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

by Mike Kraus

  “Linda…” Frank shook his head at her. “Now’s not the time.”

  “Bullshit it’s not. Don’t give me that crap, Frank!” Linda looked back at Perry. “We were waylaid in Binghamton. Barely got out with our asses intact. We stole a car from a group of meth-heads—”

  “After they torched your truck. Yeah. I heard the short version you gave to Caroline.”

  “Yeah, so after we stole their car we decided to head down some back roads to try and lose them if they came after us…” The anger on Linda’s face evaporated as she realized what she was saying. She turned to look at Frank, his concern mirroring her own.

  “Linda. Is this… do you think he survived?”

  “No way in hell.”

  “Who survived?” Perry’s eye twitched as he looked back and forth between the pair, growing increasingly annoyed as the conversation evolved without his input.

  “The leader of the meth-heads, a guy named Thomas Peters.” Linda’s mind raced as she put together the pieces from the last several hours. “Somehow he tracked us down at an abandoned house outside town.” Linda shook her head. “You don’t think…”

  “GPS?” Frank furrowed his eyebrows. “If there are satellites still working I guess that would explain it, but they’d need some kind of data signal to track and I’m pretty sure the cell towers are still offline. Or maybe something more basic. If they tracked us here, it’s probably someone from his gang taking shots at us.”

  “You said Thomas Peters?” Perry lowered his rifle ever so slightly as he asked the question.

  “Yeah.” Linda nodded. “Why?”

  Perry shook his head and ran a hand across his brow before adjusting his grip on his rifle. “We had a couple guys associated with him coming down to the towns around here over the last few years trying to get folks hooked on their stuff. We ran them off but I heard he got his claws into more than a few places.”

  “Unless he could survive a high speed car crash while riding in the bed of a pickup I don’t think you have to worry about him anymore.” Frank slowly eased himself up into a sitting position, watching Perry carefully as he went.

  As if on cue, the electric crackle of a bullhorn sounded from outside the school. Perry glanced at the woman holding the gun on Linda and whispered to her before moving into one of the side rooms. “Watch them both.” In the first classroom just inside the school, Perry peered through the boarded-up windows, looking for the source of the sound. The crackle finally—mostly—went away and was replaced by a flat and emotionless voice.

  “Listen up, you in the school! You’re giving refuge to two people, a man and woman. Send them out and we’ll leave you in peace. Don’t and we’ll burn the place to the ground with everyone in it.”

  Throughout the school building Frank could hear the gasps, cries and faint murmuring of the townsfolk as they all reacted to the statement from the man outside. Frank glanced at Linda and shook his head. “That’s not Thomas.”

  “Definitely not. This guy sounds halfway sane, if not a little bit bored with everything.”

  Perry started to speak but the voice outside crackled to life again. “You have ten minutes to send out the pair inside. At that point, if you don’t listen, we’ll set fire to the building.”

  Despite moving from room to room and looking out various windows to locate the man who was speaking, Perry couldn’t see him anywhere. He finally shouted out through a crack in a window in the general direction that the voice had come from. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”

  “The name’s Peters. Those two in there stole one of our cars and are responsible for killing several of my… friends.” The last word was spoken hesitantly, as though the speaker had some trouble with it. “Now send them out and we’ll be on our way. You’ve got ten minutes to decide.”

  Frank stood slowly, not going for his rifle as the woman holding the pistol was still glancing back and forth between him and Linda. He looked at Linda and shook his head. “Peters, huh?”

  “His brother or son or something? The guy sounds young and it’s definitely not Thomas.”

  Perry stepped out into the hall and put his hand on the arm of the woman who was pointing her gun at Frank. He whispered in her ear for a moment as her face grew more confused until he finally stopped and she spoke. “Are you sure, Perry?”

  “Just do it, Barb.”

  The woman lowered her gun and nodded at him before heading down the hallway. When she was out of earshot, Perry turned to Linda and Frank, licking his lips and shaking his head slowly. “Listen. I’m sorry. Clearly I was wrong about you two. If the Peters are after you then you can’t be all that bad.”

