Finally, the thumping sounds got softer as the creatures went away. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief, still sweating from the nervousness earlier and the great terror of watching the beastly beings go past them.
"That was close. Thank goodness we came into the classroom," Emma whispered as quietly as she could.
"By the way," Daniel said, "what's that safe there for?" He then pointed to a safe that sat at the side of the classroom.
"Oh, that's for putting our valuables. We aren't allowed to use phones during curriculum hours. I mean, that's obvious. But some schoolmates prefer to place their wallets inside until lunch break," Ben answered.
"Maybe we should take a look inside," Daniel suggested.
"Oh, there isn't anything in there at this time. Since this is a special weekend class course, there are no workshop lessons today. So there shouldn't be anything in it. And if there really is, then someone probably forgot to take their things out," Liam explained.
"I agree with Daniel, though. Let's check it out," Matthew stated.
"Alright, if you insist. I know the passcode," Ben groaned.
Liam and Jane stared at him as if he had said something wrong, which he sort of did. "I-I thought only the teachers are supposed to know it?" Jane stammered.
Ben stared back at her silently before speaking. "Okay, for goodness sake. I accidentally peeped at how Mr Vandenberg unlocked the safe the last workshop lesson."
Jane raised an eyebrow. "Sure, whatever you say..." she trailed off, leaving him alone.
"It's 2-0-2-0," Ben said as Daniel punched in the numbers on the safe.
"Seriously? 2020? The numbers for this year? Who even set the passcode?" Daniel mocked the ridiculous passcode.
"Mr Vandenberg," Ben answered.
Daniel clicked his tongue. "Bad passcode choice."
However, even after he had entered the passcode, the safe couldn't be opened, and there was no sound either.
"Uh, are you sure it's the right password? It's not working," Daniel asked Ben.
"Sure it is. Try it again," Ben suggested.
Daniel punched in the code again. 2-0-2-0. Yet it still didn't work. "It's not working again. Something is wrong," he sighed.
"I'm very sure it was 2-0-2-0. It was only yesterday that I found it out," Ben reassured him.
"Maybe someone changed it?" Daniel thought, noticing how the passcode could be changed by whoever knew it.
"Let me try something," Emma volunteered as she stepped forward and tested a passcode.
It didn't work, though; the reason for that was obvious to Daniel. "For goodness sake, Emma. Of course, it won't work. You entered only three numbers!" he laughed softly.
"Actually..." Matthew chipped in. "My math teacher back in middle school said that if you desperately wanted to set a code with three numbers, you should add a zero at the back. It wasn't a good idea, though, because everyone started testing out each other's numbered padlocks and safes."
He began to chuckle as he recalled the old days, but he quickly snapped back to the present time, and his smile slowly faded. "Try it now, Emma," he said.
"All right then..." she obeyed as she re-entered the code, with a zero at the end this time.
Suddenly, a short tune came from the safe, and the sound of a latch moving was heard. Emma's eyes lit up, and so did those of the others. It was a genuinely unexpected outcome for them. "It... it worked!" she squealed, surprised by her successful move, although the detectives quickly proceeded to shush her afterwards.
"Don't forget that the creatures aren't far from us," Matthew said before he pulled the safe open.
"By the way, what was the code you entered?" Daniel asked curiously, wondering why she would be able to guess the passcode correctly in spite of the 10,000 possibilities.
"1-2-8-0," Emma revealed.
"1-2-8-0.... So it was like a reference to that AES-128 substance?" Daniel questioned further.
"Yeah. It was a random guess, but apparently, it happened to be it," Emma nodded, still rejoicing.
Meanwhile, the safe door moved outwards to reveal a single key sitting inside, which puzzled the detectives.
"A key? What is with this thing about keys?" Daniel questioned himself, wondering why keys kept appearing to them in the past few days.
"It's Yael," Emma declared vaguely.
"What's Yael?" Liam questioned, who was just as confused as Ben and Jane were.
"Yael Technologies Corporation. It's a large organisation. It comprises smaller subsidiaries—Yael Agriculture, Yael Biology, Yael Construction, Yael Digital, and Yael Environment. As the name suggests, the company originated in Israel but is based here in America," Matthew explained.
