Positioned under one of the shower heads was a plastic bucket filled to the brim with yellow water. A single drop tumbled from the shower head and landed with a deafening echo.
“Thirsty, anyone?” Joanne offered with a wry grin.
Foster glared down at it, his weapon aimed at the object as though it might leap up and attack them. “That’s not ours,” he whispered. “We tapped an aquifer underneath the prison and been using that for drinking water.”
“It sure as hell belongs to someone,” Finn said. “And there isn’t any blood in it so I can only assume it got here after all the carnage took place.”
Wipers was the thought in everyone’s head, although no one came right and said so. They didn’t need to, Finn knew. They were sharing the prison. Zhou had said so himself. He’d even lost three men and conducted multiple searches. And that told Finn that, like most of the Wipers he’d come across, these guys were adapting to their environment.
When they finally cleared the showers, Joanne let out a deep sigh. Slowly, they padded their way up through cell blocks D, C, and B. No matter how many stairs they climbed, the horrible smells stayed with them the entire time, and even Finn found himself fighting for every breath. By the time they reached cell block A, they’d seen plenty of signs the area was well trodden. Inside one of the open cells was a set of towels, presumably taken from the showers. They’d been shaped into a kind of giant rat’s nest. Even more surprising, the cell had paintings on the wall, albeit drawn in blood. Most of them were handprints, but others were so strange they likely made no sense to anyone other than their creator.
A series of open gates led from cell block A toward the prison’s administrative wing. One door already ajar had a sign stencilled in bright red letters: Only authorized personnel beyond this point. All others may be shot.
Finn was about to walk through when Foster shouted for him to stop. Glancing down, Finn saw that his right foot was nudging the edge of a trip wire. Slowly, he backed away. Taking position beside the door frame, Foster used the butt of his rifle to trigger the trap. The sound of snapping metal was loud as a sledgehammer swung from the ceiling. Another step and it might have shattered his rib cage.
“Asymmetric warfare,” Foster said with a smile. “That motherfucker woulda killed your ass dead.”
Finn clapped him on the back. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
They stepped past the sledge hammer dangling limply now in the doorway and entered the admin offices. Small rooms on either side furnished with desks and computers; exactly the sorts of things you’d expect to see among paper pushers.
And then there were the other things you didn’t normally see. Bloody hand prints. Pools of dried bodily fluids where corpses had begun to break down. None of this was the sort of thing you ever got used to. At the end of the hall was an oak door with a brass name plate:
Gordon Sinclair.
And beneath that:
Warden
Joanne tapped the shiny name plate with her index finger. “Now there’s one guy who seriously loved his job.” She was about to push her way inside before Finn stopped her.
“Not yet. Not until we know what’s in there.”
“Yes,” Foster said. “Or who.”
Dana
The trailer was quiet when Dana entered. Mountains of canvas tent flaps and stacks of plastic chairs made it hard to see if Romeo were still here. There was no reason he shouldn’t be. She’d left him cuffed to a seat at the back. The chances of him making a break for it were pretty much slim to none, especially since going beyond New Jamestown’s walls meant almost certain death.
When she called his name, the answer that came from the back of the trailer wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting.
Destruction is worldwide. Safety and a fresh start awaits you. Forty-one degrees, 14 minutes, 42 seconds north ... 111 degrees, 93 minutes, 0 seconds west.
She recognized it as the recording she’d heard over the short wave. The one that led her to the compound.
Drawing her SIG, Dana moved cautiously past piles of folded canvas to the source of the noise. That was when she found Romeo, sitting at the table, working an old style tape recorder.
“Whoa, down girl,” he said, eyeing the gun in her hand. “It’s just me.”
She looked down at his wrists. “Where are your handcuffs?”
He pointed to the metal rail next to him where a single cuff was still attached. “It was chafing,” he said, showing off the red ring around his wrist as if to prove his point. “‘Sides, where am I gonna go?”
