Danger Days: The Escape

Party Poison slumped to the floor in tears, bring Fun Ghoul down with him. His baby brother had sacrificed himself to save them all. He was dead, there was no denying it now.

Lady Killer reached for the discarded journal and quickly read over the handwritten page. The depth of those words hit her hard and she too began crying as she passed the book to a confused Jet Star and Bob. She dropped to her knees next to Party Poison and put her arms around her best friend. Gun Ghoul was also crying now. Jet Star and Bob were also upset, but they were holding up better than the other three. They left them huddled together in the corner, deciding to try and get a little bit of sleep so they’d be prepared for the nightmare that they day would bring.

It was mid morning when Bob and Jet Star emerged from the master bedroom of the penthouse. The mood was sombre in the living room. Party Poison and Fun Ghoul were still slumped against the wall in each other’s arms – Bob was starting to get suspicious of their relationship – but Lady Killer had moved to one of the luxurious sofas in the centre of the room where she was tossing the journal over in her hands. They could tell that she was trying to make sense of it all, or at least think of a more optimistic conclusion to the one they had. Before they had come out of the bedroom they had had a long conversation about what their next move would be. They had both agreed that the best thing for the group would be to head back to Lady Killer’s parents’ house until they were ready to fight again. Although they had thought about continuing on to the compound, the evidence suggesting that Kobra Kid had been ghosted was too strong, and prolonging their stay until everyone was emotionally ready to continue was too dangerous.

“Hey, how you guys holding up?” Jet Star asked, now standing in front of Fun Ghoul and Party Poison.

“I’m not,” Party Poison said vacantly. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks flushed from crying.

Bob and Jet Star exchanged saddened glances as they looked at their broken leader. Stepping closer to Party Poison, Bob said, “We think that tonight when the last of the Draculoids have left, we should head back to Zone 2 where it’s safe. You’re the leader, though, so it’s your call.”

The room went silent as Party Poison tossed the options around in his head. He was torn; he wanted to get revenge on BL/IND for taking his only brother from his life, but at the same time he just wanted to go where it was safe so he could cry until he became numb. In the end he favoured the second option more; he had to think about everybody, not just his own feelings. He nodded his agreement to his friends. Bob and Jet Star each gave him a sympathetic smile and readied themselves to gather the belongings that had been dumped on the floor carelessly.

“I’m not going,” Lady Killer said quietly from her spot on the sofa. All the men turned to look at her, surprise etched onto their faces. She placed the journal down on the coffee table as she got up and repeated herself more definitively. “I’m not going with you guys when you leave tonight. Instead I’m going to storm the compound, with or without you. Kobra... he can’t be dead.”

A timid voice spoke out from the corner of the room. “What makes you believe he’s still alive?”

Lady Killer looked over to Party Poison’s tear stained face. The way he looked at her so softly told her that he was serious, not being sarcastic. She walked over to where he was and kneeled down beside him. “Kobra’s one of us, I know he wouldn’t give up without a fight. I just know that the second he arrived in front of that compound that he would have come to his senses and at least tried to fight.”

“How can you be so sure, Kill?” Fun Ghoul asked harshly. He didn’t want her instilling false hope in Party Poison’s mind.

“I guess I can’t be sure, not really, but I believe in him...” The tears came back to her eyes, but she fought them back and continued on strongly and logically. “All we have to go off is this one page; we don’t know if he ever made it to the compound or not. Maybe they caught him, maybe they didn’t, how can we know? The only thing we do know for sure is that he was here. The journal could have been left behind for us to find so we knew we were on the right track, because he knew we’d come looking. Either way, we aren’t going to know the truth unless we go looking.”

“And if he’s dead? Then what?”

“Then we can take revenge on them for killing him,” Lady Killer replied. “Come on, guys, let’s do this for Kobra’s sake.”

“Kill’s right...” Party Poison mumbled. “If he is alive, we can’t desert him... we’ll go ahead with our original plan tonight.”

“Are you sure?” Fun Ghoul asked Party Poison cautiously. He didn’t want to put his friend through all the heartache and danger to come if it wasn’t necessary.

All eyes once again focussed on Party Poison. He rose from the floor with Fun Ghoul quickly leaping up after him and placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. He stepped forward and opened his arms to Lady Killer, who stepped into the embrace. They hugged each other tightly for a few seconds and stepped away, holding eye contact. “We’re staying.”

“Right, let’s plan,” Bob said, taking a seat on the sofa. The others quickly joined him.

