~ * ~
"Why was Calie acting so strange?" C.J. asked. He and Louise were posted at the door to the Hanley-Dawson body shop; he could hear Alex and the others talking inside. LaSalle Street gleamed with moisture, but the warm sun was already spreading dry patches on the pavement.
"I don't think she likes me," Louise commented. "She's acted funny ever since we met."
"Calie acts funny anyway."
C.J. poked his head inside.
"What's the holdup?" he yelled. "We should be halfway there!"
Perlman came out of a darkened doorway grasping a flashlight. "We can't find another tank of oxygen," he complained as he wiped a grimy hand across his nose. "Alex says the one on the cart is nearly empty and it might not be enough."
"How do you know there is another one?" Louise asked.
Perlman shrugged. "Mex says there should be. He—"
"I found it!" came a muffled voice from downstairs. Perlman hurried back down and in a few more minutes the men lugged a heavy cart and tanks onto the main floor.
"I never heard of such a thing," Alex grumbled. His eyes were swollen and ringed with purple shadows. "Why the hell would they put the extra setup in the basement? It should've been in the body shop."
Ira hustled into the room with Kyle, a redheaded man in his late forties. "I can't find any spare parts," he told Alex. "They're probably locked up in someone's toolbox."
"I thought you just needed the oxygen tank," C.J. said. "That's the big one, isn’t it?"
"Yeah, but the acetylene tank on this one is in better shape," Alex pointed out. "We're better off using the newer equipment." He looked peeved. "It wouldn't hurt to have a spare piece or two, though. I could take the extra one apart. . . ." He shook his head. "Never mind. We don’t have the time."
Elliot pushed experimentally on one of the cart's wheels. "This thing's a wreck. We'll be lucky if it doesn’t fall apart."
"The other one's worse," McDole said. "Stuff's been beat to hell and it's rusted besides."
"We'll make do." Alex shoved the Winchester awkwardly into his belt and grabbed the cart's handles. "Let's just go. We're an hour behind already."
~ * ~
"I don't understand why you had to come." C.J. pushed his hand into the pocket of his jeans. "We could've handled this."
"I never said you couldn't," Louise said. "But Dr. Perlman agreed that having a woman there is going to help calm these people if they start to freak out. You guys are just too . . . I don’t know. Efficient, maybe. All business and no softness."
He snorted. "There'll be time for that tomorrow." There was a sharp metallic clatter behind them and someone cussed. The teenagers halted and turned back. "What's wrong?" C.J. asked.
"One of the wheels snapped off." Elliot grimaced as he inspected the left side. "Damn, I knew this would happen. Can we carry it?"
"We'll have to." Alex was already sweating from dragging the heavy cart along the bumpy street. He gave Elliot a meaningful look as the blond man started to grab a tank. "Don't try it; we don't need a drip trail from one of those bites. C.J., take the other end of this oxygen tank; Buddy, you and Ed take the acetylene. And look out—these suckers are heavy."
C.J. handed the bow to Louise, then grunted as he hefted the end of the oxygen tank. "Oh, man," he groaned as they began a slow trek toward Wells Street. After a block, he had to ask. "How much farther do we have to go?"
"Too far," Ed, a thinner man in his forties, panted.
"It'd be easier if these things had handles. There's nothing to hold on to. Let's rest," McDole gasped. He and Ed lowered the acetylene tank to the ground and McDole sighed. "Sorry, guys."
"Doesn't matter," Alex said. "We needed a break anyway. These tanks are bastards—all that concentrated weight."
Despite his complaints, C.J. didn't even look winded as he squinted at his watch. “Are we going to be able to pull this off?"
"It's still early," Louise protested.
“At this speed we won’t get there before noon," C.J. pointed out.
"That's still enough time," Alex said as he let out a slow breath. "Cutting the chains should go quick. It's getting back to Water Tower that worries me."
“As long as they can walk, we'll be all right," Perlman interrupted. "To be safe, I'd say we need at least two hours to get them from building to building."
Alex scowled. "You're really trimming down my time. If there's more than ten or fifteen, or if something goes wrong . . .”
