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

by Mike Kraus

  “Get us out of here, Frank! Now!”

  Chapter 3

  Frank slammed the small car into gear and tore down the driveway, kicking rocks and mud into the air as he went. The car fishtailed and nearly slammed into a tree as he spun the wheel sharply to the left at the end of the driveway. As they slid out into the road, Thomas’s truck and the car behind him followed closely in hot pursuit.

  “Gah!” Linda tried to lean up to peer out the back window, but she sank back against the door and breathed heavily. “Son of a bitch!” She pulled her hand away from her leg and made a face at the blood on it before reapplying and doubling the pressure.

  “How are you doing back there?” Frank glanced in the rearview mirror.

  “I don’t think they hit a vein, but it hurts like hell!”

  “Just try to hold out. I can’t exactly stop right now with them behind us!”

  Linda leaned up again just enough to get a glance of the two vehicles chasing them. With the truck directly behind them, Linda could make out Thomas’s face as he stood up in the back of the truck, wearing his face mask to protect his eyes from the rain and wind. Bright lights on the sides and back of the truck illuminated everything in and around the vehicle, and Linda dearly wished she could get a clear shot on it. A rifle appeared in Thomas’s hands and he tried to steady it on the roof of the truck, but it was clear even through the darkness and rain that he was having trouble with his shoulder wound.

  He fired several times, missing Frank and Linda’s car wildly with each shot. Frank began swerving along the road as he drove, trying to ensure that Thomas continued to miss. Each bump and swerve made Linda groan, until she finally sat up and hooked her arm around the headrest of the driver’s seat. “Frank, you’ve got to lose them.”

  “No kidding!” Frank removed one hand from the wheel to wipe a trickle of sweat and water from his brow. “Got any suggestions on where to go?” Several more shots came from behind them, with one ricocheting off of the trunk.

  “I don’t know!”

  Frank glanced back and looked at Linda’s leg. The flow of blood had slowed slightly, but Linda’s face was pale and Frank could tell she had lost a sizeable amount of blood. “Are you sure they didn’t hit anything critical?”

  “I’d be dead right now if an artery had been nicked. I’ll be fine so long as we get somewhere soon where I can get this wound cleaned up.”

  “Great.” Frank mumbled to himself and shook his head. “No pressure or anything.”

  “What about that turn up ahead?” Linda pointed at a traffic circle down the road. “Go through and take the right-hand turn. We can probably lose them on the country roads with how terrible their driving is.”

  Frank looked at the rearview mirror and nodded. “They’re pretty bad, aren’t they?” The truck and car behind it had both been fishtailing wildly nearly the entire way, and Thomas had almost been thrown from the truck several times. The condition of the drivers and the terrible weather made it difficult for them to stay on the road, though Frank didn’t want to admit out loud that he wasn’t doing all that much better.

  “Hold on!” Frank entered the traffic circle at twice the speed he should have on a sunny day with a dry road for the car’s tires to grip. The car hydroplaned briefly, sliding several feet to the left onto the grass in the center of the traffic circle. The deep puddle ended and the car jolted forward towards the turn Linda had pointed out.

  Behind them, the truck carrying Thomas and three others entered the traffic circle even faster than Frank. As the truck hit the puddle that caused Frank and Linda’s car to hydroplane, it did so as well, though its greater speed meant that not only did it drift farther across into the grass at the center of the traffic circle, but it lost all semblance and hope of regaining traction.

  The truck slid sideways through the grass and then back onto the pavement on the opposite side of the circle without slowing down. The car behind it behaved in exactly the same way, and within seconds it was sliding along towards the truck with nothing to slow it down. Both the driver of the truck and the car panicked and threw their steering wheels in every direction while they slammed on the brakes as they tried to break out of their slides. This merely exacerbated the problem, though, and it only took an instant longer for the car to slam headlong into the side of the truck. The speed difference between the vehicles was only around twenty miles per hour, but when combined with the way in which they were turning and spinning along, it might as well have been a hundred mile an hour difference.

  Thomas was ejected from the back of the truck like a cannonball, flying through the air as he screamed at the pain that was soon to come. The three passengers in the truck slammed against each other before being thrown forward and then backward. All three weren’t wearing seatbelts and suffered concussions and whiplash from the forces involved in the collision.

  The four in the car that hit the truck had it the worst. As none of them were wearing seatbelts either, when they impacted head-on with the side of the truck the two in the front seat had their heads thrown against the windshield as the airbags for the car had long ago been torn out and sold for scrap. The pair in the backseat were flung violently forward and then to the side as the car turned. The two on the left side of the car were the first to have their heads smashed against the windows. As the car jerked around the pair on the right side did as well.

  “Stop!” Linda shouted. Frank slammed on the brake and winced as he felt the pedal drop down to the floor with very little resistance. The ABS module throbbed under the car, but with barely any pads left on the brakes it took a long time for the car to finally come to a halt.

  “What is it?” Frank looked back at Linda, afraid that she had been injured again. In the backseat Linda thrashed her limbs, trying to pull herself up and open one of the back doors. Finally she gave up and looked at Frank.