  Perry slung his rifle over his shoulder and held a hand out to Linda. She stood and nodded before he turned and did the same to Frank. Perry then picked up Frank’s rifle and handed it to him. “Sorry about all of that. No hard feelings?”

  Frank shook Perry’s proffered hand and nodded. “None at all.”

  “Good.” Perry took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together. “So then, any thoughts on how to deal with this?”

  Chapter 13

  “Look. I’m just saying that I don’t understand why these meth-heads are so obsessed with burning things down. First it was the house, now it’s the school.”

  “I don’t know, Linda. Maybe it’s all the meth that’s made them slightly out of their gourd.”

  Linda scowled at Frank and gave him a friendly shove. He shook his head and chuckled. The pair walked as quickly as Linda could manage down the hall deeper into the school. After the pronouncement from the person outside the school and the conversation with Perry that followed, Perry decided that they needed to go check on Caroline before deciding what to do.

  Linda’s first instinct was to wage an all-out war on whoever was outside, but Frank managed to talk her down. There were too many people in the school and too many unknowns about who was outside for them to risk anyone’s lives during a fight. More than that, though, it was clear that Perry and Caroline were running the show and once Frank emphasized that to Linda she finally relented and agreed to go along with what they decided.

  Perry was already far ahead of them as he jogged down the hallway and Frank had to restrain Linda to keep her from trying to run after him. Perry stopped and slowly pushed open the door to a classroom on the right-hand side of the hall. Linda and Frank entered a moment after him and walked up slowly behind to see what he was looking at.

  On a table in the center of the room, beneath the glow of half a dozen flashlights duct-taped to a tall lamp, was the form of Caroline. She was lying on her stomach on the table, her breaths coming slowly and evenly despite the fact that the person standing over her had a pair of long metal tweezers that he was using to probe the wound in her shoulder.

  “What’s the prognosis, doc?” Perry whispered and the man holding the tweezers glanced up at him.

  “She’s pumped full of morphine and she may never be able to lift anything with her right arm again. But she’ll live.” He spoke softly as he worked, pulling out a sliver of metal and dropping it into a nearby pan a few seconds later.

  “You sure you should be doing that?” Linda nodded at the tweezers. “Most of the time they leave the bullets in if they’re not in danger of causing more harm.”

  “That’s very true.” The doctor nodded at Linda before going back to probing Caroline’s wound. “I am trying to give her the best possible chance at recovery though, and these loose pieces of metal rolling around near her tendons and bones in the shoulder make a full recovery somewhat less than likely.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Relax, Ms…”

  “Just call me Linda.”

  “Very well. Please relax, Linda.” The doctor said Linda’s name with a slight edge of discomfort, unused to calling anyone by their first name. “I’m only going after the largest pieces. The rest will be left alone and her body will deal with them.”

  “Doc.” Perry took a step
forward and leaned in. “We’re in a time crunch right now. I need to talk to Caroline.”

  The doctor pulled out another piece of metal and raised one eyebrow before shaking his head firmly. “Not possible. She’ll be under for a couple hours.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time.”

  “I don’t think you understand, Perry.” The doctor tapped one of his gloved fingers against a bag hanging from a slender metal stand. “It’s not that I don’t want you to talk to her. It’s that she’s out. You can’t talk to her because she’s not in any position to communicate.”

  “Is she going to be okay?”

  “She’ll be fine, Perry.”

  As if on cue, Caroline let out a groan and tried to speak and move. A pair of assistants next to the doctor ran forward and gently held her down. “Perrnh?” Caroline slurred Perry’s name a single time before dozing off again and the doctor gently inserted the tweezers again.

  “Sorry Officer Perry. If you want to talk to her, come back later.”

  Perry shook his head and turned around, pointing to the entrance of the room. “Out. Now.” Linda and Frank hurried back and Perry stomped forward, slamming the door shut behind him. His face was a mix of confused emotions and as Linda watched him she suddenly felt incredibly sad for him.

