He tried to open it, only to find that it was locked.
"Looks like they were using this room as some kind of command center," Bucky called out as they looked around the room.
"Okay, so now what? Where do we start looking?" Mindy asked, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible.
"Here." Mrs. Puff said and gestured to what looked like a hand-drawn map hanging on the wall. "Just give me a sec..." She muttered as she examined the map.
"What about the medicine?" Sandy asked.
"Right here," Mindy replied before the teacher could and pointed to the nurse's station. "They were using it as a medical facility."
"How do you know that?" Dinkleberg frowned.
"Just makes sense, doesn't it?" She shrugged nonchalantly.
"So, what about a battery?" Bucky asked.
"Maybe at the auto shop? There used to be one in the alley outside the fire escape." Patrick said and indicated where it was on the map. Dinkleberg stepped forward.
"What about the fuel? Where should I start looking?"
"There's a maintenance shed across from the playground here." Mrs. Puff said as she pointed at the map. "If they were storing fuel that's probably where it'll be.
"Okay, we'll make the run to the maintenance shed for the fuel," Bucky said as Dinkleberg nodded in agreement.
"It'll be faster if I go with you, I can take you right to it." Mrs. Puff told them. As the trio made to leave Dash and Kwan were about to follow them, but Bucky held his hand out to stop the jocks.
"No, two people's enough." He told the pair. "You two stay here, see if you can use any of those tools we brought to get that armory door open in case we might need to shoot our way out of here." He ordered, pointing to the armory. Kwan nodded though Dash looked unsure, but he didn't say anything.
"I'll go for the medicine," Sandy said, wanting to get what Spongebob needed.
"I'll come with you, I know what to take," Studwell said, leaving no room for argument.
"Okay, I guess that leaves me to go find us a battery," Danny stated since no one else offered.
"I'll go with you and watch your back." Mindy declared. Danny nodded and gave the hatchet to Bucky before turning to the group.
"Okay, we've got a plan; be careful, stay close to one another, we'll all meet back here." He instructed and they all nodded in understanding. "Good luck." He said and the group split up to get their respective things. That left Danny, Dash, and Kwan alone in the room. Since there wasn't much danger, Danny and Kwan decided to look around while Dash tried to break the armory door down.
He noticed a small bookshelf filled with books.
He might come back for these later. They might be children's educational books, but he was sure any reading material would be nice once they got on that boat. It wasn't like they could watch TV without power. He missed watching horror movies with his best friends like The Trinity of Doom. Kwan saw that one of the walls was covered in different state flags. A lot of history there.
But he sighed when he realized that it didn't matter now.
Danny looked at some pamphlets on the desk. It looked like they had quite a system here. Written on the pamphlet were the initials of people conducting searches, days since the outbreak, the number of ineligible citizens found, the number of citizens brought to Atlantis, and the number of infected found. The teen didn't want to think what ineligible citizens meant in Atlantis terms.
Danny then looked at the globe in the globe.
He had to wonder what was going on in the rest of the world. A sudden grunt and curse made them jump and they both turned to see Dash starting to lose his temper with the door.
"Hey, you need any help with that?" Danny asked as he approached to jock.
"Thanks, I got it." Dash snapped, but he sighed. "Just once, I'd like to do something useful, you know?" He muttered, refusing to meet Danny's eyes.
"Well... I'll let you get on with it," Danny said and made to leave to meet up with Mindy.
"No, wait! There is something you can help me with." Dash suddenly said, grabbing Danny by the arm to stop him. "Something that's been on my mind, I could use your opinion."
"What is it?" He asked and the jocks shared a look, and Danny knew that this wasn't going to end well.
"It's Bucky," Kwan admitted and Dash nodded. "Since we've been helping him work on the boat, we've gotten to know him a little better; he's a good guy, you know? And it's eating us up, knowing what I know."
"We've been thinking about telling him the truth," Dash said and Danny groaned.
"C'mon, this again?"
"It's our fault Chester and Mrs. Dinkleberg got killed." Dash hissed quietly as if scared someone else was going to hear them. "If we hadn't screwed up back at the motor inn, they'd still be alive; how are supposed to just carry something like that around? We have to tell them." He said and Danny looked at them as if they were crazy.
"No offense, but have you two lost your fucking minds?!" The dark-haired teen snapped. "Bucky's barely hanging on, I don't know what's going on in Dinkleberg's mind, and you tell him you're to blame... I don't even want to think about what they might do." He shuddered. While he didn't think Dinkleberg would be violent, he knew that Bucky was likely going to kill them both if he learned the truth.
