Widow Town (31 page)

Gray
guided the knife beneath the strap at his waist and slit it free, then bent forward again, retracting the blade into the handle. He placed the butt of the weapon on the floor and threaded the chain binding his ankles together over the blade slot and triggered the knife again.

The chain link nea
rly exploded.

The wide blade shot through the chain’s steel like cardboard, expanding the link out
into a diamond shape before breaking it in a brief flicker of sparks. Gray paused to glance at Barder who had bypassed the instrument tray along with Rachel and Joslyn’s hanger, and was scooting toward the dual doors of what could only be an elevator. Blood spewed from his ruined kneecap and spread out behind him like a rusty comet tail.

Rachel gurgled something unintelligible from behind her gag and Gray realized she was urging him on. Retracting the knife blade again, he positioned it under the chain that bound his wrists together and wrapped it as tight as possible before pressing the button. The alloyed weapon had the same effect as it had on the lower chain. A cracking and the smell of burned metal a
nd then Gray’s hands were free.

There was a rushing sound above the constant crying of the toddlers and the
air in the room changed. The doors to the elevator opened and Barder half crawled, half slid himself inside. Gray rose from the chair, a bout of dizziness nearly bringing him down before he moved forward, the broken chains clinking about his feet. Barder saw him coming and dragged his feet inside the small compartment.

“Level one,” the doctor wheezed and an electronic voice repeated his command before
the doors began to slide shut.

Gray lurched around the apparatus the two women hung from and sped toward the door as fast as his body would allow. He drew back his arm, readying to throw the knife at the man through the closing gap but held up as the doors snicked closed. The last he saw was Barder’s pale face concentrated in a grimace, his eyes clearer and full of hate.

“Mac,” Lynn said, her head raised off the bed.

He hurried across the room to her, pausing only to look out the porthole in the door. There was short deserted corridor beyond but no
visible lock on the door when he searched for one. He stopped at Lynn’s bedside and began to loosen the straps holding her flat.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I think so.” She sat up and examined her left hand. Her ring finger ended behind the second knuckle in a blackened stump. The end was flattened and shiny from the cauterization.

“It hurts
like hell though.”

“Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get you out of here,” Gray said, helping her off the bed. Lynn made her way to the boys in the cart while Gray went to
the instrument tray and found a small, indiscriminate key that fit the shackles on his wrists and ankles. In less than a minute he had freed Joslyn and Rachel from their bindings. Rachel pulled the gag from her mouth and fell against him when she stood, her arms holding him tight.

“You came,
oh God, thank you for coming.”

“It’s fine, you’re okay. Let’s get moving,” Gray said, gently extracting himself from her. She turned and rushed to her son who held his arms out. Reaching. Tear tracks stained his small face and Rachel clutched him to her, burying her face against his neck. Joslyn held almost the same pose except she was kneeling on the ground, hugging her s
on tight.

Gray walked to the door again and checked the hallway. It was still empty and no sounds met his ears over the soft crying of the reunited mothers and sons. Lynn’s hand gripped the inside of his arm and she pulled him close, her
body shaking against him. He put an arm around her shoulder and then turned back to the rest of the group.

“Okay, we have to move and move fast. The boys might be coming back down here
right now. I’ll go first and take the brunt if one of them stops us. If they have a gun, run back here and pile everything you can against the door. Then hide in the elevator if they get past me.”

“I’m going to fight if they’re out there,” Rachel said. “There’s no wa
y they’re locking us up again.”

Gray
appraised her for a moment before Joslyn spoke.

“Me too. You have no idea
—” Her words broke off in a horse sob as she hugged her son tighter.

“Okay. We fight no matter what,” Gray said, shifting his gaze to each of t
he women. A deep resolve burned in each of their eyes.

Rachel nodded and hitched her son up higher upon her hip while Joslyn nuzzled her
child, whispering something that Gray couldn’t hear. Lynn walked to the instrument tray and returned holding a wickedly curved scalpel.

“Let’s go,” she said.

They pushed through the door into the quiet hallway, only the sounds of their footsteps speaking back to them. Gray propped the door open with one of the empty shackles upon seeing the electronic locking mechanism on the outside of the doorframe. When he was sure it wouldn’t slide shut behind them, he and Lynn led the group away from the operating room, their shoulders brushing from time to time. The hallway turned after several yards and then stretched away with heavy doors interspersed on either side. They moved down it, Gray pausing by each cell to listen. Nothing. A small alcove held a rolling cart and on its surface was the Raging Bull along with the two Tin-Snippers. Gray snatched the gun up and spun the cylinder out, his heart falling when he saw it was empty. The bottom level of the cart was bare and when he rolled it away from the wall there was nothing but cobwebs and a ball of dust. He tucked the gun into a loop in his coveralls and slipped the Tin-Snippers into an opposite pocket. The knife he kept ready in his hand. As they neared the end of the corridor he noticed another camera mounted in the upper right corner. He gave it a look and then touched the door handle that sealed the hallway.

The handle moved down and up, swinging
free without opening the door.

“They’re electronically locked,” Rachel said. “I got out befor
e and none of them would open.”

“Shit,” Gray said, half turning. “We need to go back and look for a
—”

His words were cut off as the door burst open, striking him hard on the shoulder.
He fell, the knife clattering to the floor out of reach. His body exploded with a map of pain that marked each prior injury. The women screamed in a cacophony of sound that fluttered his eardrums. When he looked up he saw Adam step through the door but the younger man’s face was obscured by something.

Adam wore a polished set of steel jaws that protruded from his face where his mouth should have been. Gleaming fangs interlocked amongst one another and fitted plates covered the man’s jowls. Two black straps
ran from where the mask met his face and stretched back around his neck and over the top of his skull. As Gray watched, the jaws opened revealing Adam’s real mouth and teeth behind the steel.

