Better off Undead

Chapter 46: What Lies Within

For a time, they were forced to do nothing but stand up, leaning hard against the doors. Partially this was to keep them closed while the creatures outside assaulted the entryway, trying to get at the intruders, but partially it was because with the doors closed, the inside of the base they found themselves in was pitch black. Without being able to see, it was impossible to orient themselves inside the void.

There was something particularly disorienting about standing in complete darkness and occasionally being rocked by an unseen force. At one point, a gargoyle hit the door hard enough to send Jay collapsing to his hands and knees. He started to push himself up, but unable to get a sense for which direction was "up" in the complete darkness, he instead just collapsed to the ground. He curled up into a ball and tried to focus on simply not throwing up.

After a couple minutes the pounding on the doors finally stopped, and one by one everyone in the group slid down to a sitting position on the floor.

"I... really... hate you...Eli," Amber said between labored breaths.

"What?" Eli squawked, surprised at having been singled out. "Why? What did I do?"

"Before I met you, I thought dealing with stupid, slow zombies was more than enough craziness. Since you, there's been running zombies, Draculas, werewolves, and now... gargoyles?"

"I fail to see how any of that is my fault. Why does everyone keep blaming me? And they're vampires, not 'Draculas.' 'Draculas' isn't even a word."

"Whatever. The point is, life was significantly less crazy before you, and now it's like freakin' Abbot and Costello up in here. Life before you, life after you." As soon as she said the last part, she remembered she was sitting in completely blackness and nobody could see her. "That was two levels I made with my hands," she explained. "You're the crazy-as-shit level."

Eli sighed and laid his head back against the metal door, deciding he didn't really want to argue. Instead, he changed the subject. "I take it nobody has a flashlight?"

"Psh, who needs flashlights?" Jays scoffed. "Real badasses have night-vision goggles."

"You have night vision goggles?"

"No."

"Guys," Aliyah interjected, "look!"

For a moment, Eli considered pointing out that even if there was something to look at they could not possibly know which direction to look because nobody could see her pointing, but then he saw it. In the short time since they had closed the door, their eyes had all adjusted to the darkness enough to see what Aliyah was seeing.

Down at the end of the hall a strange blue light was flickering across a wall.

It was dim, and in normal light would probably have been utterly invisible, but in the pitch black of the hallway it burned like the sun.

"What the hell is that?" Eli asked.

Amber groaned. "If that's another new creature, I am taking one of your baseball bats and hitting you over the head with it."

"It's some kind of light, not a creature," said Aliyah.

"Guys!" Jay called, voice wavering with fear, "guys! I can't see it! I can't see it! What... where? I..."

He stopped talking suddenly, having thrashed about enough to apparently point himself in the right direction. "Oh, there it is." The light proved to be enough for him to regain his orientation, and he pushed himself up onto his feet and stood up. "It looks like electricity."

"Well, let's follow it," said Eli.

"What? No!" protested Jay.

"Why not?"