Max could use one of his few remaining shredders to do the job but that would be a waist of a good shell plus it would be the antithesis of stealth. This was going to require a bit of grace and skill. Since he has no tools suitable for lock picking he searches the archives of his mind for an alternate means of circumventing the deadbolt.
“Vinny, do you think you could spare a round from your magnum?”
“Look man if you can’t get in, then no need to do anything drastic,” Vinny says with his usual level of sarcasm.
“I need the gun powder and primer to blow the lock.”
Vinny reaches into his pocket, extracts a cartridge and hands it over to Max. Max goes to work removing the slug from the cartridge casing with his teeth and once done discards the hollow pointed lead. He pours the powder from the cartridge into the deadbolt lock through the keyhole. Max then –using a discarded stir stick he finds littering the parking lot in front of the coffee house- removes the primer from the cartridge and pushes that into the keyhole so that some is still exposed. He looks around for something to use as a hammer and decides that the folding stock of his riot shotgun will do.
Max cautions Brooke and Vinny, “I’ve never tried this before so you better stand back.”
He takes the butt of the gun and with a short precise stroke hammers it against the keyhole. The impact ignites the primer with a quick spark that causes the gunpowder inside the lock to explode. The sound it creates is similar to that of a small firecracker but everyone holds his or her breath in anticipation of the biter’s screams just in case. After waiting a few moments, quiet still prevails, so Max proceeds to check the lock. He puts the tip of the empty cartridge casing between his teeth and bites down until it’s flat. He inserts the flat end into the deadbolts keyhole and turns it. The deadbolt retracts leaving the door unlocked.
Brooke rewards Max with a soft clap and says, “Let’s get in there, maybe we can find something to eat.”
“Just a minute,” replies Max as he points to the alarm, “Does anyone have some gum?”
Brooke reaches through her collar, into her shirt and down into her bra. She pulls out a single stick of cinnamon flavored gum and hands it to Max with a sheepish smile.
Max accepts it with a smile of his own, “I never thought I could be jealous of a stick of gum.”
The comment widens Brooke’s smile and she demurely lowers her gaze to the pavement. Vinny cuts his eyes at Max –who doesn’t notice- and subconsciously adjusts the revolver in his waistband.
Max unwraps the gum and pops it into his mouth. A chill runs down his back and he tries to suppress an emotional response to the scent of Brooke’s perfume on the gum wrapper. He isn’t sure if he pulls it off. After a few chews he removes it from his mouth and sticks it to one end of the foil wrapper. He then slides the other end in-between the door and jam until it’s touching the magnetic alarm contact. He uses the gum to hold it in place.
“Let’s do it,” he proclaims as he pushes the door inward to the sound of silence.
Vinny –now on his feet- is shaking his head, “I’m not even going to ask where you picked up that little trick,”
Taking charge, Max decides to delegate tasks, “I’ll find the white pages, and you two look for food and check the phone.”
Slowly the sweet aroma of tomato sauce, bell peppers, mozzarella and pizza dough supplant the smell of gunpowder. The scent causes Vinny’s nostrils to flare and his stomach to growl. He continues to search the small dimly lit space for a phone. He finds a black -and somewhat bulky- three-line office phone sitting behind the counter. Nearby, Max has also located his target and is thumbing through the directory. Brooke isn’t as lucky.
“Everything in the fridge is raw, so unless we’re going to fire up the oven we’re S.O.L.”
“Some pepperoni and jalapeno pizza sounds real good right now, but of course that’s not happening.” Max hears his stomach grumble at the thought of food.
“I think I’ve found what we need. What’s up with the phone?”
“Dead, just like the sheriff station. I wish just one of us would have had the forethought to keep our phone in our pocket back at the cabin.”
Vinny looks Brooke head to toe admiring the fit of her jeans. Even in her disheveled state, she was still a sight to behold. He continues, “Except for you. No way you’re fitting a phone in any of those pockets, and I’m not even sure how you wedged a stick of gum into that bra.”
Brooke crumples a flier from the counter top and deftly tosses it at Vinny’s head, hitting him squarely between the eyes.
Max picks up where he left off, pretending not to hear or care about Vinny’s comments, “Then it looks like we continue to hoof it. Are you up to it? We have a couple of miles to go according to this little map.”
Vinny shrugs his shoulders and immediately winces, “What’s the alternative?”
“Well, we have no car, we have no food, we’re short on bullets and I can’t reach Big Mama. If this clinic is functioning then it’s probably protected. At the very least we should be able to find you some pain killer and a shoulder splint.” Max says trying to end on a positive note.
After a brief pause, Vinny says, “Then what the hell are we waiting for?”
***
After about ten minutes of uneventful walking, Vinny stops dead in his tracks and puts up one hand signaling to the others to do the same.
He whispers low, “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” asks Brooke.
“I thought I heard a fourth set of foot steps. Softer than ours and further away”
Max and Brooke look at each other and share the same expression of confusion.
Max responds, “I didn’t hear anything, and we haven’t seen another living sole since the freeway. How’re you feeling?”
