by Jo Schneider
“Good. Hound, what’s our best route out?”
Wendy listened as Hound outlined three different ways to get upstairs and back out. He needed twenty to thirty minutes before he would be ready to switch on the security grid.
All through the discussion, the monster in Wendy’s head beat against Jeff’s request to get Matt out. Someone else could do it. She needed to kill Pelton. She’d denied it Dennis earlier. It needed blood.
Matt took her pack, put a handful of packaged vials inside, then returned it to her. Wendy’s muscles knew what to do, and she put it on.
“You with me?” Matt asked.
Wendy blinked away her frustration. “Yeah, of course.”
He leaned closer and said, “Because it looks like you’re a little distracted.”
“Just worried,” Wendy lied.
“Uh-huh.”
The doubt in his voice derailed Wendy’s rage and redirected it. She looked up at the taller boy. “I’ll get you out. We’ll get the meds back to Shelter, okay?”
Matt didn’t take a step back, but it looked like he wanted to. “Okay.” The hurt in his eyes told Wendy she should apologize, but she didn’t. Instead she turned away and stomped to their door. Matt followed, silent.
Kev looked over and gave them a salute. “Good luck.”
“You too,” Matt said.
Wendy nodded.
“Okay everyone, remember keep heading up. These are access tunnels, so they should lead to ground level,” Hound said, “ Be in place in twenty minutes.”
Wendy drew her knives, the steel coming out of the sheath with a quiet but deadly hiss. Maybe she could get Matt out and then come back for Pelton. They would just have to be quick.
Matt, who stood next to the door, opened it. Wendy darted through and plunged into pitch black. She turned her headlamp on and hugged the wall.
The cool air held a little moisture. The hallway stretched as far as her light could reach, and stood wide enough for a car to get through. The ceiling above dripped water in a few places, forming puddles on the cement floor.
“An access tunnel, just like he said,” Matt said.
Wendy almost jumped as he spoke. Her heart raced and her shoes turned into bricks. A deep breath didn’t help. Instead, the tang of wet dirt in her nostrils pulled hallucinations from the tunnels to the edges of her vision. She shook her head. “Let’s go.”
No doors led away from the hallway. The floor sloped upward, and after a hundred feet they’d climbed two floors. More water dripped. More dank air filled Wendy’s lungs, fuelling her flashes. She gripped her knives as if they were her only link to the real world and willed herself to take each step forward.
“Looks like there’s only one way to go, “Matt said. “I don’t have a great feeling about this.”
“Me neither.” But since going back wasn’t an option, Wendy stayed ahead of Matt, her light sweeping the concrete floors and cinderblock walls as she glanced around. No sounds besides their footsteps and the dripping came to her. At least the Skinnies hadn’t found this tunnel yet.
After another hundred feet, the hallway turned sharply to the right, then again as the ascension grew steeper. Wendy knew that her light was a dead giveaway to their position, but her trembling fingers would not release her knives to turn it off. The tunnel turned twice more, and by the time they reached the end, sweat drenched Wendy’s shirt.
A wide, roll up door dominated the end of the tunnel, but a smaller door sat to the side of the first. They heard faint scraping and talking. Wendy raised her shaking hands and clicked her light off just after Matt did. They both crept forward until they stood on either side of the small door. The lock had been battered open.
Wendy craned her neck to see through the small crack. Dim light came from the other side, just enough for her to make out movement and a large opening beyond. Someone murmured a question she couldn’t quite make out. An irritated grunt followed.
Wendy held her breath. Matt stood watching her. Waiting.
A shadow passed so close to the door that Wendy stepped back. Matt followed her lead.
“What are we looking for?” an angry voice demanded.
“The rest of the crew. Pelton knows there are more of them.”
“Why do we care? He said we can’t eat them yet.”
“The Primate wants one of them.”
“Oh.”
There was that name again. The Primate. The man who Pelton practically worshiped. Wendy grit her teeth and moved back to the door.
“There’s nothing here,” the first voice said.
