Bled Dry

by Lou Cadle

  If they existed at all.

  Of course, if they didn’t exist, if they’d been taken outside town and executed, then there wouldn’t be anyone guarding the jail. So that would make breaking in much safer. Useless, but safer.

  Okay, how to get up to that vent thing? A microwave tower stood fairly close to the jail wall, but the building roof was metal, and if he climbed the tower and leapt to the roof, which he’d have to do, there’d be one hell of a clang.

  But there were also a couple of sheds, maybe containing heating or cooling equipment. And the building had guttering, and an exhaust fan with a protruding housing. The guttering wasn’t a straight line. It took some right-angle turns so that it did not go straight to the ground. It went from the roof along the wall, then turned out, then turned down again. With some luck, and if the gutter was attached securely, he thought he could get up there. He would have to leave his rifle on the ground. Or better, on top of that shed there, so he could jump straight down to it if everything went bad. He saw his mother was watching him. He nodded, then mimed cutting with scissors. She nodded back and turned to wave Sierra and Jackson to come up.

  Sierra passed him on the sidewalk, moving toward the lit building to look it over, and his mother backtracked a few yards to watch behind them. Dev motioned Jackson up to the spot he thought best, and reached up to touch the bolt cutters sticking out of Jackson’s pack, and touched the fence with the toe of his boot, coaxing a metallic whisper from it. He was less inclined to speak this close to the jail. He hoped those vents—he saw two now that he was closer—were connected to the holding cells, not to wherever a guard might be.

  Snap. Snap. Snap—the links of chain fence being cut, so his message had gotten through to Jackson. The noise was loud, much louder than footsteps, and Devlin brought his scope to his eye again to look back behind them. But all he saw was his mom, and the glow of the lit building. He realized that if they had electricity in the jail building, the heating or AC boxes would be glowing, or even the exhaust fan, but nothing was. So the electricity must be only for that building over there.

  Dev shrugged off his pack and leaned it against the outside of the fence, keeping his boot touching it so he didn’t lose track of it.

  Silence. Jackson grabbed his arm and tugged it once, telling Dev to go down and to his right. Then he must have pulled on the fence, for there was a sound of stressed metal. Devlin dropped to his knees, felt ahead, and found the intact fence, which was shaking. There was a hole, and damn, but the ends of the fence were sharp. He’d jabbed himself pretty good, and in his trigger finger. Dumb. He switched hands to find where he should crawl through.

  Pushing his rifle ahead of himself, he crawled along, hearing Jackson grunt with the effort of holding the fence back. The cut fence ends pulled at Dev’s clothes, but he pulled harder and made it through. He heard a sproing of metal as the fence was released. It tapped him lightly on his boot soles.

  Dev made it to his feet and looked around, first with his eyes, then with the scope. Sierra—taller than his mom—was walking backward toward him. Okay, time to move. Dev wove along the narrow space between two of the equipment boxes and looked up. His gaze traced one potential route to the vent, and then a different one. The walls had a texture, like metal siding, but the slope was always down, intended so that he’d not be able to grip. Someone had designed this to foil escape. Okay, so up on this box over there was closest to his goal. He shouldered his rifle and jumped for the edge of the thing, grabbing a lip of metal. Then he used brute force to pull himself up, wishing he had climbed trees more often for the practice.

  A minute later, he was up on the roof, panting. Okay, put the rifle down. Remember, this is where you left it. The shadowed gap between here and the guttering was awfully wide-looking from here, but it was still his best bet for making the roof. He hoped the gutter wouldn’t pull away. He shuffled to the edge of the box and had to choose—lean for it, or jump to it. Leaning would be quieter, though he’d feel like an idiot if he misjudged that gap in the dim light and all he succeeded in doing was falling down head first.

  Deep breath. Then he tried to relax everything but his arms as he fell forward, arms outstretched right in front of him. It wasn’t as far as his fear and the dark had made it seem. He’d reached less than a forty-five-degree angle when his hands caught the downspout of the guttering. But then they slid, and he passed forty-five degrees. Uh-oh.

