Man Eaters (23 page)

“She’s on her way to the compound. Isn’t that exciting?” The voice was flat and devoid of emotion.

Roper felt her heart banging beneath her chest. If she died slashing and hacking her way out of here, it would be a far better death than whatever these living ghouls had in mind.

When they reached the next room, Roper was surprised to see a large black man quadruple-tied to the bed, his massive legs tied at the ankles with dozens of cable ties. Sweat beaded across his forehead, and pit stains under his armpits looked days old.

“The doctor will be in shortly.”

When the nurse left, Roper cleared her throat, causing the man to open his eyes. “Another one? I thought I was the only one.”

“Only one what?”

He held up his bandaged wrist. “To get bit and live to tell about it. They’re pretty fascinated with me. I’m practically a movie star.”

“You...you were bitten?” Roper felt like she was jumping out of her skin, she wanted away from this man.

He held his wrist up for her to see. “Coupla days ago. I reached in to help a friend get away from three of them and as it went for his neck, it accidentally bit me.”

“And you lived? Wow. You’re like a man eater rock star.”

He chuckled. “So did you.”

Roper cocked her head. “I’ve never been bitten.”

“No? What’s that?” He nodded with his head to the scar on her upper arm.

“That? I was bitten by a horse a couple of weeks ago. This isn’t—”

“Shh. Don’t let them know that. The only reason we’re still alive is because they think we’ve got something that will help them.”

The light went on in Roper’s mind. “Oh. I get it now. They think we have the key to finding a vaccine.”

“Maybe we do, but as long as they think we’re special, we might just make it through this alive. Name’s Jeff, but my buddies call me Safety. That was my position on the football team. Safety.”

She smiled. “My friends call me Roper.”

“Well, Roper, I’m glad I’m not going to die alone.”

“If I have my druthers, we won’t die here at all.”

Safety narrowed his eyes at her. “You got a gun?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. A gun won’t get us out of here, but I think I know what will.”

****

When they were finally alone, Roper cut herself free.

“You gotta...a knife?”

“And a plan.” As soon as she was free, Roper cut Safety loose, all the while telling him to be silent.

“I ain’t gonna argue with a lady who carries a Buck knife that size in her boot.”

Roper shushed him more. “You start turning, and I’ll bury this hilt deep in your eyeball, understand?”

He nodded as he slid his trunk-like legs around to the side of the bed.

“Uh uh. I need you to stay up there. When the doctor comes in, I am going to call him to me. When I do, I need you to take him out.”

“Kill him?”

“Kill him, knock him out, it’s all the same to me. Just make sure he doesn’t cry out.”

“Then what?”

Roper heard footsteps. “You’re about to find out.” Grabbing her ponytail, Roper took the Buck knife and sawed it off, then stuffed it under her pillow. Jumping back on the bed, she put her hands back up on the railing and looked over at Safety before nodding once.

When the doctor walked in, clipboard in hand, Roper moaned. “You have to get me some water. I need water.”

The doctor walked over. “You don’t need any—”

With speed that belied his enormous size, Safety leapt from his bed and without breaking stride, took the doctor’s head in his hands and snapped his neck.

Just like that.

Roper grabbed the doctor before he slid to the ground. “Quick! Get him on the bed.”

Safety lifted him up as if he were but a doll. Roper pulled off his scrub shirt, his glasses, his face mask, and his skull cap. When she had them on, she turned to Safety, who stared.

“How does it look?”

“You need the pants.”

“He shit them, can’t you smell it?”

Safety tugged them off. The doctor was wearing stained tighty whities. “Just pull them over your jeans. Then you’ll look perfect.”

Roper did so, ignoring the stench. Then she adjusted her mask, palmed her knife, and turned to Safety, who was far more enormous standing upright than he’d appeared in the bed.

“Jesus, you’re huge.”

“That’s what she said. What now?”

“We’re going to walk out of here, walk to the transport vehicle, and put you in the back.”

“Oh hell no.”

“Then I’ll walk to the driver, stick a knife in his throat, and commandeer the transport vehicle out of here, but that way is riskier.”

