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“We need to get a move on before someone finds us.” Agent Pike nodded at the gun in Sam’s hand. His gun. “Sam, you take point. I’ll guard the rear.”
Sam didn’t trust the stranger and supposed FBI agent who’d just tried to kill Jimmy to watch her back. A little voice inside her head, growing louder, screamed at her to shoot the man for whom he pretended to be. It couldn’t be, shouldn’t be him. Not after all those years of silence, of letting her believe he was dead. A betrayal like no other. How can I trust him now?
She put it out of her mind, tending to what needed to be done, but she couldn’t keep the nagging question at bay any longer. Her voice quivering, she asked what her heart had already answered but what her stubborn brain refused to accept. “Why did he call you Bruce?”
“You know why, Sam,” the agent said, his voice quiet, filled with shame. “When we get out of here, we’ll have a lot to talk about. But first, we need to get these children to safety.”
Sam bit her lip, but she nodded. Slowly, she crept to the door, the pistol by her side pointed at the floor. Michael followed behind her, then Jimmy, then the agent—no, then Bruce—carrying Tessa’s dead weight. Sam’s heart went out for the girl, but it was too late for her. And by the sounds of screaming and mayhem happening in the direction they were headed, she could use another able-bodied person at her side, not one encumbered by the fiction of hope.
They exited the room into darkness. The corridor outside was like an abandoned subway tunnel, cool and desolate. Despite having a fixed beginning and no offshoots that she could tell, it was unnavigable in its utter blackness. One of the boys trotted up beside her, lightly brushing against her elbow.
“It’s this way,” Jimmy said. “Just follow the wall. There are a few steps up to a door at the end of the corridor. There should be light on the other side.”
They walked the hall as quickly as caution would allow. Banshee wails echoed around them as if they were at the bottom of a well, making it impossible for Sam to determine which direction they were coming from. A bang sounded ahead of her, and she reached out for Jimmy, her heart skipping when she couldn’t find him.
He grunted. “Found the stairs.”
The squeak of a turning doorknob and the creak of a door hinge brought light flooding into Sam’s eyes. When her vision adjusted, she saw another mostly empty hallway with a few cardboard boxes stacked along the right wall. This corridor, though, had many offshoots and rooms to boot.
She tugged on the back of Jimmy’s shirt, pulling him behind her. “Which way?”
Jimmy pointed. “Second left. That hallway should lead to the rec area inside the prerelease ward. From there, I’m not a hundred percent sure how to get out. But I can get us to the visitation area. Patients come from one direction while the visitors always come from the other, so...”
Sam nodded. It was as good a plan as any. If they passed by the offices where she’d met Dr. Horvat earlier, she could get them out from there. But having spent most of the last twelve hours drugged out of her mind, she couldn’t even venture a guess as to where the psychopath and his deranged girlfriend had deposited her and Michael. Resuming point and keeping her weapon at the ready, she stalked down the hall past sparsely decorated rooms with separating curtains and rusted gurneys. Anyone could have been hiding behind those curtains or in hidden corners. She halted and listened.
A shriek came from somewhere up ahead, muffled by plaster and partitions. Unfortunately, it seemed to come from the very direction they were heading. To her right, a shadow shrank into a room.
She aimed her gun at the doorway. “Police. Show yourself!”
A giant hand, raised in surrender, emerged from around the wall. A massive frame of pure muscle in scrubs and the unfamiliar face of a dark-skinned young man appeared. Pinned to his chest was a nametag that read Curtis. “Don’t shoot! We’re unarmed!”
“We?” Sam held up her hand for the man to stop moving. “Who’s in there with you?”
“A few of the patients—Manny, Terry, and Harriet. Good people. Please, help us. The place is overrun, inmates from Ward D killing everyone they see. How they all got out is beyond me. It’s a bloodbath out there. We were in the rec room when we were attacked. One of them had a scalpel and started slitting throats.”
“How’d you escape?” Sam kept her gun trained on the orderly. She’d already been betrayed by one Curtis.
“The staff-only door. You need a badge to get in through here, so those psychos couldn’t follow us. They only stopped pounding on the door a few minutes ago. Hopefully, they’ve given up. The screams don’t seem as close anymore.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “Step out slowly, all of you, and line up against the wall.”
