“Ow.”
Salem jerked her hands back with a hiss.
“What happened?”
John turned his head so his right cheek was resting on the mattress and looked at her in his peripheral.
“Your knee jammed into my ribs.”
Salem adjusted her leg out of the way as she straddled his back.
“Is that better?”
“Yeah.”
She sighed and shook her head.
“You sure this will help? What if we hired a masseuse, or at least someone who knows what they’re doing?”
“I just need you to loosen up a knot in my back. I don’t want to pay someone $100 bucks to caress my feet.”
“That’s not all they do and they’d happily ignore your feet if you told them to.”
“Still, it’s having someone who massaged somebody else’s body then touching mine. I don’t want someone’s back fat mold to get on me.”
“Back fat mold?”
John chuckled hearing the disgusted tone in her voice.
“Just ball your fists and push on the knot.”
“Where is it?”
“Find the base of my spine right above my hips.”
She promptly dug her fists into his spine causing John to cry out in pain.
“Not there you barbarian!”
“You just said there!”
“I’m trying to guide you to the knot, place your hand gently on the base of my spine.”
He shivered as her soft hand touched the base of his spine.
“Ok, now move it to your left about two inches.”
Her hand drifted over and John already started feeling relaxed.
“Right there is the knot, make a fist and gently start massaging it. I’ll tell you to go harder if I need you to.”
He felt her hand press into his back, but it was about the intensity of being prodded with a stuffed animal.
“Ok a little harder.”
She pressed harder and John moaned as she dug into the knotted muscles in his back.
“Is that ok?”
“That feels great,” he murmured, “make little circles with your fist and we’ll be best friends.”
“Best friends? Wow, I was wondering when you were going to promote me.”
John chuckled.
“So how did you hurt your back?”
“Lady’s attic door kept sticking. I was in the attic trying to get it back open after I was done and it wouldn’t. I gave it a solid wrench to open it and my back went on strike.”
“I’m sorry hon.”
“No, it’s ok,” he said honestly, “I got a sympathy cookie and my wife is giving me a massage.”
“Ah man.”
John smiled as he read her mind.
“We’ll get cookies after this.”
“You’re awesome…how much longer do you want me to keep massaging it?”
“You really want that cookie don’t you?”
She gently slapped his shoulder.
“Do you want me to keep going or not?”
“Another minute, I can already feel it loosening up.”
As she kneaded the spot in his back John slowly closed his eyes and found himself on the edge of falling asleep.
#
“Hold him still.”
John growled as Dimitri and Sasha pinned him to the ground while Nel rooted around in his back. She was using a pair of pliers on a pocket knife Dimitri had been carrying and was trying to remove the bullet lodged in his back.
“Almost got it.”
There was a sudden searing pain in a spot just below his left shoulder blade before the pain subsided substantially.
“Got it,” she said as something metallic hit the floor, “ok let’s gel him up.”
John gasped as a cool liquid splashed the wound.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s an Anomalous gel designed by Darkshield, it cuts down on the healing time significantly.”
“Just be warned you’ll have to poop something fierce.”’
John raised an eyebrow in Dimitri’s direction. Sasha was shaking her head and Nel had an amused look on her face.
“The dead tissue from the wound will need to be evacuated and that’s typically how it’s done. Because the healing process is sped up this way a lot more will pass through in a shorter amount of time.”
John blinked as he tried to process what he’d just been told.
“Ok, let’s bandage him up.”
John took several deep breaths as they pressed a cloth against the bullet wound. The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been before, but it was still a pain worse than anything he’d ever felt. He still couldn’t believe he didn’t feel any pain when the bullet first entered.
“Ok lift him up.”
Dimitri and Sasha held him up and John used his own arms to raise up a little. Nel quickly wrapped a bandage around his chest to hold the cloth in place.
“How does it feel?”
“Like a group of ticks just excavated a new pool for their backyard.”
“What,” asked Sasha incredulously.
“Shut up it hurts.”
“Alright,” said Nel prodding the bandage to ensure it was tight, “can you move your arm?”
