The question of the hour for Acacia De Luca was one she wasn't accustomed to – rather than, “where's the food,” or perhaps, “how am I going to get out,” the question became “how did I end up here?”
This wasn't a question in the metaphorical sense, as though her life had taken a downward spiral since she'd left Daryl and the Chico haven behind, several weeks ago. Rather, this was a very literal question that she had no way of answering. The last thing she remembered was driving a brand-spanking-new BMW off of the lot of an Atlanta car dealership. She'd even gone to the trouble of removing the many coats of dust and grime from it's exterior, accumulated from over 5 years of being exposed to the elements. Sure, it wasn't going to be running over any old police barricades any time soon, but hey, it was a BMW. Rich people used to drive around in cars like these. This one had all the features, too – leather interior, sun roof, full surround sound, 4-wheel drive, top-of-the-line security for keeping the hordes of ravenous freaks away, and most importantly, a full tank of gasoline.
It also had state-of-the-art safety systems, which proved to be absolutely required when she accidentally ran over a set of road spikes and spiraled into a ditch.
The crash had knocked her out, that much was certain, but she didn't know where it was that she woke up. Only now did she connect that the tire spikes had been laid out as a trap for her, rather than a relic from some bandit ambush years before. She was thankful that she'd been moved off the road, as a stray walker climbing in through a shattered window would have surely been the end of her unconscious form. However, she had no idea where she was.
The room she'd woken up in was black and chilly, and she woke up sprawled across what felt like a concrete floor. She saw nothing, and none of her other senses were much help. She smelled nothing but a vague scent of decay, which told her that she could be anywhere in America. She heard nothing but her own heartbeat. She felt out around the room, carefully, looking for anything that could be an exit, or a source of light. She still had all her clothing, but her weapons had been entirely removed. She thought back to a camping light she had stowed in her duffel bag, carelessly tossed in the back of her car, and wished that she had it with her now more than ever.
The room, as far as she could tell, hardly counted as such. It was about the size of what most people considered a standard office cubicle, hardly big enough for her to stretch out entirely within. The roof was low, and didn't allow her to stand upright. The air got stale rapidly, and a vague feeling of claustrophobia kicked into play in her mind.
“WAKE UP!” A voice screamed electronically over a set of loudspeakers, coming too loudly and from too many directions to be natural. On cue, blindingly white lights flipped on as one all around the room, which, as it turned out, was much larger than she'd anticipated. Once she'd blinked away the spots in her eyes, she realized that she was actually in a clear box of some sort, about 7 feet around in every direction except up. The room around her box was larger, four white walls staring at her, with no visible entrances or exits. She also realized that she wasn't alone in the room. At least a dozen walkers were stuttering around in the larger area outside her little box, directionless without a source of food. A few skeletons were laying nearby as well, some old and scattered and picked completely clean, others very disturbingly fresh.
“Good!” The Voice said happily, evidently able to see her moving about. She pinned down where it was coming from. Megaphones were haphazardly stuck to the roof of the larger room every meter or so, blaring out noise. The walkers paced towards the walls mindlessly, changing direction every few steps, confused by the sound coming from so many directions.
“OK Miss, today you're going to be a part of a little experiment.” The Voice said cooly. “You'll notice that there's a small path from your cell, leading out into the room. Follow the path, and and the end of it lies your exit.”
Acacia scanned her box, more thoroughly this time, and noticed a slight path near the floor, a space hardly more than 8 or 9 inches in height. It was hardly more than the size of a ventilation shaft, like something you'd pull a small child out of when they went wandering. She laid down next to it and looked through – completely clear, just like her cell, leading into the wall. It would be wide enough for her to fit through, but she looked down at herself and hoped that her form would be slim enough to allow her passage.
Looking around again and seeing no alternative, she gave a resigned grunt and pushed forward. Her head fit, and her body began to follow, only to be stopped by the fabric of her hoodie. Try as she did, she wasn't able to fit herself any further forward. Scrambling back out, she removed the sweater and tried again. This time saw her get a little bit further, but not much. She was pressed against the walls of the tiny passage haphazardly, and realized with absolute certainty that the strap of her bra was stopping her from fitting the rest of her body.
She took a moment to stare icily at the vent, glaring at it like she could intimidate it into getting taller. She crawled in again, and encountered the same blockage. There wasn't a millimeter of space between her shoulders and the top of the vent, and she realized she probably should've considered herself fortunate to fit at all. She held back a curse, and scanned for the camera that was watching her, before reaching under her shirt and removing her undergarment. With little else to do, she left it in a pile with her hoodie in the cell. There was no room for her to take them.
The next try, she made it up to her hips, before her belt got caught. This time she did swear, audibly, and extracted herself. The walkers heard her, and found their way over to the box. Dull pounding ensued as they gnawed and punched at it. As much encouragement to get out of it as Acacia needed. Off went the belt. Into the pile. She started crawling again.
She could feel herself sweating, despite the cold floor. The air was getting even more stale, with no circulation besides her own body fanning any current. There was no ventilation. She had to get through the passage, soon. The lack of space made it hard to move at all, and she found herself pulling forward by the palms of her hands, sliding them forward and back about 4 or 5 inches at a time.
She got all the way up to her jeans, again, and something snagged. Her pants. She snarled in defiance at the obstruction and pressed forward, scuttling her limbs back and forth like a trapped beast, and felt herself advance, her jeans sliding off of her. She didn't allow herself to be embarrassed. She had other things to worry about.
