“We must rest,” one of the warriors declared.
“We cannot,” responded Philbert. “We cannot stop here, still out in the open. There may be dangers that would come along while we rested it we remain here.”
“Nothing has come along all the time that we’ve been walking, why should anything come along now while we rest here? We have encountered no doors, no side tunnels, nothing,” retorted Dave. Unfortunately for Philbert, his desire to continue walking was trumped by the refusal of the great majority of the company to continue on. They decided to risk a term of rest out in the road, although they kept against a wall while they took their rest.
It was not until much later that any sort of trouble showed signs that it would be arriving very soon.
Chapter Seven
Cameron first heard the noises approaching from the direction that they had traveled from down the road. It was a soft scratching, occurring often at erratic intervals. He woke up Carl.
“Carl, I think I heard something,” he whispered to his friend. “Listen.”
In the distance the shuffling sound could be heard growing louder.
“We should wake everyone. We’ve got to get moving!” Carl whispered fervently. Soon the all of the party were awake, and could hear shuffling and tapping growing louder as the moments went on. In the distance, many dark forms could be seen heading slowly toward them.
“Bugs!” Philbert declared, recognizing them from the creature inside the air duct the other night. “Hurry, we must seek shelter.” Everyone quickly gathered their supplies and started a brisk pace away from the approaching menace.
“They must have followed us,” grumbled Mark. “Why won’t they just leave us alone?”
Luckily, the party came to a series of tunnels connected to the main road that they hurried down. Mark turned to look behind before he ducked down the dark tunnel to follow the others. The bugs were almost on top of them. He quickly spun around and ran after Max, shouting “Run! The bugs have almost overtaken us!”
Hearing his warning, everyone increased their pace as fast as they could. The clicking and shuffling of the creatures could be plainly heard over their footfalls and heavy breathing. The side tunnel system became increasingly dark and many forks were being passed at regular intervals as the party fled. Had the tunnels be brighter, or had not forked as much, or more importantly had the group kept the same pace, the party would not have become split. Mark and Max took a wrong turn and became completely lost in the tunnel system. Philbert, Doug, and most of the warriors all went down the same tunnel, with the exception of Carl and Cameron, who accidentally took another different tunnel.