The back of the dealership had a number of roll-down doors for their maintenance department, but only one door that people would use. I crept up to the door—no sense giving away my presence if there was someone listening—and looked at the door handle. There was a bolt and an opening for a key on the knob.
There were seven keys on the key ring. Two were definitely vehicle keys; it wasn’t them. Two looked like they fit something smaller—combo locks, maybe? I didn’t know, but I knew they weren’t door keys. That left three, and I tried the first in the bolt. It didn’t move. I tried the second. Also a no-go. I held my breath as I tried the third, but it not only fit, it turned the bolt. I left it locked and tried the same key in the door knob, and found it turned as well. Success! I stopped as an idea came to me, and I hoped that I hadn’t turned the bolt or knob far enough for someone to notice if they’d been looking.
I crept away from the building and circled back around to Jacobs.
“I have the key,” I said.
“Hell of a lot of shooting over there,” he noted.
“Yeah, nothing’s ever as easy as it seems,” I said. “Or as easy as it should be.”
“Nope,” he agreed. “It rarely is.”
“Regardless, I have the keys. I need you to give me some covering fire, so their attention is focused on the front of the building, and I can sneak in the back. Can you do that?”
“Sure thing.”
“Give me five minutes, then do it,” I replied. He nodded, and I loped off, trying to save some energy for what was to come. I knew I didn’t have much left.
I made it back to the door and inserted the key, then stood there feeling very exposed. Sure, the building was ringed with “our” people…but everyone was in cover except me. It felt wrong, somehow.
After a couple of minutes, the forces around front began firing, and I slowly twisted the key in the bolt, unlocking it. I then slid the key into the door knob and turned it. The knob turned and the door opened. I slipped inside and shut the door again quickly, hoping no one noticed a difference in the volume of the gunshots, then drew my pistol in one hand and my knife in the other.
There was a small corridor behind the door, and I crept down it slowly as gunfire from out front trickled off to nothing. In this fallen world, ammunition is far too precious to waste. Even for covering fire.
The hallway ended in a series of cubicles full of people, of which the top half was glass. There was a large open area between them and the front of the building. That was also glass, and a large portion of it had been destroyed in the night’s gunfire. The women in the cubicle at the end of the passageway I was in—five of them—noticed me, and they all stopped and stared at me as I sneaked up to it. Not wanting the cannibals to come find out what they were staring at, I motioned at them to turn around. All of them did, except for one who continued to stare at me. I pointed at her, and her eyes grew large, shocking her out of whatever dream state she’d been in. I then mimed for her to turn around, which she—finally—did.
I continued to advance and heard voices.
“What do you think they want, Harry?” one voice said in a stage whisper.
“I suspect they want their people back,” a second—probably Harry—replied in a sarcastic tone.
“We can’t hold out much longer here,” a third voice said. “What if we kill all these people? Think they’d leave then?”
“They might,” Harry replied. “They might also assault the building or hit us with heavier weapons if we no longer had the hostages.”
“So what are we going to do?” the first voice asked.
“We’re going to sit here and wait for the boss to come rescue us,” Harry replied. “He’s probably rounding up folks from the barricades right now and is going to hit them from behind.”
I reached the end of the hallway, but stayed back in the shadows. As the men continued to talk, I could tell that two of them were off to the right, while one was close by to the left. I edged forward a little, trying to get a better view.
The first thing I could see was the door to the cubicle in front of me. There was a wooden beam on the floor going over to the wall across from it. The door, which opened out, was blocked from doing so by the brace—a simple method of keeping everyone in. I couldn’t see any of the other doorways, but I suspected they were similarly blocked.
One of the cannibals was also visible—the first one who’d spoken. He was closest to me on the right, and he looked like he couldn’t have been more than 16 or so. Probably someone’s son who hadn’t known any better than to go along. Now, though, he was part of the problem, and he had to go.
I couldn’t see either of the other two cannibals, but knew Harry—the leader of the three—was to the left and the third was to the right on the far side of the kid.
I paused at the end of the corridor, not entirely sure how I was going to do this. Some flash bangs would be nice, but I didn’t have any. I flinched away from the opening as it dawned on me—I wasn’t sure how I knew what flash bangs were. I seemed to recall using them…but then the memory—if that’s what it was—disappeared.
Which left me back at the same place—with geographically dispersed bad guys and no way to get at them simultaneously. Taking the kid would be easy; but it would probably put me into sight of at least one of the others, and probably both…and I guessed they were both bigger and more lethal threats.
I still hadn’t decided when the one on the left said, “I’m going to see if I can sneak out the back and make it to the boss’ house.” The voice was closer and moving toward me; I barely had time to swap my weapons before he walked around the corner.
Happily, I had the benefit of knowing he was coming, and as he drew up in surprise, I stuck my blade between his fourth and fifth ribs, angling it upward to pierce his heart. Not what I particularly wanted to do, but all I had time for.
