Slow Burn (Book 7): City of Stin (14 page)

From inside the stairwell, I yanked the door handle once to loudly rattle it against its frame before pulling it open. A little louder than natural, I said, “I hear what you’re saying. I just don’t see why he always picks on us.”

“It’s because you won’t stop talking all the time,” Murphy said, playing his part in the charade.

We were already a few steps into the dark hall.

“If he doesn’t like me,” I argued, “why doesn’t he man up and tell me. That’s all I’m saying.”

One of the guards that had been in front of the two conference rooms leaned around the corner for a quick peek into the hall. Seemingly satisfied, he didn’t linger.

In the dark, it was hard to see that Murphy and I wore lighter skin than normal.

“Maybe you’re not listening when he talks to you.” Murphy looked at me with a question on his face.

I nodded. It seemed to be working.

“What if—”

A desperate cry echoed from up the hall.

Murphy and I both froze.

The cry came again.

Shit.

It was Don.

“What’s that?” I asked Murphy as I hurried to get to the corner.

“Um,” Murphy said, “I don’t know. A cat?”

Don hollered again, trying to get someone to come and help.

I rounded the corner and saw the two guards. They’d taken some steps in the direction of Don’s yelling, but they were waiting, hands on weapons, deciding what to do. One of them glanced at me.

“What’s going on?” I asked as he turned to look back up the hall. Then I saw him tense as he turned quickly back to me.

It was only a few long strides to reach him. Just as his mouth opened to say something, I lunged.

Words came out, but I hit him with a shoulder in his midsection and drove the air out of his lungs with a loud ‘oomph.’

We collided with the other guard, and all three of us went down in a tumble of arms and legs.

They cursed. They punched, elbowed, and kicked.

I absorbed the blows and tried my best simply to keep them entangled on the ground.

A moment later one froze and then the other did too.

I saw the barrel of Murphy’s M4, held in just one of his hands, pressed to a guard’s face. In his other hand, his pistol was pressed against the other guy’s cheek. Nodding, Murphy said, “Yeah, you figured it out. Now stay that way. If either of you moves, BAM! You got me?”

Don wailed again from down the hall.

I disentangled myself, taking the guards’ weapons and sliding them across the floor before I stood up.

“Somebody help me,” Don called.

I glanced up at Murphy.

He looked disappointed. It had been my choice to leave Don alive. I wondered if I would be able to afford the cost of that kindness. I told Murphy, “Don’t say anything.”

One of the guards started to plead, but a hard glare from Murphy shut him up.

Running footsteps echoed up the long corridor.

Murphy said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“You got these guys?” I asked, pointing at the prone guards.

Murphy nodded.

I bounded over to one of the conference room doors, hoping I was right. I yanked it hard. It didn’t open. I glanced back at Murphy. “Locked.”

Murphy pushed his M4 against the guard’s head so hard that the man’s head made an audible
thunk
when it hit the floor. “Keys now, motherfucker.”

I guess the guy understood Murphy’s tone of voice as well as I did. There would be no second request. The guard wasted not a second in digging into his pocket, retrieving the keys, and sliding them across the smooth floor toward me.

Murphy shot me a quick grin before turning his angry glare back at the two prone guards.

I picked up the key ring. Four keys.
Argh
. “Which one?” I asked.

Murphy pressed his barrel harder against the guy’s head.

“The brass one,” he answered. “The Schlage.”

I looked down at the keys. Two were brass. Only one had the brand name written on the side. It was a Schlage.

Murphy said, “They’re coming.”

I unlocked the door and swung it halfway open when the smell hit me with a mix of outhouse and body odor. The conference room with seating for maybe a hundred was full of Whites. “Shit.” I pushed the door closed and jammed the key back in the lock. “Wait,” I said aloud.

“Wait what?” Murphy asked.

“Whites,” I told him.

I ran over to the doors for the other conference room.

“Good ones or bad ones?” Murphy asked me.

I looked over at Murphy. “What?”

Murphy wasn’t asking me, he was asking the guys on the floor.

“Good?” the compliant guy answered.

“In here?” I asked as I put the key into the lock on the other door.

“Guys,” he said. “Aggies.”

