“Where’s the back door?” Justin asked.
“Over there.” Emily pointed further ahead and to their right. “Around the corner.”
“You’re not dragging us deeper into the hospital?” Justin said.
“No,” Emily replied, “you’re the ones dragging me into your crazy schemes.”
“Keep your voice down,” Carrie said.
As they rounded the corner, the hall opened into a small lobby, where three different halls connected. Emily proceeded for the one to the right, just as a woman in a white doctor’s coat walked into the lobby from one of the other halls, about thirty feet away from the group.
“Emily, I need your help in the lab for a muscle biopsy,” she said, while studying their faces and their mismatched clothes.
“Sue, help me,” Emily shouted. She tried to break away from Carrie’s tight grip around her left arm.
“What’s going on here?” Sue took a few steps toward them as Carrie and Emily began to struggle.
“Help me, help me,” Emily screamed, and dropped to the floor, to stall Justin’s attempt at hauling her away. Carrie’s pistol was now visible to Sue.
“Oh my gosh!” Her eyes widened. In apparent panic, she flipped a fire alarm switch on the wall. The high-pitched scream of the siren cut through the silence like a surgeon’s scalpel slicing through soft tissue.
“Crap.” Carrie released her grasp on Emily. “Run.”
“No, we need her.” Justin kept pulling on Emily’s right arm, this time using both hands.
“For what? I’ll drive.”
“In case someone goes nuts and starts blasting us.”
Carrie raised an eyebrow, but there was no time to argue. Justin wrapped his arms around Emily’s waist. She kept fighting, kicking her legs, and spinning her arms, taking swings at his chest and head. Her punches mostly missed their target, but succeeded in slowing them down.
“Stop or I’ll shoot you,” Carrie threatened her. Emily kept up her resistance, calling their bluff.
“Turn around, we’ve got to go this way,” Anna said.
She pointed ahead at a couple of patients looking at the bizarre scene. Over the loudspeakers, a man’s calm voice instructed the staff and the patients to leave the hospital premises in an orderly fashion.
“Go ahead and bring her truck to the door,” Carrie shouted over the deafening screech of the alarm. She threw the keys of Emily’s truck to Anna, and she began to an through the hall.
“Hey, what are you doing there?” said a strong voice.
A patient stood about fifty feet behind them. The hospital gown looked a few sizes too small on the big man.
“Stay the hell back,” Carried raised her pistol and aimed it at him.
The man stopped and glanced at the gun for a moment. Then, he shook his large head and kept moving forward toward them. “You ain’t shooting nobody,” he boomed, sounding much closer than he actually was.
Carrie lowered her gun and grabbed Emily’s kicking feet. The nurse was airborne now, and it was easier to carry her through the halls. As soon as they got to the elevators, Emily’s scuffle subsided. She realized there was not much hope someone would actually come to her rescue.
They reached the reception desk and heard the rumbling of a truck’s engine. A Ford’s tailgate lights glowed bright orange in the thick haze outside the main entrance. Carrie pushed the doors open with her back, and they rushed outside. Justin shoved Emily in the back seat of the truck and dove in beside her.
“Go, go, go,” Carrie shouted, as she slammed the front passenger’s door.
Anna stomped on the gas pedal. The front wheels spun, the engine coughed, and the truck jerked before bolting ahead. It sprayed a small cloud of mud and ice at two men who ran outside and gave chase behind it.
“So, where do we go now?” Anna asked.
Justin glanced through the rear window. No one was following them. At least, for now. “Let me think,” he said, while turning around in his seat and squinting at all sides.
They hit a patch of ice on the road, and the front wheels of the truck drifted to the right. Anna steered in the same direction for a second, and then slowly turned to the left, to correct the slide.
“Straight ahead, go straight ahead,” Justin said. “The hangars are that way.”
“The hangars?” Emily asked. “You’re going to hide in the hangars?”
“I can’t see anything,” Anna complained, bobbing her head and wiggling left and right in the driver’s seat.
She drove at the edge of the road, in order to gain some tire traction over the snowy powder. The gray fog had reduced the visibility to just a few feet, concealing the landscape in a dazing blur. The bright, long headlights could hardly penetrate the pitch-black night. The winter storms had formed high snow windrows along the narrow trail, in some places higher than the truck’s roof.
“Slow down,” Emily yelled. “You’re gonna kill us all.”
The truck jumped over a snow bump, the metal frame rattling as if it was going to fall apart at any moment. Anna squinted and noticed a row of dim lights to her left.
“That’s the airstrip,” Carrie said. She was looking in the same direction.
The road curved slightly to the right. Anna eased off the gas to avoid another slide. The haze had dwindled a bit, and she could see two flashing lamps mounted over the hangar doors. A third one, smaller and fainter, lit up a sign on the blue wall. THULE AIR BASE was written in large white letters. Anna parked the truck underneath the sign.
“Who the hell are you?” a man howled as he stormed out of a door next to the hangar’s entrance. He was holding a large pipe wrench in his right hand, and he paraded it menacingly in front of his chest.
“Mr. Maxwell,” Justin said, trying to calm him. “My name is Justin—”
“What are you doing here? Emily?!” Maxwell exclaimed.
“Help me,” she screamed, throwing a punch toward Carrie’s face.
Carried dodged it easily and twisted Emily’s arm in a submission move.
Emily moaned, “Aaaaah,” while trying to kick back.
Maxwell needed no further explanations. He raised his improvised weapon, the pipe wrench, and launched himself for Justin’s head. Justin fell back. The wrench barely missed his face, swinging about an inch in front of his nose. Justin felt the air move in front of his eyes.
Bang, bang.
Two warning shots stopped Maxwell’s second attempt at a second blow. He stared at Carrie, who was holding her M-9 pistol at his head. Her face was covered in a thin white veil from her heavy, warm breath rapidly condensing upon contact with the freezing air. Out of options, Maxwell threw the pipe wrench on the tarmac.
Justin picked it up. “Open the hangar doors,” he ordered Maxwell.
“Why? What do you want there?” Maxwell resisted.
Justin gave him a strong shove.
“Do we need to explain ourselves?” Carrie waved her pistol. “Hurry up,” she added.
“A chopper? You’re planning to take off in a chopper?” Emily blurted out.
“This is totally nuts. You’ll crash before you even reach the bay,” Maxwell said.
“The keys, man.” Carrie pressed the muzzle of her pistol against Maxwell’s thick chest. “Nobody asked you to predict our future.”
“Someone’s coming,” Anna warned them with a shout.
Chapter Sixteen
Carrie turned around in time to see a yellow Dodge truck plowing through a snowbank then fishtailing over the tarmac. It was coming from the direction of the hospital.
“All of you get inside,” Justin said. “Carrie, the chopper. I’ll keep them busy.”
He took her pistol and ran for cover behind their truck. He pointed the M-9 at the fast approaching Dodge, waiting for the right moment. As the Dodge neared one of the lampposts and its blue glow covered the truck, Justin leveled the sight of his gun with the wheels of the yellow truck. He fired two quick shots. The bullets found their target, piercing the truck tires, and bringing the Dodge to a stop. Two men jumped into the snowbank, scrambling out of the line of fire.