Get Out Alive: Get Out Alive, #1

One

SHE SAT IN THE CORNER of the janitor's closet, quietly thumping the back of her head against the drywall as if that might knock the jumble of information floating around in her brain into some sort of sense.

It was quiet as a tomb, the air thick with the sharp tang of disinfectants and some vaguely piney sort of scent she could not quite place. The only light in the closet came from the dull sliver filtering through the crack under the door. It reflected off the floor which filled the space with a dull sort of haze. At least once it seemed like somebody had walked by outside. Something thumped wetly against the other side of the door. The sound made her cower like a frightened rabbit, tongue glued to the roof of her mouth, as she huddled in the corner until the sound of the footsteps faded. Her back and legs ached from being huddled in the corner and her tongue stuck to the roof of her parched mouth.

The woman frowned as she pondered how long she had been hiding here. The face of the watch on her wrist glowed green when she pushed a button on its side. She blinked at the numbers on the display. 07:25. She made a face. How long had she been in here? She shrugged to herself, unsure since she could not really remember when or how exactly she came to be shut up in here. Her clothes seemed vaguely stiff and abrasive against her skin with the salt of dried sweat. She brushed her hair out of her eyes, grimacing at the slimy, oily texture of it.

The stiff muscles in her back and legs screeched in protest like rusty hinges when the woman took a deep breath and forced herself to stand. She winced when her right knee popped like a pine knot in a fireplace, the sound deafeningly loud in the deathly silence. She held her breath, not daring to even move for some reason she could not quite recall. Her jaw clenched as she groped in the dark, reaching for the door handle. The woman winced involuntarily at the noise the door made as the latch clicked open and the hinges squeaked when she pushed it open.

She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the light as she stepped out her heart banging away on the inside of her sternum. The light in the room shone through the wide windows about eight feet off the ground. There was a handful of conical emergency lights on the walls as well, their harsh halogen bulbs conflicting with the gloom. When she peeked around the center row of lockers she could see what looked like bathroom stalls in the corner of the room. A glance over her shoulder revealed what seemed to be a largish communal shower of something like that.

Where the hell am I? she wondered running a palm over her face as she looked around the room. Rows of pale blue lockers lined the walls with two more rows in the center of the room. Laminated wooden benches ran along the floor in front of them with spaces between for people to walk through. There was another room through the open doorway ahead just a bit off to her left so she crept toward it. The brick walls behind the banks of lockers were coated with a sort of pale green dully gleaming enamel that made her vaguely queasy for some reason she could not quite put her finger on when she looked at it for too long. The woman's nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of something odd on the air like the acrid scent of something burning...and...something else... The smell put a skittish feeling in the pit of her stomach as she looked this way and that, expecting some unknown thing to leap out and attack. Whatever the source of the smell was, it seemed to be coming from the hall because it did not look like anything had been burning in here, which struck her as a good thing at any rate.

Huh... she cocked her head, raising her eyebrow in a quizzical expression as she looked down and realized how she was dressed. Black leather boots, olive drab pants with big pockets on each thigh and a snug fitting brown tee shirt. There was a wide nylon belt around her waist with a gun in a holster on her right hip and an olive drab nylon pouch opposite too. The pouch contained a pair of magazines, the rectangular metal boxes weighty in the palm of her hand as she studied them a moment before stuffing them back into the green pouch on her left hip.

The woman grunted in surprise when her right thumb tugged down on the rubber loop on the flap on the holster and pulled out some sort of large black handgun. Her long dexterous fingers seemed to know what to do with the weapon of their own volition: they retracted the slide just enough to see the dully gleaming brass of a cartridge case in the weapon's chamber. Keeping the weapon pointed toward the floor, she thumbed back the hammer the rest of the way then lowered it with the decocker/safety lever on the weapon's slide and put it back in the holster. That was weird... she thought, sort of unsettled by the whole incident for some reason she could not quite put her finger on as she secured the flap back into place and looked around the locker room.

