Surge (115 page)

Snapping my head in the direction of the noise, I know that it came from the kitchen, so I head that way. Creeping over as quietly as possible, I stay low as I come up to the corner of the bar. Pausing, I peer around the edge to make sure that there’s no one coming. Another crash comes from behind the double doors, but I don’t see anyone coming, so I continue forward.

Reaching the swinging door, I push it open a crack, and peak inside. I see a blur of bodies crash into the metal island in the middle, and a mop of messy red hair hit the counter. The raider on top, has his hands wrapped around the Patsy’s neck and is squeezing, causing his complexion to match his hair. Disregarding noise, I run into the room and raise my golf club. Patsy’s shade is an alarming purple by the time I bash the raider on the head, and he slumps on Patsy’s chest. Gripping the collar of the orange jumpsuit, I haul the guy off of him, and release a sigh of relief when I hear Patsy sucking up air in greedy gulps. He’s bent over, and coughing.

“You alright?” I ask.

Hearing my question, Patsy stands upright and nods, drawing attention to the red marks marring his flushed skin. Waiting for him to recover his ability to talk, let alone breathe, I sink my knife into the unconscious raider’s neck to make sure he won’t be getting back up. I don’t know what the fuck is up with these dudes and choking. I mean, back at the condo, two of them tried using that technique on me, so do they offer lessons or some shit? My guess is probably.

Along with how to take cheap shots, as can be seen with Patsy’s black eye and split lip. Patsy’s a trained fighter, so the marks on him must have been caused while he was at a disadvantage. Same with the asshole choking him, and that’s when I see his bound hands. I’m just surprised he’s alive at all, since last I knew, Cole fired off a round in his direction, and I didn’t see him after that. Pulling a clean knife from my holster, I cut his hands free.

“You good, or should you head to the van?” I ask. Patsy rubs a hand across his neck, and clears his throat.

“I-I’m good.” Patsy still sounds a bit breathless, but it’s his call. If he thinks he could handle it, who am I judge?

“Any idea where the others are?”

“Nah, I heard some gun shots, shouting, and a couple of explosions, but that’s it,” he answers. “I tried the walkie, but no one’s answering.”

“And Olivia?” I ask. “The bitches downstairs said that she was up here being punished.” Patsy scowls. “Yeah, that was my reaction too. I woke up to them bickering about what to do with me, and you’re the first person I’ve seen otherwise.”

“I saw you go down, and went to help,” Patsy says. “But these dudes came out of fucking nowhere, and I couldn’t get there before they dragged you out.”

“It’s fine,” I say with a wave at him. It’s not his fault we gotten taken unawares. We were under the assumption that we had the advantage, and we were obviously wrong to underestimate these fuckers. “Let’s just find the others and get the fuck out of here.” Patsy nods his agreement. “You got anything, or did they frisk you? The girl’s took one of my guns, but I’ve got a spare, a couple knives and this.” I raise the golf club.

“They took my shit,” he tells me. “But I’ll take this asshole’s as payment.” Patsy leans down to the corpse, and fishes him for weapons. The raider had a knife, a handgun, and a set of matches.

“What’re the matches for?” I ask a little uneasily. I’ve had enough fire to last me a lifetime.

“I plan on burning this bitch to the ground,” Patsy replies. “But we have to clear our people out first.”

“Then let’s go find ‘em.”

