章 13: The horde

(Ray)

The door squeaked slightly as the light from the basement came flooding into the fire exit. This was soon followed by a mélange of groans and snarls from the parking lot outside. The noises indicated that their worst fears had come true. The basement was full of Deathless. They couldn't see exactly how many there were but judging by the commotion around them, it was not a number they could handle.

Ray shook his head and berated himself. He couldn't think about that right now. He had to focus. He could worry about the parking lot after he was done with his current task. He had to be alert and quick. If he wasn't then Meghan would be put in far worse danger.

The Deathless standing outside turned slowly, finally having noticed the opened door. It shuffled lazily over, one sluggish step at a time. With every second that they waited, the tension built up exponentially. Ray could feel his heart begin to thump against his chest. This was all on him. He had to make sure that he killed it in one attack. He carefully placed down his javelin and drew out one of the knives from his belt.

As the Deathless entered halfway through the doorway, its figure came into view. It was a middle-aged man with a balding head and a lean physique. He was wearing a white striped shirt and casual trousers. For the most part, he looked rather ordinary. Nothing about his appearance suggested that he was anything but a human being, except for his missing left foot.

The man was walking with a stump, leaving behind him a thick trail of blood. As he staggered forward, his eyes found Meghan at the top of the stairs.

"Hello creepy man," Meghan greeted nervously, "you hungry?"

Ray saw the Deathless open his mouth wide, his eyes fixed on Meghan. There was a slight twitch in his hands. He stretched out both his arms towards Meghan as a long slop of drool escaped from his lips. The man was getting ready to pounce.

Before the Deathless could take a step forward, Ray snuck up behind him, grabbed his head with one hand and drove the knife deep into his skull. He then quickly turned and closed the door just as the man collapsed onto the ground with a loud thud.

Ray ducked down instinctively and waited in a crouched position to see if the noise had attracted any more Deathless. Several seconds went by before he finally let his guard down and relaxed.

Meghan came over quickly and commented, "Wow that was pretty cool! I didn't think you would kill him that fast."

"We were lucky actually. This one has a foot missing. So his approach was pretty slow. Also, despite that, I saw him getting ready to lunge at you. I'm glad I got to him on time. A second later and things could have gotten seriously bad for us."

"But still," Meghan reasoned, "we did it. We're still alive and that's what matters, right?"

"Yeah, I suppose that's true." Ray admitted, "Did you hear the sounds when I opened the door? That was from the parking lot…"

Meghan's face fell.

"I was trying to pretend that I hadn't noticed that…" she said solemnly.

"I was too. I wanted to focus on killing this Deathless. Didn't want to get distracted. But we can't pretend anymore. Finding a way to get past all of them should be our next move."

"How many do you think there are?"

"Hard to say. More than a dozen at least. Could very easily be more. We'll only get a clearer picture once we get out of the F block building and step into the parking lot area."

"Why is it getting harder the further we go?" Meghan whined.

Ray was asking himself the same thing.

"I don't know," he answered, "But that's how it is in video games. Each successive level is harder than the previous one. But the good news is we've almost reached the car. We get in, drive up to the Upper Ground floor, lure away the Deathless surrounding Rody's block, go back to get him and then we drive out of Prime Gardens to make our escape."

"Was that supposed to make me feel at ease? That legit sounds like a lot of work!"

"Well we could just get in the car and leave right now without Rody. Would you rather do that?"

Meghan rolled her eyes at him.

"Shut up, that's not what I meant and you know it."

"I know," said Ray before standing up and peering out through the window, "I don't see any Deathless near the basement elevators. All of them must outside, somewhere in the parking lot. We should be good to leave the fire exit now."

"Aren't you taking your knife back?" Meghan asked.

Ray looked back at the Deathless on the ground, lying face down with his knife protruding from the side of its head. When he thought about the mess removing the knife would cause, he almost considered leaving it behind. But he decided against it. That knife had been useful to him, it might save him again in some other future occasion.

Ray walked over to the dead body and stepped on its head. He grabbed hold of the hilt and wrenched the knife free from its skull. It made a disgusting sound as it came loose. Dark red bloody dripped down from the blade as Ray held it in the air.

"Ahh yuck!" he exclaimed.

He then bent down and wiped the blood off on the dead man's shirt.

He could see Meghan giving him weird looks.

"What?" he asked, "The guy's dead! He's not going to mind."

"I didn't say anything…" Meghan reasoned.

"You were thinking it."

"Stop reading my thoughts!"

Ray smiled.

He tucked the relatively clean knife back into his belt, "Alright. Shall we?"

"I guess,"

Ray opened the fire exit door for the second time and the two of them stepped out onto the Lower Ground lift area. Once they were out of the fire exit, they immediately cut left and hid behind a wall just before the F block building entrance.

The disharmony of the indolent moans was distracting. It also didn't help that the parking lot had quite a lot of reverberation.

Ray still wasn't sure of their numbers and that bothered him. He wanted to go out and do a quick scan of the place before they made their next plan. Using hand signs, he instructed Meghan to wait there while he went to check out the parking lot. She replied by flashing him a thumbs up.

Keeping as low as possible, Ray slid out from behind the wall and slowly inched closer to the F block entrance. He hugged the left side closely as his eyes kept darting from side to side, trying to see if he could spot any Deathless in the area.

As he drew closer, the parking lot became more and more visible. When he finally reached the entrance, he saw a sight that made his heart almost stop beating. Ray gulped hard as his face darkened with terror. This was way beyond what he had imagined.

It was a horde.

The parking lot was completely infested with Deathless. So many that he didn't even bother to count. There wasn't a point in it. With this many huddled together in one place, it almost seemed impossible to make it past them without getting caught.

Ray's mind blanked out. He couldn't fathom how they were going to make it to the car. He had no plan. No matter how hard he tried, the mere sight of so many Deathless at once had drained away all of his willpower. Immeasurable fear was the only thing that remained.

For the first time since all this began, he felt utterly helpless.

"Well, Fuck…" he choked out.

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