by C. J.
Rucker saw that a perfect stairway had just formed. He walked over to the cabinet and climbed out of the cell and into the dining room. Ridgeway was several seconds behind Rucker, still picking bits of a Waterford dinner plate out of his arm when he caught up with Rucker in the dining room doorway. Cautiously peering out, Rucker must have seen that the coast was clear for he suddenly sprinted out of the room. Ridgeway checked the area as well and left the dining room. He found cover behind a dishwasher someone had pulled out and used before him as cover judging from the new ventilation holes in the sides. Ridgeway scanned the area and did not see anyone. He thought could hear something faint, but given he was near to the hole in the kitchen wall, he wasn’t sure what he was hearing. God knows what lived out there in the desert and what kinds of sounds they made. Ridgeway shivered inwardly, recalling that that thing might still be out there, and he didn’t want to see that ever again.
Rucker waved to Ridgeway indicating the coast was clear. He ran to a spot around the corner from Rucker’s position.
“Where is everyone? Ridgeway said under his breath.
“I don’t know. Maybe we missed the whole show.”
“All I know is, I get paid whether or not we shoot at or hit anyone. I was present and accounted for and ended up in a padded cell with someone who doesn’t know the meaning of hold it in.”
“Listen, I didn’t exactly end up with a perfectly mannered supermodel as a cellmate either. Hey, what was that?”
“What was what?” Ridgeway asked. “This whole house could collapse at any moment. You’re probably heard a wall giving way.” He cocked his head like a confused puppy, a large blockheaded puppy, squinted, and asked, “What, was that? It sounded like someone calling for help from the other room.”
“Hey, maybe there are a few party favors left after all,” Rucker said with a nasty grin as he took his weapon out of his shoulder holster and motioned Ridgeway to follow.
Rucker and Ridgeway cautiously followed the sound and found themselves in the family room. As they clung to the far wall and scanned the room, they saw furniture overturned and a strange bulge in the center of the floor. The shouting seemed to emanate from this area. Rucker motioned for Ridgeway to check out the anomaly in the middle of the room, but Ridgeway shook his head violently and motioned Rucker to go over to the bulging floor and he would cover him. The head shaking turned into a shoving match, which then escalated into a “fuck you” and “you’re a pussy” shouting match.
A muffled but clear, “Hey, fuckers, it’s us,” came in unison from the floor, stopping an all-out brawl between the two highly trained hired guns.
Rucker and Ridgeway paused in mid-punch and stared at the talking floor.
“Allred and Mims, is that you?” asked Rucker.
“No, it’s your mother, you ass. Get us out of here!” shouted Allred.
Rucker and Ridgeway were able to pry the trap door the rest of the way open with their hands and threw down part of a sectional sofa for Allred and Mims to use as a makeshift ladder.
“We just pulled ourselves out of our hole. Those assholes are going to pay,” Rucker told Mims as he helped him out of the trap. “They ambushed us in the other room. We were evaluating the situation and trying to count heads. The next thing we knew, we were in a fucking hole. How about you?”
Mims paused a moment. “I came in through the front and Allred came in through the hole in the kitchen at the same time to get the drop on them, but somehow they knew we were coming. Those IT guys were supposed to jam any video surveillance. Anyway, those nerdy looking guys were pointing their weapons at us, along with some weird looking thing. It looked like something out of a Star Wars movie or something. So, I figure, those guys are nerds, right? They don’t have the stones to fire a gun let alone at a person. Maybe shoot one of those surveillance bugs, but not a person, right? I figure I shoot at one of the nerds and get everyone’s attention, and we can just wrap this thing up. I shoot, and the next thing I know, one of the nerds aims that weird Star Wars looking rifle at me and fired off a round. The thing parts my hair, takes out a window, and a golf cart on the patio. Allred and I decided to move to another room. Unfortunately, it was the room with the hole in the floor and, bam! In we go. Well, enough story time, let’s get these fuckers.”
“Is that how it went down?” Ridgeway asked Allred after he filled him in on what they knew, which was next to nothing.
