The Arena - The Moon Trilogy - Book #2

Chapter ten:

"But how are we going to get out? We don't even know where we are." Sam asked, his scuffed and bruised face screwed in confusion.

"First, we need to find a key to unlock the handcuffs on Rachel and Johnny." Clarity said, calling attention back to their two comrades that were still in the lightless room, who the other three seemed to have forgotten about.

"You're right," Alex said, looking around the room for a moment before he began searching. Clarity started checking random places that she thought would be suitable for hiding a key. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Clara and Sam had joined the search.

After a few minutes in which the only noise was the four people shuffling about, trying to find the key, Clara suddenly shouted: "Found it!"

When Clarity looked, Clara was standing over an open desk drawer, a ring of keys in her raised hand. Without another word, Clara dashed off through the open door, key ring in hand. The rest of them silently followed her back to the dark doorway with the bare bulb hanging from the dingy ceiling.

For the first time, Clarity realized that there was an old-fashioned light switch near the door, the kind with a toggle. There were two switches, one toggled off and one of them on. She had to assume that the one turned on was the bulb in the hallway.

She guessed and hoped that the other one belonged to the room. It would be a lot easier to free Johnny and Rachel if they could see them.

She flipped the switch up, and it felt like an actual weight was lifted from her chest, and she realized that she'd been holding her breath. It was a pretty small issue, and it made her feel stupid to have reacted in such a way.

Clara walked slowly into the room as if expecting the door to slam behind her, leaving her in the blackness again, but after a few steps, her pace quickened.

The room was even bigger than Clarity had thought when she was crawling around.

When she looked for Johnny, she was shocked to find him a good ten feet away from the door. The room hadn't felt that big when she was crawling around.

Johnny was slumped against the wall, his clothes and hair caked with blood like Alex's. There was a still-bleeding slice on his forehead, and there was the glimmer of wet blood showing on his shirt. His breathing was still as ragged as it had been when she'd first encountered him. Both his hands and his feet were bound with metal cuffs with chains that were attached to metal rings that had been hammered into the concrete wall.

Clarity once again noticed the persistent sound of dripping water. The smell of mildew was even worse due to the fact that she had been absent from it for a while. She coughed softly as she inhaled the musty scent.

Farther into the room, Rachel was lying on her side. Instead of normal, police-issue handcuffs like Clarity had been expecting, Rachel's hands were held at an awkward angle by heavy-duty cuffs made out of thick, welded metal. Her feet sported similar bands of iron. They clearly thought she was enough of a problem to deserve more security coverage than Johnny, from the looks of it.

There was a large bloodstain on the calf of Rachel's pants, as well as blood dripping down her head and onto her face. It was a bright, bright red against her near-white skin.

"Are you alright?" Clarity said, rushing to Rachel's side first.

"I'll be fine," Rachel replied. "It's Johnathan that you should be worried about. I saw those metal guys get quite a few hits on him before I was... distracted." She winced.

There was the rattle of chains from behind Clarity as Clara began working on Johnny's cuffs.

Clarity stood back when she came over with the keys to unlock Rachel as well.

When Rachel was free, she sat up with a groan. Clara and Clarity helped her to her feet, her pale face contorting with the movement.

"What's wrong?" Clara asked.

"One of them got me in the leg." Rachel said, her face a grimace of pain. It looked like they'd gotten her in quite a few other places as well, but Clarity didn't comment.

"We'll help you walk. We have to get out of here, and we're not leaving you behind." Clarity said, taking Rachel's arm and wrapping it around her own shoulder. Clara did the same with the other arm. Rachel didn't seem very happy with the forced help, but she accepted it with nothing more than a sour expression.

Alex and Sam were supporting Johnny the same way and Clarity and Clara were doing with Rachel, only their burden was unconscious. When the girls arrived, they took off down the hall, obviously the opposite direction than they'd taken the last time.

Sam and Alex could apparently navigate the dark hallway easily because their footsteps steadily beat against the concrete floor and slowly began to fade away with distance.

Clarity and Clara hesitantly followed. Rachel was able to make their job easier by limping along on one leg.

From what little Clarity could see, the hallway split several times, but they were able to follow the scraping footsteps of the guys ahead of them. Clarity desperately hoped that they were going the right way. She was pretty sure that none of them knew the way out.

A few seconds later, the hallway changed in shape. The dark outline of the hall was no longer rectangular, it was a large circle. The floor also changed. Rather than the smooth concrete from before, the floor was now ridged with a thin layer of water covering it. The ridges on the floor made it a lot harder to walk, and Clarity found herself tripping more often than she was walking.

As they continued, the light slowly improved. The end of the tunnel they currently found themselves in was soon visible. The opening was mostly blocked by the silhouettes of the people ahead of them, but soon enough, Clarity was standing in a concrete basin.

The group had just exited a large, black pipe. Several other similar pipes jutted out of the sides of the concrete basin. Some of the pipes trickled water, which flowed down the basin's sloped sides until it disappeared down a small drain opening at the bottom. When the sloped edges of the basin ended, concrete walls jutted up at right angles to the ground.

They were at the bottom of a huge stone silo.

A rusty metal staircase was the only way out. It spiraled up and ended at the lip of the cylindrical concrete hole. The grass peeking over the edge told Clarity that the entire thing was buried in the ground.

Alex and Sam began climbing. The narrow staircase was barely big enough for them to walk abreast of each other, especially with Johnny hanging between them. The staircase shook each time they took a step.

The girls waited until the guys cleared the top of the hole before stepping onto the creaky stairs. It was difficult to walk up the stairs while supporting Rachel, but they managed.

They were about halfway up the stairs when the thin beams connecting the stairs to the wall started to creak loudly.

Clarity sped up. The faster movements only made the metal creak louder. A worried squeak came from Clara as she looked at the metal supports.

Suddenly, the entire staircase jerked downward. Clara shrieked. Clarity was holding onto the railing for dear life, her knuckles turning white.

The staircase was only holding on to the wall by the few stubborn beams that hadn't broken. And few meant the three that weren't as rusted as the others.

There was a crack and the shrill scream of metal against metal. The staircase jerked downward again. Clarity's hands were momentarily separated from the rusted railing. They fell backward a few steps before Clarity was able to grab the rail again.

The stairs let out another loud creak.