No Sanctuary Box Set: The No Sanctuary Omnibus - Books 1-6

by Mike Kraus

  Chapter 23

  Two men sit in a darkened apartment on Manhattan island. The windows are covered with solar panels that block the light from entering. The panels are connected to a series of batteries stashed under a table covered with old takeout boxes and dirty dishes that have yet to be washed. One of the two bedrooms is filled from floor to ceiling with boxes of non-perishable food while the other has a pair of narrow mattresses and stacks of five-gallon jugs of water. More water is piled out in the small living room and several large bottles of propane sit next to a small oven. The exhaust for the oven runs through a small metal pipe and out through a hole in one of the windows.

  The only light in the apartment comes from a single lamp sitting on the floor of the living room and the screens of two laptop computers. Each of the men works on his own computer, pausing only to take a sip from a glass of water or ask one another a question. The men speak in a foreign tongue and they make sure to only whisper. Their apartment building is mostly empty but they dare not speak loudly for fear of attracting attention.

  Outside their building the world is consumed in chaos. Inside there is peace, silence and tranquility. One of the men pulls up pictures on his computer and swings the machine around so that the other man can see the screen. A large shipping vessel is on fire in the photograph on the screen and there is a cloud of black smoke rising into the air.

  The two men grin at the sight and return to their typing. Their communications are encrypted and passed along through shortwave communications, bouncing off relays set up across the country. More reports on the damage done to the country flow in and out, forming a more complete view of what has taken place.

  After two days of carefully sifting through the data coming in, one of the men opens a folder on his computer. The contents of the folder are displayed in a foreign language but the name of the folder itself is in English:

  “Phase 2”

  BOOK TWO

  THE PRECIPICE

  Chapter 1

  “Oh little missy!” The voice that floated up the stairs was stilted and hollow, but Linda instantly recognized it despite it being muffled by some type of mask. “Where are you?”

  “That’s that guy!” Frank whispered to Linda as he continued to take in deep breaths of fresh air through the broken window.

  “No shit, Frank.” Linda whispered back to him.

  “Any thoughts on what to do?”

  Linda’s eyes flashed across the room and out the window as if a solution was sitting somewhere nearby. “Yeah. I should have shot his rotting teeth out of his head the moment he showed up.”

  “It’s a little late for that now!”

  “Says who?”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. They’re in the house now, so what do you want to do?”

  Heavy footsteps in the next room cut through their whispers and the noise of the pounding rain and they both froze and turned to look at the door. “You three head upstairs!” The muffled voice spoke again. “These tanks have ten minutes so let’s be fast, hm? The rest of you with me on this floor. They’re in one of these rooms so spread out and shoot on sight!”

  Linda and Frank glanced at each other and Linda held a finger up to her lips. She took several deep breaths from the window before moving back to the doorway into the bedroom and crouched down near the side. Frank copied her movements and crouched behind her, doing his best not to breathe in any of the lung-choking fumes that were filling the building.

  Footsteps pounded throughout the house as the men began to fan out. As one set of steps grew closer to the bedroom where they were hiding, Linda tensed the muscles in her legs and arms, waiting like a coiled serpent. The moment a dark shape loomed through the doorway she attacked, jumping up and forward with her left arm bringing the man’s head up while her right hand slammed a knife into his throat, tearing apart his arteries and vocal cords with one swift motion.

  The sound of the man’s body thumping against the wall of the room and then falling to the floor was masked by the sound of the rain and Linda picked up one of his still-flailing arms and began pulling him across the room. “Frank!” Linda kicked at Frank’s leg as he sat staring at the man, trying to comprehend what he had just witnessed. “Give me a hand here!”

  Frank stood and took the man’s other hand, helping Linda drag his body across the floor and dumping it against a wall. Frank took a step back and stared wide-eyed as Linda ripped off the man’s mask and looked it over. The man looked like he was in his early twenties and he clutched weakly at his throat, trying to stem the loss of blood.

  Air passed through the gash in his neck as he sucked in the poisoned air, though the air quality made no difference either way. Frank locked eyes with the man as blood pooled out in thick ribbons, staining the carpet in the room. As the man finally died, Frank watched the light leave his eyes and shuddered involuntarily.

  “Frank.” Linda stood up and patted him on the shoulder. “We need to go.”

  “You just…” Frank looked at Linda and pointed at the man that she killed.

  “Let’s go, Frank. There’s a lot more of these guys in the house.”

  “How did you do that?” Frank kept looking between Linda’s bloodied hand and the body of the man on the floor. The way she jumped between extremes of passiveness and extreme violence not only confused him but it terrified him, too.

  “Frank. Shut up and let’s go, okay? We can play twenty questions once we’re out of the house filled with murderous meth-heads!”

  The reminder that they were still in mortal danger snapped Frank back to reality. He took his rifle and nodded to Linda, who was busy fitting the mask onto her face. “What’s that?”

  “Oxygen mask. Captain meth-head says it’s got a ten-minute supply. They probably use them when they’re cooking. We’ll have to trade back and forth as we go—wait. Sh!” Linda cocked her head as a few pairs of steps converged just down the hall.

