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I was crawling underneath the tables and checking the bottom of the stools and chairs, while Cassie checked drawers. Cassie had been humming, but she stopped. I looked at her, and she held her finger across her lips. We both listened. There was a loud thud as the door slammed closed and the lock engaged.
"Look for anything we can use as weapons," Cassie whispered.
We found some scalpels that were small but very sharp. I didn't think I'd be able to throw them like my knives because they were so much lighter, but they would be an effective stabbing weapon up close. Cassie found some chemicals that would make an effective weapon if we could throw it into the face of whoever locked us in. I thought about that.
"Why lock us in?" I asked, stepping closer to Cassie.
"I don't know, but I doubt it's for our own protection."
Point taken. There was no reason to lock us in that would lead to a good outcome for us. "Fudge. What can we do?"
"While we're stuck in here, we might as well look for anything important."
The lab was well insulated, so we couldn't really hear any sounds outside unless someone came to the lab door.
We had set the potential weapons on one of the metal tables where we could grab them quickly. "It would have been nice if Renee kept a rifle in here," Cassie said. "Wasn't she worried about bears?"
"I guess not. Do you think they might set the Quonset on fire?" I asked.
"It's possible," she walked over to the far wall and pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall. She sat it on the table with our weapons cache. "Now, we're prepared if they do."
"Maybe they're just going to leave us here to die."
"With enough time and incentive, we should be able to find a way out of here."
"Then what are we waiting for?" she asked.
"You keep looking for any important notes of Renee's while I work on finding a way out." I opened drawers until I found a pad of paper and a pen. It's amazing how much better I felt just armed with those two things. I walked around the lab and made notes of possible options for escape. I made a second pass around the room looking for the tools we'd need to act on any of my options.
"I found notes here about the experiments Dr. Wilhelm was doing on the bigfoot family at the lab. Crap. This isn't good. We need to protect this," she said, laying a journal like the one's Uncle Harry used on the table with our weapons.
"I've got some escape options," I told her. "It's possible we could remove the pins from the door hinges and open the door that way, but with the electronic lock, it might not work. I found a screwdriver, so it's possible."
"It's worth a shot. What else you got?"
"I think that vent leads to the other part of the Quonset. Maybe it's an air circulation unit or the furnace but, with the screwdriver, we could pull off the face plate and see how large the opening is."
"Good options for lots of situations but could be too small for either of us to get through. Again, worth a try."
"Last one. See that skylight in the roof?"
"Yeah. It's a ways up there."
"It is, but it's large enough for us to fit through. Again, with the screw driver we should be able to remove it. The trick is getting up there. Unfortunately, I didn't find any ladders, but I think if we have enough time, we can Jenga together cabinets and tables to get us up there. I've had some rock climbing training. How about you?"
"Some. I wish we had some rope for safety, but we can probably cobble something together. Let's look around, with these escape options in mind, and see what we can find that might be useful."
We found a lot of stuff that might come in handy. So much that we moved another table against the first one so we could have everything within reach. We stood back admiring our collection. "Now what?"
"I guess that's the problem," Cassie said. "We don't know what we'll face if we escape. Did they leave someone guarding us?"
"I wish I knew what they were doing out there or what they have planned for us."