Sarah stumbled around the edge of the building, witnessing the carnage unleashed by Noah's men who had worked their way toward the center while they hunted down the last remaining stragglers. Nobody had noticed her since she entered the building, and she didn't know if they would mistake her for one of the residents and murder her or not; at that moment, she felt like she didn't care. She couldn't think of anything; her mind was a blank CD on loop, playing static that deafened her to everything else. Her head floated around on her shoulders and she casually watched the last remaining executions around her.
She walked along the first row of tall shelves by the front of the building and came to an aisle that ran between the rows of shelves on either side to the back of the warehouse. She looked down the aisle and saw one of Zed's men sprinting across. Gunfire echoed in the building and blood splattered out of the front of the man's calves and he collapsed to the floor. He howled in pain and started crawling away, looking over his shoulder. His strength gave out and he flopped down and rolled onto his back, feebly trying to aim a pistol.
Wayne appeared from behind a row and stepped on his wrist, pinning it to the ground as his pistol limply fell out of his hand. He raised his rifle and put two rounds in the man's chest, and the man's eyes went wide and his mouth opened, letting out a final raspy breath as if exhaling his soul to join the billowing smoke flowing out of the building. His head slowly fell to the side, his wide bulging eyes staring at Sarah. Wayne carried on forward and disappeared behind the next row of shelves on the other side of the aisle.
At the end of the aisle, through the haziness of the smoke and heat, Sarah saw Kenny at the far end of the warehouse holding an unarmed man up against the wall by his throat. The man was dressed in plain clothes and looked unassuming and harmless. His legs kicked frantically and he clawed at Kenny's gigantic meaty hands around his throat. The man's face turned red, then purple, then he stopped fighting altogether. Kenny gave his neck a final shove, snapping it, and his head flopped to the side. Kenny pulled the man away from the wall and hoisted him over his shoulder then turned toward a large puddle of fire burning next to him. He tossed the man from his shoulder into the fire, and his skin immediately started crackling.
That final sight was all Sarah could take, and she began to run down to the end of the shelves at the front toward a dark office sitting at the edge of the warehouse. She fumbled with the handle, frantically trying to rip it open like someone who was racing against time to get to the restroom. The door swung open with a whine and she disappeared inside, closing it behind her.
The blinds were closed on the windows of the office, but the firelight from outside glowed and provided the small room with faint visibility. The closed door provided a slight reprieve from the heat and it cut down drastically on the horrible smell of death that filled the warehouse.
There was a big wooden desk sitting in the middle of the room and it looked like it was the main office of the warehouse, presumably what Zed had used as his office when he took this place over. The room was relatively sparse, with a small stack of paperwork on the desk and some various supplies and tools scattered around.
Sarah wanted to find the deepest, darkest corner of the room and curl up in a ball, hoping it would all just go away. She couldn't understand what was happening. Noah had lied to her. He told her that all of the people at Zed's camp were savage men and brutal murderers. But they weren't. There were armed men, but there were also others who looked like nothing more than fathers and husbands. There were women, there were children. They looked no different than anyone at Noah's Ark, and they were all being mercilessly murdered in cold blood. But the worst thing of all was that Kenny said they were doing it under Noah's orders.
Noah said that Delroy had set them up and that the army he gathered tonight was marching off to take him out, but they carried out a sneak attack instead to wipe out both camps. Had he lied about Delroy betraying them? Had he lied about everything he ever told her? The still-warm memories of them sleeping together haunted her and every part of her body that he had touched suddenly felt cold. She felt ill and couldn't take it anymore.
She shivered violently as she walked around to the other side of the desk. Just as she started to cower, someone screamed.
Two people were huddled under the desk, hiding. Their eyes were wide like dinner plates and they hugged each other, too frightened to move. "Don't kill us!" a young girl who looked to be in her twenties cried.
"Please don't!" the other one said. He was younger than her, probably mid-teens, and there was a familiarity between them, like they were related.
Sarah was just as shocked as they were. "I'm not going to hurt you," she said, holding her hands up in an offer of appeasement.
"Are you with them?" the girl asked. "I haven't seen you before."
"I am," Sarah said.
The boy gasped.
"But... I don't think I'm really with them," she added.
"What do you mean?" the boy asked suspiciously.
"I..." she started. "Nothing, never mind. I'm not with them. I'm hiding now too."
"What's happening out there?" the girl asked. "Are they all dead?"
Sarah looked at the door over the top of the desk then hunched back down and nodded.
Their faces fell in despair.
"Was your family out there?" Sarah asked.
"No," the girl said. "Our parents died years ago, but still... everyone out there was like family to us. I don't even know what's happening."
Sarah saw the sadness in their eyes and it stirred something in her. A moment ago she felt defeated and betrayed to the worst degree, but seeing the two of them changed something inside her. The entire time she had been at Noah's Ark, even though it was safe, she always felt so useless and protected, like she wasn't able to do anything for herself anymore. But that wasn't true; she had made it across state lines with her son, dragging them through hell, and while she lost the dearest thing she had ever known, she was still here. "We have to get out of here," she said.
