Because his face was obscured by the dark, Maxine couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep. His shoulders appeared relaxed, but the gun looked ready. His head was neither forward on his chest, nor to one side on the headrest of the chair. He could have been alert to her approach, she knew, and all he would have to do was to turn his head slightly to the right to see her advancing.
Three yards.
Two yards.
Maxine paused, just three feet from the chair, holding the potty out in front of her, the surface of its contents settling as she stopped. It was here that she began to recognize the gentle snore under his breath, and pick out in the dimness that William was indeed asleep.
She wouldn’t have to go all the way through with her plan to use the contents of the potty as a distraction to be thrown over whoever was guarding the door, so that she might be able to reach in and get to their gun as they first registered, and then had to deal with, disgust at what had been thrown over them. Maxine had thought that it would be a worthy distraction, for sure, but was glad that William’s state of sleep meant a more direct approach, rather than her having to follow through with the icky plan.
Maxine began to lower the china container slowly to the floor, all the while keeping her eyes on William, unmoving and unaware in the chair.
With the pot a foot from the floor, the room suddenly echoed with a woody detonation and a sharp crack as an air pocket or an area of deep moisture exploded around the last log in the grate. The fireplace showered out sparks, followed by a shattering hail of hisses and crackles that William woke with a start.
He snatched up the gun and twisted in the chair. Initially, Maxine could see that he was pointing it over her head, and that he hadn’t immediately registered her presence as she came down on her haunches.
That gave her the one chance she would have.
She launched the contents of the potty directly into William’s face from below. The shock of the liquid hitting his face made him bring his arms up, with him appearing to forget he had the gun in his hand. With that, Maxine was leaping forward, swinging the china bowl by the handle. It scythed through the flickering firelight and shattered with a heavy crack against the side of his head. Pieces flew and whirled, clattering into the wall and smashing into the floor.
William slid from the chair, poleaxed, and it was the work of a moment for Maxine to twist the pistol from his hand, prime the chamber, and put the barrel under William’s chin.
Droplets of the pot’s contents dripped around William’s hair and face, and his lips curled in revulsion as the unmistakable smell of urine assailed his nostrils.
“Now, William. Take me to my son.”
The crash of breaking china didn’t seem to have disturbed anyone in the bedrooms as they walked along the corridor. William moved slowly, with his hands held high, occasionally shaking his head to get droplets out of his hair.
“You’re gonna die for this,” had been the last thing he’d said before they’d left the living area.
“Possibly,” Maxine had returned, “but you’ll be going long before I do if you don’t take me to Storm now.”
William had spat the bad taste out of his mouth and led the way.
Maxine estimated that it must be three or four in the morning. She had waited as long as she’d dared, knowing, from her time working nightshifts in Morehead Mercy, that this was the prime time for nurses to succumb to tiredness if they were on a warm ward and they were on their 3 a.m. break.
It had also taken her that long to consume the contents of the water jug and ensure that the china bowl was as full of liquid as she could manage.
She was pleased that her plan, with a little on-the-hoof adaptation, had worked out as well as it had. There was no time for any complacency right now, as she was only a fraction nearer to getting out of this place with her son and the medication. There could still be a thousand more variables for her to deal with.
She still didn’t know if she could pull the trigger and shoot William if the circumstances got to the point where it was necessary, either. In her heart of hearts, she hoped that it wouldn’t, but she still dug deep inside for the courage to do so, in just the same way she’d gotten ready to shoot McCready.
“He’s in here,” William whispered, stopping outside a closed door.
“Open it,” Maxine breathed into William’s ear, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. How far she had traveled from nurse to potential killer in the last week or so. And the fall was now complete, so that she was tightening her finger on the trigger just in case William tried anything.
The door opened.
The room beyond was in exactly the same state as the one Maxine had left.
And it was empty. She pushed William in and closed the door behind them as William turned and she raised the pistol to his chest. “Don’t make me shoot you, William. What are you playing at?”
William’s face looked suitably terrified.
“This is his room. I swear! I put him in here myself!” His voice was raising above a whisper, and Maxine had to use her other hand to indicate he needed to lower it.
Maxine’s head became a kaleidoscope of fractured thinking and fearful images. If William was telling the truth, then what had happened to Storm? Had Nan had her son taken away and put somewhere as extra insurance for Maxine’s continued cooperation? Perhaps Nan was readying her threatening pitch after all. She’d know that Storm’s plight, whatever she’d contrived it to be, would be the perfect leverage to get Maxine to obey whatever orders Nan wanted to give her.
“Where would they take Storm if he’s not here?”
“We didn’t need to take him anywhere! We have his drugs! If he’s left here, he’s got the same notion in his head as you, to escape.”
That made sense, too.
But what to do about it?
Focus. Prioritize.
“Okay, then where are Storm’s drugs? Take me to them.”
William shook his head. “It won’t do you no good. Momma has them in her room, locked away in her safe. Even I don’t know the combination to that. And she won’t tell you, I guarantee it. You might as well be cutting your own throat, lady. You’re screwed.”