  “What’s wrong?” Linda gave him a concerned look.

  “Caroline’s the one who’s… better at things like this.”

  Frank looked at Linda with a raised eyebrow. “You want to give us up, you’re saying?”

  Perry shook his head firmly. “No. I’m not a monster. But I have several hundred people here that I need to protect for who-knows-how-long. I can’t risk all of their lives for two strangers who rolled into town.” Perry sighed deeply. “I could just use Caroline’s advice on this one.”

  Linda looked at Frank who nodded in agreement to the unspoken question that passed between them. “No need to do that, Perry.” Linda straightened her back and nodded at him. “You have way too many people here for us to be putting you and all of them in danger. Just give us some covering fire and we’ll draw those guys away from the building.”

  “How’re you going to do that?”

  “I think the car that Frank so expertly drove up here is the perfect solution to that little problem.”

  Perry nodded. “Good thinking. I don’t want to be the one to tell you that you have to leave, though.”

  Frank unslung the rifle from his shoulder and gripped it firmly. “You don’t have to. Any thoughts on keeping them occupied? There’s got to be at least two but I don’t know how many more they brought.”

  Perry scratched his chin. “There’s a tall barrier going around the edge of the roof and plenty of ductwork and such to hide behind. I could get up there, spy things out and start giving you cover. Caroline’s going to kill me for letting you leave under these conditions, though. Just… wait here a moment.” Perry glanced at the face of his watch on the underside of his wrist. “We still have seven minutes left. Come on; hurry and follow me.”

  “Go with him, Frank. I’ll wait here near the front.” Linda limped back towards the front door while Frank and Perry raced down the halls of the school until they reached the cafeteria. Set in the middle of the school with no windows looking in, the open room was filled with supplies that the residents of the town had brought in and stored for future use.

  Stacks of perishable and non-perishable food lined the wall while a large plastic container half-filled with water sat nearby. A few dozen people were scattered through the building, with most of them quietly talking with each other while the rest slowly worked their way through the food supplies with clipboards in hand, taking careful notes on what they had.

  “Wow.” Frank nodded in surprise. “You have quite the operation going on here.”

  “We have Caroline to thank for that.” Perry slowed down and began scanning the room as he spoke, looking for one person in particular. “Caroline’s been the pillar of this community for years. When all of that… stuff happened, she was the one who everyone rallied around.”

  “I’m impressed that you’ve been able to keep everyone together and working through all of this.”

  “Folks here are pretty down to earth, Frank.” Perry lowered his voice slightly and glanced around. “I’m probably the one most out of place here. It took a few years for all of this to grow on me but it’s been worth it.”

  Frank started to reply when Perry finally spotted who he was looking for and shouted out. “Jason!”

  A short, balding man carrying a clipboard turned and smiled at Perry before making a quizzical expression as he caught sight of Frank. “Perry? Do we have a visitor?”

  “Something like that.” Perry took Jason by the arm and led him into a corner of the room with Frank following close behind. “Listen, I need you to get me a week’s worth of nonperishable food. I need it right now, okay?”

  “A week? For how many people?”

  Perry looked at Frank. “Two?” Frank nodded and Perry confirmed the number. “Two. Please, Jason, no questions. We’re trying to deal with a situation.”

  Jason shuffled his feet nervously. “Yes, we all heard what that person outside said. What’re you going to do about it?”

  “Come on, Frank.” Perry ignored the question. “Jason, have those supplies in a spare backpack by the front door in two minutes. Got it?” The slightly menacing undertone in Perry’s voice was enough to cause Jason to leap into action. As he raced across the cafeteria shouting at several people to help him, Frank and Perry headed back down the hall towards the front entrance.

  “Four minutes left.” Perry shook his head. “Assuming that these idiots can actually count time properly. I’m going to head up to the roof. Once your supplies get here I want you to fire a single shot out the front. That’ll let me know that you’re ready to go and we can get this party started.”

