“Sure.”
Frank picked up the mallet in his good hand, and then they were back to prowling the tunnels.
“Doc?” she asked.
“Yes yes yes?”
“We’re not going to get our million bucks each, are we?”
“It’s not looking too promising, Moni.”
Moni frowned. The dozen or so lacerations on her body hurt like crazy, but the fact that she’d been played for a fool felt even worse.
“Doc?”
“Yes?”
“When we find everybody, let’s burn this fucking place to the ground.”
Josh
Fran had been on edge since they landed in Charlotte. While he and Duncan had slept most of the trip, his wife had trouble relaxing on planes. A twenty-two hour flight in coach was stressful enough to make even Gandhi want to shoot someone.
But unlike Gandhi, Fran already had done so. A perimeter guard, when they’d driven up to the Butler House gate, had drawn his sidearm and fired at them as they drove up. No warning. No provocation. While Josh was driving the rental van, Fran had used her night scope to put a tight grouping of three into the guard’s chest from thirty meters.
Josh had expected an unwelcome reception, but nothing so blatant and aggressive. It only confirmed what he and Fran had suspected when they’d received the invitation; Butler House was a front for something very bad.
They pulled up to the house and parked in front, the element of surprise gone. Fran and Josh wore full body armor with chest trauma plates, and tactical ballistic helmets, as did Duncan. Woof had on a custom-made bulletproof dog sweater, which boasted a small saddle for Mathison. The capuchin didn’t like to wear body armor because it restricted his movement, but he did don a plastic army helmet that belonged to an old GI Joe action figure, simply because he didn’t like his family all dressing up without him.
“You got the wheel, son,” Josh told Duncan, climbing out of the driver seat and holding the door open for him. “If we come out in a hurry with wounded, can you handle it?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
Josh still beamed with pride every time his adopted son called him Dad.
“Keep the windows open. Listen to your surroundings.” He placed a loaded 9mm on the seat next to him, and turned on Duncan’s walkie-talkie. “Radio silence unless an emergency, but send two clicks every five minutes as the all clear signal.”
Fran leaned into the driver side window and kissed her son on the helmet. “Aim for the center mass, Duncan. Shoot to kill. This isn’t an exercise. It’s the real deal.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Love you. We’ll be back soon.”
“Love you, too.”
Josh did another check of his gear, then slung the AR-15 over his shoulder. He covered his wife as she rushed the front doors to Butler House and positioned herself on the right side of them. Then she covered him as he came up and took the left. Woof, with Mathison riding on his back like a jockey, heeled next to Josh.
Fran made the hand signal for “Ready?”
In a way, Josh had been ready for this moment since they’d survived the massacre at Safe Haven and had been forced to move out of the lower forty-eight. They’d been waiting, and training, for the day the bad guys finally came calling. After the phony FBI agents had shown up with their obvious bullshit invitation, the VanCamps had called a family meeting and voted. They could do nothing at all and wait for further developments. Or they could alert the media and spill everything, waiting for the inevitable repercussions. Or they could take the offensive.
In a unanimous vote, they decided to come to Butler House. If, as they suspected, another rogue military experiment was in progress, there would be innocent people in danger. Safe Haven had been a training exercise for psychotic killers, and Butler House smelled similar. The guard shooting at them when they arrived confirmed Josh’s suspicion.
Bad shit was going down.
And the only way for bad shit to triumph was for good people to do nothing.
The VanCamps weren’t the do nothing type. And Josh knew Duncan and Fran were just as sick of hiding from the past as he was. For years, they’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. To end what a top secret, imminently evil branch of the military had begun.
So there they were, taking the fight to the enemy, ready to finish this once and for all.
Josh nodded to his wife, and they moved into position to open the front doors to Butler House.
But the front doors opened for them.
Weapons at the ready, fingers on their triggers, Josh and Fran covered the two people who had been trying to leave. One, a man missing his right hand, who had bloody tears in his filthy clothing and a gash on his neck. The other, a woman with artificial legs. They shared the same terrified expression.
“Don’t move!” Fran barked.
They both froze, but the guy looked like he was about to try something.
“We’re the good guys,” Josh said, quickly trying to diffuse the situation. He had a feeling these people were victims, not the enemy.
“How do we know?” the man asked.
“We have a monkey and a dog,” Josh said. “Woof, speak.”
Woof barked and wagged his tail. Mathison waved.
“I was attacked by a monkey,” the man said. “Under a bed.”
“Not this monkey,” Josh replied. “We just showed up. Right, Mathison?”
Mathison nodded, then crossed his heart.
There were a few seconds of uncertainty. Josh decided, if he had to act, he’d try to use non-lethal force.
Then the woman with the prosthetics said, “I’m Deb. This is my husband Mal.” Her voice was raspy.
“You both got those invitations?” Fran asked.
Deb nodded.
“I’m Fran, and my husband Josh. Our son Duncan is in the car. We were invited, too.”
The tension seemed to dissipate. Josh sensed that like was recognizing like. Deb and Mal had that look Josh knew all too well. That I survived something awful look.
“Things went bad,” Mal said. “You have no idea what kind of hell is going on here.”
“Actually,” Fran said. “We do. And we’re ready for it. How many people inside?”
“Two are dead,” Mal told them. “One of us and one of them. Inside is a cop named Tom, a dancer named Moni, a psychic named Aabir, a biologist named Frank, a woman named Sara, and a ghost hunter named Pang.”
Deb shook her head. “Pang is possessed.”
“Possessed?” Josh asked.
“His eyes turned black and he freaked out.”
“Chemical agent?”
“Spirits,” Mal said. “There are at least five. A slave with four arms. A bleeding guy. A guy in a lab coat. A guy in a gas mask. And a guy with an eye patch and a whip. They’re ghosts or demons or something. Guns don’t work on them.”
Josh let that go for the moment. He’d seen some crazy shit himself and would never automatically reject the unusual. “Anyone else inside?”
Mal nodded. “Two doctors, Forenzi and Madison. Don’t know what side they’re on. And some guards in gray suits. At least four.”
“Some people may be down in the tunnels under the house,” Deb said. “It’s a maze down there.”
“Woof can find them once he gets their scent,” Fran said. “We couldn’t find any blueprints of the house online, so we don’t know the layout. We could use a tour, but if you two want to wait in the van with our son, we understand.”
Deb and Mal exchanged a look.
“Cops would take at least an hour to get here,” Deb said to her husband. “If we could even convince them to come.”
“I’m in if you are. I’m done with running.”
“Me too.”
“We’ll do it,” Mal said. “But we want lights and weapons.”