by G X Todd
Alex’s pain-filled keening broke through the ringing in his ears. He became unstuck and dragged his eyes away from the smoking gun. He didn’t bother watching the mortally wounded man slide to the floor but went to Posy, hauling him to his feet and grinding out orders in the man’s terrified face. Next, Pilgrim went to the girl.
‘Hey hey hey,’ he whispered, putting the shotgun aside so he could cradle her face between his hands. ‘Hey, it’s OK. Look at me.’ He said her name three times before her gaze moved away from the dying man and lifted to his.
He peered hard into her eyes, searching desperately for any difference. Would she even know if another voice had entered her? Voice would know, surely. Pilgrim had never heard of anyone housing more than one voice, but then he’d never heard of voices hopping from person to person, either.
There was nothing but dull shock in her eyes. He gently ran his thumbs across her hot forehead, a cleansing gesture, wishing he could erase everything the girl had just seen and done. He told her he needed her now more than ever, that he needed her to be strong, that he couldn’t do this without her. She gave him a slow nod, her eyes shell-shocked but beginning to clear.
‘Help Alex’ were his final words, and he left her there and hoped to Christ she did what he’d asked.
At the far end of the kitchen Buzzcut was pushing through the swinging doors.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’
Pilgrim kept his voice conversational as he walked towards the man. ‘Just a slight problem with the woman. It’s been dealt with.’
Buzzcut looked past Pilgrim towards the freezer. ‘Where’s Doc?’
‘Still in there. You should see what he did to her. Jesus, man!’ Pilgrim laughed through the words as if impressed. ‘That guy’s really fucked up.’
Both men slowed down as they met each other in the middle of the kitchen, a tier of pot racks to one side and two pizza ovens on the other. Buzzcut held his knife down by his side in a hammer grip. From the next room, Pilgrim heard the baby crying and loud, heated voices.
The shaven-headed man nodded, the left side of his beard lifting in a half-smile. ‘Yeah. He’s one you don’t wanna fuck with. He’ll mess you up faster than a skinned cat in a—’
Pilgrim grabbed the side of Buzzcut’s head and slammed it into one of the ovens. It connected with a deep, clanging thuuunng! and the man dropped to one knee. The knife clattered on the tiles. Gripping the man’s head, Pilgrim yanked it down and brought his knee up in a hard, vicious snap, catching the man full in the face. Buzzcut crumpled to the floor.
Pilgrim cast a quick glance over his shoulder and caught sight of Posy coming out of the freezer, his movements furtive. The kid’s stare was wide and terrified. He’d frozen comically in place when Pilgrim spotted him, his knees bent, arms stuck out like a tightrope walker’s, but before Pilgrim could make a move towards him, Posy stiffened as if he’d been zapped with a cattle prod and fell into an awkward scampering run, hurrying past the sinks and racks of trays and disappearing behind a partitioned wall in the back corner of the kitchen.
Pilgrim let him go. The raised voices from the canteen were getting louder.
‘Better get used to it, dog. Only place you’re going is to boot camp with the rest of the freaks.’
The sharp bleat of a woman’s cry signalled a new round of angry shouts, and something – a chair, the woman herself – was thrown to the floor with a skittering of flung furniture. The baby’s cry built to a howling squall.
Pilgrim snatched up Buzzcut’s dropped knife and ran back to the freezer.
Alex had been cut free. The girl knelt next to her. The woman was slumped on her knees, bowed over and rocking back and forth. Hisses whistled through her teeth as she tried to ride through the pain.
Looking down at her, Pilgrim doubted he would be able to carry her far: neither his dwindling reserves of energy nor his cracked ribs and weakened leg would hold up under the extra weight for long. He ripped off his jacket and threw it around her shoulders, covering her nakedness, knowing they would have to peel it away from her wounds later.
He crouched down in front of her and roughly gripped her chin, jerking her face up so he could look into her pain-racked eyes.
‘Pilgrim,’ Lacey hissed, stunned at his cruelty.
He paid her no mind and spoke to the woman. ‘Can you understand what I’m saying?’
Her gaze was bleary.
He slapped her. Hard.
