Tower Climber (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 1) Jakob Tanner (reading comprehension books TXT) 📖

spoke with another masked soldier. They exchanged a few words and then the barrier lifted. We drove on towards the hangar.

The army vehicle halted beneath the shadows of the large building.

“We’re at your stop,” said the jerk guard. “C’mon—out ya get.”

He grabbed my jacket collar and dragged me out of the van. All the turrets from the different sentry towers pointed down at my section of the tarmac.

The guard led me over to a small shed-like building attached to the hangar. He punched in key commands and a metal door slid open.

“You enter the quarantine zone through here,” said the guard. “We’ll lock the door behind you.”

“Is there a phone in there? How will my family be alerted of my whereabouts?”

The guard shook his head. “Don’t worry. That’s all been taken care of.”

I clenched my fists and swallowed my anger. I brushed past him, heading into the quarantine zone.

“Okay,” said the guard. “We’ll open the next door after we’ve sealed this first one. If you don’t enter the hangar, we’ll come in there and exterminate you.”

He punched in the key commands again and the door slid closed, sealing me off from the outside.

The room was a cold concrete square. A metal door slid open, granting me entrance into the airport hangar. The open doorway revealed a pitch black room. The darkness was impenetrable. A stench wafted out from the hangar’s entrance. It was like a mixture of rotten meat and shit combined. The smell made me not want to go any further. The guard’s voice cut through my thoughts: we’ll exterminate you. I lifted my t-shirt above my nose and stepped into the room.

The metal door slid closed behind me. The lights above flickered on and the sight was unbelievable. Horrible. This was the quarantine facility?

The floor was a sea of corpses. A few wrangled on the ground in their own vomit, moaning, but the majority of them were dead. In the furthest corner across the hangar was a heap of bodies, the mound like a pile of garbage at a scrapyard. Instead of rubber bags and broken bottles, there were bloated limbs and the occasional head, frozen in its last contorted gasp of life. They were empty husks, their skins saggy and hollow like deflated balloons. A snapshot of my future.

My stomach churned. I spun around and banged on the sliding door. “You have to let me out of here!”

I banged on the steel door with my fist until it was red and aching. “Shit!”

I leant my head against the wall. What the hell am I going to do?

An odd gurgle echoed from behind. I turned around and scanned the bodies. “Is someone else in here? Hello?”

Emerging from behind the tent was a pale dismembered hand clenched between the mouth of a wrinkled old lady. The woman had long sweaty gray hair with patches of red blood stains. Her eyes were yellow and her nose was scrunched like a vicious wolf. She crouched on the ground, her arms hanging between her legs. She dropped the limb from her mouth, swallowing back a piece of flesh. She pulled her dinner closer to her and growled at me.

“Trust me,” I said. “I don’t want any.”

She growled louder this time and then barked. What was wrong with this woman? I got the sense she was telling me to get lost. To leave her to her tasty human limb. Fine by me. I stayed where I was, halfway across the hangar from her. But she didn’t stop staring. She didn’t blink. She growled and bared her teeth.

“I don’t want any trouble,” I said. “I’m going over this way. I’ll leave you alone, if—”

She hissed, spit flinging from her teeth. She rushed towards me and jumped, fingernails out, ready to claw my face off. I lifted my foot and kicked her right in the stomach. She fell onto the pavement. She rolled over on the floor, got back up, and ran at me again. This time I kicked her in the head.

“Screw off lady,” I said.

I ran from the door. The woman’s heavy panting encouraged me to run faster. I spun round and she was already halfway in the air, claws out. She dug her sharp nails into my shoulders and pushed me on the ground. Her sweaty blood drenched hair fell into my face along with her spit and bile. Drool dripped onto my cheeks as her lips opened wide for a big chomp of my flesh. I grabbed her neck and pushed her away.

She caught hold of my arm and pinned it to the floor. She did the same with the other. The woman’s strength was overpowering. I kicked her, but she used her feet to keep my legs down. She had me trapped. Her hot breath poured down on my face. She licked her teeth with her tongue, readying herself for her fresh meal.

I was zombie chow-mein.

I closed my eyes, waiting to be eaten alive when a burst of machine gun fire echoed across the hangar. The deranged woman wailed in pain, shrieking. She collapsed onto my chest. Her body was sticky and warm. I pushed her off and scrambled to my feet.

What the hell was going on?

Back by the hangar entrance was a guard in a gas mask holding an assault rifle. I recognized his rough voice straightaway.

“Mr. Hopewell,” said the guard. “Someone very important has alternative plans for your future.”

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