“Where’s the river drop-off zone?” I finally asked.
“They don’t tell me those things,” he squeaked out.
Lucas gave him a warning look.
“B-but Keenan would know. He looks after this place,” the man answered in a rush.
“Who’s Keenan?” I asked.
“Big guy. His was up here just before you came.”
The big guy from the stairwell? Shit, he was dead.
“You’re the only one left alive in here,” Lucas said.
The man let out a low wail. “Keenan wou—will have a log of all the areas. He was Shawn’s pet dog.”
“Where?”
“He had his own room on the main floor. It’ll be there.”
Lucas removed his knee and the man relaxed, only to be pulled up by the scruff of his neck. Lucas was still strong enough to lift the man up despite the bite on his shoulder he’d sustained yesterday.
“You’re goin’ to show us,” Lucas said, shoving the guy toward the door.
We walked out with the hobbled man. He stumbled a few times, but Lucas just yanked him back to an upright position. I could hear all the girls’ voices in 215 as we approached the room on our way back to the stairs. They stopped as they saw us pass by. One of the girls started to cry when she spotted the mercenary. Another girl comforted her while shooting daggers at the man. Any sliver of sympathy I may have felt for the man stopped right there.
“Should we come too?” Sheri asked.
There had to be at least thirteen females we had rescued; this was going to be tricky logistic-wise.
“Yes. You guys can stay with John in the seating area while we check something out,” I said.
They followed us down the stairs, and then Sheri led them over to where John was nervously waiting for us. He relaxed when he spotted all the girls. His eyes fixed on mine and I shook my head. No Zoe. The girls were clearly uncomfortable. They wanted to leave, but they would be sitting ducks if they ran out there unarmed.
Ethan stayed back with John and Sheri, more than likely unwilling to be partner to what would eventually happen. This guy was as good as dead once we found what we needed—if he was telling the truth. Lucas shoved the guy forward and we continued on.
Chapter 31
I blew open the lock on the door to Keenan’s room and Lucas forced the injured mercenary in first just in case it was a trap. No people were lying in wait inside the room, just an unmade bed and messy desk. We did a quick sweep just to make sure, then Lucas threw the man onto the bed. He bounced on the mattress, letting out a cry when his leg with the bullet hole in it got caught underneath him. Lucas threatened that if the guy so much as got up, he would be killed slowly. The way Lucas said it even sent chills down my spine.
We went through the scribblers and papers on the desk. It mirrored what we had found at the first compound—I even found the ledger. I was too disgusted to even open it. There were a couple sets of car keys hanging on small hooks above the desk. I pocketed them. We would need another vehicle to get all the girls out of there.
Rose held up her own find—a map of south and west Baton Rouge where it touched the Mississippi River. Lucas took the map from Rose and held it in front of the man’s face. He pointed to the red circle. Was it a dock or a port?
“This it?”
The mercenary swallowed. “I don’t know! They never told me anythin’. If it’s in here, then it’s your best bet.”
Lucas dragged his tongue along his teeth as he regarded the man. Now came the tough part. What did we do with the man?
“Maybe we should make you come along. We can get you back to Shawn. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you,” Lucas taunted.
I bit my lip. I didn’t like that Lucas was toying with the guy. If he was going to kill him, Lucas should just get it over with. The unmasked fear on the guy’s face told me that being turned over to Shawn would be a terrible fate.
“Let me go or kill me! Just don’t that,” the guy cried. “Please.”
“Just how bad is this Shawn guy?” I asked more to Lucas, but the mercenary answered instead.
I mean the mercenaries were bad in their own right, but if this Shawn guy’s own men feared him that much, he must be really awful.
“He’s the worst of us,” the guy explained in a rush. “There’s a rumor that he was awaitin’ sentencin’ for a huge homicide when the dead bastards took over. Killed an entire family, kids and all.”
He did not sound like a pleasant guy. In a room full of starving wolves, he was the bloated lion. I looked at Lucas for confirmation.
