The McClane Apocalypse: Book One (3 page)

She pulls her cell from her backpack and dials Uma, getting no signal. She tugs the bulky hoodie near her neck up over her mouth, trying to keep out some of the smoke. Still low and staying close to the brick wall of the building, Reagan comes to the end of the alley and scans the disorder in front of her. There are more cars on fire, mostly in the faculty lot. If vandalism had been a subject, then these students clearly would have excelled. She almost steps out into the open when a small group of men run past her, many are carrying guns and one even carries an ax that is painted red and has obviously been stolen from a glass emergency case probably on this very campus. They are adult men, some bearded, definitely not students nor are they teachers or campus security. They are shouting about their violent, devious plans of taking over the university, making it their own, making a fortress. This is so bizarre that Reagan almost laughs. Why would anyone want to live here? The food’s awful! She wants to shout this to them, but she remembers they have guns and they seem serious about their idiotic plans. She’s thankful for the cover provided by the smoke and the haze from the cold rain that had come earlier in the day. Without it, she may have been seen, may have been taken like that poor girl in the courtyard or the one who was screaming in the stairwell. This has to be the first time in her life that she feels lucky to be five foot two and a hundred and fifteen pounds. She’d always been so envious of tall, lithe, feminine women. She sends a quick prayer up for Uma that she will also be so lucky in making it over to Dr. Krue’s car.

Seeing her opportunity, she slinks around the corner and makes a quick sprint to the Med Center, her lungs starting to burn. Even though she starts her day out with a three mile jog every morning at five a.m., Reagan quickly surmises her medical status of burning lungs to be equated to the heightened anxiety and stress levels her body is also trying to deal with. She makes it to the Med Center and quickly crosses the parking lot where she finds Dr. Krue’s car easily enough. It’s certainly not worth looting. He’s a man of conservative values, and he drives a black Volkswagen station-wagon. Not exactly a Ferrari, it is less presumptuous but still nicely appointed.

However, she doesn’t see Uma or Dr. Krue anywhere around it and when she peers inside, they aren’t hiding there, either. Perhaps he left something in the lab or went there to get something else. Gunfire can be heard from somewhere on the campus, some of it sounds like automatic fire. Some of it doesn’t sound too far off.

Reagan decides to take her chances and runs for the Med Lab building instead of standing by the doctor’s car waiting for them. No sense in being an immobile target.

The building is basically abandoned. There is literally not another soul around. No sounds of students click, click, clicking away on their computer pads. No greeting from the building secretary. No people talking, discussing their opinions on how horrible lab homework can be or what term paper they are working on, what cool band is playing in the city tonight. Just no people, period. Reagan guesses that, like Dr. Krue’s car, this isn’t exactly a hot ticket to rob, unless thugs are looking for corpses, medical equipment and microscopes.

She quickly uses the public access stairs, seeing no reason to cower in the service stairwell because there doesn’t seem to be any immediate threat of danger. This building is a ghost town. She reaches the second floor easily enough and rushes cautiously, looking behind her frequently, to Dr. Krue’s lab, hoping to find her missing travel mates together. His classroom door with the opaque window panel is standing open, though she knows that Dr. Krue always locks his lab before he leaves. He’d locked it earlier today when they’d all left together. Thank goodness she’s found him, and she hopes that Uma will be with him and also ready to leave. Reagan pushes the door farther open and enters the room.

“Dr. Krue?” she calls quietly. The door slams behind her, startling Reagan enough to make her jump and squeal.

“Well, well,” a shaggy-haired man in his thirties says, ending on a whistle. “I knew I shoulda’ went to college.”

Reagan takes one quick, cursory glance at him in his disheveled, drug-addled state and backs up three steps to put some distance between them. His posture and overall behavior is menacing. His pale face is covered in tattoos on one half, and there is a piercing in his nose as well as three hoop earrings in both ears. His look is dangerous, predatory, and Reagan knows this situation could turn bad quickly.

“You shouldn’t be in here, sir,” Reagan asserts while trying to appear more confident than she really is. The man with the dark eyes laughs obnoxiously at her.

“Oh yeah? And who’s gonna care, little lady?” he asks on a sniff.

“The... the faculty,” she falters pathetically and he laughs again. The faculty? That was the best she could come up with? Reagan mentally kicks herself.