He gave Lacey a quelling look when she grabbed hold of his wrist. The girl scowled and released him grudgingly.
When he returned his attention to Alex, her eyes were latched on to his face.
‘You’re dead,’ she whispered.
‘So everyone keeps telling me.’
The woman’s face screwed up tight and she moaned and tried to curl in on herself again, but Pilgrim held her face firmly and wouldn’t let her.
Time time time, his voice reminded him.
‘Did they break you, Alex? If they broke you, we might as well leave you here. Because you’ll end up killing us. Killing Lacey.’
Alex opened her eyes again and, when she looked at him, behind the wall of agony twisting her features, there was a hard glint of something more. Something these people definitely hadn’t broken.
Pilgrim nodded, gentling his hold on her. ‘You need to get up. Right now. They’re coming.’
He released her face and gripped her arm, his fingers sliding over her slippery, blood-covered skin. She whimpered and groaned and couldn’t straighten fully, had to hunch over, but she was on her feet. Lacey helped her into Pilgrim’s jacket, fastened it, and then slid herself underneath the woman’s arm.
Pilgrim picked up the shotgun and went to the door. The kitchen was dark and silent. He waved the girls over to him and moved into the room, gun held ready. Posy must have known there was an alternative way out, and Pilgrim found it in the back corner, hiding behind a huge stack of dinner trays and an unused service elevator. He was holding the door open for Lacey and Alex when the doors at the far end of the kitchen swung inward and Frank came through.
They saw each other.
Frank’s eyes shifted to Buzzcut, who lay unconscious on the floor. He looked back at Pilgrim, lifted his arm and fired. Pilgrim ducked, the bullet slamming into the wall near his head, the gunshot reverberating through the pots and pans and off stainless-steel surfaces, a high, melodic hum ringing through the kitchen.
Pilgrim didn’t wait to see if Frank would fire more shots but dashed through the exit into a carpeted hallway, much wider than the others he had passed through. Girl and woman were shuffling their way to its far end, where it opened up into a vast, furnished lobby. There must be many windows up ahead because the area was aglow with moonlight, everything lit by a pale, ghostly luminance that bleached the carpets and walls of their gaudy colours.
Limping, Pilgrim ran after them, glancing back over his shoulder, waiting for the door to open and Frank to burst out, followed by the rest of the people from the dining hall. Lacey had stopped and was pushing open a second door, the clunking sound of its depress bar marking it as a fire exit. Pilgrim came up behind them and hustled them through, grabbing the door before it could bang shut and easing it closed.
He didn’t let them catch their breath but took hold of Alex’s free arm and steered them down the concrete stairs.
‘What about those people?’ Lacey gasped, stumbling along with him, Alex propped up between them. ‘We can’t just leave them.’
‘We can barely save ourselves,’ he muttered, leaning heavily on the handrail and concentrating on not losing his footing. ‘Just keep going.’
He expected her to argue but, for once, she kept her thoughts to herself. The weight of the shotgun was pulling at his hand, and he wanted to drop it, to drop everything that was holding them back so they could run faster, slip like ghosts through the darkness and escape into the night, but Alex’s pace was faltering – she gasped and flinched and almost fell a number
of times as they descended the two short flights. Floodwater pooled in the bottom of the stairwell, and it snatched a gasp from the girls as their feet sank into chilly water up to mid-shin.
Pilgrim sloshed over to the door leading directly outside, but it was secured by chain and padlock. He cursed in frustration, and Lacey whispered for him to leave it, struggling instead to pull open the door opposite. He moved to help her, shunting the door open far enough for them to squeeze through, taking them back inside the hotel-casino.
The parking garage next door.
‘Yes, the parking garage,’ Pilgrim agreed. He knew they wouldn’t be able to run very far or very quickly with the woman in her current state.
The girl looked at him a moment, uncomprehending, her gaze turned inward, listening. And then her expression cleared and she hissed, ‘Of course! The garage.’
From within the stairwell, the emergency door on a level above them crashed open.
