Out For Blood 40

Gregg and Jill were stood outside the door marked "Chambers", Gregg held his gun in one hand and Zacks’ flashlight in the other. Jill had Hals’ gun in one of her hands and the other held the map of the tunnels; she had emptied the box of spare bullets into her two front pockets and was stood behind Gregg at the door.

Although Jill was cold and still a little damp, she had given Gregg his jacket back to protect him from the possibility of dripping water in the tunnel, he was also wearing Zacks’ hat, he had tried Hals’ on but unless he rested it on his ears, it fell covering his eyes. Jill had torn a hole in a plaid woollen blanket she had taken from the cupboard in the station room and passed it over her head. Between them they looked like failed auditionees for a spaghetti western.

Gregg was closest to the door and was about to step through it when he turned to face Jill. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he asked earnestly. ‘I have to warn you Jill… it’s not going be a pretty sight!’

Jill bit down on both lips and taking deep breaths through her nose she nodded slowly. Gregg pulled open the door and moved swiftly between the corpses to the open hatch in the centre. Jill quickly followed and on seeing the savagery bestowed upon the six bodies of the young girls; she let out a muffled scream through her nose and bit down harder on her lips almost cutting into them.

Gregg shone the flashlight before him and entered the hatch, Jill was not far behind. They reached the wooden floor of the tunnel and stood side by side, Jill finally breathed out what little air she had left in her lungs, she then took a few rapid breaths to get some oxygen into her blood.

The tunnel was a little over six-feet in width, just wide enough to have four people walk along shoulder to shoulder. The height of the tunnel was more like eight-feet; it had to be to accommodate the people using it. The ceiling of the tunnel wasn’t constructed the same as the floor, it was mostly bare earth. The wooden pillars holding it up were spaced at about five-foot intervals.

Some of these pillars had given way under the strain of the ground above, not broken in two but kinked into the soft earthen wall behind them. The walls also had no continuous covering, they were bare clay, or roots, and in some places rocks and boulders. Gregg set off along the tunnel his gun hand poised for action, and because Jill also had a gun he made sure she never slipped behind.

‘Why are we setting off before checking the map?’ asked Jill.
‘Well this is the only direction we can move in until we come to another tunnel. Unless you want to go back up there that is?’ replied Gregg pointing.
Jill said nothing and they carried on walking. After moving about twenty yards they reach a left turn, then Gregg shone the flashlight on the map.

‘Okay, about two-hundred yards down there on the left is another tunnel, which leads to…’ he moved his face closer to the map. ‘To the schoolhouse, and the one on the right goes to the garage, which one would you choose?’

‘I thought we were going straight to the Town Hall,’ said Jill. ‘To try and get the girls out?’
‘Eventually we will, but we have to be sure all the other buildings are empty. We don’t want to get butt-fucked now do we?’
Jill raised her brow. ‘Butt-fucked?’
‘Taken from behind, shafted up the a—’
‘I get the picture Gregg.’ She said stopping him. ‘Okay, we’ll go left, to the schoolhouse.’
‘The schoolhouse it is then.’ Obliged Gregg

With every step they took the wooden floor seemed to give a little more as though the ground beneath them were growing softer all the time. Gregg could see little reflective jewels passing through the beam of the flashlight as they dropped from the ceiling, a number of them had hit his hat and jacket but so far no burns.

At the moment they were heading down hill, only very slightly but they could feel the toes of their shoes landing that little bit heavier than they usually would. After a few more minutes they had reached the cross-roads in the tunnel. The map showed the schoolhouse tunnel to be as long as the one leading from “Chambers”. They noticed a slight incline on this tunnel.

Before they reached the end of it Jill stopped and pulled Gregg back then whispered to him. ‘What happens if we come across someone in the schoolhouse?’
‘We shoot the fuckers… plain and simple.’ He said bluntly.

Jill raised her brow and made an “Oh” movement with her mouth but no sound. When they reached the end of the schoolhouse tunnel it turned left heading for the library.

‘We’ll do the schoolhouse first, then the library.’ Said Gregg.
‘You got it Batma—’
‘Don’t,’ he said pointing the beam of light into her face.
Jill held her hands up. ‘Sorry.’

Gregg then shone the flashlight up and looked at the hatch to the schoolhouse, the ceiling of the tunnel was eight-foot high, but the door was another four or five feet higher. He put his gun in his belt and was about to use the first step when he saw it was snapped in two. He put his weight on the second step and it too gave way snapping softly. He put his foot on the third step and that one did the same.

‘You try,’ he said passing Jill the flashlight.

Gregg helped her up and she rested her weight gingerly on the forth step, it seemed to hold. She carried on for two more steps then a fourth and fifth, her head now touched the wooden door leading into the schoolhouse. She dropped down a step and put the map between her teeth, then holding the gun side on to the door she pushed up with both hands, she felt the weight of it and the stair beneath her creaked a little, but it held.

