Behind Collin, his enemy slumped to the floor choking to death on his own blood.
The other man was slow to react but he was still holding his knife, which he raised in front of him. The blade quivered with fear, flicking droplets of the nurse’s blood on the floor.
Collin feinted right. The lone man thrust out wildly with his knife hand to block a strike that never materialized. Instead, he gasped in pain as his knife clattered to the ground.
Collin slashed the man’s forearm deep across the muscle and tendons, disabling his hand. Collin followed through with his attack, stepping forward, throwing an arm around his enemy’s shoulders and stabbing him quickly in the side, just under his ribs. The blade penetrated deep into the man’s body in rapid succession, slicing tissue, severing veins and puncturing both the kidney and liver. Dark blood poured out of the wounds and splashed on the tile.
Collin followed the man, as he collapsed to the floor, into a pool of his own blood. He knelt on the man’s back as an unearthly groan escaped his throat. He clutched at his side in a feverish attempt to plug all of the holes in his body.
Too much noise, Collin thought.
Collin set his slippery, blood-drenched knife behind the man where he couldn’t reach it, and pulled off his helmet. Collin pulled the man’s head up so his back was arched, grasped it firmly, and twisted hard until he heard the crack of the cervical vertebrae. Then he twisted again for good measure.
Collin picked up the knife, wiped it off on the man’s shirt and stood up.
Realizing the first guy hadn’t been neutralized, Collin looked around for him, but he was gone. Collin stood and looked down the hallway that came in from the right, the one with the orange glow.
Around the corner was the nurses’ station. Two bodies lay splayed out on the floor. The women he’d seen these bastards murder.
Holding his broken arm close to his chest, the man seemed to be staring at something in the nurses’ station. Collin couldn’t see what it was, because it was behind the counter. Not that it really mattered.
Suddenly, the man reached in and grabbed something with his good hand.
“No,” a woman shouted.
Collin’s eyes grew wide. A survivor.
Collin padded down the hall, then sprinted the last few feet. He dropped into a baseball slide and slashed across the back of the man’s ankle, severing his Achilles’ tendon, just above the edge of his shoe.
The man screamed in shock and pain. His leg drooped at an odd angle, freed from its anchoring foot.
Collin stood up and looked down at himself. He was soaked from sliding through the nurses’ blood that covered the mess from his own victims. He staggered back against the wall, breathing heavy. He just killed two men and debilitated two others. All without thought. Or hesitation.
Somehow, he knew that it was not the first time he’d fought...and killed. However, he had no memory of learning the techniques he used to take their lives.
He needed to get out of this place. He needed to escape. Collin’s eyes darted around, seeking an exit.
His eyes caught movement. Frightened eyes peered over the edge of the nurses’ station, staring at him. Collin stared back. Seeing the fear he felt reflected in another’s eyes was oddly calming.
Collin took a deep breath and pushed off the wall. He looked down at the man wailing on the floor. Then Collin noticed the orange light he noticed earlier was from a small barrel fire at the end of the hall, where the nurses came from.
Collin cocked an eyebrow at the oddity. It was so out of place, but then again, he’d been attacked in a mysterious hospital-like facility, making his frame of reference wildly skewed.
He looked back at the woman. She was beautiful. Young and sweet looking.
“You’re lucky. You know that, right?” he asked softly, looking at the woman after glancing at the two nurses on the floor.
The woman stood up, but didn’t look down at her friends. Tears glistened in her eyes.
“They would have killed you too, you know,” Collin said. “Or worse.”
She looked at him and glanced down pointedly at the knife in his hand. She still hadn’t spoken.
“How do I get out of here?” Collin stepped toward the woman. He stepped over the man still groaning on the floor.
She backed up.
“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you,” he said. He moved his knife hand behind his back and she seemed to relax a little. “I just need to get out of here. Can you help me?”
“You’ll need some clothes,” she said, glancing down at his blood-stained blue gown. “It’s cold outside.”
“What’re you my doctor?”
“I’m a nurse,” she said, shaking her head. “My name’s Anna. Anna Horner.”
She held out her small hand. Collin ignored it.
“There are more of them,” Anna said, gesturing toward the man on the floor.
Collin scowled. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“You know this building, which means you know how to get out of here and how to avoid them. Help me get out of here and you can go your own way,” said Collin. He didn’t care where he was, he just wanted out. And he didn’t care where she went.
“What about him?”
Collin shrugged. He didn’t care about the fate of the man either. “Show me how to get the hell out of here. That’s all I want. I’m not going to hurt you.”
The woman nodded.
“We should move him before we leave,” Collin said, pointing with his knife at the last remaining attacker.
“Why?”
“Just grab him.” Collin cupped a hand under his armpit and stared at her. She caught the hint.
Together, they dragged him into a small room beside the nurses’ station. It looked like a converted utility closet to Collin. Now it functioned as an office of sorts.
“Anna, no. Please, help me,” the man said, panic overtaking him. He flailed as if they were dragging him into a torture chamber. He tried to grab the doorjamb, but Collin kicked his hand away.
