Radioactive

Chapter 4

6 MONTHS LATER

It's Sunday. Amy and I sit on the couch in the Hanger waiting, for the fourth week in a row, for Alex to show up.

"What the heck has been taking up all his time? I thought he said he has Sundays off?" Amy asks angrily.

"Today is the last straw. I'm gonna go find him." I say and stand up hurriedly.

"If he's just been bailing on us for his sciencey buddies, pinch him." Amy says and lays down on the couch.

I laugh and exit the Hanger. I walk back to HQ first and go back to my bunk. I grab my map and look it over. Military HQ is circled with a fat red marker. A building marked in blue has the initials "R.L" written on it. I scratch my head and look around. Amanda sits on the bunk opposite me. I go over to her and show her the map.

"Hey, is this building here," I point at 'R.L', "Is that the Radiation Labs?"

"Probably." she says, "They would pick a dump like that to do their work in."

"Thanks." I say and fold the map up and put it in my pocket.

I start walking down the hallway out of the building and find Lucy chatting with a couple Red Berets and Henry.

"Hey there Recruit Grayson, soon to be Private Class 2." she says stepping in my way, "Don't forget that graduation is tomorrow. Curfew tonight is 1:00 am."

"I'm sure I'll be back before then, ma'am." I say smiling and step past her.

"Better be. I'll see ya then!" Lucy says and then continues talking with the Red Berets and Henry.

I walk outside and take the map out again. The supposed Radiation Labs aren't that far away if I could move through walls. The quickest way there is full of twisting tunnels and random buildings blocking my way. This is gonna be a long walk.

I stop in front of a building matching the location on the map but, not what I had in mind. It took me almost four hours to get here. I had taken a wrong turn and ended up half way across the bunker by the time I realized I was going the wrong way. Only two hours until curfew, I'll have to book it back to HQ. The extremely tall building marked with a huge R.L written in spray paint on the front doors, looms over a strangely vacant district of the bunker. It's made of beaten up metal and dirty, red brick. The windows are either covered up or broken. This building just screams sketchy.

I knock lightly on the front doors and they creak open. I shrug to myself and step inside. A billow of dust kicks into the air once I plant my foot on the floor. I cough and wave the dust out of the air in front of me. There is a light flickering above a wrap around desk in the middle of the room. The dim lighting casts an eerie hue over the entire room. Curved staircases run along either side of the walls around the desk. A torn up, mold covered furniture set sits romantically in front of a long since dead fireplace positioned to the right of the doors. Everything in the room is coated with a lick layer of dust.

"Damn it Amanda , you knew this wasn't freaking it." I say to myself and kick dust up into the air.

I walk over to the desk slowly and peer over it. Nothing but an over turned office chair and some scattered papers. The stairs creak next to me and my head snaps to the noise. A large, mutated rat looks at me, hisses and then scurries away. My hand rests in my pocket with my knife as I move toward the stairs. I step on the first stair and hear a loud protest from the rotting wood but continue upwards.

At the top of the stairs, my foot catches on a hole in the carpet and sends me tumbling backward. I bounce half way down the stairs before I come to a halt. Small pockets of dust explode all around me as I begin to stand up. I sigh.

"That could've been worse..." I say to myself.

I hear the stairs under me sigh heavily. The stairs shake and then collapse. I scream as I plummet down into darkness with my back to whatever lies below. I hear the wood clatter to the ground and then I slam into the hard floor, my head bouncing when it hits the ground. I turn to the side and puke. The back of my head feels damp and my left ankle is bending at an odd angle. My vision is hazy and there is a ringing in my ears. Everything throbs with a burning pain.

The new place I'm in is brighter. I look around and see blurry figures staring at me in lab coats. The walls, ceiling and floor are all ice white. One of the blurs says something but it comes out muffled and scratchy.

"What?" I try to say, but it comes out as a whisper.

Two of the figures rush over to me as I try to sit myself up. They yell something at me, I still can't make out what it is. My eyelids get heavy and my vision swirls. Suddenly I'm back on the ground in a small puddle of blood.

"Whoa." I say, squeezing my eyes shut.

I feel two people lift me up and put me on a stretcher. Something sharp pokes my arm and I'm whisked off into a world of dreamless sleep.