Allred did a wiggle-waggle motion with one hand and said, “Close enough.” He remembered putting their hands up when they saw they were outnumbered, and then Mims fired a round through the ceiling when he raised his hands. The one nerdy guy thought Mims was shooting at them and let loose with the weird gun. Next thing they knew they were in a pit, and somehow a group of pencil pushers and lab rats got the best of them. Oh yes, these people were going to pay.
Rucker found the trigger for the trap door while Mims was telling his somewhat fictionalized story. Rucker thought the trap door device was impressive and was trying to rationalize having one put in his condo.
“Stop fucking around, Rucker, and let’s check out the rest of the house,” Ridgeway barked out over his shoulder as he Mims, and Allred fanned out of the family room and into the kitchen area.
Just as Mims, Allred, Ridgeway and a reluctant Rucker exited the family room, they ran into a surprised group of people coming out of the laundry room door.
“No, wait. There are people out...” Melissa cried as she looked at her smartphone and saw the group at the same time her friends encountered them in person.
“Well, hello there, assholes. I bet you didn’t think you would see us again,” Mims said to the remaining six as he and his associates began firing.
Melissa reacted first but was last out of the laundry room. She had five people in front of her, and didn’t have a clear shot of the hired guns. Melissa grabbed Humberto, who was directly in front of her redirected him back into the laundry room, and told him to head back into the garage. Humberto’s mind was more than willing to comply with Melissa, but his legs and feet were slightly slower, and it seemed an eternity before he spun around and grabbed Cathy on the way.
Maggie and Danny were first out of the door and were directly in front of Mims and friends when the shooting started. Maggie had her assault rifle slung around her shoulders, and when she saw the cluster of mercenaries in front of them, she raised the weapon and pointed it in the general direction of the group in front of her. But Danny grabbed Maggie and pulled her away from the gunfire, causing her shots to go wild, but scattering the hired guns nevertheless. Kevin dropped to the ground and fired off a round from what looked like a rifle put together in his grandpa’s garage. What came out, however, was a different story. A small rocket shot out, parting the group that had already scattered thanks to Maggie’s wild shots. The missile demolished what was left of the kitchen wall and continued out into the desert, whistling as it went.
“What the fuck was that?!” Rucker shouted as he dove for cover in the family room. While there an idea begins to slowly form in his head. Truth be told, every idea Rucker had developed this way and either died quickly without him realizing it or materialized long after everyone else had thought of the same thing and were about five steps ahead of him. This time, however, his idea actually grew to fruition. Rucker pumped the air in excitement, but quickly lowered his fist in case anyone walked past the door and saw him punching the air. Rucker peered around the door and found Ridgeway lurking in the hallway by the master bedroom. He waved him over and gave Ridgeway the all-clear sign. Ridgeway looked around and saw it was safe to head to the family room as everyone seemed to have found cover in the house. Ridgeway crept into the family room, slid the pocket doors nearly shut, and then Rucker filled him in on his plan.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
DANNY AND MAGGIE HAD split up after the rocket shot through what remained of the kitchen. Danny had found Kevin gazing in wonder at the remarkable weapon he had just fired, and then dropped it
to the floor because it was red-hot to the touch. He and Kevin briefly knocked heads in diving for the weapon just as they saw a mercenary, enter the family room. Danny and Kevin both mouthed, “Pit” to each other, and crept toward the family room. They noticed that the pocket doors were slightly open. Danny looked in and saw one of the two thugs he couldn’t remember which thug was which, with his back to the door. It looked like thug one was talking to another one to the left, out of Danny’s line of sight. He motioned for Kevin to follow and they both entered the family room with their guns pointed at mercenary number one’s back.
“Hands up!” Danny shouted much louder than he intended to and followed with a soft “Sorry” to Kevin.
“No, I don’t think so,” came a voice from behind Danny and Kevin.
Rucker, the other mercenary, was behind them and pointing a shotgun at them. When they turned around, Ridgeway, mercenary number one drew his handgun and waved it at them, saying “Alright, assholes, see how you like it in the hole.” He then took several steps backward and grabbed a volume of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories from a shelf against the wall behind him. The book was on a hinge, and when pulled away from the bookcase, a section of slightly cracked floor opened up revealing a pit.
