The Road Sharks (25 page)

“We’ll have to do it in the basement level or maybe the ground level might work, but ground level has a lot of Sharks scurrying around,” Eli replied.

“Basement it is, then.”

****

The basement was not well guarded, in fact it wasn’t guarded at all.

In an odd way, that made sense. No one was likely to attack them from the basement, other than maybe the rats and mice, and the door was unlocked. As Ghost Wind and Eli descended the dark stairwell, Eli pulled a small device from his thigh pocket, and handed it to Ghost Wind.

“It looks like it gets pitch black father down, take this, and spin this little handle clockwise,” he said.

Ghost Wind did so, and as she cranked the near silent little motor, a soft glow began at one end. As she turned the crank a little faster, the glow became a dim beam of light.
 

“Beforetime tech, I guess. Thank you, Eli.” she said, “But won’t you need this?”

“Not really. I can see pretty well in the dark.”

“How well?”

He hesitated a moment, “Well, a cat’s got nothing on me.”

“Part of your big secret?”

He nodded, and started down the stairs. Ghost Wind noted the stairs had no dust to speak of.

“Looks like they come down here on a regular basis; let’s watch out.”

They reached a large fire door at the bottom, marked appropriately enough
basement,
and they entered. The room had been used more than they believed it would be. Piles of cordwood lay all around, and the large HVAC units had been ripped out and stuffed to one side. In their place was a very elderly, very battered furnace that had obviously been brought in from somewhere else.

“So that’s how they keep warm in the winter! Using the air ducts as chimneys, I bet,” Eli told her, looking at the battered furnace. He opened the unit’s door and saw only slightly glowing coals, about to burn out. “So much for modern technology.”

“Must be horribly smoky,” Ghost Wind said.

“Depends if they could get the vents to draw or not. Either way, beats freezin’. Looks like they’re not keeping it going now that they’re buggin’ out.”

“You’d think in a city this size they would have found a fusion generator to power the place.”

“Those things are finicky. Keeping a motorcycle gen running is a lot different from keeping one of the big generators functioning. The furnace at least would be easier for men of lesser intelligence to keep operating.”
 

“Look! The main load bearing support is just behind the furnace, Eli. We can not only make the building unsafe, but also unheatable.”

“I love a two-fer,” he said, smiling grimly. Eli took the three remaining C-4 charges and carefully placed them at the base of the support pylon. With exceptional care, he stuck a detonator in each then pulled out his remote to make sure the power light was still lit. “We’re green. We can be a quarter mile away and still detonate.”

“And this will take out the pylon?”

“Yep, right at the base, and then this end of the building will be unsupported. It may not collapse right away, but it WILL collapse, at least on this end. Be pretty unsafe to live in after that, but if the Sharks want to try, it’s fine with me!”

Ghost Wind smiled in a bit of a shark-like manner herself. “Let’s see if we can find that girl they were talking about and get her out of here. Maybe the blast will catch a few of the Sharks before they decide to take off.”

“God, I hate this!”

Gordon truly did hate waiting around, so normally he wasn’t very good at guard duty. With everyone else stuffing their pockets and saddlebags, (everyone but him that was), he was terrible at it.
 

He knew that a lot of the things he should be stuffing in his pockets as they fled this building, (and make no mistake, he realized they were fleeing) was winding up in the pockets of the bastards he sometimes called friends.

He was supposed to guard the area around the mess and sick bay, to make sure Cook wouldn’t escape and what remained of the meds weren’t taken. He was also tasked with keeping an eye on the one unblocked stairwell to the upper levels. Axe had given him strict orders not to move, and not to let anyone go upstairs to talk to Shell. Gordon, being a little smarter than the average Road Shark, figured Axe had offed the old fart and wanted to keep it secret.

“Like anyone would give rat’s ass,” he grumbled. “Everyone knows Shell’s a cripple, an’ I can’t really see anyone in this bunch wantin’ to play nursemaid to him. Dude’s better off dead.”

He was wondering if there was someway he could leverage Axe Man with this theory, get a little extra to stay quiet and realized that he would need to actually see the body.
 

