This time they were more cautious, keeping their back to the brick walls and staying hidden in the lengthening shadows as much as possible, moving as silently as the breeze. Again, Amber’s sensitive ears could just hear the sounds of destruction coming from the old music rooms.
Ghost paused. There were a number of routes he could take. When he’d been here as a student he’d learnt of quite a hidden ways that only a few of the staff were aware of. Patience, awareness and a certain amount of stealth had slowly revealed those secrets to him and he reflected, the ghouls were unlikely to have found them. On the other hand if he took those paths they’d be easily trapped. He paused for a moment, then gestured to Amber to follow him. Once more they crept through the passage between the elderly buildings, shotguns out and ready.
This time at the end he followed the wall around to the left rather than continue straight on as he’d done before. There was a tall, black, iron wrought staircase mottled with rust that ran up the side of the building. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have risked it; they’d be far too exposed to gunfire. But ghouls were a more up close and personal type of crazy. Even if they had guns, they’d just use them as clubs and more than likely throw them away to enjoy the feel of destruction in their hands. Even so, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as they climbed up.
The room at the top had changed hands quite a few times. Initially it was just a loft and part-time storage room above the Assembly Hall. Then it had been given to the Sixth Formers for a Common room. Unfortunately they managed to make it rather more comfortable than the Staff-Room and so the teachers took it over. Ghost shook his head. He particularly remembered the room as a sixth form; it was a welcoming place that quite often let some of the younger years take shelter there whether from bullies or the cold, and there always seemed to be an endless supply of delicious hot chocolate. But when the teachers took over it became cold and distant. The feeling of “what are you doing here?” and the expectation that you’d wait outside, often in the cold and wet while they finished their tea and deigned to talk to you.
It was strange he reflected, it wasn’t that the teachers had been particularly callous, it’s just somewhere along the line it became about “them and us”. He shook his head. Things rarely went well in his experience once people started thinking like that.
Amber nudged him from his reverie, anxious to be off the stairs and in a safer less vulnerable place. She listened carefully at the door and then shook her head, unable to hear anything. Uncharacteristically, Ghost put his shoulder against the door and forced it open. They swept in, shotguns moving in fluid arcs around the room.
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