The Last Storm

by Jack Hunt

  “I gotta tell you, chief, this is the strangest weather we have ever had. Ain’t nothing normal about this,” Scott said. “My old man used to talk about a time when Mother Nature would take back the planet. I’m thinking he was right.”

  “It’s just another storm. A bad one, but that’s all. Give it a day, it will be gone,” Lucas said as Solomon brought the boat around to the main doors of the school. Water had already flooded in.

  Scott shook his head. “Yeah right. You ever seen it like this?”

  “Happened back in the ’60s,” Lucas replied.

  “But that was an earthquake. There were no reports of one and I never felt anything.”

  “Guys, shut the hell up and give me a hand,” Solomon said as he cut the engine and used a hammer to smash out the thick glass in the front windows of the school. “Keep the boat steady.”

  Lucas looked concerned. “I’m telling you, chief, this is not a good idea.”

  “You have a better one?”

  “Yeah, get the hell out,” Lucas said. “We head back to Anchorage, get SWAT and come back.”

  “It’s an hour on a good day. This is a not a good day. I’m not leaving those people in there.”

  “And how do you expect to get them out? This boat doesn’t hold more than five or six people.”

  “While I go in, I want you and Scott to go find another boat.”

  Scott looked concerned. “Chief, you’re gonna need us.”

  “I know. That’s why you’re getting the boat.”

  “No. I meant inside.”

  “Then you better find a boat fast,” he said.

  “How about we get one now and then you don’t go in alone?” Lucas said. “Makes sense, right?”

  “Time is against us. Hold the boat steady,” Solomon said stepping out and through the window, dropping down into the water. The cold gripped him hard and reminded him of how brutal winters in Alaska could be.

  “You can’t be in there long,” Lucas said. “I don’t want to end up finding your body floating around. I’m not burying you.”

  “Don’t worry about me, just go get that boat.” He reached for the scuba gear and slid his arms into the straps, hoisting the oxygen canister higher up on his back. Scott passed over a shotgun, and he turned on a headlamp. A long yellow beam shot out illuminating the inside of the school.

  “Okay, hurry up,” he said before venturing into the bowels of the school. Books, papers and chairs floated on the surface of the water. It was eerily quiet inside, only the sound of water sloshing against the wall, and pouring down into the basement.

  In the underground tunnel that came out at the school, Clara held the M4 above her head and waded through another yard of darkness. It was pitch-black down there and freezing cold. If she hadn’t walked that tunnel every day for the past four years, and hadn’t known how many steps it took to reach the end, she might have panicked. Instead, she tried to remain optimistic if only for the sake of Tommy and Hayley.

  “How much further?” Hayley asked.

  “We’re getting close.”

  “You know I can carry the gun,” Tommy said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I mean if it’s getting heavy.”

  Clara was concerned for his mental state. Losing a mother under normal circumstances was hard enough but seeing his mother shot to death — that was going to screw him up badly. In the silence she thought back to those final seconds as Jess lured the second gunman in, telling him that someone was hurt and bleeding out. Four of them had jumped the guy, one of those was Tommy’s mother. The gun went off, they managed to get him down and Ken wrestled the gun away and shot him. For a brief second they felt a sense of justice, victory, even hope but that all ended when they stepped back and saw Mary-Anne clutching her stomach.

  Slowly but surely they made their way to the far end of the tunnel and arrived at the double doors. The glass was already partly split. She ran her fingers over it. Tommy grabbed the chain and lifted it above the water’s surface. “She was right.”

  “Stand back,” Clara said. She put her arm back to keep them away. She’d never fired a gun in her life. She glanced at it and did what anyone would and just squeezed the trigger and hoped for the best. Four rounds disappeared below the water. She moved in and lifted it. Nothing. It hadn’t made one damn change.

  “Let me try,” Tommy said.

  “You’re a kid. I’m not letting you use this.”

  “How about using this?” Haley waded through the water and pulled off a fire extinguisher that was hanging on a hook in the tunnel. She brought it back and told Tommy to lift the chain but move to one side so he didn’t get hit. She raised up the extinguisher and brought it down hard against the padlock. The steel collided but nothing happened. Clara even stepped in to have a go but that didn’t work.

  “Shit!” Clara yelled. She stared back down the tunnel. All three of them were shivering like mad. The water was so cold she couldn’t feel her feet, and her legs had gone numb. As frustration set in so did desperation.

  “Stand back.” Clara took aim and opened fire on the window. The glass cracked ever so slightly. With her hope renewed she went to fire again, but it just clicked. She squeezed again. “Oh come on!” It was out of bullets.

  Clara waded forward, turned the rifle over and started hammering on the window in frustration. “Tommy, give me a hand.”

  Tommy took the extinguisher from Hayley and joined her. They pounded that window causing even more fissures to appear, spreading outward. “What kind of windows did they install in this?” Tommy asked.

  As they continued pounding, a small light appeared in the dark. It was facing them on the other side. “What’s that?” Hayley asked.

  Clara squinted and for a brief second she thought it was the men. She told them to get back into the tunnel. But as the light got bigger, and the person got closer to the door, she suddenly recognized who it was.