“Oh,” was all he had time to say as his eyes opened wide, and he fell backward.
I tried to catch him, but the momentum was wrong and he was a big guy; all I succeeded in doing was to allow his corpse to pull me out of the cover I’d had. My head turned toward the kid, and our eyes met. I don’t know if he’d ever seen someone die that close, but his eyes were huge. The gun in his hand started up toward me, and I had no choice—I put two into his chest as I fell forward and rolled to a stop next to the cubicle.
I got to my feet as quickly as I could, staying low, but the third man was gone. I looked around frantically, but couldn’t see if he’d tried to run off—not a good prospect with the building surrounded—or was trying to sneak around the cubicles to get behind me. I backed into the corridor I’d come out of, knowing that my back was protected then, but then I realized there was a third alternative I hadn’t thought of as I looked back—he’d gone into one of the cubicles and now had a gun to one of the hostage’s head.
The girl, a thin child of no more than 12, had long blonde hair and was crying hysterically, while a woman—probably her mother—screamed, “Please let her go!”
“Shut up!” the man yelled back. His eyes met mine, and he smiled.
“Take me instead!” the woman yelled.
“I said, ‘Shut up!’” the cannibal replied. “If you say anything else, I’ll fucking kill you and her!”
The woman opened her mouth again, but nothing came out.
“That’s what I thought you said,” he sneered.
With his arm around the girl’s waist, he lifted her up like a shield and walked from the cubicle, then shut the door and kicked the brace back into place so no one else could get out.
“So, Mr. Tough Guy,” he said, looking at me, “if you let me go, I’ll let her go once I’m clear. Otherwise, she dies.”
“And that would bother me, why?” I asked. “She’s not my daughter.”
“Yeah, but you’re one of the good guys. I’ll bet you don’t want her to die.”
“All things considered, no I don’t,” I replied. “With that said, t
hough, I don’t want you to get away, either.” He glared at me, and I sighed theatrically, then put my pistol in its holster. “All right,” I said. “The boss and all his cronies have already gone, but if you let her go, I’ll send you on your way to meet up with them.”
“You mean it?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it would be my pleasure.”
“I’m not letting her go until I get to where they are, though.”
I shrugged. “Fine. Come with me.” He nodded, and I walked out toward the front of the building.
“We’re coming out!” I yelled, hoping no one decided to try to shoot him—or me—as we walked through the shattered glass at the front of the store. No one did, so we started walking toward the cannibals’ house.
“What the hell’s going on?” Jacobs asked as we neared the car he was hiding behind.
“This is the last of them,” I replied. “I told him I’d show him where the bosses went and would send him off to meet them.”
“You did, huh?” Jacobs asked. His voice held a hint of sarcasm, and I hoped he wasn’t going to blow it. “I can’t let him take the girl.”
“He said he’d let her go when we got there.”
“That so?” Jacobs asked.
“Yeah,” the cannibal said, grunting.
I smiled. Even though she was small and not struggling anymore, the girl had to be getting heavy. And it was still a long way to the house.
“Well, make sure you do,” Jacobs said. “We’ll come find you if you don’t.”
I continued walking toward the house, about 100 yards away.
“Where are we going?” the cannibal asked. He was really struggling to hold the girl up now.
“Up to the house,” I said. “I think they left a note for anyone who wanted to follow them.”
“Faster,” the man urged. “I want to see this note.”
“Sure,” I said, picking up my pace a little. As we approached the house, I said, “Shit,” and bent down and pulled my shoelace before he could see what I was doing. “Damn shoelace came untied.”
As I hoped, we were close enough that he kept walking, going by me as I bent to tie it. And then—probably thinking himself safe—he set the girl down to walk on her own, clearing my shot. In a flash, my gun was out. He must have heard it rasp against the leather, for he immediately reached forward to grab the girl, and my first shot went past his head. The second shot didn’t, though, hitting him in the spine between his collarbones, and he flopped to the ground.
I raced forward and flipped him over, and his eyes glared at me.
“You’re probably thinking I lied when I said you’d see your boss soon,” I said. “I didn’t. You’re about to see him…in hell.” I stepped in between the little girl and the cannibal so she wouldn’t have to see it, and shot him between the eyes, so he could see it coming.
Ammunition may be at a premium, but I always have one to spare for the cannibals and hostage takers of this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter Thirty-Four
I woke up in a bed that wasn’t the same one I had been sleeping in.
“Good to have you back with us,” a voice said. It sounded like Jacobs.
I rolled toward the voice and squinted one eye open. It was Jacobs. “Where…”
“You’re in St. Vincent’s, our hospital. With the cannibals taken care of, we were able to reclaim it. Good thing for you, too. You lost a lot of blood and almost died.”
“Don’t remember…”
“It looked like you got shot a couple of times and had a knife wound too. I saw you walking up with that girl you saved, then you just collapsed.”
