ACADEMY FOR THE DAMNED

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Dillon's eyes were attuned to the semi dark in his room as there had been some radiance through the window from the moon, but in the passage outside there was no light and he found himself stumbling forward in pitch black. He realised he had no way to know where he was going.

He closed his eyes and tried to picture the passage outside his room in the glare of the artificial light illuminating the entire passage. He put out his hands, feeling along the way, and advanced slowly and as quietly as he could. His heart pounded and his mouth was dry.

Dillon made his way along a two storied block, housing all the teenagers. The girls occupied the top tier and the boys the bottom. So it followed that Dillon would blunder into Ike sooner or later. At least he would if both boys had taken the right direction. Dillon thought that he would at least know that he was moving in the wrong direction if he came face to face with the wall at the wrong end of the block.

Dillon was starting to think he had bitten off more than he could chew. He had been so buoyed up with energy and the prospect of putting this Hell behind him, that he had not thought about the obstacles, like the impenetrable blackness surrounding him. The only thing he could rely on was his sense of touch. The anticipation was gone and he felt fearful and alone. In the blackness he could see that room with its cages holding monsters. The sounds and smells of that experience came flooding back to him. He had to force himself forward, one hesitant step after another.

He looked at the glowing dial of his watch. So far ten minutes had elapsed since he left the room and the Chinook stayed for two hours while supplies were unloaded. He did not want his friends to take the entire two hours just to find the main entrance, but it could well take them all that time, particularly if they were constantly going in the wrong direction, and had to retrace their steps.

As he made his painful way forward he tried to reach out to the minds of the other three. He could sense the edge of Amina's consciousness and through that he could sense Emily's visions of the passages within the building. Those visions melted into one another and seemed like dreams. He was unaware of Ike.

Dillon felt a corner where the passage turned a ninety degree angle. At least he was heading in the right direction. He knew if he had gone in the wrong direction he would have eventually come up against a blank wall. Then Dillon was aware of an approaching sound. It was a measured clomp, clomp, and Dillon recognised it as the footfalls of a sentry robot.

He froze and his mind went into overdrive trying to think of a way to escape. There were none. He was stuck in this black void with the robot rapidly approaching from the opposite direction. No place to hide. The automaton rounded the corner, a pair of red eyes in the darkness and the clomp of its footfalls. The footfalls stopped and the red eyes fixed on Dillon.

Dillon felt faint and his legs weak, as though he were ready to collapse. What would this machine do to him? Would it hurt him? Would it kill him? Scenarios raced through his mind. He imagined begging this pitiless thing for mercy and getting none. He felt like a mouse in the eyes of a cat and wondered what would happen next

He croaked. "No."

The twin red glows vanished. Dillon stared at the darkness where he perceived the machine to be. Something was wrong. Reaching out he touched the cold metal of the robot. The thing was inert. There was a yellow glow and a large human frame stepped forward.

"Ike?"

"Who else were you expecting?"

Ike brandished what looked like a flashlight. Dillon could see him grinning behind the glow.