  “Any luck?”

  “Damned house is like a maze.”

  “Where haven’t you searched?”

  “Jack’s supposed to be looking down there.”

  “Well then let’s get the other end. Idiots.”

  Any further responses were too muffled to hear. Linda peeked her head around the corner and saw three shapes heading down the hall away from the stairs. “Let’s go!”

  Linda charged forward and Frank followed quickly, confused about what they were doing but eager to escape the house. The stairs down to the ground floor were close by and they both ran down them at full speed, leaving behind any semblance of stealth as they hurried forward as quickly as possible.

  By the time Frank and Linda were both on the ground floor the leader of the group of men had heard them and was running back towards the stairs to follow them down. “Follow them!” Linda grinned as she pulled off the mask and handed it to Frank who took a few deep breaths before handing it back.

  “Where are we going?” Frank looked around the hall and pointed at the front door. “Out there?”

  Linda shook her head and pulled at Frank’s arm. “This way. Hurry!” Linda turned the corner and ran down another set of stairs, heading for the basement. Frank was about to argue with her when he saw two men open the front door. By the time they began pointing and shouting in his direction, though, Frank was halfway down the stairs behind Linda.

  “They’re right behind us!” Frank shouted at Linda. He scarcely got the words out before he began coughing and retching. The fumes in the basement were thicker than in any other part of the house and he could barely see let alone breathe.

  “Put this on!” Linda shoved an oxygen mask into Frank’s hands and he held it up to his face, sucking in the precious bottled air.

  “Don’t you need it?” Frank’s eyes were watering from the fumes and he could barely see anything even through the thick plastic eyepieces of the oxygen mask.

  “Found an extra!” Linda shouted at him from the other side of the room and he stum
bled towards her.

  “Why’s it so bad down here?” Frank waved his hands in front of his face to try and clear the smoke and fumes away, though it did little good.

  “Looks like the bastards hooked up garden hoses to their car exhaust and ran them through into here.” Linda pointed at the windows in the small basement that had holes in them through which rubber hoses had been inserted. “The only place the fumes had to go was up.”

  Frank glanced behind him, readying his rifle for the inevitable onslaught of people that would be running down the stairs at any second. When none arrived, he looked over at Linda. “They were right behind me! Where are they?”

  Linda looked back at the stairs. “I don’t know, but keep me covered. They locked this door from the out—oh hell, screw it. We’ll go out through a window.” Linda looked around the room before grabbing the first heavy object she saw and hefting it into the air. “Be ready to go as soon as I—”

  Just as Linda was about to take a swing at the nearest window with a fireplace poker a series of shots from outside broke the window for her. Bullets whizzed past both Linda and Frank and they both ducked down, crawling along the floor until they got to the wall beneath the window.

  “So much for that!” Frank still kept his eyes trained on the stairs on the other side of the room, just waiting for someone to walk down. “Any more ideas?”

  Linda’s response was cut short by the familiar—and now not muffled—voice of the man they had been listening to for longer than either of them desired. “No way out, babycakes! You and your little friend are going to be out of oxygen soon and then we’ll be in to collect ya!”

  Linda leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. After a few seconds Frank nudged her and spoke again. “Linda? Any more ideas?”

  She shook her head and sighed. “Fresh out for now.”

  “I have one.”

  Linda cracked an eyelid and looked at Frank. “Do tell.”

  “It sounds like most of them are outside the basement here, right?”

  Linda tilted her head, listening to the raucous laughter and conversations that were taking place against the backdrop of the thunderstorm. “Yeah, probably. They seem stupid enough to do something like that.”

  “I only saw two upstairs when I ran down. If I had to guess they left one guy upstairs, maybe two. If we could get up there and out the front door they probably left one of their cars out front.”

  Linda nodded. “It’s a shit plan that’ll get us killed, but I like it. Let’s go.”

  Frank merely nodded in response as Linda got up and started moving towards the stairs. He had expected a conversation or an argument or something. Getting instant agreement from Linda was something entirely new and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  “Stay behind me.” Linda’s voice was cold and Frank felt a chill run down his spine.

  “You sure? I can help with—”

  “Frank.” Linda turned and glared at him. Her voice, even beneath the mask, was layered with precision and an icy coolness that was hard to describe. Frank wasn’t sure what she was about to do, but he knew that he didn’t want to be on the receiving end.

  Chapter 2

  Linda moved up the basement stairs like a ghost. Her breaths were shallow and measured, her footsteps were quiet and every movement she made was fluid and precise. Her flashlight was jammed in her back pocket though she no longer needed it. Keeping her pistol locked against her chest and her knife tucked up next to it, she was ready to strike at the first sign of movement.

  Frank waited at the bottom of the stairs for her to reach the top first. When she motioned for him to follow he tried to move quietly, but only succeeded in slightly dampening the sound of his movements. Linda crouched at the top stair, waiting inside the entrance as she had done in the bedroom upstairs a few minutes prior, listening carefully for any hint that someone was waiting on the other side.

