was finally Edward who managed to immobilise the guy long enough to give them the opportunity to punch him until leaving him unconscious.
After disabling his opponent Guillem looked to see how his friends were doing with the other guy. Roberto was wrestling him, but was covered in blood and about to faint, the guy had shot him repeated times in his right leg and sides, the others were trying to help him, but he and the guy were rolling around very violently. Guillem, Edward and Cristobal closed in to help and between all of them finally managed to knock the intruder out.
As soon as the intruders were disabled Roberto sat over a pile of rubbish and leaned against a wall, he was breathing with difficulty and had a few gun wounds and bruises all over his body, particularly one rather large in the right leg.
“Get away from him, let him breathe” Said Guillem while approaching Roberto and kneeling next to him. “This is going to hurt buddy, so hold on tight.”
“What will you do? What do you know about medicine?” Whispered Roberto just before falling unconscious.
“Cristobal help me here. I need your help.” Cristobal placed his sledgehammer next to Roberto and proceeded to help Guillem tear Roberto's clothes around the wounds, with the pieces of broken clothes Guillem made a few strips of cloth and bandaged the wounds after cleaning them with some drinkable water he found lying in the shop. “I hope he wakes up soon, his wounds are big, but nothing that should be immediately dangerous.”
Meanwhile Xavier approached the entrance to look what the rest of the gang was doing outside and Lucio and Maria were both picking up the intruders pistols.
“The crazy bitch that looks like the group leader is looking for something in their Toyota. She is opening a rather heavy briefcase. FUCK! She has one of those big machine guns you see in the movies! FUCK! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT CRAZY BITCH DOING WITH THAT?” Xavier was describing from the entrance. “I think that we might be better off leaving this place, and now! Maybe this place has a back exit? All of the gang members are with her so if we find another exit there will be nobody looking over it.” He said as he began running to the back door.
“FANATICS OF THE EMPIRE! BETRAYERS OF THE COUNTRY! THE PEOPLE IS NOW IN POWER AND WILL STAY THERE! HERE IS A GIFT FROM THE COMMANDANT FOR TRASH LIKE YOU!” Marta yelled from the outside.
Cristobal lifted Roberto's unconscious body as quickly as possible trying not to damage the improvised bandages Guillem placed, Guillem picked up Cristobal's sledgehammer and all of them ran as quickly as possible to the back door where Guillem had seen the dead bodies.
Guillem saw as everyone except Cristobal and him passed through the back door, they were the slowest of the bunch because of Roberto's dead weight. They were about to make it to the door when he heard dozens of shots coming from the outside, so many that it seemed like just one continuous sound, almost instantaneously he heard a lot of glass breaking and felt a very sharp sting pain on the right side of his hip as well as a muffled groan of pain coming from Cristobal, but both of them managed to go through the door and throw themselves to the floor.
There were many bodies carefully laid in the floor between the shelves and boxes, they were barely visible due to some light that was coming in through a tiny window close to the roof. The bodies were almost completely naked, both women and men and all of them had blood flowing from between their legs. The stink of blood, sweat, alcohol and semen was so strong that all of them had to cover their mouth and noses, Xavier was not able to withstand it and had to run to a box and vomit in there for a few seconds.
“There is a door.” Said Guillem while he was trying to help Xavier stand up. “That must be an exit.”
Tom tried opening the door but it was locked, he stayed there trying to forced it open but without success.
“We are fucked! It is locked and the key is not anywhere that I can see! Quickly, check all the bodies with an uniform, someone must have a copy of the key for this door!” Tom said.
Cristobal placed Roberto's body carefully against a wall and taking his sledgehammer away from Guillem proceeded to hit repeatedly the exit door while the rest was searching the bodies for a key.
After a short search Lucio found the key in a pocket in the uniform of a girl's body and opened the door. The group went out of the shop and into a narrow alley between two restaurants located behind the petrol station and finishing in another main street. The floor was made of protruding black stained rocks, the walls on each side had been painted white long time ago, but were now completely covered in mold and had many rubbish bins leaning against them.
