End of the Line (Book 2): Stuck in the Middle (35 page)

             
Mike said nothing and Tanya instead said. “Annemarie, Dena, go with Ariel. Get people to safety. Any guards give you trouble, shoot them.”

             
Ariel looked at Aisha, but didn’t anything.

“Go, you can trust them,”
Aisha said, then hugged her. “You’ll be fine.”

             
I put the assault rifle on single shot. Joel liked to hunt, I think it’s time he learned what real hunters did.

              The front doors of the estate were closed but unlocked. A tarnished brass knocker was in center of the door. Our house had brass knockers. I remembered when I was little watching Edina polish them.

Mike motioned us to move to the side. He pulled the door open but stepped aside as well. I wasn’t surprised when a bunch of shots fired but they were aimless and didn’t hit anyone. When they stopped, Mike looked at us and put his hand on his ears. He then pulled a cylinder from his bag that looked like a grenade. I moved back
and put my hands over my ears as did the others.

Mike tossed it in. Despite
covering over my ears the blast was deafening. When I removed my hands, I heard men screaming. Good.

Through the open door, I saw four men. Three were on the floor covering their ears including the broken-nose kid and had dropped their guns. The nasty one Chris had swung his rifle on his back and was holding his ears.

              When he saw me, he managed to raise his rifle. I was faster. I enjoyed putting a bullet in his brain and watching him fall back with his eyes open wide. Did he really think I wasn’t going to kill him?

The three remaining were still on the ground with their hands over their ears.

“I can’t hear!” one of them screamed.

             
Mike grabbed all the weapons on the floor. Four rifle. He passed them to Tanya. She looked overloaded with weapons. She swung three over her shoulder and handed one to Aisha.

             
“These guys okay? Aisha?” Tanya asked, pointing at them.

             
Aisha looked them over.

             
“None of them are okay,” she said. “But none are monsters.” She looked at Chris, but didn’t say anything.

             
“Who can we talk to?”

             
She pointed to the broken nose kid. Mike helped him up but grabbed his right hand roughly. He didn’t resist.

             
“Mike, you got rope?”

             
The two other guys heard that. They turned white and I giggled. Did they think Tanya was going to hang them?

             
“Mike, can you tie these two fellows up? You fellows won’t give us a problem, right? Otherwise Grace will make you look like your friends.” She pointed to Chris. I enjoyed seeing him dead, but I looked forward to seeing Joel and Bill the same way. I wondered what Daddy would have thought about my bloodlust. Daddy crushed his enemies financially. You couldn’t do that in this brave new world.

             
Mike didn’t reply. He pulled rope out of his pack.

             
“Go over there,” he said motioning to a pretty antique bench. The men obeyed.

             
“Tell me where Joel is,” Tanya returned her focus on the kid. I kept one eye on him and one eye on Mike.

             
“I don’t know!” the kid said, still with his hands out, still looking a little disoriented but it looked like his hearing was fine. “He ran out when we heard the explosions. He told us to defend the house and he’ll be back.”

             
“He’s going burn the house down.” I said, my voice quiet. “He did it before.”

             
“This is a giant fucking mansion.”

             
“Things aren’t going his way,” I held my gun to broken nose kid.

             
“You got anything to set fire to the house?” Tanya said, grabbing the kid.

             
“Please don’t shoot me!” the kid said looking at me even though everyone else had guns.

             
“She ain’t gonna shoot you,” Tanya said. “She would have already done it.” Mike finished tying up the two guys and came back to us.

             
“We got a stockpile of weapons in the basement,” he said. “I ain’t ever been down there. I swear. Joel only lets a handful of people see it.”

             
“How do we get to the basement?”

             
“Go through the study,” he said pointing left.

             
“How many ways into the basement?” I asked. In my house we had two ways in. My father’s study had a door to the wine cellar which connected to the regular basement through a sturdy door.

             
“Through the kitchen or the study.”

             
“Which one is Joel likely to use?” Mike asked.

             
“If you lie I will shoot you where it hurts, not where you die,” I said.

             
Tanya looked at me strangely but even a rich bitch had her breaking points. This kid was dawdling and I didn’t want my adrenaline to wear off before I found Joel.

             
“He likes the entrance in the study.”

              We left them tied up and went through two double doors to our left. No one was on the other side. It led into a giant meeting parlor, the same room I tried to escape from. I saw the stairs leading to my room upstairs. I heard knocking and yelling coming from behind the door of the infirmary and I assumed it was the woman who couldn’t help me.

             
Tanya tried the door but it was locked. She knocked hard.              “Who’s there?” she asked.

             
“I saw her before. I think her name is Sam.”             

             
“Are you here to help us? Can you open the door?” said a voice from the other side. She sounded as hopeless as she did when we first met.

             
“We’re looking for Joel.” Tanya said.

             
“He’s not here. I’m Dr. Samantha Philips—“ she said. “Joel locked us in.”

             
“Stand back,” Tanya said. She went to her bag and pulled out a crowbar. She jimmied the door and kicked it opened.

