“Straight ahead,” I screamed over my shoulder, still dragging my friends through smoke and chaos.
Soldiers raced around, dragging fire extinguishers and buckets, as they desperately fought to stop the spreading fire. Just as we cleared the barricade near the entrance, Private Fletcher stepped out in front of us.
“Hold up, soldier,” Fletcher said, holding a cloth over his mouth and nose. “Where do you think you are going?”
“Quarantine support for Kappa,” Zander offered from over my shoulder.
“On whose order?” Fletcher barked, coughing into his kerchief.
“Corporal Metz,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “We just pulled up when the shit hit the fan. Metz says we are to secure the civilians. Can’t risk contamination.”
“Wait, Metz is here?” Fletcher asked, looking past us into the curtain of black smoke. “Where?”
“With Banks and Nicholas at the south entrance,” I snapped, holding my gun across my chest to block the name patch. “Now get the hell out of my way, unless you want to explain to Metz how the half-assed orders of an E1 trumped his.”
He hesitated for a second, then moved away from the door and took off at a dead run toward the front of the building. Zander slammed his fist down on the door’s handle and sent it clattering to the ground. We burst through it, thick black smoke curling in after us. We sprinted down a narrow hallway, as we made our way further into the belly of the beast. Every ten seconds or so, the emergency lights would flash and for a brief moment, our path was illuminated by a retina-scraping white glow.
“Stay close,” I said, squinting against the harsh flashes, as my vision struggled to adjust to the stark emptiness of the corridor.
The farther away from the entrance we got, the easier it was to breath. Even still, the air tasted heavily of dry smoke and antiseptic. I ran my hand along the edge of the chair-rail that ran the length of the passage and pressed on. My boots squeaked against the waxy surface of the glossy vinyl floor as I walked, ruining any chance we had at a sneak attack. A door slammed open from somewhere up ahead and within seconds a big group of civilians rushed towards us, scrambling and clawing their way down the hallway.
“Out of my way!” A deep voice echoed down the corridor.
A very large man, clad entirely in leather, barreled through the center of the group, tossing people aside as he rushed toward the exit. In his rush to escape, he knocked over an elderly woman who was carrying a young child. Even as she fell to the ground, the woman cradled the toddler protectively to her chest. The baby howled and began struggling in her arms. We rushed over to help her, but she fought against our efforts.
“Let me go,” she shouted. “You can’t have her. She’s not sick! Don’t take my granddaughter, please!”
“Ma’am, it’s okay,” I said, fending off her weak blows. “We are not going to take the baby. We are not with the army.”
“You’re…you’re not?” She stopped swinging at me and once again swaddled the little girl to her chest, as she tried to sit up.
“No way,” Riley said, smiling at the woman as she threw her camo hat aside. “Just playing a little dress up, that’s all.”
“Ma’am, are you okay?” Zander asked, gently helping the woman to her feet. “Are you hurt? Is the child alright?”
“No,” she said, hugging the wailing child even tighter. “No, I think we are okay, but we have to get out of here. You children should go. Go now! This place is not what it seems. It’s not safe. Those soldiers, they—.”
“We know,” I said, placing my hands on her shoulders. “Please, ma’am, I need you to focus for a second, okay? Where were they keeping you? Where are the others being held?”
“I…we were, umm,” she stammered, trying to back away.
“Focus, damn it,” I screamed at her.
“Liv, stop,” Riley said, pulling my hands away from the old woman. She stepped between us and turned toward the child’s grandmother. “Ma’am, I know you are scared, but this is important. Our friends were captured, and we need to get them out. They were brought in less than an hour ago. The boy is thin, about fifteen years old, with messy brown hair. The girl is about sixteen, skin like mine, with long black hair. Did you see them?”
“I’m not sure,” the woman said, shaking her head. “Maybe? If they came in today, they would be upstairs in the lab. They always run tests on the new ones.”
“Where is the lab,” I shouted over Riley’s shoulder.
“Please, let me go,” the woman said, backing away from us. “I have to get Paige out of here. Her mother and father are— she is all I have left.”
“Let her go,” Zander said, laying his hand on my shoulder. “Ma’am, follow this hallway. There is a door at the very end that leads out into the west side of the property. Cut straight across the lot and don’t stop. You will find an old camper hidden in the trees. Cut through the yard and get as far away from here as you can. Look for a house that has already been marked; one with an X if you can find it, and hide.”
“Thank you! Thank you so much. Now, get out while you can, children,” the woman sobbed. She pressed the little girl to her chest and stumbled down the hallway out of sight.
“Let’s go,” I said, nodding to Zander, as I grabbed Riley’s hand.
Just past the reception desk was a large waiting area filled with vomit-colored generic seating. Stacks of old magazines and coloring books scattered the tables and floor. The dark hallway continued on the opposite side of the room, where old woman and her group had come bursting through, so we headed that direction.
On the wall, just past the end of the waiting room, was a big plastic sign with arrows pointing in various directions. Outpatient Family Clinic, straight ahead. Radiology and Ultrasound were down the hall and to the left. The cafeteria was down the hall and to the right. The laboratory was on the second floor, west corridor. Across the hall from the sign, was the door to the stairs.