<~~~<~~~
~~~>~~~>

“So, where do we start?” I ask.

“Fuck if I know,” Patsy says with a shrug. “Just start walking, and we’ll run into someone eventually.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I nod my head at the door that I just entered through. “Seems as good a start as any.”

“Lead away, Captain Jared,” Patsy says.

“You know, it seems kinda weird that you guys know our names, but we don’t yours,” I say and head toward the door.

“Well, it isn’t that hard to figure them out,” he says. “I’m Patrick Donaghue, aka Patsy, Wally’s name is Walter Briggs, and Adam Hutchins is Ace. But I guess Webby’s kind of hard to guess as Jayce Petropoulos, but it is what it is.”

“And how’d you get your name?” I ask. I know there’s an embarrassing story attached, since Olivia threatened to tell us the story when he was bickering with John upon arrival, and I wanna hear it.

“No way, you gotta earn it,” Patsy tells me as I shove the swinging door open a bit.

“I’ll earn it,” I promise, and peek through the crack in the wood.

Spotting no movement, I shove it open enough for us to slip through. Remembering my earlier plan to check the dining area before I heard Patsy’s struggle in the kitchen, I decide that’s the way we’ll head now. I don’t bother crouching low this time, I have Patsy as back up, and if Olivia is as helpless as he was; I’m more concerned about her safety than my own. Yeah, it may be reckless and stupid, but my mind’s racing forty miles a minute, so it’s kind of hard to form a coherent thought at the moment.

Craning my neck around the wall, I see a semi empty dining room. Three men are seated at the table; where the fuck these guys were last night, remains to be seen, but I see them now. And it appears that they haven’t seen us, until I hurl a knife at the closest one’s neck. It goes through the left side, but I don’t see it come back out. No matter, the guy still slumps sideways in his chair, drawing the attention of his dining friends. One of them drops a spoonful of flakes on the table, while the other one spits out some brown colored liquid, my guess would be coffee. What I wouldn’t give for a cup of that right now?

“What the h-..” The rest of that particular raider’s question is cut by Patsy’s knife impaling his temple. The lone survivor lasts as long as it takes me to get within arm’s reach, and since he’s frozen with shock, his death is quick.

“Any idea how many there were?” I ask, and snatch up the deceased raider’s cup; which is in fact coffee. I grimace at the bitter taste, but I’m operating on three hours of sleep for the last twenty-seven hours, so anything will help.

“Um, eight?” Patsy guesses with a shrug, and grabs a handful of cereal from a bowl on the table. He continues talking while munching on a bite. “That’s what I counted back in their sleeping quarters, when they dragged you out.” We could handle a handful more, especially if they’re as easily dispatched as these clowns. Patsy tosses back the rest of his cereal, and brushes his hands together. “Let’s finish this shit, and get some real grub. I’m fucking starving.”

I nod at him, as I gulp down the rest of the lukewarm cup of Joe, and observe the other side of the dining area. Even from here, I can see that there’s a hallway that splits off in both directions. After setting the mug back down on the table, I approach the doorway and glance down the hallway, which almost mirrors the setup on the other side. I do a quick eeny meeny miny moe to decide which way, childish, but it helps me choose a direction without really choosing. Out goes, Y, O, U; and left it is. I check my holster, two knives left. I can work with two, but I have to remember not throw my hunting one. It doesn’t have much accuracy anyway, but I’d rather have that for hand to hand combat.

With that decided, I grip the handle of the golf club with my left, and hold my 9mm in my right. I never did find my crossbow or my dad’s gun, but I can’t worry about those right now. Not that I want anything that belonged to my dad right now anyway, maybe in time I’ll forgive him, but I’m still pissed; and to be honest, pretty damn hurt about that whole situation. I push that the back of my head for now, since I have enough to deal with at the moment, without adding more baggage to the pile.

I clear the distance between me and the first door in three steps, and hear Patsy pick up his pace to keep up. I glance at him, and count out three, before turning the handle, and kicking the door open. Subtlety is not my goal, so I don’t care about the one guy standing by the urinal, with his back to us, I just shoot him. It’s a dick move, but I don’t care. They’ve taken us from behind, so why shouldn’t we?