Pilgrim didn’t recognise the area they had entered and relied on his inner compass to lead them south. They had come out in an unmarked service zone. The stale chemical smell hanging in the air most likely marked it as being part of the cleaning staff’s storage areas. They hurried as fast as they could past an open door, the water kicking up around their legs, dragging their pace down to a crawl. Pilgrim glanced inside the room – some sort of staffroom with lockers, waterlogged seats, a kitchenette and nothing else. They kept going. At the end of the corridor was a heavy-duty set of double doors. Pilgrim waded on ahead, but they were locked and weren’t budging. There was a card-access panel to the door’s left but, without any electricity to power it, there was no way to force the doors open. He came back, panting heavily, the slog through the water exhausting him. Lacey was already shouldering a door open on her right.
She nodded to the unreadable sign pinned to the wall and gasped, ‘Gift shop.’
There was a loud splash as Frank fell through the emergency exit into the corridor, landing on all fours, water bursting up and drenching him.
‘Go.’ Pilgrim pushed the girls through the doorway, Alex crying out at being shoved in her lacerated back, and went in after them, throwing his weight against the door to shut it. Frank called out and more splashes came from the corridor. More voices joined Frank’s.
Lacey’s flashlight picked out metal shelves filled with boxes of merchandise. Stock had spilled out, boxes had been ripped open and floated around their legs, their contents bobbing around: sodden towels with the hotel-casino’s emblem stitched in the corners, loose playing cards, plastic poker chips, parts of a shaving kit, stuffed toys, fridge magnets, keyrings, pin badges.
‘The other door. Quickly.’ Pilgrim pointed and the two girls waded awkwardly across the stockroom, holding each other up. Pilgrim shoved his shotgun on to a shelf, grabbed the metal shelving unit nearest the door and yanked. It was heavy, but it moved. He strained and tugged harder, his side giving an excruciating pop, and he cried out as he pulled the shelving down, jumping out of the way as it fell with a tremendous crash, a wave of water sloshing up his thighs and knocking him back a step.
The door burst inward, shouts and pounding bodies ramming against the other side. It jammed to a stop when it met the fallen unit, opening to a gap of six inches.
Vicious curses were hurled in at him. Frank was there, trying to force his wiry frame through the small gap. Pilgrim reached for the shotgun he’d left on the shelf and had to stumble back when Frank pushed his arm into the room and unloaded his gun. Shots zinged off the metal shelving. Pilgrim felt a hot sting zip past his cheek. He abandoned the gun and dived for the floor, freezing water smacking him full in the face. He spluttered and scrambled blindly after the girls.
He heard his name shouted, high and scared, and headed towards it. Hands grabbed him, snatched up his shirt and dragged him out of the storeroom, bullets blatting into the walls and hissing through water. He was hauled up, and almost fell again, but Alex and Lacey steadied him.
‘I lost the shotgun,’ he gasped.
Lacey shook her head at him, her hair plastered to her head, eyes wild. ‘Who gives a shit?’
They were behind the cashier’s counter and had to waste precious seconds skirting around it. Pilgrim took hold of Alex, clamping his right arm around her waist and pulling her arm over his shoulder. Lacey waded on ahead, her rifle in both hands.
‘Just l–l–leave m–me.’ Alex’s voice shook so much it was hard to make out her words. ‘I’m s–s–slowing you d–down.’
‘Hush,’ Pilgrim said. He was practically dragging her along now, holding up most of her weight, her legs trailing through the water. The back of his head hurt like hellfire. Adrenalin pulsed through his body, his muscles twitching crazily.
More crashes and bangs came from the storeroom.
Twenty more seconds. Then they’ll be through.
Ahead of them, Lacey splashed past an oval table filled with a ruined display of soggy books and went out through the gift shop’s entrance. Pilgrim hauled Alex after her and once again found himself in the high-ceilinged atrium of the hotel-casino’s main entryway.
Lacey looked back at him, her desperate indecision clear in her expression, and Pilgrim was tempted to tell her to go straight out the front so they could be free from this place and back under the night sky. But they would be completely in the open outside, with no place to hide and no cover. They would be picked off before they were halfway across the parking lot.
He nodded past the escalators. ‘Keep going. Get to the garage.’
