Chapter 15:
"Guys... what the fuck are we going to do?" Cameron asked, cradling his heavy head in his both of his blood covered hands. I walked over slowly and sat down next to him, feeling empathic about his tragic situation: the horrific loss of his little sister.
"We need to split up and find a way out," Jay stated confidently, cradling Kylie to his chest while she continued to cry hysterically. Jeremy had sunk down to the grimy floor, examining his foot which was covered in both dried and fresh blood, and missing a few toes. Collin was leaning tiredly against a wall, rubbing his bloodshot eyes while Tristen was examining all the crazy weapons in the room around us.
"Right, lets split up. I mean, that always fucking works in the movies, right?" Collin exclaimed sarcastically, and I cringed at his harsh tone. He also just lost a younger sibling in a tragic way, so I understood his mean attitude to an extent.
Jay narrowed his eyes at Collin but didn't say anything in response; I guess the exhaustion was enough to keep the boys from fighting, this time.
"Like staying in a big group is helping?" I mumbled, causing everyone to turn their attention over to me.
"I hate to disagree with you man but they're right," Tristen also piped up, nodding along to my bitter statement with a thoughtful frown.
"We're getting picked off one by fucking one, doesn't matter that we've stuck together."
"We're easier to prey on when we're alone," Collin argued, pinching the bridge of his nose like he had a roaring headache, which I'm sure he did. We hadn't eaten anything or had proper sleep in who knows how long, so headaches were surely inevitable.
"Why are we even listening to this guy?" Jeremy spoke up, to which Jay agreed almost immediately and they both glared resentfully at Collin.
I cringed a little; if Nick were still alive there would be no questioning Collin's natural urge to take leadership, because people didn't usually argue with Nick's aggressive attitude and strong physique.
"He's gotten us nowhere," Jay added, and I could suddenly feel a fight brewing, one that surely wouldn't just fizzle out on its own.
"And what the fuck have you done to help?" Collin sniped, finally pushing himself off the wall he was leaning against.
"Stop! What is wrong with men!" Kylie screeched, making my head pound instantly at the scratchiness of her voice.
She certainly wasn't the kind of girl I would want to hang out with outside of this strange situation.
"What does me being a man have to do with it?!" Collin raised his voice, as things quickly began spiraling out of reasonable control. Jay and Collin subconsciously moved closer to one another as if gearing up to fight, but I decided enough was enough; despite my raging headache, I stepped in between them with a hand laid gently on Collin's chest.
"You're great at talking Collin, you're just not good at listening," I explained, and his expression softened slightly. A rogue tear seemed to fall from the corner of his eye, rolling down his cheek and leaving a salty little trail on his skin.
"At first staying together sounded good, but its only making us a big target, it's not doing anything to help us. We. Need. To. Split. Up." Tristen added, earning an exasperated groan in response.
"Fine! Fine... we can split up then," Collin shouted back, moving away from everybody, and sinking to the ground to put his head in his trembling hands.
He was obviously overwhelmed and hurting; I suddenly felt guilty for bringing him into this situation.
"Ok... we at least need people who know what they're doing in each group. Tristen and Kylie will be a group, Me and Jay will be a group, and Cameron, Jeremy and Emily will be a group.... got it?" Collin ordered wearily, and everybody nodded their head before forming their groups.
Tristen didn't look very pleased with the random assignments. I noticed he was giving Cameron an unexplainably nasty look and giving an even nastier expression to a still crying Kylie.
Jeremy slowly picked himself up and limped over to us, as everybody else slipped out into the hall cautiously. The horrible snake creature was nowhere in sight, but we all knew it could resurface at literally any moment, from anywhere.
On our way out everybody stopped to grab a weapon off the wall, a weapon that wasn't a gun; We had already learned our lesson with guns.
I grabbed a long sword-like weapon, Cameron grabbed a baseball bat and Jeremy grabbed a super sharp hunting knife that he was gripping so hard his knuckles turned white.
"Ok, we'll go left. Collin and Jay go right... Cameron, Emily and Jeremy go left too," Tristen offered a plan this time, still eyeing Cameron suspiciously.
Collin and Jay took off wordlessly in the opposite direction, while the rest of us went to the left. We trudged on in silence for a good ten minutes, until we came to the end of the hall. It forked off into two separate directions, both appearing ominous and full of unknown horrors.
