Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Alone in the Dark

Skinner walked cautiously through the dim hallway that the Viper had indicated led to the dungeon. He could hear the sound of footsteps and gunfire above his head. He was directly below what he supposed was the main entrance judging by the amount of traffic across it. Skinner stopped short and held his breath when the power suddenly went out. Perhaps it was the Viper’s doing. The thought reassured Skinner as he felt his way along the cinder block walls and met a thick wooden door after an incredibly long time. Time seemed to pass more slowly when you’re deprived of sight so he had no real way to know exactly how far he had traveled. He felt along the rough and grimy door until he felt the handle and gave it a hard turn. The door opened hard and Skinner ducked as he opened it in case there was anybody on the other side.

He wasn’t disappointed as the sound of bullets made hollow noises as they slammed into the heavy door. Skinner rolled into the room but the dark and open space left him disoriented. He wasn’t sure where the people were or even if he were facing in the right direction. He shook his head from side to side trying to get a feel for where the quiet footsteps were coming from and more importantly where they were going to be. Skinner tried to hold his breath so as not to give his location away and rose quietly from his hiding spot behind what felt like a desk. He stood, blind except for the hushed sweeping footsteps of he didn’t know how many people. He felt quietly along the surface of the desk trying to find anything to throw. His hand brushed against something metallic and thin and upon further inspection determined it to be a desk lamp.

He could hear hushed footsteps getting closer to him and decided to abandon the lamp for the moment and listened carefully as they seemed to be coming from around the other side of the desk. Creeping around to the side with his knees hurting badly from the squatting position they’d been in for so long he raised his shotgun up at an angle. Seconds later he felt something bump into the end of the barrel and without waiting he pulled the trigger on the Ithaca, the sound muffled a bit by the man’s body. He felt something warm and wet splash across his face and realized that it was the man’s blood.

He ducked back behind the desk as other people started firing. The muzzle flashes giving Skinner a brief indicator on where the other assailants were. Skinner wished that he had packed buckshot instead of the slugs at this point but you had to work with what you have. The other men were firing wildly around the room trying to find where the other man was. Skinner stood up and fired at the brief flash of the closest criminal. The howl of pain told him that he had at least hit the man. He didn’t know if it was a fatal wound or not but he wasn’t about to investigate too closely either.

The fire from the shotgun gave away his location though and the other man swung his gunfire over towards where he was laying. The bullets punched through the desk easily. A chunk of cement from a ricochet caught Skinner in the face and made him gasp as he felt a small trickle of blood flow down his cheek just below his eye. He heard the other man closing in on the spot and Skinner grabbed the lamp from its spot on the desk and jerked the cord out of the wall. He judged somewhere over to his left and threw the lamp making a crashing sound as it rebounded off of the wall. The man opened fire and Skinner took his chance and fired in the direction. He didn’t hear any sound come from the other man, nor did he hear the slug bury itself into any other surface and was pleased when he heard the slumping sound of a body hitting the hard cement floor.

Skinner heard some whimpering coming from somewhere in front of him and he felt his way forward along the wall. He stumbled over the body of one of his attacked and fell to the floor, his shotgun skidding somewhere in front of him in the darkness. Crawling along the floor with his hands splayed in front of him he came in contact with something metal and wrapped his hand around the dead man’s pistol. He pocketed it and crawled on along the wall, his hand finally sweeping into contact with his shotgun. He slung it over his shoulder and kept crawling towards the source of the sound. His hand came into contact with another heavy wooden door and heard the whimpering coming from the other side. “Hello?” He ventured into the darkness. “I’m here to help. Are you all right?” The voice became frantic and shrill but spoke in another language; presumably either Chinese or Japanese and Skinner didn’t understand a word of it. He tried the large handle of the door with a hard pull but the door was securely locked. The girl’s voice became more urgent and frantic but still Skinner didn’t understand a word of it.

He stood and felt back along the wall. The Viper had said that there would be a key hanging on the wall just inside the door. But this was of course before the power had gone out and the gunfight so all Skinner could do was hope that it was still there. His heart sunk when he felt an empty hook on the wall but felt around and found several other empty hooks. He realized that one of the dead men had to have the key on him and went out in search of the bodies. The man closest to the desk had nothing on him but his pistol and several clips in his pocket. He relieved the dead man of his weapons and felt around until he stumbled across the body of another. He had several more clips and a pistol. Skinner felt around his neck and felt a chain. Reaching down into the man’s collar he felt something small and metallic and found a key on the other end. He snatched the necklace off of the man’s neck and felt his way back to the door. The girl’s voice was a pleading scream now and Skinner tried to hush her with no success. They became louder as the sound of the key engaging the tumblers in the lock made a loud clicking noise in the total blackness.

Skinner stopped for a moment as he tried to make out what the girl was saying. She was incredibly upset about something and Skinner had no way of knowing what. He turned the handle as the girl screamed something at him. Cracking the door his mind suddenly pieced together the girl’s urgency. She wasn’t speaking Chinese but very poor English. He heard her scream something that sounded very close to the word ‘bomb’ just before the blinding flash and shockwave detonated the door outwards, sending both the detective and thousands of splinters flying hard into the wall behind them. Skinner laid there under the weight of the wooden shrapnel and the force of the blast and lost consciousness. The last thing he felt was a small wet pair of hands roaming over his face and body before everything went numb.