Reece whirled and dashed back to the doors to examine the window. The bullet had passed through the jacket, leaving a small splintered hole in the glass. Reece carefully eased his index finger through the hole and pulled. A chunk of glass broke away and fell at his feet. Reece worked away a few more chunks of glass until he could reach inside the window.
He reached down and grabbed the door handle, turned it.
Still locked.
He pushed his arm further in and the glass sliced painfully into his skin as his fingers rested on the handle of a key inside. He grabbed at it, turned it. The locking mechanism clicked and he quickly reached up and grabbed the handle.
The door swung open and Reece retrieved his arm. He reached down and picked up the shards of glass and tossed them into nearby foliage before he stepped inside and shut the door behind him, then ducked out of sight behind the nearest wall.
The guard’s head appeared at the top of the steps and scanned the wing of the house for several seconds. Reece held his breath as the man waited for what felt like an age, and then turned and strolled back down the steps and out of sight.
Reece breathed a deep sigh of relief and turned, looking down the corridor that led toward the main state house from the wing. The glass windows of the house were still intact, an oddity considering how most ground level windows in the city had been smashed by looters during the riots that had raged in the aftermath of the storm. Reece figured that maybe troops or police had held sway here for longer than elsewhere in the city, and managed to preserve the building until they too had abandoned their posts. Or that somehow the imposing building had represented something stronger than the people and that they had left it alone for fear of reprisals if government ever regained control. By the time they knew that such a feat was impossible, there were no longer enough people left in the city with the means or the will to do much damage.
Reece eased his way down the corridor. The weak light through the windows outside was not sufficient to illuminate the interior of the building beyond. Dark shadows awaited.
He moved silently into the main corridor of the Doric Hall. He could faintly see the large main entrance doors to his right. The smell of wood smoke was thick on the air, the white walls either side of the doors scorched with pillars of black soot. Reece turned left and crept through the Nurse’s Hall and on toward the Great Hall. He slowed as he saw flickering plumes of firelight shimmering off towering walls.
Reece squatted in the shadows and let his eyes adjust properly to the darkness around him. Slowly, he was able to pick out the form of several guards asleep against the wall on one side of the entrance. Reece eased his way past and climbed the grand staircase to the upper floor, making his way toward what had once been the Senate Chamber.
Reece edged his way to the entrance and saw the large amphitheatre, windows to either side through which filtered the dull morning light. Two flaming torches rested in iron clasps against the far wall. As Reece focused on the hall, he realised that he was looking at rows of cages, and that the cages were filled with people.
All at once, he knew he was in the right place and he ducked into a shadowy alcove.
He could see the keys to the cages within a few yards of where he crouched, dangling from then belt of one of a pair of sleeping guards. He was judging his chances of grabbing the keys without being spotted by the two awake guards when a fifth guard strode quietly up and whispered to his two companions.
In silence, the three men slipped away and abandoned their sleeping companions.
*
Sawyer sat in his chair and looked at the two women before him.
Despite the fearsome anarchy that had raged throughout the city of Boston in the wake of the Great Darkness, Sawyer had never thought of violating a woman. During those bleakest of days and weeks as humanity sank into deprivation and despair he had seen so many terrible things that he no longer felt as though he existed in the real world. He had seen entire families beaten and raped by gangs of drunken thugs, seen others imprisoned to serve biker gangs marauding through the city like harbingers of death until there was nobody left to prey upon.
Sawyer was not a particularly religious man, but through the drifting smoke, writhing flames and echoing screams haunting Boston in those dark days he had truly believed that he was witnessing the end of days. The final judgement on mankind’s excesses seemed somehow appropriate in all of its gruesome glory until his own family, huddling in his apartment in the suburbs, had been smoked out by a gang.
By that time, food was scarce and drunken debauchery had metamorphosed into a genuine fight for survival. The stakes were high, millions facing starvation and disease, and although the dark spectre of cannibalism had not yet reared its macabre head, the killing of the weak for their resources to feed the strong was well under way.