Perlman spread his hands. "I'm just trying to make a safe estimate, that’s all. Better to say we need more and have time left over than to run out."
“All right." McDole squinted and grasped his end of the tank, looking relieved when Perlman took a position in the middle. "Let's go, folks."
~ * ~
"Jesus," C.J. hissed as he and Alex edged through the doors and peered into the dimness of the Mart's main hallway. "What's that smell?"
"Rotting meat," Perlman answered softly from behind him. "Someone dead."
Alex inched along the wall for a few feet, then waved them in. "Clear so far—oh, God." He looked pained as the others filed in. "Here's the smell."
"Wasn't this the guard?" C.J. asked, wrinkling his nose. "You think no one's watching them now?"
McDole studied the remains of the man on the floor. "Yeah, this is him," he said in a low tone. "But I wouldn't count on there being no one else up there." He glanced at them. "Don't get reckless."
"Let's go," Alex said. "Which way?"
"Third floor in the back," said Frank, a black man nearly McDole's age. He nodded toward the dead man. "That's where I've been seeing this guy move past the windows." His dark eyes were hooded and angry. "Seen him do a lot of other things, too." He cleared his throat gently, then spit a glob of saliva onto the corpse as quietly as possible. The others stared at him and he lifted his chin in defiance. "I didn't do that for you, Dr. Perlman. I did it for those poor people upstairs."
"Let's go," Alex said again. "We're wasting time down here. Kyle, you know where you're going?" Kyle nodded.
"Then lead the way."
2
REVELATION 22:5
For the Lord God giveth them light. . . .
~ * ~
"I'm sorry," Stephen said again. The woman just stared at him, her face dirty and blank. "You have to understand," he pleaded. "There aren't any keys. She throws them away."
"Then kill us and get it over with, damn you!" a man yelled from the next room. He banged on the wall furiously.
Stephen clapped his hands over his ears, squeezing his skull. God, how he wanted to free them! He'd thought he could help them stay warmer and feed them better, let the women start healing now that Howard was gone. But he had been so terribly wrong. They talked to him like they'd never talked to Howard, and asked things of him that he just couldn't do. He would free them in an instant if he could. Other than that . . .
He was not a murderer.
"Please," he offered the pale woman a cup of hot chicken soup made from supplies he'd found stacked in an empty cubicle. "It'll make you feel better." But she just sat, staring at the skirt and jacket he'd given her instead of putting them on. He was afraid to try and dress her, afraid she would think he was Howard all over again. "You should put those on," he prompted, "so you can be warm." Still, she just . . . sat.
He sighed and went on to the next, and the next, and the one after that. The response was the same: people so numbed to abuse and the cold that they were unable to respond to what little help he so desperately tried to give. One young man grabbed him and shook him, then released him in disgust; another threw the hot soup in his face and told him he was no better than Siebold.
When the brown-haired man and the kid with the bow stepped out of the stairwell, Stephen had slipped into a confused, mumbling prayer.
And he truly believed God had finally heard him.
3
REVELATION 16:1
Go your ways, and pour out the via
ls of the wrath of God
upon the earth.
~ * ~
"This guy's brain is oatmeal," C.J. said. "Look at him." The man still sat on the floor and muttered about God and the hellbeasts that ruled the earth.
"Forget him," Alex said shortly. "Look at this." He was standing at the door to the first of a long row of tiny offices; inside, a teenage girl gawked at him and struggled frantically to wrap herself in a robe that still bore manufacturer's tags.
"It’s all right, miss," McDole said in a soothing voice. "We've come to get you out of here." His words simply didn't register. "I said, we've come to get you out of here!" he repeated loudly.
The hallway erupted with sound. The startled group of rescuers rushed from room to room, trying to calm the frenzied people as cries of "Please!" and "Help!" mingled with sobs and other entreaties, and as they finally quieted, the group realized just how poorly the prisoners had been treated. Most suffered from ongoing exposure and shivered constantly; no doubt more than a few were n the early stages of pneumonia, and almost all of them lad muscle and tissue damage from the chains tightly encircling their ankles. They were malnourished and weak, and Perlman was infuriated when he discovered how badly some of the women had been beaten. When he reached a cubicle containing an obviously pregnant roman, he whirled and strode back to the man on the floor. "Why is that pregnant woman tied?" he demanded. When he received no answer, he raised the man's eyelid with his thumb, released it, then slapped the man sharply. "Snap out of it! We need answers now!"
