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Stormbreak (The Serenity Strain Book 1)

Page 21

by Chris Pourteau


  “Wait!” Mark said, his voice strident and rasping. He grabbed Lauryn’s arm and pulled her into the alcove of a red-brick building that smelled heavily of chemicals. Megan folded in behind him, her face buried in the back of his shirt.

  Vague shapes lumbered in the fog. Shapes heading straight for them.

  Jasper barked a warning.

  “Quiet,” hissed Mark.

  The shapes drew to a halt. They looked like men. Large men.

  Lauryn pulled her pistol.

  The men shambled forward again, more cautious now.

  “It’s her! I know it’s her! Gotta be her! They had a dog!”

  Cackler.

  Lauryn cocked her pistol and aimed.

  “No! Too many,” whispered Mark. He started edging backward along the brick.

  “Daddy!”

  Mark turned and saw Megan pushing open a door into the building. He grabbed Lauryn’s arm, and she almost shot wildly into the mist, wasting a bullet.

  “In here!” he said.

  “Now, now,” came a gruff voice from the fog. The thickening mist amplified its deep tone as the speaker strode forward. “Is that Ms. Junior Corrections Officer? Cuz, if so, we have some business, you and I.”

  The voice gained substance, growing larger and larger still as light and mist and fear gave form to the shape in Lauryn’s mind. The already-massive man seemed ten feet tall in the fog. Half paralyzed by the advancing apparition, she let Mark pull her inside the building.

  Mark almost slammed Jasper’s tail in the door as he closed and locked it. Megan was already dragging chairs over in front of the entryway. Bending down, Mark put the floor bolts in place.

  Lauryn’s mind raced. This place would never protect them long. She’d seen five or six men coming at them, maybe more. Their leader’s voice sounded familiar. And Cackler was there, so that meant Raymond Collins was likely not far behind. But keeping them out was the first priority. She looked around quickly for heavier furniture, and her eyes lit on a man in a crumpled suit coming down the stairs and pointing a pistol at her.

  “Who the hell are you people?”

  “They went in there!” said Cackler outside.

  Lauryn leveled her pistol at the man descending the stairs. “We need your help,” she said. “There are men outside this door trying to kill us.”

  A massive fist pounded on the door. “Come on, Ms. Junior Corrections Officer. Let’s get this party started.”

  Stavros stopped cold on the stairs. “Peter?” The pistol he’d been aiming at Lauryn dropped to his side.

  “Little piggies, little piggies!” giggled Cackler. “I found your wood house!”

  “Shut up and hand me that axe,” growled the man outside the door. His massive fist pounded while he waited.

  Marsten. Lauryn finally recognized the throaty drawl of his accent. Her legs began to quiver. Whether from terror or fatigue or both, she wasn’t sure.

  A stream of challenge erupted from Jasper. Megan backed away from the door, dragging him by the collar.

  Lauryn turned her eyes back to Stavros. “We need your help! You’re armed. So am I. If we don’t help one another, we’re all dead!”

  Stavros hesitated for a second or two. Then he motioned to them. “Come up the stairs. Come this way!”

  A massive thunk! hit the door.

  An axe biting into wood. A judge’s gavel passing sentence.

  Lauryn shared a look with Mark that said there was no choice but to trust the stranger. No time for anything else. His eyes looked oddly soulful in their agreement, she thought. Resolute and calm.

  Thunk!

  A second axe swing shook Lauryn out of her head. She ushered Megan, lugging Jasper, after the man. Mark followed behind.

  Thunk!

  The axe hammered the door, splitting wood.

  The axe fell again and again as, one flight at a time, Stavros led them upward. The sounds of wood cracking and shrieking against the axe blade chased them up the stairs.

  “What the hell?” Lauryn asked as she emerged on the roof. They were four floors up. Five, counting the roof. “We’re trapped, you idiot! With no cover!”

  Stavros looked mildly irritated, then said, “We’re also better armed.”

  He crossed the roof to the edge facing the courthouse. On the ground, set up in rows, were old-style, glass Coke bottles stuffed with rags.

  “Molotov cocktails?” she asked.

  “Acetone based, actually,” he said.