“It’s not the pain; my shoulder actually doesn’t feel so bad at the moment. I think maybe that the pain got so bad that it kind of went numb. I’m telling you that I heard something.”
Max spins in a slow turn, checking 360-degrees of darkness, lit sporadically with the occasional street lamp.
“Do you think we have a tail?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it is walks when we walk and stops when we stop. I’ve been hearing it for a while and thought it was my imagination but now I think it’s starting to close the distance between us.”
Max nods his head, deciding it’s better to err on the side of caution, “Then let’s pick up our pace. We only have about a mile to go and maybe there will be help there.”
They quicken their stride in hopes of putting some distance between themselves and whomever or whatever is following them -be it real or imagined.
Before long, they come to an intersection and Max pauses to consult the map in the back of the thin phonebook he carries.
“This is our turn. We’re close now.”
Vinny nods and adds, “That’s good because whatever is following us sounds like it is right on our tail”
“I know. I can hear it too.” Max picked up the sound a short while ago but saw no point in heightening the stress level by announcing it.
Brooke adds, “I think it’s letting us hear it, like maybe it wants us to know it’s here.”
Max nods, “I think you’re right. The question is, who or what is it, and why is it stalking us? If it means us harm then the best thing we can do is get out of the open as soon as possible. We only have two guns and there’s too much area to defend out here. The clinic should allow better cover.”
They walk once again, this time upping their pace even more and hoping with every step that they can make it to their destination unmolested. Vinny may have said that he was feeling no pain, but Max finds that hard to believe. Maybe nerve damage is the culprit, or perhaps he is just trying to soldier through it, but Max senses that something is seriously wrong there.
After a few blocks, the clinic is finally in sight.
Max tilts his head toward it, “That’s it right
there.”
Vinny smirks, “Well, the lights are on.”
“I was hoping for a bit more than just some lights. Where is the National Guard? Hell, even the local PD would do.” Max says with obvious chagrin.
“Maybe they’re all inside,” says Brooke.
As they get closer to the clinic, it is evident that the military had, at the very least, been there at some point and might even still be within the structure. Two lightly armored trucks are parked at the entrance to the clinic and appear to be partially blocking the door.
“Hey, check this out.” Vinny bends over and comes back up with an empty shell casing from the gutter. “Look, these are all up and down the gutter here.”
He hands it to Max who turns it on end and studies the base of the used bullet.
“This is military issue 5.56 ammunition. It looks like there was a firefight.”
Brooke looks perplexed, “Uh, I’m new to this but, if there was a firefight then shouldn’t there be some bodies, or at least some blood? I mean there has to be over a few hundred used bullets here on the street. They had to hit something.”
Max considers it, “Maybe they moved the bodies inside. Anyway, we can’t stand here any longer, so unless someone else has a better idea I think we should get inside.”
Max signals to Vinny to post up and watch the street while he cautiously makes his way to one of the military vehicles and takes a look through the window.
“No keys in this one. Brooke, can you check the other?”
Vinny whispers loudly since his back is turned to Max, “Can’t you just do your thing?”
“Even if I could, would you really want to get caught by the military driving around in one of their stolen vehicles? Anyway, the doors are locked and windows are up so we can’t even get in to try.”
“Just break the window.”
Max shakes his head, “Bulletproof and shatterproof, but the owners may be inside the clinic and willing to give us a ride. We need to be careful though. They may not take kindly to us entering with guns in hand.”
Chapter 11 – The Clinic
The interior of the clinic is dark, with the exception of emergency lighting that is dispersed throughout the lobby, hallway and over the doors. The interior of the clinic is ghostly silent. Presumably damaged in the firefight, a few of the emergency lights’ wires have shorted-out causing them to flicker and this creates a spastic pseudo strobe effect. During the brief moments of illumination, a scattered morgue of bodies can be seen spotting the floor like the inkblots of a crazed psychiatrist. The bodies are arranged in various death poses. A couple of victims wearing powder blue scrubs are sprawled out face down on the tile floor as if creating snow angels on a cool winter’s day. Several others are propped against walls or slumped over in waiting room chairs as though they’ve had too much to drink. Blonde, red and brunette hair alike is matted with blood. Random bits of bone fragments can be seen speckling sopping hair. All victims –including those whose heritage generally endows them with darker skin- are albino white with sunken cheeks. They appear to be completely drained of blood. Footprints of various shapes and sizes (boots, sandals, dress shoes, bare feet) track through the tacky scarlet coating splashed upon the floor. The foggy stench of decay hangs in the air and clouds the senses.
“Oh my God!” Brooke’s hand goes to her mouth to stifle a scream, a dry heave or both. The scene in the lobby is almost unbearable.
“Shhh! Until we know this place is empty we need to be quiet.” Max pans left and right with the shotgun and cocks his head sideways to listen for movement. “Vinny, you better lock that door behind us just in case someone is still on our butts.”
Brooke shakes her head vigorously, “We shouldn’t lock ourselves in here. What if something comes after us? We’ll need a way out.”
Max responds, “Pausing to unlock the door is safer than being surrounded or snuck up on from behind. We need to minimize our vulnerable sides as much as possible.”
