Jennifer spun around to see a man dressed in black standing ten feet behind her. He had a Smith and Wesson M&P15-22LR trained at her head. "Put the weapon down. Slowly."
She knelt and placed her M-16A2 on the floor.
"Good girl. Now step back."
Jennifer obeyed.
Price stepped forward, took the M-16A2, and slung it over his shoulder, all the time keeping his eyes and his semi-automatic fixed on Jennifer. When finished, he moved back five feet.
"So, old man, answer her. Where is the b.i.t.c.h?"
"Why do you care?"
"Because her and that little brat have been nothing but trouble since they got here."
"So you"re the one who runs this rape camp?" spat Jennifer.
"The name is Price," he smiled. "And it"s not a rape camp. Everyone has to contribute something to eat, and for most of the women here, that"s all they have to offer."
"You"re a sick f.u.c.k." Jennifer took a step toward him.
Price raised the M&P15-22LR and leveled it at her face. When she moved back, he shifted the weapon onto Lee. "Okay, old man. I don"t have time to f.u.c.k around. Where is she?"
Lee refused to answer.
"Why are you always causing problems for me?" asked Price.
Lee remained silent.
Price shrugged. "Suit yourself."
He raised the semi-automatic again and fired.
The decreasing sound of gun fire concerned Windows. It meant that if she and Cindy didn"t make it out of here soon, they would never get out alive. She rolled the fifty-five gallon drum faster, not caring if they made noise, the desire to escape now paramount. When she reached the rear wall of the compound, she maneuvered the drum against the surface and tilted it over so that the open side faced down. She lifted Cindy on top and climbed up herself. The drum wobbled.
"Okay, honey. I"m going to lift you to the top of the wall."
"I"m scared."
"I know you are. So am I." Windows brushed the hair off of Cindy"s face. "You want to get out of here, don"t you?"
The little girl nodded.
"Then we have to do this. It"ll be over soon. I promise."
Grabbing Cindy by the hips, Windows lifted, being careful to distribute as much weight as possible against the wall. "Tell me when your hands can reach the top."
"They can."
One at a time, Windows moved her hands down to Cindy"s ankles and lifted. The weight in her hands lessened, and when she looked up Cindy sat on top of the wall. "Scoot over a few feet so I can get up."
As Cindy obliged, the sound of a gunshot rang out from behind her. The door to Lee"s storage unit was open. She wanted to check on him, but knew better. If she went to help Lee, she would blow her only chance to get Cindy out of this h.e.l.lhole, and keeping her safe was the main priority.
Jumping up, Windows grabbed the end of the wall and pulled. Her muscles strained, and she could only make it up so far. She dug her shoes into the wall, trying to find a foothold that would give her leverage. A small pair of hands wrapped around her shoulders as Cindy grabbed her shirt and helped lift. It took several seconds, and for a few of them Windows thought she would not make it. Eventually she reached the top of the wall. Sitting beside Cindy, she paused for a minute to catch her breath.
"Are you okay?" Cindy asked.
Windows nodded. "Let"s get going. We"ll be free in a few minutes."
The bullet tore its way through Jennifer"s abdomen. She dropped onto the cement floor, clutching her wound and whimpering in pain. Blood poured through her fingers.
"Why"d you do that?" Lee yelled.
Price ignored the question and leveled the semi-automatic at Jennifer. "Tell me what I want to know and I"ll finish her off. Otherwise I"ll leave her this way. It could take hours to die from her wounds, maybe a day or more. I don"t think you want that."
"You"re sick."
"This is a whole new world, old man. A world in which you have to be strong to survive. That"s why you"re in the position you"re in." Price stepped over to his father and knelt down so he could make eye contact. "You"ve always worried too much about other people. Rather than support me, you were more concerned about those I culled from the pack. You don"t know any of these people, and yet you"ll screw me over to protect them. So I"m giving you have a choice to help out others. What"s more important to you? Saving that b.i.t.c.h and her little kid, or putting this one out of her misery."
"I"m not going to play this game with you."
"Have it your way. This b.i.t.c.h can bleed out for all I care." Price stood up, stepped back, and rested the barrel of his M&P15-22LR on his shoulder. "I"m sure the other two are heading for the car you stashed away at the construction site."
Lee"s eyes widened, and Price knew he had won. "You know about the car?"
"Of course. I know everything that goes on around here. I never mentioned it before in case I needed it to get away. You just confirmed for me that you let her know about it. Checkmate, old man." Price smirked. "I"ll just meet them there when they arrive and take care of my problem once and for all."
"You motherf.u.c.ker!" Lee lunged at Price, or what served as a lunge for a cripple. The old man struggled to his feet, stumbling once and landing on his hands. He struggled to stand upright and lumbered toward his son. Price fired a round directly into Lee"s face. The shot blasted away most of the old man"s head, leaving only a draping portion of the bottom jaw and a segment of the rear skull attached by a sliver of skin. The body hovered for a second before collapsing onto the soiled blanket.
