“The new one,” a second voice answered. “It’s her turn.” Not-So-Gruff. Gruff’s partner-in-crime.
Smith wasn’t sure if he was happy to hear their voices so he could finally get his crack at them, or if he should have been concerned. They were obviously old hands at this and probably knew what to expect. Or they thought they did, anyway. Smith hoped that previously dealing with only vulnerable women would leave them open and maybe just a little too confident.
That was his hope, anyway, as a man with sandy blond hair stepped casually through the door like he owned the place. The guy had the baton gripped tightly—menacingly—in his right hand. He led with his left foot, followed by his right.
“Wakey, wakey, ladies,” the man said, almost in a singsong pattern that convinced Smith he was used to having his way.
Either he and his partner had forgotten all about Smith, or they didn’t think he was going to be any trouble. But then, there were two of them and just one of him. Assholes, in Smith’s experience, were always overly confident when they had numbers on their side.
That was their mistake. That was always all of these assholes’ mistakes.
Smith tackled the man before he could completely enter the room, and the two of them went flying, with Smith driving the man through the air with everything he had. His socked feet moved with speed and force against the floor while his hands wrapped tightly around his target’s waist. The man’s breath struck Smith in the face, but better bad breath than the baton the guy was holding.
“What the fuck?” a voice shouted from somewhere behind him—Not-So-Gruff, which meant the one with sandy blond hair was Gruff—but Smith was too busy slamming Gruff into the floor, using his weight to piledrive the man into the hard concrete in one of those wrestling moves he’d seen on TV.
Smith heard an audible grunt, but that was lost in the very loud—and incredibly satisfying—crunch of the man’s skull slamming into the floor. The body underneath him instantly relaxed, the right hand with the baton collapsing and staying down. Smith reached for the black object, wrestling it easily out of the weak fingers, and quickly scrambled to his feet.
He fully expected to fall right back down. After all, it wasn’t like he was 100 percent. He wasn’t even close to 100 percent. 50 percent tops, and that was being overly generous. So when he made it to his feet and stayed upright, he was probably more shocked than anyone. Maybe he wasn’t quite as injured as he had thought? Or maybe adrenaline was pushing him to stay on his feet, because falling back down now was not good for his health.
He was whirling around when the second figure—Not-So-Gruff—stepped through the open door. Like Gruff, this one was armed with an identical baton, but he had a holster on his right hip, with a gun in it. The man’s eyes widened—it was easy for Smith to see with the lights flooding all over Not-So-Gruff’s face—as he stumbled through the opening, before backpedaling at the sight of Smith.
Smith was almost on his feet when Not-So-Gruff dropped the baton and reached for his holstered piece.
Shit! Smith thought as he made his move.
But he was too far—at least five feet—and the guy was increasing that by backing up further. He was halfway to his target when Not-So-Gruff—he was about the same age as his partner—early thirties, with shaggy black hair—reached for, found, and drew his gun.
No, not a gun. A TASER. Maybe it was even the same one that had been used on Smith earlier. Smith knew that because of the weapon’s shape. It could be easily mistaken for a gun by an untrained eye, but Smith didn’t have untrained eyes.
Still, he wasn’t going to reach the man in time, and he mentally prepared to do a last-second pirouette to avoid getting tased a second time. He wasn’t sure how he was going to accomplish that, though. Maybe pull off something like in that movie about that guy who was caught in a computer program, then discovered he was “the one,” and—
“Hey, dickhead!”
The sound came from the rest of the room, and Smith, caught by surprise, turned to look. He wasn’t the only one, thank God, because Not-So-Gruff did, too.
Mary, running toward their captor, shouting, “You motherfucker!”
Smith knew exactly what she was doing: Drawing Not-So-Gruff’s attention away from him.
And he took full advantage of it, running toward his target even as Not-So-Gruff’s eyes snapped back in his direction.
Three feet—
Snap! as the rest of the riot baton came out of its housing with a flick of Smith’s wrist.
Two—
Not-So-Gruff raised the TASER to fire.
One!
Smith brought the baton down on the man’s extended hand and heard the crack! of bone breaking. The TASER fell, but even before it had the chance to hit the floor, Smith struck its former owner in the side of the head with the blunt metal object and was rewarded with another solid and oh-so-satisfying crack! echo.
The body collapsed in a pile, twitched for a while, and stayed down.
Smith snatched the TASER off the floor and turned to make sure Gruff had remained down on the other side of the open door. The man hadn’t moved from the spot where Smith had left him.
Smith crouched and checked Not-So-Gruff’s pulse. It was present, but weak. The man’s eyes, blinking rapidly up at Smith, was evidence he wasn’t a threat anymore. If he had a gun and a suppressor, Smith would have put the man out of his misery just to be sure. But he didn’t, so he didn’t.
Instead, Smith hurried back to Gruff and did the same. The guy was flatlined. Good. It saved Smith the energy of killing him. Smith took the opportunity to catch his breath. With the door open and the bright hallway outside visible, suddenly the air was less stale.
