by Ian Woodhead
Were the other girls close by? They couldn’t be that far away, this level was the only place in the Institute that had secure rooms, she hoped they had more luck in escaping than she had. Amber leaned against the door, refusing to sit back on the bed, sitting down would be a sure sign of defeat and despite the odds; she hadn’t yet reached that point.
Amber slowly walked over to the corner of the room, thinking hard. There must be something that she had missed, something obvious, it was only a storage room, not a prison cell.
Her eyes jerked over to that door. Amber heard something clang against one of the other doors further down the corridor, maybe one of the other girls got lucky and found something, a tool or weapon in their own prison. Oh God, what if the soldiers were coming back? Maybe the sound she heard was a key being thrust into the lock.
Amber heard the sound again, it was much closer and now it was right above her head.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered looking up. “A drop ceiling, a bloody drop ceiling,”
She’d just spent the last fifteen minutes ruining her hand on a metal door when there was a perfectly good escape route just two feet above her.
“How could I have been so stupid?”
Amber watched one of the polystyrene tiles slide across before a friendly face poked through the hole.
“You ain’t stupid lass,” said Patsy. “You just haven’t seen as many movies as me.”
Amber scrambled onto the bed, she stood on the headboard and grabbed Patsy’s outstretched arm. Her friend pulled her through the hole and into the recess.
“Your elfin qualities have definitely been an advantage here, Amber. It would have been a struggle if you had tried to rescue me.”
Amber watched her replace the tile, “So which movie was it this time?”
“Aliens of course,” she replied. “Vasquez had just welded the door shut yet those pesky xenomorphs still kept coming. When the motion sensors showed the terrified marines the aliens had got into the room, all eyes automatically went up,” she grinned, “yes that’s right, they even have drop ceilings in the far future.”
It surprised Amber just how dark it was up here, she thought that the thousands of tiny holes in the tiles beneath them would have given them some light.
“You’d best follow my lead, Amber. We’re both balancing on top of a wall partition here, deviation to either side would mean dropping through the tiles, and that’s not recommended!”
The absence of light made it a little difficult to keep her balance; she had to use her fingers to probe for the edges of the tile connecters before she could move forward. Perhaps it wasn’t a good time to mention to Patsy that she had a fear of the dark, despite being relieved to be out of that cramped room, Amber was now wishing she had stayed there. She paused and took a deep breath.
“Amber, are you alright?”
She nodded then felt foolish for doing so, how was Patsy going to see her doing that? “I’m okay,” she said, a little shocked that her voice sounded so normal. “Must be just delayed shock or something, you know?”
“A few more feet, Amber and we’ll be home and dry.”
A rectangle of white light appeared in the floor a few feet from Patsy. It was the most beautiful sight Amber had ever seen.
“It’s doubtful they’ll look for us in here.” she said before dropping through the gap.
Amber reached the hole and peered down, away from her friend’s upturned face, she saw dozens of narrow metal tables, three at the far side of the room were occupied. They were right above the mortuary.
“Come on Lass, those poor sods on the gurneys ain’t gonna harm you.”
“Do you think they’ll look for us?”
“Oh yeah, you can guarantee that one.” She replied, helping her down.
“Have you ever spoken to Janice Lockwood?”
It took Amber awhile to place the name; the image of a dark haired woman with sharp features swam up from her subconscious. “Yeah, a bit loud, always obsessing about her nails.”
“Well she was in the room next to you, she crapped herself when I lifted one of the tiles. Can you believe that the silly cow wanted to stay?”
Amber wasn’t all that surprised, she may have a mouth on her like the Mersey tunnel but underneath that noise lay a very insecure woman. Janice lost her husband in an accident a couple of weeks before Patsy turned up. The poor woman had initially gone to pieces. Perhaps having a big, strong soldier boy was what she really wanted.
“Janice called me quite a few nasty names, you can bet a pound to a penny that the vindictive cow will tell them exactly where we went.”
“Oh shit,” Amber watched one of the tiles further down lift up and a young man with hard little eyes stared directly at her. She jumped down and looked at her friend in terror, “It’s too late, they know!”
Patsy’s eyes darted around the room then raced for the door with Amber close behind. She pulled open the door then to Amber’s astonishment, Patsy ran over to a pile of white sheets lying in the corner of an aluminium worktop.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” hissed Amber. She could hear the heavy thuds above them getting closer. Patsy placed her index finger over her lips; she threw her a sheet then pointed to one of the empty trolleys.
“You have got to be fucking kidding!”
Patsy shook her head and ran past her, jumped on the first trolley and pulled the sheet over her body; Amber glanced up before following her actions. As she pulled the cold plastic sheet over her head, she heard the first soldier drop into the room followed by the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.
Her pounding heart crashed against her ribs. So much for that bastard Colonel’s rousing speech about females being like precious flowers. Another set of boots hit the tiled floor; at any second now, that sheet would be pulled off her face and the last thing she’d ever see would be those soldier’s piggy little eyes before he pulled the trigger. Oh God, why didn’t they just bleeding run while they’d had the chance?
