Jaxon looked at Carlo with eyes wide open as he didn't think he would shoot Johnson, "You said you will only harm me, not my friend."
"Oh, I don't remember making such a promise to you but again for the last time I'm telling you. Don't get on my nerves, do what you were told." Carlo said visible irritation in his voice, everyone is on edge as so many hours have passed but they haven't been able to find a secure place to stay instead they fall into far more deep shit than before. Carlo enjoyed being in power at this moment but their surrounding isn't giving him time to do so as he wishes cause any wrong move would result in death. So, when he misses the shot just now he realises one important thing that they don't have unlimited ammo every single bullet counts and killing another human with firearms is waste of a single bullet that could decide their future unless it's really required.
"Now, open the god damn door and check it up." Carlo said as walks forward and placed the gun at Johnson's head. Carlo knew about them and how they worked, it was easy to control Jaxon through Johnson's life then the other way around.
Jaxon looks at Johnson's face; Johnson shook his head still saying no too what he was about to do. Jaxon also has this feeling inside that, if he opens up the door again he might not survive. Even a few moments ago they just opened the door for a few seconds after they quickly closed the door. The air is getting heavier inside the corridor along with the stench of blood and flesh. Everyone felt something was wrong with the office room behind the door like their sixth sense ringing this time. Carlo also felt this fear but he didn't want to lose his face, sweat covered his forehead in just a few moments as it was a difficult decision for him to make. Everyone's eyes were on the doorknob Jaxon was holding, including Carlo but none of them listened to him afterward as they realized they could retaliate to his command.
"Forget it, keep moving forward, ignore all the other things and bring us to the place you were hiding in the first place." Carlo said in plain voice and give signal to move forward, Jaxon and everyone else took sigh of relief as Carlo change his mind and stopped being asshole for the seconds and with rational thinking he decide to do what better for the group or more importantly him as he looks at the all dead people corpse lying here and there in corridor. Within a minute they arrived at the staircase Jaxon and Johnson standing on the staircase leading downward in the basement, looking at the people still standing near the stairs not taking any steps forward.
"What, you all are worried about the dead? Is that it? It is completely safe except for the few dead bodies here and there you will find in this building. That's the same as that you will find it everywhere else in this port as aliens are actively hunting us all down." Jaxon said with a funny smile on his face, he was trying to lift their mood by making small jokes but in their current situation it made it worse as they started to suspect his word choice.
"Something is not right." Noah and Yui said at the same time softly under their breath, both of them looking at each other as if trying to understand what they felt was the same as the other one. James and others also manage to hear them both as they were standing beside them.
"What you guys trying to say?" James asked them to sweat forming on his forehead due to stress and physical exhaustion reaching it limit and both Noah and Yui instincts are right before that saved their life.
"Nothing really, it's just that I feel danger coming from downstairs as the basement is completely safe for us but so far we have seen there's no such thing as a safe place in this world left anymore." Noah called out his suspicion softly in a lower voice and looked at Yui to confirm she felt the same thing, James and others turned their heads towards Yui only to see Yui nodding her head in agreement with Noah's words.
"This can't be it, if they are trying to lure us inside we won't be able to escape as every escape route is blocked by this blood vessel coming out of the corpse." James said in a depressing tone as doesn't even turn around and look at the exits or move forwards in the corridor as he will find the same thing.
"What you all are waiting for? move your damn legs or all of you will spend the rest of your life inside this damn corridor." Carlo said loudly in frustration as nothing going as he truly wish for it to happen and now these youngsters are slowing him down as they're too afraid to walk. He remembers how his first gang war was like he was just 13 years old but had seen far too many dead bodies on ground than this place has but the only key difference is they were killed by the men and here threat is unknown something that isn't human. After walking down a few steps Carlo stopped in his tracks as he remembered something, he turned around and looked at the all remaining people in the group one by one till his eyes landed on Noah.
"You… you're gonna stay behind here and wait for the Steves to arrive, he will find a way to reach us one way or another and when he gets over here both of you will come down here in the basement to look for us. And don't even try to think of running away or disobeying because at one end you will get skinned alive by the monsters and at the other end you will find my bullet in your head." Carlo said in a commanding tone, he didn't think Noah would survive much looking at his injuries and would become dead weight to the group, he would rather kick him out of the group now or let him be the bait for the shapeshifter alien these lowly thugs were talking about. Cause if there is some monster like that it would probably remain up above while devouring the dead weight like Noah.
Noah's anxiety sky rocketed at peak as he knew if he was left behind by them he was going to die within a minute or two all alone here. Together in the group he has chances of surviving for long even if at the end they all meet their doom at least for a little moment they are all still be together in their last moment not all alone in eerie darkness. But Carlo's words echoed in his ear like a death sentence, he wanted to beg him for mercy but one look from his eyes Noah could tell Carlo had made up his mind to get rid of him and he also knew why. There were many words stuck on his tongue but none of them were able to come out of his mouth for fear of death or knowing his end was near one way or another.
James slowly losing his patience since he met Calro and Steves, everything is already terrifying enough to kill them the moment they get distracted and these mother fuckers still wants to play gangster here. Literally hell has descended upon the world or they are in hell, the audacity this son of the bitch has is something he hates to his core. The only thing that is stopping him is firearms in Carlo's hands or else he would have beat crap out of him till he crawled back to the sewage he came from. "Better use your fucking brain before you speak, we been togather all this time. Living behind one of us is the same as living behind everyone of us, I won't go with you nor I would let anyone else follow you in the basement or in hell. You don't have leadership skills, you low level piece od shit human crap."
"Can't you we need to stick together as a group, if one of us get left behind they would die here chance of surviving is completely zero including for your partner Steve. He is good as dead already and now you want left behind one of us for your dead partner that is fucking dumb and stupid as shit decision." James let all pent up frustration he had been piling up since the world turned hell on Carlo as he knew if he kicked out Noah now then he would again kick out another one of them without hesitation again and one by one all of them would die down and none of them would be left alive. But Carlo is too blind to see this because of his narcissistic ego getting in his way of thinking.
"James is right, you aren't thinking clearly enough. Your decision will end up getting us all killed if you continue to act this way, we can't abandon Noah like this. He has been with us since the beginning and he saved our lives many times, we can't leave him behind like this. It was you and your partner that have been of no help at all since you guys showed up, there's no difference between you and the monster outside." Yui said as she can see why Carlo is trying to ditch Noah and after him it would be James and her and one by one everyone else that would become bait for nightmare creatures as it would be able to steal time for Carlo to escape.