Chapter 58 Theater: Hide in the Ventilation Duct First

Chapter 58 The Theater: First, Hide in the Ventilation Duct

At the entrance of the performance building, about ten meters from the gate, Everly had just seen the masked figure gun down the security guard when she immediately sensed something was wrong. She carefully pulled Misha and Old John back into the crowd, shoving through the audience toward the east side of the lobby.

"Quick, let's find another way out!"

As they moved, she kept an eye on what was happening outside through gaps in the crowd.

It was obvious the masked figures at the theater entrance and the hooded ones inside the lobby were working together. This time, the threat wasn't a single person—it was an organized group of killers.

Eight people were guarding the theater entrance. Judging by the bulges at their waistbands, it wasn't just the rabbit-masked guy—all eight were packing. There was no way Everly and Old John could fight their way out, especially with Misha in tow.

The front gate was a dead end, so they needed another way out.

Everly quickly pictured the building's emergency evacuation map.

The building had three main sections: front, middle, and back. The front section was the waiting lobby where they stood, packed with people waiting to get in. This area had two exits: the main entrance facing the theater's front gate, and a side door on the east side. Past the side door, across an internal road, was the parking lot. Everly and Old John had entered through the side door that morning.

Everly's plan was to slip out the east side door and get to Old John's Shepherd Jeep. The townsfolk of Lemort had pooled their money to buy it for him six years ago. Old John loved that car. Over the past six years, he'd tricked it out whenever he had free time—new tires, new chassis, new engine, and bulletproof glass all around.

Once they were in the car, they could just plow through the theater's back door, bullets be damned. That was a staff-only passage, closed to the public. Even if masked guys were guarding it, the defense would probably be light, and the Shepherd's tough frame could handle it.

But plans never survive contact with reality.

The lobby was packed. By the time Everly and the others fought through the crowd to the east door, a bloodcurdling scream erupted from the theater's front gate—the couple who'd seen the middle-aged man die, losing it completely.

That scream was like a signal, cracking open Pandora's box.

The crowd in the lobby, clueless about what was happening outside, turned to look back. But the lobby was so packed that only the people nearest the door could see the body outside, and they started screaming one after another. As for the people further in, all they saw were rows of heads, and plenty of them still looked confused and curious.

Just then, the hooded figures scattered through the crowd all threw back their hoods at once, revealing animal masks underneath.

"Quiet! Everyone get down!"

A guy in a pig mask, standing in the middle of the crowd, shouted and pulled out a pistol with no silencer, firing a shot into the air.

As if on cue, the other hooded figures drew their pistols in unison and fired into the air.

"Bang bang bang bang bang!" The deafening gunfire echoed through the lobby for what felt like forever. Bullets hit the ceiling, sending sand and debris raining down.

When the shooting stopped, the whole lobby went quiet, like someone had hit pause. People stared wide-eyed at the masked figures, while others gaped, dazed, stupidly looking up at the ceiling.

One second, two seconds... when the shock finally wore off and the frozen clock started ticking again, questions, screams, cries, and the sounds of people running all erupted at once. Husbands grabbed wives, mothers clutched kids, and everywhere was a surging tide of panicked, shoving people. The whole lobby turned into a madhouse in seconds.

"Someone's dead outside!"

"Those are real guns!"

"No! Help! Run!"

People crashed into each other like headless chickens. Everly and the others were right by the side door, lucky enough not to get swept into the stampede. But in those ten-odd seconds, more masked figures with guns came in from both the main entrance and the side door at the same time.

Three were coming in from outside the side door. Only three, but with at least six or seven more accomplices in the lobby behind them, if Everly and Old John got into a fight, they'd be caught in a pincer.

"Go inside!" Everly exchanged a glance with Old John and grabbed Misha. While the lobby was in chaos and no one was looking, the three crouched low, used whatever cover they could, and ducked into the east corridor leading backstage.

A retractable barrier separated the corridor from the lobby, and the dim lighting made it obvious this wasn't an exit. So when the crowd in the lobby scattered in panic, hardly anyone crossed the barrier into the corridor.

People's first instinct was to head for the nearest exits—the main entrance and the side door.

Too bad they forgot the masked figures were still watching, waiting.

They'd clearly planned this for a long time—no way they were letting anyone escape. The fleeing crowd barely made it out the door before they ran straight into more masked figures who'd circled around from outside. These guys were holding black submachine guns and opened fire on the fleeing crowd without a second thought.