  His fingers caught in something—a brace or something that attached the downspout to the wall. Okay, okay. I can get this. He worked his hands around until his grip was more secure on the guttering, and then he stepped off the edge of the utility box and swung himself off.

  Clang. His feet hit the part of the guttering that angled out from the wall here. Surely it wouldn’t hold his weight. Maybe for a second? He needed that boost it could give him.

  You know, I should have stood on Jackson’s shoulders and done this. I’d be in the same spot.

  If this failed, that’s what he’d try next. He kicked at the guttering, let go with one hand, grabbed for a higher handhold, got himself up a foot. He swung his other hand and reached and found the lip of another bit of hardware. As the guttering crumpled under his foot, his hand closed around the bracing with a good enough grip. His toes were braced against the building now, and all he had to do was pull himself up a little more, and his feet would reach something that would support him.

  He couldn’t see a blessed thing right now. But he knew the next handhold was there. His feet scraped and scraped while he held on for dear life—there it was. Okay. Phew. Now he was balanced, his weight spread out on three points, which was way better-feeling than dangling by one arm and flailing the other. He took two deep breaths, and then he canted his head back. He was closer than he’d hoped to the sloped roofline. Ten inches. Anybody could make that in his sleep.

  It wasn’t quite that easy, but he did wrestle himself up far enough to let go with his left hand and swing it up and catch the roof’s edge. That was metal too. In another minute of struggle, he gained the roof and lay on his back, head upslope, presenting the lowest possible profile. It was hot up here. Gosh, if they were holding men in there, they’d have been baking all the time. He hoped they had been getting water.

  Otherwise, he’d be breaking into a building of dead bodies. But no, the stench would have hit him already were that the case. He looked down and saw two figures—Sierra and Jackson, he believed—down below him, inside the fence. His mom must still be in the alley, keeping watch. He gave them a thumbs-up. A very sore thumb. And his fingertips were sore too, but the thumb hurt most right now. He sucked on it and tasted dirty metal.

  Okay. Crawl up the roof, and over the little crest he’d seen, and then down to the vent.

  He glanced to the other side of the building, making sure no one could see him from the street or the lit building across the way. He couldn’t see the street, so he assumed not. But he could see into the windows of the second floor of the building, so he stayed low as he crawled up. Way easier than getting up here had been. He hit the peak in no time. The slope down to the vent was very gradual, just enough slope to keep rain running rather than pooling. He checked his progress twice as he neared the vent by hanging his head over the edge and looking.

  The second time, there was the exhaust fan, just under him. He reached down and lightly rapped it. Plastic, not metal. It was a sizeable circle, and he hoped to God it would hold him. He was higher now than when he’d first gained the roof, and a fall onto anyplace but his feet could kill him. Probably a fall onto his feet would break his legs. Then where would they be?

  He reversed and eased himself down, putting slightly more and more weight on his boot tips on the fan housing. When he had most of his body weight on it and it hadn’t broken, he let one foot down lower, looking for the inside lip on the lower side. He’d rather be on that curve than this outside curve.

  Lightning flashed again, and he imagined how he looked, perfectly visi
ble to anyone glancing up here, a dark man-shaped thing against the white plastic fan housing. His foot found the spot he wanted, but he couldn’t get his toe in far because the fan blade was there. He kicked this way and that, got it to spin a few inches, and then there was the space he needed. Okay, trust to luck and God smiling on good intentions. He let go of the roof. He kept a hand splayed on the wall and inched the other hand toward the vent-window, which wasn’t but eight inches to his right. Then he stuck his fingers up into the spaces between the louvers—metal, not plastic this time—and spread the fingers of his hand until that gave him a grip. He thought he smelled human waste. So this vent was at a bathroom? That wasn’t what he wanted.

  Then, from the vent, he heard voices.

  Chapter 11

  At first he heard only the murmur of voices. More than two, he quickly decided. Then, as he shifted his right hand to press his ear to the vent, he heard, “There. Didn’t you hear that?” It sounded high and nervous, but it was male.

