Episode-17: Escape

Date: November 25, 3008
Time: 08:30
Location: Somewhere on the Ocean of Ossyria

~Maldran~

Dripping. It filled the halls and corridors with a cryptic mood as it continued in its lackadaisical show. Blackness consumed the doomed ship as the waves started to force it down into the sea. As the storm raged on outside, the seven remaining crept through the passageways, trying to find a way out of the endless maze.

“Where the hell are we…” Maldran whispered to no one in particular. The dripping of blood was so far off, yet it seemed so close to him. This ship was haunted. He knew it.

“How the hell should I know,” Michael spat back in a forceful manner. Maldran continued to walk forward, his Spas-12XPL’s mounted flashlight scanning the area ahead. It was pitch black like the night with an eclipsed moon. The rumbling thunder overhead only made matters worse.

“Hey I think I hear something up ahead,” Maldran’s ears pricked up as he quickened his pace. There was a sort of rushing sound and it got louder as he approached a hatch at the end of the hallway. Reaching the door, he put his ear to the metal. It was deafening.

“I don’t think you should…” But before Lily’s sentence finished, Maldran had thrown open the door and a wave of water crashed into the dark hallway. Maldran was swept off of his feet and he felt himself leave the group in a dark slide of the rushing ocean. Cursing profusely, he finally slid to a halt as Naz and Lily both forced the door back with their minds, leaving Maldran dazed and quite wet.

Lily’s white boots echoed dully on the floor as she approached. Maldran heard a skid then felt himself being lifted up into the air, “Mal, one more move like that,” Lily began, then suddenly unsheathed a katana and pressed it against his neck, “And you’ll join those zombies.” She released him, letting Maldran fall to the floor.

“Come on,” Felix grunted as he pulled Maldran back up. Maldran felt foolish and humiliated, and he knew Lily could feel it too. But before he could do anything else, Mikhail stepped in.

“We have to get off of this ship,” he said as he looked up and down the hall, scanning it with his flashlight. “Let’s make our way to the bottom of the ship. Hopefully there will be some cargo hatch or something at the bottom.” The seven of them sauntered after Mikhail, who seemed to know where he was going.

Maldran’s eyes started to droop. For the first time in this wild night, sleep started to creep up on him like a phantom. He felt his grip on his shot gun slacken as his hands dropped to his sides. The dripping seemed to get louder as he carried on. Maldran could not tell where it was coming from. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, as if the blood had managed to follow their tracks. Maybe it was just his mind…

The metallic screeching of something up ahead snapped Maldran awake. As his eyes darted forwards, he saw Mikhail wrench open a hatch, leading to an upside down staircase. He gave a deep sigh and proceeded forwards, climbing up the back face of the stairs. In the infinite darkness, Maldran felt something cold seep through the air.

They emerged on the ceiling of the boiler room. The red coals that had previously started to burn were still smoldering but were out of their containers. Maldran stepped back as the surge of heat hit him; the coals were scattered in a thick layer upon the ceiling.

“How the hell are we going to get through that?” Maldran whispered to himself. But then, Nova pushed roughly past him and seemed to walk straight into the coals. But as his eyes darted from her body to the floor, he noticed the red hot blocks of carbon seemed to be shifting away from her feet as she carried on, desperate to escape from the wrath of a Shadow. He followed in her footsteps, careful not to tread foolishly.

“There,” Michael cried as if in agony, “I see a hatch on the ceiling, or rather the floor.” Maldran’s eyes shifted up and saw a circular hand hold lining a larger door. It was directly in front of him and had a ladder leading up to it. The thing was, there was a jumble of twisted boilers, still steaming hot, blocking the way.

“Sh** how are we going to get up there?” Maldran sighed in exasperation. He looked over at Naz and Lily who seemed to be concentrating with their entire mind. Then, their feet slowly started to hover away from the ground, and soon, they were drifting as if effortlessly towards the hatch. The two of them latched onto the hand hold at the same time and twisted it open, allowing a crash of thunder into the doomed ship. Rain started to pour in, cooling the fire and flames.

After scrambling over the heap of twisted metal and climbing up the cold steel ladder, Maldran found himself standing on the bottom of the capsized ship, feeling the refreshing rain lash out at his skin. The grey morning welcomed him into a frenzied world as another bolt of lightning streaked across the sky.

Suddenly, a roaring of some kind of engine swooped down from above. Maldran whipped around and faced Mikhail. He had an excited grin etched upon his face. A large spot light suddenly shined down upon the seven as the Silver Talon dropship arrived from the heavens. Maldran almost gave a cry of joy, but then his eyes dilated in horror.

