by B D Grant
The squad leader walks over, “Good, now get ready to move out.”
The skinny one looks at him like he’s crazy, “I can’t leave him in this state.”
“We have to get down there, Teller. Prisoners are down there, our people are down there,” the woman next to the squad leader insists. The one holding the bag hands it to Teller when he doesn’t budge. He joins us by the basement door.
The skinny one, Teller, looks angrily at his back. “I’m staying with my patient.” The squad leader looks at Debbie who is holding the boy’s hand unmoved. She shakes her head letting him know she isn’t going either.
“Alright,” he signs in defeat. He looks at the three of us, “Any of you up for it?”
Glensy raises his gun, “I was born ready.”
Taylor nods.
The kids will be looked after by Debbie and Boston’s in the hands of a professional. I look at the squad leader, “Lets do this.”
19
T. Basement
The three adults, Kelly, Glensy, and I make it to the bottom of the stairs. Everyone pauses to listen. The woman in the now three-person squad is behind the two men and in front of me are Glensy, and Kelly. For a second I get mad at the males leading the females situation we have going on. I might be smaller than all of them but I am capable of taking care of myself.
The trio in front of us freezes. The woman turns to face us. “Don’t try to be hero’s,” she tells us firmly. Her eyes linger longer on me. Maybe she can tell what I’m willing to do to get back the people that were taken from me. She continues, “If things go south it is your jobs to get everyone upstairs out safely.” We all nod in agreement.
We are at a half-open door that meets the base of the staircase. We don’t hear the gunshots coming from the other side of the door until we’re on top of it. The man in charge makes hand signs to the others. I half understand what he’s instructing from watching Dillon and the other guys earlier. He’s going in with the woman, and the other man is to follow. The woman quietly tells us to stay by the door. They go through the door and the shooting stops momentarily before picking back up. I ease up to the door with my gun ready.
“What are you doing?” Kelly asks as he follows behind me. I peek around the corner of the door real fast. I catch a glimpse of the squad that just went in along with bodies that are on the floor. “What did you see?” he asks anxiously.
“Not a lot,” I look again. This time I look at the ones on the floor. One has the same hair color as Jake, but his face is turned in the other direction. I pull back and listen to the gunshots. Kelly and Glensy are saying something but I’m not paying them any attention. When the shooting stops for a moment I dive through the door.
The room I enter is similar to what a secretary’s office would be except the door that would lead to the bosses office is wide and made of heavy steel. It opens into a hallway that the squadron is shooting down. The woman and two men are across the room on either side of the door that is off its hinges and laying on the floor. I get as far away from the hallway that bullets are flying out of as I can while still being able to examine the body on the ground. After a good look I am relieved to find it isn’t Jake. It’s a man about the same age as the others surrounding the hallway entrance. The team is talking among themselves when I join them by the entrance to the hallway.
“They came out of nowhere.”
“They must have our people surrounded.”
The two guys lean out and fire back.
“Wait!” The leader says to the other guy. “The one in front is unarmed.” They both draw back. “They’re using a prisoner to shield them!” He announces.
I try to peer around the woman to see what they’re talking about. She pushes me hard against the wall. “Get out of here!” she yells. Kelly and Glensy run in as I hear the people down the hall moving farther away. The woman sees Kelly and Glensy coming in so she fires down the hall giving them cover.
We hear a commotion in the hall and the return gunfire ceases. We all try to look down the hall. “It’s Lena,” Kelly says in bewilderment. A door slams shut as someone in the hall curses loudly.
Glensy looks confused. “They brought her down here?” he asks Kelly.
For those of us that didn’t see what happened the leader quietly informs us, “She got away.”
I get a peek and sure enough, there are two Rogues pounding on a door screaming at someone on the other side. “This is our chance,” he tells the other two. They open fire, blocking Kelly, Glensy, or me from taking a shot.
I hear people continuing to retreat down the hall.
“The lab’s not igniting,” one of them says.
