“This way,” Denise said, pointing toward the far end of the building. An enormous bolt of lightning flashed, forking into a dozen jagged lines across the sky. A second later a massive thunderclap crashed overhead, jarring the building on its foundation. Four stories below them the carriers howled over the noise, in pain or anticipation Trish couldn’t tell.
They followed Denise, Trish second, Alice third, with Jasper and the other women trailing behind. The roof stretched at least a hundred yards before it ran out. The cold rain pelted them as they ran, drenching them completely. Trish had already begun shivering before she’d taken even a dozen steps.
“Watch out for that,” Denise yelled over the howling wind and rain, pointing in the dim light at a gigantic hole in the roof. Smoke exited through the hole. Trish wondered if the entire building had caught fire and wondered next where Ed and the boys were. She felt an overwhelming sense of dread at the thought, but pushed the feeling down for the time being.
The roof seemed to go on forever, but eventually they made it to the other side. Denise stopped thirty yards from the edge, pointing to an enclosed tube that arched up and then down from the roof, enclosing an iron ladder.
“There it is,” she said, turning to Trish and smiling.
Trish returned the smile just as Denise’s head exploded in a meaty spray of blood and brains.
Chapter Eighty
“I’m not gonna make it,” Terry said.
Even in the dim light Emily could see the dark stain spreading out across Terry’s shirt. “You’ll be okay. I’ll patch you up once we get out of here.”
“You’re a bad liar, you know that?”
“Just keep moving. We need to get the hell out of this building. You’ll make it, I promise.”
The pair felt their way down the hall, maneuvering around piles of debris and leaves that had blown in through windows broken years before the virus destroyed the world. They came to an intersection in the hall and slowed. Emily crept toward the corner and peeked around, looking into the black abyss of the long corridor, listening hard.
“I hear somebody,” she whispered.
Both Emily and Terry peeked around the corner. There, two men appeared from a small room just off the hallway.
“You and your brothers get up to the roof,” one of the men said. A thick, country accent coated the words. “When you git there, you wait on ‘em. Don’t leave without ‘em, hear?”
“I hear ya, Daddy,” the other man replied. “What about the women?”
“Ain’t got time for ‘em,” Daddy said. “They’re a lost cause.”
“But two of ‘em are with child. Ricky and Jeb’s babies, you know.”
“It’s a damn shame, son, but sometimes God just takes the little ‘uns and there ain’t a thing a man can do about it.”
The second man sounded downhearted. “It don’t seem fair to me.”
“You go on up to the roof and wait on your brothers,” Daddy said. “They’ll be up shortly.”
Emily heard footfalls echo through the hallway, growing softer as the man headed away. Then the sound of approaching footsteps quickly replaced it as Daddy came toward them.
“Follow my lead,” Emily whispered to Terry.
“Huh?”
She waited as the footsteps approached the T-shaped intersection of the two hallways, squinting in the low light. The footsteps grew louder and adrenaline flooded her system. Her heart beat faster and her palms began to sweat. She swallowed hard as Daddy rounded the corner.
Emily charged, spearing Daddy in the abdomen and knocking him to the floor. Capitalizing on her surprise attack, she reached down and gripped a handful of his hair, slamming the man’s head down hard onto the tile floor. She repeated the attack, smashing his skull onto the floor when a bony fist smashed her in the nose. She felt a pop, followed by a burning sensation as the blood began to flow from her nose. Before she could tell what had happened, she found herself on her back, those same thin yet strong hands gripping her around the neck. Every breath felt as if drawn through a straw. Stars began to form in her vision as she gagged for air.
She saw a flash of movement and felt the pressure instantly release as Terry stepped in, delivering a boot to the man’s jaw. The leather smacked off the man’s face as he fell to the floor. Terry landed on top of the man, grunting as he drew back a fist and broke the man’s nose. In the dim light, Emily saw a thin old man with a white beard and equally white hair beneath Terry taking a hell of a beating. The man’s beard stretched halfway down his chest, his long hair spread out on the dirty floor like Medusa’s snakes.
