by K. C. Crowne
“Move,” Carly said.
Looking back at the door, I took a deep breath and twisted the handle. It swung open, and staring back at us was a long, dark, concrete tunnel.
“Oh my God.”
“It looks like it goes on for miles.”
Looking back over my shoulder toward Benny, I knew I had to get as far away from him as possible.
“Okay, let's do this,” I said and pushed Carly through the door.
“Hey!” Benny's yelled. “What's going on out here?”
But it wasn't echoing up the tunnel; it was coming straight for us. I turned around just as he ran around the corner, his eyes moving to the shattered lock I'd just busted, then to the broken pen in my hand.
“You bitch!”
He lunged at me, but before his body could connect with mine, I slammed the door closed and took off down the tunnel.
“Carly, run!”
“That pen was my mother's!” his voice chased after us. “I'll kill you!”
Chapter 22
Jackson
“This way,” Mario said. “Let me welcome you to my humble abode.”
His voice and his arrogance were getting on my nerves. As he walked us around to the tennis court at the edge of the mansion, I was sure he was playing games with us until he pulled away the bushes at the side of the court and pointed at another manhole cover.
“There are twelve entrances on the mountain in total,” he said. “This one goes down to the hospital wing.”
“Twelve? What, your dad planning to live out the apocalypse down here or something?”
“Pretty much,” Mario said as he pulled up the manhole cover.
I slung Jared over my shoulder, no easy feat considering how numb with the cold my limbs were and how heavy he was.
“Jesus, Jared. You need to cut down on the pancakes, buddy.” I hoped he would wake up and laugh or tease me back, but all I got in response was silence and solemn looks from the boys as they helped me lower him down the tunnel.
As I struggled with him down the ladder, his blood soaking into my clothes, I felt a lump form in my throat and my insides fill up with a deep, dark feeling.
This shouldn't be happening.
I failed my little brother.
He's going to die and it's all my fault.
“This way,” Mario said, hitting the switch on the wall.
There was a metallic blinking noise as the lights came to life, and a moment later, the room flickered into view.
“Whoa, you weren't joking when you said your dad built a hospital wing.”
In the center of the room lay an operating table surrounded by all the equipment a person might need to save someone's life. Dylan began ransacking the cupboards.
“Disinfectant, bandages, gauze, tranexamic acid.”
“What does that do?”
“Makes your blood clot,” Dylan said, coming over with a vial and a syringe in his hand. “Lucky for you I still remember my medic training from my early Navy years. This shit is well past its sell by date, but it'll work. It's remained frozen down here as though it was just made.”
Dropping Jared onto the operating table, I touched his forehead and felt nothing but a deep coldness as though his skin was made of stone.
“You're gonna be okay, buddy.”
I shook him, hoping he would hear me, but there were no signs of life.
“Leave him to me,” Dylan said. “I got this.”
He raised the syringe and flicked the bubbles from the chamber.
As he injected Jared, I looked around the room, wondering what the hell someone like Benny Senior would want with a place like this, let alone how he convinced a doctor to work down here.
“My old man had a couple surgeons on his payroll,” Mario said as he saw the look on my face. “Who else are you gonna call when you need a bullet removed?”
Dylan injected the last of the drug into Jared's leg before finding a sheet and covering him up to the waist.
“The most we can do is keep him comfortable for now,” he said. “The bleeding's stopped. Now we just need to keep him warm and the wound clean.”
Lucas lay a hand on my shoulder and guided me toward the door.
“We need to find your sister and girlfriend,” he said. “We've done all we can for Jared.”
I nodded reluctantly and walked over to Jared. “Buddy. I'll be back soon, I promise. And I'll bring sis back. Gabby too.”
I ruffled his hair like I used to do when he was a kid and swallowed the pain of seeing him like that. “Love you, kid.”
Backing away from him, I joined the rest of the guys out in the long corridor.
“Holy shit, how long does this go on for?” I asked.
“Counting all the twists and turns? About three miles,” Mario replied.
“How we gonna find them in three miles of criss-crossing tunnels?”
“It's easy,” Mario shrugged. “Benny's a lazy shit. He'll be in the lounge with his feet up watching those dumb, old gangster movies he loves so much. Besides, I used to play hide and seek down here all the time as a kid. Know the place like the back of my hand.”
As I watched him talk, I found it difficult to imagine him as a kid. Aged beyond his years with a thunderous look in his eye, he appeared like the type of guy who had never experienced a second of happiness in his entire life. Not unless he was on the right side of a gun anyway.
He began walking into the distance, the sporadically placed lights flickering overhead. I hung back beside Dylan for a moment, noticing Jared's blood on his hands.
“This place gives me the creeps,” he said.
“It's like the freakin' Paris catacombs or something,” Lucas said with a shiver.
We watched Mario walk into the distance, the sound of his men's boots battering out a perfect beat as they echoed down the hall.
“I got a real bad feeling about this guy,” Lucas murmured.
“Me too.”
“Can we trust him not to kill us?”
