Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands

by Brian J. Jarrett

  “How?” Zach asked.

  “Put your backs against the wall and scoot sideways. We can inch along the edge, next to the wall. I’ll go first to make sure the floor holds. Zach, you hold your brother’s hand. Keep your weight on your heels. Go slow and be careful.”

  “I don’t want to do this,” Zach said.

  Ed gripped Zach by the hand. “Take your brother’s hand.” Zach did as he was told.

  Ed took a step along the ledge, only a foot away from the black pit. The carriers wailed on the other side of the door as Ed sidestepped, feeling his way along the wall with his right hand while clutching Zach’s hand in his left. He tested his weight with each step, listening for what he hoped would be the tell-tale sign of rotten wood cracking and wondering what he’d do if he heard it.

  Behind them the carriers continued their assault on the door. Ed heard the unmistakable sound of wood splintering as he placed another foot onto the tenuous floor before him. In the dark he had no idea if the carriers had gotten into the room or just cracked the door jamb.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Ed made to the corner of the room. Two more lengths and they’d be on the other side of the room. “Careful in the corner,” he said. “Keep your weight on your heels.”

  Ed held his breath and felt for the opposite corner with his right food. He found it in the dark and placed some weight on it, listening. The wood made no sound and felt strong. He placed the rest of his weight on the ledge and moved the other side, holding tightly on to Zach’s hand. “Slow and careful, Zach.”

  Zach followed his father’s directions, eventually positioning himself behind Ed.

  “Jeremy, you’re next,” Ed said.

  Another crash sounded from the door, this one louder than the others. This time there was no doubt that the door had come free from its hinges. The carriers let out a shrieking wail twice as loud without the door muffling the sound. Ed swallowed hard, fighting the urge to run.

  “Dad?” Zach said.

  Just as Ed was about to answer his son, the rotten floor beneath gave way and Ed plunged into the dark abyss below.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Sam and Chloe rushed deeper into the crumbling sanitarium, feeling their way along the wall while they strained to see in the near-perfect darkness. Behind them the sounds of gunfire and yelling grew quieter, until eventually everything became only a muffled version of its former self.

  “Chloe, where are we going?” Sam whispered.

  Chloe looked around the hallway. In the dim light she could make out two doors on either side of them. Narrow, wire-reinforced windows sat within both doors. Chloe walked to the door on her left and peered inside the window just as a small face appeared on the other side. She let out a surprised scream, backpedaling.

  “What did you see?” Sam asked.

  “A kid, I think.” She walked to the door and looked inside again. She pressed her face up against the window and stared inside. “It’s too dark in there.” She stepped back and looked the door over, noticing a padlock securing it.

  “Did they lock kids up in that room, you think?” Sam asked.

  “You saw those creeps. Would you put it past them?” She searched the debris surrounding them. “Find something to bust this lock,” she said, slinging the rifle around her shoulder, suspending it from her back. She and Sam dropped to their knees, searching the mess on the floor for anything that might be capable of removing the lock.

  After a few moments, Sam happened upon a small pile of bricks. He picked one up and brought it back to the door.

  “Do it,” Chloe said.

  Sam lifted the brick and brought it down hard on the lock. It didn’t open. The sound of children’s voices erupted from inside the room. They sounded afraid.

  Sam lifted the brick again, slamming it into the lock harder. It snapped this time, the bottom of the lock separating from the top.

  Chloe opened the door and stepped inside the room. “Hello? We’re not here to hurt you. We want to help.”

  They took a few steps into the room and found nearly a dozen undernourished children huddled together in the corner, their faces dirty and their clothes nothing more than rags on their small bodies.

  Chloe’s heart broke at the sight of the children, but she tried not to let it through in her voice. “Are you kids okay?”

  “Who are you?” one of the kids asked.

  “My name is Chloe.” She motioned toward Sam and told the kids his name. “We want to help you. Did those men lock you up here?”

  The child paused.

  “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

  “Yeah,” one of the children said. He stepped forward.

  “What’s your name, honey?” Chloe asked.

  “Jim.”

  “Jim, how many of you are in here?”

  “Eleven. There were twelve, but Kaley died a few days ago.”

  Chloe’s broken heart broke yet again. “My boyfriend and me got taken by those men with the guns too. We’re here with friends, but we’re not sure where they are now. Right now we’re just trying to find our way out of here.”

  “I know a way out,” a small girl in the group said.

  “Can you show us?” Chloe asked.

  “Yeah. We have to get to the basement though.”

  Chloe asked the girl’s name. Her name was Cindy.

  “Can you take us there?” Chloe asked. “Will you show us?”

  Cindy nodded.

  One of the children said he was afraid and didn’t want to leave. Another agreed. Chloe told them to be brave.

  “But if Red catches us he’ll hit us again,” one of the children said.

  “Who’s Red?” Sam asked.

  “The other adults call him Daddy,” Cindy said. “But I don’t think he’s their real dad.”

  “He makes everybody call him that,” Jim confirmed.

  “But Daddy feeds us,” another child said in the darkness. “He takes care of us.”