The tunnel was long and never let up, even when it went under the walls and into another, identical white-walled room. This one had more walkers. The passage sloped up, just slightly, so she was at waist height with them as she crawled through to the top of the room. The plastic-glass it was made of was slippery and nearly frictionless, making ascent a terribly miserable experience.
She went through four rooms in this way. Four long, exhausting, miserable rooms, before finally dropping, unceremoneously, into another 5 foot cell. She was hot and cold, sweating and panting while at the same time realizing just how unpleasant the concrete floor was to sit on without pants. Over this room's set of loudspeakers, the Voice chastised her. “My word, I leave for 10 minutes and when I come back you're half naked and covered in sweat.” He said it condescendingly, as if speaking down to a child. “Oh well. You won't win any points for nudity, but I certainly don't mind it. Continue.”
Acacia's blood boiled with anger, a kind she hadn't felt since she'd left Legion. She didn't know who this guy was, but she was going to kill him, and she was going to enjoy it.
This room's passage out was large enough to walk through, thankfully, though only barely. It was the same low height as the box, which made it impossible to walk properly. It twisted and turned through more rooms, and intersected with other tunnels like it on both sides, more than once. Acacia ignored them. If this did turn out to be a maze, she decided, she'd rather hit a dead and and then go back to check another path, than chance a turn at random. She wasn't even sure if there was an exit at all. The tunnel twisted and turned as it wormed its way through the building, and after walking for half an hour, she felt sure that she had crossed back at least once.
Each room was different. Some were completely white and sterile, empty except for the tubes. Others were filled to the brim with walkers, packed together like cows for slaughter. One room in particular was filled with nothing but decayed or decaying skeletons as a carpet, some fresh, others so old that there was nothing left of them but a grease spot on the floor and yellow bones. Some walls were unpainted, others were covered in dents and scrapes, like a giant clay mold that someone had taken a sledgehammer to.
Finally, she was dumped out in the largest chamber she'd yet come across, a circular arena just big enough that she could probably drive a car around the edge of it, if she pulled it really tight. The edges of the circle were made of the same white material as the walls of the rooms, and more passages like the one she'd just exited were jutting out of it and winding off into more tiny rooms.
Acacia walked forward cautiously, shivering slightly. She suspected she might be underground somewhere – the damp cold that surrounded her wasn't something you'd experience anywhere else in Georgia. The tube directly in front of her looked as good as any, and she continued, rounding the corner into another room, and came face to face with an undead.
It was even taller than she was, and was bent over cartoonishly to fit into the space. It's dead flesh was hanging off of it's skull, and it's grey eyes were covered in scars and scratches. It grinned at her.
Acacia scrambled back, turning around and running back into the large chamber, the side of her head continually bumping on the ceiling. She could hear it following her, scraping, lumbering steps and the smack of decaying skin hitting the walls.
Finally, she reached the main chamber, and turned to face the walker as it fell out of the passage behind her. She took stock – she had no protection hardly at all, except for a flimsy T-shirt. No real weapons, but she still had her shoes. That was it. Luckily, that was all she needed.
The walker was on it's feet again in an instant and Acacia ran towards it, throwing her shoulder into it's chest and sending it flying back onto the floor. It's skull collided with the floor in a disgustingly wet cracking noise, but that wasn't enough. It would've been at least a concussion or a fracture on a living human, but the undead didn't play by those rules.
Acacia stepped over it and planted her sneaker on the walker's chest, forcing it back against the concrete once again. Then it was up, and she stomped – once, twice, three times, on the thing's forehead, until finally, it went limp.
The survivor stepped back and examined the carnage. She'd stopped the zed permanently, but her right foot was now covered in all sorts of disgusting things that she didn't want to think about. Her shoe squelched with every step she took, and she realized that she could feel the cold liquid it was soaked in find it's way past her sock and onto her bare foot.
Without hesitation, she stripped the shoe and sock off and tossed them away with a wet splat. Her right foot was now bare, leaving her with one shoe, her underwear, and a faded t-shirt to cover herself. She was not pleased.
“Well I must say,” the Voice said, “I'm impressed. The others usually ran into one of them long before you did, but you handled it quite well. Consider yourself lucky. Though I wouldn't say for long.”
The speakers crackled silent again, and Acacia could only wonder at what he meant. She considered continuing down her chosen path, the one she'd led the walker out of, and thought the better of it. One walker surely meant more.
As if reading her thoughts, she heard a faint scraping. At the opposite end of the room, she turned to see a deader with an old military uniform crawling towards her, his left leg exposed to the bone. His face was gone, a single eye staring widely at her, the jaw clicking as he groaned out into the air. He had no nose, no skin on most of his face, no ears. He was hardly more than a skull.
Acacia walked towards it, and thought better. She wasn't particularly keen on wasting her other shoe, the walker didn't look like it had anything useful on it's body, and the thing was slow, very slow.
Behind her, something took in a rattling breath, and she turned on reflex, swinging her still shoed leg in a roundhouse kick worthy of a Chuck Norris movie. The 2nd walker fell down, moments from sinking it's teeth into her shoulder, and began to get up immediately. Acacia backed away.
Behind her, again. Another kick, this one strong enough that it actually knocked the thing a few feet away, to land next to the army vet, who had gotten much closer, much faster than she'd thought.
Walkers were coming in from all sides, emerging from all the tunnels. She couldn't remember the direction she came in from, she'd been completely disoriented by the kick.
“Best make a decision, miss.” The Voice told her, as at least 15 walkers closed in on the cornered survivor. Acacia did the only thing she could do. She turned, and ran into the tube behind her.