Read A Necessary Kill Online

Authors: James P. Sumner

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Heist, #Vigilante Justice, #Spies & Politics, #Assassinations, #Conspiracies, #Espionage, #Political, #Terrorism, #Thriller, #Thrillers, #Pulp

A Necessary Kill (8 page)

BOOK: A Necessary Kill
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Her gaze glances past me for a split-second, looking at the corridor we came from before refocusing on me. “That’s a good plan, Adrian. A brilliant plan. But we might be safer leaving with a couple of SWAT teams.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

She points behind me. “I am
far
from the worst thing in here. There are people in here that make me look like someone from
Desperate Housewives
.”

I note the pop culture reference. I’m impressed!

I turn and look over my shoulder. There are nine people walking toward us. I shit you not, it’s like a scene from
Dawn of the Dead
! They’re staggering slowly down the corridor with glazed, medicated expressions on their faces, looking around absently as they come to terms with their unexpected freedom.

I turn to look down the opposite corridor and see much the same.

I feel Ruby tapping my shoulder. “Ah… Adrian…”

I follow her gaze and see one of them at the back of the pack fumbling inside a guard’s pocket. I can just about see them take a set of keys and head to the far end, toward the door opposite Ruby’s cell.

The only other room not linked to the central system.

They stand in front of the door for a few moments, then step back as it opens. The guy who walks out has messy, graying hair. He shuffles barefoot into the middle of the corridor. His robe is open, showing a stained white vest and striped boxer shorts.

“Adrian, we… we should probably go.”

I can’t take my eyes off this guy. He looks so strange. He’s—Jesus, he’s foaming at the goddamn mouth! His shuffling is speeding up, too. He draws level with another patient. I see his hand disappear into the pocket of his robe as he moves to her side. He takes out what looks to be a homemade shank of some kind.

Like lightning, he grabs the inmate—a woman in her fifties—by her hair, and yanks her head back, exposing her throat. He whips his hand up and pierces the flesh underneath her chin. Once… twice… too many times—holy shit!

He pauses only to let the blood flow over his hand for a moment. He moves the shank to his own forehead and slowly slices across it, creating a thin, dark line that starts to pour down his face. As his skin is painted by the blood, his eyes seem to glow—the whites shining through the crimson mask—and stare straight through me.

That was… that was some pretty dark shit.

The rest of the zombie horde stop and turn, staring at him with looks of bewilderment. He lets out a guttural scream, which prompts the rest of them to do the same. They turn back around. Some groan, some yell, others stay worryingly silent. But they start walking toward us, this time with more purpose.

The one with the keys makes his way to the front of the pack, re-opening the metal security gate halfway along the corridor. I’m actually a little relieved they’ve ignored the guards I left on the floor…

“Adrian, we need to go. Right now,” urges Ruby.

“Yeah… I think you might be right…”

The crazy man charges forward, shoving other inmates out the way. They regain what little focus they had to begin with and chase after him.

“Oh, shit!” I grab Ruby’s hand and we set off running down the stairs, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the two rampaging gangs of maniacs as they meet in the middle.

We quickly come to the circular hub. Ahead of us, the door to the reception area is closed. I see another large group of guards assembled behind it. I have a key, but it won’t do us much good if we’re mobbed the moment we open the damn thing.

I hear a noise behind us and look over my shoulder. My new stalker standing at the top of the stairs with a smile on his face and the shank in his hand, which is dripping blood all over the carpet.

Ruby takes the lead, dragging me off to our right. “Come on—this way.”

“Where are we going?”

“Anywhere that isn’t here!”

We run down the corridor, frantically glancing at either side for an open door, but every one we try is locked.

This is bad. Five security guards, I can handle. They’re slow, predictable, and poorly trained. But close to twenty crazed inmates loose in an asylum who have no issue with self-harming as well as killing—that’s a different thing altogether. I know a lost cause when I see one, and we absolutely would
not
win that fight.

So we run.

But, unfortunately, we seem to have headed down another dead end…

Shit.

I look over my shoulder and see the inmates stop about halfway down the corridor. They shift back into their slow, demented shuffle. Blood is still dripping on the floor from my stalker’s blade. And from his head wound.

