Deadtown d-3

by Nancy Holzner

  I squinched my eyes tight shut, waiting for the pop of gunshots. All was quiet—that eternal, unrelenting silence. In a moment, Daniel reappeared. “This is Building Three,” he whispered. “Four is the next one over.”

  I nodded, and we backtracked until we stood behind Building Four. Again, Daniel went around the corner to check out the front of the building. I waited for him to motion me to join him, but when he returned, he took my arm and pulled me back. “This one’s guarded,” he said.

  “How many?”

  “Just one that I saw. A guy in a lab coat. I can’t tell if he’s armed.”

  Someone was in the building—good. I’d make the bastard take us to Maria. And we could use him as a hostage if we had to.

  “Let’s get him,” I said.

  We went for speed, bursting around the corner and through the front door. Daniel pointed his gun, but I’d jumped the guy and had him pinned to the floor before Daniel could yell freeze.

  “Nice tackle.”

  “Thanks.” I twisted Mr. Lab Coat’s arm behind his back. “Where’s Maria Santini?” I asked, twisting it harder.

  “I don’t—Ouch! There’s no need for violence. No one named Santini works here.”

  “You know who I mean, damn you. Where’s the little girl?”

  “Oh, you mean—” He grunted. “There’s no little girl here.”

  I grabbed a fistful of brown hair, yanked his head back, and slammed his face into the floor. “Are you sure?”

  He groaned and tried to turn his head to look at me. Blood streamed from his broken nose. His glasses were crooked, and one lens had cracked, making it look like he had two eyes in one socket. “There’s no little girl here,” he repeated. “This is a research facility.”

  He was stalling—not good. It probably meant reinforcements were on the way. I smashed his face against the floor again, then climbed off his back. He half rolled onto his side and squinted up at me in surprise.

  “Okay, Daniel,” I said. “Shoot him.”

  It was impossible to say who looked more shocked—Daniel or the guy on the floor. I knew that Daniel would never shoot anyone in cold blood, but it took him a second to realize that I didknow that. The guy in the lab coat, though, suddenly looked uncertain.

  Daniel took two steps so his feet were planted in front of the guy’s face. Mr. Lab Coat, wheezing in fear, curled into a fetal position and covered his head with his arms. His cracked lens glinted between them. Daniel aimed the gun and clicked off the safety. The sound of that click echoed off the walls.

  “No, don’t!” Lab Coat’s voice came out in a high-pitched, half-strangled whine. “Don’t! I’ll take you to her.”

  I pulled the norm up onto his feet. He shook so hard his knees buckled, and I caught him before he hit the ground a second time. “Which way?” I asked. I’d twisted his arm behind his back again.

  Daniel pressed the pistol against the guy’s head, behind his right ear. He’d put the safety back on, but Lab Coat didn’t know that.

  He motioned with his chin toward the elevator. “Third floor.”

  “We’ll take the stairs.” I dragged him to the stairwell.

  Daniel went ahead of us. “It’s clear,” he called down.

  By the time I’d hauled Lab Coat up two flights of stairs, he’d recovered somewhat. When we emerged on the third floor, he led us quickly down a long corridor—or as quickly as he could, given the grip I had on him. The walls were gleaming white; so was the tile floor. The place smelled like a cross between a hospital and a zoo, strong antiseptic over musky animal odors. Every few feet there was a door with a small, square window about five feet above the ground. Wires crisscrossed the reinforced glass. I glanced inside one; the narrow room held a cot but was otherwise empty. In the next one, a wolf, mangy and thin, huddled in a corner, its back toward the door.

  Next to each door were a magnetic card reader and a metal frame that held a printed card. SUBJECT 1375B, read one card. SUBJECT 1722A, read another.

  We stopped in front of a door about midway down the corridor. The card here read SUBJECT 3564C. I looked through the tiny window and saw Maria, sitting on the cot and hugging herself tightly. She looked so small, so terrified and alone. I grabbed Dr. Lab Coat and pressed his face against the window until the glass cracked. I put my lips to his ear. “That, you asshole, is a little girl.”