“This way,” I said, dragging Riley.
Our footsteps seemed to echo from all around us as we tromped our way up the winding concrete stairway. I pivoted around the corner and ascending the next flight before coming to a halt in front of a heavy metal door. I covered my hand with my sleeve (yeah, definitely still paranoid about hot door handles) and tried the latch, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Let me take a crack at it,” Zander said, guiding me away from the door.
He cranked his arm back and jacked it down onto the top of the handle. It shattered into a thousand tiny bits of metal that clanked and pinged across the hard concrete floor and tinkled down the stairs.
“That’s so handy,” Riley quipped, as Zander wrenched the door open.
Another huge explosion ripped through the building, shaking it in its foundations. Loose ceiling tiles and debris rained down on us, as we tumbled out into the corridor and flung ourselves against the wall. A high-pitched alarm started squealing somewhere outside. Another mass of bodies rushed towards us, as we scrambled to avoid being trampled. My heart was pounding frantically in my chest and my ears were ringing, as the throng of people rushed past us.
“What about the others,” screamed an unidentified woman.
“There’s no time,” someone else shouted. “Just go!”
Terrified screams filled the hallway, as the swarm of frightened people piled into the collapsing stairwell. Without a second thought, they threw themselves into the dark and took off into the unknown. Next to the stairwell door was another directional sign, indicating maintenance was to the left. Labs numbers one through four were to our right, so I grabbed Riley’s hand again and we all took off down the hall.
Thankfully, each laboratory was clearly labeled; a metal sign with the corresponding number dangled from small chains above the door. The door to lab number one was wide open, a broken chair leg wedged beneath it. The wired safety glass had been completely busted out. The makeshift holding cell was lit by three small lanterns. It smelled of feces and body odor. I c
overed my mouth and nose with my shirt and scanned the dark space. The fetid room was littered with piles of soiled clothing, abandoned blankets, and garbage… but no people.
“One is empty,” I yelled.
“Two is clear,” Zander shouted from across the hall.
The door to lab number three had suffered a similar fate, its glass window hanging precariously from the frame by tiny shreds of wire mesh. A scuffle down the hall drew my attention, as an empty paper cup tumbled across the hallway.
“Come on, Noah, we gotta go!”
“One more bottle, Elijah!”
Two small boys, neither of them much older than my little brother, burst through the door to lab three, as we approached. They shoved past us as if we were not even there. The two of them and sprinted off down the hallway, their little arms were full of water bottles and were gone before we could offer them any help.
“Come on,” I barked, and we continued down the corridor.
“Who’s there?” A shadowy figure at the end of the hallway shouted at us.
We slowed our pace but kept moving in his direction. If our friends were inside that room, I was not going to let some random guy stand in my way. I was getting them out, no matter what.
I could see the fear in his eyes as we inched our way closer to where the man stood. The guy looked like he had been through the wringer. His jeans were as tattered and torn as his T-shirt was stained with a mixture of dirt and blood. In his very shaky hand, he held a small pistol.
“D-don’t come any closer,” he stuttered, waving the gun in our faces. “I— um, I have a gun. I will shoot you.”
“So do I, buddy,” I bluffed, raising my rifle in front of me. “I’m willing to bet I am a better shot than you, too.”
“I suggest you step away from the door, Sir,” Zander said, looking back and forth between the two of us.
“Liv, this isn’t helping,” Riley hissed, pushing the barrel of my gun toward the floor. “Take it easy Sir. We are not going to hurt you. Look, she is putting her gun down, aren’t you Liv? ”
“Just stay back, all of you,” the man said, nervously jabbed his gun towards us. “What you are doing to these people is wrong, you hear me? Now, back off. I am letting them out, and there is not a damn thing you can do to stop me.”
“We are letting them out,” I snapped, stepping forward.
“Wait…what?” He scrunched up his nose, whirling his shaky pistol towards me, then to Zander, and back. “No, uh-uh. Nice try, but you are with them.”
“Them who?” I raised my gun back up. There was something oddly familiar about this guy. “What is this nut-job going on about?”
“Shit, the uniforms,” Riley said, stripping her jacket off and tossing it to the floor. “He thinks we are with the Army!”
“God, no,” I grunted. “Listen, mister, we are not with the damn army, I swear. We just kind of borrowed their outfits. Our friends were captured and we were just trying to get them out of here.”
“Maybe you saw them,” Zander asked. “Umm, young guy, scrawny genius type, ‘bout yay tall, and a prissy looking black girl?”
“I, hang on…what?” He lowered his gun. “So, you are telling me you are not military?”
“No Sir,” Zander said firmly.
“Not even a little bit,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “Do I strike you as the type to follow orders?”
“I suppose not,” he nodded, as he shoved his gun into his belt and turned back to the door. “Well? Don’t just stand there with your thumbs up your asses. Either get the hell out of my way or help with this damn door. And don’t call me dude. Or mister, for that matter. The name’s Elias, but my friends call me Eli.”
“Let me,” Zander said, gently pushing the man aside, as he squared up to the door.
“Trust me, Eli, you are going to want to stand back,” Riley said, placing her hand gently on the man’s arm and leading him away from the door.