             
Standing about four feet away was the middle aged white woman with long greying hair wearing a track suit. She didn’t look like a doctor. Tommy was lying on the cots, his eyes still closed and his skin still red.

             
“I saw you in the courtyard. I thought finally someone’s come to rescue us.”

             
“Where’s Joel?” I said, still mad about her not helping me.

             
“I don’t know. He came in, said we were under attack and locked us in. I heard an explosion before that.” She looked at us with eyes widen in fear.

             
“Hey!” screamed a male voice from behind me. “Turn around and drop your weapons!”

             
I obeyed the first order, turned around and instead of dropping my weapon I dropped one of Joel’s men. Head shot, I had gotten so used to doing them, not realizing that on humans there are other viable and less messy places.

             
Dr. Philips had her hands over her ears. Tanya grabbed her arm. “We need to find Joel. Where do you think he is?”

             
Dr. Philips didn’t pull away but Tanya released her. “Are you going to kill him?”

             
“Yes,” I said. Dr. Philips’ eyes widened again.

             
“You gotta a problem with that? He killed nine of my people, wounded two more and god knows what he did to Grace here.” 

             
She looked me over. I could tell by her face she knew what I went through: Big Bill and the pole. I felt some sympathy for her.

             
“Come see me when it’s done.”

             
“Listen,” Tanya said. “Joel might be thinking ‘bout blowing the house. You might want to move out somewhere.”

             
She looked at Tommy. I did too. He looked so vulnerable like in his move Turbo Spy when his character got shot and found a kindly old lady who nursed him back to health. “I can’t leave him.”

             
“Is he really bad?” Tanya looked at me strangely for actually being concerned about someone. She looked at Tommy and her eyes grew big.

             
“It’s heatstroke. If I move him, he could die.”

             
“Shit, is that Tommy Haldish?”

             
“Worry about it later. Let them stay here for now. We’ll move him only if we have too.” This came from Mike who stood behind me.  He dumped the extra weapons on a nearby couch and looked at Dr. Philips.

             
“I’m leaving these here. Lock the door and let no one in except for us. Aisha, can we trust her?”

             
“Yes. Sam’s a prisoner just like the rest of us.”

              Tanya led the way to the other door which led to the study. This door was unlocked. Tanya kicked it open and stood the side.

             
It was empty. In my father’s study, the cellar door was behind a bookcase.

             
“Look for things not covered in dust,” I realized my lips were dry. I willed my body to go a little longer. “That will be the mechanism to open the door.”             

             
The others searched while I watched, not because the work was beneath me but my eyes had gotten blurry. I willed them to focus but not before Mike took my arm.

             
“Come on, sit down.”

             
I reluctantly sat on a leather sofa. Mike pulled a water bottle out from his bag and gave it to me. Our fingers touched and I felt a spark but he pulled away. I sipped the water slowly.

             
“Here it is,” Tanya found a statue of a bird, a heron, I think, near a book case. It looked relatively clean compared to the rest of the room. What makes its open?”

             
“See if something moves, like the beak.”

             
Tanya touched the beak and turned it. A panel next to one of the bookcases opened with a low creak. I stood up wavered a bit when Mike took my arm.

             
“Grace, you can barely stand.”

             
I steadied myself and took my arm from Mike. “Don’t need to stand to shoot.”

             
“Where you going to shoot from? The sofa?”

             
I giggled and Mike looked at me oddly.

             
The cellar steps were circular. I had trouble walking down, my head was swimming, but the cool air helped.

             
At the bottom were dozens of rows of wine bottles. I thought about Daddy and his love of wines. His cellar was smaller than this one. Wine was his favorite subject. I never told him I didn’t have a taste for it, but he knew. I would use his words, tell them how it smelled and tasted but he knew I faked it.

             
He still loved me anyway.

             
It was pitch black except for the light from upstairs. I knew this house had electricity. I searched the walls for a switch. When I turned it on, all but one light was out. It gave the room an eerie shiny glow. We passed rows of wine on shelves like a books at a library. It made me think of Jim who would love the upstairs study.

             
At the end of the room was a locked door. Tanya tried it was locked.

             
I heard the sound of the rifle being cocked.

             
“Back!” Mike yelled. I pulled into a corner and I hoped Tanya did too. There was a horrific blast through the door.

             
I ducked down when I heard it ricochet. I heard the pop of glass breaking. Mike held something in his hand. Tanya put her helmet down, pulled her crowbar out. She probably couldn’t see a damn thing.

             
She kept to the side and used the crowbar to break open the door. It was probably was stronger on the other side to keep the servants out of the wine cellar.

             
Mike tossed what was in his hand into the room. The room only had a dim light but I saw what he threw in.

             
Another flash grenade. There were three men inside, all wearing fatigues, none of them Joel. When they saw the grenade they scrambled. It gave me enough time to get two and wound one causing him to drop the shotgun he was holding. The man was Mike’s age, brown and white hair, long face and plain looking.