We got up and struggled our way to the door. Samuel reached it first and popped it open. Below the plane, the tarmac glided by. We were still going too fast.
But the plane tilted forward. We all had to jump.
“Here I go!”
Makara hopped, tucking in and landing with a roll. Anna followed after her, then Lisa.
Samuel nodded. “Go, Alex!”
I jumped, feeling the cold wind rush past my face and butterflies rise in my stomach. God, this was going to hurt. I landed with a thud, tucking in like Makara, rolling forward to break my fall.
Surprised I was still in one piece, I stood, finding myself at the edge of the runway, mere inches from the cliff. I saw Samuel, to my right, roll to a stop.
With a thunderous creak on my left, the plane tilted forward, sliding down the mountainside. The giant vehicle crashed into the rocks below, sending up an enormous plume of flame. The reek of jet fuel stung my nostrils and lungs, the fire heating my face with its glow.
A hand pulled me back.
“Stay alive,” Anna said. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“The colors were too pretty, I guess,” Lisa said.
“We need to get inside,” Samuel said, stepping forward. “Those crawlers are on the way.”
He pointed toward an open door built into the mountain. In their haste, Harland and Drake had not even seen fit to shut it. Their plane was parked neatly just a few feet away.
“We have to reach the Black Files before they do,” Makara said.
“We know this place like the back of our hands,” Samuel said. “We have to make it to the research lab and access the computer.”
The cold ring of steel echoed in the air as Anna drew her blade. “We have company.”
Three of the crawlers loped toward our position. Their long necks and heads undulated back and forth, and jagged teeth jutted from their mouths. Their white eyes burned. I would never get used to seeing those.
The first crawler shot for Makara. Anticipating its move, she dodged to the side in a fluid motion, arching back her knife to deliver a killing blow in its neck. The monster squealed as purple goo sprayed from the wound. It convulsed before growing still.
Anna charged for the other two. They broke, surrounding her on both sides. I ran forward, Beretta in hand, firing at the one on the left. It hissed, and charged after me.
Samuel stepped beside me. The crawler ran toward us, and together, Samuel and I fired at it. With a shriek, the crawler fell dead, its momentum carrying it forward before it stopped at our feet.
Several of the bullets connected. The creature went limp, rolling on the ground with its momentum and stopping dead at our feet.
Anna handled the last one with an expert swing of her blade, severing its head from its body.
“That takes care of that,” she said.
“Inside!” Samuel said.
We ran for Bunker One across the tarmac. The cold wind tore at my skin. It must have been way below freezing in the frigid mountain air. If we were out here for even an hour, we’d die of exposure.
We stepped inside the darkness of the Bunker and slammed the metal door shut behind us. Samuel latched it, and a few seconds later the creatures that had been chasing us slammed against the door.
“I can’t believe it,” Makara said. “We’re actually here.”
Someone had left the lights on in here, too. Before us was a long hallway, with no doors on either side.
“This tunnel goes on for a while,” Makara said. “It leads to some stairs and a bank of elevators.”
“Is this the only way to the runway?” I asked.
“There’s a large hangar, but this is the way Samuel and I came when we escaped. More of a side entrance.” She paused. “Ten thousand people used to live here, and not even ten percent of them survived that night.”
Her eyes were distant. I knew what she was thinking — her parents might be in here, somewhere. Hopefully, they rested in peace and hadn’t turned into Howlers.
“We have to go,” Samuel said. “Get the Files, and bury the past once and for all.”
Samuel headed forward, into the tunnel. We followed.
Chapter 19
Makara was right; Bunker One was huge.
We made it to the elevator bank, continued on to the stairwell and descended…down and down and down. I stopped counting after twenty flights.
“There are fifty-two floors,” Makara said. “Not counting the L Levels.”
“L Levels?” I asked.
“The labs,” she said. “Only scientists were allowed in. It is protected by a huge vault door, not unlike the ones that guard a typical Bunker from the outside. They didn’t want anyone getting in that wasn’t supposed to be there.”
“I wonder what they were hiding,” I said.
“We’re about to find out,” Samuel said. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this moment.”
“It’s too quiet,” Anna said. “I don’t like it.”
“Yeah,” Lisa said. “Would have expected something to be attacking us in here. But it’s as if someone came in and cleaned everything up.”
“The lights are on, too,” Anna said. “Someone’s keeping house.”
Well, if anyone was here, they sure were keeping quiet.
Finally we arrived at the first floor.
“Well, we made it,” Makara said. “Thought all along we would have to bust in through the front.”
“It’s better this way,” Samuel said. “Stay alert. Who knows what surprises our friends left for us?”
Samuel forced the door open, and my breath caught. “Giant” did not even begin to describe the room we had entered. No, not a room. A chamber, a cavern, though manmade. It must have taken years to carve out.
It was basically a gigantic vertical tunnel. I looked up and saw the rock ceiling hundreds of feet above. It probably would take at least a minute to walk across the chamber’s entire diameter. The railed edges of floor upon floor ringed the tunnel’s circumference. It was like a circular skyscraper, only underground. Lights lit the place only dimly, so I couldn’t see its entire scope. Hundreds of doors and openings and archways lined the floors — things that looked as if they had once been stores, restaurants, dorms, places to relax.
This hadn’t been a Bunker. It had been an entire underground city.
“Home sweet home,” Makara said.
In front of us was a red stain on the rock floor, the remains of someone’s grisly death years ago. The body was gone.
“Labs are this way,” Samuel said.
We followed Samuel across the massive chamber, but I couldn’t keep from looking up. It must have taken an army of thousands of turned creatures to bring down a place like this. That army must have been controlled, somehow. I wondered what could be powerful and intelligent enough to do that. I didn’t want to think of the answer.
Samuel went through a large opening into a wide corridor. The corridor sloped downward. The echoes of our footsteps were painfully loud. Anyone or anything would hear us coming from a mile away.
A bullet whizzed past my head, forcing me to the ground. Falling to the ground had become an ingrained habit of mine.
“They’re right ahead of us,” Samuel said.
I looked ahead. Both Harland and Drake were kneeling behind a railing that served as a barricade. They were right in front of the vault door marked “Lab Levels.”
“Damn it, they’re guarding the entrance!” Samuel said.
“Because they can’t get in,” Makara said. “That thing is locked tight.”
“If they want me to open it again, they have another think coming,” I said.
“I don’t think anyone could open that, other than with brute force,” Samuel said.
“Well,” Makara said, “let’s take care of these guys, first.