Dana tossed a handful of crackers and half can of tuna on the table. “I was on my way to speak with Timothy and thought I’d check in on you. I’m glad now that I did. You’re one slippery fish, you know that?”
He didn’t seem to be listening. “You should see all the shit they got in here.” He played the tape again, and Dana shook her head.
“I’ve heard it before.”
“Yeah, but did you ever ask yourself who made it?”
The voice on the recording sounded an awful lot like All Father, but the sound wasn’t great, and every time she started to feel sure, an image of his son, Simon, would pop into her head. “It’s hard to tell.”
“Sure is,” Romeo said. “‘Cept, that isn’t the half of it.” He flipped the tape over and pressed play. The voice on this side was even harder to make out, but sounded similar.
“The reading Abigail has provided about the Chosen One’s abilities is clear and unambiguous. A male and a female, one useless without the other. Drawing them here, that is the difficult part. Which is why I’ve made this tape to broadcast in all directions. Abigail had said they would be out there. Born anew from The Shift. And when they arrive, the next stage of our evolution will begin.”
The tape clicked off and Romeo stared up at her. “Crazy shit, eh?”
“Is there more?” she asked.
“Nada. But that signal was what brought me here, too. Brought nearly everyone, I’d say. They’re waiting for a couple of saviors to show up. Could be me, you know. Just saying.”
Dana was deep in thought. “I doubt that very much.”
Romeo flexed his biceps. “Check these guns out. They got golden child written all over ‘em. But haters gonna hate, right?”
She wanted to laugh. Romeo was hamming it up, but all she could think about right now was Lou’s wife, strapped to that chair. Was she being brainwashed, as Larry had assumed? Or were they looking for their savior? The voice on the other side of that tape was muffled, but could whoever had made it have also tortured and killed Patty Mae? And Abigail? Dana took the recorder from him. “You find anything else?” she asked.
“Think I’ve been sitting here meditating like one of those Rainbowites? ‘Course, I have.” He reached behind him and produced a role of 8mm film and held it up to the light. “Found this on an old projector trashed in the corner. Bunch of creepy psychedelic-type stuff. I mean really out there. Back before Larry decided he didn’t need me no more, he mentioned finding Lou’s wife watching some whacked-out homemade movie.”
Dana took the film, too, and started to leave.
“Hey, what the hell am I supposed to do now?”
She was reaching for the door, getting ready to pick Timothy’s brain. “Try meditating.”
•••
Dana found Timothy on the compound roof, with a cult member making repairs to the wiring that led from the windmill to the battery bank downstairs. The charge on the batteries wasn’t nearly as high as it normally was, and Timothy suspected rats had been gnawing at the wires.
Timothy wiped the sweat from his forehead with a rag, which he shoved into his back pocket. He didn’t look at all happy, and Dana guessed it had everything to do with his angry altercation with Larry.
“I’m assuming you’re not here to offer your help,” he said.
Dana gritted her teeth at the biting comment. “I wish I could, but it’s tough to maintain order in New Ja
mestown on a part-time basis.”
“No doubt. Who would we have then to wield the whip Larry’s too cowardly to use himself?”
“I need to ask you some things,” she said, tiring of this little game.
“Certainly.” Timothy nodded to the cult member. “Give us a moment, would you?” The man rose and went through the door that led from the roof back into the compound.
“So, you haven’t come to commiserate about our new dictator then.”
Chuckling, Dana shook her head that she hadn’t. “I need to ask you about cyanide.”
Timothy looked shocked. “Cyanide?
“Any idea who in the colony would have access to it?”
“Haven’t the faintest. We have no use for it.”
“Well, we think it may have been used to murder someone.”
“You’re kidding me.” Genuine shock and concern filled his gaunt features. “Who?”
“Patty Mae.”
“Lou’s wife,” Timothy said, and a look flashed across his face, but Dana wasn’t sure what it meant.
“Her body, you’ll remember, was found floating in the river.”
