chapter 42

The food was carried in Richard's backpack, as Alan was the one who carried the animal fat in his backpack, that was indispensable if they wanted to see in the dark, a fact that Richard did not refute as he held Alan's gun.

It was decided that Richard would carry the submachine gun, as it was very easy to reload, which would not make it difficult for him to defend himself as he was carrying a large amount of weight in preservable food.

"Right...let's eat the food for now," Alan said as he pulled out two bags of cookies that were on the warehouse shelves, while his sense alarmed but, the urgency of food mitigated such an instinct.

"Yes but now we need water "Richard.

"We can't do anything about the water, since if I drink the contaminated water and I become a monster, you look at you with the chances of surviving without Paul in this place?, "Alan said as he ate the cookies at great speed, they had a lot of carbohydrates and it was a food that for the moment would make his energies last for a while.

But they couldn't live all their lives on junk products, they needed organic products if they didn't want to get sick.

Silence filled the room as the two men could not find a topic to talk about, they were not like women who could talk about any topic, the sociable nature was not ingrained in the genes of men and that caused a great awkward silence.

Only the sounds of Alan and Richard's chewing could be heard in the room, after a while Richard and Alan's chewing started to increase, they wanted to finish eating so they could go back and look for Paul since the silence was already bothering both of them.

*sound*

"Do you hear that!" asked Alan in alarm, as he looked all around, it seemed that the madness had already affected his brain, but the thing was that Richard had also heard the sound Alan was referring to.

Moaning sounds began to sound throughout the room, as the once dead creatures began to wake up and stand one after the other, the skin of the creatures began to turn red, while steam did not stop coming out of their mouths every time they would have them.

Both men were surrounded, the door they entered through closed after a while, apparently, it was an automatic locking mechanism.

*Groaning

The whimpers of the creatures became more prominent, as they began to approach Richard and Alan, who could only die with dignity by shooting everywhere.

They both tried to look for a way out, but the only thing Alan saw was a garbage chute that was near the center of the warehouse and he didn't know if it was safe, but it was the only thing that made a way out of that situation possible for them.

"Alan follows me, I found another way to escape" called Alan's attention a voice when he turned and saw that it was Richard, who pointed him to the ventilation ducts.

Alan took it immediately when he discovered that it was safer than jumping into a garbage chute.

It took someone to climb up to the other one, Richard was the lightest, so Alan jumped up, luckily for both the red creatures were somewhat dazed, once they finished transforming and were able to escape through the ventilation ducts that took them out of the warehouse.

The bad luck was that everything was left outside, the food and the big weapons, since they could not enter the ventilation duct that barely let Alan and Richard's bodies in because of how narrow it was.

The only weapons they could take were the guns, the combat knives, and a bottle of animal fat and the lighter, along with some cloth to make a lighter, for the candle.

The air conditioning was long and seemed to have no end, at first they expected to go to other enclosed rooms through the ducts, but apparently, each duct was connected to a particular room and the fact that there were no other intersections in the ventilation duct complemented Alan's hypothesis.

Some light came into view in the room they were going to when they began to hear the sounds of people talking.

It was another group from the ones that separated "Michael, Alexander, Lucas "Alan said as he discerned the faces of the three, who seemed very calm.

At first, he was about to go down and tell them to join him, but apparently, they had not had self-control and ended up eating another one of their companions, who were not from their group, some madness could be seen in the eyes of the three now cannibals.

The dismembered body of one of the members of the 12 that entered was in a bucket.

Apparently, they wanted to preserve the flesh, as one person was covering pieces of human flesh with lard, while the others smoked it, something very sick that never even crossed Alan and Richard's minds to do.

The sight of the body made the two men in the ventilation ducts nauseous, but luckily they had already seen such things in the corridors of the hell called Spencer Manor, their tolerance to such things was already at a tolerable level.

But just as a soldier is already used to killing when the circumstances warrant it, but still hates killing, Alan and Richard are already used to seeing dead and dismembered bodies, but even so, it is not the first thing they want to see and if they could they would never want to see such a scene.

"Get down quick and let's go" Alan whispered when he saw that the three of them had left the room.

It was better to take a gamble than to stay in the air vents.

The two men jumped down from the ducts, when they approached the door and opened it very slowly, on the other side there was only darkness, but even so, no one could feel the presence of any person.

At a slow pace the two men headed as far away from the room as possible, now they knew what a person was capable of to survive and it was not pretty.

They both arrived at a room far away from where the group was, so they decided to rest, they were mentally tired after seeing such an act by the members of their group.

After a short rest, they had finally created a candle with a bowl that they took from the room of those cannibals.

Apparently, stress and hunger had played a trick on the group of cannibals and term as a term, in a group of cannibals that were not unlike the creatures that were marrying them each.

The room was illuminated again, with the warm light of the fire of the candle factory, with the animal fat.

Both men could now think more calmly being safe and they were in a very bad way, they had no blunt weapon to finish off the creatures, they could pass the weapon by throwing it down the vent without having to carry it on their backs, but it was too late to regret that.

They were in a very tense moment, they could have died at any moment, their nerves played a very bad trick on them and they could not think rationally, so they just decided to escape without further ado.

Because of that they only had a gun and some bullets that although they would be useful for normal creatures, now they knew that the creatures could revive unless they ended up with that regenerative factor, which helps them to evolve.

"Regenerative factor?....Cells..."

"Got it!" said Alan happily, alarming Richard.

"What are you talking about Alan? "asked Richard.