"But what do you mean by 'It's Yael", Emma?' Daniel questioned, turning to look at her.
"It's a classic Yael technique. It's not uncommon for them to lock people in and hide the keys somewhere...." Emma explained, guilty of doing what she had just said back at the manor.
"But why would they do that? Why would they leave keys for you guys to find? Keys that lead to places that they don't want you to access?" Jane questioned.
"Well, their motives can be pretty hard to understand," Emma answered. "But if I'm being honest, I think they're taking advantage of our common weakness as police officers. And that is that we will always try to save everyone. In this case, they intentionally let us know that we can find the key, this key, to the locked room that Mr. Palmer is in, which will deter us from leaving. Thus, it will prolong our time here, increasing our chance of getting killed by the creatures here whilst attempting to rescue Palmer."
"That makes sense now," Daniel nodded in agreement. "It's always been like that. Letting everyone search for escape materials in the Allentown precinct allowed people to die more quickly by running into danger. Making us turn against each other and creating our own demise by shooting our captain eventually caused us to form the very creature that would hunt us down. And inserting an insider to attack during our weak spots while we searched for the keys to get us out—," he explained before stopping abruptly at the end.
Emma looked down for a moment. She relived the guilt once more the moment that Daniel mentioned her work as an "insider". To her, it was a reminder that the detectives might have forgiven her, but they would never forget what she had done. And her actions were things that none of them wanted to remember.
"I-I'm sorry, Emma. I didn't mean to—," Daniel apologised, although he got cut short.
"Don't be," Emma interrupted, although she seemed clearly upset. "After all, I'm the one who owes everyone an apology for the rest of my life, aren't I?"
"Let's not get caught up with the past. I'll keep the key for now," Matthew said as he grabbed it from the safe and slipped it into his pocket. "I think we can leave this place now and go back to the back exit to get Palmer out."
The detectives and students nodded their heads as Matthew pushed the door open slowly again. "We'll have to be very quiet again," he warned, whispering.
The group moved carefully through the dark hallways. Thankfully, there was no sign of the creatures near them, so they continued to pad through the corridor. Finally, they arrived back at the back exit.
"So," Matthew whispered. "We're going to do something perilous. We're going to move all this blockage away from the door."
The detectives and students stared at him, not knowing what to say or how to respond.
"W-we're going to... what?" Jane quivered in fear, knowing that following Matthew's instructions would make a lot of noise.
"We're going to move this blockage away," Matthew repeated.
"B-but that's going to make a racket!" Liam exclaimed quietly. "We might accidentally draw attention from the creatures!"
"Don't worry," Matthew reassured him. "We have guns," he said, bringing out his pistol.
"Whoa!" Liam and Ben both squeaked as they stepped away from him. Meanwhile, Jane just flinched a little but didn't panic at the sight of the weapon.
"We won't hesitate to shoot them if they try to attack us," Matthew convinced the students.
"A-all right then..." Liam stuttered.
"I'll start with the furniture on top, and you guys can start with the lower ones once we take down the higher ones," Matthew instructed.
Matthew, Daniel, and Emma began to reach up and bring down the boxes, tables, books, and other items stacked at the very top of the pile. Carefully and steadily, they brought them down slowly and placed them on the ground gently. They tried hard not to groan, despite the weight of the objects that tired them out quickly.
Liam, Ben and Jane then helped to remove the items that were reachable for them and moved them away from the door. Finally, Matthew gently pulled the police tape away, ensuring it didn't emit loud noises while it was being peeled off. Within a few minutes, the door was free of all the heavy objects blocking it.
"See? That was both quick and quiet," Matthew said.
However, the creatures were equally fast in being spotted again. The detectives didn't understand how the monsters had found them, but there was no time to formulate an explanation. The three detectives brought up their guns as the students flinched once again.
"Stay with us. Don't move too far. We're going to shoot once they come at us and approach us. Don't be afraid. We'll take them down for sure," Daniel instructed.