His family’s meagre remaining supplies were worth more to the gang than all the gold in the world. As Sawyer had tried to reason with the murderous gang they had tossed Molotov cocktails in through the windows, setting the apartment aflame while manning the fire escape. The only way out was through the windows to a three storey drop, or for Sawyer to fight to protect his children.
Sawyer had fought on the fire escape, his wife alongside him.
They had battered their way out and opened fire on the thugs with a .38 that Sawyer kept for self-defence, just as the Constitution allowed him to. Then they had fought with a crow bar and a baseball bat when the bullets had run out.
His wife died beside him from a blow to the head that had stove her skull in.
Sawyer managed to kill the remaining members of the gang, driven by a force of nature seething through his veins the likes of which he had never known before. Yet despite the sacrifice and the courage, the flames had spread too far. Sawyer had charged back into his apartment, into that hellish inferno, only to find his two young sons long dead from the smoke and the flames.
The memory of them seared his brain just as the fire had once seared his skin.
‘What do you want from us?’
Charlotte, the feisty one, glared at him. Sawyer blinked his memories away.
‘Very little,’ he replied, ‘but your cooperation.’
‘Why the hell should we cooperate with you?’ Charlotte challenged him. ‘You’re nothing but a killer.’
There were no guards in the room this time, both women instead bound with cuffs.
‘Yes I am,’ Sawyer replied. ‘But that doesn’t mean I wish to remain one.’
‘What do you mean?’
It was the quieter one this time, Bethany, who had spoken. Sawyer found himself curiously drawn to her. Despite the horrors infecting the lives of every human being around them she seemed strangely unaffected, her gaze clear as though she were not judging but merely observing.
‘I want to leave this place just as much as you all do,’ he replied finally. ‘The question is: whom do I take with me?’
‘You won’t make it aboard the ship,’ Charlotte snorted. ‘They’ll cut you and your merry band to pieces without Hank.’
Sawyer smiled at her. ‘Possibly. Right now, however, I would like to offer one of you a place. For the right price, of course.’
Sawyer let his gaze wander over their bodies.
Charlotte baulked. ‘I’d rather be eaten alive.’
‘I can arrange that,’ Sawyer pointed out. Bethany remained silent and Sawyer looked at her instead.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Charlotte uttered at Bethany.
Bethany sighed. ‘I’m tired and I want out of here.’
Charlotte did not rebuke her friend, but instead shot Sawyer a dirty look. Sawyer looked Bethany over one more time and then made his decision.
‘You may leave,’ he said to Charlotte and rapped his knuckles on his desk loudly. The office door opened and two guards stalked in. ‘Take her back to her cage,’ he ordered.
The guards lifted Charlotte out of the chair and guided her away from the office. The door closed beh
ind them, leaving Bethany alone with Sawyer. The two looked at each other for a long moment before Sawyer spoke.
‘I have no intention of harming you,’ he said.
‘And I have no intention of letting you rape me,’ Bethany replied.
‘You think that you can stop me?’
‘No,’ Bethany replied, ‘but I have something far more valuable to you, and you’re going to do something for me.’
Sawyer looked at her curiously for a moment and then leaned forward across the desk.
‘And what might that be?’
Bethany spoke quietly, and as she did so Sawyer realised that he would indeed be looking after her and that they would be leaving immediately.
***
36
Cody sat in the cage and stared into the darkness.
Jake sat in the next cage, likewise alone with his thoughts.
Cody knew that Sawyer would gather his men and make an attempt to board the Phoenix, probably by dawn. That Maria was being held against her will and beyond his reach infected him with fresh anguish that felt almost like a constant companion. It throbbed through his bones as one fear was replaced with another, clogging his arteries and aching in his labouring heart.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Jake’s voice reached out for Cody in the darkness. There was no accusation in the tone, only a plea for understanding.
