Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands (36 page)

An eternity later, Jeremy arrived at the end of the tunnel. He looked up at the window sill in front of him, sitting only a couple of feet from the glass roof of the tunnel. He’d have to reach up and grab it without losing his balance, a feat that seemed nearly impossible on the slippery surface.

He took a deep breath. Blinking the rain out of his eyes, he reached toward the window sill. His fingers found purchase and he gripped the edge, pulling himself to his feet. His right foot slipped and he had a heart-stopping moment where he thought he might go over the side, but his left foot stayed in place and he pulled himself back up on the top of the glass. He pulled himself in through the window and turned to help Zach, reaching out a hand through the open window and gripping his big brother’s hand tightly. Zach stood now. Gripping the window sill, he pulled himself up and into the building, sliding in on his belly and collapsing onto the floor inside.

They looked back through the open window toward the other building. Lightning flashed and the carriers screamed, covering their eyes. They remained inside the building, teetering on the edge but unsure about attempting the precarious trek across the glass rooftop of the connecting tunnel.

“They won’t stay in there forever,” Zach said, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes. “We need to block this window.”

Jeremy agreed and they searched the room for anything they might be able to use to cover the opening. They ran across several large filing cabinets, partially filled with yellowing papers in crumpled manila folders. They removed the contents and together pushed three of the heavy cabinets in front of the window. They replaced the files and folders, adding in whatever other heavy debris they could find to reinforce the blockade.

By the time they finished they had a thick and heavy wall built against the opening.

“Do you think it’ll hold?” Jeremy asked.

Zach sat down, his back against the wall of filing cabinets. He slumped forward, his face in his hands.

“Zach?” Jeremy asked.

“It’s nothing,” Zach said.

But Jeremy knew his brother was crying. He said nothing. Instead he sat down beside his big brother and rested his head on his shoulder as the lightning and thunder raged outside.

Jasper connected with Alice the moment she pulled the trigger. The sound of the rain pummeling the gravel rooftop covered the sound of his feet as he ran toward her. He bent just before he reached her, positioning his shoulder at her side, turning himself into a human spear. He heard the sound of the shot as he connected and knew instantly he was too late.

He collapsed on top of Alice and they both hit the rooftop hard. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ed drop to the rooftop.

Jasper struggled to pry the rifle out of Alice’s hands, but she put up a serious fight, cursing as she struggled. The rain made the wooden surface of the rifle’s sock slippery and Alice took that opportunity to yank the rifle away from him and hit him square in the face with the butt of the stock.

She pointed the rifle at his head and he ducked, smacking the barrel away. A shot exploded next to his ear, nearly deafening him. Alice screamed in frustration at the failed attempt, struggling even harder now.

Jasper hit her in the head hard, but not hard enough. Alice recoiled from the blow, but kept enough sense to bite down hard on Jasper’s hand. She clamped down and shook her head back and forth like a wild dog, growling as the blood flowed from the bite wound.

Hot pain raced up Jasper’s arm as he punched Alice repeatedly in the face in an attempt to force her to release his hand.

Four punches and she let go. He pulled his hand away, blood dripping from the wound, diluting in the puddles of rainwater collecting on the rooftop.

“Goddamn, motherfucker…” she said, growling.

Out of the corner of his eye Jasper saw Trish crouched beside Ed lying motionless on the rooftop. He felt hot anger well up inside him as he looked upon Alice for the animal she was. Gritting his teeth, he pulled her to her feet. When he looked into her eyes he saw only black emptiness, a kind of selfish darkness that had gotten so many people killed.

And now, she’d killed his best friend.

Feeling almost possessed by an outside force, Jasper dragged Alice to the edge of the roof. He could barely hear her protests as he shoved hard, sending her tumbling over the edge and toward the ground below. She screamed and then he felt her grab his shirt collar, taking him over with her.

Jasper clung to the edge of the rooftop as he felt Alice’s grip on his shirt loosen. She screamed again as she fell, her cries cut short when she struck the ground below.