“We can’t leave with it still standing,” another shouts.
Finally the shooting ends.
“We got a couple of them, at least,” the leader tells his squad. He looks over at us, the three new additions, and frowns.
“We need the extra man power,” the other man tells him, also noticing our presence.
“Not if they can’t follow orders,” the woman retorts.
The squad leader looks down the hall, “They left through a door at the end; the one on the left with smoke coming out from under it.”
He reloads his gun. “You three follow only if I call an “all clear”, got it?”
“Yup,” I say enthusiastically. This is my chance to save Jake and the rest of my family. I just hope we aren’t too late to help them.
They proceed down the hall, checking the rooms they pass. I watch them work fast. Some of the doors are shut and locked. The woman is ahead of the men pausing at one that is closed. “What do we do with this one?” she asks gazing through the door’s tiny window. Her eyes get big and she forcibly tries to open the door to no avail. “She’s on the floor. I think she fainted.” She backs up as the men rush up. They shoot the handle off of the door. The woman rushes in and emerges with a girl close to my age.
“They have that girl,” I tell Glensy, who is right behind me. Kelly’s on the opposite side of the door and he pokes his head out to see. Lena is frantically telling them something.
“Lena, you okay?” Kelly calls out, stepping partially in the doorway.
The adults motion for us to join them, “All clear but keep an eye out.”
Lena stops talking when Kelly gives her a quick hug. Is she his girlfriend? She turns from him easily making me think not.
“They were going to shoot me,” she says. She looks down the hall where Ben and Dillon are cautiously jogging towards us coming from the opposite of the smoking door where the Rogues retreated through. Dillon keeps his gun on the door as he and Ben run past it.
“No dear, I think they wanted us to shoot you,” the woman tells her, as if that is some how better.
Lena turns to look up at the woman talking to her with tears running down her flushed cheeks. “I heard them. The lab, that was as far as they were taking me then I was done for. Served my purpose. No choice, no choice but to make a break for it.” Lena whips her cheeks. She’s so worked up it is hard for me to follow what she’s saying. Kelly halfheartedly puts his arm around her shoulder to comfort her.
“You did good,” the woman says, moving her gun to hang at her back. She grabs Lena from Kelly pulling her into a tight hug. “You did so good,” she says in Lena’s ear.
The team leader, who’s talking to Dillon sees them hugging and his expression softens. He breaks away from the men to join the woman, placing his hand on her shoulder. They’re the couple that I saw leave in the van before ours at the teachers’ housing. She looks over to him not saying a word.
Our walkies go off, “Smoke is getting worse, over.”
Dillon picks up his walkie, “Coming with more help, over.”
We follow them down the hall. They fill us in on everything we missed.
“They set stuff on fire after they got her out of her room from the prisoner hall,” Dillon says, looking at Lena.
“Cells,” Lena corrects.
<
br /> We get to the end of the hall and take a right into a larger hallway.
“She’s in the best shape out of all of them,” he continues.
I perk up. “Them?”
“The other prisoners,” Dillon clarifies.
A few of the doors are still open that Dillon and the others have checked. Glensy calls Kelly over to one of them. Kelly follows him inside. Lena goes to the door. “Too late, so too late,” she says standing at the entrance of the room.
“You knew he was here?” Glensy asks her.
Her voice is barely audible. “I knew the first night. He helped me…helped me keep a secret.”
“What do you mean?” Kelly asks moving away from the lifeless body laying in the corner of the room. Glensy kneels down by the body.
“My first night, he covered for me. I lied, oh I lied. They were going to find out, they already knew, but he covered for me anyways. Too late now…to late,” she tells them before walking away mumbling to herself.
Lena’s behind me as I keep looking inside each room. She stays close enough that I can hear her rambling. “Howard good at the end. They take all the bad. Never, never enough, they want it all.”
I speed up trying to get away from her annoying nonsense. I pass room after room hoping I won’t find a body of someone I know. One of the cells isn’t open. It doesn’t have a window and there are no lights coming from under it. My shoes squeak to a stop in front of it.
