by Nick Thacker
CHAPTER 26
MORE SHOTS RANG OUT FROM somewhere ahead, and the three of them ran faster. They exited the caves through the opening that spilled them out onto the housing district’s concrete street, but they took a sharp right and followed the cave wall around. A few hundred feet later, Nelson stopped and held up a hand. Jen and Dr. Pavan halted abruptly behind him.
“Wait. Let’s see if we can’t get a bead on who’s shooting,” he said. He held up his rifle and looked through the scope. “Can’t see anyone, but I definitely hear it coming from those white buildings over there.”
He didn’t point, but Jen and Dr. Pavan followed the direction of his gun and peered around him. Jen couldn’t see anyone either, but Nelson seemed to be right. The shots were sporadic, punctuating the air every few seconds. Not enough to be an outright battle, but certainly someone was trying to keep someone else pinned down to one location.
Nelson started forward again and made it to the last of the houses along the rail track. He moved from the rock wall to the rear of the house for more cover, and again held up his gun.
“Crap, I don’t hear anything now,” he muttered.
“Do you see anything yet?” Dr. Pavan asked.
“Negative. Let’s wait here a second and see what happens.”
Suddenly an explosion farther away shook the ground beneath them. The distant, hollow sound seemed more like thunder than an explosion, but Nelson knew better. “That was a grenade, or some kind of small-arms incendiary device.”
“Was it us or them?” Jen asked.
“Them. We’re not carrying that kind of firepower,” Nelson replied. “Too bad, too. I could’ve used something like that earlier. Bastards.”
He turned to the two civilians, eyed them up and down, and then delivered instructions. “We’re gonna go check it out. Can’t just sit back and wait around, right? Maybe the party ain’t over yet.”
He jogged away as Jen and Dr. Pavan followed. Jen felt adrenaline coursing through her body and tried to will it toward keeping her focused, alert. Pavan stayed next to her, running at an easy pace.
They passed two of the buildings, and Jen noticed the smell of fish in the air. It was old, but not rotten, like what she imagined a fresh fish market smelled like the day after the fish were sold. As they ran past the second building, a lump to Jen’s left caught her eye.
“Hold on, guys. There’s something over here.”
She stopped at the lump. It was a human body; one of the soldiers. Nelson kicked it over with his toe, and the limp body fell flat on its back. The face and body were completely covered in black clothing, face paint, and gloves, and they could now see a bloody wound on the man’s midsection.
Looking closer, Jen noticed that the man’s eyes were dark, almost black. His face was rugged and fit, and his high cheekbones gave him an almost handsome youthfulness. “Looks Russian,” Nelson said. He bent down, shuffled through the man’s pockets, and retrieved a few scraps of paper and a receipt. “Nothing to identify him, but it looks like he bought a coffee before the trip.”
“You think they’re all Russian?” Dr. Pavan asked.
“Most likely. Probably a mercenary squad of some sort. Doubt they’re affiliated with their own government—at least not directly.”
He gave the man a final pat-down but didn’t find anything of worth. The soldier’s comrades had taken his weapon and sidearm, and even his combat knife. A sheath attached to his belt lay empty.
Nelson was about to stand again but stopped short. He frowned, then reached his hand out to the man’s head. The soldier was wearing a black skull cap, but his was pulled slightly up, revealing an inch of shaved scalp around his ears.
“What is it?” Jen asked.
Nelson didn’t answer. He reached toward the man’s head, feeling right above the man’s ear. He muttered something inaudible, and Jen and Dr. Pavan knelt down beside him.
“Feel this,” he said.
Jen reached out and felt where Nelson’s fingers were. She couldn’t feel anything at first—just the sandpapery texture of a recently shaved head. She pushed a little harder, and her fingers met resistance. Wiggling around with her index and middle fingers, she felt the outline of a perfect circle. Small, hard, and round, something was just inside the dead soldier’s head.
“Weird,” Nelson said. His tone conveyed nothing. If he was surprised that the soldier had a piece of jewelry embedded in his skull, Jen couldn’t tell. She watched as Nelson unsheathed his own knife—a monstrous KA-BAR military blade—and pointed it down toward the soldier’s ear.
“Don’t!” Jen said. She and Dr. Pavan stood up.
“What?” Nelson asked. “Aren’t you a little curious?”
She didn’t say anything, but Dr. Pavan gave a slight nod toward Nelson. Nelson grinned and then poked gently with his knife.
Blood oozed out around the blade, but there was only a little, and it didn’t seem to bother him. He made a few incisions, and then pushed on the skin just below the lump. Wriggling it around for a moment, he eventually freed the object from the soldier’s head and caught it in his bare hand.
Nelson wiped off his hand and the object with a section of the fallen soldier’s shirt, then stood.
Jen and Dr. Pavan instinctively stepped forward, curious as to what the object really was.
It was shiny, made of metal, and a perfectly round disk. It looked just like a miniature hockey puck except for a small glass bubble on one side of the disk. Jen couldn’t see any marks, features, or noteworthy characteristics on it otherwise.
“Well, I’ll be,” Nelson said. “What do you think it is?”