  “He makes us work all day long and he beats the crap out of us,” Jim replied. “He doesn’t take care of us. Our parents did that and he killed them.”

  “Red killed my Mommy,” a child said from the group.

  “Mine too,” another answered.

  Chloe shushed the children. “We’re going, and Cindy’s going to show us the way.”

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  “Dad!” Zach yelled as he felt his father’s hand slip from his. His dad grunted as his body struck something in the unseen darkness of the pit before them, a sound like being punched hard in the stomach. More terrible clatter followed as his father tumbled further down into the blackness. “Dad!”

  No reply.

  “Zach, what happened?”

  “He fell.”

  “Oh, no.”

  The carriers snarled from the open doorway.

  “Don’t let go,” Zach said. “Follow me.”

  “He’s dead,” Jeremy said.

  “Don’t say that. Just follow me.”

  Jeremy followed.

  Zach sidestepped over the broken area where his dad had fallen, telling Jeremy to do the same. Zach could feel the terrible depth of the ominous black pit in front of them more than ever now as the ledge grew increasingly narrower as they walked, barely wide enough for his feet.

  They continued this pattern until Zach’s hand brushed up against the next corner of the room. “We’re almost there,” he said. They shuffled across, navigating the corner. A moment later another body plunged into the darkness, tumbling into the abyss. The remaining carriers stayed at the door, screeching in frustration.

  Lightning flashed through the window in the door, illuminating a white figure clinging to the exposed rafters of the ceiling, already halfway across the room as it steadily closed in.

  “Zach!” Jeremy screamed.

  Zach reached out and grasped the door knob, twisting it.

  The knob didn’t move. Zach’s stomach twisted into knots.

  “
It’s coming!” Jeremy shouted.

  Zach twisted harder, but the knob stayed where it was. He could hear more carriers climbing along the exposed pipes in the ceiling, clinging like apes to vines.

  “I have to let go of your hand,” Zach said.

  “No,” Jeremy pleaded.

  Zach released his brother’s hand and took another step toward the door, positioning himself in front of it. He lunged toward the door, throwing his shoulder and his weight into it.

  The door didn’t move.

  “Zach!” Jeremy screamed.

  The carriers growled as they closed in.

  Zach gathered up his strength and slammed into the door again, hard enough to hurt.

  This time the door gave way, just enough to slip through.

  Zach gripped his younger brother by the hand and led him to the open door. He slipped through it, pulling Jeremy through behind him. On the other side they found themselves in a hallway. Zach glanced around and found an old chair ten feet away. He retrieved the chair and ran back to the door, propping the flimsy wooden thing under the door handle. It wouldn’t hold long, but if they were lucky it would give them a head start.

  Zach gripped his little brother’s hand and together they ran into the darkness as the carriers worked to open the door behind them.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Trish and Jasper searched for a fire escape.

  Instead they found four women locked in a room.

  Jasper used an old piece of rusting rebar found on the floor of the hallway to pry the lock off the door before flinging it open.

  “Thank God,” one of the women said from the dark room.

  Trish could see the outline of four shapes in the room, two of whom appeared pregnant.

  “Get us out of here, please,” another woman said. “Before they come back.”

  “The men who locked you up, who are they?” Trish asked.

  “A bunch of fucking inbred rednecks,” another woman said.

  “Come on then,” Jasper said.

  “We’re chained,” one of them said. “We can’t go anywhere.”

  Jasper felt along the length of one of the chains, his hand arriving at a bolt driven into the wall. “I can probably get these chains out of the wall,” he said. “But it’ll take some time.”

  “Do it then,” one of the prisoners said.

  Jasper slid the iron rebar he’d found into the eye of the bolt in the wall and began twisting it counter-clockwise. He worked quickly, removing them one by one. Eventually he had them all removed, but the chains remained locked around the women’s ankles.

  “Best I can do for now,” Jasper said. “You’ll have to carry the chains until I can remove them.”

  The women gathered at the door, laying the chains over their shoulders.

  “There’s a fire escape on the roof,” one of the women said in the darkness. “I’ve been up there before.”

  “What’s your name?” Trish asked.

  “Denise.”

  “Can you take us to it?” Jasper asked.

  “I can. We’ll take the stairs to the roof. There’s a fire escape that leads down from the south side of the building.”

  “The building’s on fire,” Jasper said, “so the sooner the better.”

  As the women filed through the door one by one, Trish recognized one of them.

  “Alice?”

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Ed awoke to the smell of smoke. His head throbbed and his body ached. He looked around in the darkness, trying to figure out where he was and what had happened. With his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could make some shapes in the dim light. One of them happened to be the unmistakable form of an apex carrier lying a few yards away.

  He scooted backward, heart racing, but the figure didn’t move. In the dim light Ed could see a length of iron rebar jutting up and out of the thing’s chest, impaling it. It had fallen recently, the blood still wet.

  He searched for Zach and Jeremy, knowing he’d find them just as dead as the carrier.