  “Chief?”

  She waded to the door and banged on it. “Chief!”

  They returned to hammering on the one side while the chief worked the other with a hammer. Within seconds the glass shattered, and an opening appeared. “God, am I glad to see you,” Clara said. They spent the next few minutes carefully climbing up and through into the school. On the other side it wasn’t much better. The water was still as high as ever. Solomon led them back through the basement, and up the stairs. They climbed up onto the counters that wrapped around the side of the building so they could get out of the water.

  “Where are the others?” Solomon asked.

  “They have them,” Clara replied. “They’re all on the fifteenth floor. There are seven men remaining.”

  “And Alex?”

  “Alive. At least the last time we saw him enter the elevator.”

  “Any of you hurt?”

  “Just cold,” she said. All three of them sat on a counter and shivered hard.

  “There’s a boat coming. Should be here in a minute. Two of my officers will take you out of here.” He turned to head back in.

  “Chief. You’re going in?”

  He nodded.

  “But…”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Just stay here, you’ll be safe.”

  “If we don’t freeze to death,” Tommy replied, cupping his hands and blowing into them.

  “We lost them!” Jimmy said over the radio. Cayden had just about enough of this shit. Fuming, he motioned to Vic and Leon to follow him and he headed over to the lounge and told them to unload multiple rounds through the door. He didn’t intend to get the door opened, he just wanted to kill a few people. On the other side they heard screams and groaning. He smiled, feeling some sense of control even if nothing had changed. Once they were done, they backed away, and he got on the radio again.

  “Ken, you still alive?” he asked.

  There was a long pause before he got a response. “You asshole.”

  He laughed. “Good to hear your voice. For a sec
ond there I thought I might have lost you.” He released the button and waited for a reply.

  “You just killed two kids, and a mother,” Ken replied. Leon looked at Cayden and he knew what he was thinking.

  “Yeah, well don’t say I didn’t warn you. You wanted to go play the big fucking hero and look where it’s got you. Their blood is on your hands,” Cayden said before releasing the button. Ken didn’t reply.

  “Open the door, Ken, and you have my word no one else will be harmed.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Cayden turned to Vic and in a low voice he said, “For someone so pissed, strange he hasn’t fired back, right?”

  “He’s out,” Vic replied.

  Cayden nodded, stepped forward and fired again at the door riddling it with holes, then stepped back and kicked the door hard. The lock broke away from the frame and now he could just make out the people inside, beyond a mountain of tables and chairs they’d stacked behind the door. “Ken, you have until the count of ten to move this shit out of the way or we are going to open fire and kill more people. Now you decide what matters more!”

  He couldn’t see him beyond the door as it was only cracked open a bit, but he heard him tell the others to pull the chairs and tables away. Cayden glanced at Vic and smiled. “See, they just needed a little motivation.” His gaze bounced to Leon who didn’t look happy. It didn’t take them long to remove the barricade. Once the door was open, Cayden walked in with a hop in his step. He glanced around the room, looked down at Raymond dead on the ground and tutted. “People, people. Why don’t you listen? No one had harmed you, but then you go and do this. Now who killed my men?”

  No one said anything. They backed up against the window, cowering before him.

  “Okay. Ken? Which one of you is Ken?”

  An older guy stepped forward. Cayden walked over to him and swung his rifle around his back and placed a hand on his neck. He led him into the center of the room. “Oh Ken. Let me guess, this was your grand idea. What did you hope to achieve, huh?” Cayden looked around at the others.

  “Please. We just want to leave.”

  “You want to leave?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay. You can leave.”

  Ken looked back at him, unconvinced.

  “No seriously. You can leave. Go. There’s the door.”

  Ken took a few steps and kept his eyes on Cayden.

  “Vic, move out of the way. Our guest here wants to leave.”

  Vic and Leon entered the room and stepped to one side. Ken shuffled towards the door, certain that Cayden was going to shoot him in the back. Cayden watched in amusement as Ken exited the room, then broke into a run. Cayden looked at Leon for a second then pulled his Beretta from the holster, walked casually over to the door and fired one round hitting him in the back. He turned back to the rest of the people who were crying and cowering. “I said he could leave. Just didn’t say it was alive.”

  Alex dropped down into the elevator and exited on the tenth floor, he hurried to the opposite stairwell that the men had gone to and started making his way down. Relieved that he wasn’t going to have to start negotiating for the lives of those inside, he couldn’t help wonder if they were truly safe. Jess had said they had barricaded themselves in and maybe that would hold for a while and perhaps Cayden would walk away, but if he thought for a second that one of them knew where his drugs were, he wouldn’t stop until he was in. Alex stopped on the third floor and brought the radio up to his lips. He hesitated and then pressed the button.

  “Cayden,” Alex said.

  There was static, then a voice on the line.

  “Who’s this?”

  “The guy who has what you want. Now I’m all for fun and games but you’re really grinding on my last nerve, so listen up, I’m sure you want to get the hell out of here as much as I do so here’s how this is going to work. I have divided up your little stash into four different places in the building. Without my assistance you will never find them. Now I will give you the location of each one but not until the residents are safe and away from here.”

