Ps. You Are My Happiness

8. The Trap

Happiness is an inside job

-Anonymous

~.~

We run in the corridor past the dead zombies and come to the fire exit stairway door. Ivan takes the lead as usual and opens the door. He runs upstairs, with us following from behind. We run a couple of stairways and come to the third floor.

"There are two laboratories that we have to search. How about we split up?" Ivan asks.

"Sure, it'll be a good idea. I have the two walkie-talkies with me." Sasha takes out the two walkie-talkies and gives one to Ivan.

"What are the teams?" Henry asks.

"If possible, let me be in the group that has three. I am still not used to this whole thing." Eric says.

I look at him and mouth 'Scardey cat', to which he flicks my forehead.

"Then... the usual teams. We usually have Henry and me, and in team two, Ivan." Sasha replies.

"Eric takes the team with three means... I am with you." I look at Ivan, who nods. I can't believe I am teaming up with him.

Then he simply opens the door to the third floor and put out his head. He closes the door again and sighs.

"We guessed it wrong. There are more zombies here than downstairs. I guess everyone came here for safety and got infected." Ivan says.

"Shoot. What do we do?" Sasha asks.

"There. What's that?" I ask, pointing at a steel box that's fixed on the wall. Ivan walks to it and opens it.

"It's the third-floor electricity box, I guess. We can switch it off and make our way inside." Ivan says.

"How effective is that?" Eric asks.

"Zombies react to light. Remember I told you two. So when there isn't any light, they can't see anything. Still, we have to be careful not to make any sound." he takes out the paper that has the plan of the lab and reads out. "Lab number two to the left and one to the right. You guys take lab number two, and Andrea and I will take lab number one."

I listen to him in awe. Ivan makes a good leader. His plans and strategies work all the time. I love that about him. I feel safe to go according to his plans.

Ivan hands the walkie-talkie to me and switches off the electricity for the third floor. It becomes blindly dark inside. After a while, I feel a hand around my wrist.

"It's me." Ivan whispers.

He opens the door, and we walk out to the danger zone first. I tightly hold his hand and wave bye to Eric, who walks to the left. We take it slow, walking slowly without making any sounds. The growling of the zombies echoes in the corridor, making all my hair strands stand straight.

We walk a few meters and find a glass door that says, 'Laboratory 1'. Ivan opens it cautiously, and we walk inside.

"Damn," he mutters, looking in front of us.

As a start, there are more than ten zombies inside the lab itself. Secondly, the lab is massive!

"Shit," I mutter in reply.

Ivan takes me with him to the corner of the lab and takes out the walkie-talkie. He presses the button in it and speaks to it.

"The lab is massive, and zombies are swarming here like bees. Over," he says to the walkie-talkie. 

It takes a few seconds to hear a reply, and it comes as a really low sound. Ivan listens to it closely and tells me what the reply is about. They have made the walkie-talkies emit low sounds so the zombies won't hear.

"They say it's the same there," Ivan says.

"What do we do? Should we kill the zombies?" I ask.

"That won't do. Listen, it's so hushed in there. If we make a single sound, it'll stir the whole floor." Ivan replies.

"Then what? Do you have a plan?"

"We'll trap them in a room."

Sounds like a plan. But as always, too risky and not foolproof. Ivan and I walk through the room, careful enough not to make any sound. We make it toward a room which we examine first.

"Looks like a small office," I whisper.

"Let's go through it first."

We slowly close the door behind us, which luckily isn't see-through. Then Ivan lights his torch, and we start digging the place for clues. It doesn't have anything important. Only some random lab reports.

"So this will be where we trap them," Ivan says to me.

"Do we use light for it?" I ask.

"Yeah."

Ivan takes something out of his bag. Which is another torch. He places it in the corner of the room, and we walk out slowly.

"Walk over there and control the toy car. I'll stay by the door and close it," he says to me.

I get the plan he has made. So I walk to the other end of the laboratory and squint my eyes to look at Ivan. He gives me a thumbs up, standing next to the door. I hesitantly hide behind the cupboard, out of the zombies' vision, whereas Ivan goes back to the room and switches on the torch. From my vision, I can see a little bit of light coming from that room. So I lower myself in case a zombie spots me. The attention of the zombies turns toward the light, and they start walking into the room.

I hold my breath and pray they'll all get inside the room. My heart starts hammering against the ribcage in fear. Even though I know Ivan won't get infected, I feel this ounce of fear in my heart. I don't want anything to happen to him.

One by one, as the zombies get into the room, Ivan walks out of that room past the zombies and prepares to close the door. But one zombie remains outside. I didn't expect Ivan to do anything crazy. But he does something that gives chills in my body. He grabs the last zombie and throws it into the room, and closes the door quickly. My heart starts throbbing in fear. He's too fearless. Ivan locks the door using its padlock and gives me a thumbs-up.

I walk over to him and hand over the remote controller. I don't know what comes to me all of a sudden, but I put my arms around him and pull him into a hug. He freezes at my sudden action but pats my back after a while.

"Were you scared?" he whisper-asks.

"I am worried about you," I say.

"As long as I don't get infected, there's nothing to worry about. You should rather worry about your safety around me, you know. I might bite you."

That's right. I should be worrying about him infecting me. But I am worrying about him. I don't know why. Maybe he enlightened me within this short time. Yes, I've started to admire him as well. So I don't want to see him get infected because, without his leadership, we can't continue this mission.

And he seems to spark something in my heart.