Subject 624

by Scott Ferrell

  “You’re going to kill us,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “I know this neighborhood,” she said. “I can lose them and get us heading toward the hospital.”

  After several turns, I twisted in my seat to look out the dark-tinted back window. It turned out that her evasive maneuvering was successful. There was no sign of pursuing headlights. Before long, we were on main streets and gunning towards the hospital.

  Chapter 26

  11:41 p.m.

  “Yes!” I nearly pumped a fist in the air but remembered I’d probably punch the Hummer’s roof in spite of its roominess. “Figured this stupid thing out,” I said over a woman’s voice.

  “In a quarter mile, take the third right onto South 4800 West,” the GPS said with her slightly robotized voice.

  “Great,” Carina said, “but that’s the wrong hospital.”

  I frowned and looked at the little GPS screen. It was the wrong hospital. “How do you know it’s not this one? All you saw in the picture was a hallway that looked like a hospital.” I had meant to put in Salt Lake Medical Center, but apparently chose a different one and I wasn’t willing to own up to the mistake after taking more time than necessary to figure out the GPS.

  “Mr. Walker’s files mention Salt Lake Medical Center specifically,” she reminded me.

  “Fine.” I pushed the GPS’s off button. “You know the way, right?”

  “I think I can manage.”

  “If you get lost, you can navigate using this and the stars,” I joked, tapping the compass embedded in the dash above the GPS screen. “Old school.”

  She glanced at it. “If I use that, I’d probably end up driving into the Salt Lake.”

  “We’d probably end up in Texas if I tried,” I laughed.

  “I thought males had an inherent sense of direction,” she said with sarcasm.

  “Passed me by, I guess. I get lost in the school halls.”

  She made a turn, using her whole body to turn the wheel like she needed all her weight to do it without losing control. “Sometimes you—shoot!” She jerked the wheel out of the turn and drove down the left-hand lane before swinging over to the right lane and pulling the car to a stop on the side of the road.

  “What?”

  She took a moment to find the light switch and killed the headlights. “Roadblock.”

  “Really?” I turned to look, but she had pulled too far up to get a good view. “Was it the police or National Guard?”

  “I don’t know. Last we heard the National Guard was only enforcing the quarantine on the roads leading out of town. Police maybe?”

  I frowned. That didn’t make sense. “Why would they have a roadblock set up heading into town? The news reports were saying they were outmanned. I don’t think they could spare the men. How many were there?”

  “I don’t know. Two?”

  “If I can get the drop on them, I think I could take two of them.”

  “And get yourself shot in the process?”

  “Not if I take them by surprise. I could take them out before they knew what hit them.”

  “Okay, Spider-man, we need to think about this,” she said.

  “That name’s taken,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Let’s check things out first, okay?” I unbuckled and crawled into the backseat.

  As big as it was, the Hummer had only two rows of seats. The very back was reserved for equipment. I leaned over the seats to find two cases in the back section. The lid opened. They had apparently left it unlocked, thinking they’d be back soon. I dug the flashlight out of my pocket and flipped it on. With a small triumphant whoop, I snatched up a pair of binoculars.

  “What did you find?” Carina asked from the driver’s seat.

  “Binoculars,” I said, unzipping the black case and pulled them out. “I think they’re night vision, too!”

  She crawled over the seats to kneel beside me. “Anything else?”

  “Not much.” I guessed most of the equipment had been put to use at her house.

  I pulled out a small, but powerful, flashlight and handed it to her. She shoved it in her back pocket. I shut the lid and tried the other. It was unlocked, too. I shined my light in to find only two things inside. One was a box of bullets—the other was a black plastic case. I had a pretty good guess what was inside.

  We glanced at each other. I grabbed the case and spun to sit in the seat with the case in my lap.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Carina asked as she sat next to me.

  “Probably.” I handed her the flashlight and flipped the double latches. I lifted the lid and she shined the light on the small handgun. “Yup.”

  “Do we need that?” she asked with hesitating words.

  “I don’t know,” I said. My first instinct was to say no and put it back. The last thing I needed was something that could kill. I was already an accomplished killer with nothing but a t-ball bat. I squeezed my eyes shut at that thought, fighting off the pain and guilt.

  “What do we know about guns?” she asked. “We don’t even know what kind it is.”

  “A .45,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “There’s a box of bullets.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “I just assume they’re for this.”