A woman in her seventies with knobby, arthritic fingers but a shrewdness in her eyes followed in the wake of the hulking Curtis. Behind her came a pudgy middle-aged gentleman whose shirt was a little too short and tight to cover the hairy spare tire hanging over his waistline. Finally, another man with a full head of thick gray curls came staggering out, face as white as clean linens. His neck was wrapped in medical tape, a dark-red stain blotting a compress under it.
“Manny took a pretty good slice in the melee,” Curtis said as he nodded toward the last man’s injury. “I did what I could for him. I’m just an orderly, but I’m going to nursing school, so I’ve had some training.”
“Really?” Jimmy stepped between Sam’s gun and Curtis and tugged at the orderly’s sleeve. When the man didn’t budge, Jimmy pointed at Tessa and said, “You’ve got to help her!”
“Jimmy, can you vouch for these people?” Sam had almost asked for Bruce’s opinion, but that would have meant acknowledging her late partner’s continued and inexplicable existence. She wasn’t ready for that.
“Yes. Portuguese Guy, Chess Lady, and, uh, Dirty Terry. They’re all fine, I think. Who knows who’s been brainwashed in this place.”
“What about him?” She waved her gun at Curtis.
“If he helped all these people, I’m guessing he’s okay.” Jimmy dismissed Sam, again tugging at Curtis. “Can you help her? Please?”
Sam nodded, and Curtis slowly let his arms fall. He walked over to the girl cradled in her formerly dead partner’s arms. He froze when he noticed who was holding her, then cocked back his fist. “I oughtta kill you for—”
“Enough!” Sam shouted.
The orderly shook his head and let out a breath, then he examined Tessa.
Bruce straightened. “I’m a federal agent. Undercover. Sorry about earlier. Like the boy said, it’s hard to know who we can trust in here.”
Curtis looked around incredulously, but when no one disputed the man’s claims, he just shook his head. “This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
He put two fingers against Tessa’s wrist. “I’m not getting a... Wait. It’s there, but it’s faint.” He hurried back into the room. “Bring her in here quickly.”
Bruce carried Tessa into the room and laid her upon a dusty old gurney. It squealed beneath her weight.
Curtis shuffled about the room. “There’s little I can do for her except maybe stop the bleeding.” Whatever he’d grabbed to fix up the one called Manny, he carried over to Tessa. Without hesitation, he ripped open her shirt and doused the wound with what appeared to be hydrogen peroxide. Sam bet it would have hurt like hell, but Tessa didn’t budge. Sam didn’t have much hope she’d survive. And the longer they stayed there, the longer the rest of them remained in danger.
“She was shot?” Curtis’s eyes searched each of them in turn for an answer.
“Yes,” Sam said.
Curtis lifted Tessa’s shoulder. “I don’t see an exit wound. I can clean and stitch her up and stop the bleeding, but the bullet will still be inside her. She will need it removed and probably several blood transfusions if she’s to have any chance at survival. We need to get her to the ER ASAP.”
Without another word, Curtis hastily went about caring for the wound as best he could with the few tools he had to work with. When he was done, Tessa appeared just as lifeless as she did before he’d started, her chest falling and rising almost imperceptibly.
“Spinney!” Jimmy shouted into the cell phone. “Are there ambulances outside?” Jimmy began to pace. “Okay. Got it. We’ll find a way.” He hung up the phone.
“He says the doors are barricaded. Everyone who could be evacuated has been, but doctors are on standby. The police have the building surrounded and are rounding up most of the residents who tried to flee. But several patients still inside have blocked the entrances and taken hostages. They can’t barge in without risking innocent lives.”
“So, we find our own way out?” For the first time, Sam looked Bruce in those glossy blue eyes she knew so very well.
He met her stare. “Looks that way.”
“I don’t recommend moving her,” Curtis interjected.
“You go,” the old woman, Harriet, said. “I’ll stay with her and Manny.” She pointed at the curly-haired gentleman slumped in the corner, rocking with his hand pressed against his neck. “I’m too old to be fighting off sick men with scalpels. I’ll only slow you down.” She patted Tessa’s hand and grabbed Manny’s. “At least here, I can provide some comfort.”
