Dire Means (53 page)

Mark motioned for her to follow him and he opened the door to the garage.

“Come with me. Hurry!” he urged the survivors. “We’re going to take you out of here.”

Several of them began to weep. One murmured, “Thank you, God,” and two reached out to him.

In the garage, Mark unlocked the rear doors of a truck with its console and Morana pushed Pop’s cart to the truck’s lift. They raised and rolled the cart inside.

Janne found a sink in the corner of the garage and filled a clean bucket with water for the parched survivors. Two of the stronger ones joined her at the sink and took turns gulping from the faucet.

“Please hurry,” Mark shouted.

“Everybody in the truck, let’s go!” Morana said.

Janne brought the bucket into the back of the truck and poured water into the mouths of some of the people who already sat inside.

The last to board was an elderly woman. Morana took one of her arms and Mark the other. Before she stepped from the lift onto the truck bed she stopped, squeezed Mark’s arm and whispered, “Thank you.”

While Morana retracted the lift and slid it back under the truck, Mark gave Janne the laundry bag of hard drives and she climbed into the passenger seat of the cab.

Mark was about to close the rear doors when he realized that Morana hadn’t entered the truck. He pointed inside and said, “Morana, get in.”

“I’m driving,” she replied. She frowned as if that were the only logical option.

“No you aren’t.”

She motioned for Mark to follow her a few steps from the truck. He did.

“I can’t ride back there—they’ll kill me.”

“Yes, you can and no, they won’t. They’re too weak and besides, they know you just helped to rescue them.”

“Please—I need to ride up front. I just—I can’t be back there with them.”

A huge crash that shook the garage walls interrupted their conversation and they both spun toward the foyer. Shouts and screams came from inside—closer. A new rhythmic banging began.

“They’ve broken out of the Mulching Room!” Morana said.

“Get in now!” Mark pointed to the truck.

Morana ran and jumped into the back of the truck. Mark slammed the doors shut.

As he climbed into the driver’s seat Janne’s face was pale and she begged Mark to hurry. He put his hand on the driver’s console, it beeped, and he turned the ignition. The engine glugged to life. He pressed the control for the lift and they began to rise.

“Can they follow us?” Janne said. She looked out her window at the sinking floor of the garage.

“No. The doors, trucks and lifts won’t work for them. If we can reach the surface, we’ll be free.”

“Oh my God, they’ve broken in!”

Mark looked out his window. Sinking below them he saw a mob of Trail Bladers wearing their red shirts teeming around the truck’s lift. Some cupped their mouths as they yelled up at the truck and others motioned for the truck to come back down.

The truck reached the surface. The huge concrete slabs that sealed the underground garage slid together and the lift gently lowered the truck’s wheels to them. Mark drove out of the garage. Janne leaned over and hugged Mark’s neck.

They wound down the driveway and exited the automatic gate, the final leg of their escape from the doomed, synthetic world of the Nest.

“Where do we go? These people need medical attention. And we’ve got two fugitives with them,” Mark said.

“We’ll have to find a hospital, but I still don’t know where we are,” Janne said.

“Neither do I.”

Mark knew that Pop’s predicted explosion could happen at any moment. Would they feel it? See or hear it?

Within about three city blocks, Janne saw a familiar restaurant. “Mark I know where we are!” she announced. “Corbin Medical Center is ten minutes away—keep going straight. Give me your cell phone. I’ll call the police and tell them to meet us there.”

Mark cringed at the thought of dealing with the police again. He knew there was no escaping a great deal of time with the police if he hoped to have any chance of exoneration. He checked for the laundry bag beside Janne’s feet. It was there. He gritted his teeth and handed over his phone.

Janne shouted to the 911 operator, “We have the Santa Monica terrorists locked in a truck. We’re going to Corbin Medical Center and we’ll park at the main entrance…What? ...No, they are not armed—none of us are …I don’t know our location, we’re driving, just get the police to Corbin Medical Center immediately.” Janne hung up when they saw a line of fire trucks approaching from the opposite direction. Ambulances and police cars followed soon after—lights flashing and sirens blazing.

“They couldn’t have been that fast,” Janne said.

“I’m not stopping until we reach the hospital,” Mark said.

“You don’t need to stop; that’s the driveway right there,” Janne said as she pointed to the next turn.

The emergency vehicles passed by the hospital entrance and continued in the direction Janne and Mark had come. “They’re passing the hospital!” Janne said as she rolled down the window and leaned out waving her arm to them, but they faded in the distance.

Mark turned the truck into Corbin Medical Center and stopped at the main hospital entrance on a circular driveway. As they jumped out Mark heard Janne say, “Oh my God!” When Mark met her at the back of the truck, he saw it too.

To the west, an enormous plume of smoke rose, its edges curling back into itself as it grew and bulged. The sunset and dimming light of dusk framed the dark cloud in orange. Janne clutched her chest and took a few steps toward it.

Word of a massive explosion was spreading fast, as some hospital workers had come out to see the sky. Janne went to a nearby woman who wore a stethoscope around her neck and carried a clipboard. After a brief conversation, the woman hurried back inside.

“Mark, keep the door closed until they come out,” Janne said. She pointed to the truck. “I want that woman captured.”

Mark nodded and then they heard pounding from inside the truck.

A group of uniformed hospital workers escorted by several security guards approached the truck. They gathered in back and tried to open the door. Mark looked to Janne who nodded at him.

He approached the security guard and said, “One is locked in a cart. The other is a tall female in a bloody white t-shirt and she has blood on her hands. Neither is armed. The rest are victims who need help desperately.”