Girl I saved…I thought hard and several pictures ran through my head. A car dealership. A young girl being carried by a man. That same man as I killed him. The rest of the night filled in around them, and I remembered walking away from the cannibals’ house, but that was it.
“I think I have most of it,” I replied.
“Do you remember who you are?”
“Yeah, I’m…” No, I didn’t remember that. I sighed. “No, that part hasn’t come back.” Of course, if the agents in Pensacola were right, I wouldn’t ever get it back without an imprinter machine and my stored psyche.
“Should we go back to calling you Ishmael?”
“No, I’m growing to hate that name.”
“So what should we call you?”
I sighed. “They were calling me Fred; that name’s as good as any, I guess.” I tried to sit up, and Jacobs came over to help me. The tubes running into my arm from the bag above me didn’t help. Well, they probably helped me, in the long run, but they made it harder to sit up.
“Easy,” he said. “You’ve been out for several days. The doctor said it was the damnedest thing, though—you healed faster than anyone she’s ever seen.”
“I’ve always been a fast healer.”
“Yeah, not like this. It kind of freaked her out a little.”
“Mpff,” I grunted as I swung my legs off the bed. My body was stiff, but there wasn’t a lot of pain. I stood, and the world canted to one side and wobbled a little. Jacobs held onto my arm like he thought I was going to dash off somewhere, but just standing was good enough for the moment.
“When do we hit the other cannibals?” I asked when the world had steadied again.
Jacobs chuckled. “You’re a real go-getter, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “Robert Baden-Powell said to leave the world better than you found it; I’m just trying to do my part.”
“Robert who?”
“Baden-Powell. You know, the guy who started the Boy Scouts?”
“How the hell do you know that, and yet not know who you are?” Jacobs asked.
I smiled, searching my memory for more. Nothing came. “I have no idea,” I said, leaning back onto the bed. Darkness seemed to crowd in from the sides, and a nap sounded good. “When did you say…the other attack…was?”
I never heard the answer.
* * *
I woke up again—later that day? The next day?—I didn’t know, but I felt a lot better. The world didn’t seem to want to spin as much.
“I timed that well.”
I turned and found a dark-haired woman in a lab coat. Short and stocky, she looked at me with her head cocked to the side as if trying to figure out what species I was. My first thought was, “People still wear lab coats?” but then I realized who the person had to be.
“You must be the doctor,” I said.
“I am,” she replied. “I’m Doctor Briggs. And you are?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Call me Fred. I got tired of Ishmael.”
She chuckled. “I can see why. It wouldn’t take me long to want to get rid of that name.” She paused. “Jacobs tells me you don’t know who you are or where you’re from. Is that true?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is. I woke up in New Orleans after the war, but I have no idea how I got there or what I was doing there.”
“It wasn’t home?”
“I don’t think so. It didn’t feel like it anyway.”
“Where’s home?”
I stopped to think. No one had asked that before. Where was I from? I shrugged after a few moments of introspection. I had no more idea of where I was from than what my name was.
I held my arm with the IV out to her. “Any chance of getting this out?”
“I’ll send in a nurse to get it,” she said. “Even though you should probably have it for another couple of days. You almost died, you know?”
I gave her my best smile. “I’m a quick healer.”
The smile didn’t work; she frowned at me. “Just so you know, we don’t have a whole lot of medical supplies left here, and I can’t be using them all up on one person. Try not to stand in the way of any more bullets or knives, okay?”
I tried again with the smile. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be good.”
It failed again. “Why do I doubt that?” she asked.
She left, but a nurse came in a few minutes later and disconnected me from all of the apparatus. I had obviously been out of it—I didn’t realize there was equipment monitoring my vital signs. I nodded to the machinery. “How is all that operating?”
“We have a generator out back,” the nurse replied. “It will work…for as long as the fuel supply holds out. Then it’s going to be back to the dark ages for medical care.”
“So, happily, I almost got killed at a good time?”
She shook her head. “There’s never a good time to get killed.”
She obviously hadn’t spent much time journeying around this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter Thirty-Five
Things were happening when I reached the police station, as there were the better part of a hundred men in the parking lot. Most seemed to be cleaning weapons, checking ammo, and talking nervously—the kinds of things people did when they were about to go into combat. Most of them at least looked like they knew which end of the gun the round came out; in the deep south, that was somewhat to be expected, I guessed.
I pushed passed several and made my way into the building, and thought to bypass the person on door duty.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m going back to see Jacobs,” I replied.
“And who are you?” he asked. “I don’t recognize you.”
“I’m Fred,” I said, for lack of a better answer. He eyeballed me a little more, and a questioning eyebrow went up. “I was part of the raid on the cannibals up north,” I added.
“Oh,” the man said, his other eyebrow joining the first in surprise. “You’re that guy. Well, I’m sure the chief will want to see you. Let me go get him.”
Don't Call Me Ishmael Page 18