Sam’s uncertainty in leaving Tessa’s care to a psych ward patient must have shown in her face because Harriet looked her dead in the eye. “Not all of us here are crazy. Most of us are just tired and beaten, worn down by a world that never had much of a place for us in it. The girl will be fine with me. I’ll keep her safe.”
Sam nodded slowly. “Curtis, do you know another way out of here? If the entrances are blocked—”
“It doesn’t make any sense.” Curtis scratched his scalp, taking a moment to breathe. The direness of their circumstances seemed to be finally catching up with him. “I mean, how could they have gotten out? And gotten weapons?”
“This hospital has at least a few sick fucks on staff, Dr. Horvat and Carter Wainwright among them.” Sam ground her teeth. “But Curtis, listen to me—”
“Carter Wainwright, the serial killer? Here? And Dr. Horvat? That—”
“Curtis!” Sam yelled, then checked herself. “Do you know any other ways out of this place?”
The orderly shook his head. “No, but... you said Dr. Horvat has something to do with this? It may be nothing, but I was given the oddest instruction from Francine just before this asshole”—his eyes shifted to Bruce—“clubbed me in the back of the head.”
The agent grunted in apology.
Curtis shrugged. “Anyway, Francine wanted me to move the desk in Horvat’s office, but not until twenty minutes into my shift. When I went to Horvat’s office, I was wondering if maybe she got her instructions wrong, ’cause otherwise, I’d be blocking a closet door. So I peeked inside to see if Horvat kept anything important in there, and it actually led to the basement, but not the one we use—the old section. Couldn’t find a light though, so I don’t know what’s down there. But now I’m thinking, even if it’s not a way out, it could be a great place to hide.”
“Take us there,” Bruce said.
Sam studied what little she could of her former partner’s face, unable to read his intentions. She wondered if he cared more about catching Carter Wainwright than leading the children to safety. Having no other means of escape that didn’t involve facing down violent psych ward inmates, she assented.
“I should stay with the injured and Harriet,” Curtis began. “Take Terry—”
“Show us!” Bruce snapped. He let out a breath. “We don’t have time for discussion.”
“We’ll be okay, Curtis,” Harriet said softly. Her soft wet eyes shimmered with something far short of confidence.
Curtis sighed. “Okay.” He set his jaw and looked at Sam. “I hope you know how to use that thing.”
Sam followed him left to the hall that Jimmy had indicated. There, they walked quietly toward a door at the end.
Curtis put his ear to it. “I don’t hear anything.”
Sam closed her eyes as she listened for any sound, near or far, within the hospital. All had gone quiet. The screaming had stopped.
Curtis hovered his keycard near the card reader, his other hand gripping the door handle. “You ready?”
Sam flexed her fingers around the grip of the pistol, spread her feet apart, and nodded curtly. She held her breath as the door swung open. Seeing no immediate threat, she let out some of the tightness in her shoulders. Then she took in the room. The air tasted of copper, and the smell was that of emptied bowels. “Michael... just, uh, try not to look.”
“When you say that to someone, what do you think will be the first thing they’ll do?” Michael crept up beside her. “Anyway, hanging with you, I’m sure I’ve seen...” His mouth dropped open.
Sam stepped in front and turned to face Michael, shielding him from the worst of the carnage. In her quick assessment, Sam had seen four dead. A security guard lay not far from her feet, his uniform riddled with small punctures and caked blood, his face—well, Sam didn’t really know how to describe it other than missing. Someone had removed the skin and muscle to reveal his smiling skull, the unlit room making it look as though it was coated in barbecue sauce. Sam’s eyes were drawn to the only light in the room, seeping in around drawn shades.
“The windows!” Sam ran to one and peeked out. Her spirit dampened at the sight of the bars behind the panes.
“They’re all like that in here,” Curtis said. “We’ll have to get out of the ward before we can use a window to escape.”
“Then we keep moving,” Bruce added. He placed a hand gently on Sam’s arm to lead her away from the window.