"No," Jennifer moaned. She tried to go to Lee"s aid. The moment she moved, she cried out from the pain.
Price walked over to her, crouched, clutched her hair, and yanked her head off the floor. "As for you, I"m leaving you alive. Those deaders your friends introduced onto my compound will be done with my men soon and will start looking for fresh meat. You"ll make a nice little meal for them. Kind of ironic, don"t you think?"
Price let go of Jennifer"s hair, and her head fell to the floor. He left the storage unit and headed back to his office.
Once the rotters had overrun the gang members and forced them back into the rape room, Robson left his spot near the intersection of the four buildings and continued searching the units heading toward the rear of the compound. He heard a single gunshot from one of the nearby units. With all the other noises around him, he couldn"t tell where the sound came from. He continued down to the end of the buildings near the perimeter wall when he heard a second blast. This time he determined it came from behind the set of buildings on his left. He headed for the end of that building. He turned the corner in time to see someone walk out of the last unit. Robson raised his AA-12.
"Freeze!"
The figure spun around and dodged to one side, firing off a round. Robson jumped back around the corner as the sh.e.l.l slammed into the cement wall where he just stood. A moment later, a burst of gunfire blew past the end of the building. Robson waited a moment and dived out, rolling into the center of the path, his AA-12 ready to fire. The gunman disappeared around the other end of the building. Jumping up, Robson rushed over to the storage unit.
He nearly threw up at the sight that greeted him. Jennifer lay on her side curled up, blood flowing from a gunshot wound to her abdomen. He rushed over and touched her shoulder. She jumped, both from pain and fear, until she opened her eyes and saw it was him. Despite the agony, she smiled.
"What happened?" he asked.
"The guy who runs this place... Price... was looking for Windows... to shoot her.... He shot me...." Jennifer gestured toward Lee"s corpse, "...to get him to reveal... where Windows is. He didn"t."
"Do you know where she is?"
"She"s with a little girl.... there"s a car hidden nearby... that she plans on using... to escape. But Price knows... where it is. Stop him."
"First I"ll take care of you."
"We both know... I"m not gonna make it." Jennifer"s body convulsed. She reached out and gently held Robson"s left hand. Robson fought back the tears.
"It"s okay.... leave me... your sidearm."
"No." Robson would not abandon another woman he cared about to die alone. Still holding Jennifer"s hand, he used his right to unholster his Colt. He placed the barrel against her forehead. "I"ll never forget you."
"Of course... you won"t." Jennifer smiled and closed her eyes, an expression of contentment on her face.
Robson turned his head and squeezed the trigger. He felt Jennifer"s hand tense around his own, and then go limp. He could not bring himself to look at her. He felt for a pulse on her wrist and, when he didn"t detect one, gently put down her hand.
Robson raced out of the unit and set out after Price.
Windows and Cindy dashed across the open s.p.a.ce between the compound wall and the outer perimeter fence. Those closest in the Line saw them and called out.
"What"s going on in there?"
"Are we under attack?"
"What"s going to happen to us?"
And the one question that cut into Windows" soul: "Will you help us?"
Windows ignored them. She couldn"t save them all, and every minute she spent trying to help them lessened their own chances of getting away. The more she ignored them the louder they got. Some insulted and threatened her. d.a.m.n it, these people would wind up getting them all killed. Working quickly, Windows removed the wire cutters from her back pocket and used them to snap the links from the ground up, cutting a hole large enough so she and Cindy could sneak through. When finished, she dropped the cutters and pushed open one end of the fence.
"Go ahead. Climb through."
Cindy paused and stared at the people tied to the Line. "What about them?"
Windows placed her hands on the girl"s cheeks, trying to be gentle but firm. "We can"t take them with us."
"I know that." She bent down and picked up the wire cutters. "Can"t we at least give them these?"
Windows smiled. Cindy may be only eight years old, but she still retained more humanity than the adults around her. Windows took the cutters. "Crawl through and wait for me on the other side."
While Cindy slid through the opening, Windows ran over to the nearest person in the Line, a teenage girl, and handed her the cutters. "Here. Use these to cut yourself free."
"I don"t know if I"m strong enough to use them."
Windows clasped her hands around the teenager"s and closed them around the cutters. "Sorry, that"s all I can do."
Rushing back to the hole she had cut into the fence, Windows crawled through to where Cindy waited for her. The two ran as fast as they could down the road toward where Lee had told them he had hidden the car, never once glancing back at the compound.
Meat tried to crawl away to get help. He had only gotten as far as the sliding door before the pain became too great. Not only that, every movement caused the wound to bleed, leaving a trail across the floor. He had collapsed after making it ten feet and waited, hoping someone would find him.
