by Jeff Olah
“Here we go,” Mason said to himself as the door at the end of the hall began to surrender to the relentless fire. He gripped the black device in his right hand and slid it into the slot located just above the door handle. He quickly moved away, turned his back and covered his ears as instructed by Lockwood.
“One, two…” The sound generated as the locking mechanism exploded paled in comparison to the damage actually done to the door. The handle on the outside of the door impaled the wall across the hall and with the door now wide open, Mason rushed in.
He brushed aside the shards of metal and the larger pieces extracted from the door and called out for Sean, who still sat under the desk, hands over his ears. “Let’s go, buddy.”
Sean rose through the smoke slowly filtering in from beyond the hall and moved to Mason. “Where is everyone, my Dad… is he here with you? Megan… is she ok?”
“Your dad is fine,” Mason said. “He’s outside with the others. There are a few things your dad wants me to get for him. I need his main drive, secondary drive and also his big black case. He said, you’d know.”
They moved quickly through the room, gathering what was requested by Lockwood. As the blaze began to turn into the hall, they moved out of the office for the last time and into the main house. Mason kept Sean focused on getting to the street and away from the multiple casualties throughout the residence.
As they reached the street and witnessed Lockwood and Jack kneeling next to Randy’s body, Sean turned to Mason. “She’s gone, isn’t she? Those people took my sister.”
Mason didn’t respond. He instead, put his arm around the boy’s shoulder and walked him to his father.
181
The sun rose into the community and pushed through the flames covering the second story. Flames shot from both sides of the home and began devouring the garage and thick foliage near the front door. With nowhere else to go, the group stood along the curb, watching the house fall into itself and waited as Jack continued to breathe for Randy.
Mason moved to Lockwood and Sean as they spoke quietly to one another. He nodded toward Lockwood’s injured leg. “You gonna be okay?”
A half smile slid across his face. “Yes Mason, my leg is going to be fine. Just a bad bruise, I suspect. And you, how are you holding up?”
“Good,” Mason said, “What can we do—”
The group flinched as Jack pulled back and Randy drew in a long labored breath. Arching his back and rolling onto his side, Randy convulsed as he vomited the blackened contents of his stomach onto the small patch of grass.
Mason moved to his friend’s side and dropped to his knees. Randy continued to spasm and dry heave as Mason pulled him in close. Appearing disoriented and scared, Mason pulled him in close and tried to calm his friend. “You’re okay buddy, you’re outside. We got Sean out as well.”
Trying to speak, he coughed up small amounts of blood. With each attempt, the desperation in his voice intensified. He pushed away from Mason and to his knees. “Where is she?”
“Who?” Mason asked.
Sean stepped away from his father and between Randy and Mason. “He’s asking about my sister. He wants to know where Megan is.”
Mason got to his feet and motioned to Brian. “Alright, tell us. What they hell happened here last night. Who did this?”
Shaking his head, Brian looked back at the house. “Mason the short answer is that we don’t know. Sometime after the community went lights out last night, I was refilling the generators and checking what we still had for fuel. I finished up, and caught Randy as he was making his last pass for the day.”
“Were you aware that Eleanor was missing?” Mason asked. “Megan let us know on our last communication that no one could find her.”
“We knew. Eleanor had begun walking the community every night just as the sun was going down. At first I fought her on it and insisted she go with a buddy, although you know all too well how that went over. So, for the last two weeks or so, she’d go for her walk and arrive back at home as the night shift made their way to the wall. Last night she never returned home.”
Turning to Grant, who’d yet to even acknowledge the others, Mason said, “Hey, you were on the wall last night, did you see her?”
He only shook his head.
Brian continued, “As Randy and I came up the beach after his last check, it happened. We were completely and totally caught off guard. The sound woke everyone and their explosion through the gates shook the earth.”
“What were they here for?” Mason asked. “Did they speak to anyone?”
Out of his trance, Grant pulled himself off the grass and stood. “They came here to kill the men and take the women.”
“How do you know this?” Brian asked.
“I was on the wall when they came through. They sped up as they got closer to the gate. They were driving an armored truck; you know the kind they use to deliver money. They drove it straight through the front gate and right up to the first house. Eight men got out of the truck and were followed by two more cars with another six men.”
“Why’d we find you over there, running from them?”
“They shot at me from the street and I jumped off the wall into the other neighborhood. I followed the trail to those houses and moved from one to the next. They sent two of the men to find me and I watched from the windows. They went house to house and finally found me as soon as you all showed up.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “What happened here at this house and where are the women?”
Finally able to speak, although his voice was hoarse and still instinctively coughing, Randy fought to add details. “Brian and I came off the beach as their vehicles parked in front of the main house. We split up and without any help, were overrun pretty fast.”
