Markus.
"What the hel is going on?" he demanded.
"That thing that attacked you before, it's right behind us!" Samantha cried in terror. "It must have fol owed us! It's hunting us!"
"A Leaper, huh?" Corvo mused as they ran through the rooms. "Doesn't it know that humans
invented the sport?"
The group stopped dead when they heard more growling coming from further up ahead. They aimed
their flashlights forward through the door to see a dark, hooded figure creeping toward them.
That's not possible! Markus thought in a panic. That thing is fast, but it can't be that fast!
His suspicions were confirmed when he looked back and saw that the door behind them was stil
under assault by razor-sharp claws. But his heart sank regardless.
"Shit! There are two Leapers!"
Samantha gasped and looked backward. "We're screwed!"
"Jacob, get that forward door shut!" Corvo ordered.
The biker ran ahead and quickly slammed the door closed before the second Leaper could pounce.
Meanwhile, Corvo reached into his army fatigues and produced out a grenade. He pul ed the pin and
lobbed it against the wal . It bounced several times, before coming to rest.
"Take cover!" the old man yel ed.
The four survivors cowered behind various tables and shelves, sheltering themselves. The grenade
exploded seconds later, blasting a gaping hole in the wall, and peppering every exposed surface in
the room with shards of shrapnel. The survivors cautiously raised their heads, and then Corvo
motioned the others through the smoking hole, back out into the subway tunnel.
Fortunately, they had walked far enough through the rooms running paral el to the tunnels, and had
bypassed the train crash. Jacob ran on ahead into the tunnel with the others fol owing him. They
knew that the Leapers would be close behind as wel . A couple of doors were not going to hold them
for long.
Jacob let out a disgruntled sigh when they arrived at the next subway station. The tunnel further
ahead had col apsed.
He turned back to address the group. "Wel , going up is the only option."
"Damn," Corvo cursed. "There's no way we'll be able to make it to Mercy topside on foot. Going out onto the streets is suicide."
"Wel , so is going back!" Jacob pointed out. "Especial y with those two freaks after us."
"Hey, guys!" Markus said. "Why don't we go down?"
The others looked over to see him struggling to lift a manhole set into a concrete foundation next to
the platform.
Corvo raised an eyebrow quizzically. "You wanna go through the sewers?"
"Wel , you said it yourself; the streets are suicide. Besides, how many Infected could there be down
there?"
Jacob opened his mouth to answer, but a loud roar pierced the air in the tunnel behind them. The
Leapers were closing in. Samantha ran over and started helping Markus without a fuss. Corvo stood
in thought for a moment, and then he sighed and walked over to the manhole. A moment later, the
metal lid had been lifted off, revealing a gaping black hole.
Markus looked at Samantha. "So, uh, ladies first?"
"You're such a gentleman," she replied sarcastical y. She stood at the edge looking down into the
hole for a moment. Then she aimed her flashlight downward and started climbing down the ladder.
Markus followed her.
"Are you serious?" Jacob said. "We're real y going through the sewers?"
Corvo looked at him stony-faced for a moment. Without another word, he slung his assault rifle over his shoulder and fol owed the other two down the ladder into the darkness.
Chapter 7
"I hate the sewers."
"Shut up, Jacob."
"Bite me, Markus. Aw, crap! I just stepped in something!"
"I'm going to take a wild guess here and say it was crap?"
"Keep talking. I'll cram this shotgun so far up your ass, you'll be shitting sideways."
"Uh, guys? Mixed company here?"
"Sorry, Samantha."
The cones of light from four flashlights pierced the darkness of the sewer tunnels, revealing a dreary
brown and green world of moss, slime and dirty-looking water, which Samantha did her utmost to
keep her shoes out of.
"We need to keep to any tunnels that head north," Corvo said from somewhere up ahead.
"Damn, it stinks down here," Jacob complained.
"Yeah, I noticed," Corvo replied mockingly. "Is that you or the sewer?"
"Oh, hey. That is uncalled for," the burly biker said indignantly, while Samantha stifled a laugh.
The four travel ed in a tight formation, keeping eye and ear out for danger. They walked without
incident for an hour, keeping to the left wall of a tunnel. Samantha led the group for the moment,
being sure to stop every time she thought she heard a sound. Fortunately, nothing leapt out of the
darkness at them. Corvo was keeping an eye on her, worried that she might break down and come
apart on them, like she almost had back in the subway.
She won't, he told himself. Samantha's a strong girl. She knows how to handle herself.
Markus plodded along behind Corvo, doing his best not to lag behind. However, the pain in his chest
was starting to burn with increased ferocity. He clutched the pistol that Samantha had given him with
one hand while he held his chest with the other, struggling not to pant with the pain. After al , any
noise could attract the Infected...
What I wouldn't give for some more pain pil s...