“This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done,” says Ruby.

I shrug. “You gotta admit, given you’ve only known me twenty minutes and I’ve only done two things, for
both
of them to be the dumbest thing you’ve seen me do is pretty impressive.”

I feel her turn to look at me. “You’re crazier than anyone in here, you know that?”

I smile, not taking my eyes off the inmates. “Thanks.”

“Not a compliment…”

“So
you
say…”

I take a step back drawing level with a door on my right. I glance through the porthole window and see it’s a therapy room of some sort. I reach for the handle and try it.

The door opens.

I grab Ruby’s arm and drag her sideways into the room after me. I slam the door, turn the lock, and pull the table immediately to my right in front of it.

“Okay, that should buy us some time. We need to—”

She hits my arm, interrupting me. She’s standing at my side facing the room. I look at her and see she’s staring blankly behind me, transfixed by something.

I close my eyes and sigh. “What now?”

I turn around and look at the room. It’s a perfect square, maybe fifteen by fifteen. The wall opposite the door has two windows behind metal bars, stretching up from waist height to the ceiling. There are plastic chairs positioned in a circle on one side, and opposite is a row of cupboards running the full width of the room. I’m guessing they have activity equipment stored in them or something.

In the far corner, staring at us with a vacant expression, is a man standing awkwardly and clutching a teddy bear. He’s wearing white coveralls and has to be close to seven feet tall. He’s an absolute fucking mountain…

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me…” I mutter.

12:07 EDT

If he were my height, he’d be incredibly overweight, but because he’s so tall, it stretches the fat, spreading it over a larger area, so he just looks big and bulky. His jowls are dark with stubble, and his thick lips glisten with saliva.

He turns his head slowly to look at me and smiles. “Hi.”

His voice low and simple.

I wave silently, trying to remain as calm as I can.

Ruby steps forward, her hands on her face in fake surprise. “My God, it’s you! It’s really you! You’re here to save me, aren’t you? They told me you would come… the man who drinks tea and his friends—they said you’d rescue me.”

Christ, she’s off again…

The big guy looks at her. “I’m George,” he announces slowly. “Hi!”

“George… George… you are the chosen one, are you not?”

“Uh… Hi!”

The mob outside starts banging on the door, urgently trying to break through. The big guy—George—looks oblivious and a little confused.

“We’re going to have some fun,” continues Ruby. “We’re going to play a game of peekaboo with our new friends outside.” She moves in close to him and leans against his chest the way a daughter would with her father, her hand flat next to her face. “Behind that door, the demons come. No, don’t look! Don’t look at their eyes. We must put them to sleep. Let them rest.”

George is completely unaware she’s next to him. He’s just staring at the door. There’s no emotion on his face. There’s… nothing. Just a
Vacant
sign hanging between his ears. But he’s a monster of a man. Maybe a gentle giant. Maybe a sleeping bear. Whatever he is, I hope Ruby knows what she’s doing…

“De… mon…?” he mutters.

Ruby smiles. “Yes! Yes! Demon! Right outside the door. They need to sleep. They need to rest. Help me, Chosen One. Help me!”

He looks down at her slowly. “Sleep…”

He pushes her away and walks toward the door. I hastily step aside, not wishing to anger ol’
Sloth
here anymore than I want to piss off the crazy gang outside.

I move to the back of the room and stand beside Ruby. “Good work.”

“Thanks. Be ready to run.”

With considerable ease, George moves the table using one hand. He yanks the door open, not bothering to unlock it first. The frame cracks and splinters as the lock breaks.

Our view is mostly obscured by his hulking frame, but I hear the commotion outside cease almost immediately.

“De… mon…?” he says again.

He’s met with silence. Ignoring everything else, he strides into the corridor, smashing his enormous shovel-like fists into the first couple of lunatics he sees. I can just about see them hit the floor. The jaw of the one nearest to the door is hanging loose, and their eyes are open and blank. I’m guessing they’re dead.

The noise restarts as everyone’s attention turns to George.

I grab Ruby’s wrist. “Come on, we’re leaving.” We move to the door, waiting for a gap in the crowd. “Okay, now!”

