Confessions of a Corpse

Chapter 6 - "One, two, three: security!"

I turned around to look at Mark and found that my surroundings had changed again. We were in another exhibit. It looked like there was a pile of either yarn or laundry to my left.

"What the fuck?" I whispered. Mark poked his head out from a display on the other side of the room and gave me a thumbs up.

"Great job, buddy. I'll meet you over there." He ducked back behind the display case, then jumped out and landed flat on his face. I groaned slightly. I was actually going through a heist with this guy. His body slowly moved across the floor as if he was being dragged by an unseen force, disappearing behind another display case and then flipping over and over until he was at the next display case.

"All right," he said, leading the way out of the room. "We're almost to the vault. Come on. Stay low and stay quiet."

A chill ran up my spine as I looked over my shoulder to make sure there was no one following us. I then turned back around to find myself still following Mark, but we were now in the main gallery, near the vault. Why was everything changing so suddenly? I grit my teeth as Mark led the way onto a giant chessboard.

"Come on, this way," Mark said, picking up a white bishop. "We're almost there. Checkmate." He placed it down in front of one of the black pawns.

"That's not how you play chess," I muttered. Mark seemed to disregard my comment as we got closer to the vault.

"Okay. Oh, I can almost taste it."

Something beeped, and the vault door opened. Mark grabbed my arm and yanked me behind a pillar, putting one hand over my mouth to shush me - something I was not happy with - and all we could do was watch as two guards walked out of the vault.

"You wanna know my favorite thing about this vault?" the first guard said, turning and stopping in front of one of the two green pads that were on either side of the door.

"Go on."

"You need two keys."

The second guard walked to the second pad. "One for you, one for me."

"Okay, here we go."

"Ready? One, two, three."

"Security!" They said in unison, locking the vault and beaming at each other. After pulling the keys out of the locks, they went off in two separate directions. Mark finally took his hand off my mouth, and we both slowly walked around the pillar, making sure the guards couldn't see us. Once the guards left the room, Mark spoke.

"Oh, crap. Oh, crap," he muttered, walking to the vault door while I was hot on his heels. He led the way to the vault door. "This wasn't in the plans. There are two keys for this vault. We need to get them from those guards or any guards that are moderately less competent than those." He pulled his grapple gun from his bag.

"Why don't you go back the way we came and why don't I have a little bit of a chat with that guard over there. Be back in a flash." He shot the gun and sailed up to the walkway that was above us. I sighed a bit, shaking my head, then turned around to go find one of the guards. Before I could even take a step, I heard a loud clang and a scream, causing me to turn around and witness Mark fall into a pile of boxes. I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose in annoyance. Why did I agree to do this again? Mark climbed out of the pile and grinned at me, seemingly unharmed.

"Be back in a flash." He flashed me a grin, some finger guns, and hurried off.