It Lurks in the Darkness

Chapter 4: Plan B

     Court inched down the hallway towards the exit very slowly, gun in hand with her finger on the trigger watching her surroundings closely. Behind her, Harmony and the other four followed closely on her heels. Suddenly, they heard the heavy thudding of feet in a hallway nearby. Court quickly threw out her hand to gesture to the others to stop moving. On her command, they halted in their tracks automatically, eyes scanning for a threat. Meanwhile, Court continued to creep forward approaching the sound when out of nowhere Parker appeared stumbling out of a connecting hallway. He was visibly limping and was thoroughly soaked with blood with no evident location of the injury. He glanced at Court with brief confusion not recognizing her, but once he saw Harmony he cried with joy. "Oh my god, guys! I thought everyone
was dead!" Harmony raced forward and swept Parker into a hug ignoring the sticky blood being transferred onto her own shirt. "We thought YOU were dead!" she replied in exasperation. Court intervened stating, "You guys can reunite later. First things first, we need to get out of here ASAP." Everyone nodded in agreement and started towards the exit again. Harmony held out her arm for Parker and allowed him to lean into her for support as they followed the group. Once they reached the door, Court pulled at it attempting to open it but the door did not budge. "What the hell" she whispered as she continued to try opening the door. Lexi moved around her and failed to open it too. From the back, Parker groaned, "Based on your struggles up there, I am assuming the killer went to the main office and activated the lockdown procedure that locks the doors from both the inside and the outside. I'm guessing he did that because he does not want anybody left in this building to leave and report to the police. He is trying to cover his tracks." "Well fantastic is there any way we can fix that?!" Daniel questioned frantically. Alisha hugged him closer to her looking even more distressed at his fearful outburst, her makeup running from crying earlier staining her boyfriend's shirt. Lexi stepped forward glaring at Daniel and replied, "Parker is right. Unless Court and Lexi are complete wimps, the lockdown procedure is in place which means that we are not going anywhere until we deactivate it." Court growled, "Okay, plan B. We are going to go to the cafeteria, try to recuperate, and figure out how we are going to get the main office safely to deactivate this shitty procedure. Also if you dare to even suggest I am a wimp again, I won't have a problem putting you in your grave early." Lexi eyed Court down but kept her mouth shut, not testing the waters, and marched to the front of the group taking the lead to the cafeteria. Court trailed behind Lexi, gun at the ready once again with  everyone else trudging along too. Along the way to the cafeteria, Parker would let out occasional grunts of pain signaling to Court that as soon as they got to their destination she would have to take a look at his wounds because by the sounds of it he was losing blood fast.

Three minutes later, they all toppled into the cafeteria grateful to have arrived alive without any major disturbances. Daniel and Alisha collapsed at a table clearly exhausted and frightened while Lexi and Jack stood off to the side of the table, too anxious to sit. Court gestured Harmony to a table in the back and she gently laid Parker down on the center of the table. Court stated firmly, "He needs aid right away. Harmony, gather all the medical supplies you can find in here. Gauze, bandages, paper towels, needles, etc." She nodded and quickly scampered away to retrieve the supplies requested. Meanwhile, Court examined Parker's wound. Once she moved his bloody shirt out of the way, a large bullet hole was revealed puncturing Parker's skin. The bullet was still lodged into his chest and had clearly barely missed his heart. Without batting an eyelash, she applied steady pressure to the wound with her hands as much as she could. Eventually, Harmony returned with a handful of random supplies bundled in her arms. "This is the best I could find. I also picked up some food for us to eat" she huffed out of breath. Court surveyed the items she found and grimaced. There was not much for her to work with. There was a skimpy roll of cheap paper towels, two bandages, a kitchen knife, a few bottles of water, and a large bag with assorted chips and treats in it. Quickly, Court went to work with what she had while everyone else had a small bite to eat. She began by first taking the kitchen knife and extracting the bullet. It was not an ideal tool but she had to make the best of it because the bullet was too deep to dig out with her hands alone. Parker hissed in extreme pain, tears rolling down his cheeks, while he bit hard on his hand to prevent from screaming. After extracting the bullet, Court started applying pressure right away with some of the paper towels. "Can someone rip off a piece of their clothing and give it to me to wrap around his wound to keep steady pressure?" Jack full on ripped off his football jersey and handed it to her leaving him shirtless. She took it and tied the large jersey around Parker's arm, securing the paper towels underneath in place. Jack questioned, "Alright, where do you come from anyway? You just appeared out of nowhere to save the day, had a gun on hand, and happen to know how to treat bullet wounds. What gives?" Court sighed and explained, "I am part of the Royal Army Medical Corps, also known as the RAMC, for the United Kingdom military. I am here in the US on a deployment mission. I was on a run and began to feel particularly parched. I forget to bring a water with me because at the time I had just run out of the base I am staying at trying to clear my head from the current shenanigans my friend/coworker has pulled once again. So thirsty, I noticed this school and figured I would pop in to get a quick drink of water from a fountain. Soon after getting inside I noticed the dead body and heard you guys whispering in the maintenance closet. Hence, here we are in this shitty situation. Just my luck." Right after her explanation, a hamster scurried across the floor in front of them under the table Alisha and Daniel were at. Alisha began to shriek when its tail brushed her feet but Daniel managed to cover her mouth quickly silencing her. Harmony gasped, "Oh! That is Charlie! Ms. Hathaway's class pet hamster! Somehow he must have escaped and discovered the pantry down here." Parker asked, "Can someone give him to me? I need a furry hamster to distract me from my pain." Lexi reached down and picked it up handing it over to Parker. He gently stroked Charlie's fur smiling slightly.

