Capítulo 28: Stalemate

(Ray)

Ray landed feet first into the shallow part of the pool. He managed to extend his arm at the last second to ensure that his phone didn't get wet. The water came up to his waist. His entire lower half felt cold and heavy. He scampered away from the pool edge as fast as the water allowed him.

To his left he saw Leon emerge from below. His hair stuck to the top of his head like a mop. He coughed a few times and wiped the water out of his eyes.

"A warning would have been nice." He spluttered.

"We need to reach the deeper parts. Get to the leftmost corner, quick!" said Ray.

Together, the two of them started swimming away from the shallow area. They didn't make it very far before they heard a splash from behind them. Leon turned his head to look.

"Ignore it!" Ray said, "Keep… swimming."

Leon did as he was told. Though there were still a few more splashes which followed, he didn't lose focus and pushed on forward.

Ray was the first to reach the corner. It was the farthest spot away from the group of Deathless that was steadily approaching them. He clung to the cement border before turning to see if Meghan's idea had worked.

At that very moment, one of the Deathless tipped over the edge and fell headfirst into the pool. Ray watched the surface of the water carefully. He couldn't see what was happening underneath, owing to the dark tiles of the pool floor. He did, however, see a stream of bubbles rising up from the spot where the Deathless had fallen. Though it looked like it was in the shallower regions of the pool, the Deathless didn't seem to be resurfacing.

Ray immediately dunked his head underwater. He saw four distorted blurs lying at the bottom of the pool. The newly fallen Deathless slid down the tiled slope and joined the rest of the bodies below. Ray couldn't tell if they were moving or not but it didn't look like they were capable of swimming at the very least.

He lifted his head out of the water and combed back his wet hair.

"What did you see down there?" Leon asked, "Are we safe?"

Ray nodded, "For now." He said.

Ahead of him, more of the Deathless fell into the pool one after the other. The color of the water started to become dark and murky. Ray frowned. He didn't like the look of that at all.

"Leon, get out of the pool." He said, "The water's starting to get contaminated."

"Yeah, okay. Cool." He replied.

Ray planted both hands on either side and hoisted himself onto the cement border. He lifted his feet out and placed them horizontally along the left edge. Leon did the same. The two of them sat back to back with their sides leaning against the metal fence. The thin boundary was barely enough space to sit on but they managed to balance themselves regardless.

"That was smart," Leon said, "jumping into the pool like that."

"Momo's idea." Ray replied, "We owe her big time."

"Yeah, true. Where is she right now?"

"My flat. Samantha is there too."

"What? Seriously? Was I the only one that was left out?" Leon asked before adding, "What about Adam? Is he with you too?"

Ray felt like a dagger had been plunged into his heart. He gulped down heavily as his eyes began to tear up. He was thankful that his face was still wet from diving underwater.

"He's not." Ray said simply, struggling to keep his voice steady.

"Damn, do you think he made it out okay?"

Ray didn't want to lie. But he hadn't fully accepted the fact that one of his closest friends was gone forever. The thought itself made him want to bawl his eyes out. He didn't want Leon to go through that. At least not yet.

Ray shook his head, "No idea." He lied.

Both of them continued watching the Deathless drown themselves in silence. Soon there was only one of them left: The big, bearded one. He stood on the edge of the pool with a menacing glare in their direction. Ray didn't know why but he felt very nervous whenever he saw this Deathless. There was something uncanny about him that he just couldn't figure out. Unlike the other ones, this Deathless didn't mindlessly walk into the pool and drown himself. It was almost as if he was aware of the fact that the water would be the end of him. Those were definite signs of intelligence.

Ray's body gave a shudder. The last thing he wanted to deal with was an intelligent Deathless.

"Just Mufasa left." Leon said, "Damn, this one looks intimidating as hell."

"Yeah," Ray agreed, "This guy must have been a body builder or something when he was alive. He's huge."

"What do we do now?" Leon asked.

"I don't know." Ray replied, "It looks like we're in a stalemate. This guy can't get to us because of the water and we can't climb out of here either. The fence is broken on the other end. It won't be able to support our weight anymore. The whole damn thing might collapse."

"Ahh, you're making it sound like the only way to get out is past Mufasa here."

Ray stared at the bearded Deathless and replied, "I think it is. I hate to say this but we'll probably have to fight this thing. Ahh man… I was really hoping it wouldn't come to that."

The muscular Deathless gave out a low snarl. As if preparing for the inevitable confrontation that was to come.

.......................…..

(Rody)

A loud roar from the direction of the pool made Rody jump. He quickly looked over his shoulder to see that several of the Deathless that were following him had now turned around and were walking back.

"HEY! WAIT! COME BACK! I'M HERE! COME GET ME YOU FREAKS!" he yelled loudly.

But other than the two nearest to him, the rest didn't seem interested in Rody anymore. They merely kept walking in the direction of the roar.

'God dammit!' Rody cursed internally.

Just as he was about to run back to get their attention again, he heard eerie moans from around him. He spun in a circle and saw that he was slowing getting surrounded by Deathless.

'Ah, give me a break…' he thought.

He figured that these ones were probably alerted by his frantic shouting and were drawn towards him from elsewhere. He couldn't run back to the pool with this many Deathless following him. He needed to figure out a way to lose them.

Without any particular plan in mind, Rody ran in the opposite direction of the pool. The Deathless chasing him had now joined together to form a small group of hands and teeth. He wondered how they were able to move in unison like that without tripping over one another.

A little further ahead, Rody noticed that the gate of the badminton court was left open. He raised his eyebrows as an idea whizzed through his brain.

He ran straight towards it, making sure the gang of Deathless was still following him. He entered inside and ran around the raised net.

"That's right," he muttered under his breath, "Come at me."

As expected, the bunch of Deathless mindlessly followed him, snarling and clawing at him as they did.

'Not yet,' he thought, 'Just a little bit longer'.

When the last Deathless of the group had walked far enough into badminton court, Rody ran forward and slid underneath the raised net. He pushed off the ground and got to his feet before darting outside through the entrance. He quickly closed the gate and bolted it shut.

A second later, one of the Deathless slammed into the gate causing him to jump backward. It snarled eerily and tried to bite him through the chain links of the gate.

"Keep your disgusting teeth to yourself." Rody said.

He then broke into a run and headed straight for the pool. It didn't take him long to reach his destination. Rody slowed down when he saw the fence and approached it as quietly as he could.

He turned the corner and let out a gasp. A whole section of the fence had been knocked down. His heart began to race. Instantly his mind started worrying about the worst case scenario: What if both his friends were already dead?

Shaking that horrifying thought out of his head, he ran through the opening and entered the poolside.

At first, he didn't understand what he was seeing. There was just one huge Deathless standing by the edge of the water. Rody figured that he was probably the one responsible for the roar. But things didn't quite add up. He didn't see any of the others that had stopped following him and returned back to the pool.

'What's going on?' he thought.

"Rody!" came a voice from the corner.

"Dude!" said another voice.

He turned and saw both Leon and Ray squished up against the corner of the pool. He didn't understand what they were doing but they looked unharmed. Rody's felt an enormous amount of relief wash over him. They were okay. His friends were safe.

"Raaaaahhhhh!"

But Rody wasn't.

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