‘Don’t say that you’d have understood,’ Cody replied. ‘You wouldn’t have.’
‘I’d have listened,’ Jake said. ‘I know you didn’t mean for it to happen, Cody, but you caused Bobby’s death.’
Cody swallowed. ‘I put him out with the morphine too. Beth’ couldn’t bring herself to do it.’
He heard a muffled Jesus from the darkness.
‘I can’t change the past,’ Cody said.
‘No,’ Jake agreed. ‘You can’t.’
Cody could not think of anything to say. He sat in silence.
A movement caught his eye. Two of the nearby guards were sleeping as two kept watch. A fifth approached silently from behind them and whispered something. Moments later, the three guards slipped away from the hall and left their sleeping companions behind.
Cody stared curiously at the exit for several long minutes, awaiting the guards’ return and wondering if Sawyer was making his move already. He spotted fresh movement and was about to look away when something caused him to sit up and take notice.
A shadow against shadows at the entrance to the hall. Cody squinted as he searched for the source of the movement and his heart leapt against the wall of his chest as he saw Reece emerge into the flickering firelight and creep toward the sleeping guards.
Cody silently got to his feet and moved to the bars of the cage. Reece had sneaked up alongside the sleeping guards and had reached out for the keys dangling from one of their belts. Cody felt himself tense up as Reece carefully unhooked the keys off the belt and backed away.
Cody watched in fearful amazement, his fingernails digging into his palms as Reece slipped away and then turned to face the cages. Cody waved his arms in silence and Reece hurried silently across to the cage as other prisoners began to wake up and realise what was happening in a rush of whispers.
Reece reached the cage door and fumbled through the keys.
‘How did you get here?’ Cody asked in a whisper.
Reece replied as he shoved a key into the lock. ‘Shot through a window on the west wing.’
The key didn’t fit and he immediately tried another.
‘I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ Jake said from the next cage.
Reece froze, looking at the old man. ‘What, you don’t want to get out?’
Jake looked at Cody. ‘I don’t know that I want him out of there.’
The prisoners in Cody’s cage gasped and began reaching out of the cage for Reece’s keys as their wary eyes watched the guards sleeping nearby.
‘Why the hell not?’ Reece whispered.
Cody looked at Jake and shook his head, but the old man spoke softly. His words carried softly to Reece, who lowered his hand from the lock as he stared in horror at Cody and began backing away.
‘You killed Bobby?’ he uttered. ‘And somebody else too?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Cody pleaded.
‘Unlock this cage,’ Jake ordered Reece. ‘We need to get out of here.’
Reece nodded vacantly, his eyes still fixed on Cody.
‘They’ve got my daughter,’ Cody said to Reece. ‘They’ve got Maria.’
Reece turned for the next cage, hurrying across and testing keys in the lock.
‘Where’s Saunders?’ Jake asked.
‘Injured,’ Reece explained. ‘Back at the boat.’
‘The crew are all here?’ Cody asked, his spirits rising.
Reece answered, but he looked at Jake as he did so. ‘They mutinied. Saunders and I were lucky to get away.’
‘The ship’s gone?’ Jake uttered.
‘No,’ Reece grinned, and Cody watched as he pulled a metal link from his shirt pocket. ‘Rudder’s out, unless they can replace this.’
The key in the door clicked into place and Reece turned it with a smile as he pocketed the rudder link and drew his pistol.
‘Looks like I’m the hero,’ he grinned.
Something flickered through the darkness from behind Reece. Cody shouted a warning but it was too late. A blur of bright light thumped into Reece’s back between his shoulder blades.
Reece slammed against the cage as the huge knife quivered in his back, the grin snatched from his face as he stared wide-eyed at Jake, his fingers gripping the bars. Jake reached out for Reece as he slipped, caught his weight and pinned Reece’s pistol between them as a voice thundered out from across the amphitheatre.
‘Get away from the cage!’
Cody saw the two guards lumbering toward them, awake now and both aiming pistols.