John sat up, wincing at the pain in his back. He experimentally moved his left arm in small circles before rotating his arm more aggressively.
“Good, looks like the bullet wasn’t deep enough to cause any major damage. Try not to jostle the wound too much and I think you’ll be fine.”
“There goes my swimming career,” grumbled John as he passed a hand through his hair.
“You should check for brain damage,” whispered Sasha to Nel loudly enough that John could hear.
John shook his head and attempted to stand. The action caused the wound to snarl with pain and he grimaced. Dimitri was immediately at his side helping him stand up.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” said Dimitri letting him go once he got to his feet, “what happened?”
“Marcus took a bullet and I had to help him into his portal.”
“I saw that,” said Dimitri with a nod, “but you got him into his portal?”
“Yeah, he was alive when we went through.”
“Did their portal close after he went through,” asked Nel interestedly.
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you use their portal to escape? Why did you come back to ours?”
John sighed as he walked around experimentally, slowly swinging his arm to judge what triggered the pain.
“Because I was supposed to go through this one and I didn’t think about it until it was too late.”
He winced as a particular arm swing shot pain through his back.
“Well I’m glad you both made it through.”
“Assuming their portal sent them somewhere safe,” said Sasha as she stared at the concrete wall.
“Their portal was three yards from ours, odds are that wall is less than three yards in width.”
“Can we get through it,” Sasha asked turning to Dimitri.
“Even if I had the ordinance I don’t think it’d be good idea. I could blow them up, bring the ceiling down, or at very least attract wrong kind of attention.”
“So how do we get to them?”
John scanned the wall in either direction. They appeared to be inside of a long hallway of some kind. It was about ten feet across and about twice as long extending to large black doors at either end. They were roughly dead center between both sets of doors.
“Let’s go through those doors,” said John pointing to a set off to the group’s right.
“Why those doors?”
“Because it’s Tuesday.”
Sasha gave him a funny look but shrugged and started making her way towards them. Dimitri had a small smile on his face as he handed Nel’s pistol to him.
“I think she likes you, maybe you won’t have to arm wrestle her.”
Dimitri followed after her and John watched them go.
“She’s his sister,” said Nel coming up next to him.
“Makes a little more sense,” said John as he rolled his head on his shoulders slowly.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for the pain. Cybil should have something a little more sophisticated than my generic med kit.”
“Thanks,” John noticed the blood on Nel’s hands and gestured to them, “you going to wash those?”
“I don’t want to use our drinking water if I can avoid it.”
“I’d lend you my shirt but…”
She smiled.
“I’ll keep an eye out for proper clothes while I’m looking for running water. You might want to adjust your pants a little as long as we’re talking about it.”
John reached back and noticed he had about a half inch of crack hanging out. Feeling the blood rush to his cheeks he hiked them up with one hand.
“It’s locked,” called Sasha back to them from the end of the hallway.
“Let’s go check it out,” said Nel starting forward.
John followed, willing himself to stop blushing.
Arriving at the door Dimitri tapped the locking mechanism.
“Magnetically sealed. It needs a keycard to open.”
“And I’m going to take a guess and say that the other door probably needs a keycard as well.”
“That would be my assumption.”
“Can we shoot it open?”
He shook his head.
“And before you ask I don’t have any explosives left.”
“Alright,” said Nel in frustration, “let’s check the other door and-.”
John turned to her and saw she was staring at the hall behind them. Looking for himself he quickly realized what caught her attention.
Halfway down the hall was an archway leading to the left.
“That wasn’t there before,” she murmured quietly.
“No it wasn’t,” said John, “this place has a habit of doing that.”
The group slowly approached the entrance with guns raised. John quickly ducked his head around the corner and found that it led to what looked like a break room of some kind with a few couches, chairs, and a row of vending machines against the far wall. There were three doors on each of the sides of the room.
John went to step inside when he felt a hand on his shoulder holding him back.
“We need to sweep the room,” explained Dimitri.
He and the women quickly entered the room with guns raised and proceeded to check the corners. Satisfied there weren’t any threats Dimitri waved John over.