  Highly flammable, highly volatile. Lauryn understood. College chemistry had finally come in handy, after all.

  A crash from downstairs. Jasper barked fiercely at the stairs leading down and pulled against Megan.

  “Only problem is, I’ve got nothing to light them with,” he groused. Looking around, his eyes lit on the metal platform overhanging the side of the building. “Maybe we can use the fire escape—”

  “You mean, like this?” Lauryn produced the matches she’d taken from Juggs.

  Stavros smiled. “That should do it.”

  “They’re coming!” Mark yelled beside the doorway.

  “Caw-caw-caw!” screamed a thin, reedy voice up the stairwell. A war cry heralding heavy boots stomping toward them. Then closer and again, “Caw-caw-caw!”

  Jasper snarled savagely in reply, foam dripping from his jaws.

  “Get back!” yelled Stavros. He motioned for them all to move away from the stairwell landing.

  Lauryn tossed him the matches, then kneeled, gripping the .40-caliber with both hands.

  “Caw-caw-caw, piggies!”

  Mark grabbed Jasper’s collar away from his daughter and hauled him backward toward the fire escape. At least those stairs leading down provided a backup plan. Megan followed.

  Stavros struck a match. The wind promptly snuffed it out.

  “Damn it.”

  Feet thundered upward.

  Lauryn sighted in on the landing doorway.

  Stavros struck a second match, quickly cupping it behind a hand, and knelt down.

  “Caw-caw-caw!” A gaggle of voices now, not just Cackler’s. All of them screaming, “Caw-caw-caw!”

  Stavros lit the Molotov.

  Shadows appeared in the doorway.

  Lauryn closed one eye.

  Two large men in white jumpsuits launched themselves from the stairwell as Stavros stood, the firebomb and its burning wick in his hand.

  Jasper’s barking filled the air as he strained against Mark’s grip.

  Lauryn fired and hit the door facing. Her hands were shaking. She released a breath.

  Stavros threw the Molotov. Lauryn fired again, hitting the first man in the temple. His momentum carried him forward but he fell hard and unmoving.

  The Molotov burst, spreading fire across the roof. The second Weisshemden shrieked as liquid fire soaked into his prison whites. He panicked and staggered toward the edge of the roof, the flames licking upward and catching his dreadlocks alight. He fell over the side, and his screams abruptly ceased.

  Two more were coming through. Stavros kneeled, preparing another firebomb.

  Lauryn sighted in again as the two Weisshemden exited the stairwell. One charged through the burning concrete directly at her and she panicked, her shot going wild. Lauryn saw the second one leap over the flames and charge Stavros. It was Collins.

  Lauryn shot twice, hitting her assailant in the gut and shoulder just before he reached her. His eyes were crazed, his burned left arm reaching for her. She threw herself to the side at the last moment, and he fell onto the space where she’d been.

  “Caw-caw-caw!”

  Cackler appeared in the doorway at last, flapping his arms like a chicken. He surveyed the scene for his best opportunity.

  “Gotcha now, Doc!” screamed Smack, barreling into Stavros. The scientist lost his grip on the lit Molotov and it shattered on the roof. Smack scrambled away from the flames that erupted around them, dragging Stavros with him. “Got plans for you, Doc!”


  Mark swore and released his grip on Jasper. The dog streaked across the roof ahead of him, straight for Lauryn’s attacker, who crawled, reaching for her with his blackened hand despite his bullet wounds. Mark yelled back to Megan, “Stay near the fire escape! Stay here!”

  Lauryn rolled away from the thug who’d charged her, turned, and put a bullet in the side of his head as Jasper reached her side.

  Smack stood up and away from Stavros, who was on the ground and struggling to pull his own weapon out of his belt.

  “Oh, no, no, no, Doc,” said Smack, filling his own hand. “What you need is a little electro-therapy!” The Taser probes shot into Stavros and his back arced with electricity.

  The sizzling suddenly stopped. Smack looked at the controller in his hand and couldn’t understand why he wasn’t pressing the trigger. Then he felt the pain, the foreign intrusion of metal penetrating his flesh.

  Mark pulled the butcher knife from the child molester’s back.