“We are going to get you out of there,” Zander shouted through the window. “I need you all to step away from the door, please.”
“Okay,” yelled a woman’s voice.
“Is everyone back?” Zander yelled.
“All clear,” the woman responded.
Zander slammed his armored fist into door’s handle and sent it flying in one shot. The pieces clattered to the ground a few feet away, but the door still didn’t budge. Zander set to work on the massive hinges and the hydraulic mechanism that held metal door in place. Muffled screams and crying echoed from beyond the door as he bashed the hardware to bits. Soon enough, the remains of what held the door in its frame lay in pieces on the floor. The four of us wrestled the door open and let it drop to the floor. Two women slowly inched their way into the doorway and tentatively peeked their heads out.
“It’s okay,” Eli said, holding his hand out to help them scale the fallen metal door. “We are here to help, but you need to hurry.”
The first woman, a thirty-something blond wearing scrubs, grabbed his hand and stepped out into the hallway, cautiously taking in her surroundings. She positioned herself between our group and hers. She stiffened her jaw and sized each of us up. When our eyes met, I smiled at her and nodded over my shoulder toward the stairs.
“That way,” I said.
“Let’s go,” she shouted to the rest of them. “Everyone please stick together. And would you please stay alive, goddamn it?”
“I like her,” I said, nodding my appreciation.
“Remind you of anyone?” Riley whispered as we watched the people file out of lab number four.
“Are you sure about this, Patty?” said a middle aged black woman, taking the nurse’s hand as she peered down the hallway.
“Keep it moving, Belinda,” Patty said, giving the woman a gentle push.
Belinda wore what had probably once been a very sharp, eggplant colored pant-suit. She hobbled down the hall wearing one purple high heel. Under her arm, she held its mate, the heel to which was literally hanging by a thread. With both hands, she dragged behind her two very frightened teenage girls. It looked as though neither of them had eaten in days. The younger of the two girls smiled at me and mouthed the words thank you, as they trudged past.
There were easily twenty-five or thirty of them; all confined to a lab the size of a large walk-in closet. Each person that wandered past seemed more miserable and broken than the one before them. I couldn’t help but wonder how long they had been locked in that room. Their clothes reeked of squalor, and many of them looked ill. Patty stepped through the door and led the last of the survivors, an elderly doctor, out into the hall.
“Here we go, Dr. Wilkins,” Patty said. “We are gonna get you out of here, okay?”
The poor man appeared to have been beaten, quite literally, within an inch of his life. One eye had completely swollen shut and the other was cut in two places on his brow. His face and neck were covered in scrapes and bruises, none of which had been properly cleaned. His right arm was splinted with magazines, a necktie, and a woman’s scarf. He was wearing the dirtiest, bloodiest scrubs I had ever seen.
“Thank you,” Dr. Wilkins said, smiling serenely as he hobbled past me.
“That’s everyone,” Patty said. She led the doctor away. From down the hall, her voice echoed back to us, “May God bless you and keep you safe. Good luck, kids!”
“They aren’t here,” I said, my heart sinking as I stepped into the dark room.
“They may have already gotten out,” the shaky man said. “I let two groups go before you guys even showed up and one of them had already busted their way out.”
A third blast exploded from somewhere inside the building, sending more debris and dust into the air and nearly knocking Riley to the ground. I caught her as she fell and braced myself against the wall so she would not take me with her. A loud crash reverberated down the hall as a twenty-foot section of ceiling grid and rafter beams came tumbling down. The rubble completely blocked the door to the stairwell. Second
s later, a large metal pipe burst just feet from where we stood, sending a rush of hot, stale smelling water into the corridor.
“I think now would be a good time to make an exit,” Zander said, narrowly dodging a florescent light fixture, as it fell from its mounting.
“We can’t,” I screamed at them. “We have to find them.”
“Liv, we have to go,” Zander shouted at me. “The whole place is going to come down!”
“He’s right, kid,” Eli said. “The army has this place rigged with enough explosives to level a city block.”
All around us, pieces of the building were tumbling to the ground. Windows were shattering and the walls were cracking as the foundation shook like an earthquake. The door we had destroyed was bouncing up and down on the vinyl floor, rocked by the vibration from the last detonation.
“But…Jake and Falisha,” I said, feeling my throat tighten. “They are here, somewhere. We have to find them.”
“They got out,” Riley cut me off, staring blankly at the floor.
“What?” I spun on her. “You can’t know that for sure, Riley. What if—?”
“But I do, Liv,” she said, her eyes drilling into mine with a mixture of fear and confusion. “I don’t know how I know, but I do.”
“But, what if—Oh God.” I imagined my friends, trapped somewhere in the hospital as it exploded into oblivion.
“Liv, listen to me,” Riley said. “Sometimes you just have to let go and have faith that things will be alright.”
“Faith, really?” The building shook and rattled beneath our feet and suddenly the irony of it all was too much. I burst out laughing, despite the tears that threatened, and the mayhem around us. “Don’t you dare talk to me about faith, Riley Baxter. Especially now.”
Killshot (Icarus Series Book 1) Page 39