“Now what?” Cristobal asked, he was carrying Roberto's body once again and had his sledgehammer secured to his back. “This guy is not light, did you know?”
“We cannot go back to our cars, we should look for refuge in a nearby place, maybe the POTGC building.” Said Guillem while helping Xavier walk.
“Yes, but the POTGC building is on the other side of those dammed idiots,” said Maria “besides they will start checking everything back here very soon.”
“I am sorry Xavi,” said Guillem talking to Xavier “because I know it is disgusting. But what about going down there?” He said to everyone while pointing to an access point to the city drain.
“If that is the only option.” Said Tom. “Help me remove the lid.”
Tom with Lucio and Edward's help managed to remove the lid and push it aside. A very strong odour to faeces and humidity came rushing from the hole and enveloped the group.
Guillem and Lucio in particular could not stop a disgusted grin from showing in their faces when they smelled the odour, both of them got very pale.
Leaving Xavier standing by himself, Guillem was the first to approach the opening with the intention of going into it.
“Since this is my idea it is fair that I go in first.” He said while proceeding to descend using some steps carved into the sides of the hatch, he could not hide how sick the odour made him feel as he was descending. “It is very dark down here! And a bit slippery too! Do any of you by any chance has a flashlight?”
“My mobile has a flashlight function, I am coming down!” Tom said. “Do not take long, there have been no more gun shots, they must be about to get into the shop and search for us.” He said to the rest of the group. “First Cristobal, I will help you with Roberto and then we help Xavier come down as well.”
Everybody descended slowly as soon as Roberto and Xavier were down in the drain tunnel. It was a very narrow corridor with a low ceiling, leaving just space for one person to go bending over through it. It was just made more difficult for Cristobal and Tom because both of them were carrying Roberto's body, the walls were covered with irregular blocks and they could see some corridors on the sides every few meters.
“Does anyone know where are we going?” Maria asked from the back of the group.
“I guess this way should be fine, I would prefer not to take any of the side corridors since I do not want to get lost down here.” Guillem answered from the group's front, he was leading the little group with the help of Tom's small flashlight.
They walked a few minutes when they heard screams coming from behind them.
“Here they are! Come on down! Pass me that shit to fill their disgusting pompous butts with lead!”
Everyone started running and just a few seconds later hell broke loose, they could hear dozens of shots hitting all around them, it had to be the machine gun they used on the surface.
“Hold hands and follow me!” Guillem yelled as he started taking some of the side corridors trying to loose the people chasing them.
He turned off the flashlight as they ran through the many corridors until they finally arrived to a wider one and Guillem whispered to everyone else to stay quiet.
For a few minutes they heard voices, some frustrated screams and a few gun shots. They heard some phrases like “Give me a flashlight mother fucker!” yelled by a woman and finally silence. After a few seconds they heard the same woman screaming “Stay and live her
e as the rats you are! Do not even think about coming out because if we see you, we kill you!”.
“Is everyone fine?” Guillem asked.
“I have a few scratches, but I am fine.” Said Maria.
“I have a few scratches too.” Said Lucio. “But we should keep moving.”
“Let's find a way out of here, I cannot stand the smell and the darkness. Since most of you are hurt, we must get out before you get some infection from being down here!” Xavier whispered almost deliriously laying against a wall and holding his stomach.
“Then let's try to find out were we are. We can keep going straight and on the way some of you could help me raise one of those lids to see where we are.” Said Guillem as he turned the flashlight on again, he was very pale.
“And what if we follow the water stream? It must go to the Guaire river. I do not believe anyone would be guarding that place and the worst we might find is a drunken idiot.” Said Maria as she was checking a small, but nasty little wound on the back of her left leg, everyone agreed to her idea.
The group got up and walked very slowly, trying not to make any noise, Guillem stayed at the front of the group with the flashlight in his hand. He could hear many weird sounds through the corridors and saw the odd occasional moving shadow, more than once he believed these were human, but when pointing where he saw them with the flashlight he could