She nodded again and turned, leading them across the width of the atrium, the water frothing up around their knees, moonlight rippling in the waves, an undulating wake stretching behind them.
Pilgrim heaved Alex up the four steps and out of the water, his thigh muscles trembling. His sodden pants weighed down his legs; his boots were filled with lead. The gleaming corridor stretched out before them, the silent pretzel and cotton-candy stands beckoning. Their shoes squeaked as they hurried past the oversized plant pot. They could see the sliding-glass doors to the outside, the slashes of moonlight painting the tiled floor in white rectangles, and there, the overturned garbage can wedging the exit open.
Whoops and yells and a huge splashing crash came from the gift shop as something large and heavy collapsed.
‘Lacey,’ he gasped. ‘The rifle. Give it to me.’
The girl was already ten feet ahead of them, but she spun around and ran back, passing it over without question. He handed off the woman in exchange and Alex slumped into the girl’s arms.
Holding on to her, Lacey whispered, ‘Come on, Alex. We’re almost there. Just a little further.’
The woman sobbed and somehow straightened, and the two shambled onward in painful, lurching steps.
Pilgrim watched them for a second and then hurried over to the cotton-candy stand. The hatch wasn’t up, so he lifted it and went through. Sighting over the counter, he planted his elbow on the stainless-steel top and held the rifle steady, watching and waiting, listening to the girls stagger further away from him.
Their shambling stopped.
‘Pilgrim!’ the girl shouted.
‘Keep going!’ he called, not taking his eyes away from the four steps leading down into the flooded atrium.
‘But—’
‘Go, goddamnit! Do as I say!’
Their pursuers must have seen Lacey and Alex, because a cry went up and the first two people splashed through the last yards of water and leapt up the stairs. Men. Stocky. Moonlight flashed on the bladed weapons they carried.
Kill them.
His heart beat hard and fast in his chest, thudding like a bass drum, but Pilgrim released his breath on a long exhalation and squeezed the trigger. He slid the bolt back and chambered another cartridge even as the first man stumbled and went down. The second man, the one with the plaited beard, was still staring at his fallen comrade when he was slammed back a step, the bullet striking him in the chest. Pilgrim levered another
round into the chamber, caught a dart of movement near to the escalator and, making sure not to aim for any headshots, fired a third time.
A yelp.
Shouts.
Splashing.
Then silence, apart from the lapping of disturbed water and a pained groan from one of the downed men.
You’re not going to be able to hold this position for ever.
His legs shook. A droplet of water hung off the tip of his nose.
‘Time to give it up, buddy!’ Buzzcut called in a slurred voice, his words echoing off the tall ceilings and silent stalls. ‘I have no clue who the fuck you are, but there’s no way out for you!’
Pilgrim didn’t bother pointing out that Lacey and Alex were already on their way out and there wasn’t a damn thing Buzzcut could do about it.
Unless some of them went out the front entrance and were heading round to cut them off, his voice said.
Pilgrim crouched down in the scant cover offered by the counter’s hatchway and glanced up the walkway. There was no sign of Lacey or Alex.
Buzzcut yelled, ‘If you put your gun up and come on out, I’ll kill you quick. How’s that? A better option than me cutting every single fucking organ out of your body, eh?’
You’ve angered him.
Pilgrim was surprised the man was even awake. He’d slammed the guy’s head pretty hard up against that oven.
Pilgrim guessed it was a fifty-yard dash to the sliding-glass doors. He’d taken out at least two men. Even now, one or more others could be moving to flank him, skirting the front of the building and coming around to the secondary entrance where the girls had exited.
Who’s to say all the noise hasn’t alerted those two men on lookout duty, too? And any number of others hanging around upstairs.
But all he kept thinking was: I left her unarmed. I took the rifle off her and now they have nothing to defend themselves with.
‘Fuck,’ he muttered. He raised his voice. ‘Dumont and Doc are dead!’ He let that news settle for a couple of seconds. ‘Way I see it, there are two new job openings here, so maybe you should expend your energy on working out who’s in charge now, instead of chasing down three strangers who mean nothing to you!’