A hand started to creep up from within the ship. It climbed out, revealing a half blown-away face of a zombie. Instantly, Felix fired a bullet, which lodged itself deep within the thing’s brain, making its black blood splatter all over the surrounding hull. The rain started to mingle with the blackness as it dripped down into the ocean. A large wave sloshed onto the hull, forcing Maldran onto all fours.

But more of them came, as if an endless tide. They swarmed out of the dark opening, moaning and shrieking for the taste of blood. With body parts hanging by ligaments and tendons, they shuffled forwards clumsily, some slipping on their own broken feet into the churning waters below. Maldran opened fire, feeling a shot gun shell tear out of the barrel as a pneumonic hissing filled his ears. The dropship was lowering its ramp to collect its payload.

“Come on!” Felix shouted as Lily, Naz, and Nova carried themselves up telekinetically into the craft hovering above. A flash of lightning lit the scene up, and Maldran could see into the soulless eyes of the zombie nearest him. He plugged its head with a single round and watched its body crumple to the ground, then slide off the curvature in the hull into the voracious ocean. Behind him, the ramp hit the hull with a metallic clang.

Instantly, the rest of them rushed into the drop chamber. The hydraulics whirred to life and brought the door up just as the first zombies reached their position. Maldran could hear their low, muffled moans as they banged their blood-stained hands on the sealed ramp. Mikhail rushed up the ladder and into the cockpit. Without warning, Maldran was thrown against the ramp as Mikhail fired the thrusters. Maldran could almost feel the undead being incinerated by the boosters of the dropship. Soon, they were sailing high up near the cloud line, accompanied only by nature’s raw power.

Maldran sighed in exhaustion as he slid to the floor. His shot gun hung loosely at his side, its barrel still hot from the recent exclamations. A rumble of thunder around them rapped up against the Silver Talon’s reinforced steel alloy hull. Maldran let his head sag as he thought back to the ship. The zombies’ faces were all so distorted and gruesome, but there was still a part of him that kind of felt sorry for them. An infinitely expansive time of torment and suffering. Sound’s a bit like a certain place down under…

“Anybody hurt?” Mikhail’s voice resounded off of the close walls of the loading bay. He jumped down the ladder and strode into the center, keeping a fatherly watch over the rest of the squad.

“A hot shower would do,” Naz chuckled to himself as he sat on a fold up seat that protruded out of the hull. He was rubbing his katanas free of the black blood with his cloak. As Maldran looked on, Naz accidentally let a drop land on the floor. He cursed quietly before mopping it up with the end of his cloak. Catching Maldran’s gaze following him, Naz grunted, “Nasty stuff, this sh**. One touch of it and you’re one of them.” Beside Maldran, Michael gave a jerky twitch.

“Where are we headed?” Lily asked demandingly. Maldran tore his gaze off of Naz to look at the other Shadow Templar. Even though they had fought through hell to get off of the ship, her clothes were still in pristine conditions, white as ever. Also, her katanas were laid out, but the blood they cut had left without a trace.

But before Mikhail could answer, the intercom mysteriously crackled on, revealing a panting voice. There was an indistinguishable chatter behind it.

“Pleas… anyon… elp me!” The voice was exhausted beyond belief, and it sounded as if the owner had been trying to run from something. After a short staticky pause, it continued, “I’m… rapped on som… erted island… There are thin… ere that I’ve nev… een before. I confi… they ar… hostile.” A strident screech suddenly cut out the panting voice, but quickly died out. “Please, I ne… evac… coordin… ero three… ree slash… zero nine tw…” But then there was no more, and the channel clicked off, leaving the company in silence.

“033/092,” Mikhail repeated to himself over and over again. Maldran could tell he was in deep thought. But suddenly, his eyes brightened up and he scrambled back up the ladder to the main deck. Maldran could hear his footsteps pound loudly as he climbed into the cockpit. The intercom resounded once more in the drop bay as Mikhail’s voice barged in, “I’ve heard of this place. It’s an ancient facility a few hundred miles off of the continent of Ossyria. It’s been abandoned for more than nine hundred years, but it’s all we’ve got.” His panting seemed almost dog-like as a series of computerized beeps told Maldran that Mikhail was punching in the coordinates as he ended.

Suddenly, something thumped to the floor. Whipping around, Maldran’s heart started to race as he saw Michael keel over. He convulsed on the metal grating and coughed up a stream of blood.

“Whoa whoa! Michael! What’s wrong?” Maldran kneeled down and put a shaky hand on Michael’s even shakier body. Mikhail clambered down the ladder and rejoined them. His deep and defeated sigh struck a chill down Maldran’s spinal column. It was only then that he noticed Michael’s blood covered hand.

“He’s infected…”