“Check the tunnel again.”
“We just checked it. It’s empty.”
“Check it again.”
Wendy and Matt moved in tandem. They each pressed themselves up against the wall on opposite sides of the door. Matt had his gun in one hand and a knife in the other. Blood rushed through Wendy’s ears, making it hard to hear or concentrate. Sweat coated her palms. A drop formed in her hair and ran down her temple. She stopped breathing. The door flew open, barely missing her as it slammed against the wall.
“See, there’s nothing there,” the grouchy voice said.
“Give me a light.”
Feet shuffled, and one of them muttered a curse. Then a blinding light shone from the door and into the dark.
Wendy closed one eye against the light and squinted with the other. She tried to melt into the wall, wishing she could sink into it like those of the combat rooms.
“See?”
“Fine.”
A bony arm reached through, followed by an emaciated body covered in a threadbare vest. Scars adorned the man’s back like cords beneath his skin. Thin muscles rolled as he reached out and pulled the door closed.
Because the lock had been kicked in, it didn’t shut with a click, but it did close.
Wendy breathed a sigh of relief. Her muscles unwound and she took another breath. No sound came from Matt.
Seconds went by. The men’s conversation, now muffled by the door, faded. Wendy counted to twenty before she stepped away from the wall. Only a thin line of light came through the door near the floor, but she didn’t have to see Matt’s face to know he was as tense as she was. Suddenly she wished Kev were here to make joke. Her mind wouldn’t do anything but scream at her to run.
“We need to get out of here,” Matt whispered.
“I know,” Wendy reached out to pull the door toward her. “I’ll open it, slowly.”
Her fingers brushed the mangled handle. The metal felt warm to the touch, not cool, like it should have. Or maybe that was just the fact that her hands were on fire from being wrapped around her knives so tightly.
Heart pounding and hands shaking, Wendy drew the door toward her.
It took her a split second to process the door moving faster than she wanted it to, and in that moment she didn’t think to move out of the way.
The door barreled toward her and smacked her in the face. Faster than she could step back, the two Skinnies burst into the tunnel. Each held a sword pointed straight at Wendy’s throat.
Chapter 18
Stars danced before Wendy’s eyes. The Skinnies flashed their light in her face.
“Well, well, just what we were looking for.”
The words barely got past the ringing in Wendy’s ears. It felt like her face had been split in half up one side of her nose, and she could already feel her eye swelling.
“Come with us quietly, and you won’t get hurt.”
Wendy still had her knives. She flexed her fingers. “Like hell.”
Her hands moved more slowly than she was used to, but they still moved. Wendy slashed straight up with one knife, pushing between their swords and her neck. At the same time, she stepped back. The Skinnies followed. Wendy continued to retreat, glad that Matt was ready because the delay between her thoughts and her feet could have become deadly.
The Skinnies knew how to use the swords, and Wendy was hard pressed to keep them at bay with her
shorter weapons.
Then Matt struck. His attack was swift and brutal. The nearest Skinny to him got a knife to the back of the neck, angled up into his skull. While the other was distracted, Wendy slipped around his guard and elbowed him in the ribs. The Skinny doubled over, and Wendy stabbed him in the back, through the lungs and into his heart.
In a matter of seconds it was over. Wendy pulled her knife out and let the Skinny fall. She wiped the blade on his shirt and turned to Matt.
“Let’s go.”
Matt nodded, reached down and picked up one of the swords—exchanging it for his knife—and followed Wendy through the door.
Beyond lay a large, flat circular area that sat below a series of raised platforms leading to rolling doors. Two trucks, old, worn and rusted, sat with their beds facing the platforms. Several doors lay crumpled. One looked freshly damaged. The same dust that covered the floor covered the others. A swath of freshly cleared concrete led from the latest mangled door into one of the others.
“Over there,” Matt pointed three doors away.
Wendy and Matt jumped down and jogged to their destination.
“You’re leaning to one side, you okay?” Matt asked.