He began to slide over the edge himself when he felt a pair of hands grip him from behind. More hands joined and they pulled him up and over the edge, back onto the rooftop and out of harm’s way. He’d never felt so happy to feel the uncomfortable gravel rooftop on his back.

Emily hugged him hard. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” Jasper said. His face hurt, but he felt otherwise uninjured. “Ed…”

“He’s not dead, not yet, at least.” she said. “The bullet hit him in the shoulder.”

Jasper attempted to stand. His body felt like it had been run over by a truck, but he staggered to the edge of the rooftop and stared down into the black abyss. Lightning flashed, revealing Alice’s broken body on the ground below. Apex carriers circled it, closing in on their next meal.

“You’re hurt,” Emily said. “You were already hurt before you did all this.”

“A friend in need,” Jasper said, feeling dizzy. He pulled away from the rooftop and sat down hard just as screams erupted from behind them.

The carriers had made it to the rooftop.

“What now?” Jeremy asked. “Daddy’s still inside the other building.”

“I don’t know,” Zach said. “I don’t know if he’s still—”

“Don’t say that.”

“I don’t want to, but Dad fell in that hole. You saw it.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I want Dad to be okay as much as you do, but we have to be real about what happened.”

“We need to go back and look for him,” Jeremy said. “We need to find him.”

“Not tonight.”

“Why not?”

“We’ll never find him in the dark. That building is full of carriers and those men with guns. We can’t do anything right now. We’re stuck.”

“We can’t just leave him over there.”

“I know. But we can’t look tonight.”

Jeremy’s face contorted as he bit his lip and tried to keep from crying.

Zach paused, looking sincerely at his brother. “We’ll look tomorrow, in the daylight.”

“But that building is going to burn down. It won’t be there tomorrow.”

“Then we for sure can’t go in.”

“But—”

“Do you think Dad would want us going in there and getting ourselves killed?”

Jeremy didn’t reply.

“He taught us how to survive,” Zach continued. “He taught us how to live if something happened to him. We need to do that now. We need to live. The best thing we can do for Dad is to stay alive. You know that.”

Jeremy nodded. “But it’s not fair.”

“We don’t have much choice.”

Jeremy took a deep breath, wiping his eyes. “What do we do now, then?”

“We should get off this floor,” Zach said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m afraid of heights.”

Jeremy smiled. “You’re not funny, you know that?”

“Come on,” Zach said, putting his arm around his little brother. “Let’s get closer to the ground and see what we find. We need to get out of these wet clothes so we don’t catch cold.”

The two boys left the blockaded window behind and headed down the hallway, in search of a set of stairs that would take them closer to the ground and to whatever awaited them there.

* * *

They found the stairs easily, pushing open the double doors and feeling their way down. The lightning raged above them, rain pounding the rooftop and the intact windows. Where the glass panes had been shattered their shoes crunched on broken glass while rain blew in, collecting in dirty puddles around their feet. Dead leaves littered the stairwells, combined with pieces of the ceiling and random trash that Zach thought might have been left behind by the men who’d taken them prisoner.

Without a weapon between them, it behooved them to rely upon silence to mask their presence. Neither of the boys knew what might be waiting inside the building for them. Carriers? More men with guns? Anything could be there. They took the steps as quietly as they could, cringing when their feet crunched on the debris littering the floor. Nothing much could be done about that.

They exited the stairs when they got to the first floor, peeking out through the door at the bottom and peering down a long hallway. They saw no lights and heard no voices. They saw no movement in the dim light. By all appearances, the first floor hallway was empty.

They passed through the door and walked down the hallway, whispering to each other when they needed to communicate. Outside of that, they remained quiet. The storm continued to rage outside, thunderclaps crashing periodically after being announced by lightning arcs ripping through the sky. They made it to the end of the hallway quickly, since the second building was significantly smaller than its counterpart next door.

“What now?” Jeremy whispered.

“Not sure,” Zach replied.

“I think this building is empty.”