"Are you crazy?" the boy asked. "They're out there! We'll be killed!"
There was a noise at the door. A loud voice was talking to someone else just on the other side of it, and Sarah peeked over the top of the desk and saw the silhouette of a man painted onto the blinds in the surrounding orange light. "Got it! Checking the office!" she heard him say.
She ducked down and scrunched under the desk with them as best as she could in the limited space. "Someone's coming!" she whispered.
They all squeezed together, terrified.
The door opened. They saw the man's legs stroll into the office and start to circle around the desk. When he reached the side, they could only rely on their sense of hearing to tell them where he was. His boots clomped across the bare cement and his assault rifle softly rattled against the rest of his gear. The space under the desk was too small to fit all three of them, and Sarah's back was sticking out the end of it. She pushed herself against the other two, silently trying to shove them out of the way just as the man's leg swung behind her. He started opening drawers and rifling through them, loudly throwing things around onto the floor. He made a disapproving grunt and shoved the drawers closed, causing the desk to rattle.
The three of them huddled together underneath, shaking and scared. They had nowhere to go and nothing to defend themselves with, and if he checked under the desk, they were dead.
The man's legs disappeared around the other side and they listened to his footsteps again as they wound around back to the front of the office. He paused by the door then turned around and bent over to check underneath the desk.
The hollow space underneath was empty, and he made a satisfied sound, certain that no one had been hiding in the office. He stood back up and turned around, opening the door and leaving.
Sarah sat on the opposite side of the desk on one end with her back pressed against the drawers, and the young man and woman did the same on the other end. They looked at each other, thei
r hearts pounding, as they started gasping for air after holding their breath for so long.
"We need to go," Sarah said.
"How?" the girl asked. "There's people out there."
Sarah turned around and peeked over top of the desk. The man had left the door ajar and she could see out into the warehouse from where she was. She had a view of the front where she had entered the warehouse through the blown-away wall behind the receiving cage. "It's not far," she said. "If we hurry, we might be able to slip out without anyone seeing us."
"Okay," the boy said anxiously. "Let's go, then!"
As they started to get up, Sarah stopped them.
They looked at her.
"Where does Zed keep the weapons?"
"Why?" the girl asked.
Sarah looked at her with a newfound sense of strength. "You're going to need weapons to defend yourself," she said. "It would be a good idea to get some while we're here."
"We don't have time!" the boy cried. "Let's get out of here!"
"Where are they?" Sarah said firmly.
The boy relented. The girl peeked over the desk and through the doorway. "Over there," she said, pointing. "In that storage room. But it's always locked, I think."
Sarah looked at it, squinting her eyes to try and get a sharper look through the haze of smoke and heat. She could see the room that the girl was talking about. It was against the edge of the building, just beyond the receiving cage. A small fire burned on the floor near the door and the flickering heat illuminated it. The cement wall around it was cracked and it looked like the steel doorframe was bent.
"I think it'll open," Sarah said.
"Why?" the girl asked.
"The explosion must've shifted the metal. Come on, let's go look."
"Can't we just leave?" the boy said.
"No," Sarah replied. "I need something from in there." Without another word, she stood up and went to the door. She stopped and looked behind her, waiting to see if they would follow. They were reluctant, but they did as they were told.
She peeked out the door and saw the coast was clear. The gunfire had died down and she knew they would be wrapping up soon. If she waited any longer, they would start raiding the armory before she could get there, so she would have to be quick.
They cautiously slunk out of the office and along the first row of shelves with Sarah in the lead and the young boy and girl following closely behind, every hair on their bodies standing on end.
Sarah paused at the aisle stretching between the rows of shelves. Some men were patrolling around the middle of the warehouse, looking over the bodies and making sure they were dead, but no one was looking in her direction. The stacks of crates and boxes that filled the warehouse gave great cover, and kept visibility to a minimum. If they were quick, they could get what she wanted and slip out without anyone seeing them. She wanted to make it back to that house across the street before Wayne returned and found out she left.
They continued along the next row of shelves and passed the bent cage, keeping their distance from the fire as they stopped in front of the storage room door. The heat was intense and Sarah wrapped her shirt around her hand, stepping forward and pulling on the handle.
The frame was indeed bent enough for the latch to slide past the jamb without any hindrance, and the door swung open, letting the firelight spill into the room.
Suddenly, three of Noah's men came around the corner at the far end of the shelves.
"Get in!" Sarah whispered sharply as she grabbed the two of them and yanked them into the storage room, pulling the door closed behind them. She reacted instinctively and pulled the doorknob with her bare hand. The heat from the nearby fire had turned it white-hot and it briefly scorched her palm, making her jump from the shock. She yanked her hand away and doubled over, wrapping her coat around it and trying to ease the pain.
They all paused, listening to the footsteps approach the door. Sarah picked up a pistol sitting on a nearby table and held it by her side, not sure what she would actually do with it if the men came through the door. But a moment later, the footsteps faded away as the men passed by. Her heart settled a little and she swallowed a dry lump down her throat.