Jill pushed harder on the door and it opened, however the room above was very dark, it wasn’t glorious sunshine outside but the sun had risen. There should have been some degree of light in there. She shone the flashlight in as many directions as she could. ‘Looks all clear…’ she whispered.

Jill then opened the door fully and putting her gun and the flashlight on the floor she climbed into the room. She took the map from between her teeth and folded it up to put into her pocket. Turning she picked up her gun, and then the flashlight shining it into the tunnel to see Gregg.
‘See if you can find something for me to climb up.’ He whispered.

After looking closely at the windows Jill could see they had been painted over on the inside, she noticed slight slivers of light almost permeating the aging paint. She was looking around for something to put into the tunnel for Gregg to climb up and found a wooden school bench of about twelve-feet long. She put the flashlight back on the floor near the hatch she had climbed through and her gun in the back of her jeans.

She dragged the bench over to the hole and lifting one end she attempted to slide it down to Gregg. When she had half of the bench down the hole it hit one of the tunnel walls and jammed.

‘Lift it higher,’ instructed Gregg.
She did. ‘It won’t budge.’
‘Hold on,’ Gregg then ripped up part of a broken step. ‘Now, when I say lift, raise it as high as you can. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ replied Jill.
‘Lift.’

Jill raised the bench as high as she could get it and Gregg threw the broken step hitting the bottom of the bench and knocking it from the wall, it slid down the shaft breaking through the wooden floor with a bang and splashing Gregg with mud and water, most of which landed on his clothes but a couple of drops hit his face and Gregg had to brush them off with the gloves he had on.

‘Arrgh shit!’ He shouted.
‘You okay?’ asked Jill shining the flashlight on Gregg once more.
‘Yeah, just a couple of deep holes, nothing too major.’

Gregg pulled himself up the bench and Jill helped him scramble from the shaft albeit in a rather undignified manner. The room they had entered into seemed to be some sort of storage area. Jill located a light switch and flicked it on, two long fluorescent tubes out of six flickered into life.

School desks were piled into one part of the room with more of the long wooden benches stacked beside them. There were a couple of what must have been teachers desks pushed into one corner, they were a lot larger than the others and had drawers either side of a knee-hole.

Gregg opened a door that lead them into the corner of a large classroom, the windows here had not been painted over and the daylight as it was, entered through them. The rain could be seen running down the glass panes in dozens of miniature torrents.

To their immediate left half way down the room was a black chalkboard; farther down that wall in the corner was an old free-standing pump-organ. To their right the room stretched for about fifty-feet with posters and drawings the school children had obviously made covering the wall. At the end of the poster wall was the only wall with windows, six medium sized windows and a large double door in the centre.

Again like the wall to their right the facing wall was full of posters and drawings reaching half way up, and had four cupboards spaced along it. In the opposite corner of the room was another small door. The floor area was exclusively for children’s desks, about twenty-five in all.

They both set off across the floor at the same time, Jill stopped at one of the desks facing the chalkboard and sat in a rather small wooden chair. The top of the desk was covered with dust, it looked like it hadn’t been opened in many years.

‘Well one thing is obvious,’ she said, her voice rattling around the empty classroom. ‘There are no children in Martinsville.’
‘Yeah I noticed that yesterday when I was filling up the car, about an hour before they were on to me. There were dozens of people on the street but none of them were kids’.

Gregg looked at some of the drawings on the far wall, each child had written their name and age on their work. The oldest he saw was named Paul O’Rourke, he was fifteen, the youngest was a seven-year-old but he couldn’t decipher the name.

Jill opened the desk she was sat at and there were a few scraps of paper inside but nothing else. She took out one piece of paper that had been neatly folded into quarters; she opened it out and began to read the scribble aloud.

“Wot I did yestaday.
By David Marsh age 8

‘yestaday me and my frend tom jakson went out to play in the sunhsine weve been frends for a hole year now it must be a year cause I was 7 and tomoro I am 8 so that makes a year oh an tom is 9 wen he nocked on my door he bringed his kite so I got mine and we went to play in bones creek an tom sed its calld bones creek cause his dad fownd a milyon bones ther but I dont fink that is treu it wernt windy ther so we went to the pits to frow stowns in an tom sliped in the water I showtid sum men an they come ovre but dint get him out I wish I cud swim so I cud hav save tom now tom isnt sat naer me in skool no more thats wot I did yestaday”

Jill stared at the piece of paper in her hand and sighed. ‘Poor kid,’ she said solemnly.
Gregg walked over to Jill and taking the piece of paper from her he folded it and put it back inside the desk. ‘Come on, this place is empty.’ He said.
Gregg suggested they move on to the library and was about to head back to the storeroom when they heard a dull thud coming from above.

‘What was that?’ asked Jill looking at the ceiling above, her eyes moving swiftly from left to right.