Deadlocked 5

by A. R. Wise

  It was packed with tables, chairs, and computers. The room was about half the size of the Common Room, and there were multiple doors throughout. Strands of wire hung down from the ceiling and connected to the tables where the computers were set up.

  "How are we supposed to get out of here?" I asked as I looked around the cluttered room.

  Hailey pointed to a hall on the other side from us. "Maybe we should take the hall with the big glowing 'Exit' sign above it." She smirked at me as we headed that way.

  "No need for sarcasm, beautiful," I said. "I didn't see the sign."

  "No? Was it too big and glowing for you?"

  "Stop it." I pushed at her back as we ran along.

  We reached a series of metal doors that had a button on the side that pointed up. When we pressed the button a circle of light appeared around it, but nothing else seemed to happen. Soon after, Hailey discovered a door that led to a staircase nearby. We went in, but just before the door closed behind us I heard a bell chime from the room we had left. I leaned back, stopped the door from closing behind me, and looked through the small gap to see what had caused the noise.

  Men in armor, carrying weapons similar to the one used to blow the head off the man in the Common Room, came out of the doors that the button was beside. I cringed and eased the door of the stairwell closed.

  "What is it?" asked Hailey from above and I hushed her as I snuck up the stairs.

  "There were more men down there," I whispered.

  "Do you think we're being silly by sneaking around? Should we just go tell them that we want to go to the surface?"

  I shook my head emphatically. "No."

  "Why not? They let Paris and Echo leave. Why wouldn't they just let us go too?"

  "We were just talking about that, Hailey. We don't know that they just let them leave. For all we know, they blew their heads off like they did that guy in the Common Room."

  She nodded in agreement and we started to ascend the stone steps. We didn't make it far before an explosion shook the walls. We braced ourselves and then stared at one another once the rumble had ended. The lights flickered, threatening to leave us in darkness before sputtering back to life. Dust and bits of stone fell down on us as the walls absorbed the blast. Before we could ponder the event, a shrill alarm rang out through the entire Facility.

  "What is that?" Hailey had to scream over the alarm. "What happened?"

  "I don't know, let's keep going."

  There was another explosion, but this one felt further away and we didn't have to stop to steady ourselves. We passed several doors on our way up, but decided it would be best to continue moving toward the surface for as long as we could.

  A door opened several floors below us and a woman screamed in pain and desperation. She cried out for help and we stopped, silently debating whether or not we should do something. The stairs rose in ten foot increments inside of the square shaft, and we couldn't see the woman when we looked over the railing. We could only hear her tortured gasps as she struggled to live. There was another voice that didn't speak, but growled and roared. I didn't understand what was happening, but Hailey decided to ignore the woman's pleas and continue upward. She saw that I had paused on the stairs and came back down to grab my hand and pull me onward.

  The door on the landing just above us opened and a woman in blue stepped into the stairwell. I recognized her as one of our Instructors, and the validation of her existence as something other than a digital representation was hard for me to fathom. It was almost as if a ghost had walked out in front of us.

  She didn't see us at first and was intent on climbing the stairs, but when she turned to take her first step up she caught sight of us below. "What the fuck?" The woman pointed a tool at us that looked similar to the weapons that the men had carried but was much smaller. "How did you get in here?"

  "We just want to go to the surface," said Hailey in desperation. "We don't care about being Graduates. We just want to get to the Surface."

  The Instructor seemed amused. "Wouldn't we all?" Her tone made me wonder if the Instructors were forced to live underground their entire lives as well.

  "Can you take us?" I asked.

  She grimaced and pointed the weapon at us with more insistence. "Girls, it's not safe in here right now. You need to go back down to your rooms."

  Another explosion rocked the walls and we all stumbled as we tried to brace ourselves. Dust and small chunks of the wall rained down on us.

  "What's going on?" I asked. "What are these explosions?"

  "A terrorist attack."

  "What's that?" asked Hailey, neither of us had ever heard the word 'terrorist' before.

  "A rebel."

  We were befuddled. The word 'rebel' was also foreign to us. I would later come to realize the people running the Facility had excised all words from our studies that hinted at any sort of rebellion.

  She got frustrated and rushed an explanation. "There's a group of people on the Surface that are trying to kill us. Do you understand that? They're dropping explosives into the vents and one of them destroyed a containment unit that was holding," she paused and struggled to explain. "Holding some bad people in it."

  "Why are they…" my question was cut short by the angry roar of a man below us. Hailey and I turned to see a bloodied, haggard man climbing the steps behind us. We screamed and ran up, past the Instructor as she yelled at us to move out of the way.

  The man below was dressed in a blue suit and had white skin that was splattered with blood. His black hair was wet and there was a gash on the side of his head that ran from over his ear down to his jaw. I could see his teeth between the flaps of skin along his wound. Saliva and blood oozed over his lips and out of the hole in his face.

  Our Instructor aimed her weapon at the creature and took several shots, but the man below was unfazed. He scrambled up the stairs, using both his hands and feet as if he were an animal and not a man. He gripped the Instructor's foot as she continued to shoot her weapon into his shoulders in an attempt to hit him in the head. Finally, one of her shots hit the mark and the man's face slammed against the stair as brain matter spilled out from the wound. His body went limp and he slid down the staircase, his chin cracking against each step as he went.

