The Surivor CH4 PT2

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

He laid at the bottom of the stairs on the bodies panting heavily, tears leaking from his eyes, his head feeling like it had been backed over by a mac truck. He clenched his hand around the rebar to make sure he still had it and felt the ridges with his fingers. He slowly rolled to his feet and looked around. As he turned his head his skull throbbed more and more. He leaned on the railing for a few minutes until the throbbing subsided.

He stepped onto the concourse that spiraled down through the coral reef and Open Ocean exhibits. He saw bodies strewn about the walkway, with more blood covered people racing to the bottom after more victims. There were three people on the top circular section overlooking the tank with the fish. One was obviously a corpse, a security guard by the looks of him, throat ripped out, sitting against the railing, blank eyes staring at the deck, no questions. The other two, however, were dancing around the catwalk in a lethal embrace. Each one had some kind of sharp object in one hand while the other controlled the sharp object his enemy held. Then Peter noticed that one had a pistol on his hip.

The one with the gun tossed his knife at the other and hit him in the face, causing the man to draw back long enough for the gunman to draw down on his opponent. Before the gunman could fire the other charged him driving the shiv in under the gunman’s collar bone pushing them both to the railing. The gunman grabbed hold of his assailant and pulled him over the railing with him, into the water of the fish tank still struggling. They sank slowly and the gunman pushed away aiming his pistol at the man and firing off a handful of rounds before the water could ruin the ammo. A couple of rounds slammed into the knifeman but more passed him entirely, slamming into the glass and spider cracking across the entire pane.

Slowly, water leaked through the cracks until the glass couldn’t take it anymore and the inside piece shattered, slamming into the second pane, which held for a second but then gave way as well, sending the contents of the aquarium pouring down the spiraling ramp. The sound of rushing water was joined by shouts of surprise from below for a few seconds but it quickly returned to the sound of rushing water, and then the sound faded as the last of the water drained from the tank and made its way down the ramp.

Peter walked up to the inner railing to look down the pit where the ramp spiraled. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned just in time to get tackled into the railing. The rebar went flying down the ramp way as the man grabbed Peters left arm and tried to push him over the railing. Peter shifted his weight and pivoted on his heels, throwing the man off balance and into the railing. Peter then used that momentum to shove the man over the railing. But the man still had Peters arm.

Peter grabbed the railing to keep himself from flying over the edge as the man slid down his arm peeling strips of flesh off in the process. He cried out as he stared down at the face of another mad man who only seemed concerned with taking Peter with him. The man began climbing up Peters arm trying to get back up, so Peter kicked between the bars and caught the man in the chest throwing him a little off balance and almost knocking him off. The man swung out a little but kept hanging on, digging his nails in so that blood flowed down Peters arm and onto the man’s face.

Peter kicked through the bars again but this time the man had a better grip and just swung out causing pain to shoot through Peters arm. As the man swung back to the railing Peter kicked again, harder this time, and the man swung out further. As he swung back in, Peter dropped his weight onto his armpit and thrust his leg out as hard as he could. This time his foot connected high, breaking the man’s jaw, and finally knocking him loose. Peter hung onto the railing to keep from falling back and watched the man fall backwards, into the pit, staring into his eyes… until the back of his head hit a lower railing so hard that it rung through the pit like a church bell. The man’s head snapped forward, neck broken, and the body tumbled in the opposite direction until his body bounced off of the other wall. It continued back and forth until Peter heard a splash as the body hit the water below.

Peter stumbled back against the railing opposite of where he threw the railing raider over and looked at his arm. It was trembling with pain and bleeding from several deep gouges. The man was obviously not a nail biter. He looked around and saw by the bottom of the escalator a cooler from whence a volunteer had been retrieving bottles of water to give to the patrons on their way through the facility. He crawled over to it and plunged his arm into the ice water up to the elbow. He looked at his hoody sleeve and thought to himself, if I’d had my sleeves pulled down I might have avoided this.

He pulled his arm out of the bloody water and took his hoody off, then his button up shirt. He clenched the shirt in his teeth and right hand and tore a strip from the bottom. He grabbed a bottle of water and, after gulping half of it down, poured the rest on the strip. He wiped his arm gently, then tore more strips and wrapped the dry strips around his arm. he continued this until his wounds were dressed, using about half his shirt. He put his hoody back on and stuffed the rest of the shirt in his front left pocket. He sat back next to the cooler and grabbed another bottle of water, twisted the top off, and began taking large gulps, as he realized just how thirsty he had become.

He stuffed another bottle in his pocket and got up, staggering over to the ramp way, and looked down. He couldn’t see anything and it looked like the lights were out at the bottom. He looked around the floor at the myriad of discarded personal items strewn about and looked for a flashlight, a pen light, a key light, anything that he could use to see. He glanced back over around the cooler wondering where the attendant was and wondering whether he’d have to kill him to get a light.

He kept looking, making his way over to the railing, and the dead security guard. Peter grabbed the man’s utility belt and yanked it off of him, gazing sorrowfully at its contents. He saw some pepper spray, which Peter wasn’t entirely sure would work on the murderously insane, a night stick, which would work, and a large Mag light, which would work better. He strapped the belt on and twirled the flashlight around in his uninjured hand for a moment before clicking it on and raising it to about head level. It worked fine.

He started down the ramp and at bout the second level down he found where the aquarium poured over the concrete walkway. He descended the ramp until he reached the shark exhibit.

Peter played the beam of the flashlight along the dark glass and saw shadows flitting to and fro behind the stygian facade. He continued to weave the beam between shadows until it fell upon the lifeless corpse of the gunman from above. He lay across the railing, his spine snapped cleanly with his legs dangling over the abyss and his torso hanging over the walkway, the back of his head smashed against the railing. And no gun.