Just as the pit opened, a scream penetrated everyone’s eardrums.
“Who just screamed?” shouted Danny “It sounded like Maggie. Maggie, baby, is that you?”
“Don’t worry about her, you’ll be joining her shortly.” With that statement, Ridgeway fired two rounds each into Danny and Kevin’s chests and closed the trap-door. For several moments there was silence then, confused shouting and all-out pandemonium in the small confined space.
“Danny, how bad have you been hit? If you can hear me, try to find your phone and turn on its light. I can’t find mine. Danny, can you hear me? Oh, God, Danny, are you dead? Say something.”
“You’re kneeling on my goddamned chest, asshole,” came a wheezy voice under Kevin.
“Oh, sorry. Thank God. How bad are you hit? I think I’m bleeding internally right now. Not sure.”
“Get the fuck off me!” replied the same wheezy voice.
“Sorry.”
“Maggie. I’ve got to get to Maggie. Phone, where the hell is my phone? Got it. My hands are so sweaty that it doesn’t recognize my fingerprint. Damn it. I forgot my back up code.”
Kevin slapped Danny’s hand away. “Gross. Did you just wipe your hand on my shirt, you fuck? Now what are you doing? Quit feeling my shirt. We have similar shirts. Feel your own shirt. Oh, stupid me, yes, I forgot the lightweight Kevlar. I forgot we are wearing it.”
Danny, sounding like he had just run a marathon, gasped. “Well, I needed a dry finger to unlock my phone, and yes, you are stupid. Damn it, that’s right, no signal in here. I can’t call Maggie. A ha, yes, good light. OK, we put a secret exit in the pit. So simple we open the exit, get out and get Maggie. So, where is the lever to get us out of here?”
“Umm, the lever? I thought it was a switch or maybe a button.”
“Whatever, press it, pull it yank it, just open-sesame it and get us the fuck out of here!”
“Right, sorry. Hey, wait a minute. Why are you putting all the pressure on me? We worked on this together. You should know where the button, lever, counter switch, whatever is too,” Kevin replied.
Danny was pacing in an ever-tightening circle. “Well, yes, I should, but I can’t remember. We had all sorts of good ideas, and I can’t remember which one we settled on for this room, and I can’t think clearly knowing Maggie is up there hurt possibly bleeding to death.”
“Retina scanner?” Kevin asked as he pointed at Danny’s eyes.
Danny waggled his fingers. “No fingerprint scanner, I think.”
“Wait wasn’t there a combo where you had to stand on a button and press a lever and a button simultaneously?”
“The twister release!” they said in unison, Kevin stood on one foot with his opposite arm stretched out. He kicked a nearby spongy wall and said, “Crap, that was for the dining room.”
“If I was a release button where would I be?” Danny muttered to himself.
“You would check all the walls and corners,” Kevin muttered back.
“Center of room!” they shouted, and Danny dove toward the center of the enclosed space, nearly cracking his skull with Kevin’s, to look for a hidden seam in the padded floor.
“Of course we hid it where it shouldn’t be, and no one would look. I can’t believe we forgot where we put it,” Kevin said as he trained the phone light over Danny’s shoulder.
Danny found a nearly invisible seam and pried apart the padding to reveal a button. Danny pressed it. Nothing happened.
“Fuck.”
“Wait. You have to hold the button down for five, I think.”
“Oh yeah, Christ. Next time we design a secret pit, we make things less complicated.”
“It seemed so cool in theory and in the practice runs.”
Sweat dripped into Danny’s eyes and he could barely see the button to press it, but he rammed his finger down, and struck the button, nearly breaking both it and his finger in the process. He could hear Kevin muttering, “1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi...”
“Keep your Mississippis to yourself.”
Just then a panel opened against a wall, revealing a box.
“Jesus Christ, we are psycho nerds. Why did we think we needed all this shit to get out of our own pit?”