"Ok, we'll stay left... you three go right," Tristan stated, moving down the hall towards the left side. He shot one last suspicious glance in Cameron's direction before we branched off to the right, his narrowed green eyes being the last thing I saw of him before we separated.
We came upon a set of thin stairs, the kind that are small and twirl up into the next floor. We slowly and cautiously walked up them, keeping a good grip on the railing. When we got up the stairs, we found ourselves in an empty room with a door.
"I guess we have no choice but to walk through the door," Cameron mumbled, and swung the door open without a second chance to hesitate.
We stared for a long time; I mean it could've been hours that we just stood there in shocked silence and gawked at the uncomfortable scene before us.
"Megan?" Jeremy eventually called out, slowly limping forward to get a closer look.
In front of us was a small, skinny girl with dirty blonde hair and dull blue eyes, taped up and strapped to the concrete wall so that she was unable to move her limbs. It was one of the weirdest things I had ever seen, but it also brought upon the familiar fear of being trapped.
"What the hell?" I mumbled, securely closing the door behind me before we rushed to help the strange, trapped girl.
"Megan! How... what...? Who the hell did this!?" Jeremy stuttered, fumbling to pull out the knife he swiped earlier and start cutting at the layers of thick tape.
Megan simply watched him, appearing perfectly calm and almost lifeless as he cut away her restraints, which again was really weird.
"Jay did it," She claimed, jumping down clumsily after Jeremy successfully torn down all the tape and loosely tied chains. Her girlish voice was coarse and dry, as if the poor girl were severely dehydrated; it reminded me briefly how dehydrated I was as well.
Jeremy immediately gave Megan a confused stare, as did Cameron and I. Did she mean the same Jay that was with our ever-dwindling group? The tall lanky Jay that hadn't been out of our sight? Because that would've been nearly impossible...
"Um... Megan... Jay has been with us the entire time. I really doubt he stuck you to the wall for no reason," Jeremy stated strangely, giving Megan a concerned look as she twitched and itched unnervingly at her gray colored skin.
Slowly a smile poked at her dry lips: a really creepy, twisted smile.
"Well, that's because I'm not Megan," She stated simply, only it sounded as though she had three different voices all overlapping one another.
As though someone, or something was inside of her.
"Um, ya know... I think we should just keep walking... now," Cameron announced after a moment of shocked silence, hastily pushing Jeremy and I forward towards another door.
Megan just watched us carefully as we cautiously made our way out; we were almost successfully through the door too when she abruptly flung herself at us.
"GO!" Cameron yelled, slamming the door shut and throwing himself down the hall, dragging me with him. We heard a violent thud smack the door right as it closed, but that didn't bring much relief to our situation. Jeremy ran along with us as we escaped, although it must have hurt like hell because of his missing toes and butchered foot.
After about five minutes of clumsy, desperate running, we took a break to try and steady our breathing. It seemed like a safe enough area to stop and rest; there were no disturbing sounds plus it was a fairly well-lit hall.
A foul stench immediately filled my nostrils as I breathed in the stale oxygen around us, and I gasped for air as though I were suddenly choking.
We just couldn't catch a damn break.
Weirdly enough the smell was extremely familiar, and I glanced around our surroundings a little better. We had been here before, and in front of us was the pile of rotting flesh we observed from earlier.
Jeremy choked on air, gagging so violently that he had to turn away to dry heave as salty tears escaped his eyes.
"Oh... my god!" He choked out in a disgusted tone. Cameron was just stuck staring at the steaming flesh like a comatose zombie, until fresh tears started to form in his eyes too.
"Jake?" He whispered so quietly that I almost didn't hear it, before hesitantly crouching down in front of the remains, seemingly unaffected by the pungent rotting smell that was making the rest of us sick.
"Who's Jake?" I asked softly, keeping a cautious eye on Cameron to watch his shaky movements as I struggled to keep the disgusting scent out of my nose.
Cameron suddenly stuck his hand right into the flesh and started digging around, which caused me to gag uncontrollably. The horrible sounds it was making, sounded wet and sticky almost, or like he was stirring a thick pot of Mac and cheese on the stove.
Cameron eventually pulled his hand out and showed us that he was holding onto something: a simple cross necklace with the letter 'J' engraved on it, the chain was covered in dark blood that didn't seem to faze him.
"Jake... that's... or that was...my brother."