Chapter 64

64

We were coming up on the corner of the tunnel when behind me I heard Colleen kick something. It made a skittering sound beside me a second before I felt it ricochet off my left foot. As I swung the gun's flashlight down, I saw it was a cell phone.

Not just any cell phone but a satellite cell phone, I saw as I knelt and lifted it up by its antenna.

When I realized what it was and that Daisy must have dropped it when she fell, I suddenly knew that what had made her flip out and run wasn't a sudden bout of claustrophobia after all.

"Scotty, no! Come back! Come back!" I yelled at his back in the tunnel ahead.

But I was too late.

The rattle of automatic gunfire that started from around the turn of the tunnel was as deafening as it was sudden. I watched in shock and horror as Scotty's light shook crazily and I heard him scream in pain as he fell.

"Back! Back! Back!" I yelled, trying to dodge around Jodi in front of me in the narrow corridor with the ballistic shield.

But I wasn't fast enough.

Just as I came shoulder to shoulder with Jodi, a bright white blossom of gunfire came from around the tunnel corner ahead. I heard some rounds skip off the stone wall right beside me and some whip past my ear and then I felt a splash of something wet as Jodi suddenly fell into me.

I felt rounds smack into the shield as I finally dove forward and lifted it up in front of me. There was one and then another and then two more. Each made a clunking sound like an axe chopping wood.

When I glanced at the bulletproof aperture, it was just in time to see a gray smudge of lead smack a spiderweb crack across it. Another round hit almost at the same exact spot a split second later, dimpling back the cracked glass.

With my free right hand, I thumbed down the MP5 that I was holding to full auto, put the barrel along the side of the shield and pulled the trigger. Raking it side to side, I let off a long burst down the tunnel and then another and then a third, emptying the mag.

When I turned back, I saw that Colleen had already grabbed Jodi from under her arms and was dragging her backward. As I backed with her, keeping the shield in front of all of us, there was another burst of gunfire and another spray of lead pinged and punched off the shield. Bits of glass almost got in my eyes as it was hit yet again.

This shield was saving our lives at the present but it had its limits, I knew. Every time it was hit, its steel was weakened. Bottom line, we needed to get the hell out of the tunnel or we were going to die.

"Pull her into the side storage room there," I called to Colleen behind me.

Another roar of fire came at us, chipping the brick opening as we all hurried in.

The first thing I did as I got clear of the corridor was replace the magazine of the MP5 and the second thing I did was stick it back into the tunnel without looking and pull the trigger until it stopped firing.

By the time it went click, the gun smoke was so thick and hazy, I couldn't see the other side of the corridor. I put in another fresh mag and slapped down the bolt carrier before I turned to see Colleen giving Jodi CPR.

But it wasn't necessary, I saw a moment later as I crouched forward with the light.

Jodi was dead.

A bullet had hit her high in the forehead and another had gone in right under her left cheekbone.

I shook my head, trying to stay focused.

They killed her. They actually killed her.

I closed my eyes as I thought about what she had said about her husband.

Man, that hurt.

It hurt even worse when I remembered my promise to get her out of this.

What bastards , I thought, looking at the blood on this pretty lady's cheek, in her blonde hair. What total psychopathic scum.

"It's over. Stop. She's gone," I said to Colleen, who was still pumping away.

"No," Colleen cried, continuing to pump.

"Stop, Colleen," I said, pulling her off of Jodi. She was in shock.

"We have to go or we're next," I said as calmly as possible.

I held her by her shoulders and looked right into her eyes.

"As I empty this last magazine, you just turn and run full out back for the factory as fast as possible before they start firing back again, okay? It's our only chance."

She nodded slowly.

"What about you?" she said in a whisper.

"Don't worry about me. I have the shield. Are you ready?"

I helped her up, hoping she would be steady on her feet.

"Okay," I said. "One, two, run!"

I stepped out with the shield and gun and opened up down the hall again as Colleen ran.

When my gun went click for the last time, I was already moving backward as fast as I could. Then I finally reached the end of the tunnel and was back in the factory basement gloriously unshot.

I immediately dropped the shield and ran across the basement and grabbed one of the antique doors, a heavy oak thing, and ran back for the mouth of the tunnel with it.

I laid it across the opening and ran back for another. As I returned with the second door, several rounds suddenly punched through the first one.

Undeterred, I propped the second door against the first and I ran back and grabbed the old hand truck. I jammed the lip of it under the side of the Ms. Pac-Man console and tilted it up and ran, pushing it across the basement floor to slam it hard up against the two doors. The cheap pool table made a screeching sound, or maybe that was my spine, as I carried it on my back to sit it beside the Ms. Pac-Man.

Another round came through the wood and then I remembered something.

I fished out the baseball-shaped frag grenade, pulled its pin and ran up and dunked it hard into the small gap between the top of the doors and the top of the tunnel.

I heard it skitter deep into the tunnel and then I lay flat against the wall as it ba-boomed.

I was already at the stairs when I was rewarded with a thoroughly satisfying scream.

How's it feel, losers? I thought as I started running.

"Come on! Come on! Let's go!" I said to Colleen as I grabbed her hand and pulled her around the old boiler for the stairs.

To where, I had no idea, since our escape hatch was now sealed.

This was bad, I thought.

Bad, bad, bad.