by A. R. Shaw
“Ace? Where the hell are you, you little bastard?” Kent said with gritted teeth under his breath as he began jogging down the corridor. He came to a tee section and wasn’t sure which way to go when he heard a bark. The little jerk actually barked. This was going to end badly soon if he couldn’t get hold of the dog without detection.
Pulling out his firearm and another more lethal ordnance, Kent continued the pursuit after the wayward canine. When he came to yet another end, he caught a glimpse of the dog before he turned yet another corner. That’s when Kent heard outside alarms go off and soon after…a few inside alarms began. This was going to get real crazy real fast. As long as he went undetected, he’d hide out but the minute that changed, he had a few surprises for them. The tide would turn.
In the cacophony of alarms sounding, Kent found a kind of peaceful pace that allowed him to think clearly. It was as if everything slowed in motion. His senses were on fire. Not only did he keep up with Ace, he also looked out for signs of Wren and Sloane. He scanned the offices and room quarters for those in charge.
“Hey!”
Oh crap, Kent thought as he looked behind him and saw in the dim light a man coming his way. It appeared the man began to question who Kent was and why he was there. Knowing the answer, Kent dove into the nearest room but as he locked the door behind him, he turned around and saw that he wasn’t alone. The room was occupied.
“Who the hell are you? What’s going on?” said the startled guy in the disheveled bed along the wall. He must have just awoken in the chaos.
“Nothing…sounds like a fire alarm going off…” Kent tried to play it off as he took a few steps closer but immediately saw that he wasn’t going to buy the lie and since he’d already taken two giant strides toward the guy still in his bed, he had only one chance to subdue him before he lost the drop on him.
Lunging at him still under his bedcovers, he used the sheets to trap the man inside as he covered him in no time, enough time to pull the knife from the sheath on his waist. He covered the man’s mouth just as his eyes widened in horror at the realization of what was about to happen. There was no time for hesitation…one minor second of delay and the man beneath him would give him away…Kent plunged the sharp blade across the guy’s jugular and esophagus in one swipe, spilling his warm blood over his hand like pouring warm pudding into a mold. “I’m sorry,” Kent whispered. He was meant to save life…not take life, though there was no time to lament this slight of the Hippocratic oath.
As boot stomps neared, Kent jumped up and grabbed an ordnance out of his bag. With a bloody knife in one hand and the explosive in the other, he neared the doorway and peeked out when the footfalls ran past. Still undetected, Kent ran out, following them farther down the hallway. Ace was somewhere in between him and them and he needed to find the damn dog.
That’s when he heard more shouting and suddenly Ace barking like all hell.
“Oh shit!” This was not going well.
He neared the next corner and heard a radio transmission from a group of three soldiers and amongst them, one of them held Ace’s collar as he growled and jumped all over in an attempt to free himself.
“We found a dog!”
“Could he have set off the alarm? A stray dog?”
“No…he must belong to someone. That was an ordnance that blew near the pallets.”
“Kill the dog and keep looking.”
Kent holstered the knife and pulled his pistol. Before the guard even raised his gun, Kent sent a bullet into each of the soldiers. He did it automatically, as Sloane taught him. Get them before they get you. Before there’s time to react.
“Shots fired!” someone yelled from opposite end of the hallway, their running boot-falls coming clearer. The radio crackled from the downed guard’s hand.
Ace’s furry body had flattened to the ground over the loud noises for a millisecond, and then he took off like a shot.
Kent ran after him but stopped at the bodies. He’d killed four men already, except the one he saw now straining to reach for his firearm, and Kent, cold as ice, aimed down point-blank and fired into the wounded guard’s head. He had no time for apologies this time.
With Ace running ahead, Kent pursued while the chaos continued. Then he realized more guards were headed in his direction. Enough of this crap. Kent pulled the filament on the ordnance in his hand and threw it down the hallway behind him and then ran like hell in the opposite direction. They knew of his presence now. Enough hide and seek…now search and destroy.
The explosion behind him rocked the building. Some of the alarms ceased and others began. Then somewhere ahead of him, gunfire ensued, though they weren’t shooting at him and he had no idea who they were shooting at. Then fear sank into him. “Oh, hell no.” Maybe they were killing the prisoners?
30
Sloane
Running with a limp from the room, Sloane began flinging open all the doors that she’d previously left locked, freeing those within. “Find a way out. Run. Fight back!” she screamed over and over.
Wren was nowhere among the zombie-like creatures the prisoners had become.
They edged out into the hallways, confused and stunned. “Run!” Sloane shouted to cajole them into fleeing for their lives and continued the effort to free as many as possible.
Only a few of them ran like deer suddenly freed, bounding away. Others were zoned-in like deer caught in headlights, carefully roaming the hallways. Most of them didn’t know where to go. A few helped others. Clinging to one another like lost children. Confused. Unsure of the plight they’d suddenly found themselves in, or who was the enemy.