“I heard the same thing too. Guy is scary as hell. Only had the pleasure of meetin’ ‘im once or twice, the last time I saw ‘im was when he forced the dead ones on me when I was discovered. Calm and collected type, not some ragin’ lunatic who goes off at the drop of a hat,” Lucas said.
And now he possibly had Zoe with him.
“Then what do we do with ‘im?” Rose said, pointing an accusing finger at the mercenary.
Lucas looked at the man, who had started to cry again as his fate was called into question. I motioned for Lucas and Rose to meet me back out in the hallway. It seemed really … cold to discuss a man’s fate in front of him. We were only far enough to be out of earshot, not eyesight. I could still see the mercenary sniveling away on the bed.
“There’s no way we’re actually takin’ ‘im with us, right?” Rose asked Lucas. “He’d be a liability.”
“No,” Lucas said.
He confidence faltered a bit as he stared at his rifle.
“How about we just leave him here?” I suggested.
After everything that had happened since we invaded the compound, the last thing I—or anyone else—wanted was to play executioner in cold blood. I was sure the guy deserved it, but I didn’t have it in me to shoot a guy who was utterly helpless. Maybe if he was coming at me with a machete I could do it.
“What if he comes after us?” Lucas challenged, but it was only half-hearted. He needed to save face.
“With his injured leg? He’d be caught by an infected before he even got to us,” I said.
“What if he gets to a weapon and shoots us as we leave?” Rose asked.
“We lock him in a closet then. Seems only right since that’s where we found him,” I said.
He’d eventually get out and by then, we would be gone. Lucas nodded and charged back into the room. He ripped open the accordion closet doors, then grabbed the mercenary and tossed him in. The guy was barely able to get out a “what” as it all happened so fast. I passed Lucas an extension cord that had been plugged into an emergency battery. He wrapped it around the gold doorknobs and tied it off.
There was no yelling or kicking on the other side so we left him, closing the room door behind us. The girls were crowded near the patio doors while Sheri, Ethan and John looked to be having an intense conversation. They stopped when they saw us. Ethan looked us up and down, more than likely looking for signs of the mercenary’s blood. When he found none, his shoulders relaxed and he gave me a relieved smile.
“Where’s the guy?” Sheri asked.
“Don’t worry ‘bout ‘im,” Lucas said. “Worry ‘bout how we’re goin’ to leave here with thirteen extra bodies. They can’t all fit in the back of the truck.”
“We were just talkin’ ‘bout that,” John said. “Ethan took a look out the front and there’s a couple of big SUVs we could take, if we can find the keys.”
I pulled out the two pairs of car keys I had lifted from Keenan’s room. “Think one of these will do?”
John gave me a smile. “Perhaps. You and Ethan see if either of those are a match and we’ll gather up the girls.”
I passed a set to Ethan, and he led the way to the front of the hotel through the immaculate lobby. The automatic doors didn’t open for us, so we had to part them a smidge to get through. An infected immediately jumped out from my left and I instinctively kicked at it. It flew down to the cement and rolle
d over into the dead flowerbeds. It looked like a dog rolling around in mud. I didn’t have my bat so I had to use my Beretta to shoot it dead.
The shot rang out and then the infected lay dead among the decaying shrubbery. Ethan gave me a concerned look. We were going to be gone soon, so one bullet couldn’t have mattered. I looked down at the keys to see that the fob had the Chevy symbol on it so I tried the Tahoe first, leaving the other SUV to Ethan. The engine roared to life, the gas needle landing just above the halfway mark. Ethan didn’t have any luck with the other SUV, so I turned off the engine and joined him out front.
“You think this one will hold them all?” I asked.
“Them bein’ squished in the back seat is the least of our concerns,” Ethan said as we ran back inside.
I informed the others that we had found the keys to the Tahoe. As I went to help John up, Rose said, “Wait. We can’t just leave Leo here.”
It shamed me to admit, but I had forgotten about Leo in the midst of everything.
“How are we supposed to carry him?” Lucas asked.
Rose glared at him. “We’re in a hotel. There’s sheets everywhere. I’m sure we can find some to carry him in.”
Lucas took a breath through his nose. “Fine. Come on.”
