Infection- Book 2

Chapter 5- Sewers

I laid with my feet in the air against the wall as the time went by. Specks of the cracked concrete ceiling fell near my face, and I blew them away as they landed.

“Bad time to forget your belt, huh?” Pony turned his head to me. I shushed him, holding a finger up. I’d always kept a bunch of bobby pins and keys in the spare pocket of it, and it would’ve been the perfect way to escape. I was surprisingly really good at picking locks. I laid my arms across my eyes, groaning.

A light pounding noise came from the sewer cap in the corner of our cell a minute later. I lifted my head, swinging my legs away from the wall. The cap came loose and was launched in the air as the girls popped out from the sewers. “Hey-o!” Zuzy greeted us, pushing the cap against the wall. “Quick, we need one of you to come down here and help us get this cell door open.”

Everyone looked around at each other to see who would step up. “I’ll go,” I announced, dusting my leggings off. “The rest of you should stay here so no guards get suspicious.” I knelt down and lowered myself into the sewers as Mimi pulled the cap back over the opening. The light faded as the cap was secured shut.

“What’s your plan?” I turned to Zuzy. Zee hadn’t spoken a word since we went out to the store a few days ago.

“Look around for another cap. If we can get out of here from a different area, we can circle back and open the gate,” she replied. The girls were definitely smarter than the average 10 year old. How did they even get down here before TSP found us?

“Fair enough. Holler out if you find one, but just be careful. Do you have your fencing swords?” The girls shook their heads. I looked around the dirty pipes and pried two off the wall. They were rusty and dented, but still dangerous. The girls took the pipes and exited the small section of the sewer without another word. I reached for the pouch of my belt, but flicked myself on the forehead when remembering it was still back in my closet. I pried one more pipe from the wall and twirled it around with my hand, following out of the section the girls had just been in.

I couldn’t even describe how gross and dark the sewers were. I could barely even see 10 feet in front of me, and the constant squeaking from the pipes above freaked me the fuck out. Anything could’ve been down here.

I eventually came across a cement staircase leading further into the ground. Gates aligned
the stairs all the way down, and a whole new room was at the bottom. I carefully stepped down them, curling my fingers around the gate just in case. A weird buzzing erupted in my head, turning into loud whispers. So many voices spoke at once, but I couldn’t understand any of them.
I pressed my palms against my ears and shut my eyes, praying the whispers would go away.

After stumbling the rest of the way down the stairs, I threw a nearby door open below
them and stepped inside the room. A bunch of rusted chairs were scattered around, and a few
small desks were piled up in a corner. A whiteboard was even plastered across the back wall. Was it a school room? Why would something like this ever even be underground in the sewers?

I carefully crept closer towards the board to explore the room a little more before the whispers started again. My hands returned to my head as I exited the room, curling up next to the stairs. I dropped the pipe next to me, ignoring the loud clang it made when it hit the floor. “Go away,” I muttered. When nothing changed, I panickingly screamed, “Go away!”

“Jade! What’s wrong?” Zuzy’s voice echoed. My eyes shot open to see the two girls staring down at me. A blood stain was painted on Zee’s pipe, and Zuzy’s was completely bent into a boomerang shape. I slowly pulled my hands away from my head and stood up. The whispers had stopped, and were replaced with an almost silent drip from the pipes around us.

“Nothing. I just thought I heard something else down here with us,” I lied.

The girls held up their weapons. “You did! There was a big, mean alligator man trying to chase us!” I froze as Zuzy jumped around in excitement. “But we handled it! Zee hit him right in the face!”

“There’s… someone else down here…?” I shivered, grabbing my pipe from the floor.
The girls nodded, looking around. “What color were his eyes?”

“Orange, I think,” she replied. My stomach dropped when the gates above started to rattle. I grabbed the girls by their hands and pulled them across the room, blending into one of the corners. If this guy really were an infected, the three of us were as good as dead.

Less than a minute later, a loud sloshing noise came from in front of us as the infected alligator slipped through the sewage. The girls each had to squeeze my arm to keep me from losing it and screaming out. As he exited on the other side of the room, I waved for them to follow me back up the stairs. The whispers rang through my head again in between the levels, and I hurried up the stairs to make them stop.

“Over here,” Zuzy whispered, stepping in front of me. She led me through one of the
sections that she and her sister had checked, stopping in front of a different small room. A ladder led up to another sewer cap, connected to the same floor that the cell we’d been in was.

“Way to go, girls! Let’s go get the others.” I put a foot up on the first peg of the ladder.

“We’re actually going to head back to the Safe Place to grab a few things,” Zuzy said,
adjusting her scarf.

I stepped back down and knelt down by the girls. “Okay. Thank you, you two! Stay safe, and try to meet me outside of this place when you get back. But please, try to avoid the alligator man.” The girls nodded, turning to leave. “Hang on. If you wouldn’t mind, please go into my closet and grab my belt when you get back to the safe place. Don’t touch anything inside the pouches, okay?” They nodded again as I set my foot back on the peg. Quietly lifting the sewer cap, I poked out into the dimly lit floor.

The gate swung open as the group stood, looking at me in shock. “What are you looking at? Let’s go!” They all scrambled out of the cell, stretching their legs.

“Where are the girls?” Pony asked worriedly.

“They’ll meet us outside. We need to go now.” He hesitantly nodded as if he didn’t believe me. Not even a few steps out of the cell, I lifted my ear to a gun cocking from behind us. The shot went off as we all turned around to see Giraffy throwing himself in front of Pony. Blood trickled from his chest as he groaned in pain.

“Giraffy!” Mimi screamed. I looked up at Willow, who was standing in front of a frightened TSP member. The tiger from the refinery stood with the two daggers in his hands, his face showing nothing but guilt and regret.

Pony knelt down next to Giraffy and propped him up. “I… hope this enough to forgive me for Zizzy…” he mumbled. Pony hurriedly pressed his palm into the wound.

“It’s more than enough.” Tears slipped down his cheeks as Giraffy fell unconscious.

“Get him out of here, do what you can for him,” I ordered, stepping out in front of the group. I slid the sleeves of Doggy’s hoodie up my forearms and clenched my fists. “I’m tired of running, Willow. Let’s settle this.” The tiger behind her retreated, hurrying out of the jail floor.

Willow scoffed at my remark, crossing her arms. “With pleasure. Let’s dance, darling.”