He looked out toward the garage. He could be up the stair and into Shell’s room and back down the stairs in five minutes, and Axe Man was way too busy to check on him. If he took some of Shell’s swag with him, well, that was only common sense!

He moved quickly, though he wasn’t that concerned that anyone would see him. The others were either guarding outside or were frantically loading the last of the supplies into the two solar vans they still had.

“I see anyone,” he mused, “I’ll just say Axyl told me to take a turn around the place every fifteen minutes. No worries, I am the fucking guard after all!”

Emerging onto the third floor, Gordon moved quickly to Shell’s room to see the bodily evidence. When he opened the door, however, he found the Shark’s former leader, not on the floor with a bullet in his head, but quite alive and being eased into his wheelchair by a huge black dude covered in camouflage.

“Eli! Shit!” His eyes went wide, and he began to raise the old carbine he carried. He had it half way to his shoulder when he felt a huge impact to his back, driving him into the big man in front of him. Eli deftly plucked the rifle from his hands and shoved him backwards so hard his feet went above his head and he hit the floor very hard.

As if the stars he was seeing weren’t enough, the air was driven out of his lungs by a knee, one connected to the muddiest woman he had ever seen. She put a huge, very sharp knife to his throat.

“Would you like to live, little shark?” she asked him, her eyes just a little too open to be completely sane. “Just nod if you would.”

Gordon nodded so hard he heard his neck pop.

“Good for you. Flip over, I’m going to tie your hands.”

He felt his hands bound, and he could tell after fewer than ten seconds the woman knew how to tie things. He couldn’t move his hands or his lower arms. She placed a foot against him and shoved him onto his back.

Eli reached under his arms and lifted him to his feet like he was a four-year-old. Gordon knew the guy was strong, but seeing this, he was glad he was already captured. Maybe they wouldn’t hurt him too bad.

“So. You want to live, and we need something from you. Seems like a good opportunity to make a deal to me, how about you?” Eli said.

“Yeah. I’ll deal, man.”

“Good lad. I simply want you to give Axyl a message when they find you tied up. You can do that for me can’t you… I’m sorry, what was your name?”

“Uh.. Gordon. What message do I give?”

“It’s so simple anyone can remember it Gordon. Just tell Axyl that Ghost Wind and I are in the house and there will be more booms to come.”

“What…booms?”

“Not for you to worry your furry little head about, Gord. When the time comes, we’ll put you where they can find you and you tell Axe Man what I just said. For that, we won’t cut your throat. So… deal?”

“Yeah. Deal. I said I’d deal, man.”

“Good. Go sit against that wall and do NOT move. Shenanigans will constitute a breach of contract, and you know what happens then, right?”

“Yeah.” Gordon went and sat against the wall. To his surprise, he saw Cook hovering behind the woman, Ghost Wind. The scrawny woman looked like she didn’t want to get left behind when her new benefactors left and Gordon wanted to say something to her, something sarcastic, but he saw Ghost Wind’s eyes on him and there was little room for mercy in them.
 

Gordon shut his trap as the two women moved on down the hall and Eli wheeled Shell to the doorway.
 

****

Ghost Wind moved off the carpeted hall to the room Shell had pointed out, with the silent woman known only as Cook, right behind her. The scout carefully and slowly opened the door, thinking their captive might have set a guard on his room and not mentioned it but she found no one around.

“I tell ya, the girl’s in there. They’s a room in the back where he keeps ‘em,” Cook told her. “Gets him a new one when the others get to the point they don’t cry enough. Sends the previous girls off to them slavers to the east, or sometime gives ‘em to his men. They don’t tend to last long.”

“Wait here ’til I call you,” Ghost Wind quietly told her. She silently glided into the room, moving to the side of the doorframe once in. She noted that Shell was a man who liked the best that the old world could still offer. Fancy sheets and blankets were on the huge bed, with its fancy carved headboard and posts. To a person used to sleeping in wild places it looked ridiculous. Old sports team equipment covered the walls, much of it signed by long-dead athletes.

She had moved to the side of the bed and was edging toward the second door when she noted it was ajar. She just had enough time to get fully to her feet when a huge bearded man burst from the room and tackled her. He straddled her and his massive hands found her throat.