“Why would he?” I said. “We're no threat to him. Besides, he could have easily made mincemeat out of us already if he wanted to. You saw how armed his men are.”
“Men that should know better,” Dylan said. “A disgrace to the military is what they are.”
“Forget about them,” I said. “Come on. Let's go get our girls back.”
As we followed Mario, snaking through the long, dark tunnels, I could feel the cold from the mountain rock all around us. Despite hating the Giannis and everything they stood for, I was in awe of how impressive the place was. Whether I approved of it or not, it was a real engineering feat.
Rounding the corner, I hoped to at least see an end in sight –a door, a room, a person, a hint of warmth– but what we were confronted with were crossroads with five points all snaking off in different directions.
“Now what?”
“Now we listen,” Mario said. “It's the magic point.”
I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate.
“The one point down here where you can hear every single room in this rabbit warren. Listen.”
We all stood in silence, straining our ears. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the echo of a television.
“That little douche is watching Hawkeye again,” Mario sneered with a shake of his head. “The predictable bastard. Come on, this way.”
We followed him around another corner, then another. Gradually doors began coming into view as more corridors began branching off from the tunnel. There was now a vague sense of homeliness, the scent of food being cooked in the distance and the lemony tang of kitchen cleaner. But there was something else too. Burned wood, scorched carpets, and thick smoke.
What the hell has been going on down here?
The concrete soon gave way to mahogany paneled walls and doors with ornate glass windows. Peering into one, I saw a bedroom, tastefully decorated with a cream bedspread, beige walls and antique furniture.
“Looks like a fi
ve-star hotel,” I commented, incredulous.
“Oh yeah. My dad was a real snob when it came to decor,” Mario said. “Everything had to look like The Four Seasons.”
The sound of the television grew closer so I could now make out the cheesy dialogue and gunshots that accompanied all the best gangster flicks.
“The lounge is this way,” Mario directed. “Come on.”
But something caught my attention in the other direction. A whiny voice and the sound of clambering footsteps barely audible beyond the sound of the television.
“Nah,” I said. “We're going this way.”
I pointed down toward the corridor on my left.
“Why?” Mario asked.
“I've just got a feeling,” I replied, taking in the surroundings.
There was a smell in the air that didn't match the others. Feminine and floral with a hint of something rich and sumptuous, the scent of perfume and shampoo.
“Wait. What's that?” Dylan asked, pointing to the nearest room.
The door was wide open, the lock busted and broken. Stepping inside, I saw a room in disarray. Then a cupboard with photographs spilling out from its guts caught my eye. The door to that was busted too, with something long and wiry sticking out from the rusted lock.
Taking it carefully in my fingers, I plucked it free and studied it.
“It's a hair pin,” I said, a smile spreading across my face.
“The girls were here.”
“Looks like they weren't intent on being here for long, though,” Dylan laughed. “They broke out.”
That's my girl. You’re no one's victim.
“They can't be far away,” I said, edging back out into the hallway and looking up and down. “This way.”
“No,” Mario said. “There's no reason for them to be up there. There's nothing but the boiler room and kitchen up that way. If the girls wanted to escape, they would have gone out through the lounge.”
“I don't think that was an option,” Lucas said, stepping into lounge. “The place has been torched.”
We all looked at one another.
“What's been going on down here?” Dylan wondered.
In response, an ear-piercing scream echoed down from the kitchen.
“Get off me!” Gabby hollered.
My heart immediately jumped into my throat as pure adrenaline shot through my veins.
“Run!”
Chapter 23
Gabby
We were running for our lives, the fountain pen still gripped in my white-knuckled hand as I pumped my legs as hard as they would go. They ached from the effort of hurling myself headlong down the hallway, burning as I ran faster than I'd ever run before. In front of me, Carly was a few steps ahead, her breath clouding in front of her as she panted in the freezing underground temperatures. Behind me, Benny was catching up.
How can a guy so small run so fast?
But it wasn't physical strength or fitness that propelled his body down the tunnel after me, it was anger.
"You fucking bitch!" he yelled.
My eyes flashed over doorways hiding secret, darkened rooms. In front of us, the never-ending tunnel stretched out into the abyss, as though nothing was waiting at the bottom to save us but the end of the world. The breath was being run out of me, my stomach forming a stitch that made my ribs feel as though they were being torn apart. My throat ached from gasping in the cold air, my heart beating as though it was ready to explode. Inside my coat, sweat was dripping down my back.
But I kept running, sucking in more air as my lungs burned and I struggled to breathe. Ahead, I could see the tunnel narrow to a brick wall. We were reaching a dead end. With nowhere to run, I began looking desperately around for anything to hide us. I rattled doors, all locked, all hiding their own secrets. I wondered what lay beyond the dozens of locked doors. More treasure? More family tragedies?
My eyes focused on something in the distance: a light shining out from an open doorway. My nose caught the scent of food, smelled heat in the air as I made out the vague shape of steam. From inside came the sound of knives rapidly battering a chopping board, of water boiling on a stove as someone whistled cheerily along to the radio.
