It’s Not Easy Making Money In The Apocalypse

“Cecelia…”

“From the energy flow, my best guess is that the only way out of this facility is through this door,” Cecelia explained.

“Can we open it?” I asked.

“There should be an override lever for manually opening such doors.” Cecelia continued. “However, that will make a lot of noise.”

In other words, we didn’t know what was moving on the other side of that door, but if we went through it, we’d be alerting whatever was there of our presence. Furthermore, that thing could be an invincible weapon created by a crazy scientist that had no qualms about killing everyone else in this facility.

“It’s the only way out of here. We have to go through.” Zara concluded.

Unless we wanted to try to climb up the body shoot and come out in that same dead-end alleyway with the beasts, this appeared to be the only other way out of the facility. If I had to guess, then they must have tried to close off the monster. The main entrance door was sealed shut, and they tried to close the door to save anyone still trapped in the facility. It was too little too late, although maybe some of those skeletons we saw died from starvation instead of murder.

It had been decades though. Even if this weapon was dangerous and deadly, it should have died by now, right. Whatever Zara was hearing could be anything. Surely something with a name like the weapon would be loud and easy to hear. I looked around the hallways reluctantly a few more times, gripped my weapon that suddenly felt as useless as the 9 mm tightly, and then grabbed the handle. I wasn’t able to budge it.

“Let me.” Zara gave an annoyed sound as she pushed me to the side and started opening the handle on her own.

The handle resisted with a rusty groan. I wouldn’t have minded the noise a few minutes ago, but now it caused me to feel especially alarmed. There was a thud sound as she finished turning it, and then she reached and started pulling up the door. It groaned loudly as she did, but it moved very slowly. She stopped and shot me a look. With a blush, I bent down and grabbed the door too, helping her pull it up. It was hard to move, and the both of us huffed and pulled for nearly five minutes before it was up enough that we could crawl through.

I stopped there, looking down at the crawlspace we had created. As luck would have it, the power was out on the other side of the doorway, making the crack look like a path into darkness. Was that enough for this weapon? Was it sitting there on the other side? I glanced over at Zara, feeling a bit anxious.

“I don’t hear anything.” She declared.

“Cecelia… if anything happens.”

“Yes, I know, World Travel,” Cecelia responded dismissively.

I could still escape from this situation, however, that was only temporary. At what point would I dare to return? Every time I came back, I’d be risking my life, and the number of crystals on me was limited, so I only had a couple of chances at that. That wasn’t even considering I’d be leaving Zara behind to die. Nothing about this situation sat well with me. Since I had the way out though, it made sense that I could be the first in. If something happened and I disappeared, then maybe she could get the door shut or have time to run or something.

I turned on my Perco’s light and shone it through the crack. I could see caked blood, dirt, and rust on the floor, but no feet. With a sigh, I started to crawl forward, flattening myself on the ground as I pulled myself through into the blocked area. I couldn’t crawl with my gun, so I pushed it ahead of me as I went. When I finally came out the other side, I got on my knees and flashed my light around. I could only see darkness though.

“Hah… this place.” I heard movement down at my feet.

I lowered myself and helped pull Zara through, and then helped her up. When she was standing, she didn’t let off my hand. I glanced at her, and she was looking right back, her eyes glowing in the darkness.

“You don’t care that I’m a revenant… do you…” She asked, her eyes seeming to pierce in mine.

“Why is that important right now?” I asked, looking around nervously. “There might be some kind of monster in here.”

“You say that like…” She stopped, looking away. “I can see if you turn off the flashlight. It might be safer if you hold my hand and follow my lead.”

I couldn’t see her face as she spoke. The idea of being blind kind of scared me, but her words did make sense. My light caused us to stand out if everything else we had already done didn’t. I still would have a chance to turn the light on or even World Travel should things go badly.

I nodded, turning off the Perco. “Lead the way.”

