by C. A. Earl
‘Come on, kids’ she called out, looking from one side to the other. ‘Let’s play a game!’
Matt watched as the curly-haired woman (he thought her name was Dawn) was joined by an increasing number of youngsters. Most of them, bored to tears by long days stuck inside the centre, joined the line with real gusto. Others were less enthusiastic and needed to be prodded into action by their parents, either verbally or physically.
‘Good work, Billy’ Matt whispered as the woman walked past them. Up close, he could see that her eyes were moist and red yet her cheeks were drained of colour.
‘Come on kids’ she continued, a slight quake in her high-pitched voice. ‘Follow me!’
Watched with confusion by some of the other adults, Dawn Bailey reached the end of the hall with nine children (and some parents) in tow. Turning around, she asked them all to sit and be quiet, a request that was met with giggling from two little girls at the front.
‘Okay, let’s all cover our...noses!’ Dawn shouted, clamping a hand over her face. As her mostly juvenile audience did likewise, Matt gave Ray a prod.
Trying not to attract any attention, the three men split up and moved their way along three different lanes of the grid. Most of the other people were standing and watching Dawn’s game while four other men began to wander nearer to the double doors. Seven men should be able to handle two, thought Matt, eyeing the quartet of newest recruits. The soldiers, their heads tilted ever so slightly toward the children’s activity, seemed oblivious to every approach; more signs of overconfidence, Matt hoped...
‘Okay’ shouted Dawn. ‘Now let’s cover our...ears!’
Matt reached the corner of the room and leaned against the wall, smiling to show interest in the game on the off-chance that anyone was watching him. He put his hand into the pocket of his hoodie and manoeuvred the knife into his palm before covering it with the sleeve again. Then, lowering his head, he began to move adjacent to the wall, closing to within ten feet of the soldiers as Ray approached from the other side and tried to talk to one of them. The soldier shook his head and waved Ray away while Billy Kane walked between both guards and out through the doors, letting them clatter behind him.
‘Okay’ shouted Dawn, her voice cracking. ‘Now let’s cover our...eyes!’
On Dawn’s last word Matt lunged forward and thrust the blade of the knife through the soft leather collar of the nearest soldier, emulating the same technique that Ben had used earlier. The man gurgled under his mask and staggered against the wall as Ray went for his opponent in similar fashion, jamming a long-bladed craft knife up between jawbone and neck. As Ray twisted and snapped the blade off the four other men rushed in, thrusting knives and chisels into both ailing bodies and ripping the black masks away. Before they had even fully slumped to the floor, the soldiers’ skulls were crudely pierced with screwdrivers through each ear canal.
It was only now, with the majority of people still facing in the opposite direction, that the mostly silent scuffle finally caught the attention of others in the hall. A woman, glancing back over her shoulder, opened her mouth to scream but her husband quickly clamped his hand over her face. Others turned and gasped in horror, while away on the far side Dawn Bailey somehow held the attention of her group of children.
‘Keep your eyes closed, kids’ she instructed, her voice weakening by the second. ‘No peeking now. Whoever peeks first is the loser...’
Dropping the bloody knife, Matt whipped the cap from his head and stared at his hands. Behind him, the four men took hold of the soldiers’ bodies and began dragging them away into a corner. Ray Beckwith used the cuff of his sleeve to wipe his glistening forehead.
‘Everybody stay calm’ Matt whispered loudly to the people in front of him, trying to halt their rising hubbub before it could become anything more. ‘You need to trust me. This isn’t what you think. We’ve all been lied to...’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ asked a tall-man in John Lennon style glasses. ‘Those men have kept us safe, they’ve made sure that we-‘
‘They’ve been killing us’ snapped Matt. ‘Everyone that left here on a bus has been kill-‘
The sharp gasps and cries of shock stopped him mid-sentence. Some of the people shook their heads, genuinely not believing what they were hearing. Here was the quandary; getting them to know the truth but trying not to panic them. Matt needed as many of them involved as possible for their coup to stand a chance, but he did not need a terrified crowd.
