Trish fought, struggling against the man’s firm grip, but couldn’t break free. Gunshots rang out in the room from which she’d been taken. She could hear the man behind her talking to himself as he pulled her away from the scene and into the darkness. She struggled harder as the man pulled her along, but couldn’t break free. Flashes of her past came to her in unyielding clarity; lying naked on a table in a strange room as men drugged and raped her. Ryder holding a knife to her throat. Ryan and his girlfriend tying her and the boys up and marching them along like prisoners of war.
She decided at that moment that she’d never be taken anywhere again. Not by anyone, ever.
Lifting her right foot, she brought her heel down upon the toes of her captor. He howled, slightly releasing the grip on her neck. She wriggled hard, freeing herself enough to swing an elbow behind her. It connected squarely with the man’s throat, forcing him to release her completely.
“You cunt,” he croaked, coughing and gagging in the darkness.
Trish ran into the darkness. The man continued to gasp for air behind her as she felt her way along the wall, searching for any kind of exit. She thought of Ed and the boys stuck in the foyer with the carriers and dread filled her up. She needed to get back to them to see if they were okay, but she had no idea where she herself was, much less anyone else.
She continued walking along the wall, feeling her way as she went, hoping that some sign of Ed and the others would present itself. She couldn’t escape the sinking feeling that this place would be where she died.
The unfortunate and decrepit place where they would all die.
Chapter Seventy
Jasper watched as men holding them at gunpoint began looking around the dimly-lit room, frantically searching for the predators that had invaded from the outside. They seemed to be no longer concerned with keeping their weapons trained on him. When the man with the rifle looked away, Jasper ran into the shadows, out of sight.
He ran into a wall, barely stopping himself before breaking his nose on the hard surface. He couldn’t find Emily anywhere in the dark; the men had separated them when they brought them inside. Screams and gunshots erupted from within the room as another lantern fell to the floor, shattering. A plume of fire erupted from the spilled kerosene, filling the room with smoke.
As the smoke began to fill the room, creeping into the hallway where he stood, Jasper froze in the darkness, considering what to do next. Everything had become a blur. He had no idea where he was or where anyone else was and now the carriers had made it inside.
There was nothing he could do. He didn’t want to admit that, but lying about it to himself would only cause him to get himself killed. Emily might be dead, probably was, and that thought cut him like a knife. Ed, Trish, the boys…
No, he thought. Don’t think about that.
He had to make a decision. Stay and die, or run and possibly regroup.
He decided to run.
He slipped away into the darkness of the building, searching for a place to hide long enough until the sun came up. If he could make it through the night then he could maybe do something in the daylight. He might then be able to find Emily and the others.
Smoke accumulated quickly in the hallway where he stood. He walked away from it, feeling along the wall until his hands fell upon a door. He found a panic bar on the door and pushed. It opened easily enough.
He wasn’t sure he should go in until a carrier shrieked behind him. He looked around frantically, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. He heard a low growling from the hall, the sound so close his blood froze.
He pushed open the door and slipped inside. Lightning flashed outside, lighting up the interior of the stairwell through the iron bar covered windows. The stairs led only up.
With the carriers behind him and nowhere left to go, Jasper ascended the stairs as thunder roared, rumbling the windows in their frames.
Chapter Seventy-One
Chloe watched the gunman closely, looking directly into his eyes. He was scared and he had good reason to be. The carriers had gotten inside the building. She had a flashback of the night the carriers had gotten into the school where she and Sam had been staying. There would be a massacre, no doubt.
The man holding her glanced toward the door and Chloe made her move. She lunged forward, spearing the man in the stomach, her momentum forcing him to the ground.
“Sam!” she yelled. Sam stood for a moment, transfixed before jumping into action. He fell to the floor and gripped the rifle, pulling hard. The gunman pulled against Sam, kicking him hard and landing a boot in Sam’s stomach. Sam doubled over in pain, falling to the floor.
Chloe pulled hard on the rifle, but the gunman proved too strong. He pulled the rifled from her hands just as Sam leapt on him again. They continued struggling with the man as Chloe made another attempt at the rifle. She gripped the barrel along with Sam and pulled hard. Their combined strength wrenched the rifle away from the man and they both fell backward, Chloe clutching the rifle by the stock.
Chloe adjusted her grip on the stock and pulled the trigger. The rifle jumped as flames licked out of the barrel. The gunman’s body jerked as the bullet tore through his chest.
A lantern fell to the floor and flames erupted, filling the room with acrid smoke.
Chloe gripped Sam by the hand. “Come on.”
Sam got to his feet, Chloe followed suit. She glanced toward the front door and the possibility of escape just as three more carriers streamed in. Two more came in a second after.
Outside that door lay certain death.
Without speaking, Chloe gripped Sam by the hand and pulled. He followed. They disappeared from the burning room and deeper into the darkness, the screams of both humans and carriers dwindling behind them.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Terry struggled with a man on the floor, attempting to wrestle the gun away. The guy turned out to be tougher than Terry had originally thought. He wrestled the man to the ground, pinning him on the dirty floor. He drew a fist back and smashed it into the man’s face. The blow stunned him good, so Terry delivered two more for good measure.