The five killjoys sat in the living room planning until dark. Bob was able to pull up a map of the compound, which identified where all the security cameras were located and showed the entry and exit points. The plan was to split up into smaller groups and search the floors for two things; Kobra Kid and ways to take down BL/IND. They decided that they would stay there no longer than an hour to ensure that they didn’t get caught themselves. They would attack at 2 am when all the Draculoids would be in bed.

At quarter to two the red mustang was packed with all their luggage and they were ready to begin their drive to the compound. When they finished there at 3 am they would be going straight back to Zone 2. With masks on, boots tight, and guns close, they proceeded through the abandoned streets toward the compound. Jet Star pulled up the car in a dark alley a street away from their destination. Everyone got out and began the cautious walk to the barbed wire fence that enclosed the Zone 30 compound.

As they neared the fence, Bob informed them of something he’d forgotten earlier. “This might be a good time to warn you that there is an oubliette under the first floor.”

“What the fuck is an oubliette?” Fun Ghoul asked.

“It’s like a dungeon, with one small exception – you can’t get out,” Lady Killer replied matter-of-factly.

“It’s where you put people when you want to forget about them,” Bob added. “Just watch out for any floor that looks unstable.”

When they reached the fence, Jet Star used a pair of wire cutters he’d found in the apartment block to cut a small hole in so they could get through. They walked carefully, with ray guns at the ready, to one of the side entrances. Bob quickly punched in the standard BL/IND code to disable the entire alarm system. They walked in as if it was the most natural thing. The entrance they had used was close to elevators, which worked in their favour.

“Ok, Kill, Jet, and, for the purpose of our safety, Neon Nightmare, you three head up to the second floor. Use the stairs, though; we don’t want risk using the elevators.” Party Poison ordered. He was still a little upset, but his natural leadership qualities took over. “Ghoul and I will search down here.”

“Here,” Lady Killer handed one of their two radios to Ghoul.

“Remember, no longer than an hour in here. Radio in every fifteen minutes so we know that no one’s been captured. If you see an Drac’s, keep hidden and quiet; if they see you, run.” Party Poison reiterated the rules they’d come up with. “And if you find Kobra, go straight to the car, we’ll meet you there at three.”

The two groups of killjoys went their separate ways.

Bob, Lady Killer, and Jet Star travelled up the flight of stairs to the second floor, making as little noise as possible. They were met with a T-intersection of corridors. Although there was three of them, they elected to stick together and explore the alternate passageways one at a time. The first path was rather short, but it did contain four cells, all of which were empty and also locked. Bob picked each of the locks so they could check for evidence of Kobra Kid ever being there, but they found nothing in any of them. They went back to the stairwell and chose a second one which they quickly vacated when they saw a sleeping Draculoid through the window of the first door to their left.

“Come in, Ghoul,” Jet Star whispered into the radio.

“Yeah?” Fun Ghoul responded.

“We just found the Drac’s rooms, so you should be safe down there, but still, be on the lookout.”

“Got it. Out.”

***

Party Poison and Fun Ghoul were walking the main corridor on the first floor. Unfortunately for them, unlike the headquarters in Battery City, the ventilation system was considerably smaller, so not even Lady Killer would be able to fit up there. They didn’t like the idea of being so exposed, even if the Draculoids were upstairs.

They entered what appeared to be the main control room. Looking around, they noticed that everything had been shut down for the night, other than the screens that were linked to the security cameras, which were black now that they had been disabled.

“What do you wanna do?” Fun Ghoul asked Party Poison as they circled the modernised control pedestal in the centre of the room.

Party Poison looked at the vast range of buttons in front of him, deciding to press the one that looked like the ‘on’ button. “Search their system for traces of Kobra.”

It took only thirty seconds for them to hit a snag in the plan. Everything was password protected. They hoped that Bob would be able to get in, so Party Poison radioed the killjoys upstairs.

“Nightmare, do you know the passwords that get into the computer systems here?”

“If it’s like the one in Battery City, any employee should be able to access it with their badge number. Mine’s 00238, try that.” Bob replied. “Delete the history if it works, we don’t need them figuring out that I’m helping you.”

They punched the number in and let out a sigh of relief when the screen displayed the desktop menu. As instructed by Bob, they deleted the history on the system. Fun Ghoul was surprisingly good with computers and was able to quickly find the compound operation files. While he was doing this, Party Poison was inspecting the other technology they had installed.

“Unfortunately the inmate files are combined with the employee files. I’ve done a search for ‘Kobra Kid’, but there’s nothing. Maybe they didn’t capture him like we thought,” Fun Ghoul called out as he continued to do random searches through the database.