“Goddamn,” he growled at her, “a man just tries to sneak away for a little fun, and someone’s always gotta interrupt. It was pain enough to sneak past that stupid shit Gordo, now I got mud people gettin’ in my way!”

Ghost Wind began to see spots in front of her eyes, and jabbed stiffened fingers towards his eyes. The Road Shark was not so easily taken, and ducked his head so that she only scratched his forehead. The world began to go dark.

She heard a heavy impact, and the big hands loosened from her throat. She slammed her elbow into his forearms and tore loose from his grip when she heard another heavy impact and her attacker fell off her. Looking up, she saw Cook standing over her with a baseball bat, signed illegibly in black ink sometime decades before. With a snarling grimace on her face the thin woman began using the wounded Road Shark for batting practice, putting everything she had into each blow.

“Where’s my dinner?” she screamed. “Well here it is, bitch! Here’s your goddamned supper. How’s it taste?”

The big man tried to cover his head and her next blow connected mightily with his knee. When he reached for his shattered knee, the next blow went heavily to his forehead. He went down.

Ghost Wind had made it to her feet, coughing and still a little dizzy when Eli came running through the door. He looked at the snarling woman batter with surprise and started towards her as she continued to rain blows on the kilabyker.

“I wouldn’t,” Ghost Wind rasped out. “I sense issues here and we’d be wise not to get in the way of her resolution. Let her run down, he won’t be getting up again.”

“He sure as shit won’t,” Eli replied, a slightly nauseated look on his face. “You okay?”

“I will be. Don’t let our prisoners get away.”

Eli looked back toward the hall with an irritated expression and went out the door.

Cook had started to run down, and the blows she was raining on the remains of Ghost Wind’s attacker were getting weaker and slower. The scout walked over to her and gently removed the bloody and cracked bat from her shaking hand.

“Thanks for saving me. We need to see what he’s done to the girl.”

Cook nodded, breathing heavily from her exertions and followed Ghost Wind through the door. The girl was chained naked to the back wall, and seemed to be unconscious. It didn’t appear that she’d been raped, but the warrior woman noted that she had a water bowl in front of her, bone dry and the bare remains of a meal sat on a plate against the wall. If this had been the last meal she’d had, it had been some time ago.
 

“Were you the one who was feeding her?”

“I made her food, but ol’ Shell would get it and hand feed her himself.”

“I don’t think I even want to know what that was about. Can you find her some water on this floor? She looks dehydrated and half starved.” Ghost Wind said, “While you do that, I’ll find away to break or open these links.”

Cook went out in search of water and Ghost Wind took a close look at the chains. They weren’t thick, almost ornamental looking, but considering how thin and frail the girl looked she doubted much heavier ones would have been needed. A good chop with the big knife would probably bite through them, and the gold leafed shackles could come off later.

“Hey! Wake up. You in there?” Ghost Wind shook the girl lightly and the young one’s eye’s snapped open, terrified. She tried to curl up in a the fetal position but her bonds got in the way.

“Please… please don’t hurt me…” Tears leaked from her eyes.

“Okay. Was actually planning on getting you out of here. How does that sound?” Ghost Wind said. She saw a slight glimmer of hope in the girl’s eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Carly,” the girl replied, watching Ghost Wind search around the room.

“I’m Ghost Wind. Ah! Just what I need!” Ghost Wind held up a lacquered wooden tray with the words “Made in China” written on the bottom .

Moving back to the chains, Ghost Wind carefully held it against the wall with one hand and drew her big Khukri knife. The girl cringed.

“Oh, for the love… this is not for you. Hold your hand up here. Good, that’s the spot.” Holding one part of the chain in the hand that steadied the tray, she raised the big knife in the other and chopped down. The mild steel links parted like butter cut with a hot knife. A few more blows and the girl was dressed only in shackles with a few dangling lengths.

“I found some water,” Cook said, re-entering with a pitcher of lukewarm liquid.
 

“Great. Get Carly here hydrated and dressed as best as possible.” Ghost Wind pulled the older woman aside. “I’ll toss a sheet over handsome out there on the floor. Don’t linger there. I’ll be at the other end of the hall with Eli so bring her when she’s ready, but don’t take long.” Cook nodded.