Infection

Chapter Eighteen

Ashton held his breath as he climbed down the slippery, grimy, cold ladder. He felt his leg touch the bottom and he let go, taking a breather –

– and immediately felt an intense urge to throw up. He swallowed down the stinging bile which rose in his throat as he held onto a rung for support.

The stench in the sewers was obnoxious. An amalgamation of piss, vomit, blood and the already common putrid scent of decay which filled the open air, only seemed magnified by several times in the dank and stale sewers. A pale green light illuminated the sewers, coming from bulbs which were placed at intervals through the sewers, casting an eerie green glow on the walls. Ashton was standing on a stone pavement, with murky, thick brown waters steadily flowing beside him. The waters were filled with garbage, mud and fleshy material. Ashton desperately tried to maintain himself from throwing up, and controlled the urge to cough and puke, for fear of the noise attracting whatever was down here.

Ashton wondered again at the strangeness that the facility had electricity running when it seemed that power supplies had been quickly cut sometime after the outbreak began.

With a last glance up at the manhole toward the room where Hayley was waiting for him, Ashton ran down the pavement toward his left, half raising his revolver and carefully trudging each step as the pavement was rather narrow. He turned the corner and in the waters laid a corpse, its skin withered from long exposure to the water to the extent that it became slimy.

Gross.

It was eerily silent, with the occasional drip of water echoing through the cavern-like sewers. It was surprising how, even before the outbreak, Ashton never knew such a creepy structure existed below the bustling city.

Several more lacerated bodies lay afloat in the waters, all motionless. Ashton held his breath at intervals, trying in vain to avoid the wet, rotten, fleshy stench.

He reached the end of the pavement, where there were three steps leading to a metallic door, which was slightly rusted. Holding the revolver close to his chest, Ashton strained to pull the metal handle down, which made a loud clang as the door opened inward, causing Ashton to freeze and listen intently for any motion in his surroundings; any creature or whatever which had heard the noise he had just caused.

Nothing.

Relieved, Ashton entered the room, and closed the door behind him. It was a small office, with cement walls and metal tiled flooring. It was the security office which monitored the sewers. A bulb was flickering on the ceiling, and a small fan was still operating, creaking as it turned from left to right, blowing cool dank air onto Ashton.

How the hell is this place getting electricity?

It was indeed possible that not all parts of the city had been affected by the power cut. Perhaps there was an undamaged generator nearby.

Ashton observed the office. On the table lay a coffee mug with coffee still in it. Some random books were strewn about the place. Right above a glass panel which showed the outside from where he entered, were three monitors, each divided into a grid of nine squares, each square showing various sections of the sewers. Two of them were pitch black, the security cameras probably damaged. The video images were still and a pale green, the only noticeable movement was the slow moving sewage.

A board on the wall had a maze-like drawing pinned onto it, drawn in pencil. It had random highlighted circles, and wordings...

"Searched."

"Infected."

"Josephine."

"Exit."

Each circle had a label next to it. Ashton raised his eyebrow as he realised what he was looking at.