Surprisingly, the fellow did try. "She—" He frowned, as though it was difficult to concentrate. "She doesn't want the baby," he finished at last.
Perlman glowered at him. "Why not?"
The man blinked and realized they were all staring at him. "Because of Howard," he explained. "It's his.”
“Who's Howard?" Alex asked.
"It must be the dead man downstairs," Frank said. "He made it a daily habit to . . . have relations with the women."
"He raped them?" Perlman was so enraged his face was turning crimson.
"He called it breeding," the white-faced man told them. He struggled to his feet and gazed blearily down the hall. "They aren't doing so good."
McDole put his hand on the man's arm. "What's your name, son?"
"Stephen. I'm a . . ." His words faded away.
"What?" Elliot prompted.
Stephen's eyes fogged. "I . . . don't know. I can't remember."
Alex clapped his hands briskly and everyone turned their attention to him. His face was determined. "Let's get these people the hell out!"
~ * ~
"You have to go faster!"
Alex pushed Stephen away. "Stop it! I don't have time to listen to you!" he snapped.
"Stephen," Perlman said from behind the emaciated young man, "can you help over here?" Stephen hurried to Perlman's side and began helping with a woman whose expression was dazed as they pulled a heavy sweater over her head, then pushed her feet into a pair of sneakers. Stephen had been foraging haphazardly in the wholesale outlets on the higher floors, running up and down with armloads of mixed-up clothes and shoes. A good thing—none of the rescuers had even considered there wouldn't be clothing available for these people to wear. At the far end of the hallway, Louise was sitting with the pregnant woman and rambling on in a calm voice, talking about how nice it would be for them all to walk around free in the sun again. Stephen hadn't been lying; when the doctor had tried to untie her, she'd gone into a rage and started screaming at him to perform an abortion immediately. He finally had to sedate her and leave her bound; it was a good bit of foresight that he'd thought to bring several Tel-E-Ject syringes of diazepam along with the syringes of V-BAC. Injecting everyone, including Stephen, had been quick and silent; most just sat there and accepted the shot. It was unnerving.
"Doctor—" Stephen tugged on Perlman's sleeve. "Don't you know what time it is? There're five more to go."
"We know, Stephen," McDole answered as he hurried by, pulling a man and two women toward the stairs. "We're going as fast as we can. There're more people than we expected and the chains are tougher."
"Go faster," Stephen repeated. His face was starting to show a fine edge of panic.
A few doors away the loud hiss that had backgrounded their conversations over the last several hours stopped. "We're ready!" Alex called. A scraggy-looking man stumbled out and squinted, then grinned and yanked on a baggy pair of jeans. "Four now," he croaked. "I'm Nathan. What can I do to help?" He hastily pulled a sweatshirt over his head and shoved sockless feet into a too-large pair of Nikes.
"See if you can find someone who's strong enough to pair off with you and take the pregnant woman out," Perlman suggested. "She might not be able to walk. I had to drug her pretty heavily" Farther down the hall, the hiss of the torch started again.
Nathan raised a finger. "We'll only have to carry the lady downstairs," he said. "Then we'll grab a cart from Walgreens and push her the rest of the way if we have to.”
"Great idea." Perlman pointed to the woman struggling to her feet. "Can you take her, too?"
Nathan nodded. "She'll come around. How many more?"
McDole began counting on his fingers. "Still four, including her" He tilted his head toward the sedated woman’s cubicle. "Think she's calm enough for Alex to go in yet?"
"Sure," Perlman said. "But we'll go with you, just in case."
"Once she's loose, that'll make three left," McDole said with satisfaction.
"Free!" Alex yelled. A sallow-faced young man tripped out of a room, then fell to his knees.