“Anna, c’mon. Please Anna, don’t kill me!”
The pitch of his voice rose into a painful shriek.
Collin stopped pulling him into the room, knelt down, clamped a hand down over the man’s mouth, and plunged his knife into the crook of the man’s neck just behind the collar bone. It slid in smooth and easy, almost as if the skin, muscle, tendon and subclavian artery parted to make way for it voluntarily. The tip of the blade bumped into bone, so Collin eased it back slightly and twisted the blade to widen the puncture. Blood pulsed out of the wound, hot and fast, coating Collin’s hand with warm, sticky fluid.
With one swift motion, he withdrew the blade, and held the bloodied knife at Anna’s throat.
“How the hell did he know your name?” said Collin through clenched teeth, his hand as steady as his voice. Blood dripped off his hand, splatting softly on the floor.
Anna cringed a little and looked disgusted as the man’s blood ran off the blade and trickled down her throat into the depression of her collarbone.
She gulped.
“There’s a lot going on here that you don’t know about,” she said, regaining her composure and glaring at him.
Collin was mildly impressed at her fortitude. She was a strong woman.
But she dodged the question. He leaned in close, spoke calmly and enunciated his words, “How did he know your name?”
She made a disapproving sound and furrowed her brow.
“I knew him a long time ago, in a past life.”
“And now?”
“Now there’s nothing,” she said, looking down at the man’s body. His face was frozen in a grimace. Flecks of blood covered the side of his face where it was exhaled with his dying breaths. His entire neck was crimson. “You didn’t have to kill him,” she added softly.
“They tried to kill me. He would have tried to kill me and you.”
No excuses, just simple facts. The men killed the nurses and trie
d to kill Collin, but he wouldn’t permit that to happen. Considering the body count, it was clear his instincts agreed.
Collin thought for a second. “Why do they want to kill me? What’s going on here?”
None of it made sense.
“There’s too much to tell you here. It’s not safe,” she said. “For either of us. I’ll lead you out.”
“Why do they want me dead?” he said.
“There’s a lot you don’t understand, Collin.”
He was mildly surprised she knew his name, but presumably he had ID on him at some point, and after all, she was his nurse. At least she claimed to be.
“The world is different from what you remember,” she said. In the orange glow, he could tell she was serious, but there was a hint of compassion in there too.
What a strange thing to say, he thought. His curiosity was piqued. “Like what?”
“For starters, you’ve been in a coma for sixteen years.” She met his eyes for a moment, then looked away. It was almost as if she was ashamed.
Silence.
Collin didn’t know how to respond to that. Sixteen years in a coma? A flurry of questions clouded his mind. What? How? Even if that was true, however improbable it seemed now, what did that have to do with people trying to kill him?
He took a deep breath and released it like a gust of wind. Finally, he shrugged. “A lot to catch up on then.”
She nodded.
“But I have one thing to attend to first,” he said.
Collin stood up and wiped the blade of the knife on his blue gown, careful not to expose his body to Anna, since he was nude underneath the thin material, even though he realized she’d probably already seen everything he had to offer.
“Come on.” He gestured at Anna to follow him, then turned and walked away. Bloody footprints marred the tile floor.
Collin strode back to the room he woke up in. There was one attacker left, and if Collin judged his size accurately, his clothes should fit reasonably well.
He pushed open the door and could just make out the outline of the man in the room. He had pushed himself over to the broken windows. He was leaning against the wall, fumbling with the rope, trying to reattach it to his harness.
Without a word, Collin walked over and severed the rope at eye level. It swung outside the window, swaying back and forth uselessly, while the rest dropped to the floor, taunting the man.
“Please don’t kill me,” he wept.
Collin stood with his hand on his hip and pointed at him with the knife. “Take off your uniform. Now.”
The man stared at him blankly for a moment.
Collin stared back. He jerked the knife blade in a hurry-the-hell-up motion.
The crippled man removed his uniform jacket and tossed it to Collin. He slid into it and tested the fit. It was slightly baggy, but fit reasonably well. He took it off and laid it on the bed.
Then the man undid his rappelling harness and struggled to pull it off without moving his injured leg too much.
Anna stood quietly in the doorway watching, one arm crossed over her chest, the other hand covering her mouth.
It was taking far too long for Collin’s taste. He knelt down beside the man’s destroyed knee and set the knife down by his foot. Then Collin began unlacing the boots. Pulling them off elicited agonizing groans of pain from the man, but eventually Collin had a pair of boots waiting for him.
“Take off your pants,” Collin said, picking up his knife and standing.
“Please don’t kill me.”
“Shut up and move.”
Once the man’s pants were undone, Collin set the knife on the bed, grabbed the pants by the ankle cuffs, and yanked until they came free. It wasn’t a graceful move; the man’s renewed wailing proved that.
Collin saw Anna out of the corner of his eye, as he took off his gown, and dressed in his new clothes. She smiled slightly, but looked away politely.
He smiled to himself, then looked at the man on the floor. A cold mask replaced the smile as he calculated his options. The man was useless. He sat in his underclothes holding his leg, leaning against the wall beneath the windows, breathing hard.