Meanwhile, Jacob knew that the others had their attention focused on the monsters without – the danger that could come at them from the front or the sides. He concerned himself with the monsters
within, and kept his shotgun trained on Markus the entire time. The young business man glanced
over his shoulder occasional y to see Jacob staring back at him, not even bothering to hide the fact
that he was holding him at gunpoint. Whenever this happened, Markus just scowled and turned to
face the front again.
The four survivors continued like this for some time, surrounded by the sound of dripping water. They
passed by doors every now and then, but they were not interested in what could be behind them and
ignored them. Suddenly, Markus stiffened, and stopped walking. What he had just heard
was not dripping water.
"Shhhhhh!" he hissed.
The others promptly stopped and looked at him.
"What is it, son?" Corvo whispered.
"I heard something..."
The survivors stood in silence for a moment, keeping their ears open for any noises.
"There it is again!" Markus hissed suddenly.
The others listened carefully to hear a strange scuffling noise nearby, echoing slightly in the tunnel.
The sound was gone as soon as it came. Corvo turned and aimed his flashlight back down in the
direction that they had come from, but the light revealed nothing except the long, endless drain that
seemed to go on forever.
"Something's fol owing us, that's for sure," he whispered careful y.
"How can you be so sure?" Markus demanded.
Corvo said nothing for a moment. The silence was absolute. " That's how. It only moves when we
do."
The four survivors crept along the tunnel at an even slower crawl than before. Something was
stalking them; smart enough to stay just out of sight to prevent them from using their guns. Corvo
frowned in frustration. It was just as bad as Charlie. The Viet Cong had employed smart tactics,
/> staying out of sight, and ambushing US troops on their own terms –
Samantha cried out and fired a shot from her pistol, shattering the silence of the sewers. The
muzzle-flash lit up the tunnel momentarily, il uminating a dark shadow further ahead leaping out of
sight. It moved too fast for them tel whether Samantha had hit it or not.
"Wel , our cover's blown," Jacob said, scowling.
"It was blown already," Corvo said. "We were being followed for a while now."
"Guys! Through here!" Samantha cal ed out. They looked over to see her standing next to a door built into the wal of the sewer tunnel. "I think it leads to some water treatment plant."
"Better than standing out in the open," Corvo remarked.
"RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
A horrible scream exploded in everyone's ears. Markus looked back in shock to see a hooded figure
fly out of the darkness behind them and slam into Jacob in a violent dive. The biker was pinned to
the dirty floor of the sewers under the shadow's weight.
"Oh, shit! " Markus yel ed. "The Leapers caught up with us!"
His pistol exploded into action, the flame at the tip belching forth bul ets, which struck the Leaper a
couple of times in the torso. It screeched in pain and leapt back into the shadows, while Jacob
quickly clambered to his feet and retrieved his shotgun.
"That hooded son of a bitch – " he growled.
The unnatural scream echoed throughout the tunnel again as the Leaper leapt back out of the
shadows, Jacob barely able to rol out of harm's way. He recovered and fired off a round at the
creature, his shotgun pel ets tearing gouts of stone chips off the wal of the tunnel in a puff of dust
and smoke. The creature dove back into the darkness, unharmed.
"Don't shoot at it!" Corvo warned. "It's too fast, you're only going to waste your shel s!"
Screeches echoed in the darkness as the grizzled biker continued to take pot-shots at the fleeting
shadows of the two Leapers.
"Jacob!" Corvo roared from the doorway. "Get your ass in here now!"
He begrudgingly obliged, and the older man quickly slammed the door shut.
"Out of the way!" Samantha cal ed from the side.
She pushed a table in front of the door, and then began to stack boxes and any other heavy-looking
objects on top of it.
"Nice work, kid!" Corvo exclaimed. "Now let's move! Double-time, people!"
The group advanced cautiously through the water treatment facility, guns held out in front. Jacob had
elected to take point, while Samantha watched the rear. Since they had managed to lose the
Leapers a while back, the tense silence surrounded them once again. They made their way past
abandoned machinery and water Thugs, casting their eyes to various metal catwalks suspended
above them that could harbour danger.
"Bril iant plan coming down here, Markus," Jacob said presently over his shoulder. The sarcasm in
his tone was more than obvious.
As he and Markus bickered quietly, Samantha stopped dead.
"Guys, I think I heard something," she whispered.
She aimed her flashlight behind them, without realising that the others had not noticed, and had
continued walking ahead. Samantha carefully slid the safety off on her M1911, unaware that she was
being watched from the side.
Corvo walked on ahead with Jacob and Markus, paying no attention to them. Suddenly, he looked
back and stopped dead, an icy bal materialising in his stomach.
"Where's Samantha?" he hissed.
Samantha crouched down by a large machine, keeping watch in the direction that they had just
come from. Then, to her horror, she realised that she felt... something's presence off to her side. Her breath caught in her throat as she sJaguared off the flashlight, plunging the area into total darkness.
She slowly exhaled as she listened to her surroundings. The silence was absolute.