  “Probably a bobcat on the roof,” a second man said.

  “I wish they’d bring our dinner. What the hell is up with that?”

  “Dinner, breakfast, and lunch,” said a morose voice, lower in pitch.

  “Bruh-lupper,” said the second voice. “Like brunch and supper. Get it?”

  “Fuck you,” said the morose voice.

  If these were the invaders having him on, they were doing a great acting job. But he was sure it was the Payson men, in jail, as promised. He pressed his lips close to the vent. “Hey,” he whispered.

  “What was that?” said the nervous one.

  “A ghost,” said a new voice, wryly.

  Risking a louder voice, Dev said, “A rescuer. Shut up and tell me your situation.”

  There was a stunned silence. Then a scraping sound, a rustle, and a voice, closer. “Who are you?”

  “A friend. We’re breaking you out of here.”

  “When?” The other voices were all talking now, and the close one said, “Shut up, you idiots. Do you want to make the guard come back here?”

  The other voices faded away.

  “How many guards?” Dev said.

  “One, usually,” said the voice.

  “Armed?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dev said, “Do you have any weapons?”

  “We’re in jail,” the guy said. “They took our weapons.”

  “I mean not guns, anything. Bed posts, pipes you can yank out of the wall, whatever.”

  “Not a thing. They built it to keep people from doing any violence.”

  That made sense. “Okay. Um, here’s what we’ll do,” Dev said. And then he had to think up what they’d do, because he really didn’t know. Okay, right. “Give us ten minutes to get ourselves in place. And then make noise. Make a fuss. Pretend you’re fighting. Whatever. Get the guard back to where you are.”

  “And you’ll do what?”

  “Break in, subdue the guard and let you out. Ten minutes, starting now,” Dev said. “Okay?”

  “Tell him okay,” said another voice, fainter.

  Dev took it as a promise. He stepped back up on the top of the exhaust fan housing, pulled himself back onto the roof, slid down the steeper roof slope almost to the end, and let himself dangle off the lowest edge. Then he dropped to the concrete below him, about a five-foot drop. His knees felt the landing, but his legs did not break.

  Damn. His rifle. “I need a boost,” he said, making for where he’d left it.

  Sierra met him. “Here,” she said, stooping to make a foothold with her hands. She boosted him up and he felt around, grabbing the rifle butt and then finding the strap.

  He pulled it to himself and said, “Okay,” and eased him down as he reeled his rifle back in.

  “What’s up? We heard you talking, but not what you said.”

  “Good,” he said. “It seemed like I was shouting. You sure they didn’t hear me across the street?”

  “Certain of it.”

  “Okay, good—that means we can talk back here. We need Mom. We have to figure out how to do this in like nine minutes.”

  “I’ll get her,” Sierra said, and left.

  “So what did they say?” Jackson said, coming up in the dark.

  “That they’ll create a distraction in nine minutes.”

  “The invaders probably didn’t leave them any way to tell time.”

  “No.”

  Sierra and his mother came up. “What’s the plan?” Sierra said.

  “We need to know if the front door is unlocked,” Dev said.

  “And get to it,” Jackson said. “More fence to cut to come at it from back here. Maybe more than ten minutes of cutting.”

  His mom said, “There’s that guy on guard across the street, but he seems to have to check the whole building, so he’s moving around it. We can wait until he’s gone around back.”

  Jackson said, “Eight and a half minutes left and counting.”

  Sierra said, “I’ll go look for him, signal you if he’s coming this way.”

  “No, wait,” Jackson said. “There’s a reason Wes gave me the nod for this mission.” He shrugged off his backpack.

  Sierra said, “The bolt cutters, right?”

  “No. I’m the only guy in the neighborhood with a good silencer for his rifle.”

  “You should have told us,” Dev’s mom said.

  “I didn’t know we’d need it for sure. I’ll track the guy, take him out and we can approach from the street. Much easier.”