"Are you okay?" the girl asked her, looking at her hand.
"I'll be fine," Sarah said. She checked the pistol for ammo and discovered that it was already loaded with a full magazine, and she stuffed it in her pants. She started searching the room for anything else useful. Most of the weaponry was gone, most likely picked clean by all of Zed's men who had geared up to knock over Delroy's camp, but there were still a few items that remained. She picked up a duffel bag sitting under a bench in the corner of the room. "Here," she said, handing it to the girl. She pointed at a couple assault rifles in a gun locker mounted on the wall. "Do you know how to use any of those?"
Both of them shook their heads.
"What about a handgun?" Sarah asked.
"Yeah, I think so," the boy said.
"Take a couple of them and put them in the bag," Sarah said, "and look around and find as much ammo for them as you can. Those are nine-millimeter. Look for boxes that say 'nine-millimeter'."
"Got it," the boy said as he and the girl started searching for guns and ammo.
There was a huge cabinet at the back of the room filled with drawers. Sarah started pulling them out, trying not to be too loud. She hoped to find one very specific thing, but most of them turned up empty or with more guns and body armor. But when she opened the final drawer at the bottom, she saw them tucked away in the back corner. There weren't many of them, but they would do.
Eight C-4 charges were rather haphazardly tucked into the back of the drawer with a cloth sack of blasting caps and remote detonators sitting next to them.
"Come here," Sarah told the girl, and she started shoving the explosives into the bag along with the cloth sack.
"What are these?" the girl asked.
"Are those explosives?" the boy said.
The girl jumped on the spot, but kept her voice down. She nearly dropped the bag, and her arms started shaking.
"Relax," Sarah told her. "It's safe; they won't explode."
"What do you want me to do with them?" the girl asked.
"Hold on to them for now," she said cryptically. "Come on."
Sarah went back to the door and pushed it open a crack with the sleeve of her coat. She looked out and didn't see anyone around. The cage where she had come in was right next to them, the door leading through it only half a dozen yards away. She looked back at the two of them and said, "When I tell you, follow me quickly and we'll get out of here. Don't stop for anything."
They both agreed and anxiously waited behind her.
She was just about to throw her weight against the door when she saw Kenny and Wayne walk out from the aisle between the shelves and stand near the cage, blocking their exit.
"Did we get everyone?" Wayne asked.
"Everyone we could find," Kenny told him. "Couple might of slipped away, but that don't matter. Anyone fleein' ain't coming back."
"Good. Noah will be happy."
"Damn right he will! He'll be glad to hear these shit stains have been wiped out."
Wayne glanced outside through the hole in the wall. "Are the snipers on the roof? They'll be back soon."
"Yep," Kenny said. "In position and ready to go."
"Okay, I'll position the rest of the men. Wait for my order." Wayne slapped him on the shoulder and headed back toward the middle of the warehouse.
And to Sarah's horror, Kenny came straight for the storage room where they were hiding. He pulled the door open and stepped inside. "Shit that's hot," he said to himself, looking down at his hand, completely missing the three people pressed flat against the wall on either side of the door. He stood in the middle of the room, looking at what weapons were left. He knew there wouldn't be much, but he would have some men grab it anyway.
Sarah and the boy and girl were frozen in fear. All Kenny had to do was turn a
round and he would see them. She looked at the others and, being absolutely sure not to make a single sound, she motioned for them to move.
She pulled herself away from the wall and silently crept out of the room, waiting outside. It didn't matter if there were other men walking around the front of the warehouse; the last thing she wanted to do was be in the same room as Kenny. The boy and girl followed her, not making a peep, and the three of them headed for the cage. There was no one else around and it looked like they were in the clear. They slipped through the cage door and hopped through the hole blasted into the wall, letting the cool air wrap itself around their hot faces and hands.
They went up to the mangled tractor-trailer that Sarah had crawled under, and she told them to go first. They got down on their hands and knees and started crawling, trying to ignore the pain from the sharp bits of nearly disintegrated rubble that stabbed into them. Sarah got down and crouched under the semi-trailer, and the three of them paused to look off in the distance.
"Who are these men?" the girl asked at last. "Are they the bandits?"
"Noah's Ark," Sarah said.
"Zed told us bad things about Noah," the boy said. "He said he was a manipulator and a murderer... that all he wanted to do was kill us. I never thought it would actually happen."
"I didn't either," Sarah said.
"What's your name?" the girl asked.
"Sarah. What's yours?"
"Sandra," the girl said. "And this is my little brother Tommy."
"So where do we go now?" Tommy asked, looking out at the neighborhood surrounding the camp.
"Anywhere you can," Sarah told him. "Find somewhere to hide for the night, and take that bag with you. Don't let it out of your sight. Figure out how to use a gun and protect yourself if you need to."
A Rising Tide (Zombie Apocalypse Series Book 2) Page 17