The cold sheet made her nose itch; Amber was going to sneeze at any moment. Those soldiers, they hadn’t said a single word since they’d dropped down. Were they keeping silent so they could listen to any sound that could betray their presence?
She heard a cupboard door opening. Oh God, they were! The soldiers were searching the fucking room.
Amber tried to block out that itchy feeling and concentrated on slowing her breathing down. She strained her ears, listening to them throwing the contents of that cupboard across the floor.
“I’ve found some!”
Amber jumped; it was the first time either of them had spoken. The rustle of the plastic sheeting as she moved sounded thunderous to her ears.
“How many are there?” replied the other soldier.
She recognised that voice: it belonged to that arsehole who’d thrown her into that bloody room. According to the patch on the front of his uniform, he was called Hayder. What the hell were they doing? Then again, who cared, it was obvious that they weren’t searching for her or Patsy.
“It’s a full box,”
The excitement in that man’s voice was almost palatable.
“Brilliant,” replied Hayder. “A good start to our collection. Okay Pembroke, I reckon those women will have headed for the medical section.”
“But that’s three levels down, they won’t have gotten that far.”
“Fuck the girls!” Snapped Hayder.
Pembroke chuckled, “I intend to when we get to Scotland.”
Hayder sighed. “Stop thinking with your cock for a second will you? This is the first time that we’ve been let off the leash since the Birmingham disaster. They’re taking us to the middle of fucking nowhere, we ain’t going to be shagging 24/7 you know.”
“Well I’m going to try, buddy.”
“Good for you Pembroke, then what happens when you get bored of boning your woman? We need luxuries, man. Those pills in your grimy paws will be worth a fortune.
”
Amber wondered if the Colonel knew that his great plan had already gone to shit.
“Look Pembroke, one of those tarts belongs to Jackson. After how that bastard treated us in London; I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire. Let him look for his own woman.”
“Good point, let’s go shopping then.”
Amber waited for a few seconds after the door had shut before breathing out. “Patsy?” she whispered. “Have they gone?”
She blinked as the plastic sheet was ripped off her.
“Yes, they’ve gone,” replied her friend.
Patsy wondered over to the now closed door and peered through the glass, Amber eased her body off the metal trolley, hoping never to go through anything like that again.
“What do you think they took?”
Patsy shrugged, “Who knows or cares?” she walked down the side of the room, closing the blinds as she went.
“What are you doing? What if they come back?”
Her friend shook her head, “Why would they? Do you think they were going to climb back up there or something? Look, we need to get out of the Institute.”
Amber couldn’t believe she was hearing this. “What the hell for? All we have to do is lie low for a couple of hours; those soldiers will be gone by then.”
Patsy looked at her watch, “Your Miles would have understood that movie reference you know.”
The colour drained from Amber’s face. Patsy nodded to herself, “You’ve forgotten about him haven’t you.”
“But the Colonel said he was sending some of his soldiers out to bring them back!”
“And you believed him? We’ve already witnessed the actions of his heroic men.” She walked back over to the windows and peered through one of the blinds. “Here’s a question for you then. Where the hell is everybody, eh? Here’s another one, how will the rest of the people here react when they are told that the soldiers are stealing their women?”
Amber shook her head, “I guess they wouldn’t tell them, either that or they’d make something up.”
Patsy nodded, “You’ve hit the nail on the head there, lass, just like telling us that they were going to bring the teams back in.”
“Andy is out there too.”
It was Patsy’s turn to go pale. “No, Amber, you must have it wrong, only Miles and Edger were due out.”
“He took a team out before you started your shift, Andy didn’t want you to know.”
Patsy turned away from her and slowly walked towards the open cupboard with her face to the floor. “He didn’t want me to know?”
Oh Christ, maybe this wasn’t the best time to tell her that Andy had gone out looking for a ring. “He said he was going to get you a present. I thought he was only joking.”
She looked at Amber, tears were rolling down her face, “and now he’s dead.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard gunfire earlier on; I thought that the Colonel’s monsters were knocking on the doors.”
Amber couldn’t trust herself to speak, she had visions of the men’s horror struck faces as their comrades started to fall around them. Patsy was right, if there were monsters outside, that Colonel wouldn’t risk sending any of his men out there.
“Look Patsy, both teams have radios, all we have to do is get our arses up to the departure lounge and warn them.”
Her friend slowly nodded.
“And don’t give up hope just yet. Nine times out of ten, the teams are late to check in anyway.”
Amber hurried over to the door, “Come on Patsy, it won’t take us long to get up there.”
She spun around when she heard a muffled scream, as Amber turned; she caught sight of Patsy’s legs disappearing up through the ceiling.
