A Dark Day: Part XVII

"What's your name?" I ask the motel owner. "Hank.... the name's Hank. What's your given name?" he asks. I hesitate for a moment but tell him anyway "Aiden". "Well hey, I don't mean any harm. I was just bringing you back some meds. You looked like you needed them. You're not gonna get much further the shape you're in." he says. He hands me over some pills and I grab them. Slowly my shoulders begin to drop and the adrenaline fades away. Hank starts to talk but all I hear is garbled speech and the only thing I can make out is "you need to get some rest". I can't rest anymore. There's too much to do. I get up and start to make my way out of the room. "Hey!" Hank yells "If you're gonna leave, at least let me help you out a bit". Hank walks past me and gives me a hand motion to follow him. He leads me back down to the lobby and up to the front desk. He sees the money on the counter. "Did you leave this?" he asked. "Yeah" I told him. "Thanks!" He grabs the money and shoves it in his pocket. "Now comes the good part!" he says as he reaches down and opens up a trap door behind the counter.

We make our way down a rickety staircase and into a makeshift basement. The sight I see when he flicks on the light is complete insanity. "What the hell is this about?!" I ask. He begins to tell me "I'm not proud to admit it but this motel was known in this area to accommodate drug dealers, hitmen and the mob. When certain deals went sour then we had to step in and clean up the mess. You can consider this the scum of the earth version of a lost and found". The room was packed from wall to wall with guns and all sorts of weapons. The one item I start eyeing specfically is a grenade launcher. This would be perfect for taking out a horde of those things at once. I look to my right and see a big plastic bin full of shotgun shells. Thats so perfect. I walk over and start stuffing shells into my bag like a madman. These are exactly what I need. I can still travel light and not worry so much about ammo. I pause for a moment and I hear what sounds like footsteps above me. Human footsteps. Then there's silence. The trap door slowly opens. Hank and I look up waiting for someone or something to come down. I start hearing a clinking sound coming from above then I see a light quickly zoom past my left shoulder and a shattering sound against the wall behind me. I look back and everything is on fire. Someone threw a moltov cocktail down here hoping to get rid of me. That just means I'm getting closer. Hank runs over to the trap door and it slams shut. I hurry over and try to help him open it but it wont budge at all. I look back at the other side of the room and the fire is continuing to spread. There's not much time left.