“Sshh!” Lena calls out to me, but it’s too late; behind the door screams ring out. They are loud, piercing screams. Lena runs up from behind me as Dillon rushes to me from the other direction. “Don’t open it!” She pleads. Dillon looks equally concerned coming down the hall. Whoever’s in the room is in a lot of pain. We should be helping them. How was this door missed? I put my hand on the doorknob. “What are you doing? They won’t stop if you go inside.” Lena covers her ears frantically backing away.
“They need our help,” I tell her firmly.
“Please,” she begs.
I turn the knob. Dillon grabs my wrist and yanks my hand away from it. “That room has cages lining the walls full of monkeys,” he says.
Lena’s talking loudly to herself now. Kelly walks to her side, puts his hands on her shoulders, and directs her away from the noise. “I was locked in there,” she tells him, “Horrible, horrible.”
“I’m sure it was,” he tells her.
The monkeys’ screams slowly fade. I look down the hall where everyone’s heading. Three of our people are down the hall opening doors. Two are using handguns to shoot open the locks. There’s another person past the others, wearing a uniform like Kelly and Glensy’s. He’s using a crow bar to try to pry doors open.
It’s Jake! Try as he might the door won’t budge. “Jake!” I cry out. He looks down the hall. He’s shocked to see me and drops the crow bar. We run to each other.
He isn’t smiling at me like I am as we near each other. He’s frowning. He pulls me into a bear hug. I’m squeezing him a lot harder. “You’re alive,” I whisper in his ear not wanting him to hear how close I am to crying.
“I’m okay,” he reassures me.
I pull back trying to talk, “I’m so sorry I didn’t stop them from taking you.”
“What?” He looks at me bewildered. “You couldn’t have stopped them. Your dad…” He looks around me at the others. “You really shouldn’t be here.”
“I had too come. Is he here, my dad? And your parents?”
He drops his hands from my shoulders and goes back for the crow bar. “I don’t know.” He returns to the door he was trying to open. I push him away from it and use my gun to shoot it open. After I do my part, Jake flings the door open.
“You’re free,” he tells the thirty-something-year-old man that has a silver streak in his hair. He doesn’t acknowledge Jake but he stands. After a moment, he walks carefully to the door.
I move to the next cell and find it empty. Jake’s talking to the man he released as I continue down the hall. I know Jake’s probably been through a lot but I wasn’t expecting him to see me and act almost… mad.
Kelly and Glensy join me. “They could’ve had Howard down here the whole time. How long do you think they’ve been bringing students down here for early placement?” Kelly asks Glensy.
“I don’t think I want to know,” he tells him.
Lena grabs Kelly’s arm and directs him to the door across from the one I’m about to got to as she mutters nonsense about secrets in the files.
I look in the next room’s door window. There’s a long metal table inside like you would have in a hospital. This one’s a little different with straps across it for ankles, legs, and wrists and a hinge in the middle of it so one-half of the table is dropped down making anyone strapped to it partially suspended in the air. That is precisely how the man on it is laying.
It must be something used for torture because it looks like it’s extremely uncomfortable. The man doesn’t move when I bang on the door. He’s got to be dead. I stand at the door looking at the sad sight.
“Need help?” Kelly asks. He’s with Lena across the hall about to go through a room full of filing cabinets.
“Help me, Kelly,” Lena insists. Glensy starts working on opening the door past mine.
“Nah, I got it,” I tell him. The door is, of course, locked when I try the handle. I shoot it open and walk in. The man begins to stir awkwardly on the table. He strains to look at what is happening at the door. When I see his face my heart drops. It’s my dad.
