Michael jumped on the kid, kicked his gun away, and started whaling on him. The pair rolled over and over a few times, trading punches and jabs, finally wrestling their way out of the doorway and into the hallway beyond. Rabbit and Jake were moving to pull them apart and Gus was growling and biting at any ankle available when the guy tossed Michael over his head, then twisted and yanked a wicked looking knife from his boot. Before anyone could stop him, he stabbed down, burying it in Michael’s outer thigh.
“Fuck this!” Mia screamed about the same time Michael did. She pulled her handgun and fired right into the back of the guard’s head.
“Oh, God!” Michael grabbed his thigh and fell back against the floor. Brains and blood sprayed up his side, thankfully missing his mouth.
There were numerous shouts from all of us, more from pure surprise than anything else. Gus had tucked tail and run behind me, cowering behind my legs. Rabbit scurried over the guard’s body to tend to Michael’s leg. Jake walked up to Mia and stared at her, wide-eyed and almost smiling, which was disturbing to see on his face.
“Well,” Jonah said after we all turned to stare at the corpse. “
That
was a little anticlimactic.”
We breathed a collective sigh and squeezed around the door. Rabbit had yanked the knife out of Michael’s leg and was applying pressure to the wound.
“Missed the bone. Damn near came out the other side. Here, one of you hold this,” he said, gesturing with one bloody hand.
Jonah stepped in and placed his hands on the crimson-soaked gauze I assumed Rabbit had pulled from somewhere on that vest of his. Meanwhile, the corporal shrugged off his rifle and backpack, digging around inside it looking for medical supplies. Michael was panting and getting very pale and pasty. I hoped it was only caused by the sight of his own blood and not shock.
“Christ, hurry up,” Michael groaned.
I kneeled behind him and held his shoulders. Gus licked his arm. Jake and Mia stood close by with their weapons up and eyes on either direction.
Rabbit finally dropped a handful of supplies next to the leg and took over for Jonah. He cleaned the wound, which Michael did
not
enjoy, then poured some kind of powder into it that actually stopped the bleeding. I thought that was pretty cool.
“I know, man. Almost done.” He kept his eyes on Michael’s a moment before wrapping the leg with fresh dressing. “It’s not perfect, but it’ll do until we get the hell out of here.”
“Which we need to do sooner rather than later,” Jonah said. He was focused on the hallway behind me, but the thing that sent the hairs on my neck into attention was seeing Gus perk up and glare in the same direction.
“What…” I said.
“Heard something.” Jonah jerked his chin. “Down that way. Most likely others responding to the noise.”
“Yup. Time to move.” Rabbit hauled Michael to his feet.
He groaned and favored his leg, but the color was coming back into his cheeks. I handed him his handgun and gave his arm a squeeze, then picked up my shotgun and took up the second spot behind Rabbit. The others lined up and put Michael in the back, in front of Jonah. I snapped my fingers again and pointed at the floor next to Mia’s feet, sending Gus to take up his spot with her.
The hallway widened a little in this area; you could practically see it was getting ready to open up into a bigger room. There were doors on either side of this hallway as well, unmarked and resembling hotel room doors. These were the living quarters.
At the end of the hallway was another fork. Rabbit led us down the left. It felt like we were making a big circle. This hallway was short, however, and ended in another door.
“I’m not so sure about opening this one,” he whispered to me.
I snorted. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
He took several deep breaths, the rest of us steeled ourselves and got ready for another “incident,” then Rabbit swiped his card. The door clicked and nothing happened. His back slumped with relief and he jerked it open, stepping to the side so I could clear it.
“Clear.” I lifted my barrel just enough for him to sneak through.
“Holy shit,” Jake whispered.
This door had opened to a huge wide-open room with a high ceiling. There was a large cage in the center of the floor, big enough to hold several dozen people at one time. Except it was empty. Rabbit made a few hand gestures, signaling us to split up and check the room. We did, but didn’t find anything. The room was messier than the rest of the complex had been, especially inside the cage. There were two exits; one door about ten feet from the one we’d come in, on the same wall, and another door on the far wall, opposite our entrance. There were a couple of overflowing garbage cans, with papers and assorted trash scattered across the floor. Inside the cage, there was a different type of litter. Old blankets, clothes, trash, spoiled food, even feces. You name it, it was there. Gus made laps around the cage, sniffing and whining every other breath. He could still smell the person-scent. Unlike the previous hallways, this area reeked. It was still not the smell of the dead, though I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for that anymore.
People had been kept in that cage like animals. And for a long time, judging by the amount of trash and shit. Then what? Dragged away, kicking and screaming, to have who knows what done to them in some sort of laboratory? I wanted to burn the place to the ground that very second.
“Hey,” Mia said at my right elbow.
I jumped and glared at her. She had her free hand on my right. My finger was on the trigger, and from her tone I must have had that look. I shook it off the best I could.
“I’m okay.” My voice was full of gravel.
“You sure?”
I slowly exhaled through my nose and popped my jaw. “Yeah, I think so.”
“They’ll pay for this, Kasey. If they’re still here. You have to keep it together though.”
“I am. I will. Let’s go.” I wiped my sweaty palm on my pant leg and headed over toward the other exit. Mia followed and we joined the others around the door lock.
“I don’t know how many more locks this thing will open,” Rabbit was saying. “I took it off of the Captain’s—well, it was in his pocket.”
Michael limped closer to the door. “Just try it.”
“Alright.” Rabbit shook his head. “Get ready.”
Michael shuffled over behind the rest of us. We raised our weapons and aimed for the door. Rabbit swiped the card, waited for the click, and jerked it open.