  I picked him up with both hands and threw him, as hard as I could, down the hall. He grunted when he hit the wall and again when he hit the floor.

  Maria had looked up at the movement at the window. When she saw me, her eyes went wide, and she jumped off the cot. I smiled at her, reaching for the doorknob. It was locked. And Lab Coat was crumpled in a heap against the far wall, out cold.

  I pointed to the card reader by the door, turning to Daniel. “See if that jerk has an ID card. Something with a magnetic strip.” I put my fingers against the glass and said, “We’re coming, sweetheart. We’ll get you out of here.”

  Daniel searched the guy’s pockets, shaking his head. He pulled open the lab coat and said, “Bingo!” Handing me a plastic card with a photo on one side and a strip on the other, he said, “It was clipped to his shirt pocket.”

  I swiped the card, holding my breath. The lock made a telltale click, the knob turned, and the door flew open. Maria rocketed out and flung her arms around me. She didn’t say a word, just pressed her face against me. I held her tight and showered her hair with kisses.

  “Come on, kiddo,” I said. “We’re taking you home.”

  “We?” Maria looked around. Daniel smiled and said hi; she stared at him, her eyes wary, like he was a stranger who’d offered her candy.

  “This is Daniel,” I said. “He’s a police officer.”

  Maria tensed. “A police officer already came. She said I had to stay here.”

  “Not Daniel.” I gave him a half-smile. “He’s okay.”

  The heap in the lab coat groaned. “Sounds like our cue to leave,” I said. Holding Maria’s hand, I started back down the hallway. Gray, furry faces with wide, rolling eyes peered out of some of the windows as we passed all those locked doors. As we neared the stairwell, shouts and hard-stomping footsteps erupted ahead of us. They were coming up the stairs.

  We turned and ran the other way down the hall, toward a green-lit exit sign at the far end. A howl came from one of the cells we passed, giving me an idea. I stopped and swiped the ID card that had opened Maria’s door. The lock clicked, and I pushed the door open. I did that at every door we passed. Growls and yelps filled the air behind us. A moment later, a voice yelled, “Stop!” then “Holy shit!”

  As we neared the exit door, I glanced back. Wolves, half-men, and a few unidentifiable creatures looking like something out of a nightmare, charged the other end of the hall. A rifle went off, taking a chunk out of the ceiling. A human screamed. I pushed Maria into the stairwell, ducking in behind her.

  BEFORE WE MADE IT TO THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS, AN alarm went off with a skull-splitting clamor. Strobe lights flashed at each landing. Maria covered her ears as we ran down the last few steps. At the bottom were two doors: one leading to the first-floor hallway and the other, marked EXIT, opening to the outside. At the exit door, Daniel put a hand up, telling us to wait. As he eased the door open a crack, I hugged Maria to me. I could feel the bumps of her spine under my hand as I stroked her back. She seemed so small and vulnerable; I didn’t want to let go of her. The alarm kept up its racket.

  Daniel opened the door a bit wider, then closed it and turned to us. The alarm was too loud for speech, so he signaled what we should do: out the door and immediately to the right. I nodded. I gave Maria a reassuring squeeze, then took her hand. Daniel opened the door, and the three of us slipped out.

  To the right of the door were some overgrown yew bushes. We plunged into these for cover. The bushes grew close to the side of the building, but there was a little room to get through. We pushed our way through cobwebs and dusty branches. Maria sneezed,
then sneezed again. Bless you, I thought, meaning it in so many ways.

  When we made it to the corner of the building, we paused again. The next building, marked Five, was ten yards away. It was a rectangular brick building, three stories high, identical to the one we’d just left. But it was closer to the wall that surrounded the compound; the wall was only about five feet from the back of the building. If we could get inside, we could find something—a conference table or a ladder or a lab bench; something like that—to form a makeshift bridge between a second-story window and the wall.

  The building wall that faced us, one of the short ends of the rectangle, had a metal door like the exit we’d just used. Next to it was a card reader. I still had Lab Coat’s ID card; that would get us in.

  The alarm still blared, maybe a couple of decibels quieter out here, but still deafening. I put my mouth right up against Daniel’s ear; his curls brushed my lips as I spoke in a low voice, laying out my plan. He nodded. “I’ll go first and open the door,” I said. “You cover me.” He nodded again.