Where is Dr. Krue? Her flight or fight instincts are trying to take over, trying to make her find a way to run, escape, get the hell out. She’d like to run, to outrun this scum of a human. She knows without a doubt that she can outrun him, especially if he is a smoker. But she can’t leave her beloved family friend and her roommate here to be ambushed by this man, as well. She glances left and then right while taking another step back, bumping into a lab table.

“I don’t think the faculty is around this place anymore,” he informs her, though he wouldn’t have needed to. Everyone seems to be fleeing or in the process of doing so. “Aint nobody gonna come up here, little lady. We’ve got
all
night.” The lanky man advances a step, causing Reagan to retreat two.

“The police have already been called to restore order at the university,” she lies badly. “They’ll... they’ll be here soon. I’m sure of it.” It sounds made up. It is. And they both know it.

He shakes his head and grins. “I don’t think so.”

Reagan backs up again, feeling sick to her stomach and fearful of him. Fear is beginning to consume her.

“Hey, you don’t need to leave. Stick around and party,” he sneers, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He sniffs hard and grimaces. Reagan guesses it’s either from drug use or the smell of corpse preservatives that are used in this particular lab. It took her awhile to get used to the lab’s smells, too. She doesn’t think this man has any olfactory issues other than post-nasal cocaine use drippage.

“No thanks,” Reagan states firmly. Her voice sounds weak, shaky even to her. She blurts in a rush, “I’m meeting some people. They’ll be here soon.” She’s trying to remember all of the things that she’s heard in those mandatory safety seminars that the college puts on at the beginning of every school year. “Get your attacker to let you go,” “plead with their sympathetic side,” “carry your rape whistle,” “tell them that your friends will be right along,” blah, blah, blah. None of that shit is gonna work now, and she knows it by the gleam of victory already in his dark eyes.

He has a feral intensity in his brown eyes. There is something wild and dazed there and something else, something medicated, probably a drug-induced, super human strength. She panics. His eyes are unnaturally dilated, more black than brown showing. He fidgets near constantly. His brown hair is lank and pulled back into a ponytail. The jeans he wears are torn, dirty, and he has on a black leather vest with no shirt even though it is only early spring in Ohio. The dampness in the air is still present and cool and pneumonia-inducing in that sort of dress. Hell, it had just snowed a few inches two weeks ago and showed no signs of turning to instant summer. Ohio springs can and usually do last for three long months. But she knows this man doesn’t feel a thing. Drugs tend to dull the sensory perceptions. There is a fresh cut above his left eye, and the blood drips onto his cheek. He doesn’t even wipe it away. He smiles at her. His teeth are dirty and nicotine-stained. She wishes she had one of her grandpa’s guns, on which she and every kid in the family were trained while growing up at the farm. She also childishly wishes that her grandfather was just here. A stifled scream comes from the other room.

Reagan whips her head to look as her attacker seizes the opportunity and is on her in a flash. He grabs her from behind and holds her around the waist and neck, cutting off her airflow.

“Oh no, it looks like we already found your friend!” pupil guy mocks and then laughs in Reagan’s ear.

A different man emerges from Dr. Krue’s office at the front of the classroom. Reagan can only assume that Uma is back there and maybe Dr. Krue has not yet come to this building of nightmares. She hopes he never does.

“Hey!” the second assailant yells. “Who’s this?”

“Another addition to the party, dude,” the man holding her declares excitedly. Reagan can smell his breath and it’s not good. She is afraid she’ll get drunk just off of the fumes.

“Hey, little lady,” second guy says as he approaches for a closer look. “Small for my taste, but I think I can make an exception.”

He runs a dirty finger down the side of Reagan’s face, and she flinches away from his touch. He only chuckles as he walks away, circling a desk, and picking up a discarded textbook as he goes.

“I’m the one ‘dat found her,” her captor hisses angrily. Something unspoken passes between the two men, and Reagan is roughly shoved forward. She falls to her hands and knees as they both laugh unforgivingly at her.