  When Frank got halfway up the stairs he accidentally tripped and tumbled forward, catching himself with an “oof!” and banging the barrel of the rifle against the wood of the stair. Linda jerked her head around to look at him before turning back to the door. Frank’s noise was loud enough for the two men on the ground floor to hear and they peeked out from their hiding places across the hall to see if their intended prey was trying to escape.

  The brief flash of movement across the hall was all Linda needed. She brought the pistol up and fired twice at the man directly across the hall, striking him in the ear with the first shot and dead between the eyes with the second. The noise caused the second man, farther down the hall, to jump out and fire his shotgun towards Linda. She, however, was already on the move, scrambling across the hall on all fours and tucking herself up in an alcove.

  The man with the shotgun screamed as he charged the stairs, incorrectly assuming she was on them as he ran forward. He fired the shotgun twice more before Linda’s knife found his neck, then he joined his comrade in death as Linda brought him to the floor, pressing her full body weight against his chest until he stopped moving.

  “Jesus.” Frank stood at the top of the stairs, breathing heavily as he glanced between the two bodies. Linda wiped her blade on the shirt of the man she was sitting on before she stood up and spoke.

  “We need to go before they send someone else to see what the shots were about.”

  Frank nodded wordlessly and followed Linda to the front door of the house. After checking to make sure no one was positioned directly outside, the pair hurried out onto the porch where Linda pointed at a car sitting just beyond the smoldering ruins of their truck.

  “There. We’ll take that.”

  “What about the stuff in the back of the truck?”

  “It’s all gone now.” Linda shook her head. “Come on, let’s get to the—”

  Linda cried out in pain as a shot rang out from the side of the house. Frank turned to look in the direction of the shot and saw several figures walking along in the rain next to the house. More shots rang out and Frank dove behind the burned out truck. He grabbed Linda’s backpack and pulled her towards him to move her out of the line of fire as the shooting intensified.

  “That’s right!” The same voice shouted from the direction of the shooting. “Pin them down! We’ll have us some fun tonight one way or the other!”

  “Linda!” Frank whispered to Linda as he pulled her into a sitting position. She was still conscious, but her face was a mask of pain. Frank began checking her over when he saw a dark stain growing in size on the outside of her upper right thigh. Much of the blood was washing away in the rain, but enough of it was pouring out and staining her pants that he was able to easily identify where she had been shot.

  “Goddamn it!” Linda ground her teeth together as Frank turned her over to examine the wound.

  “Stay still!” Frank was by no means a trauma specialist, but he knew the general response for any sort of traumatic wound: apply pressure and keep it clean. While there wasn’t much he could do to keep it clean while they were under fire in the rain while crouched in a muddy yard, he at least wanted to make sure she wouldn’t bleed out before they got to the car.

  “It’s not deep, I don’t think!” Frank turned her back over and grabbed her hand. “You’re going to need to walk! Can you do that?”

  Linda nodded and ground her teeth together again. “We need to go before they get any closer, though!”

  Frank picked up his rifle from where he had dropped it a moment earlier and wiped a glob of mud out from around the trigger guard. He peeked through a crack in the burned out truck to see that Thomas Peters—the man in the trench coat—was still advancing on the truck with his cronies, though they were slowing down as they got closer.

  With the thunderstorm still in full effect and his mind still panicked and racing, Frank assumed that any shots he took in the driving wind and rain would be terribly inaccurate. He failed to take into account, however, how close the advancing group was as well as how confident th
ey were that they had caught their prey.

  “Move!” Frank shouted at Linda and she started to stand up and move towards the car. As she did, Frank rose to one knee and rested the barrel of the rifle on the side of the truck. He aimed it in the general direction of the closest meth-head and pulled the trigger. Not having fired the rifle previously, he was surprised by how little kick he felt in his shoulder. The bullet was on target and pierced through the chest and left lung of the man he aimed at, causing him to double over in agony and drop to the ground.

  Caught off guard, Thomas fumbled with his pistol as he shot first at Frank and then at Linda. All of his shots went wide, disappearing into the rain or sending up small puffs of water as they hit the ground. When Frank heard the distinct click of a trigger pull behind which there was no more ammunition, he swung back up and fired again.

  Frank’s shot caught Thomas in the shoulder and he howled in pain and dropped his pistol as he grabbed at the wound. He tried to duck behind one of his fellow meth-heads, but the sight of one of their own bleeding out on the ground had caused their bravado to leave them. All of Thomas’s accomplices fled after the first shot, stumbling down the wet grass as they ran for the back of the house where they had left most of their cars.

  “I’ve got you covered. Get moving!”

  The shout came from behind Frank and he turned to see Linda crouched between the open passenger’s side doors. She held up her pistol and fired three shots at Thomas, who dove for the ground and crawled behind a large oak tree.

  “Get up here, you cowards! Bring the cars!” Thomas screamed at the men who had gone down behind the hill, and a moment later one car and one truck wound their way up the slight incline, tearing deep gashes in the wet dirt and grass. Thomas dove into the back of the truck at the same time as Frank and Linda both got into the car. Linda laid her right leg across the back seat and wrapped her left arm around and put pressure on the wound. She leaned up at the same time and looked out the back window before shouting at Frank.