“Mara, please!”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
“Sweet!” Ethan cried. Then he turned and sprinted outside. “I’ll meet you at the corner.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to suit up!” he shouted over his shoulder.
Suit up? Dee looked down at her own outfit. A yellow fit-and-flare dress with ruffled sleeves and patent-leather flats. Running across the island in that getup would make quite a spectacle for The Postman’s cameras, but she didn’t have time to change. She grabbed her key ring from the kitchen counter and followed Ethan out the door.
Mara didn’t say a word, just chewed on her bottom lip as Dee locked up.
“It’ll be okay,” Dee said, catching one last look at the countdown screen through the living room window. Eighteen minutes, four seconds.
“I know.”
Both of them were full of crap, but who was going to call it out? It was easier to believe the lie.
They were almost at the corner when Ethan barreled out of his house. He wore camouflage cargo pants with his cross-trainers, a matching bandanna around his shaved head, and that was it. He was shirtless, his sharply cut muscles and menagerie of tattoos flexing with every stride, and as he joined them, Dee realized that he’d smeared some black stuff in diagonal lines across his face.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.
“What?” Ethan flexed, bouncing his pectorals as he alternated sides. “I’m Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando.” He cleared his throat and attempted an Austrian accent. “Let off some steam, Bennett.”
Perfect. Ethan thought that he was in an eighties action movie, Dee was dressed like a princess cosplayer, and they were about to go up against two grown-women serial killers posing as little girls. Worst day ever?
Ethan set his stopwatch. “Sixteen minutes. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Dee sighed. They had no plan, only half an idea where they were going, and everyone’s life was on the line. “Lead the way, Mara.”
“Down Ninth Street,” she said, pointing.
Ethan ran ahead, sprinting down Ninth so fast Dee and Mara could barely keep up. “She’s your baggage,” he called back, still in his Arnold voice. “You fall behind, and you’re on your own.”
“Isn’t that from Predator?” Mara asked.
“Just go with it,” Dee said, impressed that Mara could identify one of Ethan’s quotes.
Dee tried to keep a mental clock in her head while they ran, but it was difficult to judge the seconds from the pace of their steps and the pounding in her ears as her heart accelerated into the red zone. They raced by the sports fields and Bizarro Main Street, a briny wind lashing at them from the north. Ethan had already jogged ahead when Mara stopped in front of what appeared to be an abandoned school.
“Hey!” Dee called to Ethan. “It’s this way, Magellan.”
“Sweet!” He sprinted back. “What movie is that from?”
Dee was starting to understand Griselda’s exasperation. “History?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t seen it.”
They followed Mara down an unfamiliar street. Near the end she slowed, then stopped near a shiny, light-stone building set back from the street behind a large, overgrown parking lot.
A huge fence ringed the property, making it more reminiscent of its original penal purpose than a remodeled wine-tasting room. There was wire mesh instead of chain link, and about ten feet up, it curved inward toward the building at a forty-five-degree angle, ensuring that it was impossible for anyone inside its confines to climb out. Instead of the usual crow-shape cameras, the fence was dotted with old-fashioned security cams, which looked like large metallic mailboxes perched on rotating arms. They slowly panned the interior of the old prison courtyard, back and forth, each at its own pace, probably the same way they’d operated fifty years ago when the navy still used the brig.
Well, at least The Postman was into recycling.
Beyond the fence, a large three-story building faced with beige slate loomed in the morning sunshine. It looked less foreboding than its barrier, with lots of large windows of blue-tinted glass, but as Dee approached, she realized that metal doors had been installed on the inside of the windows, sealing off the building from whatever sunlight they might have provided.
“Twelve minutes, three seconds,” Ethan said. He didn’t even sound out of breath. “I’ll check the perimeter.”
“We should stick together,” Dee said, panting. Too late. He dashed around the corner of the fence into what looked like an old driveway, and disappeared. “Damn it, Ethan.”
“I think there’s a door at the end of the driveway,” Mara said. She stood in the middle of the street, refusing to approach the property.