Terry drew back again and delivered another blow to the Daddy’s face. He went limp, his head lolling to the side. Another blow, followed by another and the man’s face began to change shape. Another fist finally crushed Daddy’s nose. Another shattered his eye socket. Terry hit him again and Emily heard the man’s jaw break.
“Terry,” she said.
Terry hit the man again, the sound of the punch like striking a piece of wet meat.
“Terry, stop,” Emily repeated.
Terry landed another fist, the dull thud echoing throughout the hallway.
“Terry!” Emily yelled.
Terry looked up from the mess of the man below him. She could barely make out his face in the darkness, but she could see the light reflected in her friend’s eyes.
“He’s dead,” she said.
Realization returned to Terry’s face. “Shit, I didn’t mean to do that.”
Emily glanced at the bloody mess that had been known as Daddy. “He deserved it.”
She stood, helping Terry to his feet. He leaned hard on her. The entire side of his shirt was sticky and wet with blood.
Terry followed as Emily walked down the hall, toward the room from where she’d seen the two men emerge. Inside a candle flickered, illuminating the room enough to see clearly, considering how well-adjusted her eyes had become to the darkness.
Shelves lined one of the walls of the small room. On them sat an array of perhaps a dozen different kinds of guns; a few pistols, ten rifles and two shotguns. Boxes of shells sat beside the guns, appropriately matched.
“Grab as much of this as you can,” Emily said, stepping into the room. She picked up one of the pistols and checked the magazine. It was full. She looked at Terry in the candlelight and saw his eyes perk up at the find. “What do you say we even the playing field?”
Terry nodded, grimacing at the movement. “I think that’s a fine idea.”
Chapter Eighty-One
Ed considered all the ways in which he had thought he might die. In the beginning he’d been sure his executioner would be the virus, the same virus that had mercilessly taken his wife and more than five billion other people.
But after learning of his immunity to the virus, the threat soon shifted to the infected themselves. Once, they’d numbered in the billions worldwide, but the virus had created killing machines that couldn’t sustain themselves. Their numbers plummeted over the next few years and Ed had managed to keep both himself and his sons out of their way long enough to outlive them.
The carriers became monsters; machines that hunted and killed better than any predator Ed had ever seen before it. Logic would have reasoned that these new hunters would have been the end of Ed and his family. This made it all the more ironic that he should now be looking down the barrel of a gun in the hands of an even more dangerous monster: the human survivor.
It seemed that man had become monster, infected and not.
“You don’t have to do this,” Ed repeated one last time.
“Shut up or I’ll break your fuckin’ nose,” the man said.
Ed shut up.
They ascended the steps, rising up to the fourth floor. There the man opened a door leading onto the roof. Angry storm clouds swirled overhead, assaulting them with cold rain and heavy winds. The rain soaked Ed almost immediately, the cold water electrifying his senses and making him shiver.
“Walk,” the man commanded, pointing toward the edge of the roof. Ed complied while the man followed, pointing the rifle at his back. The wind howled around them, blowing leaves and other debris around in swirling cyclones.
As they walked around a large air conditioning unit on the rooftop, Ed saw several figures standing no more than thirty yards away. Ed couldn’t make them out in the darkness until a bolt of lightning lit up the rooftop like stadium lights. He saw several women standing together, among them Trish.
“The women!” the man with the rifle said, pointing it toward the group and pulling the trigger.
Ed yelled as the rifle report cracked through the sky, joined by an even louder thunderclap. He lunged forward, knocking the man down onto the roof top. The gunman struggled against him, pushing him off and landing a weak punch against Ed’s jaw. Ed shook off the blow, delivering a knee to the man’s abdomen. The gunman doubled over, grunting hard. Ed swung a hard right, but struck the man in the head instead of the nose. His hand exploded in sharp pain.