  “Get the rifle, get out there and kill whoever survived that wreck.”

  “What?” Frank blinked a few times, wondering if he had misheard her.

  “Frank, this is just like that pair of assholes who grabbed me.”

  Frank looked back at the wreckage of the two vehicles on the side of the road. “Are you kidding me? If any of them survived that they’re going to be too injured to do anything to us!”

  “Just do it!”

  “You want me to go down there? In the dark? To face an unknown number of assailants? Alone? When we have a perfectly good means of escape right now and we need to get somewhere safe to get your leg looked at?”

  Linda stared at Frank for a long moment before licking her lips, closing her eyes, sighing and nodding curtly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. If I could do anything except crawl around then I think we should do it. But… yeah.”

  Frank took a deep breath and turned back around. He put the car into gear and continued down the road, easing down on the speed to ensure that he could slow down and stop with the spongy brakes if needed. The right-hand turn did, indeed, lead into more back country roads as Linda had predicted, and he soon became lost in their twists and turns. He kept to the wider roads with a yellow line as he went along, avoiding the narrower roads that branched off into dead ends and driveways, and after fifteen minutes or so he pulled the car over.

  “There’s a barn over there. Looks pretty old. I think we should get in there for the night, take a look at your leg and see what the weather’s like in the morning.”

  Linda’s face was even paler than before and she nodded slowly. “Sounds good.”

  A few minutes later the car was parked beneath an awning off to the side of the barn and Frank was out with his rifle, creeping through the unlocked door into the barn to make sure it was empty. He emerged a moment later and slung the rifle over his shoulder, then opened the back door to the car and held out a hand for Linda. “Looks clear. Pretty clean, too. Let’s get you inside.”

  After wrapping her arm around his neck and shoulder, Frank helped Linda hobble inside before lowering her ca
refully to the ground. “Flashlight. In my pocket.” Linda mumbled weakly and tried to point at her pants. Frank put her backpack on the ground and grabbed her flashlight before helping her lower her head back onto the pack. He placed his flashlight and hers on a footstool he had found nearby and pointed them at her leg. He then slipped off his backpack and began digging through it to find his first aid kit, which he pulled out and placed on the ground and opened up.

  “This is going to hurt.”

  Linda glanced at the bottle Frank held in his hand and rolled her eyes. “Bring it on.”

  Frank chuckled and unscrewed the bottle of isopropyl alcohol and set it to the side. He pulled out a small pair of razor-sharp shears and cut away a large section of Linda’s jeans around the wound while doing his best not to touch it directly. After picking up one of the flashlights Frank examined the wound closely and pressed at the flesh around it.

  “Jesus, Frank. Just sanitize it and put some gauze on it. Stop trying to make out with it.”

  Frank didn’t bother to look at her as he replied. “I’m no expert but it looks like it went in the back side and out the front. Clean pass. You’re not bleeding too badly anymore, either.”

  “Good. Now will you plea—gah!” Linda tried—and failed—to hold in a muffled groan of pain as Frank poured a copious amount of alcohol over the wound, ensuring that as much as possible went into and through the wound as he could. With an extremely high percentage of alcohol by volume, the isopropyl alcohol made an excellent field antiseptic. Frank wasn’t sure how well it would work considering they had been driving for a short time after she had been shot, but he figured it was better than doing nothing.

  “I thought you wanted me to bring it on?” Frank smiled at Linda and she shook her head.

  “Little warning next time would help.”

  “Nah.” Frank gave one last pour of the liquid over Linda’s wound before squirting some into his hand and then rubbing it across the surface of his hands and between his fingers. He then opened a few disinfectant wipes and began cleaning the skin around the wound, rubbing away the dried blood and bits of dirt that were still stuck to it. When he was finished, he pulled out a large piece of gauze and pressed it over the wound, then used several strips of medical tape to affix the gauze to her leg.

  “There.” Frank sat back and wiped his hands on his pants. “Not perfect but the best I can do. I don’t have anything to suture it up with, but I think it’ll be okay if you take it easy. If you have a pair of spare pants you should get changed when the rain stops and we’ll change the bandage and secure it a little better. This should hold for the night, though.” Frank was busying himself with repacking his first aid kit into his backpack when he noticed that Linda wasn’t responding. He turned to see her eyes closed and her head leaning to the side. Her skin was still pale but her breathing was regular as she slept. Frank smiled again and shook his head before rummaging through his bag until he found a couple of flannel shirts which he draped over her chest, arms and legs.

  Frank whispered to himself as he stood slowly, feeling a burning in his calves and thighs. “Yeah, I’ll take first watch.” He felt somewhat odd about spending the night in yet another barn. He figured that Linda wouldn’t try to ditch him again, but her condition gave him an extra sense of relief on that front. With the car parked out of view of the road and him keeping their flashlights off inside, he was hopeful that no one would know they were in the barn.