  “Do we wait for the ten minutes to be up? Or go now?” Sierra said.

  “I’ll go now,” Jackson said. “Murphy’s law always applies, like Wes says. So get it done now and we’ll have five minutes to fix whatever the hell goes wrong.”

  “Go on,” Dev said. “Take out the man if you see him. Give me the bolt cutters in case I need them around front.”

  “You strong enough?”

  “We’ll find out.” And he’d be better at it than his mom, with her shrapnel-damaged arm, or Sierra, whose lower body strength was impressive but whose upper body strength wasn’t nearly as good as his.

  Jackson attached his silencer. “It’s homemade,” he said. “But it should be good for one or two shots.”

  “Don’t miss,” Dev’s mom said.

  “Don’t plan to.”

  They all crawled out from the fenced-in area, but the three of them held back in the shadows while Jackson edged up the fence line toward the street. In a few seconds, he waved them forward.

  He stood, facing the lit-up building, and waved them insistently on to the front of the jail. There was no one on the street right now but the four of them. The front of the jail had only a single line of fencing, and a gate that locked with a key. Dev took the bolt cutters and braced himself for a battle, but the blades cut through the first link easily. He was deciding whether to cut out the lock, go for the hinges, or cut a big hole through the gate when his mom put a hand on his arm. He looked at her.

  She was both pointing up and looking up. It took him a half-second to see it. The top of the gate had no coiled barbed wire on it like the rest of the fence did.

  Okay, that made it far easier. He handed her his rifle, Sierra the bolt cutters, and climbed quickly. Pausing at the top, straddling the top bar, he reached his hand down for his rifle. His mom gave it to him and handed hers up as well. He slung them both around his neck and took one step on the links before jumping down to the walkway that led to the front door. The rifles bounced off his chest and each other as he landed, and he was glad that his father wasn’t here to lecture him on taking better care of his weapons. He took his mother’s in hand and reached up the other hand to offer her help, but she was climbing down just fine. Then Sierra started her climb, her rifle over her shoulder. It banged once against the fencing, but no one responded to the sound. The bolt cutter handles were silhouetted against the light, sticking out of her backpack. She sure did have strong legs to be able to climb it with the
extra weight.

  When they were all three over the fence, Jackson came to it, walking backward. “I’ll keep watch from there,” he said, pointing to a scraggly low bush planted in the verge of grass between sidewalk and street. “Yell if you need me.”

  Dev was pretty sure he’d know if they needed him by the screaming and gunshots. He hated that there were enemies this close. If their plan went to hell inside the jail, he could imagine two dozen men pouring out of the front door of that building over there and coming this way. Four of them trapped in jail trying to fight their way out? Did not appeal at all.

  No, wait. It wouldn’t be only four of them. They carried the four extra weapons—two rifles and two semi-auto pistols they’d taken off the dead attackers—and so if they could get into the cells, there’d be eight armed people. And a jail might be a pretty good place to defend from. Sure wouldn’t have to worry about anyone climbing in the windows behind you. There weren’t any.

  He realized he was losing focus on the moment, worrying about what might or might not happen next.

  Sierra leaned close to him. He could smell her scent. “What now?”

  Try the door, he supposed. There was a curved metal handle on the front door, and he walked up and pulled at it. But it was also locked.

  He looked to his mother, their mission leader, who shrugged. Then she aimed her rifle at the lock, lowered her rifle, and shrugged again.

  No. Definitely not the way to do it. Okay, so, what to do?

  Then he remembered the men inside complaining about food being late. Was it made here, or delivered? Hell, he didn’t know. Faking a food delivery was a better idea than shooting at a metal door and alerting everyone for blocks around that they were here. If ten minutes had already passed, no one might answer the knock, but he would try anyway. He knocked on the door. When that didn’t do anything, he pounded on it and rattled it. He was aware of the movement of his mother and Sierra as they backed off a few steps and raised their weapons. He sure hoped Jackson was watching across the street to see if anyone over there was hearing this.