She recoiled at his touch, slapping his hand away. But her flash of anger quickly waned as she took in the room in the window’s light. The bodies around a small card table—one slumped over it and two others on the floor nearby—looked like human pincushions. Their clothes and skin were carved like jack-o’-lanterns, strange symbols cut into their forms as if they were some twisted artist’s new medium. The art extended beyond the bodies to the walls, where smiley faces and a mathematical symbol had been painted in blood.
Pi. Sam wondered if the violent inmates truly had any part in the carnage, or if it had all been the work of the Wainwright, Horvat, and their warrior natives. Sam wouldn’t have wasted time checking each for a pulse, but she had to hand it to Curtis—this Curtis—as he went about the room and confirmed each was dead.
The one called Terry took shaky steps toward a book rack that had been toppled over. He picked up a paperback with a bare, broad-chested man on the cover and rejoined the group, his eyes glazing over. He appeared to be in shock.
Sam put her arm around Michael’s shoulder. His face was pale and he looked like he might vomit. “You okay?”
He nodded shakily but kept it together. She snuck a glance at Jimmy, who was fishing through the security guard’s corpse. He looked so unfazed that he could eat a rare steak dinner right there amid the bloodied cards. But Sam couldn’t really fault him for it, her stomach grumbling at the thought.
She crossed the rec room, the others in tow. The door at the other end was ajar. She softly pushed it open. The dull-yellow fluorescent lighting beyond was just enough to see down the windowless hallway lined with rooms—sleeping quarters.
“The office area is to the right,” Curtis said, keeping his voice low.
A sound like teeth scraping over shells came from ahead. A wiry man with a crooked smile and sparkling eyes stepped out of a room down the hall. His skin appeared melted and loose like he was suffering from leprosy or had experienced several bad skin grafts. His orange T-shirt and matching gi-like pants were smeared with blood. A scalpel carved a line in the wall as he approached. As he neared, she could see his face was some sort of mask. No, he’s wearing someone else’s face. She swallowed as she recalled the dead guard in the rec room.
Across the hall, another man emerged, this one bald, shirtless, fat, and tattooed with swastikas, lightning bolts, iron crosses, and God knew what else all over his face and body, but with the same orange pants as those of his face-wearing buddy. He began to rap a baton on the wall opposite of the scalpel man.
“Stay where you are,” Sam said, aiming her gun at the neo-Nazi, the closer of the two. He kept coming slowly, then disappeared into an open doorway. The scalpel man did the same on the other side.
“Move!” Sam wasn’t sticking around to play. She ushered Michael down the hall to the right, keeping an ear primed to any noise coming from behind. Allowing Curtis to take the lead, she followed with the boys at her side and Bruce at her heels as he shuffled along a nearly catatonic Terry.
After a few turns through silent and euphorically empty corridors, Curtis raised his badge to a card reader before noticing that the door had already been broken open. He pointed to it then put a finger over his mouth as he slowly pushed it open. A thump followed by a twang came from somewhere inside. They entered the spacious area containing an L-shaped nurse’s station with several monitors and file cabinets off to the left. To the right were three examination rooms like those Sam had been in for every physical, with those paper-covered chair-bed things. Manila folders and stationary speckled the floor. A scale lay on its side a few feet in front of her.
The thump twang came again like a meat cleaver chopping through a side of beef and striking a metal tray beneath it. Movement behind the nurse’s station caught Sam’s eye. A pattering of feet came rushing toward them from her right. Sam whipped around to aim.
“Curtis!” A boy who couldn’t have been much older than seven came running at the orderly. Sam lowered her weapon as the snot-nosed, teary-eyed boy wrapped his arms around Curtis’s leg. A shy girl, about the same age as the boy, sprinted out from their hiding spot behind a trash bin in the corner to hug the same leg. The thumping stopped.
Curtis hugged the children close, his massive arms like anacondas swallowing their whole frames. “Grady, Valerie... you’re safe now. I’ve got you.” He grimaced, his face reddening as he looked up at Sam’s weapon, but he kept his voice calm and soothing. “Where’s Helena? Colleen? Jeb? If they just left you here, I swear to God, I’ll...”