He turned and saw Jake look down at Reece, who glanced down at the pistol between them.
‘Do it,’ Reece rasped, tears filling his eyes as his legs quivered beneath him, ‘before I let go.’
His voice rattled as blood leaked furiously into his lungs and spluttered from his lips as his aorta ruptured somewhere deep within him. Jake reached down and grabbed the pistol as Reece held onto his shirt, his legs bowing as the strength went out of them. Jake turned the pistol, flicked off the safety catch.
‘You’re a hero all right,’ Jake whispered to Reece.
Reece smiled.
Jake whipped the pistol up and aimed it through the bars of the cell at the two hulking men bearing down on them. Patrick and Gus halted as they recognised the old man.
‘Wait,’ Gus said, raised a hand. ‘We’re not…’
Cody felt a pulse of alarm as he saw the grin determination on Jake’s face and he shouted. ‘No! We need them!’
Jake ignored him and fired the pistol.
Cody watched Gus fall, his pistol clattering to the ground and his hands clasped to his chest as blood spilled from his fractured heart. Jake turned and aimed at Patrick, who had realised that with Reece’s inert body blocking his view he could not hit Jake and was turning to run for cover.
The shot hit Patrick in the back and sent him tumbling to his knees. The guard kept scrambling for cover, his legs kicking as he tried to drag himself out of sight. Jake let go of Reece and aimed double handed before firing twice.
Both shots slammed into Patrick’s body just below his neck and he slumped on the marble floor. Jake lowered the smouldering pistol and stared at the two dead men as Reece collapsed to his knees and toppled onto his back at the foot of the cage door.
‘Open your cage!’ Cody yelled at Jake, who was staring at his victims. ‘Quickly!’
‘Open our cage!’
The voice came from behind Cody as an emaciated man staggered toward the door.
Jake reached out through the bars and grabbed the keys, fumbling with them as shouts echoed down the corri
dors outside the amphitheatre, bellicose roars of alarm that became louder with every passing second.
‘They heard the shots!’ another prisoner yelled. ‘You’ll get us all killed!’
Jake fumbled with the keys until suddenly the mechanism clicked and the heavy door swung open. Cody yelled at him.
‘Get the other guns, but don’t shoot!’
Jake burst from the cage and ran at the dead bodies of the guards as from behind him in the cage a flood of prisoners burst shrieking from their incarceration and flooded toward the main exit.
Jake grabbed Gus’s fallen pistol and turned to look at Cody. For a long moment they stared at each other.
‘Throw the keys!’ Cody yelled.
Jake hefted the keys in his hand for a long moment, and then tossed them across to the cage alongside Cody’s. The keys rattled down through the bars as the prisoners within pounced on them, Sauri among them.
‘Find Maria!’ Cody pleaded as Jake fled for the exit.
***
37
Hank heard the commotion and turned to Sawyer as the leader of the militia tossed him back his crucifix, the golden chain sparkling in the dawn light from the windows.
‘They’re out,’ Sawyer said clairvoyantly. ‘We go now.’
Hank caught the crucifix and fastened it about his thick neck as he looked at Bethany. She stood with a child held close to her hip, an anxious expression painted across her features.
Sawyer stuffed a pair of pistols into his belt and lifted an AR-15 assault rifle to his shoulder. His pockets bulged with ammunition clips. To Hank he looked like some kind of school child festooned with plastic toys. The horror was that the weapons were real.
Sawyer reached into what looked like some kind of military chest and lifted out what Hank recognised as a handful of distress flares.
‘They’ll tear us apart if they find us,’ Bethany urged.
‘We’re going,’ Sawyer replied. ‘I’ll lead the way.’
Sawyer stepped out of the governor’s office and into the hallway outside. They turned right as Sawyer jogged down the thickly carpeted hall. Light from outside now illuminated the corridors, which remained virtually pristine in condition. Only thick dust on ornaments and picture frames betrayed the lack of human attention.
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