“What?” Murphy asked.

The compliant guys stammered through an explanation as I opened the second door. I looked back at Murphy, “They’re here.”

“C’mon, c’mon,” I hollered into the room as I waved.

The four soldiers inside the room jumped out of their chairs and ran toward the open door. I let go of it as I stepped away.

Glancing past the helicopter and up to the second level, Murphy said, “They’re up there. Things are going to get exciting pretty quick here.”

“You two,” I said to the disarmed guards on the floor. “In there.” I pointed at the room the soldiers were coming out of.

“Now,” Murphy growled.

The two guys on the ground quickly got up and hurried into the room, pushing past the four soldiers.

I looked at the one I figured to be Dalhover’s son and said, “Dalhover?”

He looked at me, completely confused. “What?”

“Your name,” I explained, though I already knew I’d screwed up. He would have known the name if it had been his.

“Fritz,” he said. “I’m Parker Fritz.”

“Told you.” Murphy laughed.

I handed Fritz the keys. “Lock those guards up.” I pointed at the weapons on the floor as I glanced at the others. “Get those. We’re busting you out.”

Two of the soldiers jumped to grab the weapons. The third simply stared at me. He said, “You’re normal?”

“Get a gun, dumbass.” I pointed at the two rifles and two pistols being picked up by the others. “Everybody gets one.”

Fritz turned back to me, handing me the keys.

I didn’t want them. I pointed to the other door and said, “Unlock that one and prop it open. Careful. It’s full of Whites.”

“Whites?” Fritz asked. “You mean infected.” He was already putting the key into the lock.

“Yep,” I told him. “I think they’re the docile ones.” I looked up the hall. “If not, well, run like a motherfucker because things will get real interesting real fast. Know what I mean?”

One of the soldiers with a rifle asked, “What next? Which way?”

“Hey you.”

I looked down the hall. Two guys were leaning over the railing on the second floor, looking at us.

“Oh fuck it.” I swung my shotgun in their general direction. They were way out of range, but if they were only half as far, I’d have had no chance of hitting them anyway. I pumped out three blasts. I looked over at Murphy while pointing at the helicopter. “You wouldn’t know how to fly that, would you?”

“You watched too many movies, dumbass.” Murphy laughed as he started toward the stairs we’d used to sneak up on the guards.

The escaping soldiers were following Murphy. Fritz had the door open and two of the infected were already coming out—not urgent, not chasing, just curious. I almost wished for the crazed ones. A hundred of them loose inside the Capitol would aid greatly in our escape.

I rounded the corner, running first at full speed then starting to slow. Murphy was in the doorway of the stairwell, looking up. The three soldiers were slowing down as they neared.

In the time it took for me to cover the distance, Murphy stepped out of the doorway, pushing it closed. “They’re coming down.”

I looked up at the ceiling, getting my bearings and thinking the only way the other guys could be coming down already was if they were at the top of the stairs when I fired the shotgun. I recalled the smokers we’d seen on the plaza. Damn crappy luck. They must have been outside the top of that very stairwell.

More voices bellowed from down the long corridor leading to the Capitol. Orders were being shouted. Men were coordinating an assault. Reinforcements were coming. Things were going to go from exciting to dire pretty quickly.

Fritz ran up beside me and pointed at two metal doors on a wall that I’d assumed contained a janitor’s closet. “Through there,” he said.

Two of the soldiers ran at the doors and slammed them hard. They didn’t budge. As they stepped back, I saw immediately that the two doors had been spot-welded down the abutment.
Shit.

I stopped, turned, looked up the hall, took a long, slow breath and thought through the situation. I turned to Fritz, “Where does that hall lead?”

He pointed. The building next door. He pointed toward other corners of the underground complex. “Corridors connect to all of the neighboring government buildings.”

“This one’s welded,” said Murphy, I guess in case anyone hadn’t noticed yet.

“How many grenades you got left?” I asked.

“Four.” Murphy was already pulling one off.

“Find cover,” Fritz ordered his guys.

I turned and followed Fritz’s soldiers down a side hall. A second later, Murphy came running around the corner and stuffed himself into an alcove in which most of us were already huddled.

The grenade exploded with a bang, near deafening in the confined space.