  Smack turned to face him, a startled look on his face. “But I’m a general,” he wheezed, air sucking at his lungs from the hole in his back. It made a wet, labored sound. Smack fell to his knees, then onto his face.

  Mark grabbed up the remaining Molotov, dragging Stavros out of the path of the hungry fire. When the stranger was safe, Mark touched the cloth in his firebomb to the flaming roof.

  “Caw-caw …” Cackler scanned the roof. His forces were losing. “Caw?”

  “Daddy!”

  All eyes turned to Megan, who was hitting the roof, face first. As he reached the top of the fire escape, Marsten released his grip on her ankle. Lauryn and Mark were paralyzed, frozen in shared terror as they saw their daughter prostrate, at Marsten’s mercy. Before Megan could scramble away, the huge prisoner bent over and lifted her by the back of the neck with his right hand. Megan kicked hard, her mouth open and gasping for air like a fish thrown on shore.

  Jasper bolted across the roof but Marsten swept the axe down and across, the flat of its head smashing the dog in the side. A sharp yelp, and Jasper went flying. He landed hard and rolled to a stop on the gritty roof, whimpering.

  Lauryn’s pistol faltered. “Megan!”

  She didn’t have a clear shot.

  Marsten heard the desperation in her voice, reveled in it, and smiled. “This is for Juggs, bitch.” He laid the blade of the axe against Megan’s throat, pausing to let the promise of her daughter’s certain death sink into Lauryn.

  The building began to shudder. Steadying her hand to compensate for the shaking concrete, Lauryn raised her pistol and exhaled.

  The Maestro saw it, lifted an eyebrow.

  Click.

  His smile grew wider.

  “No!” Mark took careful aim and threw the Molotov to Marsten’s left, intentionally wide and away from Megan. It was the only card he had left to play.

  The bottle broke apart, shooting its contents star-like across the roof. The Maestro brought Megan around and released her into the open air five stories from the ground.

  “Megan!” Lauryn screamed. She heard her daughter’s shriek of terror as she fell, and Lauryn’s own heart plummeted into her stomach.

  Megan’s cry stopped short. Her fingertips grasped desperately at the side of the roof.

  The splattering liquid tried to set Marsten’s clothing afire, but the denim and leather protected him. His free hand slapped at the side of his face, patting out the pockmarking flames. Bellowing his fury and pain, he cast his eyes around for the girl and found her fingers holding desperately to the roof’s edge.

  “Lauryn!” yelled Mark. “Save our daughter!” Lauryn’s eyes caught her husband’s for the longest half-second of her life. In that moment, she saw everything clearly. This was his dream. This was the alternative reality he’d chosen. His eyes implored her to remember this one moment, not the others, not the mistakes he’d made with her. In that half-second, his eyes asked her to remember him as the man that was finally doing the right thing. For Megan. And for her.

  “Mark!” she cried. But he’d already turned away and was sprinting straight at Marsten, heedless of the burning acetone between them. His clothes caught fire. He began to scream, not in pain or fear, but as a trumpet of triumph—the sound of a man’s final victory over a meaningless death.

  The building shook harder. Mark kept his feet and put his head down.

  The Maestro laughed as Megan cried out, begging for help while the earth itself seemed determined to shake her loose. Marsten remembered pulling the little girl from beneath her bed, her screams piercing like this one’s did now, and raised his axe. He pictured this girl’s fingers popping off her hands when his axe came down, a delicious new memory for the catalog of his waking dreams.

  Clothes burning, Mark barreled into Marsten and they both went over the side.

  Lauryn screamed.

  Bone snapped sharply on the metal fire escape below as the men plunged to the ground. The sounds of their fall echoed upward until a wet thump brought sudden silence. For another half-second, Lauryn sat, stunned, unable to move.

  Motion on her left.

  “Later!” Cackler leapt down the stairs into the building.

  The building stopped moving. The earth stilled again.

  A teen’s frantic cry brought Lauryn back to herself.

  “I’m slipping!”

  “Megan!”

  She dropped the gun and crawled, then walked, then ran to the edge of the roof. Reaching over, she grasped her daughter’s wrists.

  “I’ve got you!”

  “Mom!”

  “I’ve got you, baby!”