Maxine lifted the gun, pointing it between William’s eyes.
“You can threaten to blow my brains out all you want, lady. But I don’t know the combination. You wanna kill me for something I don’t know, go ahead.”
Maxine’s head throbbed, her teeth itched, and her lungs felt like they were filled with a tonnage of grit.
“Take me to Nan’s room. Now.”
“Sure, for all the good it will do you.”
As William moved past her towards the door, and Maxine stepped back to allow him past, keeping him covered the whole time, there came a harsh pealing of a handbell from somewhere outside.
“Fire!” someone was screaming, “fire! The barn’s on fire! It’s the Klanes!”
Like when the log had exploded in the grate, it was all the distraction that was needed to bring William into sudden motion. He slapped out with his hand and knocked the pistol from Maxine’s grip. The gun spun away and clattered into the wall, where it fired off a bullet that smashed into the doorframe between Maxine and William.
They’d had just a moment to lock eyes and share a moment of personal relief when William punched Maxine in the gut, knocking all the air out of her body.
Maxine felt like her insides had imploded as William reached down and grabbed her by the hair, pushing her down to sprawl all arms and legs on the splintery boards, and then he dragged her close enough to the dropped gun that he could pick it up and shove it into her cheek.
“Lady, I ought to end you where you lay.”
Maxine closed her eyes, expecting the show that never arrived.
William hauled her by the hair, first onto her knees and then onto her feet. Holding her by the hair and sticking the pistol into her neck, he said, “Open the door, bitch. I’m gonna shoot your goddamned son in
front of you, and then I’m gonna paint the walls with your brains.”
And Maxine believed him.
The alarm and shouting continued all the way along the corridor as William propelled Maxine back into the living area.
Nan was already there in her nightdress with a shawl wrapped around her, and giving orders to everyone.
“Get out there, but be careful. Keep your guns on you at all times. If we can save the barn, we will, but if the Klanes are just waiting out there to ambush us, be ready for a fight. Go!”
The men and the young women nodded and filed outside, checking their rifles and their pistols as they went. Mary had stayed behind to corral the children. Nan put another log on the fire and shuffled a poker through the embers to get it to light before she regarded William and Maxine.
“Goodness, son, you smell like a toilet.”
William shook Maxine’s head and forced her to her knees. “This one got my gun off me, and forced me to take her to her son’s room.”
Nan looked down at Maxine. “You really shouldn’t have done that, Maxine. That’s no way to respond to our hospitality, is it?”
“It’s not hospitality if you weren’t going to let us leave.”
“It’s not a case of not letting you leave; it’s about how persuasive I can be to make you stay. We don’t have a doctor here, and who knows how many are still alive out there? My kids and friends need a nurse. I can’t just let you walk away. I’d rather you’d have agreed to stay of your own accord, but either way, you’re here to stay.”
Maxine looked up at Nan and spat her words out like she meant them. “Your boy here has already told me he’s going to shoot me and my son down in cold blood. Why should I believe your BS about needing a nurse here?”
Nan was about to speak, and then stopped herself as a thought she hadn’t appeared to contemplate occurred to her. She flicked her eyes from Maxine to William. “Where is her boy?”
Maxine blinked, the ache in her stomach where she’d been punched and winded blossoming into the steel flower of anxiety. If Nan didn’t know where Storm was, then she hadn’t taken him from his room. If he was outside, and the barn was burning, and the Klanes were out there ready to shoot anyone down who confronted them, then Storm’s life was in the balance just as sure as if William had been holding the gun to his head right now.
“You tell me. Where is he?” Maxine hissed, trying to pull away from William’s fingers, which were still entwined in her hair. “Where is my son?”
William cuffed her on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol, the pain star-bursting inside her skull as she crashed back to her knees.
William might have said “Stay still” then, but Maxine couldn’t be sure. Not because of the pain bouncing around her head from William’s blow, but because every window in the room seemed to cave in under the onslaught of sustained automatic gunfire.
As William pushed Maxine down and Nan dived for cover, the only sound that followed was the sound of the children in the room screaming.
19
The Zippo’s yellow flame was high and generous, but it only illuminated the corridor a few feet ahead of them as they made their way forward.
“We figured we’d stay on the Empress and wait for rescue. With the majority of the passengers gone, we figured we had enough food and drink to last us half a lifetime, but we also figured we’d be rescued in a few days, tops. But then one day became two, then three, then a week, and it dawned on us that there wasn’t anyone coming. There was no power in anything, the generators had seized, the radio and navigation systems were deader than a dead dodo, and it was clear the Empress was going to be left to drift on her own merry way. There’s no way we could steer her, and eventually, if we didn’t get off, we’d run aground, maybe flounder and be smashed to pieces on rocks. Or we might just keep drifting south, and end up frozen in the Antarctic. So, when we saw your sailboat…”
“You figured we were your ticket out of here.”
“Bullseye, Mr. Interloper. We had no way of getting to you, all the lifeboats having gone, so we prayed for you to come aboard. And bingo, you obliged.”