Suddenly keenly aware of the burning dryness in her throat, she crossed quickly to the arched doorway and found herself standing in a room that was the same nauseating green as the locker room. A handful of stainless steel shower heads jutted from the opposite wall. Sinks with mirrors lined the wall on her right with a couple small stalls in the corner. She hurried to the nearest sink and twisted the handle, a grimace crossing her face as the faucet groaned and protested and seemed to shake a little bit before spitting up a gout of water. The woman cupped her hands and slurped the sluggish lukewarm liquid that dribbled out of the spout. She paused to splash a double handful of the warmish water on her face then stretched, leaning back to run her damp fingers through her short hair. Something metallic tinkled under her shirt when she leaned forward and scrubbed her face for the third time. She shook her head, feeling herself coming back to life when her skin absorbed the water like a sponge. The woman frowned as her slender hand went fishing around inside the collar of her shirt groping around in search of the source of the noise.

The woman made a little grunt of surprise when she discovered a thin metal chain around her neck and tugged it out, revealing a pair of slightly oval shaped metal disks that tinkled in her palm. She squinted in the gloomy semi dark, straining her eyes to make out the words stamped into the metal in tiny block letter font. She grunted again once she managed to make sense of the letters. It read:

WILSON

GRACE K.

2*1-70-37*9

A NEG

NO PREF

She studied her reflection in the mirror above the sink for a moment or two. Hazel eyes, stylish black hair cut short with bangs hanging down almost in her eyes. Full lips and a straight roman nose. A pretty nice face. Which is good 'cause it's the only one I got. She snickered at the little internal joke, slightly taken aback when she caught her reflection smiling back at her. The woman touched her face as if seeing herself for the first time then stuffed the chain around her neck back under her shirt. She frowned at the necklace thing hanging between her sizable breasts. Is that me? she wondered, mulling the information over as she felt around in the various pockets of her olive drab trousers. Grace...Kay...Wilson... she said, quietly enunciating each of the words slowly and carefully almost as if she were tasting each and every syllable. It felt right but... She scowled at her reflection in the mirror and shrugged again then leaned against the sink with a heavy sigh, letting her head hang forward. There was a dull thudding pain in her head behind her eyes so she dampened her hands again and ran her palms slowly over her face.

Something clattered against the floor nearby and she practically threw herself away from the sink, her hands shaking at her sides. Where did that come from? she wondered as she cautiously took a step or two toward the locker room. The woman leaned out into the larger room her breath catching in the back of her throat as she squinted into the gloomy dark to try and find the source of the noise. Her eyes went wide when she realized that the faucet was still running and dove to turn it off, the handle squeaking loudly as she hurriedly tried to shut the damned water off.

The woman stood there for perhaps a minute or so, scarcely daring to even breath too loudly lest whatever made the noise find her. Her hand closed on the cool white porcelain of the sink as she eased back into the doorway and stared into the locker room, waiting to see if she could hear what made the noise. She gulped air, licked her lips and cleared her throat. H-Hello? she asked, feeling foolish for some reason she could not quite understand as she gripped the door frame so hard the muscles in her arms and shoulders felt like they were vibrating under her skin.

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck bristled as she cautiously stepped into the locker room, peering around the lockers in the center of the room. Somehow she noticed a door hiding in the gloomy corner off on her left for the first time and carefully picked her way toward it. Her hand settled on the door handle, her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to figure out where the noise came from. After a few deep breaths she opened her eyes, grit her teeth and eased the door open.

Ohhh...oh jeez... she hissed when she stuck her head out into the hall. The walls were painted what looked like a light institutional shade of green though it was hard to make out in the gloom. The banks of florescent lights in the ceiling were dark, though more emergency lights shone on the wall a little ways down the hall in either direction. Maybe ten or so feet away there was a blank monitor mounted to the opposite wall... She rubbed her eyes with a knuckle and blinked, straining to try and make out more details in the darkened passageway. Okay, calm down. You're hyperventilating... the woman told herself as she forced herself to stop and take deep slow breaths when she realized she was trembling and getting vaguely dizzy. How the hell do I know that?

She held her breath and listened for a few moments, shaking like a leaf as she slowly backed into the locker room. The woman pressed a palm against her forehead as she tried to think... A lump formed in her throat and she tried to swallow it, her breath coming in shaky little gasps. She was tempted to call out to whoever was moving around somewhere down the hall but the words strangled in the back of her throat. Some gut instinct seemed to tell her that would be a bad idea as she returned to the door and looked up and down the hall outside. Finally, after what felt like a mild eternity, she glanced back into the locker room then stepped out into the hall and headed off to her left.

It was dark as pitch save where she tiptoed through the islands of pale yellow light thrown from the emergency lights spaced along the wall on her right. She groaned when the hall came to a dead end