Dr. Pavan scrutinized the object carefully a few seconds before shrugging. “Beats me,” he said, and looked up at the other two.
Nelson shrugged as well and then placed the small object in one of his vest pockets. “Maybe we’ll hold on to it awhile; see if anything comes of it.”
Jen was about to ask to see it when a high-pitched whine emanated from out of nowhere. She grabbed her ears and spun, trying to locate the source. “What is that noise?” she asked.
Nelson squinted in pain, clearly hearing it as well, though not able to cover his ears with full hands. “No idea, but it ain’t pretty. Let’s keep moving.”
They started walking alongside the buildings, moving slower now in case they came across more bodies. Jen reached the end of the row of fish-smelling buildings first and turned around to wait for the others.
Her eyes widened.
“What?” Nelson asked, still squinting from the painfully high-pitched noise.
She didn’t speak, but she felt her mouth moving to form words. “I—I…”
Nelson and Pavan realized that her eyes weren’t on them, but behind them. They turned to see what had caught her attention.
“Holy mother of—” Nelson muttered under his breath. Dr. Pavan began walking backwards, not speaking.
Approaching them from the first of the buildings was a group of people, most wearing white lab coats. They were walking, but not all were standing upright. Their faces were obscured, but Jen could see their heads lolling around, not quite looking at them, but not quite looking away.
“Keep moving, guys,” Nelson said softly. “Let’s get to those three silos out there before we do anything else.”
The group, about ten strong, kept up with them, but Jen continuously looked over her shoulder as they jogged. They reached the silos in another minute and turned to see that the swarm of scientists had kept in fact kept pace with them, the distance between the two groups remaining constant.
Nelson turned to Jen and Pavan. “Should I…should I shoot them?” he asked.
“No!” Jen responded. “We don’t know who they are, or if they’re hurt.” She thought for a moment, then called out to them. “Hey! Who are you? Don’t get any closer!”
“Jen,” Dr. Pavan whispered, “maybe we shouldn’t call attention to ourselves?”
“Big deal,” Jen said. �
��They already know we’re here. What harm could it do?”
The swarm kept coming. The man in the front of the group—in his sixties, with grayish hair, and huge glasses—began walking a bit faster. He reached the opening between the buildings and the silos and started closing the distance. Jen backed away from the clearing as Nelson raised his rifle.
“Just say the word, Jen, and I’ll blow his brains out,” Nelson muttered.
“Stop it. He might be able to help us.”
The man was about fifteen feet away when he broke into a run. He wasn’t fast, nor was he efficient—the “running” was really a combination of stumbling, tripping, and falling forward. But he was going to reach them in a few seconds nonetheless.
“Go!” Nelson shouted, turning and running between the three silos. Jen and Dr. Pavan followed. They rounded the edge of the second silo and stopped again, waiting to see what the newcomer might do.
“Did you hear that?” Jen asked.
She cocked her head toward the noise, and soon heard it again—a groan.
A man’s groan. She felt her heart flutter as she stepped out from the silo’s edge and ran toward the third and final silo in the group. On the other side of the silo she saw him.
Laying on the ground, blood pooling around his head, was Carter.
She called back for help and knelt down beside him.
“Carter. Carter, it’s Jen. Are you okay?”
His eyelids fluttered, then opened slightly. He let out a deep moan.
Jen checked his vitals and tried to see what had caused the bleeding. She found a gash on the side of the man’s head—large, but not deep. He’d been hit with something.
“Carter, can you talk? What happened?”
He looked up at her as the other two in the group arrived. Nelson immediately reached for a small first aid kit on his belt and began rifling through the objects inside. He found a roll of gauze and began to unwrap it.
Dr. Pavan reached for the canteen that was hanging on Carter’s side, tore off a sleeve of his own shirt, and then doused the cloth in some water. “This won’t be completely sanitary, but we might be able to get it clean enough.”
Nelson nodded, now beginning to wrap the gauze bandage around his commanding officer’s head. “What happened to you, boss?” he asked.
Carter looked up at them, breathed in heavily, then spoke. “They—they took…” his voice trailed off, but he kept looking up at them.
“Is he alright?” Jen asked.
“He’s fine. Probably a minor concussion, but if we can keep him awake and functioning, he’ll just walk away with a helluva headache. Here, help me with this.” He lifted Carter’s head a few inches and slid the gauze underneath. Jen grabbed it and finished the wrapping, tucking the end into one of the strands.
“Carter, who are they? And who did they take?” Jen asked. She felt she knew the answer to both questions already, but she needed to get him talking and thinking coherently.
The man tried again. “They took… they took Mark…”
Jen’s heart sank. Hearing the words made it true. But there was pinprick of hope, a suspicion that if they took him, that meant he was probably still alive.
Nelson and Dr. Pavan lifted Carter to a sitting position. As they did, Jen remembered the prior predicament they were in. She turned around.
The man was standing a foot behind her, just in the shadow of the silo. He’d somehow crept up on all of them silently and had been standing there—how long?
She gasped, startling the three men.
“Holy…” Nelson said, reaching for his gun.
Dr. Pavan used his free hand and placed it on Nelson’s arm. “Jen’s right, Nelson, we don’t know who he is or what he wants. Let’s just keep moving and try to lose them in the caves.”