Chapter Six
Miles didn’t need to see that those things were still behind them, he could smell them. Oh Jesus, the stomach-heaving stench made him wish that he hadn’t thrown his mask away.
The wet smell of decaying vegetables accompanied the creatures like a toxic cloud. Miles hadn’t breathed through his nose for over ten minutes now, not that it made any difference; he could almost taste the rancid smell. How his partner hadn’t noticed it was beyond him.
He crawled a few more inches and only stopped when he saw Edgar jerking to a halt.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
Edgar just shook his head. He wasn’t sure whether that meant that he didn’t know or to just stop talking. Miles turned and sat down, resting his back against a wooden board. He knew that they should keep moving; they needed to find somewhere safe so they could work out what to do next. He needed to stop anyhow, he was knackered.
Miles took an experimental sniff and found to his surprise that the smell wasn’t so bad now; maybe those things had gotten bored and buggered off, oh God, he hoped so. Something crashed to the floor on the other side of the shop followed by a bear-like roar. Shitting hell, they hadn’t gone anywhere.
Edgar continued his crawl and Miles saw the state of the carpet beneath his leg, the fibres had begun to rot away. Edgar was getting worse by the minute. It was Edgar’s mutilated leg that was the main source of the stench.
Why on earth had he insisted on coming in here in the first place? It didn’t make any sense to him. Why did Edgar choose a music shop? A hardware store or a supermarket would have been a wiser choice or, even better, a bloody gun shop.
When Miles had made it quite clear that he wasn’t about to leave him, Edgar had just clammed up, he’d spent nearly one hour following him around the centre, the only animation he’d shown was when he’d hobbled past this shop.
One of the televisions in the media department toppled over, Miles slid further down. Bloody hell, if Edgar hadn’t thrown that brick through the window, then those two monsters wouldn’t have followed them in
Miles saw something out of the corner of his eye; he risked a peek over the CD display. There were half a dozen black tentacles reaching towards the ceiling, they were just like the revolting things that caught Edgar, only a lot thicker. Each one of those vines was barbed, like rose branches. He imagined just one of those tendrils wrapping around his torso and shuddered; it would rip him in two.
Edgar tapped him on the shoulders and then handed him a pile of empty CD cases.
“What the hell do you want me to do with these?”
He didn’t look at Miles, his eyes were fixed on those tentacles as they felt their way across the ceiling, the things were growing longer with each passing second. Edgar pointed behind Miles, he almost screamed.
The other monster was copying, only its tentacles were a lot closer.
“Throw that pile towards the t-shirt display,” whispered Edgar. “Then run like fuck over to that staff only door over there by the listening booths.”
He thought Edgar had lost his marbles; they should be running towards the fire exit. Miles saw Edgar’s own CD pile fly into the air. When they came clattering down, some landing on the floor, other hitting the country and western section, the response from the tentacles on the other side of the room was immediate. They flowed along the ceiling at incredible speed before hanging down; some of them picked up the empty cases and crushed them. They didn’t retreat; they formed a lethal curtain, an impenetrable barrier. Their route back to the broken window had just been cut off.
Edgar hobbled as fast as his one good leg could take him towards the staff door, he glanced behind him, his face drained of blood. “Come on!” he shouted.
While Miles had been stood there holding the pile of CD’s the other tentacles had flowed towards him, they were now inches from his face. He screamed and threw the CD’s into the air then bolted over to the door. His heart almost gave out when he saw the black metal combination lock next to the handle.
“Oh Jesus, fucking God! What are we going to do now?”
Edgar just punched in five numbers and pushed open the door. Miles followed him through and slammed the door behind him.
“Ho
w the fuck did you know the code?” he asked, panting.
Edgar slowly began to climb the stairs, “How do you think you idiot? I used to work here a few years back, they never used to change the code back then. I figured they’d probably keep with tradition.”
He followed him up the stairs. “Bloody hell! What if they had changed the code? Did you ever think of that?”
Edgar looked back at him, “Of course I did, I did tell you not to follow me though. I need somewhere to rest Miles, I’m tired and things are happening to me that I can’t explain.”
Edgar hobbled over to a chair and collapsed into it; he tried to smile at him but it quickly turned to a grimace. Miles could not imagine how much pain he was in. That leg was getting worse.
Miles jumped and ran up the remaining stairs when something banged into the door.
“Don’t worry,” said Edgar, “they were probably just turning around.”
“How can you be so damn sure?”
“Do you honestly think that a thin wooden door would be able to keep them out? Like I said, they’re turning around, the buggers are both leaving.”
Miles placed his pack and weapons on the table and sat down opposite Edgar, relieved that he could no longer see the man’s legs. Edgar took his eyes off the battered Formica table and stared at Miles. After a few seconds, he had to turn away from the man’s intense gaze.
“You really do have to go, Miles. I’m changing into one of those things.”
Miles shook his head, “No way dude, I ain’t leaving you. I’ll get you back to the Institute somehow. Doctor Phoebes will know what to do.”