“Okay.” Dee smiled. “Thank you.”
“Be careful.”
Dee nodded, then spun around to follow Ethan. She could see his camouflage weaving down the driveway, pausing to crouch behind low bushes like the leader of some Navy SEAL team raiding an enemy stronghold. Dee wasn’t entirely sure why he bothered, since he was clearly in view of half a dozen cameras at once, but whatever. Ethan was playing out his own action movie in his head, and the cameras just added to the fantasy.
When he reached the front door, Ethan pressed his body against it, looking left and right as if scanning for the surveillance he already knew existed, then somersaulted away and crouched in a crevice near a window.
At least he was having fun.
Ethan was power-squatting in front of the window when Dee arrived, hands cupped around his eyes as he tried to peer inside through a thin vertical pane.
“See anything?” Dee asked.
He let out a high-pitched shriek and jumped away. “Shit, dude,” he said, panting. “You scared me.”
Seriously? “Do you see anything?” she repeated.
“Looks empty.”
Dee glanced at his watch. Eleven minutes. “Let’s hope not.” She and Ethan were probably about to walk into their deaths, but the option was to turn around, go home, and watch Nyles and Griselda drown on an eternal loop from every TV screen on the island.
So, really, there wasn’t an option at all.
Dee took a deep breath and approached the door.
“I might be able to break it down,” Ethan said. He stood up and bent his right knee, catching his foot in his hand so he could stretch out his quad. “One good ninja kick might do it.”
Dee had no idea what a ninja kick might be, but she decided to try the door before Ethan started breaking things. She was utterly surprised when it swung open.
“Or we could just open it,” Ethan said, bounding up behind her. “Good job.”
Stepping into the lobby of the old navy brig was like stepping back in time. A low counter sat to their right, a thick blanket of dust covering its surface, with a NO FIREARMS BEYOND THIS POINT sign affixed to the wall. A row of small lockers faced them, all of which were open, empty, and rusting, and a hallway snaked off to the right. Everything looked decrepit and abandoned, except for the shiny new domed security cameras—identical to the ones that filled Dee’s house and I Scream—that had been installed on the ceiling, their red lights ablaze.
Someone was watching, which meant they were in the right place.
Dee tapped Ethan on the shoulder, then silently pointed to the nearest lens. “It’s a trap.”
“Oh, totally,” he said, sounding excited. “That’s why I came. Boo-yah!”
Great. She had Rambo as a partner. This couldn’t possibly go wrong.
Ethan spun around, scanning the lobby, then paused at a spot by the counter, where a fire extinguisher was bolted to the wall. “Aha!” He planted one hand on the counter and vaulted over it, kicking up a frenzy of clumpy dust particles, then ripped the extinguisher off its mount. He tucked the canister under one arm and held the hose in his hand like a gun. “You’ve got to ask yourself one question.”
“Huh?”
“�
�Do I feel lucky?’” Ethan continued. “Well, do ya, punk?”
“Is that another movie thing?” she asked wearily, half wishing that she had Mara there to interpret.
Ethan frowned. “It’s freaking Dirty Harry. Were you raised under a rock?”
You have no idea. “Anything back there I can use?”
“Um…” He peered under the counter lips pressed together. Suddenly his face lit up. “Here you go.” He tossed a rusty stapler to her.
“This will be perfect if I want to do minor skin damage.”
“Better than nothing,” Ethan said. “Let’s do this.”
Ethan leaped back over the counter just as easily with the large extinguisher as when he was without it, and Dee, stapler in hand, followed him around the corner.
DEE WASN’T SURE WHAT she’d been expecting. A wall of total darkness. A giant hulk of a prison with iron bars and walkways. Or a corridor lined with giant chain saws.
Any of those things would have been expected on Alcatraz 2.0. Instead, Dee saw just a hallway. Normal. Old-fashioned. Homey.
It was well lit with bell-shaped overhead fixtures, and doors peeled off in opposite directions every ten to twelve feet. The floor was blanketed with blue-and-gray industrial carpet and, weirdest of all, the walls were papered. White with lavender flowers.