  “Safe? They are free to go anytime they like. In fact I just let one leave.”

  Alex’s brow furrowed. He knew he was bullshitting.

  “Funny, I heard they were barricaded inside the lounge.”

  “Yeah, that didn’t exactly work out well for them.”

  Alex chewed over his response.

  “Look, I don’t give a fuck, like I said, I have what you want. So let’s reach an agreement, shall we?”

  “Who are you?” Cayden asked.

  “The agreement.”

  “I don’t make deals with those I don’t know. You could be bluffing.”

  He waited for a second. Jess and Hayley were safe, so it didn’t matter if he knew his name. “Alex Riley.”

  “Officer Alex Riley.” He heard him chuckle on the other end of the line. “So what do you have in mind, officer?”

  “I want all your men out of here. Once I have everyone to safety, I will give you the locations of the drugs.”

  He snorted. “And why should I believe you?”

  “Look, I can quite easily dump this shit out the window and let Mother Nature take a hit or you can stop jerking me off and do as I say…”

  “Um, let me think about that.” There was a long pause. “Tempting but no… there’s been a change of plans.”

  “Yeah, how’s that?”

  Alex heard him chuckle. “Because I have your wife.”

  Chapter 18

  Even with the wet suit on, the water was freezing cold. Minutes earlier Solomon waded through the tunnel, the headlamp illuminating the way. He held his shotgun and Glock above his head, and had stashed additional ammo in a bag that was tied over his shoulder and hoisted high on his back to prevent water getting in.

  His mind flashed back to his last argument with Natalie before she left him. Back then he’d been so stubborn. He drank hard, worked harder and what little time he had to himself, he just wanted to be left alone. It wasn’t exactly the best conditions for a marriage, and it was very different to when they first met. Back then he was young, and utterly smitten by her dark hair, and green eyes. Somewhere along the way he’d lost sight of her, and what life was really about.

  Solomon continued on down the narrow passage, guilt and regret washing over him. Had he listened to her they could have had a life in Anchorage away from here, away from the very things that tore them apart.

  It was times like these when he saw how fragile life was, and how quickly everything could change, that he realized what was important. It wasn’t like Natalie didn’t mean anything to him. He loved her dearly. But that had only become clearer after she packed her bags and drove away.

  Coming home was never the same after that.

  It was easier to knock off work and spend the few remaining hours he had in the day down at the Anchor Inn, then sleep the rest of the time.

  “I swear, if I make it through this situation I will turn things around,” he said out loud, as if anyone could hear him. Solomon finally made it to the bottom of the stairs and water poured off him as he climbed to the first floor. He took a few seconds to put his Glock into the holster and then peered down the corridor. It was quiet. Not a sound. He was about to enter when he heard a voice above.

  Alex paced back and forth. Was he bluffing? Had they not managed to get out? Where was Hayley? He got back on the radio and called him on it. “Bullshit! Put her on.”

  The radio went silent and the next voice that came on made his stomach sink.

  “Alex?”

  “Jess.”

  “There’s six of them left,” she screamed before Cayden got back on the radio.

  “I’ll give you this, you certainly picked a feisty woman. Do you know she killed two of my men?”

  “You lay one hand on her and I will—”

  “You will do nothing! Now I’m done playing games. You have thirty minutes to bring what is mine to the fif
teenth floor, or I will personally toss your wife off the top of this building.”

  “Cayden!” Alex shouted.

  “Tick tock.”

  The radio went dead. Fear shot through Alex. He tried again to get through to him but he wouldn’t respond. He swallowed hard and was about to race up to the seventh floor when he heard steps behind him. Alex spun around to find Solomon.

  “Sounds like you’ve got yourself into quite the predicament.”

  “Solomon? But I thought you were dead.”

  “Unfortunately I’m not that lucky.”

  He was soaked and wearing a wet suit but had his duty belt around him, a bag over his shoulder and a shotgun in hand.

  “Please tell me there are more of you?”

  “I’m afraid this is it, but there is an upside. Your daughter is safe.”

  “Hayley?”

  “She’s over at the school with two others. Black and Parker will take care of them.”

  Although he was relieved to hear that his daughter was out of harm’s way that didn’t take away the fear he had over losing Jess.

  “You want to bring me up to speed on what’s going on?” Solomon said leaning against the wall out of breath. Alex spent the next minute or so relaying information as he climbed the stairwell up to the seventh floor to collect the first batch of drugs. He wasn’t sure what he would do next but he wasn’t going to take chances, not after seeing so many killed already. When they made it into the apartment and he brought a chair over to retrieve the drugs, Solomon continued, “You’re just going to hand it over?”

  “That’s not exactly what I had in mind but what do you expect me to do?”

  “You hand over that and she’s as good as dead, you know that, right?”

  Alex nodded and dropped down off the chair with one of the bags full of heroin. “And that’s why I’m not handing it over until she’s safe.” He paused to take a breath. “Besides, what other options do we have?”