Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2) (21 page)

“What’s wrong with you, Martin!” Michael yelled at his squirming friend. Martin was trying his best to get out from under John, but the ex-prisoner outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds.

“Lay still you little sonofabitch, or you’ll be eating through a tube for the next six months,” John hissed in Martin’s ear.

Smith started walking towards us, his hands out in a friendly gesture. Jake had turned me around to have a look at my face, and was fussing over me worse than Nancy would have been. When he caught Smith out of the corner of his eye, he flung one arm out and shoved me behind him, then used his free hand to draw his pistol.

“You just stay the fuck back!” he screamed, his gun aimed directly at Smith’s forehead.

He may have been shaking like a leaf when he had it pointed at me in that house in Ohio, but his arm was dead steady now. I tried telling him to stop, to put it away. Every time I tried to speak, nothing came out but blood. I even tried moving and getting between the two men. That didn’t work either. Jake had his other arm wrapped around me and every attempt I made at moving, he countered with a shove and a twist of his arm.

“Easy, Jake, I just want to help. That’s all, I don’t want to hurt either of you,” Smith said with his hands raised.

“Yeah, Jake, let’s just calm down, okay?” Michael came up on Smith’s left. John was watching us, but still had Martin pinned to the ground.

“Kasey!” Mia shouted.

She’d come running down the stairs after seeing Martin slug me, slowing to a fast walk once Jake drew his sidearm. She came around on his other side, touched him lightly on the shoulder to let him know she was there, then wrapped one arm over my shoulder when Jake handed me off to her. With her other hand she tried tilting my head back so she could see my mouth. Once she saw how much blood there was, she took off her shirt and tried wiping some of it away. Thankfully she had a t-shirt on underneath.

“You sonsabitches.” Jake’s voice was suddenly very passive. “All we’ve done is help you, and…fuck you, just stay the hell back.”

“Let’s get her to Nancy.” Mia started leading me towards the dorm with her arms around me. Jake followed, walking backward halfway across the courtyard to make sure Michael and Smith didn’t follow. I stopped to spit before walking inside and was quite unhappy when a tooth hit the sidewalk.

“Crap,” I groaned.
Please don’t let it be a front tooth.

Jake continued his fussing as he opened the door and ushered us in, his heavy breathing littered with Jesus-Christ’s and Goddamnit’s. Some people had come out of their rooms and were standing in the hallway. I tried to cover my mouth, to hide what had happened as best I could, but it was pointless. The front of my shirt was already soaked with blood. I wondered more than once,
Where the hell is all this blood coming from?

After fussing and cussing up two flights up steps, Jake opened the door to the temporary quarters.

“
Grandma
!”

He was so worked up, so angry, neither Mia nor I knew what he was going to do next. Hell, I was the one bleeding all over the place and I wasn’t even as mad as he was. After the third “Grandma,” Nancy came barreling out of the room she now shared with Jake.

“Oh my God, what happened?!” she cried, running over to me. I just let my hands and Mia’s shirt fall away from my face. She gasped so suddenly it sounded like she choked.

“Well, if your nose wasn’t broken before, it sure as hell is now, girl.”

“I’m gonna kill that asshole,” Jake muttered and spun around to leave. Mia grabbed him before he could get past her.

“Hey,” she said, trying to get his attention. “Hey! Now, you knock that shit off, Jake. I mean it. I don’t know what went on in that building, but I can tell it was pretty bad. Emotions running high and all that. The best thing for all of us to do right now is cool off. Hear me?”

Mia stood between him and the stairwell, while Nancy made a quick assessment of my face, and simply waited him out. He huffed and puffed a few times, eventually seeing things her way and backing off. In all the commotion I didn’t noticed Gus sitting at my feet until he whined very softly.