“Wren?” Sloane screamed. “Wren!” Sloane yelled over and over again, as if she were a disobedient child, though none of those she freed were her daughter and Rose’s slight, emaciated body was nowhere in sight. Already she’d opened ten rooms, freeing at least twenty more prisoners, and at yet each door, of the many doors left, more of them continued to pile out, crowding the tight hallway. This was less a prison than a warehouse of keys to supplies. Once the lock was picked, the keys were no longer useful.
Then Sloane suddenly, without a thought, crouched to the ground along with everyone else when an explosion rocked the entire building. Ceiling tiles toppled. Wires hung down like spider webs yanked free. Their useless strings would only entangle them now. Sloane clung to the side of a wall and while everyone else remained down, she pulled herself up, pressing her palms against the sides of the wall. Her injured leg ached despite the adrenaline rushing through her veins and she strove onward.
Then shouting and gunshots came from far away. A distant flashlight shone down the blackened hallway. With freed prisoners between her and the shots, Sloane picked up her pace to open as many doors as possible in hopes of spotting Wren and keeping the gunman on the other side of the dazed herd. Suddenly she couldn’t believe her ears as a dog barked over the ensuing noise. “Ace?” she screamed. “No way! That means…Kent? Kent, I’m here!”
She stood tall to see over the mass in the middle of the hallway, when Ace suddenly rammed into her middle and she collapsed to the carpeted floor. Then, to her horror, shooting began again. Those still stunned in the hallway were like trapped livestock. They began screaming and throwing themselves to the ground, but their pleas didn’t matter. The guards shot them anyway…riddling them with bullets. The keys fell to the ground with a silent clatter, no longer useful. Sloane shoved her hand underneath Ace’s collar, crouched low and ran in the shadows as fast as they could go while she continued to open random doors along the way in hopes of finding her daughter. Then another explosion rocked down the hallway. The gunfire stopped.
“Sloane!”
Hearing the familiar voice, she stopped in her tracks and waited. She thought she heard a man call her name over the cacophony of bullets, but it could have been her imagination. Kent? Was it him? More gunfire started again and kept her from finding out. She continued down the hallway, continued to run until she found a door
already opened along an empty corridor. The one she’d left unchecked. With no one else present, she had no idea what it meant. One door wide open among the many closed. “Wren?” she yelled out but knew just like moments ago, if it were someone calling her name, the firefight would drown out the call.
She opened the doors along the way…most of the prisoners remained inside their rooms now, preferring the safety within their cells over the gunfire outside, except for a brave few that ran away, passing her and Ace as she went. “Kent has to be here.” Then another explosion rocked the building. Most of the gunfire stopped suddenly and after Sloane recovered, with Ace pulling her arm off, she looked up and saw the morning light coming from a hallway door, highlighting the sign on the wall that said Exit. Just as she realized a way out of the building was only steps away, one of the prisoners that passed her before dared open the door. She watched and waited. He disappeared outside and though her ears rang, the sound of the simple metal door clicking closed delighted her, and then a moment later she heard a few shots ring out, jolting her where she stood. Assuming the worst, she ran to the door and peeked out the door’s square window and confirmed her suspicions.
The escaped prisoner lay face down on a gravel lot. Unmoving.
Pulling herself away from the sight, Sloane looked down at Ace and then she stood taller.
She turned against the door then.
A few people skittered past her with terror on their minds. They flung open the door behind her. Shots rang out.
Sloane’s pace increased, Ace by her side.
A few gunshots still fired down the long hallway but that didn’t matter to her in the least. She headed into the fire.
No longer did she open the locked doors. It was safer for those to remain inside for now. They might get in her way.
Her pace increased as she passed prisoners’ bodies lying still on the ground, blood-splattered. It dawned on her that she caused some of their deaths by exposing them to the gunman. Some of them were still alive. Many more were dead, beyond their pain now. They were not the ones she was looking for.
Ace trotted alongside.
Then a body she recognized—one of the guards…the mean one with the gun pointed at her earlier in the day. In fact, the rifle he used rested by his side. With blood blooming out of his chest there was little question how he died. His eyes stared openly at her even now in surprise.
Crouching down, she retrieved his rifle, opened the chamber and checked the magazine. It was empty aside from two rounds.
“Not good enough.”
Feeling around his waist, she felt a back holster and pulled him over. Pulling the weapon free, she let his body flop back down to the ground. With the familiar frame in her hand, she knew how to work the handgun easily. Grabbing the weapon, she pulled back the slide. With a 9MM in the chamber she released the slide and then the magazine. Finding it full to the rim, she popped it back in with the palm of her hand. Hell…if she didn’t know better, this Glock 19 was her own.
Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, she took both weapons with her and pushed forward until she met a corner. Peeking around the bend briefly, she found a wounded guard leaning against the far wall. When he saw her, he reached for his weapon.
Sloane swung into view again with the raised Glock. “Don’t do it,” she warned but he didn’t listen to her warning.
He fired at her at once, blowing a chunk of the already bullet-ridden sheetrock away as Sloane barely shielded herself around the side.
Sloane wasted no time and fired three rounds into the man’s center mass. With his already grave injury, she would end him with the mercy of sudden death. It sent an audible warning and saved her precious time that way.