Lilacs, maybe? Hyacinth? Dee was shitty at botany.
“Looks like my grandma’s house in Jersey.” Ethan sniffed the air. “Smells like it too. Wet newspaper and BO.”
“This seems familiar,” Dee said as she gazed down the hallway. “Like from a dream or something.”
“Your dreams suck.”
“Thanks?”
A red light flickered to life inside a domed lens at the far end of the hall, and immediately two figures stepped into view beneath it. They wore matching powder-blue dresses with white knee socks and bandit masks, and they were holding hands. The Hardy Girls.
Suddenly the weird hallway made sense. The sociopathic sister act was dressed as the ghostly Grady Girls, and they were standing in a re-creation of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.
“We are so screwed,” Dee breathed.
“Play with us, DeeDee,” they said in singsong unison. “Forever and ever and ever.”
“Come at me, bro!” Ethan yelled, extinguisher hose in hand.
But the Hardy Girls didn’t move. Instead, Dee heard what sounded like a small engine revving in the distance. The sound got louder, closer, and two objects rounded the corner, followed immediately by two more. They looked like old-fashioned Big Wheel trikes, each with a blue plastic seat, a red body, metal handlebars, two fat wheels in the back, and a single larger one in the front. They were toys, built for a child, but no five-year-old sat in the driver’s seat. Instead, each trike seemed to pedal of its own accord by remote control as they raced down the hall toward Dee and Ethan.
“That’s it?” Ethan laughed, letting his guard down. “That’s all you’ve got?”
Dee had to admit, it did seem rather ludicrous that the Hardy Girls were sending a legion of remote-controlled kiddie toys their way, but she also knew that underestimating one of the Painiacs was the fastest way to dead. And since every single one of the cameras in the hallway had shifted its focus to the oncoming trikes, the toys had to be more dangerous than they looked.
“Stay away from them!” Dee cried, backing away.
“Why?” The big wheels were halfway down the hall, closing in fast. “They can’t hurt—”
Without warning, one of the Big Wheels veered sharply to the left and crashed headlong into the wall. At the instant of impact, the toy bike exploded. It was so violent, the hallway shook, and Dee could feel the reverberations in the air.
“Holy shit!” Ethan scampered down the hall, right on Dee’s heels. They rounded the corner and jumped up onto the counter just as a second Big Wheel misjudged the turn and crashed into the wall of lockers. Twisted metal ricocheted toward them, and Dee and Ethan had to roll onto the floor behind the counter to keep from getting skewered.
“This counter won’t protect us from those explosives,” Dee said. They so didn’t have time for this. Somewhere in this building, Nyles and Griselda were about to drown while she was playing hide-and-seek with a couple of highly explosive kiddie toys.
The remote-control engines revved again. The last two trikes were coming for them.
“I didn’t think I’d go out like this,” Ethan mused. “Hiding from a Big Wheel.”
Dee spotted the camera directly overhead. The dome had been shattered, hit by shrapnel from the exploding lockers. Which meant, for the time being at least, no one could see them. “You’re not going to die here.”
Her focus shifted to the door leading out from behind the counter. It probably opened back into the hallway, but at least it would give them the element of surprise. It was a chance they’d have to take.
“Come on!” She grabbed Ethan by the arm and yanked open the door.
Instead of the creepy re-creation of the Overlook Hotel, the door opened onto a tight, dark passageway. Dee shoved Ethan through and had just squeezed in beside him when one of the trikes careened into the lobby counter. The force of the explosion slammed the door closed behind her, throwing them into total darkness.
Three down, one to go.
Dee and Ethan were pressed between a smooth metal wall of the old brig, and wood beams that supported some kind of structure on the other side. “That must be the hallway,” Dee whispered, her eyes adjusting to the lack of light. “We’re behind the set.”
“Cool.”
Dee kept her hand on Ethan’s arm as he edged forward. She held her breath, listening for the last Big Wheel engine, but it was eerily quiet. Had The Postman, or whoever was directing this scene, lost track of them?