The little boy pointed to the nurse’s station. At the same time, Bruce stepped forward to investigate the sound, which had stopped. Out of the corner of her eye, Sam saw the orange Ward D linens. A patient charged at Bruce with an aluminum chair raised over his head. Sam raised her weapon and began angling for a clear shot around Bruce. He raised his arms to defend himself as the man reared back to swing.
In a blur of movement, Curtis was between Bruce and certain pain, catching the chair in his hands before it could connect with the formerly dead man. Curtis ripped it out of the inmate’s hands as easily as if he were snatching it from a toddler, then planted it sidelong through the man’s face. With a sickening crack and horrible twist of his neck, the man dropped to the linoleum floor.
Sam had only a moment to think how happy she’d been that Curtis hadn’t been made an Indian when she heard a squelching noise behind her. The neo-Nazi scumbag had Terry’s arms pinned behind his back, the docile patient still holding onto his book as Skin Mask Man plunged his scalpel repeatedly into his neck.
Jimmy and Michael rushed the children to Curtis’s side, out of harm’s way. Sam aimed at the face wearer and had a clean shot, too, but the fat Nazi shoved Terry into her as she fired. The shot went wide as she staggered back from Terry’s weight, letting him fall to the ground as she struggled not to fall herself. As she regained her feet, the Nazi was already charging. She unloaded into his chest and stomach, emptying the magazine into his bulbous form. He dropped inches from her feet, but Skin Mask Man had ducked in behind him, out of sight until it was too late. He swiped at Sam, cutting deep into the soft skin under her eyebrow and sending a waterfall of blood into her eye.
Out of her good eye, she spotted Michael and Jimmy circling the man. Before she could object, they each dove in for a leg and pulled so hard it sent the man horizontal. He smacked down hard onto the floor, his mask knocked askew.
“Catch!” Jimmy shouted as he threw what looked like a cartridge at her. She tried to grab it, but her blinded eye screwed up her depth perception. Bruce caught it for her and shoved it into her hand. She released the spent cartridge and reloaded just as the man snapped up to his feet. He raised the scalpel but fell dead before he could strike, a bullet hole in his forehead, slightly off-center.
As Sam pawed at the blood in her eye, Curtis pointed behind the nurse’s station. “One of my coworkers, Helena... she’s there.” Curtis shook his head. His voice cracked. “She was trying to protect them.”
Curtis’s gaze found Terry, who lay prone on the floor, unmoving. He ran over and checked for a pulse. He shook his head then massaged his brow. “Am I the only one who thinks this is all so fucking insane?” He stood, grumbled, then regained his composure. “Sorry, kids, I shouldn’t have used that word.”
“We’re all insane in here,” Valerie muttered.
“No, you’re not.” Curtis hugged the children. “Don’t ever say that, okay? You guys are the best darn kids I know.”
“We should keep moving,” Bruce said, not unkindly. “We don’t know how many more of them might be loose in here.”
Curtis rose. “There might be other... other patients and staff members who need our help.”
“Bruce is right.” Sam put a hand on Curtis’s shoulder. “We risk the lives of these children the longer we stay inside here. We don’t know who might be left inside or where they might be, but we’ll be able to gather that information and reinforcements once we make it outside.”
Curtis took a deep breath. “Okay. The office suite is just ahead, but whether we can get out through the basement—”
“It will lead out.” Bruce fixed him with a cold stare.
“If you say so.” He took off at a jog. “This way.”
As they circled the man who’d done in Helena with an aluminum chair, Jimmy gave him a swift kick to the groin. The man moaned in a semiconscious state. Sam frowned.
“Sorry.” Jimmy shrugged, a mischievous smile worming over his lips. “Couldn’t resist.” When Valerie copied him, he just shrugged again.
They made it into the office area without further incident. Dr. Horvat’s door was locked, but Bruce kicked it in on his first attempt. Horvat’s degrees had been removed from the wall, but other than that, the office looked undisturbed. Sam noticed the door behind the desk just where Curtis had said it would be, though she hadn’t recalled it. Likely, she had picked up the detail on her earlier visit and quickly dismissed it as unimportant.
Curtis circled the desk. “Stand back,” he said, as he heaved it forward. As he opened the door behind it, the odor of compost, wet leaves, and fertile soil rose from the darkness below.
“Great. Another dark tunnel.” Michael sighed. “So, who wants to go first?”