“Are we going to do that with every room we enter?”
“After all you’ve seen you’re not worried? We have no idea what Anomalies we could be coming across.”
Remembering the fidget spinner he eyed one of the vending machines and realized just about anything could be a threat in this place. The more he thought about it the more their paranoia didn’t seem so absurd.
“So what Anomalies are you guys aware of,” he asked as Dimitri approached one of the doors and looked through before moving to a different one.
“Only rumors,” responded Nel as she approached a vending machine, “we’re more familiar with offworld Anomalies.”
“How many of those are in the main facilities?”
“Dozens,” said Nel as she glanced the machine over, “as far as we know.”
“What do you know?”
“As I mentioned before each department keeps to themselves and interdepartmental relations are very restricted. When we encounter an Anomaly that the company wants we coordinate with a retrieval team to bring it back and never see it again. We’re also not allowed to know about any Anomalies that have been retrieved Earth-side or on other offworld locations.”
“So you have no idea what we could be walking into, the layout of the facility, or where we should be going even if the walls weren’t shifting around?”
She frowned at him as she shouldered her gun and pulled out a utility knife.
“Our goal is to find the other half of our team if possible then find any employees left alive, an armory, or any friendly anomalies that might be on base. I also think we should keep an eye open for any information that could tell us of any offworld teams we could reach.”
“Then what?”
She shrugged as she began fitting one of the tools on the utility knife into the lock on the side of the vending machine.
“The hope is we can find someone to coordinate with to start regaining control of the facility. A security team mounting a defense and working to retake the place would be ideal. Otherwise we’re on our own to figure out how to put everything back to normal and kick out the Order.”
The front panel of the vending machine popped free. Dropping her backpack on the floor she pulled it open and began stuffing candy bars and bags of chips into it.
“Sweet tooth?”
“This facility is millions of square feet in size and several floors deep…that I know of. If we’re required to take it back room by room then it could take us a very long time to clear it out. I want to make sure we have enough supplies to do the job.”
He watched her work for a second. What she was saying simply wasn’t processing and what did get through sounded absurd.
“Is this genuinely our plan?”
Nel approached the other vending machine and began working to open it.
“What do you mean?”
“We just wander around and see what happens?”
“Did you have something else in mind?”
“No, I just assumed employees of this psychotic corporation would have a better strategy then hoping we bump into someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”
Nell sighed and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, for the first time since John met her she seemed tired.
“This isn’t all that different from what we do when we’re exploring an offworld location. Sure we usually have more supplies and a general understanding of what we’re walking into, but for the most part we’re on our own and figuring it out as we go.”
She gestured to Sasha who was in a whispered conversation with Dimitri.
“You think she planned on getting eaten by the Dog-Spider? It was during an attempt to secure a blood sample when she thought the beast was rendered unconscious that she was swallowed.”
John stared at her in disbelief.
“Right now our focus is to gather whatever supplies we can and do what we can to normalize things a bit. It’s not a great plan, hell it’s not even a ‘plan’ plan, but it’s the best we can do at the moment.”
The vending machine popped open with a click. Grabbing a candy bar inside she tossed it to John who flinched as the act of catching it aggravated his wound.
“Eat something. If you have any ideas on what we can do I’m happy to hear them, but for now this is what we’re doing.”
Sighing John peeled back the wrapper and bit into the candy bar. Normally he wasn’t a big fan of nougat with salty peanuts, but the mere act of eating made him realize how hungry he was and he devoured it.
“What did you find Dimitri?”
Dimitri and Sasha gave each other extended looks before coming over to Nel. John glanced around the room looking for a sink to wash down the last bite of the candy bar but couldn’t see one anywhere.
“The door at three o’clock is an office supply closet. Twelve o’clock is another hallway with doors on either side. Six o’clock is a stairwell leading down.”
“Sounds like twelve o’clock.”
“Problem,” he said holding up a hand, “there’s blood on the walls.”
Frowning Nel approached the door and carefully opened it. John joined her and felt chills creep up his spine at the sight of the hallway.