Rose and Lucas took off down the hall where Keenan’s room had been. The rest of us were forced to wait for them to return. It only took them about five minutes before they came back with two large white sheets. They must have found a housekeeping cart. They laid the sheet flat beside Leo and then Rose took his feet while Lucas lifted his shoulders. Together they placed Leo’s dead body on the sheet, bunched up a handful at each end and lifted him as if they were a pair of medics.
“So what’s the plan?” Lucas asked when he and Rose had shuffled back over to us.
“I’m going to that drop-off location,” I said.
I knew we were tired, injured and broken, plus saddled with thirteen extra bodies that had no way of defending themselves, but I was going to try dammit. The longer we took, the further Zoe would get away.
John let out a harsh breath. “Bailey …”
“Don’t Bailey me. It’s Zoe we’re talking about!”
“I’ll go with her,” Lucas said, surprising me. He must really want to get to that Shawn person
“Me too,” Rose added.
“And like I’d let you go with just them,” Ethan said.
“What about the girls?” Sheri said. “They have no way of protecting themselves.”
“You and John can take them back with the Tahoe. The rest of us will take the truck,” I said.
“I don’t like the idea of splittin’ up,” John said.
“It’s the only choice we have.”
John and I stared each other down. Usually we were on the same page, but not about this. From the torn look on his face he knew that once we let go of this opportunity to find Zoe, there would be no more leads or chances to find her. If only it had been as easy as finding me at the hospital had been for him and Ethan. Then Zoe would more than likely be here with us right now. I knew I was putting them and the girls in danger by spreading our group thin, but we were in a tight spot.
“I feel like I’m makin’ nothin’ but concessions,” John muttered. “I know I will just slow you down with my leg, so I’ll stay with Sheri, but we’re not headin’ back without you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We’ll stay here until you get back,” John said. “Then we’ll leave together.”
Some of the girls vocalized their displeasure with John’s plan. I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend any more time than necessary at the hospital after being released.
“I’m not staying here,” one of the older ladies said.
“There’s the door,” Lucas said, rather unkindly. I gave him a look telling him to shut his mouth, which he ignored of course. “We ain’t holdin’ you here.”
The older lady nodded stiffy and picked up a gun from one of the fallen mercenaries. She ejected the magazine with practiced efficiency and seemed placated by what she saw. A handful of other girls joined in and scrounged up a few more guns.
“Don’t you dare shoot those off near here,” Lucas said.
God, he was a douche. The older lady flipped him the bird and he scowled. Can’t say he didn’t deserve that. She gathered up the others who had armed themselves and headed for the front door.
“Let’s go,” I said. The daylight wouldn’t wait for us.
John and I traded sets of keys. I stuffed the truck keys down in my pocket, making sure they wouldn’t have a chance of slipping out.
“Be careful,” John said.
“You too.” I gave him a tight smile. He tipped his cowboy hat at me. “Oh, and be careful of the guy we locked in the closet. He might get out.”
“Huh?” At John’s confused look, I explained what we had done with the mercenary we found hiding upstairs.
“You could’ve mentioned that before,” he muttered. “Yeah, I’ll keep an eye out.”
Lucas and Rose set Leo down, then the four of us followed behind the girls who had decided to leave. New infected had crawled through the opening. They were staring at the infected, no one willing to take a shot thanks to Lucas’s warning. I pulled out my Beretta and shot the two infected loitering in the lobby. The girls’ heads whipped toward me.
I felt bad just leaving them there with their mouths hanging open, but we had to get to that truck. The outside air was fresh in comparison to the smell inside the hotel. By the time we got back, the smell of the dead bodies may have forced the others outside. Not that there wasn’t a smell out here. Still had no idea why the mercenaries had left the dead infected right outside the hotel.
We started a jog toward the restaurant where the truck was currently parked. From the time we had entered the hotel, more infected had gathered. They were sprinkled all over the cement wasteland like chicken pox dots.