“Yeah,” Brian said. “By the time I realized we were under attack and tried to get home, the gunfire started. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, although as soon as the fire started, I had a pretty good idea where most of the action was taking place. I left my home, got to Lockwood’s and made it to the stairs. If I remember correctly, that’s when Randy came in through the back door. I fought with a few of their men on the stairs and blacked out.”
“Anyone know who these people are?” Mason asked. “And how they knew to come here… Four of their men are lying dead in that house, two a few streets over, and I believe Jack and I disabled one of them on the beach tonight. I’m assuming that isn’t going to sit well once they figure it out.”
“Mason,” Randy added. “I think I know why they were here, although taking the women doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“Coming in through the back slider, I was able to catch the two in the living room off guard. The third was thrown down the stairs and landed where he died, although the man in the hall wasn’t like the rest. I think he may have been their leader. He was trying to get into Lockwood’s lab. I think he knew it was here and was trying to get inside.”
“They’ll be back then,” Mason said. “We’ll need to be ready.”
“No they won’t.” As the words left his lips, Sean hated himself for not coming forward sooner and for keeping this a secret for the past three weeks. “They knew we were here because of me. I did this. I’m responsible.”
His father stepped forward as did Mason, Brian, and Jack. “What are you saying?”
Sean continued, “A week or so after you guys left for Oregon, I found someone on the sat phone that said they’re less than ten miles away in the city. He gave up a lot of information about his group and where they were hiding. He told me they had a very small group of only four people and that they were running out of food.”
“You invited them here,” his father said. “Without telling anyone?”
“No… I didn’t. I told them we were at the beach and that I would speak to someone here about getting them some help. They stopped communicating with me last week. I figured they were gone.”
“
Sean,” Lockwood said. “You should have told someone about this, people died today and they have your sister.”
“He said he wouldn’t hurt them, that they would have a better life.”
Randy got to his feet and stood before the boy. “Sean, what the hell are you talking about? Who told you that?”
“The man you killed outside my dad’s office. He still had the sat phone when you hit him with that pole. He told me they’d take care of the women and children, but we can never go looking for them… Ever.”
His world folding in, Mason looked back at the demolished gate, the entrance to their beachside community, as the first few Feeders began filtering toward them. “We don’t really know who it is we are dealing with, although they’ve taken members of our family. Their leader is gone; they’re on the run and probably just as scared as we are. We aren’t wasting a single minute as long as Megan and the others are out there. I’m going into the city to get our family back. Who’s coming with me?”
End of Book Six
The Dead Years
Book Seven
RETRIBUTION
182
Slumped forward with her back to the wall, she sat quietly with her arms wrapped around her bent knees. Near the corner and next to the small sliding door, Eleanor stared straight ahead as the rain collected in large clusters and then fell to the cold concrete. Watching as it pooled in the depression near the drain, she pushed her left foot forward and listened as the water trickled slowly into the pipe.
Musty didn’t quite capture the essence of her surroundings. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was, although the air around her begged for attention. The stench of what had previously occupied this space, combined with what sat stagnant in the drain, forced her head into her sleeve. Breathing through her mouth only briefly allowed her gag reflex to ease, and she was beyond the point of caring that there was someone glaring at her from less than ten feet away. Letting out a long sigh, Eleanor waited for a response.
There wasn’t one.
She sat still as the moonlight filtered in from above and spilled across the young man’s right side as he picked at his teeth. The voids between the bars only partially allowed her to make out the details of his face. The jagged scars running from his hairline to his chin emphasized her already dire situation and as she met his gaze, he failed to flinch.
Neither spoke, and as the seconds turned into minutes, the only break came in the fractions of a second it took to blink. The rhythmic trance put off by the rising showers slowly transitioned into splashing footfalls only moments before she realized that a wheelchair had entered her field of vision.
The chair came within two feet of her cage and stopped. The man sitting in the chair ignored her and instead simply waited in the shadows. The much larger and more menacing gentleman who’d been pushing the chair stepped to the side and crouched down. At well over six and a half feet tall, the beast of a man fought to keep his balance as he peered into her cage. Grinning he said, “Last chance…where’s the doctor? You tell us now and everyone gets to go home in one piece.”
Eleanor didn’t respond. The obscene words she held back crested her tongue and sat just behind her lips, although she remained quiet. A verbal assault on this man surely wouldn’t end well for her, although she had nothing else to offer. Breathing in deeply through her nose, she laid her head back and closed her eyes.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “You’re seriously gonna make me drag the pregnant one out this time?”
She refused to speak to him or to even open her eyes; instead, she remained with her back to the wall sitting in silence. These men would follow whatever orders they were given by their repulsive leader, even though he had yet to talk. She knew that sooner or later, these men would take her life in an attempt to get her to cooperate. And although she felt her demise was imminent, she had no intention of giving them the information they wanted. The killing of her people would end here, in this dark, unforgiving, rain-soaked city.
