by Connor Mccoy
He wondered where she was. Most probably not at home. Still, he’d have to be careful not to scare the children he’d heard when he’d been there before. He only wanted to be sure his three charges weren’t there before he moved on.
The street was quiet, but he wondered if people were watching him from behind their curtains. Most of the houses had a disused look to them, and he speculated that most of them were empty. Maybe this wasn’t a thriving town after all.
When he reached the house, he went quickly up the steps and tried the door. It was open, and he wasn’t surprised. What need was there to lock your home when you lived in a walled town? He slipped inside and up the stairs to the room where he’d been held. He listened at the closet door. No sound.
He cracked open the door, preparing to take a look inside, when the door slammed into him, smacking his face and bruising his eye. He was knocked back onto the floor, and when he looked up, he found himself looking into the face of a teenage boy.
“Who are you?” the boy asked.
“Glen,” he said, still a little dazed. “Who are you?”
“Zeke. What are you doing in our house?” the boy said, looking confused.
“Looking for some friends of mine,” Glen said, sitting up. “Have you seen two young women and a man? College-aged, you know, in their early twenties.”
“I heard that some kids were found in town,” Zeke said. “They hunted them down at the tire shop and took them away.”
“Know where they took them?” Glen got up gingerly from the floor, weary of the boy, although he didn’t seem inclined to throw Glen down again.
“No, they don’t tell us important things like that. I only know about the three people because I was listening from the top of the stairs when my mom was talking about it. But probably somewhere at the other end of town. All the families are at the south end. They won’t let us go up to the north end of town. We aren’t allowed to go anywhere near the school or the library.”
“I’ve got to go,” Glen said, but then had another thought. “What were you doing in the closet?” he asked.
“My mom didn’t want me to join the fighting, so she asked Angelica to lock me up. She put me in that closet, and I’ve been waiting for my chance to break out. I’m sorry about your eye.” Zeke looked a little sheepish. “I don’t really want to fight. I just want to see my dad. He was a firefighter, and they ran him out of town. I miss him.”
“Yeah, well, you should stay away from the fighting. You could get shot. Stay in the house. When the fighting is all over, go look for your dad. He’ll be wanting to see you too.” Glen hoped the man still would be alive.
“How do you know?” Zeke asked.
“Because I just came from the settlement and all those men miss their families. How could they not? So, will you stay away, or do I have to lock you back in the closet?” Glen asked.
“No, I’ll stay here. I’ll go up to the attic and see if I can spot him from there. My mom would kill me if I got shot.” He seemed unaware of the irony in his statement.
Glen nodded and left the house. He hoped the boy would do as he said and stay away from the battle. But Glen also knew that, at that age, he would have agreed with anything an adult said to their face, and then gone and done whatever he’d wanted to do in the first place.
Back out on the street, Glen turned away from the center of town and headed down one of the lesser used streets, heading toward the north end of town and the library. After what Zeke had said, he was sure the three were being held in the vicinity of the library.
He ran now, not in a panic, but with a sense of urgency. The battle was in full swing, gunfire coming from both sides of the wall, and he was worried someone might get the bright idea to use the three as bait or in some sort of hostage negotiation.
He saw some people coming down one of the cross streets, and they shouted to or at him. He couldn’t tell which. He waved and kept running, hoping they would mistake him for one of their own, whichever side they were on. That was one of the problems with this fight, he thought, you couldn’t tell who was who. They all looked the same.
He cut across the playground of the elementary school and headed straight for the back door of the library. He went in slowly. This wasn’t the emergency door Mia had used when they had been held here, but the back entrance into the big hall that ran the length of the building from front to back, splitting the ground floor in two.
The place seemed deserted, but he slid behind one of the columns and listened for a while. If there was anyone left in this building, they weren’t making any noise. He snuck down the staircase to the basement, which appeared to consist of workrooms and meeting spaces. His charges were nowhere to be seen. He headed back up the stairs. He searched the rest of the building, floor by floor, finding only one person, an elderly man bent over some very antique looking maps, who didn’t appear to see or hear Glen. Unless there was a hidden attic, the kids were not in this building.
He headed next door to where he had bandaged Terror’s hand. Here he wasn’t so lucky, a glance through the back door window revealed a man sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning his gun. Glen was about to turn away and try the front when he realized he’d seen this man at the settlement. He was one of Eric’s men.
Glen tapped gently on the window. The man’s response was immediate. He was up and out of his chair in a heartbeat, another firearm in his hand. Glen raised both his hands to show he didn’t have a weapon at the ready, and the man seemed to recognize him. The man put his gun down and smiled. Then he put a finger to his lips and came over to the door, opening it carefully.
“I’m not alone,” he breathed. “There are others in the next room, but I believe I have what you are looking for,” and gestured for Glen to enter.
Glen stepped through the doorway and followed Eric’s man into the kitchen when there was an unholy crash from beneath their feet. Before he knew it, Glen had been shoved into a broom closet, and the door slammed shut.