  Maria still clutched my hand. I bent down, brushed her hair behind her ear, and said, “I’m going to run over to that building and open the door. From there, we’ll climb out of a window to get over the wall, okay?” She shook her head, looking panicked, and squeezed my hand.

  “Don’t go,” she mouthed.

  “Sweetie, you want to get out of here, right?” She bit her lip, then nodded. “This is how we have to do it. So I’ll open that door. Then, when Daniel says go, run as fast as you can, straight to the door.” A teardrop splashed on my hand. Another squeeze, and then she let go.

  27

  I STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE BUSHES’ COVER, TENSING TO run, when the alarm suddenly cut off. For about two seconds, the silence rang louder than the alarm. Daniel and I looked at each other, and I could tell we were thinking the same thing: Why hadn’t anyone come running at the sound of the alarm? And who’d turned it off?

  I didn’t like it. But the situation wasn’t waiting around for my approval. We couldn’t get out the way we’d come in. We’d never make it out the front gate. Building Five, ten yards away, offered our only chance for escape. I leaned forward enough to get a view of the courtyard. No one there. The coast was as clear as it was going to get. I still didn’t like it, but I ran.

  I was halfway across the open space when Building Five’s door burst open and four big guys wearing camouflage piled out, carrying automatic rifles. I veered to the right. But behind me I heard yelling, then a scream. Maria was screaming. I spun around. Four more soldiers—they must have come from behind the building—were dragging Daniel and Maria from the bushes. Daniel had his hands up. One of the men had his arm around Maria’s waist, lifting her into the air. She kicked and flailed her arms, screaming my name over and over.

  I started toward her, but both my arms were grabbed from behind. I started to yank away—it would take more than a couple of 250-pound norms to hold me back—then thought better of it. There were too many of them. If I didn’t reveal my full strength now, I might be able to surprise them with it later. Outnumbered eight to two, with a little girl to protect, we didn’t exactly have a lot going for us at the moment. Any advantage, no matter how small, was worth hanging on to.

  A man stepped in front of me, acting like he was the one in charge. He had military-short hair, bug eyes, and a twisted, sneering mouth. He held a hypodermic needle in front of my face.

  “Dr. Gravett wants to talk to you,” he said. “But if you give us any trouble at all, I’ll knock you out. Like I should’ve done the other day.”

  “Were you the one I clawed up? Too bad I didn’t finish the job.”

  His grip tightened on the needle, then he shifted it to his other hand and backhanded me across the face. Everything went black for a second, and I heard scuffling and Daniel yelling. As my vision cleared, I tasted blood.

  I shook it off and checked the others. Ten feet away, Maria hung limp and hopeless from the thug’s arm, staring at the ground. Daniel stood tense, both hands on his head, while another thug pressed his own Glock into the base of Daniel’s skull. The norm who’d hit me, the leader, spoke into a walkie talkie: “Tell Dr. Gravett the situation is secure.”

  They herded us into the central courtyard. The leader went first, then me, flanked by two guards, with Daniel and Maria behind us. No one said anything. The crunch of boots on concrete and Maria’s quiet sobbing were the only sounds. They lined us up in the middle of the courtyard, Daniel to my right and Maria to my left. The thug had put her down, and she stood, tiny and trembling, surrounded by two huge guards. I tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look up.

  Sheila Gravett came out of the building nearest the gate and ran across the courtyard, her heels clicking on the walkway, her white coat flying out behind her. She was beaming. She stopped in front of our little group and clapped her hands together, clutching them under her chin. “Oh, well done,” she said.

  To my right, Daniel spoke. His steady voice rang out across the quiet courtyard. “Dr. Gravett, I’m a detective with the Boston police department. I came here to investigate a report of a kidnapping.” One of the thugs punched him in the stomach. He gasped in pain and started to double over, but the one who had the gun on him grabbed his hair and held him upright.