Mary was standing next to Not-So-Gruff, looking down at him. Smith walked back over and picked up the man’s fallen baton and handed it to her, before searching its owner for more weapons. He didn’t find anything that he could use. Smith turned the man over onto his back. He was still alive but not a threat. Smith didn’t think the man could even stand up. Blood dripped from the side of his head, and he probably had brain damage given how hard Smith had swung.
Footsteps, as the other women walked over to join them. Even the young one, who had been there the longest. She stood between the other three, hands wrapped tightly around her chest, peering at him as if too afraid to make even the tiniest sound.
Mary stood in front of the other four women, all five pairs of eyes staring back at Smith.
“What now, John?” Mary asked.
“Now we get out of here,” Smith said.
Sixteen
“How are we going to get out of here?”
“Carefully.”
“But how?”
“Like I said: carefully.”
Mary had stared at him.
“Carefully,” Smith said for the third time, though he didn’t elaborate on what that meant, which was probably what Mary was hoping for.
Smith didn’t go into details because he didn’t have any to tell her or the other four women huddled in the slightly dark room with him. Gruff’s body lay nearby, unmoving, while Not-So-Gruff had been rolled farther into the room and left to rest. He wasn’t going anywhere, if he could even move. The man was still alive, as far as Smith could tell, but very much out of commission.
Just to be sure, though, Smith had given Mary very firm orders. “Hit him with the baton if he wakes up.”
“Hit him?” Mary had asked.
“Yeah. Hit him.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Preferably the head, where he’s most vulnerable.”
“What if it kills him?”
“Then it kills him.”
“I’m not sure I want to kill him, John.”
You didn’t have any trouble shooting Peoples to shit, he thought and wanted to remind her but didn’t.
Smith said instead, “Just keep him down and out of our hair. The last thing we want is for him to be up and causing trouble. Can you do that?
”
“Yes,” Mary said.
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I am.”
“Are you sure, sure?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I’ll keep him down and out of our hair.”
“Whatever it takes.”
She nodded. “Whatever it takes.”
“Now I believe you,” Smith said, even though he didn’t, really. But he didn’t think voicing his doubts was going to help them.
“What about them?” Mary asked, looking at the other women gathering around them.
The sisters looked perplexed by what was going on, and the other two…looked too scared to do anything. No one, Smith saw, had made an attempt to run for the door. It was almost as if they were waiting for him to tell them what to do.
So Smith did. “Everyone, stay in here. If it’s safe, I’ll come back, and we’ll all leave together.”
They stared silently back at him, and he didn’t think they were very convinced. The sisters didn’t even look as if they’d heard him.
“Stay here,” he said again, emphasizing the two words as much as possible without making it sound like a forceful demand.
They were being held inside some kind of underground bunker that, according to Mary, was underneath the big red barn structure. Smith took Mary’s word for it; she was, after all, conscious when they brought her to the ranch while he’d been dragged between rooms—first the one with the cage, then later, what he called the holding room.
Smith slipped out of that room now, peeking left, then right, while the thoughts, Carefully. Just like you told her. Do this carefully, ran through his head.
There were lights outside, but they were dimmed, probably to conserve power, and strategically spaced. Just enough to illuminate the hallway, but not enough to see every inch of the place. It was plenty to assure Smith that Gruff and Not-So-Gruff hadn’t brought a third friend with them, though.
He stepped into the hallway, the TASER with its unfired charge in his right hand, with the riot baton in his front waistband. Mary had the other one and stayed behind with the other four women. Smith didn’t think he could have convinced any of them to follow him even if he tried. He got the sense they thought all of this might have been a trick, that their captors were playing a sadistic game with them.
Smith didn’t think so, and as he moved left along the corridor—there was nothing but a solid wall to his right—he was further convinced there was no one waiting to pop out of the shadows and scream “Boo!” at him.
That theory proved true when he reached the corner and peered around it.
Another long hallway, this one ending with concrete steps leading up to the surface. The exit. There were two rooms between him and the way out, and both had closed doors. Smith had a good feeling one of those rooms led into the one with the cage, where he’d had to fight for his life against the ghoul.
So what was the other one? And did he really want to know?
Smith glanced back toward the holding room.
Mary was leaning out the open door. She was the only one.
Seeing him look back, Mary mouthed, “Anything?”
Smith shook his head.
“So now what?” she mouthed.
“Wait here,” he mouthed back.
“Here?”
“Yes. There.”
“Okay.”
She gave him a concerned look, but Smith didn’t wait for her to mouth an argument. He turned the corner and, TASER in hand, headed toward the stairs.
A trio of lights along the ceiling lit his path, but there were plenty of shadowy patches that he couldn’t see through. He wasn’t afraid of ghouls lurking within them, though. For one, there was no telltale smell. And two—well, any nightcrawlers walking around would have attacked him as soon as he peeked around the corner.
And nothing had.
…Not yet, anyway.
He wished he had a gun and not just a TASER. Then again, while he was at it, why not wish for two guns?
