Part 4: Ground Floor

" Where are you exactly?" You ask Jay.

"I'm holed up in a storage house in District Gamma. I sent Nick up to look for any survivors in Medical and he's the one who slipped you the com-talk. Take the elevator down a floor and I'll give you directions from there. Okay?"

"I'm on it." You were planning on taking the lifts anyway.

You go down the hall a bit, the black floor tiles are mostly cracked and some are missing entirely. You stand before a pair of big elevators with metal doors polished to a mirror shine. You reach out to touch the buttons on the pad when ...

CRASH

You nearly jump out your skin. The sound came from the other end of the hallway, the darkened end. The crash is followed by sounds of a struggle: gunshots, running and finally a scream.

" OH HELL! GET TO THE ELEVATOR NOW! MOVE!"

You hit the open button as fast and hard as you possibly can. The lift takes three very long minutes to come up and the big metal doors finally slide open.

You rush inside like a frightened mouse runs inside it's hole as the doors close behind you. You hear something run up to the lift.

The thing scratches at the doors angrily as you punch the ground floor button, then you hear it slamming into the doors and the pounding of angry fists against steel. The thing lets out a roar of anger and after a while, you hear the elevator move down.

You are safe now. The elevator is nice and roomy, with tan floor tiles and a single bright yellow light on the ceiling. 

"Those crazy b******s got Nick. Now you know what we're dealing with. The entire colony's gone to hell."

Jay is silent for a bit

"What was that thing?" Is all you can manage to say at the moment.

"That was one of the former residents of the colony. Something's turned regular people into bloodthirsty lunatics. "

The elevator lurches to a stop. you've reached the ground floor.

The doors open up into a small lobby.

There is a reception desk with a computer in the center of the lobby.

In front of the desk is a pair of large glass doors  that lead out of the medical department.  

You go up to the doors and open one slightly to look around.

There are rows of shops on both sides. Most of them are in pretty poor condition. Most of the neon signs are broken with a few exceptions. The glass windows are mostly still intact, oddly. 

What do you do?

Reviews

[A.D. Wilson]

This is a really creative idea for a story. It reminds me of those old Choose Your Own Adventure books I read as a kid, with a little bit of Doom thrown into the mix. Awesome! I agree with Detective Watts, don't forget about that USB drive. It may have important information that will come in handy. Definitely find a weapon ASAP. I hope the residents are horribly mutated instead of just being crazy and violent. It would make things much more interesting.

[Detective Watts]

Do what StarNinja says but also check your USB drive on the computer.

[StarNinja]

Well, I would see if the computer had anything useful in it before I left the area. Then I would LOOK WEST to see if there is anything else in the lobby worth noting before GOING EAST to check out the rows of shops. Oh, and I'd grab a weapon to fend off the strange beast creatures that seem to have overrun the facility. But that's just me. Anyone else have any ideas? I'm stumped! Maybe break the computer and use the tools we have to jury rig some kind of scanning device or a gun or something? I don't know....