"I know, we've thought about that." Kwan tried to reassure them. "But I don't know how much longer I can keep looking him in the eye; I feel like I'm lying to them."
"I'm telling you, it's a real bad idea," Danny warned.
"Hey, maybe you're okay walking around with somebody's blood on your hands, but that's not who I am! We can't just keep pretending that it never happened." Dash shouted, getting in Danny's face. Danny was seconds away from punching him, but he took a deep breath and a step back.
"Look, we need Bucky and Dinkleberg." He said through gritted teeth. "We need them to hold their shit together if we're ever going to get out of here alive, so you need to keep this to yourselves, for the good of everyone."
"I hear you," Dash grunted before returning to trying to open the door. "I'm gonna get back to this."
"Thanks anyway pal, appreciate it." Kwan smiled as he patted Danny on the back and went to join his friend. Danny rolled his eyes and left the classroom. They asked for his opinion, it's not his fault they didn't like his answer. As Danny walked down the halls of the school, he felt himself feeling nostalgic for the good old days back when he was in high school. It was funny what you might miss when the world you once knew went to hell.
He passed a sign listing the many principles of Atlantis.
It said that all illnesses and medical conditions must be disclosed to the council. Children under fourteen were not to be admitted without authorization. Anyone asked to leave Atlantis could not return under any circumstances. Theft or looting within the district will not be tolerated. Danny remembered all the bodies on spikes and decided to move one quickly. He then saw a large photograph framed on the wall.
It was the only thing in this hallway that was clean.
It was a picture of a stern, Caucasian man with dark brown hair and a mustache in his mid to late forties. That must have been the guy who ran this place. It looked like he figured himself out as some kind of supreme leader. Danny continued looking for Mindy, passing by many empty lockers, water fountains, and bathrooms. All of them were either empty, broken, or locked.
As he walked the halls, he saw lots of shell casings all over the floor.
Whatever happened here, it wasn't good. He considered picking up some of the shell casings, you can never have too much ammo in the apocalypse, but when he took a closer look Danny sighed when he saw that they were all used and were now useless. He noticed a bloody locker. It was the only one that wasn't opened and emptied but he could open it without the combination.
He made a mental note to come back to this later.
Danny turned the corner and saw Mindy, Sandy, and Studwell. Mindy was waiting by a fire exit and Sandy and Studwell were still trying to get into the nurse's station.
"The alleyway to the auto shop's down here, you coming or not?" Mindy scowled, pissed at being kept waiting, and left to go to the alleyway. Deciding not to anger her further, Danny quickly followed her out to the auto shop. When he got out to the alley, however, it seemed that Mindy had disappeared into thin air.
"Mindy? You out here?" He whispered, not wanting to attract any zombies to the area. He could already hear the distant hisses and growls of them somewhere nearby. When he didn't get a response, Danny began looking around the alley for her. He passed a large sign that said that deliveries were made in the rear with an arrow sign pointing to the left. Beneath it was a written notice for authorized motor pool workers only.
The auto shop was that way.
There were also a few other warning signs scattered around that said that any looters will be shot on sight. There was barbed wire along the fence so climbing the fence wasn't an option. The only other thing in this alley was an old shed. Seeing nowhere else Mindy could go, Danny entered the shed. It was empty aside from a few shelves and a large hole in the ceiling.
He looked at the hole in the ceiling, then climbed onto the shelves to get to the roof of the shed and jumped over the gate with barbed wire. He found himself in another ally in front of a garage door.
At the end of the alley, there was another fence.
Thinking Mindy was over there, Danny approached but quickly back-peddled when he saw that it led out into the streets filled with the undead. Mindy was still nowhere to be seen. He saw that the fence was partly damaged and decided to stay back and not attract too much attention. This must be the entrance to that auto shop where Patrick said they would find that battery.
Danny tried to open the door but it was jammed tight.
Danny growled in frustration as he ran a hand through his hair and paced around. He didn't know what he was going to do now. If they couldn't get that battery for the boat they then were screwed. As he paced around, he suddenly remembered his strange powers. If he somehow had the powers of a ghost, maybe he could walk through walls like they could. It was worth a shot.
The only problem was that Danny didn't know how to control these disturbing powers.
They just seemed to come and go as they pleased. Danny narrowed his eyes with determination and placed his hands against the garage door. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he tried to concentrate, but nothing was happening. While he tried to focus, a body suddenly dropped down in front of him. Danny cried out and stumped back in fright, but when the person didn't move he relaxed a bit.