“You know I get first dibs. That’s the rules,” second guy states with cool deadliness. He is blonde and resembles a surfer, a real California hippy type. The sides of his head are shaved, but he sports a mohawk of long dreadlocks down the center. His hair is filthy, his blue eyes so icy cold that Reagan is instantly more afraid of this man. He is also bigger in size than pupil guy. His biceps are the size of Reagan’s thighs, his shirt sleeves long since cut off. His shirt fits tightly across his chest, showing off his pectoral muscles. Whatever drugs he’s on, they aren’t the same as pupil guy. Reagan suspects old style steroids play a key role in his diet. His eyes are clear, and if it wasn’t for the terrible acne-pitted skin and the insane coolness in his eyes, he might be considered handsome. The growth of a day or two is covering his chin and parts of his cheeks. Of the two men, he is clearly the more powerful and the more dangerous. He is frightening, and Reagan feels a sense of horror like she’s never felt before. Her adrenaline is literally making her sweat profusely. She can feel it running down her sides.

Cold Eyes yanks Reagan up by the arm, freeing her from the humiliation of being on all fours. But now she can see him up close, and it’s even worse. Unfortunately he is taking her into his custody. She whimpers lightly.

“Please, please don’t do this. I won’t tell anyone you were here,” she pleads as she tries to struggle from his grasp and pry at his fingers. She receives a slap across her cheek and mouth, hard. She staggers and would have fallen had he not still had ahold her arm. Nobody has ever struck her in her entire life, and she is instantly angered yet also afraid.

“Shut up, bitch! Where’s the drugs?” he shouts, his spittle hitting Reagan in the face. He yanks her back to a more upright standing position because she is still reeling from the slap and unable to focus on her own.

“What? Drugs? What do you mean...?” Reagan asks, afraid to look him in the eye.

This only seems to anger her captor even more, and he slaps her again. This time she tastes blood.

“The drugs, you stupid bitch. Where’s all the drugs? It says Med Lab on the damn building. So where’s the drugs?” For added measure he gives Reagan a hard shake, rattling her teeth and blurring her vision.

“We don’t do that here. We don’t have any drugs here. It’s not a hospital. It’s a... a learning facility,” she tries to explain and it seems to anger him still. She figures that as long as she’s talking she’s alive, so her new goal is to keep him talking. “We dissect cadaver bodies, study them. We don’t do operations or anything like that. There are no drugs or anything...”

Apparently her tactic isn’t going to work for long. He might not be as stupid as he looks. Cold Eyes glances to his comrade, and they seem to finally realize that what she is saying is the truth after all. He interrupts her.

“So what are we gonna do then? We came all the way up here to get high, and now it looks like we’re just gonna get... you, sweet thing.” Those crazy eyes smile into hers.

His endearment makes Reagan want to vomit, but she holds it down so as not to be hit again. He laughs as his friend nervously follows suit. It’s clear who the alpha male of this relationship is, and Reagan stores this information for later.

“You know, that’s what that Muslim bitch told me, too,” the blue-eyed beast taunts into her face and then licks her cheek.

“She’s Indian. She’s from India. She’s not a Muslim. Where is she?” Reagan practically screams as she begins to struggle in earnest, not caring of the consequence this time. Was it Uma she heard scream? Is she ok? Is she even alive? If he has her in the back room, then she isn’t coming out. Had he tied her up?

“She’s cool, sweetness. Don’t worry about her. We need to go and have some fun now,” he answers as he quickly, painfully grabs her breast once before he flings her over one shoulder roughly as if she weighs fifteen pounds and not her true one hundred and fifteen.

“Hey man, what about me? I found her,” Giant Pupils whines while refastening his stringy ponytail.

“You’ll get your chance. Won’t take long at all,” Cold Eyes answers and chuckles.

“Aw man,” his friend answers petulantly. “I’m going to find some food then. I’ll be back.”

Cold Eyes snatches Reagan’s backpack and tosses it to his buddy. Giant Pupils then throws Reagan’s backpack to the ground and for some reason kicks it as if it has offended him.

“Bring me something to drink. I think I’m gonna need it when we’re done here,” her captor replies with another sickening laugh.

Reagan is suspended upside down, and at this vantage point she can tell that the man has a knife on his hip and a handgun in the back waistband of his tattered and holey khakis. From this angle she can almost reach his knife but isn’t sure if she can sneak it without him feeling her do it. It would also leave him in possession of the more threatening weapon. The door slams, and she assumes that Giant Pupils has gone looking for food. This leaves her alone with her attacker. He continues into Dr. Krue’s office and kicks the door shut with his booted foot, shaking it in its frame.