“We’ll never make it that far together. The doctors hand off the patients to the soldiers at the transport.”

Roper put her hands on his biceps. They were rock hard. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

Safety looked into her eyes and nodded. “Don’t see as I have much a choice.” He put his hands behind him as if they were handcuffed. “Give it your best shot, girl.”

Pulling the covers over the dead doctor so it looked as if he was asleep, Roper took hold of Safety’s wrist and pushed him along the makeshift hallway until they came to the soldiers at the main entry.

Her heart was pounding so fast, she was afraid they would see it.

The soldier didn’t even look at her when he took Safety’s arm. For his part, Safety looked over his shoulder at Roper, who averted her eyes from the second soldier, who was staring at her. She wasn’t going to let Safety get hauled away without at least attempting to save him. Besides, that transport vehicle was all she had to get them out of there.

As she watched Safety being checked in by a soldier waiting at the back of the truck, Roper made her move and swept past the soldier at the door. As she strode toward the transport, she kept waiting to hear the soldier’s voice call her back.

When he didn’t, she blew by Safety and walked up to the driver’s window.

“I need some air. Would you guys mind taking me a mile or so out?”

They exchanged glances and Roper had a split second to decide what to do. In a flash, she had the large Buck knife against the throat of the driver. “Either of you move or yell out and I’ll cut his fucking head off. We clear?”

Both nodded.

“Good. Passenger, your weapons...slowly...on the floor.” Roper pressed the knife deeper for emphasis. “Now you, hand me your sidearm. Be smart here, fellas. I’m a dead woman walking. Killing you makes no difference one way or the other.”

Just as the soldier handed her his gun, Roper felt the barrel of a gun in her ribs. “Drop the knife.”

She did.

“Move and I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Both soldiers in the cab of the transport hurriedly picked up their weapons.

“Son of a bitch, Hal, how’d you let her escape?”

“Look at her! She looks like a fucking doctor.”

The driver threw open the door, her Buck knife clattering to the ground. “Pull a knife on me? You fucking bitch!” And he backhanded her so hard, she fell into the soldier behind her.

“Put her in the fucking van, Hal. She’s going straight to the ghouls. And next time, do your fucking job.”

When they opened the transport doors, Safety’s face fell. Once Hal cable-tied Roper’s hands in the front, he shoved her into the truck.

“I’m so sorry,” Roper said after they pushed her in and closed the doors.

“Don’t be sorry,” a young boy said. “We are going to the compound.”

Sitting on a bench next to Safety, Roper wiped the blood off her lip with her shoulder.

“No need to apologize. I’da been in the truck sooner than later.” Safety reached over and held her hands in his huge mitt. “Wanna go out in a blaze of glory?”

Roper nodded. Anything was better than being bitten and turned.

Safety leaned over and spoke quietly to her. “The minute those doors open, I’ll knock them over like the little white bowling pins they are.”

“Gotcha. I’ll go for a weapon and just start shooting. The drivers are armed. I imagine there are soldiers everywhere.” Roper said.

Safety locked eyes with her. “Take out as many as you can. Blaze of glory means just that. Take the motherfuckers out.”

“I think our best bet is to make another play for the transport driver. If we go last, there will be more confusion and chaos.”

He rubbed his hands together. “Then I’ll take out those who open the door, make a U-turn and go straight for the driver. It’s gonna take a lot to stop me. I useta be pretty damn good.”

The truck was stuffy and smelled slightly of urine and something unsuccessfully trying to cover it up. It wasn’t dark, but there was a grey pallor hanging in the air. There were at least ten other people crowded in the back and the smell of fear permeated everything.

The others in the transport began questioning and muttering until Safety glared at them and told them to shut the fuck up, or when they opened that door, there would be nothing but dead people inside.

The truck became very quiet.

“We don’t have much time. Give me your hands.”

Safety turned his back to Roper, who used the edge of her championship belt buckle to slowly cut through the first two cable ties. She was only halfway through the third when the transport started to slow down.

“Why are you doing this?” An elderly woman asked. “We’re going to a better place.”