“Try searching for ‘Michael Way’.”

Fun Ghoul did as instructed and came up with a match, an exact match. “I found him! I found Kobra.”

Party Poison looked up to the big screen and was met with a picture of a beaten and bruised, but alive, Kobra Kid – his little brother. His hair was a mess, his right eye was encircled in a purple bruise with a large cut above the eyebrow, and he had a split lip, but there was no denying that it was him. Fun Ghoul scrolled down the screen to where the information on him was. The both read through it slowly so they could absorb all the information.

“I never pictured Kobra as a ‘Michael’,” Fun Ghoul said absentmindedly.

“Only our grandmother called him that; to everyone else it’s Mikey.”

They soon reached the most important thing that they were after: his status. They both smiled elatedly when they saw the word ‘alive’ written on the screen in the plain white font. Fun Ghoul dragged the man next to him into his arms and hugged him happily.

“He’s alive, Poison, he’s alive! The others may have found him upstairs!”

“Wait...” Party Poison said as he read the last thing on the file. “Look where it says he is.”
Fun Ghoul read the next line. He could hardly believe it. “Battery City...”

NAME: Michael Way
AGE: 28
D.O.B: 11/9/1993
HEIGHT: 5’ 10’’
EYE COLOUR: Brown
HAIR COLOUR: Blonde/Brown
STATUS: Alive
EXTRA DETAILS: Transferred to Battery City

They had no time to talk it over as a very quick message from Lady Killer screamed at them through the radio.

“Dracs – run!”

As if someone had just slammed their foot down on the accelerator, the two men quickly deleted the history on the mainframe again and turned it off before they ran like mad men out one of the exits near the control room. They kept running rapidly around the corner of the building, headed for the fence. They looked around the side of the building where they could see Jet Star, Bob, and Lady Killer not too far ahead of them about to go through the hole in the fence they had cut earlier. Approximately ten of the Draculoids had chased them down from the second floor and were gaining on them fast as they were trying to get through the hole. Fun Ghoul and Party Poison grabbed for their ray guns and began shooting at the white figures ahead of them before starting to run again. As they got closer to the fence they started jumping the lifeless figures they had shot down. By time they reached the hole in the fence, the rest of the Draculoids had made it out of the building and were headed straight for them. The other three killjoys were waiting for them to come through the fence.

“Run, guys, run!” Party Poison yelled as he made it through the hole in the fence.

Lady Killer and Jet Star sprinted away from the compound in the direction of the car, but Bob stayed rooted to the ground, even when Party Poison had grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him after him. He instead began firing at the fast approaching Draculoids. Fun Ghoul, who had been slower at reaching the fence with his short legs, had dived through the hole, but as he went to get up he fell back to the ground. His leg was tangled in some of the loose pieces of wires. He yanked his leg as hard as he could but he was getting nowhere.

“Poison!” he shouted, hoping he’d help him out.

Party Poison spun around when he heard the strained voice of Fun Ghoul. His eyes widened as he noticed what was happening. Immediately he ran back to the fence, but Bob pushed him away.

“Go!” he yelled at him. “I’ll save him, just go!”

He felt guilty about it, but he ran for the car, leaving Fun Ghoul tangled in the fence. He trusted Bob would get him out.

When Party Poison reached the car a few moments later, Lady Killer was just revving up the engine to the mustang. He jumped into the back and quickly explained what had happened to Fun Ghoul and Bob. Lady Killer sped off toward the compound. The three killjoys kept a look out for their two missing friends. When they were approaching the hole in the fence they saw a limping Fun Ghoul coming for them. Lady Killer slammed the breaks on so Party Poison and Jet Star could pull their friend into the car.

Fun Ghoul slumped across the back seat, breathing heavily, his right leg covered in blood around the ankle where he had been caught in the fence. They looked around for Bob, but he was nowhere to be seen and neither were the Draculoids.

“Where’s Bob?” Lady Killer asked, her eyes darting in all directions.

“The Drac’s got him,” Fun Ghoul gasped. “But he said to run and keep looking for Kobra.”

“No!” Lady Killer and Jet Star shouted in unison.

Party Poison took control. “Drive, Kill. Head for Battery City. We’ll come back for Bob, but right now, we have to go there.”

Having no other choice, Lady Killer pressed down on the accelerator and sped off through Zone 30, headed for Battery City. It would be a long drive, but it was time to save Kobra Kid.