The set ended before a towering metal door, which swung open easily at Ethan’s touch. They stepped through, and Dee thought they must have taken a wrong turn.
“Is this the same hallway?” Ethan asked.
This set was identical to the last one. Same wallpaper, same carpeting, same ceiling lights, same camera placement. Except there was no sign of the explosion the first trike had made when it had blown away a section of the wall, just smooth, unblemished lilac-and-white wallpaper. “I don’t think so.”
“But those are the same chicks, right?”
Dee spun around. The Hardy Girls were back, standing side by side at the end of the hallway, just as before. Only this time they each wielded a red-handled ax.
“PLAY WITH US, DEEDEE!”
In the distance Dee could hear the high-pitched hum of a toy engine. The last remote-controlled trike was coming up behind them. They were trapped.
“Screw this.” Ethan opened the valve on the fire extinguisher. “I ain’t got time to bleed!”
He bolted forward, spraying the Hardy Girls with foam. It squirted from the hose in a fine stream, but seemed to expand on contact, coating the carpet with a sticky mess as Ethan waved the hose around.
“Aim for the cameras!” Dee cried, hoping the foam would obscure the shot.
Ethan obeyed, spraying the ceiling haphazardly.
The Hardy Girls looked momentarily stunned, and Ethan was practically on top of them when they finally jolted into action. The taller sister gripped her ax with both hands, held it up over her head, and charged.
But Ethan was faster and more agile.
As she swung the ax down at his head, he flipped the canister from beneath his arm, catching the blade with it. The ax dug into the metal and stuck there as the pressure from inside the canister raced out through the gap. The extinguisher and ax, now a symbiotic being, flew from Ethan’s hands and crashed into the wall. Ethan lunged for the ax handle as the canister spun around on the floor like a wheel of fireworks, the hose lashing out in all directions as it slowly lost pressure. But the carpet was slick with foam. Ethan lost his balance and went sprawling, sliding into the wall.
The shorter Hardy Girl lost no tim
e. Like her sister, she swung the ax over her head, letting out a bloodcurdling scream as she attacked.
Dee didn’t even have time to think. The slippery floor reminded her of a childhood toy, the old Slip ’N Slide her dad would set up on the lawn. She could cover more ground sliding headfirst down the grass than running across it. Dee took several running strides toward Ethan’s assailant, then dove forward on her stomach.
She slid ten feet, barreling into the Hardy Girl’s legs like a bowling ball taking out the last pin for a spare. The Hardy Girl face-planted onto the floor, breaking her fall with the razor-sharp ax, which embedded itself in the plywood below the carpet. Dee rolled on her side, stopping her momentum in time to see the other sister lunge at her. But Ethan was on his feet. He grabbed Dee’s assailant around the waist and hurled her down the hallway.
Dee had known Ethan was strong, but she wasn’t sure she’d realized how strong. He tossed that serial killer like she was a rag doll. She seemed to hang suspended, arms and legs spread-eagled, mouth snarled up with pure hatred, just as the final Big Wheel rounded the corner and accelerated toward them.
There was no way Ethan could have known that the explosives-laden toy would arrive at that moment. Even the airborne Hardy Girl didn’t seem to process her situation immediately. She hit the floor with a thud, and just had time to sit up and see the trike pedaling toward her before impact.
Smoke filled the fake hallway as the force of the explosion rocked its foundations, knocking Ethan to his knees. Which was a good thing, because bits and pieces of the detonated Hardy Girl went flying in every direction. One of her hands grazed Ethan’s cheek before smacking into the wall—a final assault, even in death. All that was left of her was a bloody charred blob on the floor, a few severed-limb fragments, and a splatter of tissue on the lilac-covered walls.
Dee blinked, her eyes watering in the smoke-filled air, and rolled on her side, fully expecting to see the glint of an ax blade as the other sister dove at her. But as the smoke cleared, all Dee could see in the devastation of extinguisher foam and body parts was Ethan, slowly climbing to his feet.
The other sister, and her weapon, had vanished.
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