“Oh her, yes,” Timothy said. “A terrible thing. But I thought she drowned.”
Dana watched as he went back to stripping the ends of the wires and attaching the two ends together. “It was made to look like she drowned. But maybe there’s something else you can help me with.” She removed the recorder from the pack she was wearing and played the tape. Timothy listened, his face a stoic mask.
“Any idea who’s voice that could be?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”
“There’s something else on the tape, too. Something about broadcasting the signal to draw in people with special ... abilities. That mean anything to you?”
Timothy shook his head, although he didn’t seem nearly as composed as a moment ago.
“I ask ‘cause I’d be willing to bet whoever made this tape tortured and killed Patty Mae. Perhaps others as well.”
The cult member came back just then.
“I wish I could help you more,” Timothy said, “but as you can see, we’re extremely busy.”
“So, just for the record, did you ever have any contact with Patty Mae before her death?”
“Never saw the woman before.”
“Thanks, Timothy,” Dana said and left.
There wasn’t any point asking him about the 8mm film Romeo had found. She’d approached him as an expert and perhaps a witness, but she couldn’t understand why he’d fed her one baldfaced lie after another. She’d already learned from Larry, and then Romeo, that Timothy knew all about Patty Mae’s brainwashing – or whatever her confinement had been about – and now here he was playing dumb. Maybe he wasn’t a witness at all, Dana thought. Maybe he was a suspect.
Carole
All of them were huddled in the stockroom, waiting frantically for a sign from either Callahan or Russell. The peephole on the back door could swivel, but even so, all Carole could see was an empty alleyway. To make matters worse, the doors that led from the showroom were the swinging kind that didn’t latch shut. Probably a great convenience for employees shuffling back and forth with racks of clothing, but right now it left them with no real way of holding the Wipers at bay once they managed to break through.
All that stood between them and death was the metal plate covering the hole in the wall, and that was being held in place by a single latch. Once they figured out the mechanism and stopped pounding on it as Carole could hear them doing now, their little group would be in dire straights indeed.
“What if they don’t come?” Holly asked, her face a mask of fear. She was searching around for something she could use as a weapon, without having much luck.
“They’ll come.” Carole said. “In the meantime, we need to block these push doors with something. A length of industrial shelving hugged the wall next to the door. If they could slide it over, it might be enough to slow the Wipers down.
“Everyone, grab hold of it,” Dana told them. They did as she said, some pushing, others pulling. It moved a foot before stopping.
“Come on, keep at it, Girls, don’t give up.”
Outside, the pounding had stopped, which meant the Wipers were likely trying something different. Time was running out. More heaving, and the giant shelf gave another foot. A handful more and it would be in place. The kids’ faces were red, and Carole knew that if Russell and Callahan were here helping, it would already be done. A moment later, they’d managed to cover the first door flap when Carole heard the sound of sliding metal. The Wipers had found the latch and were raising the plate. They’d be here any minute.
“One last push, girls,” Carole called out. “Dig deep.” The veins in their foreheads were popping from the strain. Slowly, the shelf inched into place just as the Wipers pushed on the stockroom doors. They stopped with a bang and then another as the brutes tried to shove their way inside. No doubt, the Wipers were probably on the other side wondering what was blocking their way in. Carole rushed to the back door and put her eye to the peephole. Still no sign of the men.
“We might need to make a run for it,” she told Holly, who didn’t look happy at all with Carole’s suggestion. Running outside with young children wasn’t the smartest idea.
More banging, and now a Wiper had managed to squeeze his face in the crack. The little girls screamed. A steel rod used as a floor bolt to lock the back door rested in the corner. Something Holly must have missed in her search. Carole took it and thrust the end of the rod toward the man’s face. At the last second, he moved away, and she pulled back. But this only made the girls scream louder, egging on the Wipers outside.
