“I mean, maybe we can figure out where we are if we head back the other way,” Holly suggests.

“Let’s think for a second, Holly. The way to get to the diner is through the kitchen, where the angry Nazi chef is. And, on top of that, we have whatever’s crying and screaming. Unless you can think of a way to get past them, it’s not reasonable. It won’t happen.”

“It was a thought,” Holly says, dejected.

“It was not a good thought.”

“Why are you being like this?”

“Gee, I don’t know. It can’t be the fact that we were violently attacked by floating knives and have no way of protecting ourselves from anything like that! I’m stressed, Holly!”

“So am I! Please stop yelling!”

I pace the room in darkness. The last thing I want is to be caught in the middle of their drama. Trying to make myself useful, I search the room for anything that feels familiar and recognize the shape of a table and chair, both with something on top of them. Maybe boxes. Pretty heavy, too. I hunt for the top of one with my hand and reach in. It has the same texture as sand.

Great. More sand in the desert.

“I think I’m starting to like Tes more right now,” Cody says, continuing their spat. “At least she’s not complaining about how I’m behaving.”

I laugh. It’s coarse and dry and feels natural given our situation, but it’s relieving to know I can still do it.

“Are you kidding me?” Holly asks rhetorically. “Tes doesn’t like either of us. She’s with us for the same reason you’ve let her tag along: we need to stick together to survive and escape.”

I keep searching for anything interesting, ignoring her completely accurate interpretation of my character, and bump into a counter of sorts. Scattered on top of it are small cylindrical metal objects, and next to them is a larger metal object. It’s a darn shame I can’t see any of what I’m getting into.

“Whatever,” Cody says. “I’m going to help Tes.”

The sound of shuffling comes from their direction.

Eventually, I come across something that feels like it could be a lamp. Unfortunately, I have no way of getting Cody’s attention so he can light it without walking over to him and touching him in the total darkness of the room. I do my best to be loud and obvious with my footsteps, approach the area where sounds are coming from, and grab his arm.

“Jesus Christ, Tes,” he says, jumping. “What are you grabbing me for? That is you, right?”

I feel for his hand and place the possible oil lamp in it.

“Oh, hell yeah.”

He reaches for his lighter and flicks it on. Its small light illuminates the room just enough to confirm what he’s holding.

“Wait,” Holly says, “why haven’t you been using the lighter to look for the lamp?”

“I, uh, didn’t think about it.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

He lights the lamp, and the entire room comes into view. It’s an armory.

An armory with a lot of exposed gunpowder on the floor.

“Holy shit!” Cody exclaims. He dramatically lifts the lamp and turns his lighter off. “I could’ve blown us sky-high right then.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for not doing that,” Holly says.

Now that we finally have light again, I decide to get a better glimpse of the things I’ve rummaged through. The box I thought was sand was, in fact, gunpowder, a substance that has dyed my hand a dusty gray. The small cylinders I felt on the counter were an array of bullets, belonging to the larger item I felt, which is some sort of machine gun.

“Is that what I think it is?” Holly asks, noticing at the same time.

“It would appear so,” Cody responds, picking it up and weighing it. “You think we can ward off ghosts this way?”

“Can ghosts be affected by stuff like that?”

“Eh, probably not. Besides, I’ve never used a gun before.”

He sets it back down and sighs. “Cool, so our current order of business is water. I doubt the armory has any, but there’s gotta be a batch sitting around somewhere.”

As he turns to face the two of us, the gun behind him slowly rises off the counter. All we can do is stand in shock.

“Don’t tell me there’s a ghost behind me.” His shoulders slouch. He turns and watches the gun rotate towards us in the air.

“No!” he yells, grabbing the muzzle and aiming it towards the ceiling. Whatever’s controlling it pulls the trigger, sending a barrage of bullets through the weak wood and revealing small cracks of moonlight.

“Why are these Nazi ghosts so darn hostile?!”

I grab Holly’s arm and drag her out the door, leaving Cody to wrestle the specter with the fully automatic weapon.

“Wait!” Holly yells, fighting my pull. “We can’t leave him alone in there!”

The sound of something falling echoes from inside the room, and a moment later, Cody appears.

“Gotta jet,” he says. “Dodging bullets is a lot harder than dodging knives.”

I check both ends of the hallway. Neither are very enticing.

Screw it. I run the opposite way of the kitchen, leading us further into the uncharted territory of the airship. We reach a spot where the floorboards are completely torn apart, forcing us to backtrack into one of the nearest rooms. This time, Cody slams the door shut.

“No more games,” he says. “I’m tired of this. We need water, we need sleep, and we need to escape.”

“I hope Stacy is doing okay,” Holly says.

“Babe, I love you, but who cares? We are—”

“Who cares?! She’s unconscious and defenseless in the diner, and we can’t get to her! A moment ago, you were all ‘oh, we should save her,’ but now you want to leave her to die?!”

“Stacy is as good as dead, Holly! Did you see her wound? She was already bleeding, and if that doesn’t get to her, the dehydration will! There’s almost no point in saving her! We are the only three that matter.”

I’m suddenly hit by the smell of tobacco, as if someone were smoking a cigar. What exactly is this room supposed to be? It has large metal shelves stocked with a plethora of deteriorated packages, but there aren’t any more clues. Maybe a storage room?

“How can you say that?” Holly asks. “Don’t you care whether or not she lives?”

“Right now, all I want to do is get the three of us who still have a chance of survival out of this hellhole.”

“She’s our classmate! We’ve gone to the same schools together for six years!”

“I don’t want to listen to this,” Cody says, setting the lamp down on a shelf and stepping into a second doorway. Its metal door is left ajar and has one of those circular wheel handle locks on it. There’s also a porthole-like window above the handle at head height. “I’m gonna hunt for water. If you decide to stop being emotional, you can come join me. Otherwise, screw off.”

He crosses his arms in the doorway.

The door slams shut in front of him, and the handle spins on its own.

“What?” his voice calls from inside, muffled by the heavy metal door. He looks confused and terrified. “Okay, not funny. Open the door, guys.”

We both move to help when I smell tobacco again. A cloud of smoke rises from underneath the door.

“Holly?”

His body lifts into the air, and he grabs at his neck, as if he were being choked. He can’t breathe.

“Cody!” she shouts.

We both yank desperately at the handle, but it won’t budge.

“Cody!” she shouts again, a little more hysterically. “Cody!”

His movements are slowing, and his face is turning purple.

In response to her yelling, we hear someone else down the hall. It’s the chef again. Or whoever had the gun. I’m not sure. Either way, we’ll be sandwiched in between two ghosts if we don’t hurry.

Inside the locked room, Cody’s arms fall lifelessly to his sides, and his body crumples to the floor.