A moment later the man slammed the butt of the rifle against the side of Ed’s head, the third time for the day. Ed’s head swam as he fell to the graveled rooftop. The man tried to swing again but missed, causing himself to get off balance. Seeing this opportunity, Ed pushed off his haunches and gripped the man by the left leg, pulling hard. The gunman fell, dropping the rifle onto the rooftop. It struck the surface, stock first, bouncing and skidding a few feet away. Ed leapt on top of the man, attempting to send a fist into his face. He drew back and released, but the man deflected the punch and gripped Ed by the throat, squeezing hard.
Ed felt his airway constrict under the tremendous pressure of the man’s grip. He clawed at the man’s face, eventually finding his eyes. He shoved both thumbs into the socket and pushed them in hard. The gunman howled, squeezing harder on Ed’s throat until he could no longer breathe and stars appeared in his vision.
As the rain pelted them, Ed used the last bit of his strength left, shoving his thumbs deep into the man’s eye sockets. The gunman screamed, an inhuman sound of intense pain as Ed tore out the man’s eyes. He felt the man’s hands release from his throat and he fell onto the wet rooftop, gasping for air. Beside him the gunman continued screaming, babbling an incoherent string of words.
Still shrieking, the gunman got to his feet, clutching as his face and his ruined eyes. A flash of lightning opened up the sky, revealing the horror of the man’s injuries. Blood poured from the empty sockets, mixing with the rain running down the man’s face.
Ed looked at his own hands and vomited. He leaned to the side, retching up the meager contents of his stomach while the eyeless man wandered around aimlessly, yelling. As the rain washed away the vomit, Ed got to his hands and knees and crawled to where the rifle lay.
He picked up the gun and stood, watching the man in the dim light before raising the rifle and taking aim. Ed pulled the trigger, punching a hole in the eyeless man’s chest. The man dropped, a dark pool of blood forming below him, diluted by the torrential rain pouring down from the sky above.
With his captor now dead, Ed turned his attention to Trish. He looked for her in the darkness, but couldn’t see her. Lightning flashed above him, forking wildly in the sky as it lit the entire rooftop for only a second, but long enough to see another man pointing a rifle at the women.
Chapter Eighty-Two
Cindy led Chloe, Sam and the others along darkened hallways and down an empty stairwell. No matter how hard they tried, the other ten children made too much noise as they walked in single file, holding hands. Sam walked behind the children, bringing up the rear and watching to ensure that none of them were left behind.
Chloe followed behind Cindy, the rifle slung over her shoulder so that both hands remained free.
“The next floor is the basement,” Cindy said, glancing back at her in the dim light. “It’s gonna be dark down there.”
“And scary,” another child said from the group.
“Hold hands. Don’t get separated,” Chloe said. She called back to Sam “Okay back there?”
“We’re good,” Sam replied.
Jim took Chloe’s right hand while Cindy gripped her left hand, forming a single line of thirteen connected people.
“Cindy, lead the way,” Chloe said.
They started down the last set of steps and all light disappeared. The basement stank of mildew and rot, the smell overwhelming once they descended the last step and moved into the large, open basement area. The acrid smell of smoke intermingled with the dank air, reminding Chloe that they needed to hurry.
“There’s a tunnel down here,” Cindy said in the pitch black darkness. “That’s how Daddy found me. I just found the tunnel by accident and followed it. When I got into the building Daddy and the others took me and locked me up.”
“Don’t call him Daddy,” Jim said.
“What do they do to you?” Chloe asked, almost wishing she could take the question back. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“They make us work,” Jim said from behind her.
“And they hit us when we don’t work hard enough,” another child further back in the line said.
“They hit us no matter how hard we work,” Jim said.
“Not anymore,” Chloe said.
They made their way slowly through what had now become complete and total darkness, feeling their way as they went. Cindy would occasionally run into an object that the group would have to skirt. She guided them by voice and led Chloe by the hand, pulling the others along like a human train. Chloe called back periodically to ensure the children remained all together. If they got separated in this kind of dark they might never find each other again.