“We can’t stay here,” Holly cried, her daughter, Tamara, clutching her leg in terror. The two women exchanged a knowing glance that spoke of the untold horrors that awaited them outside. What was worse, dying in here like a cat stuck in a hole or taking your changes out there? Carole got Jessica’s attention and then motioned toward the back door. The girl took a final look through the peephole before pressing the push bar. Suddenly, the room was flooded with light from outside, and one by one they all ran from the stockroom.
Almost at once, Carole caught the sound of automatic gunfire to the right of their location, which made going left, away from the fighting, a no-brainer. Carole, Holly, and Jessica all took one kid by the hand and led them through the alley toward East 400 Street. They were nearly there when a bizarre sight came lumbering around the corner. Carole blinked twice to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. It was an ice cream truck, complete with a delicious- looking soft vanilla cone on the roof, and it was only then that she saw that it was Russell behind the wheel. He slammed the breaks and waved them over, like a getaway driver during a bank heist.
“We gotta go.”
Carole went around back and opened the double doors. She was helping to load the children in when Russell called out. “Wipers straight ahead.” They were coming out of the Victoria’s Secret. Must have finally figured out they could pull the stockroom doors open and slide between the shelves.
Her pulse was pounding something fierce now as she helped to load all the kids onboard. She barely had time to climb on herself and shut the doors before Russell put the truck in reverse and floored it.
“Where’s Callahan?” she called out, holding on to what she could.
“We got separated, and I haven’t seen him since.”
Suddenly, the sound of the gun battle made sense. Callahan was likely pinned down in the streets. “We can’t just leave him.” She was right, and Russell knew it. He cursed, almost in acquiescence, and slammed on the breaks. The Wipers were still chasing them fruitlessly down the alley when Russell popped it into drive, flicked on the ice cream jingle by hitting a switch on the dashboard, and punched the gas. A few of them managed to scatter out of the way before the truck came barreling through. But most weren’t so lucky, and Holly clamped her hands over Tamara’s ears so she wouldn’t
have to hear the sounds of their bodies being hit and then dragged under the tires.
Straight ahead was the spot where the Humvee had crashed last night, except the vehicle was no longer there. The sound of firing intensified as they drew near, and Russell said, “I should have my head examined for doing this.” Spinning the wheel, he skidded the ice cream truck into the street. Up ahead, a group of Wipers was firing at an unknown target. A target that was probably Callahan.
The Wipers were weaving between the abandoned cars when they must have heard the ice cream truck barreling down on them, accompanied by a twisted child’s song promising sweet goodness.
“Everyone, get down,” Russell shouted.
Three raised their weapons to fire and nearly got a shot off before the truck slammed into them with a meaty crunch.
“Carole, be ready to open those back doors on my count.”
The few remaining Wipers fired as they sped past. A handful of nickel sized holes appeared in a line across the back door. If Carole had still been standing she would have been dead. The truck lurched to a full stop, and Russell told her “Now!”
Carole swung open the doors, and there was Callahan, darting out from cover toward them. Just then, not 15 yards away, a Wiper took aim and fired. Carol shouted to warn him, but the bullet went wide. That was when she felt something strike her in the gut with the force of a hammer blow. Callahan spun when he saw what had happened and dropped the Wiper with two well-placed shots.
The next thing Carole knew she was on the floor of the truck, Holly holding her from behind, asking if she was hurt. Blood starting to ooze out between Carole’s fingers.
Climbing on a second later, Callahan closed the doors and told Russell to go.
They sped away, hearing sounds of gunfire chasing them down the street.
The pain in Carole’s belly was throbbing now, and Callahan opened a drawer filled with napkins and began applying pressure to the wound. Carole gritted her teeth and fought to stay awake.
You gave birth to two kids. This should be a cake walk.
The last thing she remembered was telling him the way to Rainbowland, her voice struggling to rise above a whisper, Callahan’s young face hovering, reassuring her that everything would be just fine.
Primal Shift: Volume 2 (A Post Apocalyptic Thriller) Page 10