The caves, Jen thought. She looked up and beyond the three men and saw a large, dark opening in the distance. They’d made it to the other Level Four opening.
She reached down and helped move Carter to his feet, grabbing him by his belt. The other two men carried him under his arms, but after a few shaky moments they found Carter was capable of mostly holding his own weight.
They walked on, the weird scientist following them.
“Uh, Jen,” Nelson asked as he shifted Carter’s weight to his other arm, “what if these guys don’t actually leave us alone?”
She’d been thinking about the same thing, but she didn’t yet have a satisfactory answer. “We’ll just hope they do. Keep that gun loaded, soldier.”
They made it to the cave opening and stepped inside. It was similarly dark and as cramped as the tunnel they’d entered and exited in the housing district, and they knew from the map that these openings were part of the cave system. The smell of magnesium and a recent explosion filled their nostrils, but there were no fires burning.
But they hadn’t been inside this part of it, and they all wondered if, by entering, they were putting themselves—literally—between a rock and a hard place.
CHAPTER 27
“REESE, WILL YOU PLEASE TALK to me?”
The woman had been pleading with him for an hour. He had barely spoken, but she wouldn’t let him be.
Reese was still in the room, still sitting on the bed. He’d realized after almost a day that this was, essentially, a jail cell. But they hadn’t hurt him. The woman—Sylvia, she’d said—just kept coming in every few hours, sometimes giving him food, and always trying to get him to talk more.
“Can you tell me about your dad?”
He didn’t want to talk to her or anyone. He’d cried, and now he felt like he couldn’t cry anymore. He still missed his family, of course, but he was smart enough to realize that they weren’t trying to hurt him.They just needed him for something.
“What does your dad do for a living, Reese?”
She already knew the answer. He was sure of it. That was just it. She was treating him like he was a child. He was twelve.
She obviously had no idea how to talk to kids, and so she took the approach of trying to trick him into thinking she was gentle, on his side.
He wasn’t an idiot.
He’d answered a few questions Sylvia asked him during the three previous visits, but he mainly just stared up at the ceiling until she left him alone.
Something about it all was weird, though. He’d seen some movies and TV shows and knew how people in this role were usually treated. He knew they were kept somewhere no one could find them until the people got what they wanted, and he knew they would quickly lose patience.
Maybe it was because this wasn’t a movie, but Sylvia hadn’t lost her patience yet. She just kept going on and on in that high-pitched annoying voice, and when she finally would realize that he didn’t want to talk to her, she’d just sit there for a few minutes and then leave.
It was almost humorous to him. The lady wasn’t very good at this prisoner stuff.
He was getting annoyed with her and her voice and her constant questions. He wanted her to leave. He wanted to see his mom.
“Sylvia,” he said. He glanced over quickly to see the reaction on her face. It was first time he’d used her name, and the first time he’d addressed her directly rather than just answer her question. He thought her eyes were going to fall out of her head they were so big. “Why am I here?”
She shifted in the chair, but didn’t answer.
“Why did you take me?”
“Now, Reese, I didn’t take—”
“I know. But you haven’t let me leave. So you basically took me,” he said.
“No, I just want to help you.”
“Then let me leave.” He considered getting up and walking to the locked door. What would she do? Did she even know what she’d do?
He decided to wait. “Sylvia, how come you won’t let me leave? Is someone telling you what to do?”
He watched her face. Her expression hardened just barely, then slackened again. “No,” she said. He waited for her to speak again to explain more
, but she asked another question instead.
“Reese, I do want to help you, but you need to help me. What does your dad do? Where does he work? Do you know?”
Again, treating him like a child. “Yes, I know. You know too.”
She nodded. “Can you tell me about what he does?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you won’t tell me why I’m here.”
“Do you remember what happened…when they took you?”
Good. She was talking now, telling him things instead of just asking stupid questions.
“Yes. They came and took me from my dad’s apartment. They broke a lot of stuff, but it was just a show. They didn’t hit me or anything, just told me to get in the car with them.”
He looked again at Sylvia. Did she not know this?
“And then what happened?”
“I—I fell asleep. I guess they gave me drugs or something, but I woke up here. Why?”
“Reese, I just want—“
“To help me,” Reese said, curtly.
“Right. To help you.”
“Okay, help me. I answer your questions, and you help me? Is that how it works?”
“Yes. Exactly, Reese.”
“You’ll let me go then? Will you find my mom and bring her?” He thought for a moment, realizing something. “Where’s my dad? Did they hurt him?”
“Mark, your father is fine. Your mother is as well.”
“So you do know who he is. Where is he?”
Sylvia stood up. I guess the conversation’s over, he thought. So much for that.
“Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“Do you know someone who does know?”
“No.”
He began to feel frustrated. He choked back more tears, knowing that she was lying to him.
“Please, why can’t you tell me anything? I’ve been good. I’ve answered your questions,” he said, his voice getting shaky.
Sylvia walked toward the door. “I’m sorry, Reese. I want to help you, I really do. But I have no control. I don’t make the decisions. I don’t know where your father—”