With the attacker incapacitated, Terry retrieved the rifle. As he attempted to get to his feet, he felt a hot pain in his side. He looked down to see that the man beneath him was not unconscious, but had jammed a knife into Terry’s side.
Terry brought the butt of the rifle down on the man’s face, smashing his nose and breaking his eye socket. The man’s hand fell away from the knife as his eyes closed. This time the motherfucker was out, or hopefully dead.
Terry got to his feet and pulled the knife out of his side. It hurt like a motherfucker. Fresh blood began to leak from the wound and he realized removing the knife might have been a bad idea.
He looked around and saw only pandemonium. Fire raged and carriers swarmed the room. The front door remained open, allowing even more of the things inside. Due to the smoke, Terry couldn’t see more than five or six feet in front of him and in that distance he could find none of his friends. For all he knew they were all dead.
With nowhere else left to go, Terry ran from the fighting, wincing at the pain in his side. Hot, sticky blood saturated his shirt. The wound was bad; he didn’t need to be a doctor to know that.
Then he caught sight of a silhouette in the darkness. He knew that shape immediately: Emily. Terry reached for her, catching her by surprise. In the dim light it took a moment for her to recognize him.
“Where’s Jasper?” Emily asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We have to go.”
“I can’t just leave him,” she said. “He’s hurt.”
“Later. We gotta go now.” He pulled and she resisted. “You can’t help him if you’re dead.”
She hesitated for only a moment longer before running with him into the darkness.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Trish found the door by accident as she felt her way along the wall. Lightning flashed from the storm outsi
de, exposing the window set within the door. She pushed it open and stepped inside, allowing the door to close gently behind her. With her eyes now adjusted to the darkness, she could make out vague shapes in the shadows. She could see steps leading up to another floor above. What might be waiting on the upper floors she didn’t know, but the psycho waiting for her downstairs forced her hand. She decided to go up.
She took the steps slowly in the dark, being careful where she placed her feet. A broken ankle would be a death sentence, if she wasn’t already dead and just too stubborn to know it.
She attempted to formulate a plan as she walked, but the outlook remained bleak. She’d been separated from everyone, men with guns were chasing them and the carriers had now joined the hunt. The situation seemed hopeless.
She got to the second floor and stopped at the landing, looking through the window of the door and into the hallway. She could see very little any distance away. She thought she noticed a dim light flickering somewhere down the hall, possibly inside one of the rooms. She had no weapons on her outside of her knife, so she removed it, gripping the handle tightly. She paused, listening for sound. Below she heard more gunshots and screaming. She wondered again if Ed and the boys were even alive, but forced herself away from that thought. She needed to focus and worrying wouldn’t help.
She heard a sound behind her, the movement of feet in the shadows. She turned quickly, knife poised and ready to stab.
“Trish,” a voice said from the dark stairwell.
“Jasper?”
Jasper stepped closer. She could now make out his battered features in the dim light.
“Did Ed and the boys make it?” Trish asked.
“I don’t know, I got separated,” Jasper replied. “Do you think they’re all dead?”
“Don’t say that.”
“How could they have survived?”
“We survived, right?”
“What the hell are we going to do?”
Trish paused, considering. “I don’t know yet.”
“Do you smell smoke?”
Trish smelled the air. “I think so.”
“Those fires downstairs might be spreading. This whole building could go up.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Shit! What do we do now?”
“We have to get out of this building.”
“What about the others?”
“We can’t stay in the building,” Trish said. “Not if it’s on fire.”
“I think I’d rather burn up than be eaten alive. Those carriers out there will hunt us down before we make it twenty feet.”
“Do you have a better idea?” Trish said.
Jasper paused. “No.”
“Then let’s at least try,” Trish said. “We’re probably dead, but let’s do what we can.”
“How do we get out of this building then?” Jasper asked. “All the windows have bars on them. This place must have been some kind of psycho ward or prison.”
“There should be a fire escape somewhere. We might be able to use it.”
“And if we can’t find one?”
Trish looked at him as lightning flashed outside. “Then we burn.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
“Is Trish going to be okay?” Zach asked.
Ed considered his response. While a lie might sound good, he knew Zach would expect the truth. “I don’t know.”
“Are we going to be okay?” Jeremy asked.
“I don’t know about that either.”
“I’m afraid, Dad,” Zach said.
“Me too, buddy,” Ed said. As if to drive the point home, they heard a carrier shriek somewhere in the building. “Come on. We have to keep moving.”
“But where are we going?” Jeremy asked.
“We can’t stay here. Those carriers will tear us to pieces.”
“We can’t go outside,” Zach said.
“We’re going to need to find a place to hide,” Ed replied. “Once daybreak comes the carriers will go away.”
“But what about the men with the guns?” Zach asked. “They’ll still be here.”