Collin picked up the man’s helmet, while he thought about his next moves, and used the knife to smash out the other half of the visor.
“What should we do with him?” he said, tucking the helmet under his arm.
“Leave him?” Anna said tentatively, walking over to stand beside him.
“Don’t leave me,” said the man. “Please. Please, help me.”
“You tried to kill me,” Collin said evenly. He couldn’t believe this entitled prick expected help from them.
“Help me, please. You’re a doctor, right?”
“We could take him with us and use him as leverage,” Anna suggested.
“He’s a liability. Slow and noisy.”
A distant thump caught their attention. Something about the sound was familiar to Collin, although he couldn’t quite place it.
Then the room rumbled as something exploded beneath them. The building shook and bucked, throwing Collin and Anna to the floor as fixtures crashed down around them. His knife slid off the bed and clanked to the floor. They scrambled away toward the door while the injured man eyed the knife and attempted to crawl toward it. Dust billowed in from the broken window.
Collin covered his face, waiting for the initial rush of dust to flow over and past him. When he looked up, he saw the floor was cracked and tilting perilously at a downward angle. Several of the other windows had shattered. The injured man had his fingers dug into a crack, keeping himself from sliding away on the canted floor. He held on with wide eyes, alternately glancing behind him, and staring at Collin. His eyes pleaded for help.
Another thump sounded.
“Move,” Collin said, turning away from the man and shoving Anna along the floor. They crawled toward the door, as another explosion hit behind them. Concrete split, shattered, and crumbled. Debris hit his leg and his foot went numb. The building bucked violently for a moment.
When things stopped moving, Collin turned to look behind him. He let out a sigh of relief to see his leg was still intact. It hurt something awful, but he could begin to feel a tingling sensation in his toes as feeling returned.
He was shocked to see a dark void where the room had been a moment before. The injured man was no longer there. In fact, very little remained. The entire side of the building on their floor, and the floor above, collapsed in a cloud of dust. It was a miracle they had survived.
Then - another thump.
Mortars? He thought. Collin wasn’t sure but he knew one thing for certain: “Run,” he shouted. “Get out. Go, go, go.”
He scrambled to his feet. As he stood up, he threw an arm around Anna’s waist to help her along.
Another explosion. This one was farther away, possibly a miss. The floor barely trembled.
Guns began cracking and booming, the noise coming in through the gaping hole in the building.
Collin led her straight down the hall, away from the nurses’ station.
They rounded a bend, but Anna pulled on his arm.
“Wait,” she said, pointing to an unmarked door.
“Go.” He ran toward the door and shoved it open. Anna went through first.
He entered behind her, and saw what turned out to be a stairwell, rather than the hallway he expected. Without hesitating, they took the stairs two at a time, bounding down toward the lower floors - toward freedom.
Downstairs, they heard a door creak open and pounding footsteps echoed up the concrete stairwell.
Collin grabbed Anna’s arm, pulled open the door on the next landing, and they exited onto a darkened floor, similar to the one they’d left. He hadn’t noticed which floor they’d ended up on, but he suspected it wouldn’t matter that much.
Another set of footsteps thumped rhythmically in a nearby hallway.
Collin cursed. People seemed to be everywhere, trying to corner them.
It was difficult to see because it was so dark inside; this floor had no lighting or burn barrel. Thankfully, Anna seemed to know her way around, because she gestured for him to follow. He fell into step and quietly stalked behind her.
She led him part way down the hall, tested a door handle, and pulled it open.
“Here,” she said.
Collin took the door from her and eased it closed behind him. The click of the door mechanism was barely audible.
He ducked down to stay below the large window set into the door. Made of security glass with wire mesh embedded into it, the window was lightly frosted, but not entirely opaque. Anna also stayed low and duck-walked over to him.
“We’re almost out,” she whispered close to his ear.
Her breath was warm and tickled his ear. His neck tingled, but he forced himself not to laugh or cringe away from her. He bit his cheek and focused on their escape.
The footsteps grew louder.
At least three or four people, Collin thought. He squeezed the knife in his hand firm, ready to go.
Dark shapes moved past their door, flashlights sweeping the hallway and the door windows. Collin held still.
He counted four people in the group. From what he could see, they were dressed differently from the people he fought upstairs.
Anna let out a big breath as they passed by without incident. Collin glanced at her.
“Who were the guys upstairs?” Collin asked softly when he felt sure they wouldn’t be discovered.
“They’re known as Vipers. It’s an unruly group of survivors,” she said.
“Why didn’t they all carry guns? Other than the two guys on the ropes, all they had were knives.” He held up the one he held as a demonstration.
“The Vipers prefer knives and bows. Plus, ammunition is hard to come by these days.”
“Bows?”
Collin saw her shrug her narrow shoulders. “Yeah, they almost never carry guns.”
“Are these guys Vipers?” Collin gestured at the door.
“No. These guys are known as Eagles.”
Praying for War: The Collin War Chronicles Page 2
