Powers Against The Scorch

Part 13

Brenda, with Thomas's wrist still in her hand, hurled herself into the dark hole in the wall. It turned out to be an elevator shaft except the elevator hadn't been installed for years. Thomas, reluctantly, jumped down into the shaft. He fell an entire floor before he finally hit to bottom. Brenda grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the shaft, he was pulled to the floor and Brenda put one of her hands on the back of Thomas's head and another on the back of her own to protect the both of them.

Ruble and smoke came spilling through the elevator shaft, small pieces of brick and cement fell onto their bodies. Once the smoke cleared a little bit, they both stood up and coughs filled the tunnels. Thomas swatted at the smoke in front of his face, unsuccessfully, trying to clear a path through the smoke.
"Where the hell are we?" Thomas asked.
"It's an.." She coughed. "Underground work of tunnels, it should lead to a way out. It hasn't been used in decades though."
"So.. is it safe?"
"I guess we'll find out." Brenda began walking down the smoke filled tunnel.
"Wow that's great, y'know? Very comforting."

Thomas followed after her. He kept close by her, Brenda had a gun, the only weapon that either of them had. There were more than likely cranks there, dozens, possibly even hundreds, so Thomas didn't want to risk being picked off.

Three left turns and two rights later, they found themselves at a junction. The tunnel was now split into two tunnels. A screech rang through the tunnels, echoing against the walls. It seemed to come from everywhere.
"Let's go this way." Brenda said and pointed towards the left tunnel.

Brenda lead the way down the passage and Thomas followed after her. Thomas grabbed a flashlight from his bag and shone it in front of them. The tunnels were made of solid concrete with moss spotted everywhere, piles of brick and stone was scattered messily across the floor.
Dirt covered every inch of the walls and the floors.

After about five minutes of walking in pure silence, they saw a drainage pipe, it was dark and really quite creepy but they both stared down there. They didn't exactly know why they were looking at it or even what they were really hoping to see but subconsciously the only thought that was running through their minds was hope. If there was a sewage drain then there would definitely be some way out of this place. Clangs came from inside the small passage and both of their bodies froze, even though they both knew that they should be moving away from the possible sounds of death, they felt as if they couldn't move. The noise kept getting closer and closer towards them. The flashlight was pointed towards the floor, Thomas couldn't move his arm to see what was coming towards them, it seemed at this point that for them, death was inevitable. Even if it was just one crank on its way to devour them both, neither of them had any idea of how to get out of that place so eventually they would run out of energy and be forced to stop to catch a breath and then they'd be torn apart.

A small rat came running towards them, its feet making small tapping sounds as it scurried its way down the pipe. Their bodies relaxed slightly as they realised they were being paranoid. The rat jumped down from the drain and ran down the tunnel.
Suddenly, a frail white hand reached out and grabbed the rats' small body, its boney fingers tightened around the rats' stomach. Thomas lifted the flashlight at the creature and saw that it was some sort of crank, white vines seemed to run all over its body, the lack of sun exposure had caused the cranks entire body to become almost translucent. The crank brought the rat up to its face and bit into the small creature, blood spurted everywhere, covering the cranks face and staining its skin. Thomas and Brenda froze once again, terror spreading throughout their bodies.

More cranks began appearing, seeming as if they'd ripped their bodies out of the wall, they all crowded around and ate the rats small body. Once the rat had been completely devoured, their focus turned to Thomas and Brenda, following the light that had been shone on them. Their bodies reached out to try and grab the Thomas and Brenda.

Brenda grabbed onto Thomas's shoulder and pulled him in the opposite direction, they ran down the tunnel that they had previously walked down. A horde of cranks following closely behind. When they got to the begging of the tunnel, Brenda turned around and began shooting at the cranks, some of them fell to the ground but began crawling towards them instead.

Thomas pulled Brenda away and they rand down the opposite tunnel, they continued running. The cranks followed after them. A blinding light was all that they could see at end of the tunnel but they continued to run towards it, hoping that they could get just one tiny miracle. When they reached the end of the tunnel, they were hit by a gust of wind, it was an exit. They ran out of the tunnel and the sun was blinding for a moment until their eyes settled and the were met by hills of rock and rubble and a huge building that was definetly abandoned. The building was a skyscraper and glass windows scaled all the way to the top, the majority of which, were smashed in and broken.

A screech rang out from behind them and they began running up the hills of rubble. The cranks didn't come out into the sunlight, they stayed in the tunnel and just walked away, back into the tunnel.
"Guess they didn't like us invading their home." Brenda said.