Damn Him to Hell sd-2 Read online

  Sarah and Katerina were just as I’d left them the prior night. They had fresh IVs. Katerina’s lustrous black locks had been brushed. Sarah’s frizzy mess had been pulled into a scrunchie to keep it out of her face. She was the same age as me, and her relaxed expression seemed almost innocent. I wondered if their brains were alive, and if they were conscious of anything, but I guessed we’d need MRIs to sort that out.

  I tried to summon red rage for whatever had put them in here, but there were no direct correlations to any one person. I had no face to put to my whammy, and the rage didn’t come.

  “Why rage?” I asked Saturn. “Why can’t I be filled with joy and happiness and just wish people better?” Enamored of this new notion, I concentrated on happily anticipating that the patients would rise and be well.

  As usual, the Universe ignored me.

  “Zap, you’re better,” I said, somewhat desperately, concentrating on them opening their eyes. Nothing.

  More and more, it looked like Satan, not Saturn, guided me. Satan wanted minions, and Sarah and Katerina weren’t what he had in mind.

  I didn’t want to be around if Sarah was startled awake anyway. She had strangled several large men with her chimp hands. I didn’t stand a chance against her. But she was the only other Saturn’s daughter I’d met besides my mother, and I’d kind of hoped she might have a few things to teach me about our strange condition—if only by bad example. It hurt to watch her lie there, helpless. If her defective moral center could be fixed, she could save the world. Or some portion of it.

  I wandered on. The other rooms of the bomb shelter were unoccupied. The theater was still a mess following the moving of the seats, but things were settling back to normal.

  I proceeded on through the tunnel and up the stairs to the warehouse, with Milo trotting ahead. With no windows in this back part, the warehouse was dim even in daytime. I’d remembered a flashlight, since I wasn’t as familiar with the light switches as Andre was. I picked my way past snow shovels and old tires and down the hall to the infirmary.

  We had a male med student today. He was making frantic notes on a chart and text messaging at the same time. His red curls stood on end as if he’d run his fingers through them a few times.

  “Can I help with anything?” I asked.

  He glanced up, looking perplexed and just a little lost. I hoped the pink ash and gas cloud hadn’t fried his brains.

  “They’ve all improved overnight,” he said in bewilderment. “I don’t know if Christy was tired or these old gauges were faulty, but . . .” He wandered over to a microscope set up in the corner. “It’s not normal.”

  An uneasy shiver crept down my spine. “It’s the Zone,” I said casually. “Equipment doesn’t work right down here. Some kind of electromagnetic field.”

  “That’s why I’m using this.” He gestured at the old-fashioned microscope. “I had my roommate bring it over. No mechanical parts, just mirrors.”

  Well, I knew for a fact that mirrors could be windows to hell, but I bet that wasn’t the case here. “And this proves what? They all still look dead to me.”

  “They’re all healthier than they were yesterday!” he shouted, obviously losing his cool. “Insulin normal, blood pressure down, white-blood-cell count decreasing.”

  “Yesterday’s readings were probably screwed up,” I said consolingly. “It was kind of frantic here with the gas and all.”

  Nancy Rose was better? That seemed promising, in a screwball kind of way. Hope was a good feeling, one I wasn’t much used to.

  He rubbed his hair and nodded dubiously. “That might be it. These obviously aren’t ideal conditions.”

  I was thinking we needed to get the baby docs and the patients out of here pretty quick. Once word spread that pink gas might cure all ills, we’d be inundated with media and feds and who knew what all. If they found Sarah and Katerina . . . we could have World War III with magic gas. What happened in the Zone really needed to stay in the Zone.

  My grim thoughts were interrupted by a roar that sounded as if the roof were being ripped from over our heads. We both glanced up and watched the beams vibrate. Tornado? In Baltimore? Earthquakes didn’t last more than a minute or so, did they? This noise wasn’t ending.

  “Is there a helicopter pad up there?” the doc asked warily.

  “Not that I know of.” Since the warehouse was only three stories high, the roof wouldn’t be ideal for rotating blades. I had visions of them taking out telephone poles and electric wires and frying us all, but my mind takes a chaos path pretty frequently.

  “It sounds like a helicopter,” the med student insisted. “I served in Afghanistan. I know helicopters.”

  Helicopters. Very Bad Sign that we had a war zone already. Nasty snakes twisted in my gut. I glanced around at the helpless patients. If Acme meant to eliminate all evidence of their gas attack . . . I didn’t think those were medical evacuation helicopters up there.

  “Let’s get these people out of here!” I shouted over the racket, opting for caution. “Into the tunnel.”

  Andre would kill me for revealing his secret passage, to say nothing of his mother, but I’m more into that “United we stand” motto than exclusivity.

  My logic ran along the lines of . . . I was pretty damned certain the army hadn’t come to save us. I couldn’t abandon our patients to goons with helicopters. Instinct said the tunnel was easier to guard than a hulking empty warehouse full of plywood-boarded windows. Conclusion: Run!