“Looks like it. We should still be careful though.”

Bars lined the windows on the first floor. Zach hoped that the building would be free of carriers. Men with guns, however, might take their place. Zach didn’t want to stay in this building any longer than necessary, but with the apex carriers hunting outside there seemed little choice. If they slept in shifts then they might be able to rest a little before the sun came up.

And after that? Zach wasn’t sure. He knew in his heart that his father was dead; either from the fall, the carriers or the fire consuming the building next door. Jeremy probably knew it too, but wouldn’t admit it. Trish, Jasper and the others; Zach faced the harsh possibility that he and Jeremy might be the only ones left alive still.

This realization threatened to overwhelm him, but he thought of what his dad would have told him. He would have told Zach to be brave and to take charge. He was the older brother, after all. He had to look after Jeremy, no matter what happened.

They searched for a suitable area in which to stay the night, although Zach couldn’t say for certain what constituted acceptable. They knew so little about the building and the people who lived in it. He decided they should find the first room that looked abandoned and set up there. Less likely they’d run into other people.

Zach continued down the hallway, his brother behind him when he heard the sound of footsteps. He stopped cold. “Did you hear that?”

Jeremy paused, his ear cocked in the air. He nodded.

Zach considered his options. They could run, but to where? He looked around in the dim hallway and found a couple of doors a few feet away. “Come on,” he whispered to his little brother. Jeremy followed. They walked the dozen or so feet to the first door and slipped inside the room behind it.

In the room, darkness blanketed everything, obscuring their view. Zach listened and heard nothing.

Then the footsteps echoed again.

He and Jeremy froze, listening hard. Voices echoed throughout the corridor, growing increasingly louder. A light appeared, flickering in the pitchy darkness.

“Who is it?” Jeremy whispered. “More of those men?”

Zach shushed him. He peered out through the window set within the door, waiting for the owners of the footsteps to come into view. The light grew brighter as they approached, creating shadows against the wall. He saw several figures approach, a dozen or more shadows projected against the wall. Then the first figure came into view and Zach almost didn’t believe it.

“Chloe!” he cried, louder than he’d anticipated. He opened the door quickly, rushing out and into the hallway.

She jumped, startled by his sudden appearance. She stared hard in the darkness as Zach slipped out of the room. “Zach?”

Jeremy followed Zach out.

“And your brother,” Chloe said, smiling. She hugged him, something he hadn’t expected, but was happy to receive.

Jeremy stared at the group of kids with her and Sam. “Who are you?”

Jim introduced himself and Chloe brought Zach and Jeremy up to speed on the events leading up to their meeting in the hallway. Zach told Chloe and the others and about their dad.

“I’m so sorry,” Chloe said.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” Sam added.

Zach nodded.

“So what now?” Chloe asked.

“I figured we should find a place to hide until morning,” Zach said. “When the sun comes up we can look for the others.”

“See where we stand in the morning,” Sam said. “I like that idea.”

“We’ll look for your dad, I promise,” Chloe said. “For now, let’s find a place where we can dry off and wait things out until morning.”

The carriers approached as the storm churned in the sky above them. Emily turned toward the sound of their attackers and saw Terry lying on the rooftop. She ran to where he lay and saw a startling amount of blood pooling in the rainwater around him.

His eyes fluttered and he looked up at her. “What happened?”

“You passed out.”

He looked down at wound.

“Let’s get you up,” Emily said. She attempted to lift him, but his considerable weight didn’t budge.

Terry shook his head. “I’m done.”

“Don’t say that.”

Jasper appeared behind her, joined by the surviving women. Ed limped into view, supported on Trish’s shoulders.

“Those critters are on their way, fast,” Terry said. A coughing fit wracked his body, bloody spittle forming on his lips. He wiped it away. “Leave me here with the firepower. I can buy you some time.”

“Terry—” Emily said.

“Go. And don’t give me any shit about it.” He reached out his hand and motioned. “Hand me a couple of those rifles.”