We slip out and set off back down the corridor, running as fast as we can. I have my hand around Ruby’s wrist. She’s doing her best to keep up with me.

We make it back to the door that leads to the reception area. I glance quickly through the window and see the group of guards still standing there. A few of them are facing the main doors, talking among themselves.

The FBI must be almost here, if they’re not already.

“Is there any other way out of here?” I ask her.

“I’m not sure. There’s a basement level, but I don’t know if there’s a back door or anything.”

“Damn it. Well, we need to try—the front door’s not an option. And this place will be swarming with Feds any second.”

“Okay, this way.”

We set off down the corridor to the right. Halfway along is a metal door. I take the keys and start trying them in the lock.

Ruby looks back the way we came, keeping watch. “Will you hurry up?”

I try another key. “I’m going as fast as I—” The door unlocks. “Okay, I’m in.”

I pull it open, holding it so she can go through. I follow her, locking it behind me.

We’re in a maintenance area, which is dimly lit by fading lights affixed to the walls on either side. The ground is plain concrete with patches of water all around. Overhead, exposed piping wrapped in silver duct tape runs along the ceiling.

The corridor is narrow, and after a few hundred yards a metal staircase descends into more darkness.

“Well, this isn’t creepy at all…”

She ignores me and makes her way down. After a few steps, lights flicker into life above us.

“You happy now?” she calls back over her shoulder.

“I am, thanks.”

We reach the bottom and follow the corridor around. It opens into another hub of sorts, a central space with corridors stretching out on every compass point, presumably running underneath the entire building.

It’s damp and dark and the air is stale.

“Which way?” I ask her.

“I don’t know,” she replies abruptly. “You’ve been down here as many times as I have.”

“Okay, let’s think about this and—”

“You two alright?”

The voice startles us and we jump, spinning around to find the source of the question. Over in the doorway of a small room is a man wearing maintenance coveralls and a baseball cap. He’s skinny, probably late fifties, with a thick, gray beard.

“Who are you?” I ask urgently, taking a step toward him.

He holds his hands up defensively. “Hey, I’m just the janitor. I didn’t do nothing.” His voice is raspy and his hands are trembling.

Ruby moves in front of me. “We need to get out of here. The inmates are loose and running riot upstairs. Is there another way out of the building down here?”

He thinks for a minute as he looks both of us up and down. “Sure, there’s the back door I use.” He nods over to his right, down the corridor opposite us.

“That’s great!”

She takes a step toward it, but I grab her arm to stop her. “Hang on—if it’s a main door, it’ll be covered by the Fed—” I look at the janitor. “…The other guys. Any other ways?”

He shakes his head. “No… well, except…”

I raise an eyebrow. “Except? We like
except
… Except what?”

“There’s a service tunnel contractors use when they clean the sewers.” He points down the next corridor directly ahead of him. “There’s an access point that leads into the main sewer network beneath the city. It runs for miles.”

“Sounds perfect, thanks. And if anyone comes down here asking, you didn’t see us, okay?”

The guy shrugs. “I don’t see nothing. I’m just the janitor.”

“Good man.”

I jog over to the corridor. Lights flicker on as I approach. It’s short and a dead end. On the left is a small room containing cleaning supplies with the door open. Against the wall at the end is a large machine for buffing the floor tiles.

In one wall is a hatch. I move over to it and spin the circular handle in the middle, unlocking it. I pull it open to reveal a tunnel, maybe three feet high and the same across.

Oh.

“No way,” says Ruby next to me. She leans forward and sniffs. “I’m not going in there—the place stinks!”

“Oh, well, that’s fair enough. Tell you what, you head back upstairs and distract the crazy people until the FBI arrives so I can get out of here…”

She flips me the middle finger but says nothing.

“Look, I don’t really want to crawl on my hands and knees through shit, either, but it’s that or leave in the back of a van surrounded by two SWAT teams. It’s your call, sweetheart, but I know what’s getting my vote.”

She briefly looks down at herself. “I’m wearing nothing but this dress…”

I shrug. “So you’ll have less laundry to do afterward—bonus. You wanna go first?”

She shakes her head and sighs heavily, then steps aside gesturing to the entrance. “Age before beauty.”

BOOK: A Necessary Kill
8.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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