Chapter Nineteen
In the basement Mia was pressed against the front of her cell, trying to figure out what was going on. Sally had been muttering, and Mia could hear the sound of metal sliding over metal, which she thought must be the end of one of the handcuffs that was wrapped around the cell’s bar. Then there had been an “Oomph!” a cry of pain and a cacophony of sound that sounded like nothing Mia ever had heard before. It was loud, hurt her ears, and if she didn’t know better, she’d have said that the block of cells on the other side of the room had collapsed.
“Sally?” she yelled. She wanted to ask if she was alright, but that was stupid. None of those noises indicated anything was alright. “Christian? Do you know what happened?”
“Not sure.” He sounded shaken. “Give me a minute.”
The sound of running feet came from upstairs. Lots of feet, some traveling across the length of the house, others thumping down the stairs from the upper floors. The basement door banged open, more feet coming down those steps, and then the light came on.
It took Mia a minute, the light hurt her eyes, but when she could focus she saw an unholy mess on the other side of the basement and a group of people standing at the bottom of the basement stairs, gaping. Sally laid white-faced under what once was the front of her cell. The arm that still was handcuffed to the cell bar was twisted, and at such a strange angle Mia knew it must be broken.
Sally was panting and conscious, cut, bruised and swearing, which Mia took as a good sign. But the look of that arm made her a little woozy, and she looked away, catching the eye of Anthony, the thug. He looked grim, but there was something else in his expression, something Mia couldn’t read. Strangely, it gave her hope. He gave her a nod so small that she almost thought she imagined it. Then he joined the others trying to free Sally.
He knelt down, straddling one of the bars, and unlocked the handcuff from her wrist, leaving the other end attached to the cage. He stood and stepped away from the metal. Three of the others lifted th
e front of the cell up and away from her, holding it until Anthony and a woman in fatigues and a T-shirt gently moved Sally out from underneath. Then Anthony lifted Sally in his arms and carried her away, up the stairs.
As they went, Sally held out her uninjured hand and pitifully called Mia’s name.
“I’ll come as soon as I can, Sal,” she said, reaching her arm through the bars as if to hold Sally’s hand.
Then Sally was gone.
The four of Terror’s crew who were left in the basement were working on repairing the cell Sally had destroyed. Mia wondered how Sally had gotten over the first two times without a problem but figured the handcuff must have thrown off her balance. Now that she thought about it, how did Sally expect to get over? The ring of the metal bracelet would have been stuck at the top of the cage once her body went over the other side. Sally would have been left standing tiptoe, her arm straight in the air if the whole thing hadn’t collapsed on her.
Mia glimpsed Christian leaning against the far side of his cell watching her. He looked tired, but caught her glance, and winked at her with the eye away from the others. Then he glanced into the shadows and tilted his head in that direction. Could he see something back there that she couldn’t? A way out?
They’d have to wait until Sally got back, which could be a while. She didn’t know if it was day or night outside, or how long it would take for the doctor to come. The sound of gunfire in the distance had reached them a while back. There could be injuries that the doctor would have to take care of before he could come look at Sally. It could be a while.
She sat and watched Terror’s people bolting the front of Sally’s cell back into place. One of the men went inside to check that the back still was firmly attached to the wall. He tugged, and the side away from Christian’s cell came away from the wall. The string of expletives that filled the basement made Mia smile. Sally had done a number on that cell. It was karmic justice.
Glen was at the point of cracking open the broom closet’s door when he heard footsteps on the stairs from the basement. Damn it! He’d left it too long. Would he be stuck in here forever? He knew he was being dramatic, but straddling a vacuum cleaner, with a broom on one side and a duster in his face on the other, was slightly unmanly. He was just another item shoved in the closet.
The steps stopped outside his hiding place, and he held his breath.
“I’m going to open this door, and you are going to see something that will surprise you.” It was Anthony on the other side of the door. “No matter what you see, you need to remain quiet, okay?”
“Okay,” he whispered and thought he heard an echo on the other side of the door.
The door opened, and Anthony stood there holding Sally, her left arm hanging oddly. Her eyes opened wide when she saw Glen, and she burst into tears. Noiseless tears, thankfully.
“Come on, we can’t be found here.” Anthony turned and led Glen to the front of the house, and then up the stairs and along the hall to a room at the back. He nudged the door open with his foot and carried Sally in and placed her on the bed.
“You have to be quiet,” Anthony said. “I’ll tell the others that I sent someone to get the doctor, and I’ll bring up the first aid kit, but we don’t have anything to set that arm with.”
“I don’t think it’s broken,” Glen said, “just dislocated. I think I can manipulate it back into place and use a pillowcase and some strips of fabric as a sling to hold it in place while it heals. Unless you’ve got an elastic bandage around here someplace?”
“I’ll look.” Anthony glanced toward the door. “But I think you have to assume that you need to make do with what’s in this room. I’ve got to go. If you hear anyone coming down the hall, Glen, you probably should hide in the closet.”
“Again with the closet.” Glen shook his head. “What is it with this town and closets?”
Anthony laughed softly. “What is it with you and closets? I’ll try and stop back in.”
When Anthony left the room, Glen turned to Sally. He sat on the bed next to her and spoke softly.