Samantha slowly turned the flashlight to the direction in question and readied her pistol. In one fluid
movement, she turned the flashlight back on, and her finger squeezed the tigge –
She stopped herself dead. The cone from her flashlight revealed nothing, except for a dirty brick
wall.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A terrible scream came from right behind Samantha, and she was knocked to the cold, cement floor
of the room. Her flashlight and pistol fel from her grip, and she felt a pair of cold, clammy hands
throwing her roughly up against the machinery. Samantha struggled with her attacker, but she could
not see what she was doing in the dark. The hands closed in around her throat and started to
squeeze, as she gasped desperately for breath.
Corvo feared the worst when he heard the loud scream of an infected woman nearby.
Samantha, he thought desperately as he, Markus and Jacob ran back to the last place that they
remembered seeing her. How could we let you down like that!
"Where the hel is she – " Jacob started to say. "OH, SHIT! INFECTED BEHIND US!"
Corvo and Markus ignored the sounds of Jacob' shotgun blasts and continued their desperate run to
reach Samantha. He could hear the sounds of struggling nearby, and they ran around a corner of a
particularly large piece of machinery to find Samantha being held up against the machine. She was
in the process of being throttled and struck by several Common Infected. It was like the scene of a
dark and twisted mugging.
"You take your filthy hands off her!" Corvo roared, raising his M-16.
However, Markus' hand came up and pushed the gun back down. "Don't! You might hit her!"
Without another word, Corvo threw down the rifle, a combat knife taking its place. He launched
himself at the nearest Infected and stabbed it through the neck. As it crumpled to the floor, Corvo did
not slow in his stride, slashing the next infected man across the throat, a spray of blood flying
through the air. Markus aimed his pistol at heads and careful y squeezed off rounds, taking care to
aim so as to not hit any of his compatriots.
Corvo, however, was on the war path. How dare they assault her like that! He reached an infected woman, grabbed her head and violently twisted it sideways, feeling the neck snap. Her body had not
even hit the floor when Corvo grabbed a nearby man's shoulder and spun him around, stabbing him
repeatedly through the chest.
Samantha spied flashes of light and blurs of movement from the corner of her eye. She tried in vain
to suck air into her lungs, and her vision was starting to tunnel. She teetered on the brink of
consciousness when she heard a loud THWACK! The hands around her throat loosened
immediately, and Samantha stumbled to one knee, sucking air into her lungs grateful y. She looked
up to see Corvo standing above her, his face covered in blood. He offered his hand and helped her
to her feet.
"Th – thank you..." she rasped.
"Don't mention it – " Corvo started to say, when he was tackled from the side.
Samantha looked up worriedly to see that another infected woman had leapt from the shadows and
pinned Corvo to the ground, raising her hands to strike. Without hesitating, Samantha retrieved her
fal en pistol and took aim. She squeezed the trigger, and the muzzle-flash il uminated a spray of red
mist that burst from the woman's chest. Corvo managed to throw her off.
As he climbed to his feet, Samantha picked up her fal en flashlight and walked over to the infected
woman she had just shot. The woman in quest
ion was lying on the ground, panting laboriously,
blood dribbling from her mouth. She looked up to see Samantha standing overhead, aiming a pistol
down at her, and opened her mouth in a savage hiss. She was shot dead a moment later.
"I'm sorry," Samantha uttered in a shaky voice. She glanced up to see Markus looking at her, and
quickly cast her eyes downward in embarrassment.
Chapter 8
Jacob reloaded his shotgun as the others made their way back to him. He glanced at them and
scowled. "Thanks for the backup there, guys."
Corvo looked down at the bodies at Jacob' feet in disdain. "You fought off two Common Infected,
Jacob."
"Yeah, but what if there had been more?"
Before Corvo could reply, Samantha's voice cut in. "Hey! What's that?"
The others looked to see her pointing at a large, red door built into a nearby wal . The sturdy-looking steel door was fitted with a small viewing portal with iron bars covering the opening. The survivors
wandered up to the door, cautiously pushing it open to peer inside. They were met with the sight of a
smal , bare room with a wooden table against one wall with some maps hanging above it. A number
of discarded wooden crates were scattered throughout the room.
"It's like the safe-room that I stayed in before I met up with you guys," Markus commented.
Corvo nodded in agreement. "It is a safe-room." When he saw Jacob' puzzled expression, he
sighed. "A series of panic rooms throughout the country, set up by the military after the outbreak."
"Does it have a radio?" Samantha asked hopeful y.
The war veteran shook his head.
"Food?" Markus asked.
Corvo gestured to the crates on the floor. Al of them had been ransacked a long time ago.
Jacob snorted. "What does it have, then?"
The older man tapped the sturdy red door. "Shelter. We might actual y be able to rest in here for the
remainder of the night."
"I don't know, man," Markus began. "Shouldn't we just make for the hospital?"
"Son, we have no idea how many Infected are standing between us and Mercy. And it's been a long
time since any of us have had a proper rest. We'll take what we can get."
With that, the four survivors entered the safe-room and closed the door, sealing it shut from the
inside with a special y-fitted iron door bar.
Damned Are We Page 4
