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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO GREAT ESCAPE
After another hour or so of crawling through the vents, Abby pops open one of the floorboards above them. Dustin attempts to poke his head out first, but Abby immediately pushes him back down and peers out of the hole herself. She looks around to see the room that they've found themselves in. Cases upon cases are filled with the vials of the green poison just behind the glass. For a few tense moments, she waits for footsteps or some shout, for bullets to ricochet, but nothing happens. There's just silence. The flashing red lights have disappeared sometime before and the alarm has silenced once again.
When nothing immediately happens to Abby, Dustin is quick to pop his head out, followed by Erica. Abby hears the boy let out a gasp of wonder as he and Erica gaze around at the rows upon rows of glass cases. She wonders how much it would take to crack the glass cases open if they were as resilient as the vials were before the pressure of the door had caused one to collapse in a spiderweb of cracks.
"Jackpot," Dustin grins.
They pull themselves out of the hole and onto solid land again. Abby wobbles slightly, her knees and back aches from crawling for so long and she takes that moment of peace and silence to stretch out her aching limbs. She gazes around the room before her eyes land on an abandoned red cart that sigs just outside of the room.
"Well, what do we have here?" She asks as she bounds down the stairs towards the vehicle.
"Do you even know how to drive that?" Erica asks as she and Dustin follow behind Abby.
"I mean, all vehicles are fundamentally the same, right?" Abby reasons. "It can't be that different from a car."
"Yeah, but, it's Russian," Erica points out.
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Abby responds. "And if not, then looks like we're gonna fake it 'till we make it."
She reaches for the ignition. For a split second she forgets that in order for the vehicle to start, there needs to be a key. She's too blinded by the excitement and hope fuelled by the discovery of the stray cart. She swears loudly when her fingers pass right through the spot where the keys should be in the ignition.
Erica raises her eyebrows and lets out a scoff. "You seriously thought they'd just leave keys in there?"
Abby raises her hands in mock surrender. "Hey, you said it yourself, it's Russian. Maybe they didn't need keys."
"Well, there's gotta be a spare," says Dustin.
Erica lets out a sigh as Dustin runs his hands along every inch of the cart's surface in search of some secret compartment for spare keys. Abby watches bemused. She doesn't have much hope for locating a spare key within the cart, but she supposes if it keeps the hopelessness away from Dustin, they might as well give it a try. In their desperate, futile search, they don't notice that Erica has wandered farther down the hall.