  But he didn’t. They hadn’t fallen. Some hope, at least.

  He stood, his head throbbing, wondering just what to do next. Zach and Jeremy could be anywhere and he had no idea how to find them. He felt along the wall and found a door leading out of the room and into another hallway. It seemed this building was made up of dozens of long hallways, all interconnecting.

  He shoved the door open. It scraped on rusty hinges, pushing debris out of the way on the other side. All he could think about now was finding Zach and Jeremy. Nothing else mattered, not the carriers, not the guns, not even the acrid smoke filling the hallway.

  He searched the bleak darkness, finding nothing and having no idea where he was. Empty boxes, chunks of concrete and large pieces of ceiling tile littered the floor, forcing Ed to walk around them. It didn’t take long to realize that the building was slowly collapsing on top of itself.

  Ed rounded a corner and saw flames at the end of the hallway. The smoke grew thicker, irritating his eyes and throat now.

  Then a figure came out of the shadows, illuminated from behind by the flames. Ed could see the familiar shape of a rifle in his hands as the gunman pointed it directly at him.

  * * *

  “Put your hands up,” the man said.

  Ed lifted his hands. “Let me go.”

  The man chuckled. “You’re funny.”

  “My kids are in this building somewhere and I have to find them.”

  “You’re on private property,” the man said. He had a southern drawl and a slow, methodical manner of speech. In the light of the flames Ed could see a dark brown beard covering the man’s face. “Daddy says to round you all up and get you to the roof.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Ed asked. “We didn’t do anything to any of you.”

  “Daddy says to round all of you up,” Southern Drawl repeated. “And if Daddy says to do a thing, then I’ll be goddamned if I ain’t gonna do it.”

  “I told you my kids are in this building somewhere. If I don’t find them they’ll die. Can’t you understand that?”

  “I don’t give a goddamn about your kids,” Southern Drawl said. “Daddy says to bring you to the roof and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

  Ed glared at the man. He lunged toward the rifle, attempting to wrench it from the man’s hands, but Southern Drawl turned out to be faster than Ed. Another rifle butt to the head took him down hard.

  “Why’d you go and do that?” Southern Drawl asked. “Daddy’s gonna be pissed if I don’t get you up there right away.” He slung the rifle over his shoulder and reached down, pulling Ed to his feet. Ed’s head swam as he stood, his balance already affected by the fall he’d taken earlier.

  Southern Drawl reached down by his side and retrieved a large knife. He held it up in the light of the flames for Ed to see. “You’re coming with me. You try anything and I stick you. Understand?”

  Ed nodded weakly as the man gripped him by the arm and led him toward a stairwell. There they began their ascent to the roof.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  “Alice, what are you doing here?” Trish asked.

  Alice stared at Trish in the darkness. “You’re Ed Brady’s girl, right? What’s your name again?”

  “Trish.”

  “Trish, that’s right.”

  “How did you get here?” Trish asked. “I thought we lost you back at the church with the others.”

  “I got out,” Alice said. “Got back on the road again, back on plan. But they got me on the highway.”

  “Who got you?”

  “The rednecks,” Denise said. “That’s what they do. They caught us all at one point or another. You can see what they’ve been doing to us.”

  “How long have you been here?” Trish asked Alice.

  “A few days.”

  “The rest of us have been here for months,” someone said.

  “Years,” another woman added.

  “I’m glad you show
ed up,” Alice said. “Where’s Ed?”

  “I don’t know,” Trish replied. “We got separated.”

  Alice only nodded.

  “You guys can catch up with each other later,” Denise said. “We need to get moving.”

  * * *

  Trish, Jasper, Alice and the remaining four women exited the room and walked carefully through the debris littering the darkened hallway. They followed closely behind Denise who led the way toward a set of stairs.

  “This way,” Denise said. She opened the door and held it for the others, allowing them all through before taking the lead again.

  The group made their way slowly up the steps, following more or less in a single file line. They moved slowly, allowing the pregnant women in the group to keep up. Lightning flashed periodically, lighting the interior of the stairwell as they went. More debris littered the steps, forcing them to side step chunks of the ceiling, old bricks and random trash. A few of the windows had been broken, allowing leaves to accumulate inside.

  They passed the third floor, arriving at the top. The steps ended there, leading them to a single door leading onto the roof.

  “Wait here,” Denise said. “I’m going to check things out and make sure the way is clear.”

  Trish pulled the knife from the sheath on her belt. “I’m coming too.”

  Denise glanced at the knife and shrugged. “Sure.”

  She placed her hands on the door’s panic bar. “Ready?”

  Trish nodded.

  Denise opened the door and stepped through.

  Trish followed.

  * * *

  Outside the cold rain poured, drenching them almost instantly. The dark clouds hid the moon, but a full-blown lightning storm raging in the sky above them provided occasional flashes of light, allowing them to scan the rooftop. Thunderclaps roared after each flash, some strong enough to shake the building. The storm was right over top of them now, beating them down as hard as it could.

  “Which way?” Trish asked. She had to yell over the noise of the rain on the rooftop.