The following ten minutes consisted of all of them trying to devise a plan on how to get to the main office safely and turn off the lockdown procedure for them to escape. Everyone had finished eating except for Court, who claimed she was not hungry. At last, Court said, "Ok, before we leave I need you all to grab some sort of weapon. It could be a knife, a heavy object, etc. Anything that can cause harm." After grabbing their weapons, they started to cautiously inch towards the door of the cafeteria. As they were rounding the corners, a loud gunshot bounced off the walls out of nowhere. Startled, Harmony turned her head to find the killer had just rounded the corner into the same hallway and was currently eyeing down them all with murder in his eyes. It was in that moment that Harmony suddenly became aware that Parker was no longer leaning on her. He had fallen to the floor and had been shot in the back of the head causing instant death. A large pool of blood surrounded his head and started to drip creating a sickly scene making her sick to her stomach. She turned away and in an instant, Court charged in front of Harmony placing herself in front of the killer, gun aimed. She yelled at them, "Don't just stand there, bloody run! Get the hell out of here!" Alisha didn't question it and was the first to start sprinting with Daniel close on her heels. Lexi and Jack looked hesitant but followed them not long after. Harmony noticed out of the corner of her eye, Charlie had scampered out of Parker's pocket and was pressed against the wall shaking in fear. She ducked down and grabbed him before tucking him into her own pocket and started towards the main office where the others were heading. Meanwhile Court circled the killer taking into consideration her training in the military. He was a tall muscular man dressed in dark clothing with a creepy frog mask on to conceal his identity. As she was circling him thinking about the best way to disarm him, neither her or the killer noticed Harmony approaching from behind with Charlie in her hand. She inched closer and closer as cautiously as she could until she was only a few inches away and lowered the hamster to the ground nodding her head toward them. Charlie got the hint and skittered across the floor, soundlessly hopping onto the killer's shoe. He then ran up his pant leg resulting in the killer letting out a strangled scream. He flailed helplessly smacking himself repeatedly trying to find the source of the weird creature that had found its way into his clothing. Court took this sudden distraction as a chance to charge forward and knock the killers gun out of his hand. Once she did that she shot him in the shoulder to further immobilize him and started sprinting in the direction the others went previously, Harmony not far behind. As she was running, Court made sure to switch the safety back into place to avoid accidentally harming someone aside from the murderer. The further they got away from him the more distant his screeching of frustration and pain became making it evident that he was hindered from moving much anytime soon. Out of breath, Harmony and Court located the others at the front of the building trying to unlock the main office door. "Why isn't it opening?!" Harmony cried. Jack explained, "The killer somehow managed to jam the door shut so we couldn't get in if we figured out what he did. Ha, there seems to be a reoccurring theme with jammed doors." Court got a brilliant idea when she noticed the fire extinguisher hanging on a handle nearby the office. She thrusted her gun into the fragile glass encasing the extinguisher shattering it into hundreds of pieces. Grabbing the extinguisher, she neared the window of the main office and smirked, "The killer isn't dumb I'll give that to him, be he sure ain't a genius. Back up guys." Once they were a safe distance away, Court smashed the extinguisher into the glass with all her force. The glass gave way to her strength and broke apart, covering the floor. Using her gun to nudge some pointy , larger pieces out of the way, Court managed to create a reasonably sized hole for them to step through. She stepped into the office, careful to avoid as much glass as she could and gestured to the others to follow suit. "Alright, time to get out of this shit hole. Let's deactivate this son of a bitch."