"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat," bullets tore through people at the entrance, bodies dropping, blood spraying everywhere. Blood pooled beneath them, merging into streams that flowed down the steps, staining the road in front of the building red.

Meanwhile, the same bloody slaughter was happening inside the lobby. The masked figures in the lobby strolled through the running, screaming crowd with pistols in hand, like hawks circling a flock of chickens. They'd reach out at random, grab some pleading person by the hair, drag them close, press the gun down—"Bang!"—and brains would splatter. The masked figure would toss the body aside like garbage, already grabbing their next target.

"Bang!"

"Bang bang!"

One, then another, then another... the death toll climbed. Blood splattered across the floor and walls of the entire hall. Shaken by the horrifying scene, the running, screaming people finally remembered what the pig mask had said.

He had said "Quiet! Everyone get down!" If they did that, would they survive?

When the first person in the crowd crouched down with his hands on his head, a chain reaction began. More and more people, inspired by the idea, crouched in place under the weight of extreme terror, hoping to earn the masked figures' mercy.

As the dense gunfire and screams outside subsided and the waiting hall fell into silence, Everly was standing on Misha's shoulders, stretching her arm to unscrew the vent cover of the overhead ventilation duct with a screwdriver.

Earlier, after running into the east corridor, the three had planned to follow it to the end and hide in the backstage area, which had fewer people and more complex terrain. Unfortunately, the door leading to the backstage was locked—presumably to prevent audience members from wandering in accidentally. So, at Everly's suggestion, the three had taken refuge in the nearby men's restroom.

Once inside, Old John immediately locked the door and propped a mop diagonally against it as a simple barricade.

One side of the men's restroom had a frosted glass window that could be tilted upward and pushed open. Climbing out through the window and crossing the internal road, it was about ten meters to the parking lot.

While Old John secured the door, Everly rushed to the window, carefully opened it a crack, then extended her compact mirror through the gap, adjusting its angle to observe outside.

"There are people out there!" Misha saw the scene in the mirror before Everly did and whispered a warning.

Everly moved to her position and took a look. Indeed, in the parking lot outside the theater, three masked figures with guns stood at the left, center, and right positions. Their formation created a triangular defensive posture, maximizing their awareness of the surroundings. Though few in number, the entire path from the restroom to the parking lot was open ground. If they rushed out recklessly, they would be sitting ducks.

Old John finished securing the door, walked over to assess the three masked figures' positions, and shook his head at Everly.

He always carried a weapon when going out. However, today was a trip to the relatively safe city to watch a musical, not a journey to dangerous wilderness areas. For convenience, Old John had only brought a Glock 19 pistol for self-defense. The magazine held 15 rounds with an effective range of 25-50 meters—enough to kill one opponent—but he had no silencer. Once he fired, the remaining two would immediately pinpoint their location, making it two against one. Plus, with a large group of masked figures in the waiting hall watching eagerly, shooting was not a good idea unless absolutely necessary.

As if to confirm Old John's thoughts, a burst of rapid "rat-a-tat" sounds suddenly came from the waiting hall nearby.

"That's a submachine gun—sounds like a UMP45." Old John listened for a moment before telling Everly with a grave expression.

Everly had studied firearms with Old John. She knew this was a submachine gun known for its high rate of fire, low recoil, and excellent accuracy, with good armor-piercing capability, commonly used by American special forces. A group of enemies with pistols was already terrifying enough—she hadn't expected them to have weapons like this.

That ruled out forcing their way through the window.

The gunfire and screams outside continued, growing louder. Before long, screams also erupted from the auditorium across the corridor. With so many masked figures armed with heavy weaponry, going out now was definitely not a good idea. Old John had already called the police—perhaps they would arrive soon. Until then, they needed to find a safe place...

Everly took a deep breath, scanned the room, and her gaze quickly settled on the ventilation duct at the top of the restroom.

In her previous life, she had read science articles explaining that real-world ventilation ducts were often only 32cm × 20cm—far too small for a human body to pass through and unable to support human weight. But in this world, the ventilation ducts were much larger, large enough even for an adult like Old John to crawl into. Everly strongly suspected this was a world-level adjustment made to ensure certain movie plots could actually happen.

Since they couldn't escape for now, it was time to hide in the ventilation duct!