He isn’t the strong man I’ve always known that commands attention from any room he enters without a word. This is a shell of that man. His weight loss is the most noticeable difference. His eyes look to be bulging from his head. One eye is swollen and bruised. His cheeks are hollow. I try to figure out the color of his skin but I can’t find the words. I work fast snapping the table up to support his back. I release the straps restraining his ankles and legs. I place my hand in his and then I see the difference with our skin side by side. My skin, our skin, has a natural pink tint that even with a tan is still present, but his pink hue is gone.
“Dad, you’re safe now. I’m getting you out of here. We’re going home.” I pull him into a sitting position. He looks at me without looking at me.
“We aren’t safe,” he mumbles.
“Yes, you are. I just need to get you off this table,” I huff trying to swing his legs over the edge of the table. For boney legs they still have some surprising weight to them. “A little help would be great, Dad.”
“I love you, sweetheart,” he says softly, scooting himself to the edge with my help.
“I love you too, Dad.”
He drapes his arm over my shoulder and I help him slide off the edge of the table. When I wrap my hand around his wrist that he’s placed over my shoulder my heart sinks even more. His wrist is so tiny that my middle finger laps over my thumb. Against my better judgment I look at his wrist. It is more bone then anything else. I look away and start to walk forward when Dad’s knees give out. It catches me off guard and we both go down.
Suddenly, arms are under my dad lifting him back to his feet. Kelly picks him up with ease. Dad keeps repeating that he’s sorry. “There’s nothing to apologize for,” Kelly tells him. He puts Dad’s other arm around his shoulder. I take Dad’s wrist again when he puts his other arm around me not daring to look at it this time.
“Thanks for the help,” I tell Kelly.
“No biggie.” He looks at my dad. “Sir,” he says, “you ready to get out of this hell-hole?” Dad almost smiles as he nods to Kelly.
Lena calls out from across the hall to Kelly, “I need your help!”
“I’ve got my hands full. Find a trash bag or something.”
When we get to where I can see out the door, Lena’s still in the room across from us. She has her hands full of paper files with papers dropping here and there. She tries to balance it in one hand while dumping out a trashcan with the other. File
s start to drop. She gets mad, dropping the trashcan to save the files. She kicks the can in anger causing it to fly deeper into the room.
My grasp around Dad’s side slips some so I readjust. He groans in pain. “What’s wrong?” I ask loosing my hand on his side. We stop at the doorframe and Kelly leans Dad on it. Dad’s hand immediately goes to his side.
“I’m so sorry, Taylor,” Dad starts repeating again. Kelly lightly feels Dad’s chest. Dad groans when Kelly pushes.
“I think he’s got a broken rib.”
“They know,” Dad continues rambling.
“It’s okay, Dad. Calm down.”
He looks over at me. “I’m so sorry.”
“What is he talking about?” Kelly asks.
“No clue. I don’t think he knows what’s going on.”
“Given what he’s been through, I wouldn’t want to be lucid either,” he says, causing me to wonder what all they did to him. “He’s more with it than my friend,” Kelly says looking across the hall at Lena.
Lena now has a trash bag flung over her shoulder with papers stuffed inside. She makes her way out of the room, into the hall as Kelly begins carefully helping Dad and I. Glensy shouts from the next room, “Look out!”
Commotion breaks out from the part of the hall we haven’t checked out yet, followed by bullets flying in our direction. Kelly pushes Dad and I into the room. He looks out the door to Lena who’s dropped the bag in the hall to retreat inside the room but is turning around to retrieve it.
“No!” he shouts. But she’s already in the open hallway trying to grab it. He runs out the room while shots whiz by. He grabs Lena by the waist diving into the room across from us.
I set Dad down and get my gun. “No, Taylor,” he pleads as I walk to the door.
“I have to.”
Glensy and Jake are returning fire along with others from the sound of it. There’s a second that the shooting stops on both sides. I risk it and look around the doorframe, down the hall. At the end of the hall Rogues have reemerged with more people joining them. The two people in the front have heavy looking shields that stand as tall as them. The shields drag the floor so when they are moved they slide harshly against the floor. That was the noise we heard when Glensy warned everyone.