  Lauryn hauled upward until Megan fell into her arms and they both hugged each other like they might never let go. She whispered frantically in her daughter’s ear: “You can’t die, you can’t die, you can’t die!” The desperate prayer-wish of every mother for every child.

  Megan sobbed into Lauryn’s chest.

  Looking down over her daughter’s shoulder, Lauryn saw Mark’s broken body below, the thin mist casting a yellow pallor over his features. He was flat-backed against the sidewalk, his eyes staring up to where his daughter had been holding on for dear life.

  But there was no sign of Marsten.

  My God, thought Lauryn. Mark broke the bastard’s fall.

  Blindness, now, would’ve been a blessing. The image of Mark, sprawled on the pavement, his vacant gaze, his head cracked, his brains painting the pavement… Digging her chin deeper into Megan’s shoulder, she shut her eyes tight. Tears welled at their crinkled corners.

  “Is it clear?”

  Stavros’ hoarse voice brought Lauryn back to reality. She tore her eyes away and kept Megan from looking below. “I—I think so,” she said.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Megan asked. “I thought I saw … I don’t know what. With the building shaking and that man …”

  Lauryn took her daughter’s arms firmly in her hands and separated them. She looked hard into Megan’s eyes. No time to soft-serve her, Mark said inside her head. Lauryn abruptly realized her head was the only place she’d hear his voice, ever again. Tears overflowed her eyes.

  “Gone, baby. He’s gone.”

  Recognition in Megan’s eyes. Confirmation of what she’d seen but denied seeing. The dawning of the first, true understanding of mortality beyond seeing grandpa in a coffin when you’re a child. Megan was feeling that first, real sense of loss and the hole it opens up inside you.

  “No …”

  “He saved you, doll. Your dad died saving you.”

  “No!”

  “Marsten?” Stavros asked.

  Irritated at his all-business tone, Lauryn shook her head quickly.

  “Then we have to go!” insisted Stavros as he stood up, his legs still shaky from the Taser. “He won’t wait. He’ll gather every inmate he can find and they’ll be after us like hounds!”

  Lauryn nodded. Megan broke away from her.

  “Jasper!”

  The teen collapsed next to the golden re
triever, petting him softly, checking him for wounds. He lifted his head so he could see her clearly and groaned.

  “Leave the dog! We have to go!” said Stavros as he headed for the fire escape.

  Kneeling next to Megan, Lauryn ignored him. “Can you walk, boy? Can you get up? We have to go.” Her voice was soft, pleading.

  Megan bent over him and whispered in his ear. The dog laid his head down again and blinked.

  “What’d you say, hon?” asked Lauryn, dragging the hair from her daughter’s eyes.

  The teenager looked up at her mother. Tears streaked the grime and soot on Megan’s face.

  “I told him Daddy was gone,” she sobbed. “And I need him now.”

  Jasper stirred and struggled to get up. Lauryn put a hand on his side to help him, and the dog yelped.

  Cracked rib, she thought. Or ribs.

  But Jasper slowly, carefully got to his feet.

  Stavros stood behind them, finally accepting the inevitable. They weren’t going anywhere without the dog.

  “I’d offer to carry him, but I’d compress any fractures he might have,” he said, quieting the urgency in his voice but keeping it firm. “We need to go, and we need to go fast. There’ll be time to grieve later.”

  Lauryn jerked her head up and stared at him.

  “But,” said Stavros, “the stairs inside will be easier on the dog than the fire escape’s.” He pulled out his 9-mm pistol. “I’ll go first.”

  Lauryn’s eyes softened. “Yes. No fire escape, please.”

  Stavros understood and nodded.

  They walked down the stairs from the roof at Jasper’s pace, slow and steady. When they reached the door to the design studio, its wood hacked and mangled by Marsten’s axe, a quick look into the fog showed only yellow mist.

  “Come on,” Lauryn said. “I know where we’ll be safe. At least for now.”

  With the remaining clip reloaded in Mark’s pistol, Lauryn led the way. Jasper limped along, Megan walking close by his side. Stavros followed, eyes constantly scanning behind them. They made the washateria, where they collapsed with exhaustion.

  “We can’t stay here long,” said Lauryn. If Marsten were truly still alive, no place would be safe from his wrath, she feared.

 

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