“We’ll need to cross that bridge when we come to it.” Ed retrieved the .357 from its holster and gripped it tightly. Both boys readied their 9mm pistols.
Ed and the boys continued down the darkened hallway, feeling their way along the wall. The occasional lightning flash tore through the sky outside, the light forcing its way into the building through bar-covered windows. They walked until they came to the end of the hallway and to a T-shaped intersection. Equally dark passageways extended outward on either side. In the darkness it was impossible to tell where these halls led to or what might be waiting for them inside.
“Which way do we go?” Zach asked.
“I’m not sure it matters,” Ed said.
“Let’s go right,” Jeremy suggested.
Ed turned right and started down the hallway, leading the way into the darkness.
* * *
The hallway smelled of dank air and mildew as they made their way down the hallway as quickly as they could. By now their eyes had mostly adjusted to the darkness, allowing them to at least see shapes in the shadows. Various items littered the hallway—random trash, boxes, paint cans and more—forcing Ed and the boys to navigate around the objects to avoid knocking them down and drawing unwanted attention to themselves.
Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the hallway. Ed glanced behind and his blood froze.
Four pale and muscular figures crouched as they prowled for prey near the end of the hallway. Ed estimated maybe fifty to seventy-five yards between them.
He got the boys’ attention. “They’re behind us,” he whispered. “Don’t panic and don’t make any loud noises.”
“Who’s behind us?” Zach whispered back.
“Carriers.”
Lightning flashed again, lighting the way in front of them. Ed spied a set of double doors down the hallway. Behind them the carriers shrieked as the light from the lightning temporarily blinded them.
“Go,” he said, moving the boys along. They hurried down the hallway, toward the double doors. When they got there Ed pulled one of them open, ushering Zach and Jeremy inside. The door squeaked on its hinges, causing Ed to cringe. He closed the door gently behind him as thunder rumbled outside. Rain began to pound on the windows as the storm clouds arrived overhead.
The inside of the stairwell proved just as dark as the hallway, despite the windows set within the walls. With the storm clouds outside covering up the half-moon, little light remained by which to see. They had to rely primarily on feel, hoping they didn’t walk themselves right into something just as bad or worse than the carriers.
They climbed the stairs as quietly as they could, but the low light inside the stairwell made seeing nearly impossible. Jeremy’s leg brushed against a bundle of pipes lying on the landing of the steps, sending a dozen cast iron rods down the steps, the sound like an explosion in the quiet corridor. Below them the carriers shrieked and howled.
“Come on!” Ed commanded, driving both of the kids up the steps as quickly as they could go. Rain pelted the intact windows and plywood blocking the broken panes. Water blew in through the uncovered windows. Ed could almost hear the sound of the carrier’s claws clacking against the linoleum behind them. He didn’t know if the sound was real or his imagination.
They ascended the second half of the stairs past the landing, arriving at two more double doors. Ed yanked open the door open hard and pushed Zach and Jeremy through. As he closed the door behind him he hoped the carriers wouldn’t know where they’d gone, but with their sense of smell it seemed unlikely.
Once out of the stairwell, Ed and the boys made their way into the darkened corridor, the dank smell of mildew stronger than ever here. Water dripped somewhere in the distance as small rodents scurried away at the sound of their footsteps. Through the closed door of the stairwell behind them they heard the screeching growls of the carriers in pursuit.
“Keep moving
,” Ed said. “Don’t stop and don’t look back.”
“Where are we going?” Zach whispered back.
“We’ll figure it out as we go.”
They made it another twenty yards into the darkness before the sound of the stairwell door slamming open behind them echoed throughout the hallway.
“Go,” Ed said, hurrying the boys along. They walked as quickly as they could, unable to run without being able to see in the near-pitch blackness. Outside, lightning flashed again, lighting the hallway through two large windows set at the end of the hallway, only twenty yards away. Ed glanced back and saw five figures emerge from the double doors, searching for him and the boys in the darkness. The creatures screeched in the glare of the lightning, shielding their eyes.
They continued to walk as quickly as they could. Ahead of them Ed saw a doorway to their left, the metal door slightly ajar. “Through here,” he said, pushing open the door. Thunder crashed, one boom behind the other as the sound of carriers’ claws scraping against the peeling linoleum echoed. Ed shut the door behind them and the latch closed, allowing him to turn the lock on the door. The hinges shrieked as the heavy door shut.
“I can’t see anything at all,” Jeremy whispered.
As if in response, lightning lit up the room. Ed gasped. Two feet away from where they stood most of the floor was simply gone, an empty black pit in its place. Ed saw a door on the other side of the room, but with the floor effectively gone, getting to it would be nearly impossible.
Behind them a loud crash sounded as one of the pursuing carriers launched itself against the door. It shook in its hinges upon impact, but held. Snarl and growls came from the other side as the carriers crowded around the locked door, sniffing out their prey.
“What now?” Jeremy asked.
Another carrier hit the door and it shuddered in its frame. Ed knew the door wouldn’t hold long. “We have to make it to the other door across the room.”
Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands Page 25