“My ears are ringing, that door hit me in the face pretty hard. I’ll be fine.” Wendy willed it to be true.
They climbed a set of crumbling stairs and peered through the ruined, rolling door.
“Looks deserted,” Matt said.
Another wide, low hallway stretched away from them. It turned to the left after going up for a hundred feet.
“The trucks must come from the outside into this hub. This looks like the way out.” Wendy led the way. The light from the hub only reached half way to the corner. Wendy switched on her headlamp. A heavy line in the floor that continued up the walls pulled Wendy’s eyes up. A door hung above them, hiding in the ceiling.
“Blast door,” Matt said. “In case of fire, or some of these biological weapons getting out.”
“Biological what?”
“Disease.”
“Oh.” Wendy swallowed and stepped past the door. She saw a dust encrusted keypad on the far side. The green light flickered faintly beneath the years of neglect.
Behind them a crash sounded, along with angry voices.
“Go,” Wendy said.
They ran.
A wail rose up behind them. Wendy’s breath caught in her throat at the call of the Skinnies.
“Run,” she said, her voice trembling. The blockade in her mind she’d used to coral her damaged memories crumbled, and suddenly the floor became dirt and her headlamp became the flashing lights of the Den.
Matt pulled ahead, maybe sensing her stumbling feet would get worse. He led the way around the next corner, where they found another truck-sized rolling door about twenty yards away. Dirt had seeped in through the crack at the bottom, oozing down the hallway, trying to flood the tunnel.
“It must go outside,” Matt said when they got to the ankle deep dirt.
Wendy shook off the illusion and looked around for a keypad. “There,” she said.
“Do you have a code?”
“Uh, no.”
Matt drew his gun. “We’re going to have to fight our way back.”
“Can you blow it?” Wendy asked.
“What?”
The wail of the Skinnies grew louder. Wendy pulled the only grenade she’d brought out of her pack. “With this, can you blow it?”
Matt eyed it. “Yes, but if anyone is outside they’ll see it.”
Wendy’s excitement wilted. “Jeff said you knew about mechanical stuff. Can you get this door open?”
Matt glanced over his head, illuminating the gears and pulleys above. “Maybe. But not in time.”
“I can buy you some time.”
Matt’s hand shot out as she turned away. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to see if I can get that door behind us to close.”
He glared at her.
“There’s a keypad. I remember the code that Hound gave Kev. I’ll try it.” She shoved Matt ahead. “Those meds need to get out. You need to get out. I’ll make sure that happens.”
“You’re going to kill Pelton,” Matt said.
Wendy looked at him. “I’m going to get us out of here. If you hear me yell run, then go on without me.” She knew he didn’t believe her, but she’d said she would get him out, and she would. “If that door won’t come down then we’re in trouble.”
Before he could protest she ran back and around the corner.
Wendy knew she was right, but she also knew that Matt might come after her.
The Skinnies were a dozen yards down the tunnel. Too close. She charged.
The growling crescendoed. The already dark tunnel grew dim, and the dirt floors of the Den appeared. More Skinnies. More death. Wendy grit her teeth as she hit the first wave.
Some had swords, others had clubs. All fought with a fierce determination that Wendy had only seen from the Skinnies. And herself.
Her initial rush pushed them back. She counted ten. Ten against one. Wendy’s mind went back to the combat room where she had kept six people at bay, and that was without hurting them. This would be much easier.
Wendy dodged around the first Skinny and kicked him in the knee. He fell, and Wendy kicked him in the head with a sickening crunch. The next, a woman, swung her club at Wendy, but Wendy dodged before stepping in and slashing the woman’s throat open. Blood sprayed everywhere.
Wendy’s mind overlaid the Skinnies in the Den and these Skinnies. She yelled, and rage overflowed from behind its walls.
The rest of the Skinnies stepped back. Wendy moved forward. They were all on the far side of the blast door now. Just a few more feet. Two more died as they tried to rush Wendy; another went down with a broken kneecap and a dislocated shoulder. Fighting felt like breathing. She could let her monster out here. Here it could run free, and kill as much as it wanted.