“There is no compound. There is no safe place. It’s all a lie...like in Auschwitz when they got there and saw the sign that said Work Makes You Free. It’s all an elaborate lie to get you all to cooperate. This here is us not cooperating.”

The old woman looked from Roper to Safety and back. “Auschwitz? Indeed. Arbeit Macht Frei is what it said in German.” She smiled. “I was a history teacher.”

“Then you should see this ruse for what it is.”

The woman scooted closer along the bench and leaned over to Roper. “They’re taking us to our death, aren’t they?”

Roper stared into her hazel eyes and nodded. Her gray hair was cut stylishly around her oval face. Her wrinkles belied her age, but it was the sparkle in her eye that made Roper like her. “A fate worse than, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh. My. Now that you so eloquently compared it to Auschwitz, everything is falling into place. If you’ll allow me to lead the way. No one would expect an old lady to take off running.”

“They’ll shoot you,” Roper said softly.

“Honey, I’ve lived a great life. The best way to top that off is with a great death.”

The transport came to a stop and the woman rose. “It’s Lillian,” she said, smiling. “Remember me to your children.” Straightening her scrubs, she nodded to Safety. “Ready when you are young man.”

When the doors opened, Safety lowered his shoulder and bowled over the first five men. When people started out of the transport, Lillian looked at Roper, winked, and darted from the back of the truck yelling, “Arbeit Macht Frei!”

As she ran and dodged the first three soldiers, who were almost too stunned to shoot or even react, Safety leapt from the back, snapped the remaining cable tie, lowered his shoulder and hit the next soldier so hard it lifted him off his feet with a woof sound. He landed on his back, his rifle falling from his hands.

Safety kept going as if he was gunning for a running back.

Roper jumped to the ground next to the first downed soldier, picked up his rifle, cracked his head with the butt of it, and whirled around in time to shoot the passenger soldier in the chest. Safety hit the next soldier so hard, Roper heard his ribs crack. When a fourth soldier raised his gun at Lillian, Safety lowered his shoulder again and barreled into his back. The gun fired but hit no one. The soldier bent in two and bones snapped as Safety crushed him.

Everyone was running and screaming in every direction. A guard who came running from another makeshift building threw his arms around Lillian, who screamed out something about Nazis.

Roper wheeled toward Lillian. She was struggling in the arms of a soldier who had lifted her off the ground and was carrying her toward a large white tent probably once used for a wedding reception. “Lillian!”

That hesitation cost Roper, as the truck driver peeled out, kicking up dirt and dust.

Slowly raising her rifle, Roper got the soldier’s face in her sights, blew out a breath and lightly stroked the trigger just like her grandfather had shown her all those years ago.

His face exploded and he released Lillian, who fell to the ground on top of him.

With the transport gone, Roper looked around for an escape route. Unfortunately, the only one she saw was suddenly filled with a second transport headed her way.

“Safety, get her!”

The large man broke the neck of another soldier as he made his way to Lillian, who he threw over his shoulder and started back toward Roper. When he was running back, a soldier from behind him shot at him. If he hit Safety, Roper couldn’t tell, because she was too busy firing at the soldiers now streaming out of the tent and trying to lock and load on them.

As Roper lay down cover for the mountain of a man, she knew this was their last stand. The soldiers coming out began shooting everyone not wearing a uniform.

“Make a run for it, Safety. I’ll try to cover you!”

Safety shook his head as he made it to the transport coming toward them. “Naw, Roper. We’re screwed.” Safety suddenly threw his arms around Roper and covered her, waiting for the impact of the transport barreling toward them.

Instead of hitting them, the vehicle veered around them and ran over nearly every soldier standing in front of the tent. Men went down with bone crunching sounds as the heavy transport mowed them over—others were sent flying as the transport smashed into them. Then it did a one-eighty and ran over three more. When the passenger window came down and a rifle came out, Safety yelled, “Run!”

As Roper turned to run, she saw Dallas’s face behind the rifle’s scope.

“Get in the truck!” Roper yelled, dropping to one knee and picking off two soldiers who swung their rifles around toward Dallas’s transport. She shot one, but missed the other, who got off a few rounds, smashing the driver’s side window and headlight. Glass rained down around her.