Where the devil was Andre with his machine guns when we needed him?
A couple of old men and a few nerds didn’t stand a chance against storm troopers, if that was what Acme had sent. My panic button started flashing madly.
As I rolled another gurney to the flatbed, a camouflaged soldier type with a weapons belt and automatic at his shoulder rushed through the garage end of the building. Alarm blossomed into full-out panic. The soldier’s boots hit the old wooden floor like thunder. Ignoring me, he grabbed the first gurney he saw. Unfortunately, Tim was pushing it.
Tim did his best, he really did, but he’s a teen and even slighter than I am. The moment the trooper tried to sling him away, Tim faded out. Disappeared. Vanished. The trooper jerked with surprise—long enough for Julius to step out of the shadows and bash him with a snow shovel.
I’d watched enough westerns to know when we were outgunned. The pounding of more boots overhead and through the garage warned we’d only chopped one tentacle off the monster.
I tried counting heads, but I knew Leibowitz’s big body hadn’t been loaded onto the elevator yet. There were probably others left behind.
We simply didn’t have a choice. With a sick feeling in my middle, I hauled the gurney onto the flatbed and yelled, “Get in here now!”
I couldn’t tell if Tim obeyed. Julius and the red-haired med student did. I didn’t know where Paddy was, but he played crazy really well. They’d leave him alone. I slammed the door. Julius rammed a bar across the door, protecting Katerina his priority, and we cranked the flatbed down.
After we rolled the gurney off, I left the elevator positioned halfway up and unhooked the cable, blocking the stairs in hopes it could add to the obstacles, but they were already battering at the steel door above.
Steel doors. Andre had prepared for an invasion. How did he know these things? Or was he really that paranoid?
“Tim, you with us?” I cried as we ran the gurney down the tunnel to join the others.
No reply. Terrified for the little brother I’d never had, I prayed he had the sense to find a good hiding place. I tried to reassure myself that Tim could stay invisible for a really long time—but Acme would love to get their hands on him if they discovered what he was.
I heard the troopers beating at the steel door—followed by a muted explosion and automatic rifle fire as they tried to blow it open.
11
Andre’s arsenal! While Julius rushed ahead to the bomb shelter and his wife, I stumbled down the tunnel looking for the door I’d seen Andre use.
I wasn’t a trained soldier. But I’d die protecting Andre’s mother and a woman who could damn all of Baltimore to perdition. The med student, a few zombies, and I were the only obstacles left between the concealed bomb shelter and armed thugs.
That justice gene is a real pain. I found the weapons closet.
The steel door at the top of the stairs buckled but didn’t crash in.
I really wanted one of those old rifles from the westerns. I’d watched enough that I was familiar with their use. I didn’t even know how to turn on an AK-47. Or if they had switches to turn them on. Color me clueless.
I flashed my light inside the closet, and my eyes bulged at the extent of Andre’s secret cache. Andre was simply not right in the head.
He had grenades. Even I knew how grenades worked. I did not know how much they’d blow up, however. I could bring the whole tunnel down.
Milo fought his way out of my bag while I stared in dismay at the array of assorted death beams. He knocked over a few rifles and a shelf of handguns, then dashed after Julius. The med student continued to shove his patients out of the line of fire.
“Go get ’em, tiger,” I called softly after my cat, praying he was fetching Andre as he had in the past.
Then I grabbed a rifle and checked for bullets—it was loaded, thank goodness, since I had no idea what kind of ammunition it took. I had time to hunt for a safety lock, line up more rifles on the wall beside me, and tuck a handgun into my waistband. I would probably shoot myself before I shot anyone else, but with all those innocent people behind me, I knew I would go down fighting.
I had too much adrenaline flooding my brain to think straight. I debated visualizing a lion on the flatbed, but hungry lions might find me a better snack than troopers in bulletproof vests. Besides, I didn’t want a beast shot in my defense. Damn, this was difficult. Focus, Clancy.
It was liking trying to take a law test with a blood alcohol content of .25.
Wondering if self-defense counted as justice, I frantically pictured a stone wall between me and the soldiers. Before I was ready, the steel door burst open and a volley of automatic rifle fire shot puffs of dirt and old concrete at my feet.
They were shooting at comatose patients! Not to mention me. Red rage colored my vision.
Pieces of concrete bit into my bare legs. Their bullets were real. Panicked and furious, I started firing. For all I knew, bullets bounced off the advancing troops. They kept on coming. “Damn you to—”
I hadn’t finished my curse before I was shoved aside. I landed in a heap on my butt while Andre grabbed one of the hulking big automatics from the closet.
Automatic fire in a tunnel isn’t fun. I wanted to send them all to hell, but now that I’d been abruptly interrupted mid-curse, I realized the penalty for using it might be worse than dying. I didn’t know that those guys were evil, or even guilty enough to justify a death penalty. Damn. For all I knew, they thought we were the criminals. Making these kinds of life-or-death decisions calcified my brain.
Hunkering down on the cold floor of the closet, nursing my bleeding wounds while a shirtsleeved Andre battled half a dozen soldiers, I got focused. I closed my eyes and pictured a rain of bullets and rocks and dead rats falling on the bastards. Better to scare them into heart attacks than to give the devil his due. Or end up in a wheelchair. Or hell.
A low rumble forced my eyes open again, and I gaped at the sight at the end of the tunnel.
Miraculously—or maybe not quite miraculously, given the echoing rounds of gunfire—the tunnel ceiling was cracking, shedding clouds of dust and rumbling like thunder. The troops stopped firing and threw nervous glances over their heads. Before they could retreat, the roof caved in, and a cloud of dust and rock filled the far end of the passage.
I stared, wondering if I was seeing a burial ground. Had I caused that?
Looking blurred around the edges and sleep-deprived, Andre froze in place, watching to see if anyone crawled out of the rubble. I’d never been so glad to see someone in my life—my soldier warrior. And I had to send him away.
“Tim and Paddy and more patients still in the warehouse!” I shouted over the screams and sounds of falling rock. I didn’t think a rat could squeeze through that avalanche of debris. “I’ll keep watch here.”
Andre nodded, threw a second weapon over his shoulder, and raced back the way he’d come.
To my surprise, when I glanced back, Schwartz had joined him. I doubted if Studly Do-Right approved of illegal weapon caches, but he took the gun Andre shoved at him and followed him back into the well-lit bomb shelter.
I leaned against the wall, watching the dust settle. I held a rifle and pretended I was Wyatt Earp and knew how to use the damned thing.
The screams had stopped. I had no idea if I’d actually hit anyone with bullets or rocks or dead rats. Notice I didn’t conjure live ones. When I focus, I really focus.