Vinny nods in agreement and turns the bolt on the front door. They proceed tentatively past the lobby and into the hall, being careful not to step on, or in, anything that once had a name.
“We’re going to check these rooms one by one. Look for any meds that might help Vinny, bandages, alcohol, matches, lighters, bottled water and anything that could be used as a weapon. I’ll take point with the shotgun. Vinny, you bring up the rear.”
Max steps over the body of a lady that looks to be in her late sixties. She is thin and shapely. Prior to her death, she could have even been considered attractive. While Max is in mid stride and still straddling her, she appears to move and he instinctively jerks the barrel of the shotgun down lining it up with her head. He’s preparing to pull the trigger before he realizes that the strobe effect of the emergency lights is playing tricks on his eyes. Even with the rationale that it’s just an illusion he still can’t shake the feeling that she’s dancing beneath him to music only she can hear.
He releases the trigger and quickens his stride over her. As he does so, he notices that she’s tightly gripping a large handbag with one hand while her other hand is buried inside it.
Max turns to Brooke, “Shotgun or handbag?”
She looks up at him puzzled, “Huh?”
“Do you want to hold the shotgun or remove her handbag?”
Brooke grimaces, obviously not liking either option, but knowing she needs to pick one. Her choices are; pry a lifeless and bloodied woman’s hand from her death gripped purse, or wield the shotgun with the possibility of having to scatter a biter’s brains on the wall as it charges at her out of the darkness. Brooke thinks but doesn’t say, ‘Alex, I’ll take handbags for seven-hundred’.
She squats down -being careful not to touch the gory tile with anything but the soles of her shoes. The purse is large enough to be considered an overnight bag. It’s made of tan canvas and has two long and sturdy leather straps affixed to the top. It’s bordered by more leather that has become saturated in spots by blood that had trailed from the woman’s throat and across her arm to the purse handles.
Brooke pries the lady’s death-grip -one finger at a time- from the purse strap. The grotesque popping sounds of rigor can be heard while she does this and she winces with each one. Once the purse is free from the deathly grip, Brooke moves on to the hand inside of it. She grabs the wrist and pulls the hand free. To Brooke’s surprise, the hand is clutching a bottle of pepper spray with the pointer finger already in place on the plunger. Brooke thinks it a shame that she never even got a chance to use it. It probably wouldn’t have done a bit of good but it may have bought her a few more precious moments of life… or at least hope.
Brooke shakes off this sentimentality and pries the cold fingers from around the can of pepper spray. She upends the purse on a small but miraculously clean spot of tile adjacent to the victim and searches for anything else useful. The purse contains surprisingly little for being so spacious.
“Any car keys?” Max asks, sounding hopeful.
Brooke scans the contents -lipstick, compact, a brush with hair included, crackers, a whistle on a loop of yellow rope, chewing gum and a cell phone. Brooke shakes her head in response to Max and scoops up every item but the brush and puts most of them back in the bag. She slides the whistle on the yellow rope around her neck and opens the cell phone. Three service bars smile up at her and she takes a chance. 9-1-1, she punches it in and they all hold their breath with anticipation as the sound of ringing emanates from the earpiece that Brooke holds away from her face. A pleasant voice answers on the other end and Brooke can feel her heart skip a beat.
“We’re sorry; all circuits are busy right now. Please try your call again later,” the voice on the other end admonishes and Brooke closes the phone with a deflated snap.
She drops it into the purse and slings the nearly empty bag over her shoulder. She spins the pepper spray in her left hand until her finger is on the trigger with the business end pointing outward.
�
��Let’s do it,” says Max and they head, slowly, down the hall.
***
Outside, the unseen follower peers through the windows of the Hummvy and into the lobby of the clinic. He can smell the decaying scent of spilled blood from beyond the doorway and the thought of the butchery that had been unleashed here excites him. He breathes deeply, taking in as much of the stench as possible. As he basks in the fragrance, an even more erotic and very familiar aroma fills his nostrils. It’s the sweet flavor of unsoiled human blood still coursing through veins. Its lovely tangy goodness -so irresistible- was calling to him, beckoning him to come and have a taste. He plans to do just that. Since the freeway, he’d been biding his time until he could drink that sweet nectar as it pulsed from their throbbing arteries, propelled by their pounding hearts. He wants their hearts to hammer with such ferocity that he can drink from their throats like a child at a fountain, lapping up the very essence of them. The blood eases the pain, and even better than that, it brings strength. More strength then he’d ever thought possible coursed through his body when he drank up the sticky nectar from his wife’s arm. He longs for more of that feeling and the thought of it makes him bite into his lower lip until it runs with blood. It was a high like nothing else. This gift from the devil felt like invulnerability, incredible sex, animalistic freedom and ascension to a higher plane with every wonderful gulp. He was driven by this need and this need only, like a heroin addict in search of his next fix. It was taking all of his strength to keep from rushing them and ripping their throats out right now. The freeway-man wants to taste the adrenaline of fear in every spurt after he drives them to the point of delirium in fear for their lives.
One Blink From Oblivion Page 11