“She’ll be alright, little man. Come on, let’s get to the infirmary so we can get this cleaned up. Jacob, run downstairs to the second floor and get Dr. Carpenter, he’s in room 275. Well what are you waiting for, go!” Nancy said firmly and waited for Jake to head off down the stairs before leading me down. Mia and Gus followed closely behind. Luckily for everyone, Jake cut off and went through the door to the second floor just as Michael came running up the stairs.

“Oh God, Kasey, are you alright?” he asked, just as fussy as Jake had been. He met us coming down and Nancy pushed him to the side, dragging me along behind her.

“Get out of the way, young man.”

He stepped to the side and let us pass, then took up the rear behind Mia and a very upset little beagle. Outside the main door stood a group of maybe ten men, all armed and listening closely to John.

“Split up, search every building. If you find them, shoot first, then radio me. Don’t let those bastards get away. Let’s move.”

A few hurried past us and went inside the dorm, the rest moved off and split up into small groups. Even though my face throbbed, I glanced up once again to the rooftops; there were still snipers on watch duty, and Jonah was still on the wall. Smith was next to John, but Martin was nowhere to be seen. It’d probably be best if he and Jake didn’t run into each other for a while.

Nancy shuffled past the crowd and continued on to the infirmary, talking quietly to me the whole way. Gus was trotting next to me, Mia hung back and talked a few moments with Michael and John. Once Jake came outside with a grumpy Dr. Carpenter in tow, she caught up with him and the three of them followed us across the courtyard.

“You keep this up, Kasey, and there’s not going to be a single body part of yours I haven’t had to bandage up or stitch back together again,” Nancy groused. She opened the door to the clinic and I followed her down the long hall with Mia’s shirt still pressed to my face.

The clinic took up a large section of the first floor in the south building. The other half was the cafeteria. I wasn’t sure what made up the second and third floors, so far I’d had no reason to go up there. I assumed they were just more detention levels. The clinic was set up much like a modern hospital; the entrance was mostly dedicated to trauma and emergency cases, then further back, down a series of hallways and corridors, were the individual rooms, exam rooms, a physical therapy room, and even two operating rooms. The prison was like a small city, being mostly self-sufficient. I was curious to explore the rest of the complex eventually, that is if we decided to stay. As far as I knew, that invitation may have been revoked when Cal was found dead.

Nancy led me to the first trauma exam room and helped me climb up onto the bed. Gus sat on the floor, close but not underfoot. The doctor came in and went right to work helping Nancy clean my face. Mia and Jake stood back, leaning against the far wall with their arms crossed and looking very stern. If my face hadn’t felt like it was going to blow right off, it was exactly the sort of scene I would have found inappropriately hilarious.

“Oh my, young lady. Did you get hit by a bus?” Dr. Carpenter asked, rhetorically I hoped.

The bleeding had finally stopped, which made clean-up a breeze. When it was all said and done, my nose
was
broken, again, both my upper and lower lips were split, and I had lost a tooth. But not any of the front ones, thank God. Bastard had somehow knocked out one of my canines. Well, maybe I’d be able to pay him back someday. It’s a funny world.

“Nancy, you can stitch the lips, I’ll set the nose. Now this is going to hurt─” the doctor paused before saying my name, suddenly aware he had no idea what it was.

“Kasey,” Nancy said.

“─Kasey. Would you like something for the pain first?” His hands were poised on either side of my nose.

Mia was covering her eyes and Jake was biting his own lip so hard he’d brought blood. Voices and footsteps tromping down the hall distracted the good doctor for a moment. He backed away from my aching face and stepped out into the hall. A group of John’s men asked him a few questions, gave him a few instructions, then went on about their business, which, unfortunately, allowed Carpenter to get back to his.

“Now.” He cleared his throat. “Where were we? Oh yes, painkillers. Would you like some?” His fingers were pressed firmly against my nose, and it was already stinging like a bitch, but I couldn’t afford to be foggy-headed right now. Not with two nutjobs running around the complex.

So I shook my head no and squinted my eyes shut.

“Nancy, hold her shoulders. We’ll make this quick.” And before the words were even out of his mouth, he twisted his hands suddenly, pressing and pushing roughly with his fingers, then yanked back and to the left.

