| |
BACK WITH OUR HEROES in the tunnels...
Kevin stopped suddenly causing Danny to run into him and say “What are you doing? This isn’t the time to play freeze tag.”
“We aren’t anywhere near the garage entrance. We are back at the family room pit again. How did we get back here? Shit, shit, shit. I’m sorry, Danny. I'm all turned around down here. I am so sorry. In times of stress, it’s common to get tunnel vision. Oh God, I am so sorry, that just slipped out.”
Danny looked at him and snarled, “I will get you for that. How can we get lost down here? We’ve played laser tag for hours down here. Not to mention we were just down here. I was following you.”
“Yes, but I was following Melissa.”
“Something is different,” said Kevin moving his flashlight/phone around. “It seems smaller like a portion of the area is missing. I see now. When the number crunchers left, they must have slid the doors closed behind them.”
“There are doors down here?”
“Yes, to confuse and trap people if necessary. You really weren’t paying attention when I designed this area, were you, or when I was explaining it to everyone earlier?”
“My mind wanders sometimes. Well, at least the confusion part of it worked.”
“Okay, to save time maybe we should take the master bedroom exit and then get to Maggie rather than wander around through the tunnels. What do you say?”
“How much faster will that be?”
“The stairs should be on the other side of this door. That’s what confused me; the closed door threw me off.”
“Okay, let’s go through the master bedroom. Anything to get to Maggie faster.”
Danny heard heavy breathing behind him, and as he was slowly turning around, felt a hand on his shoulder. After letting out an ear piercing scream directly into Kevin’s ear, he whirled around in time to see a surprised Melissa who was leaning back and had her fist in an upraised position. She and Danny let out sights of relief and then said in unison, “Maggie’s hurt. We have to get to the garage.”
“I heard them talking about Maggie outside of the laundry room, about her being injured. I couldn’t find you guys so I thought I would check the tunnels,” Melissa said.
“We were forced into the pit by a couple of those goons and are going to come up through the bedroom to get to Maggie from there. Kevin found the entrance here,” Danny informed.
“Alright, the door should be right outside of the pit here. Look for a slot, doorknob height, in that alcove.”
“Found it.”