Elation pulled her lips into a smile. The Skinnies were her enemies. They were bad. She only had to get rid of them.
It felt good to let go. Too good.
Her body tried to jump farther into the fray, but some part of Wendy’s mind remembered Matt and the meds. She pushed the Skinnies back another few feet, then ran back to the keypad and wiped the numbers off. She tried to type the first code. The shaking in her arms didn’t help, but all the practicing she’d done with Jeff hadn’t been in vain, because she got it right the first time. She pressed the button. The little light turned red.
“Damn,” she muttered. The Skinnies were coming closer. She could let a few in, but not all of them. Plus, she heard more on their way.
The last number of the second code took Wendy too long. Three Skinnies swarmed her. She let one of them grab her, planning to use the woman to toss into the others, but then heard a voice.
“Don’t kill her. She looks like the one Pelton wants.”
Wendy’s blood froze. The very air around her stopped.
Pelton knew she was here? He was after her? If she shut the door and went with Matt, the Skinnies would follow them.
Wendy had to give Matt the chance to get the meds out, and that meant staying. She hoped he would be able to fight his way back to the transport. In her mind, the monster purred. This might still give her a chance to kill Pelton.
Wendy twisted out of the hold and shoved the woman into the nearest two Skinnies. She ran to the keypad and keyed in the wrong code again. When she punched the button the red light began to flash. The walls shuddered. Wendy dove and rolled to the inside of the blast doors.
Wendy yelled toward Matt as loud as she could. “Run!”
The door came down with an earth-shaking thud, cutting her off from escape.
The Skinnies were surprised by the move. Several pairs of hands reached out to pull her to her feet. Wendy let them do the work for her. The mere touch of the Skinnies caused her skin to crawl, and her mind raged. All reason fled, and all Wendy had wa
s Skinnies in her sight.
None of them lasted long. They entered her bubble and died. Wendy’s mind turned off and her anger took over, finally in a place where it could express itself freely.
Bodies fell. Wendy couldn’t tell which ones were real and which were conjured in her mind. She pressed on down the hallway, her headlamp catching glimpses of Skinnies and their body parts. More light began to glow ahead of her, and then she was standing in the middle of the hub, alone. Blood dripping off of her knives and breathing heavily. But she wasn’t tired; she was exhilarated. A tiny part of her mind knew that Matt had gotten away. Whatever happened to her didn’t matter.
She would find Pelton and kill him.
Finding Pelton meant she needed a Skinny that would talk.
A smile spread across her face. She had a better idea.
Wendy wiped her knives on her filthy pants and put them away, then she closed her eyes and listened. Faint screams from her flashes plagued her hearing, but she pushed them away and waited. After a few seconds, she heard it. More fighting.
A leap took her up onto the platform. She ducked through the newly ruined door and ran down the hall.
It only took her a few seconds to come to an intersection, and only a moment more to take the left hallway. One more corner and she stumbled on the fighting. Two Skinnies lay dead on the ground. Six more swarmed a single figure. Dennis.
Wendy’s plan to get caught and have the Skinnies take her to Pelton waivered.
Blood covered one side of Dennis’ head. He had a sword and used it well, but not good enough to keep six of them away. Wendy saw the tremor in his hand as he tried to defend against two clubs.
The tremor. The monster in Wendy’s head growled. He had put her in the cupboard. He was as bad as Pelton. Worse, because he had lied about it. She should have killed him when she had had the chance.
Dennis skewered one more Skinny, but didn’t get his sword out fast enough before the next one was on him. He fell back and drew out a short knife.
Wendy licked her lips. A tingling, rushing sensation rose from her toes and flew through her whole body. She breathed deeply, and watched.
Even injured, Dennis was a good fighter. He spun on a Skinny with a club and took it from her. A moment later the Skinny lay on the ground with a cracked skull. But that was the end for him. He’d spent too much time in one place and two large Skinnies grabbed him.
