UnAlaska

35. A Dark Maze

Laura and the security guard stood back from the open hatch and the dark ladder. He shook his head. "I don't like it. This level isn't on the deck plans. We don't know where the ladder goes."

Laura was holding her handgun and flashlight pressed together, one in each hand. "It might not be usable space."

He sighed. "I'll go first."

He walked in a small circle around the hatch, lit up by the diffuse glow from Laura's flashlight a few feet away. Next to the open hatch, a warning label read "NO ACCESS WHILE UNDERWAY, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY." His eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now. The ladder was narrow, pressed against a wall on one side and open on the other. The treads looked like textured rebar.

Laura walked forward quietly and placed an open hand on his shoulder. "Go down backward. The best place to ambush you is from behind."

He nodded. He stepped around the open hatch and backed up to the ladder. He held his gun at the ready, in front of him. He backed carefully down. He was trying to keep his gun at the ready while climbing with the other arm. It was an awkward shuffle. One leg, hunching down with one arm, one leg again. She could hear the faint clunk of his shoes on the thin metal rungs. A second later he knocked on the lowest rung. She followed down, forward.

She was surprised when she reached the bottom. She realized she was subconsciously expecting an empty basement, with rooms. It was the exact opposite.

The ladder didn't end in a room at all. It was a warren of criss-crossed metal support structures. There was no light here either. It was a claustrophobic pitch black. She flicked her flashlight over the walls. They were metal painted a uniform, institutional tan. The floors were bare diamond plate metal. They were still mostly clean. This was not a high traffic area. The passageway they were in was barely shoulder width. The ceiling was just over Laura's head height. The security guard was standing behind her hunched, with his head cranked to one side.

The blood trail was thin, but Laura could see it with her flashlight. It strung away from the staircase, through a small oval doorway. It was more of an oval shaped hole than a door. Laura climbed through first. She had to stoop her head and swing each leg over the sill to fit. She clambored through to the other side. The ship was rocking incessantly. She nearly lost her balance. There was no sound from the wind and rain this deep inside the ship, but the motion was constant. It caused a low groaning and creaking that echoed and amplified in the small, hard space.

Laura felt the hairs raise on the back of her neck with a prickling wave of alarm. The passageway was full of tight, blind corners. The small oval openings were spaced irregularly, and none of the open corridors looked longer than about ten feet. She had to duck and scrabble to climb through each of the small oval openings. It was hard to keep her head up. It would be way too easy to lay an ambush around one of the corners, or behind a doorway. She reminded herself that sometimes a wounded and cornered animal was the most dangerous.

She climbed through another oval gap. In front of her, there was a blank wall. The corridor ended in a t-shaped junction. The blood trail was still there, leading right at a sharp 90 degrees. She hugged the wall to her right and swung around the corner, gun first. She released the breath she'd been holding through her pursed lips.

They snaked through a few more sharp turns left and right. She started to lose track of the map in her mind. It was some kind of confusing zigzag. She climbed through another oval gap, and the lurching motion of the ship knocked her off balance. She threw her hand forward to steady herself, and smashed her watch against a sharp metal corner. There was a small crushing sound, then the tinkling of glass shards bouncing off the diamond plate floor.