‘It’s true’ Ray piped up, silencing the mass of people in front of him. At the back of the hall, in stark contrast to the mood at the front, a nursery rhyme sing-along got underway.
‘And how do you know all this?’ asked the tall man.
Matt paused. With no actual physical proof, he knew that they were acting purely on the say-so of his brother, someone that most of the others had never even met. Before he could react, Ray spoke again.
‘We know, okay Martin? If you don’t want to be part of this, fair enough, that’s why we didn’t involve you before. But you need to know – you all need to know – if this doesn’t work then they are gonna be coming for each and every one of you. And your kids too.’
Matt winced and stared at the floor. ‘Jesus, Ray...’
The mass of voices started again as Ray Beckwith fronted up against the lines of people. Standing behind him Matt’s heart skipped a beat as he noticed a crack opening in the double doors. A split-second later Billy Kane’s gaunt face appeared.
‘Need to move quickly’ whispered Billy. ‘It’s okay at the moment but someone’s bound to be along soon.’
Matt nodded as Billy pulled the doors to again. The guards didn’t normally change shifts until noon but there were still so many other things to consider. There were still other survivors outside and also more in the cafe area that were completely unaware of what was going on. If things went badly then those people would become little more than cannon fodder.
‘Okay’ said Matt in a raised voice, turning and stepping in front of Ray. ‘We haven’t got time for this. If you’re not going to join us then at least try to keep your kids out of the way.’
The nearest woman, her eyes heavy with tears, began to sob. ‘My sister and her boys are staying in the changing rooms. What about them?’
‘My wife too’ piped up a man’s voice from within the crowd. ‘And my daughter. What-’
Matt held up his hands, silencing the rising voices. ‘We’re going to try and get to them all but right now we need to know who else is ready to do what needs to be done. It’ll mean getting your hands dirty; doing things you won’t want to...’
‘We need volunteers’ Ray Beckwith added gruffly.
Nine minutes later and a few corridors away in the medical room, Ben Reilly was still fully focused on the closed door with his finger on the trigger of the rifle. Seated at the edge of the bench, he had barely moved a muscle since Matt’s departure.
‘I still can’t believe this is happening’ mumbled Heather, pacing the floor behind the large desk. It was something she had been doing from the moment Matt left and now it was starting to get under Ben’s skin. Scowling, he threw her a glance which stopped her in her tracks.
‘Please sit down. Try and relax.’
Heather nodded and immediately sank into the leather chair behind the desk. Putting her head into her hands, she wiped her brow and took a deep breath.
‘God’ she whimpered. ‘How can you be so calm?’
‘You think I’m calm? Christ no, but there are too many people depending on me. I can’t - I won’t - let them down.’
Ben’s mind flashed back again to the moment that he had lost control after Harry Skinner’s death. Another lapse like that and the game was up for sure.
Heather exhaled and reached across the desk, picking up the needle and wad of tissue. Mulling over whether to self-medicate or not, she decided to change the subject.
‘So, you ended up marrying little Katie Flowers then?’
she asked nervously. ‘I’m not surprised really; you two were inseparable, even at primary school.’
Ben’s eyebrows rose at the sudden swing in conversation but he smiled at hearing Katie’s maiden name for the first time in ages. It reminded him of more innocent times, decades before man-made disasters and terrorist attacks had become commonplace. Oh, how the world had changed since then...
‘We weren’t together the whole time’ he replied. ‘We just sort of found each other again, really. At college.’
‘That’s sweet. Any kids?’
‘No. Sometimes I think it would have been nice, but no. It was never something on our list, to be honest. I know that sounds weird to some people.’
‘Not to me. Anyway, who would want to bring a kid into this world?’