Jake looked at me and gave a swift nod, so I stepped forward through the doorway, sweeping the entrance. The rest followed me and spread out. This room was as big as the last, this time lined with sizeable rooms. Except “rooms” wasn’t really the word for them. They looked like observation cells. Smooth, unfurnished, with a large window; which was no doubt bulletproof.
“If I had to guess, I’d say that room,” Mia hitched her thumb behind us, “is the holding room, and this one is the storage.”
“Storage for
what
?” Michael asked.
“Maybe the Terminators,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Let’s find out,” Rabbit said and took the lead.
We fell in behind him single file, passing the first set of rooms, one on our left and one on our right. They were empty.
“Maybe this is a good sign,” Jake said.
“Damnit, Jake,” Mia answered.
“Sorry, sorry.”
The Powers That Be finally decided to call Jake on his dumbass remarks. Gus growled a second before a man, who was armed much like Harvel and the other guy had been, stepped out from around the corner of the room to our left. Six guns raised automatically and readied to fire. The man threw his gun down and raised his hands.
“Whoa, whoa! Don’t shoot!”
The only thing I saw when I looked at him was a cage full of survivors, beaten and ragged, forced to live in their own filth. I wasn’t the only one seeing that.
Michael pulled the trigger and sent the man back into the corner in which he’d been hiding. Except this time he wouldn’t be coming back out.
“Fuck,” Jake breathed.
A few glances were exchanged, but no one said a word about what had just happened. We’d all been thinking it. After a moment, thumping broke the silence.
“It’s coming from that next pair of rooms,” Rabbit said.
Gus ran toward the door and the corporal broke off from us at a jog. I hung back and helped Michael, who was gradually getting worse and worse on his feet.
“Just holster the damn thing and lean on me already.”
He threw me a crooked grin but did as I’d said. I carried my shotgun in one hand and helped carry him with my other arm. Hopefully the other four guns would be enough to cover us if death-on-feet decided to jump out of the room Rabbit was trying to unlock.
“It won’t work,” he said, finally giving up after the fifth swipe.
“Couldn’t expect our luck to last that long,” Jonah replied and raised his shotgun. “Stand back.” He aimed at the lock and waited until we were standing against the opposite wall (which was actually the window of the room across from him), and fired. Needless to say, it didn’t work like it does in the movies.
“Son. Of. A. Bitch,” Jonah said and proceeded to beat the butt of his gun against what remained of the keypad.
“Dude, dude! Stop!” Jake ran to Jonah’s side and grabbed his swinging arm.
“What?”
“Well if you stop hulkin’ out for a second, I’ll try to open it. Ya mind?” Jake raised his hands, waiting for Jonah to move.
“I don’t have any bobby pins this time, Jake,” I said, referring to another locked door he had opened back at Blueville Correctional. I winced the second it was out of my mouth. “Sorry,” I whispered to Michael.
“Don’t worry about it.” He squeezed my shoulder.
“Yeah, don’t need ‘em,” Jake called back.
His slung his shotgun, pulled out his pocket knife, and started digging in the small box with his fingers, pulling wires and doing things I never knew he could do. I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse. Jake was scary smart as it was. After only a few seconds, the door clicked and Jake jumped back.
“Shit, shit!”
The door swung open and he scrambled for his gun. Everyone else was already aimed on the target, which turned out to be a man. An exceedingly fit and muscular man, true, yet a man just the same. He stood in the doorway staring at us, while we remained unmoving with our barrels pointing at his chest. After several moments of this, Mia spoke up. I noticed Gus by her feet, but he didn’t look afraid or on guard.
“Well is he one of them? Can anyone tell?”
She raised a good point. The Terminators
did
appear to be living. This dude could have easily been one of them.
“Am I one of what?” the guy in the doorway asked.
“Guess that answers the question. Lower your weapons.” Rabbit holstered his gun and walked up to the doorway.
“You the cavalry?” the man asked after giving Rabbit the once-over.
“I guess so. Are you injured?”
“No. Not really.”
Rabbit nodded and looked around at the other cells. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“Hell no. Do you?”
“I don’t know why you were being held in this room, no. Did they…do anything to you?”
The man shook his head and for the first time looked confused. “They took a lot of blood when I first got here. Since then they just kept me locked up in solitary, then moved me here early this morning.”
“So…” Rabbit turned to us, equally confused, then turned back to the man, “you’ve been in solitary? You have no idea what’s been going on around here?”
“No, I really don’t. I’ve been here six months. The
Guard
,” he said with a touch of venom, “found me and said they had a safe place. Said they were sending me there.” He spread his arms wide. “And here I am.”
Corporal Adder visibly stiffened. Michael pulled away from me and limped to his aid. I turned away as the three of them talked and pulled a treat from my pocket. Gus rubbed against my leg and panted before I slipped him the biscuit, patted him on the head, and acknowledged Mia and Jake when they sidled up next to me. Jonah had joined the discussion with the man.
“You figure out what the hell’s goin’ on here yet?” Jake asked. He stole a moment and twisted his arm behind him, pulling a water bottle from his backpack.
“I’ve got a few theories.”
I sounded distracted. Probably because I was. I had noticed the observation rooms were set just far enough apart that none of the occupants would be able to see each other. Even from where we stood, we couldn’t see inside the next pair of rooms. I had overheard enough from the guy to know he’d been segregated from the folks in the cage. Assuming the rest of the cells held one man, and they had been kept in solitary as well, it led me to wonder: why keep these specific men completely isolated from not only the other survivors, but from each other as well?
“Well, I thought I had it figured out until we found that fella,” Mia said. Jake grunted an agreement.
I stared down the rest of the cells for a few more moments, then made a decision. “Come on.”