Curtis started down the steps, but Sam put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll go. I’ve got the gun.”
She licked her fingers and wiped the now-crusting blood off her eyelid. Then she took the first step.
“Be careful,” Bruce and Michael said in unison. They exchanged a look Sam couldn’t read. She lost all sight of them as she descended into a cold, damp grave.
Her feet touched down on what felt like cement. The basement wasn’t very deep, maybe eight or nine feet. It was easy enough to stand up straight but she wouldn’t dare jump, wary of low crossbeams or whatever else might be lurking in the dark. Beyond the stairs, a wall blocked passage. Using it to guide her, she felt along to her right then to her left before ducking under the stairs. She passed through a horde of cobwebs then found two more walls at right angles. They left her with only one direction to go.
“I suppose it would be too much to ask for a flashlight or a lighter?” she called back to the others above.
After a moment, Bruce’s voice came back. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She squinted through the dark. A hazy cloud, a gray in the field of black, seemed to come from what could have been twenty feet or half a mile ahead, impossible to gauge in that underground tomb. Something squeaked and ran by her foot. Just a mole or a field mouse, she told herself, knowing she was probably right but still imagining red-eyed, opossum-rat beasties devouring human flesh all around her. Focusing on the task at hand, she started forward, calling over her shoulder, “I think I see a way out.”
After she’d walked about twenty more steps, the ground softened. The transition was immediate. It felt like she had stepped from what had once been a basement floor onto spongy dirt, dry enough thankfully not to be mud. An ammonia-like odor, as if mulch had been stored down there and never turned, wafted her way. Her skin tingled as if covered in ants, followed by the disorientation of claustrophobia, the air short on oxygen and unclean, the room no more than a crypt where sick and wounded animals went to die. Anyone could be down there, hiding in darkness, waiting for just the right moment to—
She jumped as someone grabbed her sleeve then fumbled down to her hand. “It’s me,” Michael said. “We’ve all joined hands, the adults between the children, right behind you.”
Michael’s hand in hers renewed her strength. As her tension waned, she wished they hadn’t been so hasty, but what was done was done. With Michael following closely, she crept forward. Step by step, they inched onward. At one point, someone behind her stumbled, but the others picked whomever it was up and continued on their way. One of the two young children sniffled quietly, but otherwise, they were faring as bravely as the rest. Sam was sure she had Curtis to thank for that.
The hazy cloud she’d spotted earlier had grown and brightened. Soon, Sam could see a line of light gleaming through what appeared to be a steel cellar door. The light spilled over the top few steps of a staircase leading up to it. She let go of Michael’s hand, sliding her feet forward like a cross-country skier until her toe hit against the bottom step.
After scrambling up the stairs then throwing open the heavy metal doors with a bang, she caught a glimpse of the sky and the shadow of a person before ducking down again. Pine needles fell atop her head as the scent of Christmas filled her nostrils. A blast, followed by a further smattering of pine needles and dirt, made her duck lower.
“Six little Indians, all alive,” a haughty female voice sang, sounding like Robin Williams’s in Mrs. Doubtfire. “One kicked the bucket, and then there were five.”
“Knock it off, Matilda!” a man’s voice yelled. He groaned as if he were wrestling with the woman. After a moment, the man’s voice came again. “It’s okay. You can come up now. She dropped the gun.”
Sam looked back at the others, brow furrowed. She wasn’t ready to take another look. Slinking farther down, she ushered everyone back.
Curtis approached. “I think I know what this is.” He started up the steps, Sam urging him not to, but he shrugged her off. Near the top, he called, “Dizmo, is that you?”
“Yeah,” the man said. “It’s me. Who are you? And what are you doing down there?”
“It’s Curtis. I’m coming up. Are you alone?”
“Yeah. Matilda was here, but she’s gone now.”
Curtis turned. “Matilda is one of his personalities. Dizmo suffers from dissociative identity, uh, multiple personality disorder. The Dizmo personality is most common, and he’s harmless. But generally, all of his personalities are pleasant. I can’t imagine why he’d have a gun and be shooting at us, but this whole day has been kind of crazy, so... why not?” He climbed the staircase.