  The Instructor pushed her blonde hair to the side as she panted and looked at us. "Come on. We need to get you back down where it's safe."

  Hailey laughed at the suggestion. "Down there?" She pointed down the stairs. "I'm not going back down there."

  "Yes you are." The Instructor raised her weapon and pointed it at Hailey.

  I snatched the barrel and pushed it up. The Instructor fired and I felt the heat and concussive force of the weapon as she jerked it away. She regained control of her weapon, but lost her balance in the process. Her foot slipped off the stair and she fell backward. She tried to grasp at the railing, but she tumbled over and rolled before collapsing onto the body of the man she'd killed. When she landed we heard a man growl from below.

  The Instructor was dazed and had lost her grip on her weapon. I couldn't see where it was on the landing where the Instructor and her victim were laying. The groaning voice came from a man on the stairs that led up to where our Instructor had fallen. He was crawling, using only his arms as his legs dragged uselessly behind him.

  He snagged his fingers on our Instructor's pants and used his grip to pull himself forward, which also dragged her toward him. She awoke from her daze and gasped at the sight of the man at her feet. She tried to find her gun, but couldn't and started to furiously kick at the creature that was crawling over her.

  "Help!" She screamed out to us and I took a step down to try and help her, but Hailey held me back.

  "We need to go."

  I looked at Hailey in shock as she pulled my arm. "We can't leave her," I said as our Instructor cried out in pain.

  "Yes we can, and we're going to. Now come on."

  I took one last look down at the woman as the creature crawled over he
r. She was pushing at his chin as he snapped his jaws and clawed at her cheeks. His fingers invaded her mouth and he started to pull her jaw open. I didn't see what happened after, but as we ran up the next set of stairs I heard the woman's jaw pop and her scream turned to a gurgle.

  The staircase came to an end at a set of double doors that were painted red. It had been a long climb, but not long enough to tire us out. We took a moment to look over the railing to see if we were being followed, but nothing revealed itself. Hailey unfurled the bloody towel that was wrapped around her hand and draped it over the railing.

  "Are you ready?" asked Hailey as she set her hand on a long, horizontal bar that stretched across one of the doors.

  "There's no turning back now. Do you think this is the Surface?"

  "I hope so." She pushed the door open and I held my breath in anticipation. I'd dreamed of this moment my entire life. We'd seen thousands of pictures of a beautiful Surface, with towering trees, a blue sky, and beautiful people living in open-air habitats. The prospect of seeing it in real life was exhilarating.

  Hailey opened the door enough for us to peek through. My heart sank when I saw yet another grey hallway.

  This hall was much larger than any I'd seen before, and stretched at least fifty feet across. There were walkways on either side that were lined with a railing and a wide, flat area stretched out between them. There was a straight yellow line painted in the center of the larger section and the entire hall was filled with the sound of fans revolving above, creating a deafening hum that challenged even the shrill alarm that still whirred.

  Another noise grew louder as we stared through the door. It was similar to the sound of the fans that lined the top of the massive corridor, but it was growing louder as we stood there. The small opening that Hailey held between the doors didn't allow me to look to the left, to where the sound originated, but I could see that there was a light on the concrete that was getting brighter as the noise grew louder. Then a beastly machine rumbled past us. It rolled along on a series of wheels that were nearly as tall as me and there were pipes sticking up from it that had black smoke billowing from them. The smoke clouded the air and floated into our stairwell, causing us to choke as we tried not to cough. I turned away to keep the smoke from getting in my eyes and then caught sight of something moving on the stairs below us.

  It was one of the bloodied men that seemed to infest the Facility. He was standing, but moved slower than the others. His skin was wrinkled and dark, as if he was covered in ash, and his right leg dragged as he stumbled up the stairs. He grasped Hailey's bloody towel and pressed it against his lips as he continued to stare at me.

  "Hailey," I whispered. "Get out."

  "What?" She turned to argue with me, but then saw the man below us. She took my hand as she pushed the door open wider. We crouched low and closed the door behind us.

  The hallway we were in was much larger than I had thought. To our left, there was no end in sight. The hall just disappeared in a haze of black as it seemed to stretch on forever. To the right, in the direction the vehicle had gone, I saw a glimmer of bright light far in the distance.

  "Hold up." We heard the faint sound of a man's voice ahead. As he spoke, the vehicle in the center of the hall slowed down and an awful squealing noise came from it as it rumbled to a stop.

  Hailey led the way as she moved to the railing and squeezed through. She dropped down a couple feet to the paved area that the vehicle had driven down and waved for me to follow. Then she stayed low and rushed to stand beside one of the vehicle's towering wheels.

  I marveled at the machine, with its eighteen wheels and boxy metal frame. There was a door on the back end with a latch that was connected to an exposed mechanism for opening it. There was a grate that jutted out from the back and a handle that looked as if it could be used to help step up onto the high platform. The rectangular box on the back of the vehicle stretched for more than twice the length of the front end, but it was the front that seemed to handle the majority of the effort required to pull the vehicle along.