Five minutes had pa.s.sed before Meat heard someone enter his quarters. He rolled onto his side. "Thank G.o.d ya fou-"
A pair of deaders wandered into the storage unit. The closest wore a soiled policeman"s uniform and had more than a dozen fresh bullet holes punched into its chest, the congealed blood oozing black streaks down its front. The other wore the remnants of mechanics overalls, the bottom portion shredded to reveal chewed legs, in some places all the way to the bone. They smelled fresh blood and already had worked themselves into a feeding frenzy.
Meat didn"t even try to escape. As they fell to their knees and reached out for him, he braced himself for the inevitable.
Price ran back to his office and entered through the rear door, making sure to lock it behind him. His compound was falling to both the deaders and the attackers, and he needed to get out fast. Grabbing the emergency bug-out backpack he kept at the foot of his cot and throwing it over his left shoulder, and then stopping by his desk to pick up the keys to his Hummer H3, he entered the front part of the office. Price paused to glance out the window. He did not see any deaders near the vehicle. The only living dead he saw milled around the rape room.
Exiting the office, he headed for the Hummer. Holding the keychain in his right hand, he unlocked the doors.
Robson ran between the twin buildings trying to catch up with Price even though he had no idea where the latter had gone. When he reached the path that ran perpendicular to the buildings, he saw crates piled up along the end of one of the buildings, creating makeshift stairs. Rushing over, Robson climbed the boxes onto the flat roof and moved to the edge, searching for Price. A black Hummer H3 was parked in front of the main office. Reasoning that Price planned on escaping in it, he raced along the edge of the roof toward the vehicle.
When he got to within ten feet of the Hummer, Price exited the office and made his way to the vehicle, using the automatic keychain to unlock it. Robson dove off the roof and landed on top of Price, knocking the weapon and keys out of his hand and driving him face first into the rear of the Hummer. Robson grabbed the backpack and yanked, hoping to drag Price to the ground. Instead it slid off his shoulder, leaving Robson off balance. Price kicked out with his left foot, catching Robson in the outer right thigh and knocking him down. Price knelt and picked up his M&P15-22LR, swinging it around to fire.
Robson rolled to his feet. Realizing he didn"t have time to close the distance before Price got off a shot, he hurled the backpack. Price ducked, causing his aim to be off. Robson lunged and punched Price in the kidney. Price huffed and doubled over. Robson grabbed the semi-automatic by the barrel and the stock ripped the weapon away from Price, and swung it back, slamming the b.u.t.t into his face. He heard a crack and blood flowed down Price"s forehead. Price fell back against the Hummer. As Robson hit him again on the shoulder, Price punched up with his right hand, aiming for Robson"s b.a.l.l.s but instead catching him in the groin. It still hurt like h.e.l.l. Price punched twice more. Each time, Robson shifted his body so the blows landed on his pelvis; however, the maneuver knocked him off balance. Price grabbed the semi-automatic rifle, and the two men attempted to wrest it from the other, with Robson holding the stock while Price kept both hands wrapped around the barrel. Robson shoved Price into the rear of the Hummer, winding him. He removed his right hand from the stock, slid a finger around the trigger, and squeezed, firing the remaining bullets. The barrel instantly grew hot, forcing Price to release his grip. Robson swung his right arm wide and smashed his elbow into Price"s face, stunning him. Jumping back, he kicked out with his right leg and smashed his heel onto Price"s left knee, shattering the bone. Price screamed and dropped to the ground, holding his useless leg.
Removing a pair of handcuffs from his jacket, Robson slapped one end around Price"s wrist and attached the other to the anchoring loop on the b.u.mper. He crouched in front of Price, grabbed a handful of hair in his left hand, lifted his head, and slapped Price"s face with his right.
"You know who I am?"
"Yeah." It took a moment for Price to regain his senses. "You"re the f.u.c.ker who came through here a few weeks ago, killed a bunch of my guys, and brought the deaders behind you."
"And you know that was my compound in Maine you destroyed?"
"So I destroyed your camp and you destroyed mine. How does that make what you did any different than what I did? How does that make you any better than me?"
"It doesn"t." Robson glanced around the devastated storage facility. "I just wanted to make certain you knew who caused all this."
Price sneered. Robson had seen it dozens of times from convicts who kept on getting busted and who never saw themselves as the problem.
"What now?" asked Price. "Are you going to kill me?"
"That"s too good for you." Reaching down beside him, Robson picked up the Hummer"s key chain and pressed the alarm b.u.t.ton. The horn blared, the siren wailed, and the lights flashed. Every rotter in the compound turned toward the noise and started making their way in that direction. Those still in the rape room staggered out and fell in line with the others.
Price yanked on the handcuffs. When they didn"t budge, he stared at Robson incredulously.
Robson stood up and took a head count. "I estimate about twenty rotters left."