The students nodded as they complied. They covered their ears, knowing that the gunshots were going to be loud. Liam was so frightened that he even squeezed his eyes shut while the other two glued their eyes open, nervous but excited to see what would happen. Meanwhile, Emma wrapped her arms around them, protecting them in case anything went wrong.
Just then, the two creatures charged at them, their eyes red shooting murderous glares at them once more. One came from the left and the other from the right, surrounding them from both ends.
Matthew counted up to three as the creatures neared them. "One..." he began.
"Just shoot it!" Ben screamed as fear began to overwhelm him, just as it did for Liam.
"Two..." Matthew continued to count slowly while the creature was ready to slash them dead.
"Shoot it! Shoot!" Ben wailed in fear as he began to leak tears of fear. "Shoot!" he screamed one last time, closing his eyes just as Liam had done.
"Three."
And then, Matthew and Daniel released the trigger multiple times, causing the bullets to fly out from each of their guns. The bullets pierced right through the two creatures, each one receiving five. With that many wounds, the creatures succumbed to their injuries and instantly fell to their deaths before they could lay a claw on the group.
The creature that Matthew had shot perfectly lay its longest claw right before it could touch his shoe. The beast seemed to have glass shards stuck in its body for some reason, but it didn't quite intrigue Matthew.
"That's it. They're finished," Matthew said as he sighed in relief. Even he himself was nervous about it, although all of them eventually got over their fear.
"That was fast," Jane commented without stammering this time. Surprisingly, she was the only one who dared to watch the whole thing. Meanwhile, the two boys slowly peeled their eyes open.
"I-it's done?" Liam asked. "It's done! It's done, it's done, it's done!" he cried tears of joy.
While the students were celebrating their victory, the detectives discussed the key.
"I think I know where the key goes into," Matthew announced to them as he glanced at something.
"Where?" Daniel asked, not noticing what was supposed to be rather obvious, just as the others didn't.
Matthew pointed to the keyhole right at the rear exit door, glancing at it too. "There."
"Oh, I... never thought about that," Daniel said.
"It's just a guess, but we won't know until we try it out," Matthew said as he pushed the key into the door.
It fitted perfectly.
"Perfect!" Emma cheered excitedly, hoping to see what was on the other side. They all desired to see Mr. Palmer, even though they didn't exactly like him. That way, they all could finally leave.
"I'll open it," Liam said as he hastily dashed forward and turned the doorknob open quickly.
"No, wait! We don't know whether the other side is safe and whether there's—" Daniel tried to stop the boy. But it was all too late.
The door opened, and Liam was the first to dash into the room. It was entirely pitch black, as the hallways in the school were already dark enough and couldn't light the room up any more.
"I don't see any Mr. Palmer in here," he articulated. "Mr. Palmer! Are you in here?" he called out in the room.
Instead of a person responding, something else responded. And not through talking, but making awful sounds.
Suddenly, the thing stood up. The room's ceiling was rather low, so its head hit the very top of it. And it wasn't the only one that had awoken.
A dozen other creatures also got up as they leaned against the wall. They all turned abruptly to face the door, the thirteen pairs of red eyes glaring at Liam first and then the rest of the students and detectives.
"Detectives... I... there are creatures... in here..." Liam stammered, his body wholly overwhelmed in fear. Fear that felt worse than just watching a creature, but instead coming face to face with many creatures.
The monsters quickly charged at him, tugging him away. Jane tried to pull him back, only to get scratched in the process.
"Detectives! Help me! Detectives!" Liam screamed as the creatures pounded and pranced on him, his painful cries nearly bringing tears to the stupefied detectives' faces.
"Close the door!" Ben screamed, knowing it would be a bad idea to let the creatures leave their "quarantine".
"B-but Liam is in there!" Jane panicked, not knowing what to do and what choice to make.
"We can't save him!" Ben howled. "Look at those creatures! How many are there? Close the door, now!"
Jane hesitated for a moment, not knowing how shecould just give up on Liam. However, she knew that he was gone. His crying hadalready stopped, and she knew she had to do the same. And so, she shut thedoor...