  The case held the gun in a holster, a loaded clip strapped down, and a dozen or so extra bullets in neat little slots. I stared at it for a moment. I didn’t want to touch the thing. There was no way I could bring myself to take another life. I didn’t even want to use the thing as a threat. Not with the way I had been losing control lately.

  Carina, however…

  I reached inside and pulled the Velcro that held the gun in place.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  I ignored the question and pulled out the gun. After a moment of hefting it, I held it out to her, holster and all.

  She leaned away from it. “I don’t want that! I don’t even know how to use it. Never shot a gun in my life.”

  “Just point it at whatever is threatening you and pull the trigger.”

  “Conor, I can’t.” There was a note of pleading in her voice. “Why don’t you take it?”

  “I don’t need it. I am a weapon. Your skin protects you, but it doesn’t stop whatever is attacking you. This will.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Just hold it then,” I insisted.

  She hesitantly took it from me.

  “Take it out of the holster.” I pulled on the straps that held the clip.

  “But—”

  “I’m just going to load it and we’ll figure out what to do with it once we go scout out that roadblock.”

  She hesitated but finally flipped the holster snap. She pulled the gun out and held it with the tips of her fingers like she was afraid it’d go off at any moment.

  To tell the truth, I had never fired a gun either, but I had seen enough to figure it out. I took it from her and turned it over, checking the little switch by the trigger. I thought the safety was on but flipped it just to make sure. A little red showed, indicating it was live. I flipped it back to the safe position and turned the clip over. With the top bullet facing forward, I lined it up under the grip and pushed it in with a click. I tried to pull the chamber back like I had seen in the movies, but it didn’t budge. I frowned and looked at it until I found a switch. On a hunch, I flipped it down with my thumb and pulled the chamber. It slid back and clicked back into place.

  The gun was loaded.

  “We aren’t taking that with us, are we?” Carina asked.

  I shrugged, checked the safety was on again, and shoved it back into the holster. I leaned up and wedged it between the driver seat and the center console next to the laptop. With it out of sight, Carina visibly relaxed. “C’mon, let’s go check out this roadblock.”

  She nodded, grabbed the binoculars, and we climbed out of the Hummer.

  11:55 p.m.

  We took up position b
ehind a low fence on the corner where Carina had abandoned her turn. She pulled the night vision binoculars out of their soft case and held them to her eyes.

  “Whoa, these are cool,” she breathed.

  “Let me see.”

  “Just a sec.” She brushed my hand away. “I’m trying to figure them out. They’re out of focus.”

  “Let me try.”

  She pulled them away and looked at me. “Don’t think I can figure it out?”

  “I just think—”

  “Have you ever had night vision binoculars?”

  “No, I just think you should—”

  “Turn the dial,” she finished, brushing my hand away again. “I know.”

  “Fine.” I peeked over the fence to try to see on my own.

  “There,” she said after a moment. “I only see two. One on each side of the road. They look bored – about to fall asleep. I think they’re Sterling.”

  “Really?”

  She finally handed them to me. I looked through them and everything jumped to life with a weird green glow.

  Three barricades spanned the road. One guy was standing on our side of those barricades, in the left lane, leaning against one of them. The other leaned against a mailbox on the right sidewalk. I scanned the area but saw only those two men and the automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.

  “I think you’re right. Those guys are everywhere tonight.” I handed the binoculars back.

  She looked one more time before returning them to their case. “So, what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think there’s another street we can take?”

  “Probably but this one goes almost directly into town and only a block from the hospital. I don’t see why the other ones won’t be blocked, anyways. They obviously don’t want people going into town.”

  “Why Sterling, though?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I glanced over the fence, then back at the dark Hummer. “Well, I really don’t want to take the time looking for another way into town. C’mon, I have a plan.”

  She glanced at me and must have seen something in the look on my face. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”

  “Probably not.”

  Chapter 27

  Day 6

  12:10 a.m.

  Carina rolled the Hummer slowly down the street while I clung to the back, standing on the bumper and gripping the rack on top. I wished she’d speed up a little. It wouldn’t have been nearly as suspicious as a vehicle cruising at a speed barely above idle. She had been worried about driving with me hanging on the back. I tried to assure her I’d be fine, but it appeared she hadn’t believed me.

  Nothing I could do about it now.