Snap, pop
, that’s all she wrote. I passed out and slumped backwards, but my nose was nice and straight again.

* * *

“Keep this ice pack on your face for a little while, hopefully it won’t swell much,” Nancy said and adjusted the ice across my nose.

I didn’t thank her; it still hurt to talk. She’d done a nice job stitching just above and below my lips, but the lips themselves looked like hell. Swelled and purple. Mia said it made me look like a punk. I told her in so many grunts to kiss my ass.

John still had men searching the grounds. If Harvel and the other fellow were still here, they were well hidden. Jake was in the hallway making up with Michael and Smith. Martin, however, was still on watch duty. And the zombies, well, the zombies…they were still flocked on the northern approach, moaning and groaning. No more runners had been reported. Not yet. The longer the swarm stayed, the higher the risk of more runners showing up.

“Such a pretty face, please stop letting folks use it as a punching bag,” Nancy said, brushing the back of her hand across my cheek.

I knew she was teasing, but I couldn’t voice my disagreement, or remind her that the first time wasn’t my fault. So I just shrugged, a what-can-ya-do? sort of thing, and watched her leave the room. Finally alone except for Gus, who was sitting anxiously next to the bed, I leaned back until I was staring at the ceiling.

Might as well take advantage of the situation and grab a few winks
.

Jake popped his head into the room and asked if I needed anything. After telling him no, he let me know he was going to do another sweep of the building with Michael and Smith. I grunted and waved him away, part of my mind wondering where Mia had gone off to. The other part was already falling asleep.

The last thing I remembered hearing was the guys stomp off down the hallway, and I didn’t wake up again until sometime after three, when Nancy rushed frantically into my room and scared the crap out of Gus, who woke up startled and baying his little head off.

“Kasey, Kasey! Wake up!” she said, shaking my shoulders. My head throbbed and there was a sharp ache in my nose and mouth, so her shaking the daylights out of me worked better than any pot of coffee.

“I’m awake!” I slurred/shouted. She pulled me up into a sitting position and was squeezing my shoulders tightly, but at least she had stopped shaking me.

“What the hell’s wrong?!” I asked. She was sweaty and out of breath like she’d just ran the entire way across the complex. Turns out, she had.

“The deadheads…” She paused to gasp a few ragged breaths. “The zombies are inside the fence.” Another gasp. “They’re right outside the prison!” If she hadn’t been so out of breath, she would have been crying, so terrified she was.

“Ok, easy, Nancy, just breathe. Breathe, that’s it,” I forced myself to say.

Not only was my mouth beat to shit, my guts had suddenly clenched and my diaphragm felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. I had her hands in mine now and waited for her to settle down before asking what had happened.

“They’re still not entirely sure, but it looks like the Warden did leave the prison. But he didn’t go out through the south gates because there’s been people up there watching and they haven’t seen anything. They checked the stable and there’s a horse missing, so they figure he stole it and rode out to the east side of the inner fence and cut a hole in it. He cut the fence, Kasey!”

After her fast, rambling explanation she started crying. I pulled her to me and hugged her tightly, the pain in my head and face forgotten, and comforted her until she had a hold on herself again.

“How do they know there’s a hole in the fence?”

I knew the spotlights didn’t reach as far as the fence. I suppose there are only so many conclusions one could draw if deadheads suddenly started appearing from nowhere. I also figured there was more to it than what she had said so far, but I wasn’t going to push her. She wiped her eyes before continuing.

“At first there were only a few of them, spaced apart and staggering around. Now, I got this from one of the girls in the dorm, as we were rushing to the garage. I don’t know all the details, just what she overheard Michael telling Kelly. But anyways, someone rode out part way and used binoculars to look at the fence. They said it looked like there was a huge hole in it. So I’m guessing it was big enough to get a horse through. That’s what everyone is saying though, that Harvel stole a horse, cut the fence, and rode out.”