“Let’s get these people some help,” a doctor said. He yelled for an orderly to fetch some wheelchairs.

Mark placed his hand on the console and the door clicked unlocked. Two security guards swung it open, exposing the horrific results of Pop’s cruelty. Mark and Janne stepped off to one side to give the hospital staff room to assist the survivors.

One by one, they began lowering each of Pop’s victims onto a wheel chair or wheeled bed and took them inside. A small crowd had gathered nearby to see the plume of smoke.

A security guard leaned out of the truck and said, “Excuse me, sir. I thought you said there was a female on board with blood on her shirt.”

Mark went to the truck and peered in. He saw only Pop’s cart against the wall and Janne’s water bucket. Morana had vanished. Mark’s eye scoured the truck’s bed until he saw the open partition that divided the truck’s cab from the bed.

“She’s gone,” Mark said. The guards shrugged.

“She’s gone!” Janne yelled. “Check the patients! Check the hospital grounds—she can’t be far!” The security guards spread out to the lawn and parking lot, but Mark knew there was little hope that they would find and capture Morana.

He slumped onto the rear bumper of the truck. He stared at the plume of smoke and let his eyes lose focus. Janne returned to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

He nodded.

“You know I’ll help you in any way I can,” she said.

He nodded again. They heard new sirens—not fading off in the direction of the Nest—but nearing.

Mark’s phone beeped. It was a text message. “No hard feelings. Thanks for ending it. Morana.”

Epilogue

1 month later

MARK ENTERED BONFIGLIO Café a little after 9:00 p.m. Only four patrons remained at the counter. One was Todd Felsom who had eagerly anticipated this meeting all day.

Henry was wiping glasses when he saw Mark standing in the doorway. He yelled, “Heyyy! There he is!” and threw his towel so high that it hit the ceiling. Todd jumped from his seat and said, “Hey buddy, welcome to freedom!” He patted Mark on the back while Henry came around the counter.

Althea ran out from the rear of the café. She and Henry both hugged Mark at the same time. He didn’t recognize the four patrons, but they seemed to have been prepped for his arrival because they stood and clapped for him.

“I have all your mail,” Todd said. He pointed to the counter where a thick stack of envelopes sat, bound with rubber bands.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“I’m sure you know what I have for you,” Althea said.

Mark pretended not to know and looked up and around the room. Althea slid a foil-wrapped casserole dish out from under the counter and slid it to Mark. He lifted the corner of the foil to see it, though it was unnecessary; the unmistakable aroma of Mark’s Macaroni Madness filled the air.

Mark sat and talked with the Bonfiglios and Todd for over two hours detailing the excruciating sluggishness of his exoneration despite having video evidence that would be any cyber-forensic detective’s dream.

“You coming home?” Todd asked.

“I haven’t decided yet. I think you’ll understand if I choose to move.”

“Aw c’mon, buddy. I won’t raise the rent on you,” Todd said, and then laughed.

“We’ll see. I have a room right on the sand tonight. I’m going to stay there and lay low for a while.”

After he thanked them all and said his good-byes, Mark returned to his hotel room.

He sat at the small corner table resting his head against the wall. He reached into his pocket. Since being released from custody, he kept the TellTale adapter with him. He took it out and placed it on the table. It brought him comfort as it had been so vital in enabling escape from the Nest. He wished Carlos could have seen how well it had performed.

Shortly after their escape, Mark had explained to Janne Prophet how he had used the TellTale. She urged Mark to accept her financial backing for further development. He told her he would consider it, and for the first time since Carlos’s death, he actually did. But he was still reluctant to proceed without his friend, the TellTale’s inventor.

He picked up his stack of letters and began sorting them. Most were overdue bills with “Past Due” or “Last Notice” stamped on the outside. A hand-written envelope caught his eye.

Messy handwriting in the return address read:

Leonardo Hakkins

Third Street Promenade, 4th bench north of Broadway St.

Santa Monica, CA 90401

Mark tore the letter open.

Dear Mark Denny,

It took me a while to know who you was from the TV because of our first meeting being brief and all. I met you on the Promenade after you got beat up for pretending to want to help that fellow with the gasoline.

I went to that soft landing shelter a short while back. They told me you was looking for me. I stopped going there but now I might pick up again since they said that witch is gone and they don’t know where she went.

Well, I’m writing to tell you that I have been looking at you on the tv and I sure am proud of what you done to stop the evil that was going on in this town. Things are better, but I’m starting to notice folk showing up on the street like they was before. I also seen you on the news jumping and saving that fellow on the roof. I don’t know if you remember my talk to you about favors. I can still see them even tho I was sick for a while. I want you to know that you are dragging quite a train of ripe favors now. I seen them around you right through the TV. You are rich. You should spend some.

Well, maybe I’ll see you around sometime.

Uncle Leon

Mark picked up the TellTale adapter, tossed it up and caught it a few times. He spun it on the table, and then called Jim Kourokina.

“Hello?” Jim said.

Mark heard Walkie and Talkie barking in the background. “Jim. This is Mark—Mark Denny—don’t hang up.”

“I’m not hanging up. You owe me big time.”

“I know. I’m sorry, man. I really am.”

“You’re lucky things worked out, but I’m still pissed off at you.”

“I can’t blame you. Listen, I think I know a way to pay you back. But first I’m going to need a favor.”

“You gotta be kidding! Forget it—last time you said that—”

“Hold on, I know, but this will be different—I swear. Do this favor for me and it’s gonna be really big—trust me...”

Thank you for reading
Dire Means
. Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review at Amazon, even if it's only a line or two. It would make all the difference and would be very much appreciated.
Amazon