Chapter 26
Jill held her breath as she climbed the ladder. The moment she lifted her head through the opening to see where she was, she expected to get shot in the head. But if Nicholai intended to ambush her and kill her easily, he already had several chances. He could have hid in the rocks and shot her from a distance, or he could have waited in the darkness of the sewer pipe and killed her there.
Although, if Nicholai was deliberately letting her live, then that meant he was trying to lure her somewhere, and Jill didn’t like that idea either.
She pulled her machine gun free and held it in one hand, her other hand gripping the top rung of the ladder. Directly above her, a light shone down the ladder and into the pipe, bathing her in light. She took a deep breath and lifted herself up to ground level, glancing out to see where the ladder had taken her.
It turned out that Nicholai was not waiting for her after all. Instead, there was nothing short of an entire army of zombies coming towards her, over a hundred of them, all shuffling hungrily in her direction. Jill swiftly climbed all the way out and ran away from the zombies, not wasting her limited ammunition. There was nowhere for her to go, as she was blocked on both sides, with a building on one side and a tall wooden fence on the other.
She ran around the side of the building to see that it led to a dead end. The building was actually in the shape of a U, and there was a wide inner courtyard between the two main sections, where they stacked used wooden pallets and empty barrels and drums. Jill panicked for a moment, until she saw doors over to her left. They were locked, but a few bullets from Jill’s rifle were enough to blow the lock apart.
She kicked the doors open and ran inside to a dark hallway that smelled like chemicals. It was dark inside, but there were small yellow lights along the walls like emergency lights, and they gave the hallway a sickly yellowish illumination. Jill tried to find a regular light switch but there didn’t seem to be one, so she continued forward, her gun aimed in front of her.
The floor was made of sheets of metal grating that clanked softly when Jill stepped on them, and the walls were lined with pipes and metal panels. The stink of chemicals burned Jill’s eyes, making her blink. She couldn’t identify exactly what the smell was; it was as if someone dumped a bunch of random cleaning chemicals all together and they reacted to form noxious fumes. She hoped that they weren’t poisonous.
Where was Nicholai? He must have gone this way, because zombies completely blocked access to the other side of the building. But the door had been locked, so did he have a key? Or had he slipped away somewhere else, leading Jill up here to trick her?
It was a moot point, she thought, because she couldn’t go back now. The only option was to continue forward and try to find another exit.
There were two large storage rooms lined with barrels and large burlap bags full of powdered chemicals. The floor was wet in places, but Jill didn’t think it was water. Everything was labeled with hazard signs and given long chemical names like “trisodium bicarbonate methyl-sulfide” and other names that Jill couldn’t comprehend. She wondered exactly what kind of work went on in this place.
Down the hall, there were more lights on. The walls were painted an ugly orange color, and all the metal pipes were yellow. Jill passed a cramped office room stacked with old filing cabinets and glanced inside.
Something moved at the edge of her vision and she raised her gun when a zombie appeared down the hall. It was a man wearing a yellow rubber jacket like a raincoat, with yellow rubber boots and gloves. A hard hat was tilted sideways on his head as he staggered forward, arms outstretched.
“Oh my God,” Jill whispered, bile rising in her throat.
The zombie’s face was mostly missing, as well as a section of its skull, leaving a melted, gaping hole on the side of its head. Watery blood was spilled down the front of its jacket, which dripped onto the toes of its boots.
Jill took one shot and the zombie’s head exploded, splattering the walls with blood and brain matter. The hard hat toppled to the floor as the body flopped over backwards.
Jill swallowed hard, trying to keep from throwing up. The stink of decay, mixed with the overpowering smell of chemicals, made her sick to her stomach, but she managed to keep it down as she continued onward. She also began to notice that it was getting much warmer as she went farther into the building, and she felt herself begin to sweat. Her shirt stuck to her skin and a slight sheen of perspiration covered her forearms.
She found a set of double doors and pushed them open, discovering a large room lined with mixing vats up on a large metal deck. On the walls were sturdy shelves with pallets of various materials and other products. It was even warmer in here, and Jill felt the humidity in the air, making the chemical odor even worse. She could practically taste it now.
Large lights overhead showed the gleaming metal vats and pipes that led upward and criss-crossed along the ceiling in a maze of metal. Jill was so caught up in examining the room that she barely noticed the movement far on the other side of the mixing deck.
She jumped to the side as a volley of gunfire rang out suddenly, the bullets zipping past her and striking the wall. Some of the shots struck the metal pipes, and they clanged loudly in protest. Jill scrambled along the floor and backed up against an electrical panel.
“Those were just warning shots!” came a bellowing voice.
“Nicholai!” Jill shouted. “You son of a bitch!”
“I could have killed you just now! You are alive because I let you live!”
Jill panted for breath and peered out from behind the panel. It wasn’t bulletproof and offered no real protection from gunfire, but Nicholai didn’t know where she was. And there was so much metal in between them that she doubted he would just open fire without cause. And she knew that he must have limited ammo in any case.
The raised metal deck reached all the way to the back end of the room as far as Jill could tell. It was about four feet off the ground, and there were short sets of stairs in between each vat, all made of gleaming metal. There were plenty of places to hide, but that counted for both Jill and Nicholai.
Gripping her rifle, she eased forward and knelt down behind a pallet covered in plastic buckets. She peered in between them, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nicholai.
“Where are you?” he called out. Jill thought she heard footsteps on the other side of the deck. She retreated back along the wall, feeling horribly exposed, and crouched at the end of a row of shelves.
Her mind raced as she heard more footsteps on the deck. She pulled out the combat knife from her ammo pack, and tossed it across the room. It clanged into the metal railing farther down the deck and clattered to the floor.
“Trying to fool me?” Nicholai said with a laugh. “I know where you are! I have let you come this far, but maybe you will go no farther. Maybe I’ll kill you this time, yes?”
Jill held her breath and raised the assault rifle, propping the barrel on a metal shelf to steady her aim. She waited for what seemed like minutes, when she caught a reflection on one of the huge vats. Nicholai had not stepped into view, but his reflection gave away his position.
She squeezed off a single shot, and it ricocheted loudly against the vat, the sound followed immediately by a shout of anger as Nicholai backed away. When she caught movement, Jill opened fire again, firing off a few shots in between the vats where she thought Nicholai was.
Jumping to her feet, Jill bolted forward, running along the edge of the raised deck. A blast of gunfire opened up, and she screamed as she heard the bullets smack into the wall just behind her. They clanged and chimed against the steel as Jill ran past. She dove for cover at the back side of the deck, sliding along the slick floor and winding up on her back, underneath the edge of the deck almost at the back of the room. She guessed that Nicholai had been standing somewhere in that area when he first opened fire on her.
She got to her feet and crouche
d low, moving underneath the deck. Somewhere ahead of her, she heard Nicholai’s loud, banging footsteps. She saw his shadow on the floor and opened fire, her bullets striking the underside of the deck, but some of them managed to go in between the grating. Nicholai returned fire, and Jill had to scramble under the deck until she was almost to the opposite corner. She peeked above a stack of wooden pallets and glimpsed Nicholai jump off the deck and run to a side door. She opened fire, but Nicholai dove through the doors and Jill’s bullets struck the wall.
She waited for a few seconds and then chose to move back all the way to the other side of the deck. Then, crouching on the floor, she looked underneath the deck to see the side doors hanging open. Nicholai was not hiding there to shoot Jill as soon as she entered the hallway, so she carefully approached the doors and went through.
She had the distinct feeling that Nicholai was leading her somewhere, but she had no choice but to follow.