  "Ain't no way I'm staying, Fuckhead," said a man from inside the front of the vehicle. "This place is falling apart. You've got Greys in here."

  "We're not letting any of you guys leave until we've found the person that planted the bombs."

  I knelt low and looked under the vehicle. I could see a man standing beside the other side, near the front, speaking with the man in the vehicle's cab. The one on the ground was wearing a suit similar to what the men inside of the Facilty had worn.

  "It wasn't us, you dumbass. It's one of the High Rollers. We tried to warn you about them. We told you they'd come after you."

  "It doesn't matter, Scott said you need to stay put," said the man on the ground.

  "Who? Jerald? Fuck him. You can tell him I said that." The vehicle rumbled and shook. "Tell him I said he can go fuck himself. I quit."

  "Turn off the truck."

  "Nope!" The man inside the truck had to scream over the noise. Then the vehicle shook, squealed, and started to roll forward. Hailey and I moved with it in an attempt to stay hidden. The man on the ground was shouting at the other one to stop, and then we heard the now familiar sound of his weapon firing.

  The truck stopped rolling forward.

  "Dumb mother fucker," said the man on the other side of the truck. He climbed into the truck and we heard metal grinding from the vehicle before he hopped back down and said, "Command Four, I've got a dead trucker in row two. Over."

  A new voice answered him, layered with static that I understood was coming from a radio. "Dead from what? Over."

  "Dead from my bullet in his brain. Over."

  The man on the radio chuckled. "Fine. Drive the truck out to the depot and leave it there for now. Scott is sending them out to deliver the stiffs. Over."

  "Drive it? The damn truck is covered in this dumb fuck's brains. Over."

  "And that, my friend, would be your problem. Over and out."

  The man cursed as he climbed into the vehicle. I pulled at the back of Hailey's jumpsuit to get her to follow me. We moved to the back of the truck and I used the handle to hoist myself up onto the black shelf that hung out under the door. I inched along to the other side, where there was another handle, so that Hailey could climb up as well.

  "Hang on," I said. "We'll let him drive us out of here."

  It took a few minutes, but the truck finally started to move. It was harder to hold on than I expected, and we quickly picked up speed until the wetness of my palms threatened to peel away my grip. Wind whistled in my ears and my hair whipped at my cheeks as we tore through the massive hall.

  The familiar glow of indoor lighting began to be usurped by a more intense light and I dared to look around the corner of the truck. Ahead of us, not more than a hundred feet away, the corridor ended and an expanse of blue sky stretched out as far as I could see.

  My heart leapt and I turned to Hailey with a wildly excited expression. I had to call out to her as she had her eyes clenched shut. I told her to look ahead and she leaned over her side of the truck to see what had excited me. She turned back to me with a joyous smile. She was as exhilarated as I was to be only moments away from stepping outside for the first time.

  Unfortunately, the truck began to slow down as we neared the exit. It stopped and I glanced at Hailey in confusion.

  "Hello?" the driver yelled out. "Anyone there?"

  I clenched my eyes and bit my lip as I pressed my back against the truck's rear door. Had he caught sight of me in his mirror when I peered around the side? Was he about to discover us? We were so close to escape, the thought of being caught now was heartbreaking.

  He opened the truck's door and I heard his boots clop against the concrete as he jumped down. "Hello?"

  He started walking and I braced myself as I expected to be caught. If he turned the corner, I planned on leaping down and viciously clawing at him. We were too close to give up now.

  "Command Four, come in. Ove
r."

  "Command Four here, what is it? Over."

  "Who's supposed to be posted at the ramp in row two? Over."

  Hailey and I crept off the back of the truck and around the other side from where the man was talking. As I walked, I had the chance to stare out at the blue sky beyond the ramp. There were grey streaks of clouds in the distance that I could only imagine were raining. Black specks flew through the air, and when they flapped their wings I realized they were birds, something I'd only read about before.

  "Moore and Ghent are on duty," said the radio. "Why? Over."

  "There's no one here, and the door is wide open. Over."

  We made it to the front of the truck. The engine was rumbling and we glanced around for any place that we could hide or otherwise escape capture.

  "Hold on," said the man on the radio. "I'm going to pull up the cameras for that area." My stomach knotted. I pushed on Hailey's back to get her to move forward despite not being sure it was safe.

  "You've got Dawns out there!" The radio screeched. "On the other side of the truck, there're two Dawns sneaking out."

  We dashed for the open air outside of the Facility, but it was an impossible attempt. The guard was carrying a weapon and screamed out for us to freeze. I pushed Hailey's back and yelled at her, "Run! Don't look back!"

  Then I stopped and prepared to face the man behind me. Before I turned, I saw Hailey make it into the sunshine. It glistened off her skin and hair, turning her into an angelic vision that I was happy to die to protect.

  I spun and faced the man with the weapon. He aimed it and I wasted no time in charging. I was too far to reach him before he could pull the trigger and end my life, but I hoped that if I threatened him he would aim at me first, giving Hailey a chance to escape.

  I heard the weapon blast and clenched my eyes shut in preparation for the pain. Does it hurt when you die?