Adam opened his mouth wider and the mask did the same, the wickedly pointed teeth stretching like the yaw
n of a lion. Gray saw Adam shut his mouth just as the steel jaws followed suit and slammed together creating a horrible crunching sound that rang like clashing sabers. In that moment Gray knew what had made the bite marks on the bodies of the Jacobs family.

Adam stepped forward, kicking
the knife down the hallway. He leaned down, bringing his face to Gray’s in a semblance of a kiss, the shining maw widening again. Gray kicked the younger man in the chest, shoving him backward. There was a flash of movement and Lynn lunged forward, swinging the scalpel down in a stabbing motion. The instrument plunged into Adam’s shoulder as he tried to block the attack and he issued a muffled yowl from behind the device. He shoved Lynn and she flew back, tripping over her feet as she went down and landed in a heap. With a hiss, Adam withdrew the three inches of steel embedded in his shoulder, a flower of blood blossoming on the material surrounding the wound.

“Oh bitch, you’re gonna pay for that one.” The jaws snicked together and apart as Adam spoke. “I’m gonna bite you to pieces, and t
hen I’m gonna eat some of you.”

Adam aimed a kick at Gray as he scuttled backward, trying to regain his feet.
The blow caught him in the thigh and he cried out, numbness shooting down the length of his leg. Rachel stepped forward, holding Gray’s knife out before her like a pointed offering. Adam began to giggle.

“What are you gonna do with that, bitch? You don’t put things into me,
I put things into you, remember?” Adam laughed again and Rachel lunged forward with a yell. He caught her arms as she tried to drive the knife into his stomach and held her there while she squirmed.

“I’d bite your face off, but I like it too much,” Adam said. He tightened his grip and began to force Rachel’s arms down
, his mask rubbing against her cheek, until she issued a hoarse sob and dropped the knife. With a backward kick, Adam sent the weapon sliding behind him on the floor and shoved Rachel away. Gray began to stand, his leg threatening to drop him and Adam sent a looping fist into the side of his head.

The hallway dipped as if it were inside of a plane caught in turbulence. Gray stumbled back, running to keep upright. His ha
nd went out in a final effort of balance and he found the edge of the rolling cart. He fell and took it with him, its heavy top thudding to the floor beside him. One of the Tin-Snippers escaped his pocket and rolled out, bumping against Rachel’s shoe.

“He’s gonna be so proud of me,” Adam
said, stopping to look at them. “Why don’t you all be good and just go back to the hospital room. Hey, how did you get out anyway?”

Gray reached for the ball bearing but his fingers wouldn’t grip it. His lungs tr
ied to pull air in but they were small and ragged. He saw Rachel bend down and pick up the Tin-Snipper.

“Throw it and get down,” he
wheezed, locking eyes with her.

She looked at the polished egg of steel in her palm and then down the corridor to where Adam stood, his hands on his hips as if awaiting an answer. Gray watched her wind back
her arm and whip it forward.

“Get down!” he yelled at Lynn and Joslyn who each pulled the little boys to the floor, covering them with their bodies.

The Tin-Snipper sailed down the hallway and Gray pulled the cart closer, hoping he would hear the sound of the sphere hitting Adam’s mask. Instead, it bounced harmlessly off the giant’s ample belly and shot straight up into the air. Adam laughed.

“Was that supposed to hur
—”

The Tin-S
nipper hit the floor at Adam’s feet and detonated.

The concussion struck
them first, driving the cart against Gray’s outstretched hands and legs. There was no definable sound, only a thick buzzing in the air as if bees had returned from their extinction and swarmed the hall. Then the vacuum was punctured by a fading roar followed by inhuman screams. They reverberated off the walls like things alive, cutting through the waning aftershock of the explosion.

Gray turned to the women and boys, searching for missing limbs or lacerated torsos. They were all sitting up slowly, the children crying in hushed tones, Rachel and Joslyn clinging to them. Lynn reached toward him, a haze of di
sorientation covering her eyes.

“What happened?”

He more read her lips than heard the words. The bees hadn’t left his eardrums but the floor had stilled instead of rocking like a ship’s deck. He gathered his feet beneath him and stood, a swarm of vertigo coming and receding within a heartbeat. He held out his hand to Lynn and helped her up. The screams were still coursing past them, a river of sound, and when he turned he saw why.

Adam’s legs were gone from the hips down.

He lay in a muddled ocean of gore with shattered spars of bones poking their bleached heads through the red swells. Strings of muscle were splattered against the walls and one especially long strand hung from the ceiling like a party decoration. Adam screamed over the top of his mask’s lower jaw, the upper portion had been torn off in the blast and lay farther down the hall. The inner mechanism still worked and the piece of steel that hung from his face snapped upward with each bellow.

Gray rounded the overturned cart and saw that the lowermost tray had been
obliterated by shrapnel and there were dented constellations formed on the underside of the second level. He moved forward, careful not to slip in the organic spray that used to be Adam’s legs. The man squirmed in his own fluids, his palms slapping the wet floor, sending up droplets of blood. Gray came even with him and Adam turned his spattered face toward him, his breath coming in short hitches between shrieks.

“Help me! Help meeeee!”

Gray surveyed the pulped ends of the man’s thighs, arterial blood jetting from them in rapid pulses. Miraculously, from the waist up Adam appeared unharmed. Gray knelt beside him, balancing on the balls of his feet and began to open the pockets on the prone man’s shirt. The plastic card was in the second one he checked and he drew it out, turning it over in the dim light.

“Daddy! Help me!”