For a moment after the blast, all was quiet. Feet stopped running. Voices stopped shouting. Or maybe my ears were stunned into a temporary deafness.

“Let’s go,” Fritz shouted.

I guess I still could hear.

Fritz ran up the hall. His guys took off after him. Murphy looked at me for a second with a question on his face.
I thought we were in charge?
He ran, and so did I.

Rounding the corner just ahead of me, one of the soldiers lurched sideways. I heard gunshots and saw blood splatter from his skull in one simultaneous instant of horror.

I shouted, “Motherfucker,” but didn’t slow, jumping over the dying man as I ran.

The two metal doors, welded shut a moment before, now swung open, a little cockeyed, but open nevertheless. Dust filled the hall and made each of us cough as we entered the cloud. Murphy ran between the doors and Fritz pushed him to the side as I followed. I raised a fist to pummel Fritz for what I at first thought was an attack, but I heard him yell at Murphy, “Give me a grenade.”

Murphy ducked behind one of the metal doors. I pushed through the gap and pressed myself against the other side of the hall, taking advantage of the door’s thick steel.

Guns were blasting. Bullets were pinging against metal and ricocheting off the concrete.

Murphy gave Fritz a grenade.

Fritz pointed up the hall to where two of his men were kneeling, aiming their rifles back down our way. He said, “Go. I’ll give these guys something to think about.”

Murphy looked at me as if for permission. I waved him to go.

Fritz got behind one of the bent doors and pushed. I copied him with my door.

When a gap of about a foot remained, the bent doors stuck. Fritz cursed.

Gunshots rang through the hall, pinging all over the doors. Fritz threw himself against the wall.

“Dude,” I shouted, “what are you trying to do?”

He held up the grenade, pin out, spoon depressed. “Close the doors, so I can wedge this thing in the gap.”

Shaking my head, I said, “Fuck that.” I bounded over to his side of the wide hall, grabbed the grenade, and spun around as I tossed it with all my might through the gap. I turned back around and shouted, “Run!”

Murphy, crouching by the kneeling soldiers, took off to get further up the hall. He’d been around me enough to know that ‘run’ meant
run like a motherfucker
.

Fritz hollered, “Run.”

The two soldiers got up and took off as we passed them.

Fritz slowed to look back.

“Don’t,” I told him. “I was aiming for that helicopter.”

“Oh—”

The grenade blew.

Another explosion followed.

A massive blast rocked the whole complex and sent us sprawling on the smooth floor.

I was already clambering to my feet as I skidded.

The others weren’t far behind.

Some kind of ordnance started firing off, sounding like a loud string of firecrackers.

We reached the far doors maybe a few hundred yards distant from the pair we’d blown open. Thankfully, they were not welded, and we pushed through as another powerful explosion sent a shock wave down the hall to knock us off our feet.

“Holy fuck,” I shouted as I mounted some stairs. I had no idea where I was going. Like anybody with things blowing up behind them, I didn’t care. I only wanted to get away.

At the top of the stairs, I pushed through another door and came out into a glass-walled lobby. Out across a street strewn with rotting corpses stood the Capitol complex’s ramshackle metal wall. We were on the outside.

Inside the wall, roiling up into the sky was a massive ball of red fire and black smoke. The Capitol, the wall, the surrounding buildings glowed in its illumination.

So fixated was I on the immensity of the explosions, I didn’t realize the others had stopped beside me.

“Thanks,” Fritz told me through his panting.

I looked at him, thinking at first he was being sarcastic because one of his men had taken a bullet through the skull. I started to say something harsh in return until I realized I was being the ass. Fritz was sincere. I said, “Sorry about your guy.”

The other guys said a few quick thank-yous.

“Where to next?” Fritz asked.

I pointed up a street going west. “We have a car that way maybe half a mile.” Even as I said it, Whites were coming out of buildings, walking, gawking, and running.

Murphy waved in the direction I’d been pointing. “That escape route is off the list.”

“We need to get away from here,” I said as if anybody needed me to help them with that deduction.

“Pick a direction with no Whites and nothing burning and let’s get moving.” Murphy started to jog across the lobby.

The rest of us followed.