Perlman ran to his side, then clucked worriedly. "This guy's in pretty bad shape, Buddy. I don't think we should wait any longer for the ones that are ready to leave."
"Hey, Alex!" Buddy yelled.
"What?" Alex and Elliot paused in the midst of dragging the tanks on to the next room.
"The far end." McDole waved his finger. "The pregnant one. It's getting late."
"I know that, damn it!" They spun the tanks awkwardly, then hauled them to the far office as the doctor and Nathan hurried down. Alex fired the torch again, filling the air with a blast of light and heat as he pulled his welding goggles over his eyes. "Look the other way!" he called over the torch's noise.
Stephen was doing another check, his face wild. "There's two more." His fingers twisted around themselves. "A man and a woman."
"It's okay," McDole assured him. "We've got plenty of time."
"Less than an hour!" Stephen cried. “And some of the stronger ones wake up early!"
"We'll be fine," McDole repeated, though suddenly he wasn’t so sure. Would they really start moving before the sun completely set? He eyed the long hallway, noting the darkening shadows forming in the windowless inner cubicles.
C.J. looked up from his guard post at the stairwell. "We gotta get going, man." He peered nervously down the stairs. At least get 'em out of this dark building. It'll be a lot lighter outside."
All three jumped at the sound of shouting and McDole ran to join Alex and Nathan in the last office. Louise was backing out of the room. "She bit me," she said angrily.
"What's the matter with her, anyway?" In spite of the sedative, the freed woman was kicking at Perlman.
Alex reached around the struggling duo and twisted the torch off at the tanks, then slid his hands under the woman's shoulders and lifted her bodily from the floor. "Stop it!" he yelled, his nose inches from her own. "If you hold us up any longer, you'll get us all killed! Is that what you want?"
"I don't want to have that monster's child!" she cried. Tears were streaming down her face. "I don't—"
"We'll worry about that later, all right?" Nathan grabbed her chin and forced her head to stop its jerking. "Right now, let’s just get out of here alive. Now come on!”
"You've got to hurry!" In the hallway, Stephen’s voice was almost a scream.
Alex and McDole lugged the tanks into the hallway and the younger man's eyes fl
icked warily to the fading light. He turned to Elliot and Nathan. "Get the ones downstairs and go. McDole and I'll follow with these last two."
Elliot looked skeptical. "I don't know—"
"Just go. There's no time to argue!" He gave the blond-haired man a quick push. "The less people who have to run, the better!"
"Go ahead, man." C.J. pulled on Elliot's arm and guided him to where Nathan, the pregnant woman, and four others waited. "Kyle and Frank left already, and these folks will need someone to show them where to go. You're elected."
"What about you guys?" Elliot demanded
"We're armed," C.J. reminded him. His gaze stopped on Louise. "But take her with you."
"Forget it," Louise said. "I'm staying right here.”
“Listen—" C.J. began.
"Don't tell me what to do, hotshot." Her tone clearly said stubborn. "I make my own decisions." C.J. closed his mouth.
“All right," Elliot said. "We're taking off. But you guys . . . Jesus." His eyes were wide. "Be careful, okay?" He turned to the former prisoners. "Let's go, folks.”
As they hurried past, Stephen hovered around the torch like a panicked moth. "Come on, come on!" He looked ready to vomit. "They'll be coming any time!"
Alex's forehead glittered with sweat. "The sun won't set for another forty-five minutes," he said.
"It doesn't matter!" Stephen insisted. "This building is so dark that once it drops below the skyscrapers on the west, they're already starting to wake up. They'll get up, but they just won't go outside!"
"Christ," Alex muttered. "Buddy, help me get this thing over there. How many are left?"
"Only two," Louise told him. ”A man and a woman. They look like they're in okay shape."
"That's something—Stephen, will you get out of the way!" He gave a hard pull on the acetylene tank and jostled it close to an anxious woman already dressed in an oversized sweatshirt and denim skirt. "Buddy, get this guy outta here, will—
"Oh, damn it! OH, SHIT! I can't believe I did that!”
AfterAge Page 30