The large man shook his head and stood. “Your choice,” he said. Turning to his friend in the wheelchair, he furiously rattled off what appeared to be an improvised form of sign language. It didn’t appear that either man fully understood what the other was trying to communicate, although their objective appeared to be one in the same.
Turning to his right, he addressed the man with the jagged scar still sitting along the flooded walkway. “Stand up,” he said. “Go get the pregnant woman. I’ll meet you back here in two minutes…Got it?”
Eleanor watched as the man with the scar stood. Without breaking eye contact, he stepped aside and let his friend turn the wheelchair back toward the main building and move away. Pushing into the block wall, she forced her delicate hands into tightly wound fists and bit down on to her cheek. Letting the flow of blood stream into and fill her mouth, she sat forward, moved to her knees and gripped the stainless steel grating at the front of her cage.
Concentrating on the door to the main building, she watched as the large man pushing the wheelchair disappeared into the two level structure. Once inside, the first and second floors crackled to life and illuminated the first row of cages near the entrance.
Not quite thirty feet beyond the building and hidden in the shadows, the man with the jagged scar shouted commands and stepped backward into the light. He paused and waited for what must have been at least thirty seconds before stepping forward and kicking the door to the cage. “Move to the back, I won’t ask you again.”
Transfixed on the man with the jagged scar, Eleanor failed to initially see the door to the main building open. The man who only moments earlier pushed the wheelchair away from the area was now less than twenty feet away. She pulled inward on the stainless steel door and leaned forward with her face just behind the lock.
Stopping five feet from her door, he turned and shouted through the rising downpour. “Hey, idiot, are you going to bring her over here, or is she too much for you to handle? You need me to come over there and do it myself?”
Turning her attention back to the other man, Eleanor watched as he squatted down and pulled open the door to the cage. Dropping to his knees, he leaned inside and began violently torqueing from left to right and finally jerking backward out onto the drenched concrete. He stood, clutching his victim’s pant leg and struggled backward onto the paved walkway. Although blindingly obscure, Eleanor instantly knew who was being dragged out into the cold night air. “Megan.”
Her first instinct as the men approached was to beg them for mercy. She could try to reason with her captors; somehow attempt to reach out to the part of them that was still human. Eleanor told herself that there had to be a way out of this. She wanted to believe that the man in the wheelchair just needed to see that they were both on the same side, although she knew in her heart that would never happen.
Twenty-four hours earlier, she was content with what her life had become. Now she no longer cared about anything.
The larger and more aggressive of the two men now stood just beyond the door to her cage. He leaned to the left and pulled Megan away from the man with the jagged scar, and ordered him inside. Pulling her into him, he forced Megan’s bloodied and bruised face forward and into the stainless steel door.
Eleanor leaned back, but forced herself to look at her friend. Neither spoke, although Megan moved first. With her free hand, she reached back and grabbed at his crotch, only briefly getting a hold of him. Pulling away, he retaliated with a fist to the back of her head.
Laying his hand on Megan’s neck, he held her down and knelt in front of Eleanor’s cage. “Listen, I realize you’re just trying to do what you think is right. You don’t want us to find the doctor because you think we’ll hurt him. But let me assure you that we will find him and if you don’t cooperate, I’ll kill you both myself. There are plenty of others here that we can make talk…it’s really not all that hard.”
Megan pushed free and shouted, “Do whatever it is you have to do! We’re
not telling you anything!”
The man smiled as he leaned into the gate, placing his face less than six inches from Eleanor’s. “How about you? I realize that the doctor’s not your father, but maybe the two of you had a little something going, possibly a love connection? I’m sure finding someone else your age in this new world must be—”
Eleanor closed her eyes and spit the contents of her mouth into the large man’s face.
Blood, mucus, and saliva rained down as he recoiled backward. Immediately moving to his feet, he pulled Megan off the ground. Now looking back into Eleanor’s cage, he tightened his grip around Megan’s collar and said, “Huge mistake Eleanor, but I’ll let her tell you all about it when she wakes up.”
The large man reached back and plowed his right fist into the side of Megan head. Her body went limp as Eleanor screamed for mercy. Ripping the cage door open, he paused for a brief moment and looked back at the main building, before tossing Megan’s body to the wet pavement alongside Eleanor.
Before locking the door and moving on, he leaned in and locked eyes with her. “We are going to find him, and you’re going to help us…there is no other option.”
183
As the day transitioned to night, the physicality of the past day’s work had taken its toll. That’s to say nothing of the emotional drain placed on each resident of the once secure beachside community. The group of eight sat along the sidewalk, letting the rain finish drowning out what spot fires remained among the three torched homes. They sat, not speaking a word and not looking up from their own deeply rooted grief.
Six hours earlier, after tending to the injured and weighing their options for getting into the city, they went to work. Mason and Brian locked down the damaged front gates, while Savannah, Jack, and Sean cleared the streets of any wayward Feeders. Dr. Lockwood continued to monitor Randy and only released him once the majority of the heavy lifting was done.