“Hi, Curtis,” the man, presumably Dizmo, said.
“Hey, Dizmo. I’ve got some friends with me, but don’t be alarmed. No one here means you any harm.” After a second, Curtis appeared over the opening. “You can come up now. It’s safe.”
Sam looked at the others, then went up. Curtis stood beside a chubby man who looked to be in his thirties. He watched with apparent disinterest as she made it topside. Curtis handed her a pistol, grip end toward her.
As the rest of the group filed up, Sam took in her surroundings and found she knew them well. A dumpster, overstuffed with garbage bags, blocked the view of the basement door from the back lot. Another twenty or so garbage bags were strewn around the basement’s exit. Sticks poked through some of the black bags. Sam picked one up, not surprised to find it as light as a couple of loaves of bread. She ripped it open to find it half stuffed with dry leaves, branches, pine needles, and other forest waste.
“They must have used these to cover the door,” she said to no one in particular, then tossed the bag against the wall. She looked up and to her right, searching the treetops for Dylan’s treehouse. It was probably less than a few hundred yards away.
A rustling came from a bush nearby, another to her right. She handed the new gun to Bruce, and together, they scanned the woods around them.
“Lower your weapons!” A man in full SWAT fatigues and carrying an AK-47 said as he broke cover. “You’re surrounded!”
A quick glance to her left and right, and Sam saw that it was true. Persons with bulletproof armor and semi-automatic pistols and machine guns, all aimed their way, had them encircled.
“Don’t shoot!” Sam shouted, throwing her hands in the air, while Bruce encouraged the others to do the same. “I’m a police officer.”
“Lower your weapons!” A familiar voice repeated, but this time it was the officers around Sam who pointed their guns at the ground.
Frank stepped into the clearing. But Tag rushed past him and into Sam’s arms. “Thank God, you’re all right. I wanted to go right in, but that asshole wouldn’t let me. I’m so sorry, Sam. So—”
“It’s okay, Tag,” Sam whispered, touched by the sentiment but embarrassed by the scene.
Tag seemed to pick up on her discomfort. He straightened and backed away, then he scanned the group and swallowed hard, a look of nausea invading his face. “Is this everyone? Any other survivors inside? We need to get back in—”
“We will, son,” Frank said, placing a hand on the officer’s shoulder.
Tag’s face flared with anger, but he bit his tongue and stepped back, while Frank looked as solemn and as wrinkled as a basset hound. A hint of feeling shook his mask as he took in Sam. His lower lip curled under his upper, but only for a moment.
“As you probably guessed,” Frank began, “the Ward D commotion was a diversion to allow for Wainwright’s escape. When we heard banging and a gunshot over here, we moved in. Now we know how he got out. How the heck did we miss this?”
“It wasn’t on any of the building plans we reviewed, sir,” a man wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest said. “This shouldn’t be here.”
Before Frank could retort, Bruce stepped between the men. “There may be more survivors inside.” He roared and shook his fists. “Damn it, Frank! How could you let him escape?”
“Easy, Bruce.” Frank sidestepped the accusation, then Sam’s own anger blossomed.
He knew about Bruce? Of course he knew! Frank avoided looking Sam’s way, probably ashamed of the momentous secret he’d kept from her.
Frank smiled shakily. “We’ve got the whole city on lockdown, and we know where to look for him next.” He pointed out to the woods. “As for survivors, most of the inmates are accounted for, and most of the prerelease patients, children, and staff got out. We’ve broken down the barricade and sent in a clean-up crew.” He smiled warmly at Grady and Valerie. “With these two here, only two children remain unaccounted for.”
Jimmy and Curtis both stepped forward. Jimmy deferred to the orderly. “Please, sir. We have injured patients inside, in the unused hospital rooms in the old section behind the adult rec area.” He handed over his keycard. “Hopefully, they are still safe behind that door. If so, they’ll need immediate medical attention.”
“One of them is Tessa!” Jimmy blurted. “She’s been shot... right here.” He pointed to his chest. “She needs help fast.” His gaze fell to the earth.
Frank radioed his men to apprise them of the injured inside and their location. After that, he looked from Sam to Bruce to Michael. “Now, what should we do with the three of you?”