“Your arm is dislocated, Sally, and it’s going to hurt when I put it back in place.” He wiped the sheen of sweat off her upper lip.
“It hurts now,” she said, licking her lips. “Pretty badly.”
“It’s going to hurt worse, but then it will subside to an ache. At least that’s what I’m told. I’ve never dislocated my shoulder.” He took hold of her upper arm and her shoulder.
“But you’ve done this before? Haven’t you?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Put a shoulder back in place?”
“Yes. I have done this before.” What he didn’t say was that it was when he was a medical student. Neurosurgeons did not spend much time popping dislocated joints back into place. He placed a hand on her shoulder to keep her steady and felt the joint. She had her teeth gritted but didn’t make a sound.
“Okay,” he said, trying to keep his voice casual, “toss the pillows on the floor and lie down on the far side of the bed.”
She did as she was told, but she didn’t look happy about it. Glen slipped off his shoes and sat cross-legged on the other side of the mattress. He slid one stockinged foot in her armpit, took the limp arm and gently pulled. The noise she was making wasn’t loud in the slightest, but it left no doubt in Glen’s mind that she was in a lot of distress. However, there was no stopping now. He continued pulling the arm straight away from her body, using his foot to keep the rest of her from shifting.
It was field medicine at its worst. He wasn’t trained for it, had a sketchy idea of how it was done at best, and it was only his knowledge of human anatomy that made it possible at all. It took much longer than he would have liked, gently rotating her arm while stretching the arm bone away from the socket but, finally, it slipped back in.
Sally stopped groaning and opened her eyes. Glen gave her a thumbs-up and wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. Anthony hadn’t come back with the first aid kit, so Glen got his shoes back on and went to the door. There wasn’t any noise from this floor or the one below. So, he went in search of a linen closet or bathroom, somewhere he could find what he needed. The bathroom turned out to be right across the hall, but there wasn’t anything in the drawers or behind the mirror that could immobilize her arm.
There was a bottle of painkillers, however, and he pocketed it before slipping back out into the hall. He finally found a linen closet and pulled a sheet that looked like it had been around since the dawn of time. That was perfect for his purposes, since he needed to tear it.
Sally was sitting up examining her shoulder when he came back in the room. She had movement but grimaced with pain.
“It’s going to hurt for a few days, maybe a week,” Glen said quietly. “But it will be okay. I’m going to put it in a sling and then wrap it close to your body. It will hurt less if you can’t move it.”
He set out ripping the sheet with his teeth and then shredding it with his hands. A triangular piece worked well for a sling, which he slid behind Sally’s neck and then tied in front of her body so the knot wouldn’t be uncomfortable. Then he took longer strips and wrapped them snuggly, securing her arm to her body.
“I’m as certain as I can be that your shoulder will heal nicely. We don’t have access to X-rays, so I’m not one hundred percent. I’d advise you to see your primary care provider, except those don’t exist anymore. It’s all field medicine.” He smiled at her. “You’ll be okay.”
He sat down on the hope chest. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. How long had it been since he’d slept? Would Sally take it amiss if he lied down on the bed next to her? Just to sleep. He felt himself drifting. Never mind, he thought, I can sleep right here.
“Glen!” The urgency in her voice cut through the haze in his mind, and he started awake, even though she hadn’t spoken loudly.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a while since I slept. Are you in pain? I grabbed these for you.” He fumbled in his pocket
and brought out the plastic container of over-the-counter painkillers.
“Later,” she said, “when I have some water. Right now we need to figure out how to get Mia and Christian out of the basement.”
“What was that ruckus in the basement?” he asked. “Were you breaking out?”
“Something like that.” She rubbed the wrist that had been cuffed. It had hurt when her full weight had rested there, hanging from the bars. At least for the second before her shoulder had given way. And then the front of the cell had fallen on her, and that hurt almost as much as her shoulder.
“I was trying to get us out of here,” she said, shifting on the bed. “Those cells downstairs are brutal. All concrete and metal and they left us in the pitch dark.” She glanced out the window. “Look, the dawn is coming.”
Glen followed her gaze. Sure enough, there was a faint light in the sky to the east, above the ridge. Would the light help them or hinder them?
“Tell me about the cells in the basement,” he said. “Will we be able to get them out?”
“We’ll need to steal the key from Anthony,” she said, and then frowned. “Wait. Did he just help us? He brought you up here to help me.”
Glen didn’t want to tell her too much in case her face gave Anthony away at a crucial moment. There still was gunfire echoing out there, and Anthony would need his cover until it was all over. “He may be sympathetic to us,” Glen said. “I might be able to convince him to lend us the keys.”
Sally got up from the bed. “Let’s go then. What are we waiting for?”
“When you created all that noise earlier, I counted at least seven pairs of footsteps responding. None of those people have yet to come back out of the basement. I’m all for running in, guns blazing.” He stopped speaking.
She was frowning and shaking her head. “That’s not true. You are very cautious. You want to wait until the townies are finished down there.”
“I don’t like the odds,” he admitted. “Especially when all we have to do is wait them out.”