It was about fifty feet long with a nondescript gray door at the end and about five on either side. But the white walls were marred with streaks of blood and what looked like bloody handprints. Every door except the one at the end had bloody symbols he didn’t recognize on each of them.
“Ok,” she said closing the door, “not a fan of that place. What about the stairwell?”
“It heads down and there are no lights.”
Nel walked over to that door and checked it as well. While it didn’t unsettle John as much as the bloody hallway did the dark stairwell didn’t look appealing either.
“I think we should take the stairwell,” said Dimitri slowly, “but Sasha wonders if maybe someone is alive in the hallway.”
“Even if they are I don’t think they’re in any kind of mental state to be helpful to us. Those symbols looked deliberately drawn and I can’t picture a sane person doing that while they’re injured.”
“Assuming they used their own blood,” murmured John.
The rest of the group gave him a funny look, but no one seemed ready to disagree with his insight.
“As an alternative to those options we could wait for the rooms to shift again,” offered John.
“Negative,” said Nel as she shook her head,” there’s no telling how long that’ll take and we could wind up with a worse choice than what we have now.”
She sighed and rubbed her eyes again.
“Let’s take the stairwell.”
“Are you sure we should be heading down,” asked Sasha incredulously, “that puts us further away from the rest of the team.”
“We could have shifted away from the team for all we know. It might also lead to more secure areas of the facility where defense teams might be stationed.”
“Or it’s full of horrific monsters.”
Nel closed her eyes in frustration.
“Look, we have to assume all options lead to bad things. I’m going down the stairwell, anyone wanting to join me is welcome to come.”
She opened the door again and stepped inside. Her headset promptly kicked a light on and she began descending the steps.
John glanced at the other two before following her. He fumbled with the headset around his neck, surprised it was still there and even more amazed when the light clicked on. Within seconds he saw two sets of lights kick on behind him and the door slowly swung shut.
He was grateful for their presence but wondered if it would be enough considering the things he’d already encountered.
#
They’d descended for several minutes before they reached a door at the bottom of the stairwell. Looking back up John was disturbed to find he couldn’t see the top.
Nel put her hand on the door and looked over at Dimitri. The man quickly moved to her left with his rifle aimed at the floor and nodded. John had a brief flashback of when he and Conrad entered the mysterious red door and realized Conrad having him open the door was indeed a tactical move.
He was struck by a sudden pang of emotion recalling the event and wondered what happened to Conrad after he was teleported away. Thinking about it he wondered if he ever would find out what happened to his friend.
Nel opened the door and Dimitri quickly entered sweeping the room with his rifle. Sasha was right on his heels and Nel on hers. The three of them took up positions in the other room as John caught the door and followed them in.
It appeared to be a large warehouse of sorts with large flat panels on the wall that seemed to be on tracks that led everywhere. Looking at one he saw small metal nubs around the edges of the panel but couldn’t determine what they were. There were rows upon rows of shelving with various shaped crates stacked on them and labels John couldn’t read from the doorway.
It reminded him of a scene from a movie he saw as a kid and he began wondering what mystical and powerful items would be hiding inside the crates. Remembering the nature of the company it occurred to him that the crates very well could be filled with powerful anomalous items.
Dimitri approached one and studied it for a second. Looking to the group he titled his head towards the crate.
“Plumbing supplies.”
John frowned as the magic of the place suddenly diminished, though he decided it was better to be in a room full of junk than something that could eviscerate or transport him.
“Open it up.”
John raised an eyebrow at Nel and watched as Dimitri shouldered his rifle and withdrew his utility knife. He quickly pried a corner of the crate open and yanked it back with a squeal of nails.
“It’s full of PVC pipes and packing peanuts.”
Nel saw John’s look and motioned to the crates.
“Wanted to make sure. If these held anomalous items I figured they’d use false labels rather than state something obvious like ‘this contains a world-ending crystal’.”
“Is that a thing?”
Before she could answer there was a clatter somewhere deeper in the warehouse. Everyone had their guns trained on the sound.
