The Deathlock virus

Chapter 5

"Here it is." Valerie walks over to a little station. The door was rusted shut and moss had begun to grow along the sides.

"So this will take us to the walkway?" Nessie asks, flicking the blade of her knife back into the handle before sticking it into her back pocket. Valerie grabs the handle and yanks on it. The door creaks and groans but doesn't budge.

"If we can get it open, yes. It'll lead us down to the walkway." She grunts in effort as she pulls on the handle again. The whole station rattles and shakes, some moss falling off the sides. With a disappointed sigh, she steps back. "Ryker, try to get it open. You're stronger."

"Thank you." He grins.

"It wasn't a compliment. Just try and get it open." She moves over to stand next to Nessie. "His ego is too big." She mumbles, causing Nessie to giggle.

With a confident stride, Ryker moves closer to the little station and grabs the handle. He pulls on it as hard as he can which causes the handle to pop right off the door.

"Dammit." Ryker and Valerie grumble in unison.

"Is there another way we could get to the walkway?" Nessie looks from Ryker, holding in her laughter at what used to be a confident look on his face, to Valerie.

"Yeah. We'd had to take the street route. But its harder to get up to without clearance because there's a gate. Also the streets underneath the bridge might be flooded with Seekers since the bridge is," She runs a hand through her hair, looking at the door. "There's no way we could get it open?" She turns to Ryker.

"No. If it opens out this way it'd be hard to kick it in because of the hinges since the hinges are probably rusted shut. And if the people down there knew what was good for them, they'd block this door off and hide down there," He tosses the broken handle down onto the ground and crosses his arms. Valerie was getting annoyed with this whole plan. Nothing was going in the right direction.

She sighs in frustration, rubbing the back of her neck. "Alright. Let's just get going before anything else happens," She says with an exasperated tone.

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"Well," Valerie puts her gun back in its sheath, the tension leaving her body. She had been anxious about the idea of the streets under the bridge being flooded with Seekers just like the top of the bridge was.

"At least we don't have to deal with a bunch of damn Seekers," Ryker grumbles as he climbs over the side of the roof and lands on the fire escape. Valerie gives Nessie a soft smile—the girl was clearly anxious, she had never really been out of the Grid before and now they were doing something as crazy as this on her first true outing—she was sure that Nessie could handle this.

The girls follow after Ryker and walk towards the gate.

Nessie was the first one to talk, "Is there usually Seekers down here? Where did they go?"

"Usually there's a few down here," Valerie says before Ryker can answer. She didn't want him scaring Nessie anymore then she already was. "But there's no reason to worry, okay? Me and Ryker will keep you safe."

Nessie nods, a nervous smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She stays close to Valerie as they walk, her clammy hands gripping onto the handle of her switchblade. Ryker seems to notice how nervous the girl was and subconsciously takes a step closer to her as his way of trying to provide a bit of comfort. Even if it wasn't noticeable yet, he did care about Nessie.

They get up to the gate and Valerie pulls open the little hatch that reveals the keypad which can unlock the door. She hesitates for a moment before punching in the code, having to press the buttons several times to get the command to go through. The gate beeps loudly and rattles as Ryker grabs it to yank it open.

As Nessie steps to the other side, a loud scream pierces the eerie silence of the street. Valerie whips around to see a Screamer stumbling out a building, its jaw dislocated from its skull as it moves towards them. A few other Screamers start to screech, hidden or trapped within the buildings.

"That's our cue to hurry up, Val." Ryker says loudly over the screaming, the muscles in his arms flexing as he struggles to hold the gate open. Valerie quickly climbs over to the other side and Ryker lets go of the gate, causing it to slam shut. A few small pieces of concrete fall from the pillars which were on either side of the gate. The Screamer slams into the gate and tries to grab them, its ear piercing screams filling the air. Ryker grabs Valerie's knife and moves forwards cautiously. He stands out of reach of the Screamer flailing arms and shoves the knife through its eye. Its screaming stops immediately as it crumples to the ground. Sickly purple toned blood oozes out of the, now dead, Screamers eye socket where its eye had been previously.

Nessie looks away, a wave of nausea overcoming the poor girl. Ryker looks away with no sign of disgust on his face as he cleans the blood off the knife by wiping it on his pants. He'd seen worse than a dead Screamer. However he did feel bad for Nessie. She'd been thrown into this with barely any warning and it definitely wasn't easy on her.

"Come on. The entrance is just up this way." Valerie gently puts a comforting hand on Nessie's shoulder and leads them towards a door.

The surrounding area was completely silent now. With the Screamer dead and silent, the other's that had heard the Screaming had stopped too. But it meant they were alerted. So the group had to be careful not to set them off again.

The concrete walls of the building underneath the bridge were cracking in some places—Valerie grimaced at the sight of the poor buildings state—and vines were running across and through the cracks. No doubt that the inside of the building was worse. She looked up to the bridge above her and saw the walkway and the large metal beams that supposed the wood that they carried. She had hope that this would work. That it would be okay in the end. Cause if it wasn't, she didn't have any back up plans.

She clearly remembered the last time that she had come down here. It had been with her crew when they were working on repairing the cracks of the bridge. The whole area was a lot nicer then. Considering it was downtown Seattle, of course. The area had never really been pretty according to the tourists, it had its sights and wonders but overall they never really thought anything of it. But Seattle had its charm. Used to have charm that is. Now it was just overrun with Seekers and Lost. Things people rarely found charming these days.

Valerie walks up to the door and tries the doorknob. As she expected, it didn't work. She goes to yank at the door before she pauses, hearing shuffling on the other side of the door. She hears a small tap followed by some loud repeated rhythmic tapping somewhere on the other side of the room behind the door. Dread fills every part of her being and she turns to Ryker.

"There's climbers inside." She whispers, her hand gripping the doorknob with newfound fear.

He bites back a scared look and tries to keep his voice steady for Nessie's sake, "Do you have the floodlight?"

"Yeah but its almost out of battery, I told you we needed to get more from Raven." Out of the corner of her eye she sees Nessie wince at the mention of her grandmother.

Ryker takes off his backpack and looks through it, "I have two normal flashlights. If the floodlight dies while we're in there we can use these instead."

"Will those even work?" She raises an eyebrow, taking off her own bag to search for the large flashlight she always kept in there in case of this exact situation. "We've never used the regular ones on the Climbers."

"They're the exact same as the floodlight, just less powerful. We'll find some batteries later."

Nessie speaks up, "What's a Climber?"