Gunfire erupted behind us as the girls had left the hotel and started shooting at the infected in the distance. I had sympathy for them and what they had been through, but they really should have listened. I chanced a brief glance back to see them retreating back into the hotel. Good, maybe they saw that our plan was indeed best. Unfortunately, their brief bout of shots had the infected coming right for us.
“Stupid,” I heard Lucas mutter under his breath. I’m pretty sure there was a rude noun that followed his harsh declaration.
I was forced to start shooting my Beretta as infected got closer to our crew. Then everyone else started to shoot. One by one the infected were going down, but more appeared to take their place. I had a strange feeling that we had been led into a trap, like the infected had made themselves purposely scarce when we had found the hotel, only to converge on us as one later. I knew the infected weren’t capable of such thought and planning, but it was still eerie.
“We can’t waste all our ammo here,” Lucas said. “Run for it.”
His plan made me nervous because while Lucas, Rose and I were immune, Ethan was not. We couldn’t just hold still as the horde inspected us. Lucas and the others didn’t give me a chance to voice my concerns as they bolted away from me.
“Fuck!” I yelled, then started to run, already trailing behind them.
A group of infected cut the others off from my sight. I tried to dodge around them but one snaked around my leg and I tumbled down to the pavement, my gun sliding a few feet from me. They started to converge on me and I lashed out with everything I had. I hit one in the knee with my foot, knocking the joint back in an unnatural angle. I heard bone crack and the infected toppled over as its leg gave in. Another one fell on top of me, its snapping teeth dangerously close to my neck. With an unholy yell, I shoved it off of me and rolled on top of it, yanking my AR15 from my back. I used the butt of the gun to bash the thing’s head in.
I could feel the other infected groping at my back so I swung the gun around, knocking them backward. A ne
w infected dive-bombed me, taking us both back down to the pavement. There were too many of them. The rational part of my brain was telling me to hold still, but I was beyond listening to it now. I fought and scratched again until a break in the infected appeared. Slowly, my mind registered the sound of gunfire as I started to get smothered in dead infected weight. A hand was thrust into the pile and yanked me out from underneath.
It was Ethan. I looked up at him with thanks in my eyes until one of the non-dead infected burst from the pile, sinking its teeth deep into Ethan’s side.
Chapter 32
I let out a scream that eclipsed whatever noise Ethan had made. He’s a dead man. He got bit saving me. Ethan knocked the thing off of him and put a bullet in its brain. For a brief second our eyes met. Ethan saw the terror in my face and smiled. He fucking smiled, a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. I got to my feet, the world having fallen silent around me. Ethan and I looked at each other, both knowing what came next.
“What the fuck are you guys doin’?” Lucas hissed.
His foot hit my Beretta so he picked it up and handed it back to me. I took it from him with a limp hand. Lucas looked from me to Ethan, his eyes landing on the blood soaking Ethan’s torn shirt.
“We gotta keep movin’,” Lucas said, his eyes still glued on Ethan’s bite.
Ethan nodded and grabbed my arm, starting me up again. I was in a daze; my brain couldn’t handle anymore. Why was Ethan not freaking out like I was? We ran toward the restaurant where our truck was parked as more infected planked us on all sides. The truck would have a hard time getting through this many infected.
“We gotta get inside!” Rose said, jerking her finger at the restaurant.
Lucas raised his gun and shot out one of the glass doors. I barely registered the infected I shot. All I knew was that they went down. We piled through the opening and Lucas immediately turned over a table and shoved it toward the front door as a blockade.
“Grab every table you can!” he yelled at us.
I put my Beretta into my waistband and we began piling up all the tables, even throwing in a few chairs for good measure. Soon the entrance was clogged with furniture, the infected unable to get through for the moment. Ethan let out a pained gasp and hunched over, his hand pressed to his bleeding wound. I led him over to one of the booths and had him sit down. I lifted up his shirt to reveal the angry bite mark the infected had left. His bite location mirrored my own scar from the scratches I’d gotten months and months ago. The difference being that his wound was already festering, where mine acted like any old injury. His bite had taken on a purplish hue with the engorged veins running from it pumping the poison throughout his system.
This Would Be Paradise (Book 3) Page 22