“Back to the stairwell,” murmured Nel.
“What if it’s a survivor,” hissed Sasha.
“We’re going to check it out, but I want an exit strategy in case it isn’t.”
John doubled back and pulled open the door. He was greeted by a blank concrete wall.
“Problem.”
Nel glanced over and John saw her face pale a bit before a dark cloud replaced it and she started cussing under her breath. Walking over she laid a hand on the wall confirming it was real.
“Ok, let’s take the aisle two rows to the right, keep the shelves between us and whatever made that noise. Dimitri scout ahead, Sasha watch our six and John keep your eyes peeled above us.”
John was about to ask why when he glanced up again and realized the tops of the shelves would be the perfect place to prepare an ambush. Nodding he aimed his gun upward and stayed next to Nel as Dimitri led the way down the aisle.
They had gone a short way when another clatter sounded from the same direction, though much closer. The entire group seemed to hold their breath and John exerted extra effort to avoid making any noise as he walked in Nel’s toe pinching sneakers.
His eyes scanned the tops of the shelves and he was disturbed by how many shadows clung to the crates even with the ceiling lights. With such a large space he thought it would be brightly lit like a shopping center, but it seemed Darkshield was either going for a mood or saving a bit of money on utilities.
John nearly jumped out of his skin when Nel suddenly placed a hand on his shoulder. Looking over he saw Dimitri had reached the end of the aisle and was holding a fist in the air. The man crouched down and peered between the rows before the next aisle started.
John tried peering through the rows of crates but couldn’t see what the man was looking at if there even was anything.
Dimitri stayed in that position for several seconds before his eyes suddenly went wide and he quickly backed up towards them. He made a series of hand motions that looked like gibberish to John, but both Sasha and Nel suddenly became nervous and began backing slowly the way they came. He wanted to ask what was going on, but their reactions told him making any noise was a bad idea at the moment.
They had gotten about halfway when there was suddenly a loud commotion. John swiveled in that direction as a loud roar like an ocean wave grew louder. Through the spaces in the crates he watched in horror as row after row started collapsing like dominoes towards them.
“Move,” barked Dimitri as he started running towards the end of the aisle.
Everyone promptly followed him and John growled as the quick pace sent shooting pains through his shoulder.
The roar continued to grow until even his thundering heartbeat and ragged breath were drowned out. He watched in horror as the row they were running next to suddenly tottered and began collapsing like a deck of cards towards them.
John watched as Dimitri, Nel, and then Sasha were promptly swallowed up in a cascade of crates and shelving before something struck his back and he was knocked to the ground. Screaming in horror he curled up into a ball with his arms over his head and squeezed his eyes shut as items rained down around him.
#
It seemed to last for an eternity, but the commotion finally died down and he could feel that objects had stopped falling near him. Opening his eyes he was shocked to find a large crate resting mere inches above his head.
Gasping he quickly scooted away from it only to find himself butting into a bunch of other crates and debris. It was as if everything had collapsed down to form a rough three by three square around his body with only inches to spare above him.
“Everyone alright,” called out Nel in a muffled voice.
“Yeah,” responded John as he studied his surroundings looking for a way out.
It was then that John noticed no one else responded.
“Dimitri? Sasha? Can you hear me?”
John was about to start calling out too when he heard a strange sound in the distance. It was a low sound like air was moving back and forth very quickly. It took John a second to realize what it was and he felt panic settle in almost immediately.
It was sniffing.
Author’s Note:
I hope you’re enjoying Darkshield: John’s Arc 2. A new chapter comes out free every week and next week’s chapter will be available on November 23, 2020.
If you enjoy receiving it in serial fashion than feel free to support the project through Patreon. You can find a community of readers like you who enjoy this world I’m creating and want to see it grow by providing whatever support they can. My Patreon page can be found by clicking here.
Finally, if your finances are tight right now or you have mixed feelings about the book and aren’t sure you want to support a weirdo, then keep reading for free as the chapters come out every week. I’m doing this for fun and I’m appreciative of anyone who’s coming along for the ride.