She herself took off towards the side of the auditorium as bullet fire echoed across the entire theatre like a warzone. Shot in the head, many of those crazed people dropped to the floor dead. Rohini ducked between seats and held her head, her heart pounding like a drum and the same words repeating over and over in her head.
‘What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck!’
All the while, her concerned husband yelled her name down the phone, begging for her to answer him, but she just couldn’t, panic had set in and all she could think was that she was going to die here, she was going to die on this Godforsaken ship and never see her family or son ever again.
As if the situation couldn’t get any more traumatising or chaotic, those that were shot simply began rising back up as though nothing happened, twitching, their eyes rolled back, their lips apart, making a gurgled choking sound and bullet holes through their skulls.
Rohini was beginning to feel lightheaded, held up only by pure adrenaline.
More bullets were fired and as magazines emptied, the security guards reloaded and peppered the attacking people with more rounds, but more of those people dropped down from the higher levels, some taking down screaming people with them.
Rohini witnessed one man fighting for his life up on the higher levels, only to fall over the balcony with one of his assailants and snap his spine on the head of the seat below; she could literally hear the snap and it wasn’t a sound that would leave her memory any time soon.
A crazy person covered in lacerations seemingly appeared out of nowhere, lunging over the seat to grab her hair. Rohini screamed and lashed out, managing to pull herself away just long enough to crawl down the aisle, get up and run as fast as her legs could carry her, down the steps, up onto the grand stage and through the back curtains, leaving the chaos and bullet fire behind her. She made for the dressing room and pounded on the door, most likely locked by the performers upon hearing and possibly seeing the madness occurring above.
“Let me in!” She screamed.
“No! Fuck that!” Someone on the other end shouted.
“Please! Let me in! I’m going to get killed out here! It’s me, Rohini!”
“I can’t, if we let you in, they might get in”.
“Please!” Rohini begged, tears welling up in her eyes as panic overwhelmed her, banging her fists on the door.
“Let her in, quickly!” Someone else shouted.
“But if we let her in, we’ll…”
“Just let her in! Open the fucking door!”
An angel was clearly on Rohini’s side.
After some short shuffling and a click, the door opened and Rohini was pulled inside. The door was slammed back shut behind her and the performers pushed a heavy chest in front of it in order to barricade it.
Hyperventilating, Rohini couldn’t move, but she could talk.
“Thank you…”
CHAPTER 17 - EDWARD, RACHEL & LAKSHMAN
1:38pm - 6 hours, 51 minutes since outbreak in London.
28 minutes since outbreak aboard MS HotS.
. . .
. . .
His back pressed firmly against the door and his feet digging into the floor to give himself the advantage, Edward was the only thing preventing that crazy person outside getting in. For the past 8 to 10 minutes he had had his back pressed against this door whilst Martha helped to find things to block the door with, though admittedly there wasn't a great deal besides a small drawer. The furniture in these cabins were designed to remain fixed to the floors in cases of bad weather, not unlike the type of weather now developing outside.
The loose drawers and anything they could find to wedge between the door and the floor, Martha brought over.
“This is all I could find, sorry”.
“That’ll have to do”, Edward whispered back, “Stuff them under the door and then we’ll put the drawer in front of it. I doubt it will hold, so listen up, I’m going to get you across the gap between our balcony and the next, it won’t be at all easy and we’ll have seconds to work with, so we’ll need to be both quick and smart about this, find me makeshift weapons just in case”.
Martha nodded and went scouting around for anything they could use as a weapon, whilst Edward propped the drawer against the door. It wasn't much to speak of and probably wouldn’t hold the door for very long if at all, but anything at this point was better than nothing.
Martha returned with a pair of scissors, deodorant, her pepper spray and her sharp nail file.
“Okay, what’s the deodorant for?” Edward enquired. From her pocket she pulled out a lighter.
“Be creative”, she whispered.
“Ingenious, but how did you… you know what, never mind. Give me those, quickly”. He took the items from her and prepared himself to release the door.
“Quick, head over to the balcony, I’ll catch you up”, he instructed. Martha took off towards the balcony and he waited until she was outside on it, before beginning his mental countdown. Reaching zero, he abandoned the door and dashed across the cabin towards her just as she was turning to face him.
“Edward, I can’t do this”, she protested.
“This isn’t the time to be stubborn, Martha, you have to”, he insisted.
“No, I can’t do this! I’ll fall! I’m an old lady, I can’t do that!”
“Martha, you have to! I’m not fucking leaving you behind!”
“Leave me! I’m old, it doesn’t matter what happens to me now, I’ve lived a good life! I have a few regrets, but I
