AfterAge (42 page)

"We
know
, Stephen," McDole answered as he hurried by, pulling a man and two women toward the stairs. "We're going as fast as we can. There're more people than we expected and the chains are tougher."

"Go
faster
," Stephen repeated. His face was starting to show a fine edge of panic.

A few doors away the loud hiss that had backgrounded their conversations over the last several hours stopped. "We're ready!" Alex called. A scraggy-looking man stumbled out and squinted, then grinned and yanked on a baggy pair of jeans. "Four now," he croaked. "I'm Nathan. What can I do to help?" He hastily pulled a sweatshirt over his head and shoved sockless feet into a too-large pair of Nikes.

"See if you can find someone who's strong enough to pair off with you and take the pregnant woman out," Perlman suggested. "She might not be able to walk. I had to drug her pretty heavily" Farther down the hall, the hiss of the torch started again.

Nathan raised a finger. "We'll only have to carry the lady downstairs," he said. "Then we'll grab a cart from Walgreens and push her the rest of the way if we have to.”

"Great idea." Perlman pointed to the woman struggling to her feet. "Can you take her, too?"

Nathan nodded. "She'll come around. How many more?"

McDole began counting on his fingers. "Still four, including her" He tilted his head toward the sedated woman’s cubicle. "Think she's calm enough for Alex to go in yet?"

"Sure," Perlman said. "But we'll go with you, just in case."

"Once she's loose, that'll make three left," McDole said with satisfaction.

"Free!" Alex yelled. A sallow-faced young man tripped out of a room, then fell to his knees.

Perlman ran to his side, then clucked worriedly. "This guy's in pretty bad shape, Buddy. I don't think we should wait any longer for the ones that are ready to leave."

"Hey, Alex!" Buddy yelled.

"What?" Alex and Elliot paused in the midst of dragging the tanks on to the next room.

"The far end." McDole waved his finger. "The pregnant one. It's getting late."

"I
know
that, damn it!" They spun the tanks awkwardly, then hauled them to the far office as the doctor and Nathan hurried down. Alex fired the torch again, filling the air with a blast of light and heat as he pulled his welding goggles over his eyes. "Look the other way!" he called over the torch's noise.

Stephen was doing another check, his face wild. "There's two more." His fingers twisted around themselves. "A man and a woman."

"It's okay," McDole assured him. "We've got plenty of time."

"Less than an hour!" Stephen cried. “And some of the stronger ones wake up early!"

"We'll be fine," McDole repeated, though suddenly he wasn’t so sure. Would they really start moving before the sun completely set? He eyed the long hallway, noting the darkening shadows forming in the windowless inner cubicles.

C.J. looked up from his guard post at the stairwell. "We gotta get going, man." He peered nervously down the stairs. At least get 'em out of this dark building. It'll be a lot lighter outside."

All three jumped at the sound of shouting and McDole ran to join Alex and Nathan in the last office. Louise was backing out of the room. "She bit me," she said angrily.

"What's the matter with her, anyway?" In spite of the sedative, the freed woman was kicking at Perlman.

Alex reached around the struggling duo and twisted the torch off at the tanks, then slid his hands under the woman's shoulders and lifted her bodily from the floor. "Stop it!" he yelled, his nose inches from her own. "If you hold us up any longer, you'll get us all killed! Is that what you want?"

"I don't want to have that monster's child!" she cried. Tears were streaming down her face. "I don't—"

"We'll worry about that later, all right?" Nathan grabbed her chin and forced her head to stop its jerking. "Right now, let’s just get out of here
alive
. Now come
on
!”

"You've got to hurry!" In the hallway, Stephen’s voice was almost a scream.

Alex and McDole lugged the tanks into the hallway and the younger man's eyes flicked warily to the fading light. He turned to Elliot and Nathan. "Get the ones downstairs and go. McDole and I'll follow with these last two."

Elliot looked skeptical. "I don't know—"

"Just
go
. There's no time to argue!" He gave the blond-haired man a quick push. "The less people who have to run, the better!"

"Go ahead, man." C.J. pulled on Elliot's arm and guided him to where Nathan, the pregnant woman, and four others waited. "Kyle and Frank left already, and these folks will need someone to show them where to go. You're elected."

"What about you guys?" Elliot demanded

"We're armed," C.J. reminded him. His gaze stopped on Louise. "But take her with you."

"Forget it," Louise said. "I'm staying right here.”

“Listen—" C.J. began.

"Don't tell me what to do, hotshot." Her tone clearly said
stubborn
. "I make my own decisions." C.J. closed his mouth.

“All right," Elliot said. "We're taking off. But you guys . . .
Jesus
." His eyes were wide. "Be careful, okay?" He turned to the former prisoners. "Let's go, folks.”

As they hurried past, Stephen hovered around the torch like a panicked moth. "Come on, come on!" He looked ready to vomit. "They'll be coming any time!"

Alex's forehead glittered with sweat. "The sun won't set for another forty-five minutes," he said.

"It doesn't matter!" Stephen insisted. "This building is so dark that once it drops below the skyscrapers on the west, they're already starting to wake up. They'll get up, but they just won't go outside!"

"Christ," Alex muttered. "Buddy, help me get this thing over there. How many are left?"

"Only two," Louise told him. ”A man and a woman. They look like they're in okay shape."

"That's something—Stephen, will you get out of the way!" He gave a hard pull on the acetylene tank and jostled it close to an anxious woman already dressed in an oversized sweatshirt and denim skirt. "Buddy, get this guy outta here, will—

"Oh,
damn it! OH, SHIT!
I can't believe I
did
that!”