  Despite the danger that they found themselves in, Frank couldn’t suppress a smile as he realized that Perry was actually feeling excited about what was going on. “You don’t see a lot of action around here, do you?”

  Perry ejected the magazine from his rifle and swapped in a full one as he grinned. “How could you tell?”

  “What’s going on, boys?” Linda looked up at Frank and Perry as they stopped in front of her.

  “I’ll let you fill her in, Frank. Best of luck to both of you.”

  “You as well. We’ll make sure to draw them off.”

  “I’ll do my best to take them out. If they make it through, though, just keep heading west and south towards Pittsburgh. I’ve been hearing all day on the radio about a huge military presence they have there. You should be able to get plenty of help there.”

  Linda’s eyes widened and she started to ask the first of many questions but Perry turned and ran back down the hall before she could speak to him. “Frank? What the hell’s he talking about?”

  “I have no idea. But we’re getting out of here.”

  “So I gathered. Perry’s going to draw their attention while we get to the car?”

  “Yep.”

  “Thank goodness.” Linda patted her leg gingerly. “It’s hurting like hell from all this movement but I can make it to the car at least.”

  “Good.” Frank turned at the sound of footsteps and saw a man carrying a backpack running up to him. The man handed the backpack to Frank before turning and running back in the opposite direction.

  “Uh.” Linda’s eyes darted back and forth. “What just happened?”

  “A present. Courtesy of Perry.” Frank unzipped the bag to reveal a stash of rations along with a water purifier. Frank closed the bag and put it on one shoulder before taking the bag of ammunition near the front entrance and looping it on his shoulder as well. “You ready for this?”

  “Not really.” Linda sighed and Frank could see the exhaustion behind her eyes. “I want to stay here and get some damned sleep.”

  “Hopefully we’ll find that soon. Ma
ybe we should stop by Pittsburgh before turning south. You still have some military connections, right?”

  Linda shrugged. “Eh. Maybe.”

  Frank was about to probe further when they heard the electronic crackle of a bullhorn outside. It was followed a second later by the same voice they had heard ten minutes earlier. “Your ten minutes are up! What’s it going to be?”

  Frank cracked the front door and was about to fire a shot out into the parking lot when he was surprised by gunfire that originated from on top of the building. Five stories up, on the roof, Perry kneeled down at the edge of the building with his rifle aiming down into the trees on one side. Firing in three-round bursts, he sent a hailstorm of bullets into the thick bushes at the base of the trees, working his way down the line in an effort to flush out the source of the voice.

  “I guess he’s going to give the signal! Let’s go!” Frank shoved open the door to the front of the building and ran headlong towards the car. While he had managed to shut off the vehicle during his mad rush to get out of it and into the building earlier, the keys had fallen out of his hand. He thought they might be on the floor of the car or on the ground just outside the driver’s side door and wasn’t looking forward to having to locate them.

  Shots from the roof continued to snap across the empty parking lot, echoing out into the darkness as Frank ran the short distance to the car. He opened the right-side back door and threw their bags and backpacks in. His rifle followed and he slammed the door shut, then flung open the passenger door. Behind him, Linda limped forward as fast as she could, her pistol out and at the ready.

  Perry’s gunfire thankfully offered enough of a distraction that Frank and Linda were both able to make it to the car without taking fire. Once they started climbing in, though, all hell broke loose.

  While Reggie and Liam were distracted with locating the shooter on top of the school, Josh had quickly overcome his initial surprise and began searching for the source of the shots. Dim flashes of light from the muzzle of Perry’s rifle illuminated the top of the school, and Josh quickly zeroed in on them with his rifle. Their source was hidden behind a large piece of ductwork but Josh took aim anyway, hoping that the bullet would penetrate through the duct and strike his target on the other side. Although he fancied himself a crack shot due to the fact that he had hit Caroline in the shoulder earlier, the shot had actually been more due to blind luck than anything else.