The kitchen!
Grabbing Carly's sleeve, I yanked her inside, the two of us skidding into the room and landing in front of a bemused chef. He was barely more than a kid, just a little slip of a thing with pink cheeks and an oversized uniform draped over his skinny frame.
“Close the door!” Carly cried.
I threw myself at it, but not before the lumbering weight of Benny flew into it like a bull. Losing my balance, I fell to my knees, pushing with all my strength to close the door.
“Help me!” I called to Carly.
She scrambled over to me, crying hard as she pushed her dainty hands against the door. Benny was huffing and grunting like a wild animal, his bulky frame easily overpowering us.
I looked behind me at the chef, but he was just watching with his mouth open.
"Put the fucking knife to use!" I screamed at him.
But he just stared down at his hand, too afraid to move.
"I ain't aiming this thing at the boss," he said. He looked at Benny, whose arm was snaking around the door and ran into the pantry where he locked himself inside.
"Useless bastard!" I shouted after him.
I continued to push as hard as I could, jamming Benny's meaty arm in the doorway, but it was as though he was impervious to pain, as though the more he felt, the angrier he got, the more motivated he was to get to me.
"He's getting in!" Carly cried.
"Like hell he is!"
Launching myself at the door with all my strength, I was determined to keep him away from us. But my strength was dwindling, and I was no match for a man whose rage succeeded his size. I could feel my grip on the door begin to weaken, and with one final push from Benny, it burst open, and he blustered inside.
His hold on me was instant, his hand reaching for my throat. My breath was squeezed out of me, the veins popping and burning in my head as blood rushed in my ears. I scratched at his arm, trying to tear him off me, but his grip only tightened.
"You've been nothing but trouble," he said, squeezing the life out of me.
My knees buckled as I weakened, my whole body becoming limp as I sank to the floor.
"You think you're something special," he growled. "But you're not. You're just a whore. A whore who'll leave me like everyone else. You're all the same."
He's lost his mind.
Carly stood behind him. My eyes focused on her hand. It reached across the counter toward the chopping board where a cleaver lay waiting.
Grab it! Grab it and kill him!
As soon as it was clutched in her fingers, she lunged at him, the blade slicing through the air perilously close to my ear. It landed square between his shoulder blades. He let out a maniacal shriek, jerked and spasmed as blood poured down his back. But the pain did nothing to sedate him. He released me for a second, and fire filled my throat. He kicked Carly, who slammed back and fell, then grabbed me again before I could regain the strength to move.
“You're dead. You're dead!”
Gradually, I could feel my vision blur at the sides, could feel all the strength subside from my body as unconsciousness took hold.
This can't be happening. I can't be dying.
I tried to kick him, but it was as though my body wasn't connected to my brain. One last time, I tried to push him away, but my body wasn't working, it was fading away.
The only thing I could do was scream, but as I opened my mouth, nothing came out but the strangled sound of my own spit and breath caught in my throat.
This is it.
This is the end.
But as the vision began to vanish, I started seeing things. Shapes in the doorway, figures with guns, wide shoulders filling up the room.
I must be imagining this.
I weakened further, my mind wandering as everything began to go
black. Before I passed out completely, a loud bang sounded, followed by the noise of something hitting the floor.
Then a rush of air entered my lungs and I reached up to my neck to feel Benny's hand was now gone.
"Gabby!"
The voice brought the life back to my veins, a voice I thought I would never hear again.
"Jackson," I wheezed.
There were suddenly arms around me, strong hands cradling me as I felt his warm body.
"Oh, God, Gabby. You're okay."
Laying in his arms, my vision began to return, and I looked up to see his face, the glow from the fluorescent light above shining like a halo around his head.
"You're safe now," he said. "We're getting you out of here."
My eyes focused on the shape of something slumped on the floor. Benny lay against the wall unmoving. I didn't need to look at the blank stare in his eyes to know he was dead. As my eyesight returned, I glanced around the room, suddenly aware it was full of people.
Then I saw a man stood in the doorway. He was a stranger to me, but there was a familiarity to the deadly look in his eyes. They were the same color as Benny's, so dark they were almost black, cold, deep. An endless pit of evil.
In his hand, a gun was gripped tight, a small plume of smoke traveling up from the chamber. He walked over to Benny's body and shook his head apologetically.
"Sorry it had to happen this way, brother."
Leaning down, he made the sign of the cross over Benny's face then closed his eyelids. He looked ready to walk away as though his business was finished, but Jackson wasn't letting him go so easily.
"Don't move," he said.
His team quickly surrounded the killer, their gun raised to eye level.
"Hey, hey! I thought we were friends here. We were supposed to be allies!"
"We don't make friends with murderers," Jackson said. "Now turn around and face the wall."
Before the guy could protest, Dylan jumped on him and wrestled him to the ground.
"Get the sorry bastard tied up," Jackson said. "Hold him until the sheriff gets here."
“You're not holding him while we're here,” said one of Mario's men.