  Daniel was struggling for breath, but he kept talking. “As saulting . . . a police officer”—he could barely get the words out—“is a serious . . . charge . . . I suggest—”

  His captor pistol-whipped Daniel with the Glock. There was a sickening crack as the gun made contact with Daniel’s skull. His eyes rolled back and he went down. Blood trickled down his neck.

  Maria collapsed, too, curling into the fetal position with her hands over her face.

  Gravett smiled.

  That’s when I lost it. Drawing on all my strength, I yanked my arms away from the two guys who held me, then grabbed them, one in each hand, and smashed them into each other like cymbals. They dropped. The one with the needle rushed me. I dodged, circled behind him, and got him around the waist. I lifted him over my head and threw him, hard, into the two guards who stood over Maria. All three hit the ground. That made five down.

  I was turning to find the next one when I was hit from behind in a low tackle. I twisted as I fell, and we rolled in the grass, struggling. Hands closed around my neck.

  “For God’s sake,” Gravett shouted, “don’t damage the adult female!”

  That distracted the guy, and I broke his grip. I heaved him off me and jumped on him, my hands on his throat now, squeezing. He clawed at my hands. I squeezed harder. The demon mark was on fire; I felt strength like I’d never known. I could squeeze this asshole’s head right off.

  “Hey, freak!” called a man’s voice. I’ll kill this one now, I thought, andthen I’ll pulverize his friend. “Hey! Your boyfriend’s in trouble.” Boyfriend? Did he mean—? Keeping the pressure on the fallen guard’s neck, I looked up.

  Daniel lay on his back, still unconscious. A guard stood over him, pressing a rifle barrel into his throat. “Give up now, or I’ll kill him.”

  Gravett stepped between us. “He could do it,” she said. “That man entered the premises illegally, and armed. You attacked my private security force. Everyone would swear it was self-defense.”

  Everyone who counted, I thought. As a PA, I couldn’t testify in New Hampshire.

  The guy with the rifle kept his gaze locked on mine, his slitted eyes daring me to defy him. Waves of hatred swept over me, hot as the burning demon mark. I could kill the guy, easy—snap him in two in a second. Then I looked at Daniel, vulnerable and deathly still.

  I removed my hands from the fallen guard’s throat. He convulsed under me, gulping in air. The other guard lifted his rifle.

  “Good,” Gravett said briskly. “Take the juvenile back to her cell. And I think the adult needs to be tranquilized until we’ve secured her.”

  The guard I’d nearly strangled pushed me off him. I fell on t
he ground and just sat there.

  I’d lost.

  I’d never leave this place; I’d be tortured and imprisoned for the rest of my life. Worse—far, far worse—I’d failed to rescue Maria from whatever horrors they planned for her. That bright, happy girl, reduced to less than an animal. To some kind of lab specimen.

  Gravett approached me, holding a hypodermic needle upright and flicking its tip. I looked at the woman and felt a hatred deeper than anything I’d ever known. Daniel lay unconscious and bleeding on the ground. Maria was rolled up in a ball, howling with fear. And Gravett was coming to knock me out until I woke up in a locked cell.

  I wanted that bitch to suffer. I wanted her to hurt as badly as all those creatures she’d locked up and experimented on, as badly as she’d hurt my family. Something stirred in me, some deep, savage hunger. I wanted to feast on her screams, to drink her tears as she pleaded for a mercy she’d never get.

  The hatred twisted my limbs. A bubbling—fast, frantic, boiling—started under my skin. My spine contracted and kinked, and the longing to tear Gravett’s eyes out made my toenails become thicker, sharp, steely. At the same time, my legs withered, grew thin and tough.

  “My God,” Gravett whispered. “Who has a video camera?” she called out. “Quick, someone get a camera—we have to record this!”

  I feasted on my hatred, pushing the emotion through my veins, filling my lungs with it. Revenge. Revenge! A shock of pain went through my body. My arms stretched, feeling like they were being pulled out of their sockets, and kept stretching. Widening, the hairs thickening, becoming feathers. Another jolt of pain as my torso compressed, crushing and reshaping each rib. My lips pursed as if expecting a kiss, then my nose melted into them, the skin hardening into a new form. A tingling shot through my scalp, and I heard a soft hissing that seemed to come from all directions.