“What's the matter, Alex? For God's sake,
what's wrong?
"

The dark-haired man was frantically twisting a T-shaped handle on the tank of oxygen and glaring at the pressure gauge. He hissed as his fingers fumbled at it, then dropped helplessly to his sides. "We're
fucked
." He looked dazed. "I didn't back off the pressure. I blew the diaphragm in the regulator."

"You what?" Louise asked. Her face was ashen. "Can't you fix it?"

Alex shook his head, spun, and pounded a fist against the wall. "What a stupid,
stupid
thing to do!''

"Can you bypass it?" McDole suggested anxiously.

"I wouldn't get enough oxygen to make the flame hot enough. It wouldn't
cut
." He buried his fingers in his hair as the chained woman, her arms and face mottled with ugly bruises, moaned softly. "It's useless. We’ve got to find another way."

"I've got bolt cutters," C.J. said. He produced a small but new tool from his jacket and handed it to McDole. "Brought for an emergency."

"Let's see those." Alex snatched them from C.J. and bent to the chain. As with all the others, the end of the chain was padlocked to an old-fashioned radiator as immovable as a table-sized block of lead. "This is hardened steel. I don't think these are going to do it," he said grimly as he fought to make the edges meet through the metal link. The muscles in his arms swelled; there was a loud
SNAP!
and he blinked, then his face twisted as he held up the busted pieces of the cutters. "Too small to handle it."

"
Go
," the woman said suddenly. She squeezed Alex's wrist. "Come back tomorrow or something."

"You can't do that!" Stephen wailed from behind them. "Don't you see? Anyelet will kill her and the other one, too! You
have
to take them with you!"

"C.J., guard those steps," McDole commanded. He looked at Alex and Stephen, then motioned for Louise. "Everybody grab the chain," he said grimly. "Our only chance is to pull this radiator right out of the floor."

REVELATION 19:6

And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude . . .

~ * ~

Vic sat up and tried to shake the nightfog from his brain. A babble of voices drifted through the pipes and the thick old walls, barely registering in his sensitive ears. Anyelet and the others wouldn't be awake yet; better-fed than Vic, they fell more deeply into nightsleep and stretched it out, knowing that awakening would bring the constant nag of The Hunger. He was always the first to rise, and tonight the chorus of voices and the stench of Howard's room, where he'd decided to hide, forced him awake while the sun was still sinking.

The noise grew and realization hit him. Humans—louder, more rushed than they should have been. He eased into the hallway and stood indecisively. He should flee; Anyelet had surely given orders to kill him, and as strong as he was, Vic would never survive an attack by more than three of his own kind.

But all that noise . . .

Someone was downstairs trying to free the people Anyelet had kept prisoner for so long. The others would sleep for only a little longer; as it had Vic, the noise would tease even the laziest vampires early from their nightsleep.

But he had a few minutes' jump on them and his mouth stretched in a dark grin. Running with the gangs of his youth had taught him that revenge could be a never-ending game.

REVELATION 22:9

For I am thy fellow-servant. . . .

REVELATION 16:4

And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers

and fountains of waters; and they became blood.

~ * ~

"Oh God, oh God!" Stephen was crying and babbling, his frail hands little help as the others pulled savagely at the chain where it looped through the radiator.

"Shut up!" Alex hissed. “At least try to be quiet!"

The woman yanked frantically on McDole's sleeve. "Get out while you still can! It doesn't matter about us—for Christ's sake, just run!"

"One more try," McDole said stubbornly. "One, two, three,
heave!
"

"Damn it!" Alex rattled the chain in fury. "Why can't we—"

The woman caught sight of something over their shoulders and gasped as Alex whirled and raised his fists instinctively and McDole cried out in surprise. Alex had an instant to realize how foolish hand-to-hand would be against the huge creature that faced him, then the muscle-covered vampire grabbed both him and McDole and tossed them aside. Louise bared her teeth and drew a black pistol from her jacket, planting herself between the cowering woman and the vampire. She raised the gun and cocked it, then yelped at the stinging pain in her fingers; he'd yanked the weapon from her hand so quickly she hadn't even seen him move.

"Hey, you son of a bitch!"

The creature spun and snarled as Alex primed the Winchester and fired from only six feet away. The slug opened a crater in the vampire's right bicep and he bellowed and tackled the dark-haired man, leaping the distance in the space of a breath. Louise screamed as Alex took a vicious crack in the face and dropped the gun; before McDole could react, Deb's Winchester was in the vampire's hands.

"Get back," he growled, and swung the barrel at McDole. "Farther, damn it!" He glowered at the two men, then motioned at Louise. Thin reddish fluid dribbled from the hole in his arm. "Get out of the way." When she refused to move, he grimaced, snatched her arm, and pushed her behind him, sending her stumbling into the arms of the two men edging up from the rear. Alex sprawled on the floor and lost his grip on the machete he'd pulled from his belt; it went skittering out of reach as McDole landed heavily on one hip and gasped. C.J. pounded toward them from far down the hallway.

"Vic," Stephen entreated. He held his hands out. "Please—"

The former bodybuilder ignored Stephen and hefted the woman to her feet, then grasped the chain a foot away from her ankle and literally
tore
it apart. He shoved the terrified woman into Stephen's outstretched arms and streaked into the next cubicle as Alex gained his bearings and dived for the machete, then dropped it again when the vampire hauled the final prisoner from his room and threw him at Alex and McDole.

"Get the hell out of here," he hissed. "Before Anyelet—uh!" His face slackened for a second, then his eyes widened and he grinned. He sank to his knees and pitched forward.

"Vic!" Stephen cried. He ran to the vampire's side and struggled to turn him over, face filled with dismay at the sight of C.J.'s arrow buried so deeply in Vic's back that it protruded through the front of his chest. Alex helped roll him on one side, hoping frantically that this unexpected ally would survive, but Vic raised a hand and waved them toward the open stairwell door behind them.