  We betted the two guards wouldn’t be able to see me through the heavily-tinted windows. So far, it seemed to be working. The vehicle crept down the street until she stopped at the barricade. I stepped off the bumper when I heard a tap on the driver side window.

  “Who’s in there?” the man called out. “Identity.” He apparently recognized the vehicle as one of their own, but the behavior of the driver was weird.

  I bent over to look under the Hummer. The dude on the right side of the road was walking toward the back of the vehicle. I slipped to that corner and waited. When he appeared around the edge, his rifle pointed down but ready, I rushed at him. I slapped my palm against the side of his head and slammed it into the SUV. He dropped.

  “What was that?” the other man called out.

  I heard the whir of the driver side window going down.

  “Hi,” Carina said brightly.

  “Who are you?”

  I rushed around that side of the Hummer and plowed my shoulder into him. He thumped to the ground and I landed on him. His breath left his lungs with an uhn. I hit him with a right and he went limp.

  I pulled his tags out from under his armored vest and clicked my flashlight on just long enough to see it. “Sterling,” I called back to Carina.

  “We already guessed that. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Hang on.”

  I patted around on his body. My search produced a handgun that looked like the one we found in the Hummer. He also had a long, nasty looking knife strapped to his right thigh. He had no wallet or other ID besides the tags that I could find. The last thing I came across was a small walkie-talkie clipped to the collar of his vest. I took it and clipped it to my belt.

  I glanced at the rifle with its strap still around his shoulder. I pulled the knife out of the sheath and threw it as far as I could. I did the same with the pistol and rifle before dragging the man out of the road. I walked to the back of the vehicle and disposed of the other guy’s weapons similarly. I deposited him next to his partner.

  “Didn’t I tell you to keep the window up?” I asked as I climbed into the passenger seat.

  “I was distracting him before he went back there. What were you doing, anyways? The whole SUV shook like a rhino had charged it.”

  “Close enough,” I said with a shrug. “Let’s go before somebody realizes they aren’t checking in or something.”

  “You didn’t move the barricades.”

  “Carina, you’re in probably the biggest street legal vehicle out there. Those are made of wood and aluminum.”

  “So, just run them over?”

  “Run them over.”

  “Okay. You could have just moved them, though.”

  She shifted into drive and pushed the Hummer against the barricades. The middle one fell over to the side, but the right clung to the front. She lifted up in the seat to get a better look.

  “Just go,” I said.

  She nodded and pushed down the pedal. The Hummer took off down the street. The barricade clung bravely to grill for a few seconds—its feet dragging on the asphalt—before it lost the battle and disappeared under the front of the vehicle. The wheels barely registered a bump as it passed underneath.

  12:18 a.m.

  “I can’t figure this out,” I said.

  Carina glanced at me, the Hummer drifting the same direction and bumping up onto the curb. She corrected and acted like nothing happened. “What is that?”

  “I got it off one of those guys back there. I think it’s a walkie-talkie or something.”

  “Considering how well you handled the GPS, I’m shocked you can’t figure out a walkie-talkie,” she said with a laugh.

  “It’s more than just a walkie-talkie. I think it’s a satellite radio or something. But it only has this one button on the side.”

  “That’s usually the talk button,” she pointed out.

  “It doesn’t do anything when I press it, though.”

  “How do you know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it could be doing anything. You don’t even know if it is a radio or whatever,” she said. “Just get rid of it.”

  “It could come in handy later or something,” I protested.

  “Or it could be a tracker. Maybe they’re paranoid and decided to keep track of all their men out in the field through those things.”

  “But it was out in the open, attached to his vest with a clip. I don’t think they’d use a tracker so easily lost.”

  “Still,” she argued, “I don’t think we should keep it. I don’t see how it can help.”

  “We’ll see.” I dropped the little black box into a compartment in the center console between us. “So, what’s the plan when we get to the hospital?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Poke around until we find something. That’s worked out so far for us.”

  “We’ve gotten lucky,” I said. “If we hadn’t been chased to Mr. Walker’s office before…” I let my voice trail off before clearing my throat. “We wouldn’t have got those files. If Nathen hadn’t printed those documents before the power went out, who knows if we would have had the chance to look at them. If we hadn’t had time to get on your dad’s computer before the Goon Squad showed up, we wouldn�
��t know to try the hospital. That’s a lot of ifs.”

  “Better do something while our luck is holding out.”