Or three…
But he didn’t have one, never mind three, so he had to make do with what he had. Which was a lot better than nothing. If he couldn’t tase someone with the TASER, then he could take their head off with the baton. Of course, that was if he got close enough.
That was the trick. Get them before they got him.
He was halfway to the steps that led out of this hellhole when the irrational part of him resurfaced, insisting that all of this was a trap. Surely the Judge’s people wouldn’t have just sent two guys to go pick up Mary (the “new girl” they were talking about earlier) when they knew he was there? That was highly risky, especially without guns to back them up.
Then again, they probably thought he wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon. He’d been hit in the back of the head by the buttstock of a rifle and then tased. He should have been sleeping both those things off. Instead, he’d woken up and was, miraculously, ready when Gruff and Not-So-Gruff showed up to do their job.
But why would they come so early in the day? Why not wait until sunup? Unless, of course, it was already sunup outside and he was wrong about the time. That was entirely possible, too. Smith’s intuition was good—it had to be if you wanted to survive The Purge—but it wasn’t foolproof.
So maybe he was wrong about everything.
…or nothing.
Goddammit. Just do it, already!
His inner thought was right. There was no point in playing the scenario over and over in his head. Either this was a trick or it wasn’t, and he’d find that out soon enough. If it was a trick, then he’d probably end up dead.
Then again, wasn’t he going to end up dead anyway?
Might as well get it over with, I guess.
There were tracks on the floor that he hadn’t noticed before. Dirt and muddy boot prints coming and going. That would be Gruff and Not-So-Gruff, probably as they made their rounds. Smith had to wonder how many other people were at the ranch. He knew for a fact there had been four—counting the two men in the holding room with the women, there was the woman that had shot Blake, and Peter, the man Smith had shot. And then there were the riders that had ridden out to investigate Smith and Blake’s incident with the ghouls on the hillside. Gruff and Not-So-Gruff could have been a part of that group, or not.
That was the big problem. He didn’t know what he was dealing with. There could be two more or three more—or more, more.
One of many problems, anyway.
But answers weren’t going to come to him down here. He had to go find them, and that meant—
Smith stopped when he reached the two doors. They flanked him on the right and left at opposite ends of the corridor. Metal doors, like the one back at the holding room. One of them likely housed the cage where Smith had been forced to fight the ghoul. So what was the other one, then?
He looked at one, then the other. Not that he could tell them apart. They were identical and missing writing or anything to indicate what was on the other side. Of course, all he needed to do to find out was to open—
Padlocks. Big padlocks, too.
He tried to remember if he’d seen keys on either Gruff or Not-So-Gruff while he was searching them. Maybe, but he couldn’t be sure. It’d been too dark, and it wasn’t like he was looking for keys, so…
Smith glanced back down the hallway. He could go and find out for sure one way or another. Or…he could keep going and see what was up there.
He continued on.
The answers were up there. Whatever was behind the two doors with him down here could wait.
Smith took the first step but didn’t go up right away. There were ten of them, leading up to what looked like a double door at the top. Not metal, which would have been too heavy to open and close, but large wooden slabs. There were rings that could be used to close the doors on this end. And, he assumed, similar rings on the other side to pull them up and open. There were no locks that he could see.
He
went up.
Two steps.
Three.
Four…
All the while, Smith clutched the TASER, ready to fire it if necessary. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a gun.
Or two.
Or three…
He stopped on the fifth step and listened.
Thankfully the absence of shoes meant Smith could move almost silently like a ninja. He’d taken a look at both Gruff and Not-So-Gruff’s boots, but one was too big and the other was too small. Smith had considered grabbing the too-big pair, but he decided against it. A part of him didn’t like wearing a dead man’s shoes (the too-big ones belonged to Gruff), while the other thought staying as quiet as possible in his socks was the better option anyway.
He went up the steps toward the double doors. Near the very top, Smith did his best to calm down his breathing and his slightly accelerated heartbeat as he leaned toward the entrance/exit and…just listened.
Nothing.
He couldn’t hear anything through the slabs of wood. Either there was nothing up there, or the doors were too thick to eavesdrop through. He didn’t think it was the latter, and the former didn’t seem possible. If it was a barn up there—and he didn’t doubt Mary about their location—then there would be horses. But horses wouldn’t make any sounds or be moving around if they were asleep, so the silence did make some sense.
Smith wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince himself or not, but it did help him to take the remainder of the steps toward the doors. There were two deadbolts at the top, each one nearly half the size of his wrist.
He paused again and listened.
Like before, there were no sounds.
Absolutely…nothing.
Smith took hold of one of the deadbolts and slid it out of its clasp. Then he did the same for the other one, all the while keeping the TASER in his right hand, ready to fire. Dammit, he wished he had a gun instead.
The door he was pushing didn’t fight back. It opened easily, without resistance, and chilly air surrounded Smith’s face almost immediately. He hadn’t realized just how stuffy it was in the underground hallway until now. It’d been somewhat cold inside the holding room, but nothing compared to what was in the world outside.
After The Purge, AKA John Smith Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 40