  As Frank settled down into a sitting position with the rifle lying next to him, he ran over the events of that evening again and again. Of all the questions he had, there were two that bubbled to the top that he couldn’t answer no matter how hard he tried. The first of the questions had to do with Linda, her skills and the way in which she had interacted with the meth-heads, both when they were outside and inside the house.

  The second had to do with the meth-heads themselves and just how they had managed to find where Frank and Linda had stopped. The pair had chosen the seemingly-abandoned house because it was far enough off the main road that they wouldn’t easily be seen. Frank assumed that someone had been following them or that a neighbor living near the house who knew the gang had tipped them off.

  The truth, though, had ramifications far beyond what Frank could imagine.

  Chapter 4

  In the basement of a bombed out building, underneath piles of rubble and debris, sits a curious operation. The basement is well-lit and furnished with enough food and running water for the residents to last for months. The walls are sparse with thick coats of antibacterial paint covering their entirety. Each fluorescent light in the ceiling is accompanied by a pair of ultraviolet lights, and the hundreds of UV lights are coupled to a series of emergency switches spread out throughout the room. More emergency switches are connected to sprinkler systems set in the ceiling as well, with some holding water and others holding caustic chemicals designed to thoroughly cleanse the room of all biological materials.

  The floor of the basement is divided into two sections. The first consists of one fourth of the room and is a living area. Space is cramped and the smell of body odor is overwhelming. Racks of beds four high are stacked against the walls and groups of women and children huddle together, whispering, talking and quietly playing with each other. Each of them has a manacle on their wrist or leg attached to a long chain that stretches back to their bed, where it is connected. Chains are easily tangled and the prisoners must move slowly and cautiously to avoid injuring themselves and each other.

  The rest of the basement of the building is divided from the living quarters by a thick transparent sheet that stretches from the top of the ceiling down to the floor. The sheet is designed specifically to be sturdy and stable but still weak enough that it can be pierced with a bullet or sharp knife. On the side of the sheet opposite the living quarters sits an advanced laboratory filled with the latest genetic sequencing and alteration technologies. Large machines sit in rows on tables and nearly every one of them has a man wearing a white lab coat in front of it.

  The men in lab coats are tired. Their faces are gaunt, their hair is greasy and unwashed and the clothing beneath their coats is wrinkled and soiled. Some of the men wear rubber gloves that cover their hands. Others wear gloves that reach up to their elbows. A few work in a small room in an isolated corner of the lab, wearing full rubber suits as they administer shots to animals and collect data on the results of previous experiments.

  Most of the scientists sit at machines, performing mind-numbing research as they work for their kidnappers who stand as guards around them. The guards all wear full face masks with independent oxygen supplies that are changed out every hour. Each of them carries a large blade, a revolver and a submachine gun. They walk slowly up and down the aisles, ensuring that the scientists are spending every waking moment working. Seventeen hours per day are set aside for work, one hour is split between short breaks and meals and the remaining six are when the scientists are allowed to rejoin their families and choose between visiting with them and sleeping.

  Even as the men sitting at the machines work frantically they still find time every few minutes to glance up at the other side of the room, catching the eye of their wife or child and smiling bravely. Many of these glances are unnoticed or ignored by the guards. If they occur too frequently, though, the guards begin shouting, threatening to pierce the barrier between the two rooms and expose every woman and child to the diseases that are under development in the laboratory.

  Three months into their work, one of the scientists tries to escape. With no family to use as leverage against him, he has only his own life to risk. He attacks a guard with a handheld pipette, piercing the man through the neck. The guard is severely injured, but does not succumb to his injuries quickly. He shoots the rebelling scientist six times in the chest with his revolver before the other guards converge. The injured guard is carried away, never to be seen again.

  The dead scientist’s body is taken away an hour later and
the scientists are forced to clean the environment before they are shuffled off to the sleeping area and the UV lights are turned on to complete the sterilization.

  The brutality of the killing and the extra labor ensures that one attempt at rebellion is all that will take place.

  Nearly a year into their work, a group of scientists approach a guard. They hand him a clipboard and he looks it over. He nods and shouts to the head guard, handing him the clipboard. The head guard takes the information out of the room, returning twenty minutes later with a wicker basket. Inside is a pile of fresh fruit, cheese and bread. The food is given to the scientists who presented the information and the entire group is given the rest of the day off in celebration of their accomplishment.

  Three weeks later, when the information on the clipboard is confirmed to be accurate, the scientists and their families are released. They are closely monitored to ensure they do not tell anyone about the work they performed and their families’ lives are threatened if they speak a word about their imprisonment. Each one of the scientists knows the terror created in the basement laboratory but none of them dare to risk their lives or the lives of their families by approaching the authorities.

  Inside the empty laboratory, a small group of men in suits gather around the animal quarantine area in the basement. They watch as a man dressed in white robes and headpiece presses a button on the outside of the quarantined room. A small aerosol container inside the room is remotely triggered at the touch of the button, filling the space with an invisible substance. The rats and monkeys inside the small area don’t react initially. Thirty minutes later, though, and they are all coughing up blood. Three hours later and they are dead, blood pouring from their bodies and pooling on the floor of the room.