As he approached the body, he saw that it was a man who was dead from a head wound.
He leaned down to examine it more.
"Leave him, Danny!" Mindy suddenly shouted, scaring Danny half to death, as she jumped down from the roof and took out her ice pick. "He's mine." She snarled like an animal before proceeding to kick the body several times and repeatedly stabbed him with the pick.
"Mindy!"
"What?!" She snapped before stabbing him a few more times and finally getting up, now covered with blood. Danny stared at her for a bit before shaking it off and examining what was left of the body.
"He's wearing medical scrubs," Danny mentioned when he noticed the blue uniform. "Some kind of scientist or doctor, maybe?"
"Yeah, well, he ain't shit now." Mindy spat and gave the body another kick before turning to the teen. "Did you find us a way in?"
"Yeah, but the garage door's jammed, can't raise it."
"Not a problem; look what I found." She grinned and offered him a carjack. Danny smiled and took the carjack. Just then, however, the infected started clawing at the fence, pushing it over more and more. Cursing under his breath, Danny quickly placed the carjack under the garage door.
"Come on!" Mindy urged as the infected knocked over the fence and start approaching. Danny hurriedly pushed up the garage door enough for them to fit and he and Mindy crawled inside.
"Take a look around and I'll make sure no stragglers get under this door." She ordered. Danny nodded and began looking around for a battery. The only vehicles in the garage were a large semi-truck and a car on a lift. Danny looked at the truck hood, thinking that maybe there would be a car battery in there they could use for the boat. When he opened the truck hood, however, he could see where the battery should be but it wasn't.
He looked up at the car and saw something blinking on the dashboard.
It must have been an anti-theft system. There was a good chance of a working battery being in that car if he could find a way to get up there. He found the panel that controls the hydraulic lift but when he tried to use it he cursed when he saw that it had no power. He had to find another way to get the car down. He looked around and saw more warning signs showing more Atlantis rules.
The teen didn't know how anybody lived like this.
He would rather take his chances on the outside. He noticed an office at the other end of the garage, but when he tried the door he found it was locked with no way in. Not sure what to do now, Danny decided to see if Mindy had any ideas.
"Something you need?" She asked when he approached.
"What do you think happened to Atlantis?"
"Don't know, don't care; as far as I'm concerned these fuckers got what was coming to them." Mindy shrugged with venom in her voice, not that Danny was surprised.
"Not a lot of sympathy for the people who died here, huh?" He asked and her face filled red with rage.
"As much for them as they did for the sick and the old and anyone else they didn't think was fit to belong in their little paradise, so, yeah, fuck 'em." She spat and returned her gaze to the gap in the door, mainly at the body lying in the alley. Danny saw this and braced for his next question.
"What was all that about back there? With that body?"
"He came at me up on that rooftop, tried to take a bite out of me, so I took care of business." She dismissed it, but Danny wasn't convinced by this. "What, you got a problem?" She snapped when he kept staring at her. He quickly took a step back, not wanting to get stabbed.
"No, it just seemed like you went to town on him a little more than you needed to."
"Hey, you never really know when those things are all the way dead, I was just making sure." She growled. "Look, you wanna get this battery or not? Time's wasting."
"I'm trying, but I can't get the car down; any ideas?"
"Do I look like a mechanic to you?" She barked and Danny was quick to walk away, sensing that he had overstepped and figured he should give her space just in case he ended up like that body out in the alley. He looked around some more and found the hose for the lift hydraulics. He tried to pry at the hydraulic hose but he couldn't pry the hose apart with just his hands.
He remembered his sword and used it to cut the hydraulic hose and the car slowly started moving down the lift.
Danny smiled in satisfaction when suddenly the car accelerated and crashed to the floor with a mighty bang. The alarm went off, attracting the infected to them. Danny cursed as the infected started clawing under the door. Mindy ran over and grabbed her pick axe.
"I'll try to hold 'em off! Hurry!" She shouted and started killing the zombies crawling in. He quickly opened the hood and found the battery. He unscrewed the terminals and picked up the battery.
"Got it!"
"We still got a problem here." She called back as more and more infected started getting in. "Put it in here, I'll carry it!" She said, holding open her backpack and Danny hurried to put it in. "Follow me." She ordered and climbed onto the semi-truck. Danny climbed up the semi-truck after her as infected surround it. The dead started rocking the truck, almost knocking the pair off.
Mindy and Danny shared a look, seeing no way out of this one...