“You planned to take us hostage and force us to take you over to the Sea-Hawk.”
“We live in a world now where sails like yours are worth more than gold, Mr. Interloper. We didn’t know if you were crazy, hostile, armed to the teeth, or just a band of chancers. Figure you saw the Empress as rich pickin’s. Can’t imagine you have much in the way of supplies on your little ship, and so you thought to come over here and see what you could steal, huh? Thinking with your pants is bad, but making decisions based on greed alone is just as bad.”
“I came unarmed. You saw that. I’d have been happy to help you.”
“Really? So, why is your ship sailing out of range? What’s going on there, Mr. Interloper? That doesn’t seem like the action of people who want to be friendly.”
Josh had a choice here; he could be truthful about what he suspected had happened, or he could try to deflect Joey Langolini from killing him before he needed to. He chose the latter.
“We thought something like this here might happen. So, I ordered them to stand off as far away as possible, until I signaled them to come back and pick us up.”
“And what was the signal?”
“If I tell you that, you’ve got no reason to keep me alive, do you, Mr. Langolini?”
Joey was silent. Josh could almost hear the cogs whirring in the man’s head as he considered what Josh had said as they came to a closed hatch looming out of the darkness. There was a thick steel wheel in the center of it, set there to secure the door in a flood if the ship was holed in this section.
“Open it,” Joey ordered him, the companionability denuded from his tone and replaced by steel. Like Poppet, Joey didn’t seem to enjoy not getting his own way. For his part, Josh hoped that his ruse with the signal would keep him alive long enough to get away, but even if he did, where would he run? He couldn’t get off the Empress. There was only the dinghy, and in the open ocean, he’d be dead from thirst inside a week even if he kept it afloat that long. There would come a point when Joey would expect him to make the signal he’d lied about, though, and when the ship—which he felt sure was now under the command of the volatile Ten-Foot—didn’t come back, what would he do then?
In the end, the decision was made for him.
As the door swung back, they were hit with a hail of machine gun fire.
Josh dived to the side, the Zippo flying from his fingers, but the air around him was lit with flaring orange sparks. Joey went down, too. From his position on the floor, the older man kicked out at the door and it clanged shut, keeping whatever bullets were being fired behind it out of the corridor. From memory, because the space was now black, Josh leapt to where he thought the door should be and turned the wheel, locking it in place.
For now.
He guessed there would be a similar wheel on the other side, and whoever was there would, he was sure, be on it in seconds to open it and come through.
Joey’s hand rested on Josh’s foot in the dark. He was searching for the Zippo on the floor. “I knew that woman would be the damn death of me sooner or later. Who knew it would be her taste for sham-pag-nay that would bring me so close to the old wooden overcoat?”
Josh had been correct. Whoever was on the other side of the door was trying to turn the wheel. Josh applied pressure and kept it in position as Joey yelped and swore. He’d found the lighter and burned his fingers.
Josh heard Joey sucking at his fingers and then lighting the Zippo. As the flame flared, Josh saw blood on the side of the old mobster’s face. It was running in free lines, dripping onto his shirt, richly red and fresh.
“You’re hit,” Josh said putting his back into making sure the wheel couldn’t move. Joey stood and felt around the crown of his skull, his fingers coming away sodden.
“Just a graze. Head wounds bleed like pigs. Dunno if it was a bullet or a chunk of wall, but
I’ll live.”
“I’m not sure we will if they get through this door.”
“Fair point well made, son. Is there a lock?”
“Hold the lighter nearer; I can’t see.”
Joey stepped in close and illuminated the door. There was just the wheel and directions to open or close it. No locking lever or control. The door would be opened the next time Josh let go of the wheel. Whoever was on the other side was applying maximum pressure to it, too. Josh’s biceps were tight and full as a bodybuilder, and he could feel sweat running down the side of his face as he strained. Joey and Josh locked eyes.
Josh didn’t know in that moment if Joey was going to leave him there to face whatever was on the other side of the door, or wait and see what could be done.
It looked like Joey was weighing up the options, too.
The wheel began to turn, slipping through Josh’s palms, slick as they were. “I can’t hold it! I can’t…”
Joey had made up his mind. He put his hands to the wheel and tried to hold it in place, but his extra strength didn’t have much effect. Not because he was weak or ineffective, however. Josh worked out what was happening as the wheel turned another inch.
The people on the other side had found something like a jimmy, or a length of solid metal, and were using it to apply extra torque to their efforts. There was nothing Josh could do, either—if the wheel completed one more half turn, it would be open, and the guys with the machine guns on the other side would be able to push the door open.
“Let go of the wheel,” Joey hissed, taking his hands off it. The slick metal snaked through Josh’s hands once the resistance supplied by the older man was withdrawn.
Joey flicked the Zippo closed and they were plunged into darkness as Josh found himself being shouldered away from the wheel so that Joey could grab it and yank it open.
Supernova EMP- The Complete Series Page 19