Her hand squeezed me for a moment as if she was reassuring me of my choice, and then she started moving. She pulled me along the hallway, and as we got farther away from the light coming from the crack in the doorway we had maid, the darkness only overtook us completely. At some point, I could hear the cracking as something broke under our feet. I tried to tell myself it was just debris and not the bones of other people who had died.

“Master.”

Moving in the dark with only the vaguest shapes in front of me, my stress levels were completely maxed. I nearly had a heart attack when Cecelia suddenly spoke up.

“Wh-what?”

“I believe we’re passing the security room right now. This would be your chance to plug me into the rest of this facility and gain the knowledge we need.”

“Is that important right now?”  I hissed as quietly as I could.

“If this facility is in lockdown, you’re going to need me to take it off lockdown if you want any chance of opening that front door. Otherwise, we’re just marching to a dead-end.”

Her words made perfect sense. I had been hoping to just strut out the door, at most having another manual lock or something my master code could overwhelm, but there was no saying. Plus, if we encountered any robots or turrets, didn’t it make sense for Cecelia to shut them down first?

“Stop…” I whispered to Zara, although she must have heard as she already stopped. “Go right.”

She led me through another door, and after a few moments, I heard the light swish of the door closing. This was followed by a click. Light struck my eyes suddenly, and I had to blink a few times before looking back to see Zara standing at the door with her free hand on the light. She looked down at her other hand, which was still holding mine.

I let go of her, coughing weakly. “S-sorry… and thank you.”

“You followed me in the dark.” She responded. “I didn’t think you would.”

“Have you heard any other noises in here?” I tried to change the subject.

She shook her head. “It’s hard to tell. Your heartbeat is the only thing I can hear.”

“I see…”

Her face turned red. “It’s not like I was listening to it… it’s just the acoustics in this place that makes it hard to focus on anything else.”

“Well, hopefully, we won’t have to anymore.” I walked up to the security system and pulled out the connector.

This system looked very familiar as it resembled the one in the hospital greatly. I plugged my Perco in and uploaded the Master code. Cecelia immediately followed.

“Finally, I have a much better grasp on the location. We were heading in the right direction. There are only three more turns and then the main blast doors. This is a bit very similar to one of the domes.”

“The colonies?” I blinked. “I thought there were only 25 built.”

“25 public colonies built, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other private, government, or top-secret bunkers constructed apart from the dome project,” Cecelia explained. “25 were known and operational at the onset of the virus, but as you know, the feral takeover didn’t happen overnight. It was years before the government completely collapsed, plenty of time for new ones to be constructed and valuable personnel to be moved into place.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I responded. “But to build one under a hospital…”

“It was already here as some kind of research lab, but it was repurposed for MGV research after the infection began to spread.” Cecelia continued. “And there… I’ve shut down the lockdown and opened up the doors. I’ve also turned on the lighting. Nothing is alive in this facility other than you two.”

She added that last part as an afterthought, but that was the thing I could have heard first. With a breath of relief, I turned to Zara.

“You ready to go?”

She silently nodded.

I unplugged the Perco and then the pair of us headed out into the hallway. I ignored any signs of the gruesome battle, as they didn’t matter anymore. I’d send Zara on her way and then come back and see about whatever that mad scientist left behind. Then, I’d work my way back to the hospital. How late was it? It still had to be dark out, right? I was not going to get a lot of sleep tonight. I already regretted this silly trip. In the future, I’d get rid of my curiosity and depend on trading only. I wasn’t some adventurer; I was a merchant.

With the lights on and Cecelia directing us, we reached the front blast doors easily. This was the path that led to the exit and gave us a way out of this underground facility. They had been shut during the lockdown, but since the lockdown was over, it was all too easy to give them the open code. I excitedly plugged the connector in and sent the open code.

“Wait, I hear something!” Zara suddenly cried out.

However, it was too late. There was a popping noise as the locks moved out of place, and then the door pushed out and rolled to the side. As it did so, I heard the thudding of footsteps. A massive creature nearly the size of the hallway stepped out. It had massive claws arms and hundreds of eyes all over its body. Every eye was locked on the pair of us.

So… that’s where the weapon was.