“I know, Danny. Next time we keep it simple. Zombie.”
“What did you call me?”
“That’s the password for the voice recognition box.”
As Kevin explained this, a portion of the wall opened up, revealing a passageway. Danny crawled to the wall as his legs were rubbery, and used the wall and Kevin for support to stand upright.
“Danny, Maggie’ll be alright. In times of crisis, the people who survive are the ones who get angry and are fighters. The ones who don’t survive are the quiet, passive people who give up. Now of those two types, which sounds like our sweet, sweet Maggie?”
“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?”
“Nope, proven fact.”
“Let’s go get my angry, your lovely and sometimes angry, lady.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
AFTER THE PIT DOOR had shut and the sound of the idiots had muffled and then ended. Ridgeway and Rucker went to look for the others and found Joe in the demolished kitchen area. He had some three-ring binders with him and waved them over. “These fuckers have been working on other formulas. Maybe something that won’t melt your insides. This could be a goldmine. Meet up with Suzanne who’s in the laundry room while I grab our expert. The genius isn’t answering his phone. He can have a look at this stuff.” Joe set down the binders on a partially destroyed kitchen counter and ran out the door toward the SUV out in front.
“Hey asshole, time to earn your keep.”
A mumbled reply came from the rear of SUV.
“Out, now, chemist.”
A figure stepped from the SUV on shaky legs and began to wander away from it.
“This way, toward the house. You don’t look like much, so you had better be one of those really clever guys with nothing else going for them or this is going to be a very short trip for you,” Joe snarled.
“Awright, ah wis juist a bawherr groggy efter mah ummm. Ye ken, ah rested mah een fur a bawherr. Geez, whit th' hell happened in here?”
Joe poked the chemist in the chest and snarled, “What did I tell you about that phony accent shit?”
There was silence followed by a wheezing sound and then, faintly, “You would break my kneecaps?”
“Correct, at least I don’t have to repeat myself. We found some notebooks hidden away and these ingredients written in them looked familiar. Suzanne took a look and thought the equations jotted down are similar to what’s on the market now. Was she right and, more importantly, will this turn people’s insides to jelly too?”
“Promising as in, valuable? Promising as in this will work and won’t melt peoples insides? Is this a better formula?
“Oh, yes, that is exactly what I mean.”
“Wait here, and make sure that’s what these notes say.”
The chemist, who did not have nerves of steel, decided he’d better find a place to lie down, preferably with a stiff drink. He rummaged around the kitchen and saw an un-damaged bottle of something that looked alcoholic, and stumbled into a bedroom with bottle in hand.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
HUMBERTO AND CATHY were debating whether to wait for the others in the garage or to leave in the vehicle and circle around and pick them up. Cathy and Humberto had gotten so involved in their debate they had both laid down their weapons on the hood of a Mercedes Benz truck that looked like it had been given steroids. When Cathy had first walked into the garage, she thought she was seeing things, but, no, the truck had six wheels. She intended to examine the Frankensteined truck more closely, but got sucked into the argument with Humberto. Cathy had forgotten to whisper and was trying to outshout Humberto who was over analyzing the situation, and consequently, they didn’t notice when Suzanne slid their weapons off the hood of the truck and into her bag.
“This is why pencil pushers should never go out in the field. You fuckers will discuss a thing until you are both old and gray, and in this day and age, that’s a hell of a long time.”
Cathy whirled around and saw a woman. “Suzanne? I heard about you. You’re the corporate spy, aren’t you? Why don’t you let us go? Corporate theft is one thing but out and out murder and or unlawful restraint is another.”
“I’m much more than a corporate spy, my dear. I don’t like to be pigeonholed into one job description. In fact,” Suzanne said, stopped, took a step back, and waved .45 Heckler and Koch handgun at them. “Never mind, I don’t have time to give you my resume. Just so you know, I’m no one to fuck with. As long as you get that straight, we’ll get along fine.” Suzanne punctuated each point with her .45 handgun; causing Humberto to flinch each time she pointed the pistol in his direction.