In agreement with that sentiment, Ben was unable to prevent the image of a blonde-haired girl in pigtails and a blue party dress flashing into his mind’s eye. The image morphed until the girl’s face turned into little Cassie Sommers’.
‘We’ve still gotta do what we can for the ones who are left’ he said sharply, ending their brief attempt at small talk. A stark realisation had just dawned, something he had not really thought about until now. With his nephew Jack dead, the Reilly family tree would extend its branches no further. The family name would end with him and Matt.
Heather gulped, fully aware that her comment had stirred something within him. Feeling the sense of foreboding return, she detached the plastic cap from the hypodermic needle and rolled up her sleeve. This would calm her nerves but not make her drowsy. Hopefully it would focus her mind too.
It was at that moment, with the point of the needle just about to pierce her skin, that something happened which almost made her heart leap from her chest.
An alarm went off.
~ 16 ~
‘What the hell is that?’ yelled Ben, his voice barely audible above the pulsing siren. Rising from his seat with his rifle at the ready, he wheeled toward Heather who was pointing at a small red box above the door. A bright blue light was blinking in sync with the ear-splitting sound.
‘It’s the fire alarm!’ she shouted.
‘Shit!’
Rushing for the door handle, Ben yanked the door open and stared along the corridor. The wail of the alarm was magnified against the narrow walls but other noises could also be heard. There was shouting and the sounds of hard-heeled boots running.
And then a burst of gunfire.
‘Shit!’ Ben cursed again, instinctively taking a step back. Somewhere else within the building another salvo rang out, followed by the pop-pop-pop of a pistol discharging. Then came more automatic gunfire, accompanied by screams of pain or horror, or both. And enveloping it all, the siren continued to wail.
‘What’s happening?’ yelled Heather from the open doorway, aware even as she said it that the question was stupid. Ben would have no clue. The plan had been for Matt to recruit others to the cause and then hit the isolated guards first, taking care of the ones and twos before the enemy realised they had been rumbled. This surge of activity was too soon after he had left for that particular plan to have gone without a hitch. Something had gone wrong.
‘Stay there!’ cried Ben, waving Heather back into the room before starting to inch along the corridor with the rifle in hand. Having been so dazed when he was brought in, he was unsure about the layout of the place. One thing he did know was that the main hallway had to be nearby – that was obvious from the sounds of activity which were growing increasingly louder. Fucking alarm, he thought as he passed beneath another small red box. It continued to blink its bright blue light while squealing at a volume that threatened to loosen his fillings.
Wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo
Grimacing, he noticed a door up on the left hand side of the corridor and stole across the floor just as it began to swing open, quickly pressing flat against the wall behind it. Two figures rushed from the room, leaving the door ajar. Peering around it, Ben watched a young man and woman take off up the corridor, frantically adjusting their clothing all the way. At first preparing to call out, he decided instead to set off after them. The couple were only ten feet ahead of him when they disappeared around a bend in the passage.
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!
Their bodies shredded within a hail of bullets, the nameless lovers were flung to the floor amid a red haze while Ben somehow managed to throw himself against the wall just before the bend. His ears ringing, he sank to his haunches and slapped the side of his head in an effort to clear it. With a grey fog in the air and the acrid scent of discharged weapons in his nostrils, he desperately tried to shut out the sound of the siren. Taking a deep breath, he tightened his grip on the rifle and slowly peered around the corner.
If he had looked two seconds earlier or two seconds later, Ben Reilly would have been a sitting duck. As it was, he timed it exactly as three soldiers, two bending over the bodies and one looking back to the main hallway, were otherwise engaged. His finger automatically pressed the trigger, lighting up the passage in an explosion of gunfire that caught all three men in their upper torsos. The thumping recoil threw him back too, spraying bullets left and right as well as up through the plaster tiles in the ceiling. Caught in a whirlwind of chaos, it took all of seven seconds before he was able to disengage his finger from the trigger and cease firing.
When the fog cleared and the sound of the alarm came back in, five bodies littered the floor. Swearing under his breath, Ben climbed awkwardly to his feet and staggered toward them.
Wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo
Rolling a soldier’s body over, he snatched up one of the spare rifles and quickly headed back in the direction of the medical room, passing the open storeroom on his right hand side where two fated lovers had enjoyed one final tryst. Poor kids, he thought. Should have stayed where you were.
Heather Mackie was staring dewy-eyed through a gap in the door when Ben returned to her. ‘Here!’ he shouted, thrusting the newly acquired rifle into her hands. ‘Stay here and keep watch from the doorway. If any of them get down here just point and shoot.’
‘But I don’t know how to-‘
‘Just aim and press the fucking trigger! Keep the butt tight to the pocket of your shoulder or you’ll break your arm.’
‘But-‘
Before Heather could say another word, Ben turned away and headed back up the corridor. This time moving much more quickly, he rounded the corner as the alarm continued to sound.
Wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo-wheoo
‘Jesus!’ he cried, almost hurtling straight into a swaying figure that had already risen from the floor. It was the one of the dead soldiers, a guttural snarl amplified behind its mask but barely audible amid all the other noise. Unable to bite, it fumbled wildly at Ben before he was able to angle the barrel of the rifle up under its jaw and press the trigger. The thing’s head came apart in an explosion of bright crimson which managed to reach as high as the hallway ceiling. Even as the body flopped to the floor, Ben quickly looked at each of the others. The young woman had already suffered a headshot but her former lover was just beginning to twitch. Without pausing for breath, Ben discharged another bullet into the thing’s skull and quickly did the same to the two remaining soldiers. Then, picking up another of the rifles, he slung the strap over his left shoulder and stepped over the bodies. The extra weapon was a little cumbersome but Ben knew that if he could get it to another civilian it would help their chances. It was at that moment, as he prepared to enter the main part of the building that the wailing siren suddenly stopped.
Without the alarm to mask them, other noises immediately came into prominence. Muffled shouts echoed from undetermined directions along with other salvos of gunfire and the sounds of more running boots. Somewhere else a woman’s scream ripped through the halls before being dramatically cut short.
Clenching his teeth, Ben cautiously approached the end of the passage and c
rouched down just before it joined the main corridor. A single shot rang out from the right, followed by a rifle burst from the left. Then another two shots from the right and another salvo from the left. Isolated at the end of the passage, Ben realised that he was caught in a crossfire.
His mind buzzing, he thought about what to do next. Should he return to Heather and hold out there for as long as possible? Maybe he should just stay where he was and wait for an opportunity?
No.
Waiting was not an option anymore. He had done enough of that. Waiting would allow the enemy time to regroup and therefore reduce any chance that they had.
Standing slowly, he pressed his head flat against the wall and moved to the very edge of the corner, staying out of sight but trying to see as far around the bend as possible. He was only able to see a sliver of the floor on the right hand side but it was enough to reveal the presence of three fallen bodies. One of them, only visible by its black-clad legs and boots, clearly belonged to one of the soldiers. The others were those of a silver-haired couple, their backs peppered with crimson stains but their hands linked together in death.
The scene was heartbreaking.
Ben flinched as another shot rang out from the left, answered again by two from the right. Despite being hidden from either line of fire, he instinctively stepped back from the corner and looked across the corridor. In the opposing wall, away slightly to the left, was a door. The metal name plate set into the stained wood read: ‘MANAGER’. The door was no more than eight feet away.
Ben felt his heart jolt.
When he’d been brought in, hauled between the two soldiers, he’d been in a dazed, confused state. But he had recalled being frogmarched past that exact door, and he had remembered who was standing in front of it at the time.
Henry Sawyer.
Another salvo of gunfire echoed down the corridor from the left, more sustained but further away. Isolated screams and erratic shooting followed, differing in volume and proximity. Ben tried to shut out the potential horrors that were occurring within the rest of the building. Now he faced a huge dilemma.