The trip through the basement seemed to take an eternity. Navigating completely blind took time and patience.
“You’re sure you know the way?” Chloe asked.
“Yeah,” Cindy replied. “I was only down here once though, before the men took me. So I’m gonna have to look a little for the tunnel entrance.”
They continued forward, shuffling in short steps. The basement seemed huge, but Chloe knew that feeling mostly came from the excruciatingly slow pace at which they were forced to move. She wished like hell for a flashlight or even some matches, but all that stuff remained in the car, left there when they had to flee from the carriers.
A loud crash sounded from behind them. Chloe flinched at the volume, hoping like hell it didn’t alert any of the creeps with guns. “Be careful back there, guys,” she called out softly to the group.
“Wasn’t me,” one of the children replied.
“Me neither,” Jim said. Several other children replied.
A howling shriek tore through the dark room and Chloe’s blood turned to ice.
“Chloe…” Sam began.
“I hear it,” she said. “Hurry, Cindy.”
Cindy picked up the pace, moving more quickly than before. Despite the increase in speed, Chloe felt as if they were knee-deep in thick mud. Her pulse pounded in her ears as adrenaline flooded her system. How many carriers had gotten into the basement she had no way of knowing, but even one would make short work of them. If that thing found them…
Don’t think about that, she told to herself. Just focus on getting to that tunnel.
More banging and crashing echoed throughout the massive room, the sounds amplified by the natural reverb of the space.
“I’m scared,” one of the children said.
“Don’t talk, honey,” Chloe said. “Just walk.”
Chloe began to wonder if little Cindy had any chance of getting them out of the building. With only a fragment of memory to go on and faced with complete and total blindness, did any of them have a chance? Would the carriers get to them before the fire did? Neither option seemed promising.
“Wall,” Cindy said in the darkness, stopping.
“Is that good or bad?” Chloe asked.
“Good,” Cindy replied. “The tunnel leads out here,
I just don’t remember exactly where it is.”
“Start looking,” Chloe said. “Jim, grab onto me. I need my hand to feel along the wall.” Jim did as instructed.
The basement grew silent. Chloe hoped that was a good thing, but it could mean that the carriers were stalking them, remaining quiet before pouncing on their prey. The new carriers had good night vision, but could they see in pitch blackness? She hoped not.
Chloe felt along the damp wall with her left hand, searching for anything resembling a doorway. In her right hand she held Cindy’s hand as Jim held tightly to the waistband of her jeans. They progressed forward at a snail’s pace. Chloe could feel each second ticking away slowly in the dark and empty room.
Another crash sounded from somewhere in the room. She strained hard in the darkness, but it was absolute and impenetrable. Not a single ray of light penetrated into the cavernous room. She thought she heard growling at one point, but she couldn’t be sure over the shuffling of little feet behind her.
A howling shriek echoed throughout the room. The sound might have been close, but the room’s natural reverb made it impossible to tell for sure. The carriers could be right next to them and she wouldn’t know it, not until it was too late.
“I found it,” Cindy said.
Chloe had never heard such beautiful words before in her life.
Cindy led her into the tunnel and the air temperature dropped at least five degrees. She could feel a breeze blowing against her face. The air smelled fresher. Either way they’d left the dark room behind.
The tunnel started out as dark as the room had been, but as they progressed it began to lighten. They sped up their pace a little, but Chloe still felt as if they were moving in slow motion. She wanted to call out to Sam but talking could alert the carriers to their presence.
The light increased along with the sound of the storm outside in full swing. A small flash of lightning fired off in the distance and Chloe could finally see just how long the tunnel stretched. The tiny dot of light appeared to be two hundred yards away at least. Behind them the shrieking of more than one carrier traveled out of the sanitarium’s basement.
Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands Page 27