The surprised look upon his death face from an armed prisoner told her they’d failed their mission in one area…complacency. They regarded them as cattle…livestock.
In the final moments of his life he sent his handgun sprawling across the floor.
She collected this weapon too. With her dog by her side and armed with three weapons now, Sloane came across another prisoner, this one alive. A young man with dreadlocks hanging down to his shoulders was hiding in an opened room. He looked fairly capable. At least on his feet and unwounded. Bent over, too thin, and perhaps gaunt and as scared as a rabbit, but perfectly capable of handling a gun.
“Hey, give me a hand.” She motioned with her armed left hand.
He glanced at her briefly, terrified, and returned his gaze to darting back and forth down the hallway, only perceiving her as a non-threat…she was just another prisoner to him.
After a brief sigh, Sloane pointed down the hallway, away from the ensuing gun battle. “Go out that way but watch yourself outside. They’re gunning down anyone who leaves the building. Hey, are you listening to me?”
The stranger initially sprang up to run for it but stalled and faltered. He seemed paralyzed by fear. Sloane had no more time to waste on the man. She reluctantly left him there to his own mental prison…she could offer nothing more for him now. Bravery was a low commodity. Even for the physically capable, the lack of mental endurance trumped that strength utterly.
Leaving him to his own peril, Sloane and Ace again headed toward what sounded like an all-out war. A resistance was fighting like hell and by the sounds of it they were winning. The carnage came as thick smoke and the burning smell of building materials brought her closer to hope.
Armed, she rounded the next corner, immediately taking out a guard shooting in the opposite direction farther down the hallway. She assumed he fought the resistance. When he fell to the ground, Ace let out a bark that she barely heard because what she saw next seemed a mirage.
Through the smoke walked a man…aiming directly at her. Except that he didn’t fire. He carried her backpack with him as he cleared the haze. She lowered her weapon and found herself falling.
“Kent!”
31
Kent
He couldn’t believe his eyes but had no doubt the woman before him in the distance, aiming at him even, was his Sloane.
As he neared, she lowered the gun meant to send him to his demise. “Kent?”
He didn’t answer her question, but he closed the distance between them quickly because she began sliding down to the ground before her, either from the weight of the weapons she carried, shock, or her injuries. He wasn’t sure. The fact that she stood before him alive was all he needed. He kissed her and then pulled her away to get a look at her.
Later, he couldn’t remember how he’d finally came to have his hands on her. He only recalled grasping onto life and never letting go. “Sloane, thank God!”
Pushing a tangled mass of hair out of her eyes, he caressed the side of her face. “I see you found my dog,” he chuckled. “Are you all right?”
“I’m injured but I’m fine. Tell me you have Wren?” Her words came jagged, as if she fought the emotion with all her strength.
“I can’t. Do you know where she is?”
She only shook her head. “We have to find her. I won’t leave without her.”
He nodded. “That’s why I’m here. Not leaving without my girls. Let’s find her.” He pulled her up, took the burden of the rifle from her shoulder, checked the ammo rounds, reloaded and said, “This way.”
32
Rose
The door closed. Like so many times before. The so-familiar final click signaling her imprisonment…only this time it didn’t happen. Rose knew her only opportunity finally arrived with the absence of that sound. Thankful for her new roommate’s ingenuity, Rose wanted to rejoice with her, but she couldn’t afford that kind of human interaction now. Sloane wasn’t her first roommate…she was her fourth in the time she’d spent there. Part of the insanity living in that room day in and day out was becoming attached to those it exposed her to…only to have them ripped away. Having a partner in misery was a lifeline. Having them taken and murdered was another kind of inhumane torture, and that act happened over and over again.
She assumed they’d succumbed to Hyde’s torture. They were dead. It didn’t matter what he promised them. They were dead. One way or another. Rose knew Hyde couldn’t afford free prisoners to retaliate in time. They went through too many of them. And she also knew Astoria wouldn’t allow that policy to exist. They were nothing more than an incorporated gang come to rise in the power vacuum of an apocalypse.
As soon as Hyde pried from them the locations of the people and stockpiles they had, he took them, their supplies and then, not only their lives but the squealers as well. There was no longer a need for them then. That’s why Rose told herself not to let another person in again. Not even in sure death do you confide in another. Never again. We’re all just dying anyway. The only difference was when and now, who you’d take with you.
Instead, she waited for Sloane to head out on her own clandestine mission and when alone, Rose too left the room she knew as a cell. She had her own task…her own vengeance to achieve. And with this granted chance, she wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip her by.
As she stood, her slight weight swayed. She held onto the wall to steady herself. Her stringy brown hair hung down in front of her face, casting a sickly veil. Involuntarily, her legs shook with the fevered pain. Moisture beads ran rivers down the insides of her legs. They were either rivers of blood or pus, probably both. Beyond concern for her own health, Rose followed along down the hallway toward the room her nightmares were made of. She kept to the shadows. She kept in her mind what she must do. And through the darkness, she kept moving despite the chaotic sounds.
Yes, this ends tonight.
33