CHAPTER EIGHT

While everything was unfolding rapidly in front of me, I took a brief second to think of the room where I first awoke. The two men that had spotted me – through every fault of my own – were of different nationality.
I couldn’t understand how this Heller-Fontaine had gotten two people from different countries to work together. Maybe they were friends before the Fallout period, that would certainly explain their attitude towards each other.
So here I was, panting nervously as my heart thundered in the shadows. The circular rooms farthest point was still totally in darkness to my unattuned eyesight. The man that had fallen from the same level as me definitely landed a lot harder by the sounds of his groaning. Thinking about it, I was lucky to have survived the fall from above, the Jackhammer must be programmed to chase people into this area. Thank god there was a pool here, else I would have met a painful agonising death, if I was lucky.
So had the girl heard my trembling voice? As I slithered my way through the thick sludge in the pool. Had she really noticed my accent in the little that I said, I couldn’t risk it, if the girl was American and she found out about my Canadian heritage, then she could turn in an instant. I was faced with the dilemma of leaving them both here, or having to take them out. The latter option would have been the easy choice, if I was mentally stronger than my weakened state.
Instead, I found a smooth half crescent pillar that protruded from the wall and ran upwards towards the curved ceiling.
The man that had fallen into the pool was crying with pain, the urge to go and help him almost overrode the driving sensation to remain in the cover of darkness. It would be interesting to see what happened between the two strangers from this distance, maybe they would join forces to escape this gargantuan tomb I found myself in, covered in this thick sludge that I dared not to think of.
“Help!” The man called, I remained silent, searching the shadows for any sense of movement, something inside me told me to get down from the standing position I found myself in. I trusted my hunches, and crouched as low as my aching limbs would let me without shaking wildly.
No answer.
And I thought I knew the reason why, the mans accent was definitely not American, it was Spanish. If there was any chance that the man wading to the waters edge was Mexican, then the current situation that I currently found myself in was about to become a lot more interesting, and probably not in a good way!
“Help!” the voice repeated over and over again.
And then it happened.
A deep, almost guttural growling erupted from the other side of the room, my reflexes weren’t affected by my tiredness, and I had already trained the pistol on the shadows lurking on the other side of the room.
The guttural roar sounded again, as the man’s wading began to speed up, he had stopped making any vocal noise, but the splashing was unavoidable given his state of panic.
The urge to fire the flare in my newly acquired jacket pocket was almost to much to bare, the only thing that would serve would be to give up my location to the people and other creatures that lurked in the darkness. God knows what would happen, maybe I didn’t want to see.
The growling stopped as whatever made it slithered into the slimy water. The rank smell of copper filled my nostrils again and somehow it seemed familiar, though I couldn’t quite place it.
The man was about five feet away from the waters edge, I took a step forward, having no idea why. What was I going to do? Jump in, wrestle some creature that can clearly swim better that some fish, kill it, help the injured man to the waters edge and then get murdered unceremoniously.
Let’s think of something else, shall we?
I scanned along the edge of the wall to my right, where the female had tried to make contact with me, also where the injured man was swimming for. Looking along to the left I saw nothing but bare wall and another pillar jutting out of the wall some fifteen feet away.
Still holding the pistol, I moved as quickly and as quietly as my sore feet would allow, hoping to catch a glimpse of anything that remotely looked like a doorway.
The man made it to the waters edge, the relief that he must have felt would have clearly had me screaming with ecstasy, but the noise that came from him was totally different, the shivers ran through my body as I turned and looked to the direction I thought he was in.
Apparently I had crossed a lot more of the room that I had once thought, the man was on the other side, almost out of view.
He was clinging onto the smooth surface like it was the only land that he would ever feel on his fingertips. The screaming of terror and helplessness failed to brake over the sound of something exploding from the watery depths. For me the noise mercifully blotting out the sound of his fingernails breaking against the unforgiving rock as he was dragged back in. Moments later, he was gone, dragged below the surface by the creature that made its home in this very room.
I need to get out of here!
Looking further ahead I saw a rectangular, shimmering contrasting the grey surface of the room.
A door!!!
I could hardly believe it, there was a doorway out of this place, I needed to get to it. It was only twenty or so feet away, maybe thirty at a push. Steadily as I occasionally glanced into the water, I moved towards the door. I stopped about twelve feet from the door, surveying the scene in front of me.
The ledge that ran around the edge of the room seemed larger at this point of the room, expanding some forty inches farther into the room than the rest of the pathway. Rather than a ledge leading to the pool, there was a subtle ramp that slid into the cold, murky depths. It must have been the shallow end.
About the same distance from the door, but in the opposite direction, stood the silhouette of the woman that had tried to make contact with me. She was perfectly still, I didn’t think she was looking completely in my direction. Guessing her line of sight I followed it to the paving in front of the doorway, it was then that I saw the two bodies lying static in front of the door, not moving as if they were dead. But I knew for a fact, as my own heartbeat echoed loudly in my ears…
The two alligators were not dead…