  The doc didn’t need to be told twice. I didn’t know if it was altruism or medical science he served, but he was totally with the program. He unhooked the IV of the first patient. Grabbing Milo and shoving him in my messenger bag, I raced the gurney down the hall, through the warehouse, and to the tunnel door. Paddy, Julius, and Tim met me there with grim expressions. My guess about unfriendly helicopters was apparently correct.

  I wondered where Andre was but didn’t have time to ask. Loud thumps on the roof warned that the invaders were dropping jackbooted troops. Crap. We couldn’t move fast enough.

  I debated visualizing our patients in outer Siberia, but whether that was a good or bad idea, I was pretty sure that exceeded my limits. Maybe I was only allowed so many visualizations, and then I’d die. I’m a lawyer, not a believer in fantasy. I needed a damned rulebook. So I resisted the fantastical and relied on good old human know-how.

  Paddy and Tim raced for the next patients while I debated carrying some old guy down the tunnel stairs. I weigh 110 pounds soaking wet. A forty-pound backpack is more than I can manage.

  Guessing my plight, Julius flipped a switch to unleash a primitive flatbed elevator, lowering it from the ceiling to the warehouse door. Thank heavens. I wheeled the gurney on. Julius hit the switch, and it took me past the stairs to the tunnel under the street.

  Julius disappeared into the darkness above, leaving me alone in the dark, empty passage.

  We could easily fit ten patients under the street without entering Andre’s secret bomb shelter. I played Charon, rowing the patients from the warehouse above to the darkened tunnel below. The loader was slow. Gurneys were still lined up at the door when the first shouts emerged from the warehouse.

  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 shadow
s 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.

  I conjured an avalanche. I was a menace to society and to myself. I shivered, watching the dust settle and wondering if we’d find dead bodies under there.

  Maybe all those years of watching westerns had rotted my brains. Maybe I really thought I could produce justice just by wishing. Or by shooting someone, which is what they mostly did in westerns.

  I didn’t want to shoot people or end up in a wheelchair. I’d hated being lame. With my arms crossed over my bent knees, I buried my face and tried to control my breathing. I wanted to be a lawyer, maybe a judge. Vigilante justice would not accomplish that. It was far more likely to land me in jail.

  I might have shot a man today. I’d certainly intended to. Of course, I’d almost sent them all to perdition. They could have families. I had no way of knowing if they were really bad guys. As in any war, the enemy was just faceless strangers in funny suits. They’d probably been told national security was at stake. So they were stupider than me. Didn’t matter. They shouldn’t have to die for someone else’s war.

  It was just too easy to react, much harder to think and do what was right. Why me, Saturn? I mentally screamed. I want rulebooks or I’m not doing this anymore!

  No one burst out of the rock heap in an attempt to reach us. The red-haired med student eventually poked his head out from wherever he’d been hiding
. Once he’d ascertained he wouldn’t be shot, he kneeled down to check my bloody legs.

  “Need to clean these out, but I don’t think you’ve been shot,” was his assessment.

  I didn’t know if I should risk sending him with the patients to Andre’s now less-than-secret bomb shelter. We’d left all the IVs in the warehouse, so he couldn’t do much. I counted six gurneys down here. We’d left four behind, including Officer Leibowitz’s. Tim’s doing, I was sure. He had managed to rescue Nancy Rose, but he despised Leibowitz.

  I handed the student my rifle. “If you’ve been in Afghanistan, you know how to use this better than I do. Shoot any rats coming over that wall.”

  He checked the closet and found an automatic more to his liking. I left him to it.

  There was no point in asking his name, much as I appreciated his aid. He was normal. I wasn’t. He’d go on to lead a wealthy suburban life. I was tied to the Zone in ways even I couldn’t understand. I needed familiar boundaries and people who accepted my weirdnesses.

  In the bomb shelter, Julius was with Sarah and Katerina. He had turned almost as gray as Andre. He was a genial, gentle man. He shouldn’t be exposed to this shit. I hugged him briefly, just because, and he hugged me back before shoving me away.

  “Keep an eye on Andre,” he said urgently. “He’s reached his limit.”

  Okay, that was the second time today I’d been warned to look after the King of Cool. Except he wasn’t so cool lately. I didn’t really want to know what Andre’s limit was. I nodded and trotted off, not certain what to do next. Visualizing a helicopter to Hades probably wasn’t justified, but I thought I heard it still hovering. Andre and Leo were out there somewhere, waiting to take it down.

  Milo met me in Andre’s kitchen. I picked him up and hugged him and let the sadness roll over me.

  Maybe I should have kept the rifle. But visions of me shooting everyone who crossed my path while shouting Damn you! kind of put me off on gun toting. The tunnel collapse had been horrifying. I wanted to shut out the memory. I still didn’t know if I’d killed anyone.