I step inside the bathroom to clear the stalls, to have some douchebag come out of one, shooting a fucking rifle. I feel Patsy kick my knees out from behind, knocking me out of the line of fire, but not before I feel a bullet dig into my left shoulder. Mother fucker, that burns. Even with me biting back curses, and blinking to clear my vision, I still manage to fire a round in retaliation. Mine misses, but someone else’s bullet finds its mark in the raider’s chest. With him down, I turn to check on Patsy, and find him with Wally, the twins and Webby.

“Where the fuck have you been?” I ask, rising to my feet.

“The better question, is where the fuck have you been?” Carlos asks.

“Yeah, gringo, we’ve been looking for your white ass for half an hour,” Oscar says.

“I was temporarily detained,” I say. “Now, which of you fucks is responsible for blowing our cover?”

“It was Bambi,” Webby answers. “We went to check it out, so that’s what took us so long to get inside.”

“Fucking Bambi,” Patsy spits out. “We almost get pinched for a goddamn deer. As soon as we get home, I’m taking my rifle and goin’ huntin.’”

“I think Bambi paid for his misstep,” Wally says.

“Yeah, we were seeing blood and fur for miles,” Oscar adds.

“It wasn’t that far,” Carlos counters. “It was more like a hundred feet, but still pretty nasty.”

“That’s great and all, but can we discuss blood spray and distance later?” I ask. “After all, we still have people missing, and I’d like to put as much distance between me and this hell hole as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, but we should stay split,” Patsy says. “We’ll take Webby with us, and you can keep the twins.” Wally nods to say he agrees with the split.

“Where’re the others?” I ask and glance at the foursome. John, Cory, Ace and Tommy are still unaccounted for. And obviously Olivia, but I know for a fact that she’s in here somewhere. The twins shrug, as does Webby.

“We lost contact with them after the blast,” Wally says. “We split, us taking to the trees, while they were supposed to come in here. If you haven’t seen them yet, I’m sure one of us will at some point.”

“How long ago was that?” I ask. I see four people, not Patsy, lift their eyebrows. “I lost a bit of time due to a golf club, so how long was it?”

“‘Bout an hour,” Webby replies. “By the looks of that shiner, I’d say you had some fun before you took a nap.”

“Yeah, a real blast,” I tell him, not bothering to conceal my sarcasm. “So didn’t Patsy. Nothing better than being strangled with your hands tied, huh?”

“Nope, you haven’t lived ‘til you experienced that,” Patsy says.

“So, these raiders like it kinky, do they?” Carlos asks, and I see a glimmer in his brown eyes.

“We can do kinky,” his twin says with a troublemaker grin matching the look in his brother’s eyes.

“Go have your fun, just don’t get yourselves killed,” I say. “After all, where’re we gonna find a replacement?”

“You couldn’t,” they say in unison. Indeed I could not, but I don’t say it, I just point at the door for them to get moving.

“We’ll see you when it’s over,” I say.

“When it’s over,” they parrot back. I think I’ll start charging admission to see them when we get back to the compound.

“Webby, you got your walkie, use it if you need to,” Wally says. Webby nods at the order, before Wally steps out with the twins. I see them head off to the left, from which Patsy and I just came, so I guess we’ll be continuing in the direction we were heading.

“How’d you guys find us?” I ask Webby, as I head toward the door.

“Well, it could have been when you were talking, or stomping around like an elephant,” Webby replies. “Or when we heard a gun go off, or when the AK started bursting rounds. Take your pick, but they drew us right this way, so I guess your mouth is good for something.”

I flip him off, but continue moving. My mouth is good for many things, none of which any person of the male variety will ever know. Still, I do keep my lips closed, and lighten my steps. Now that they heard the gun shots, they should come to us, no need to tell them exactly where we are. Like this fuck, who come’s running around the corner, skidding to a stop, and raising a gun at us.

“I got this one,” Webby says.

I duck against the wall on the right, and Patsy dives left, while Webby pulls out his taser just as the bullets start flying. Two imbed into the wall above my head, by the time I see a wire go flying down the hallway. The clip latches on to the raider’s crotch, and he seizes before collapsing on the floor. The raider continues flapping like a fish, until Webby walks over and drags his knife across the guy’s throat.

“Nice nut shot, that’s twenty points,” Patsy says. He stands from his position behind a decorative table, and we go to meet Webby.

“Yeah, you missed two eyes, and a temple,” Webby says and rises to his feet.

“Then they don’t count,” Patsy counters.

“Wally saw them…” I hear Webby say.