It was slow going, and the group had only made it down two floors when they came across Max slumped on the stairs. Barb sobbed as she desperately felt his neck for a pulse and jumped as his hand came up to grab her.
‘Barb, I’m sorry. Everything is moving. Leave me behind.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You have a concussion. Come on, we need to keep moving. Where’s Fix?’ Stupid question, she thought. Fix is saving his own skin, as usual.
Pulling Max up, the group moved off again.
While she was mad with Mary, she also hoped that she would manage to distract Shaw long enough to help them get away and fatally infect him into the bargain so they didn’t have to worry about him coming after them ever again.
So when she literally ran into him on the stairs, she couldn’t help screaming.
It was as if her shriek let loose all the fear that the younger children had been struggling to contain, and suddenly the ranks began to break. Some of them turned and tried to run back up the stairs, away from Shaw. Others lay on the floor and curled into small balls of misery.
‘Stop!’ He shouted in a clear, decisive voice.
The children froze, and there was a clear moment of silence brought on by surprise, fear or compliance.
He spoke quietly. ‘There will be a prize for all those who can line up without a sound.’
At first they hesitated, and then gradually some began to move back into the line.
Barb looked at him defiantly. ‘What’s the prize? A night in the locked room?’
He gave her a cool look. ‘A route out of here that takes you safely away from the Black Crow who are waiting to shoot you out the front.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re bluffing.’
‘Your friend Fix found another way to make money, but it involved setting us all up.’
Barb looked around. ‘Where is he? I’m going to kill him.’
Shaw raised an eyebrow. ‘And you accuse me of being the violent one. Right, we need to move. I’ll take you down to the exit. We’re going through the boiler room in the basement and out through the back.’
Barb looked at him uncertainly.
‘Stop worrying. It goes straight into the graveyard, and no one knows it’s there. I used to use it to get out of this place when we lived here before.’
He handed Barb one of the shotguns and looked at the scared children behind her. ‘You need to lead the way to the woods, but we need someone strong at the back. Where’s your farmer?’
‘He’s at the back, but he has a bad concussion from when someone bashed him on the head with a gun,’ Barb shot back acidly.
Shaw looked sheepish. ‘He needs to be further forward, then.’
He gave Barb one of the shotguns and pushed his way back through the children to Max. ‘Take these little ones forward,’ he said to him.
‘No. I need to help.’ Max staggered a little.
‘You’re needed at the front,’ Shaw insisted.
He rearranged the younger ones further forward in the line, and finding Helen and Will, he pulled them to the back. ‘You’re the strongest in the pack,’ he told them earnestly. ‘You need to keep the back together and ensure they keep moving. You must not lose any of the children. This is the hardest part.’
He looked at the remaining shotgun and the two youngsters before him. Will shook slightly, but Helen returned his appraising stare without flinching. The shotgun was too long for either of them, so, reaching into his holster, he took out his revolver. ‘Here, you might need this. Make sure you shoot the other Wuckers, not me.’
He gave a wry smile, then emptied the rounds out of his pockets into Will’s. Quickly he showed Helen how to open the chamber and load it. Then, with a decisive movement, he handed it over, clasped her shoulder and looked into her worried face. ‘You can do it. I know you can.’
Turning to Will, he said, ‘Be her lookout. Count her shots, and keep her supplied with ammunition. You need to work as a team.’
He went back to the front of the line, and they moved off again with renewed energy. He indicated to the scared faces that they were to be quiet, and he led them down the remaining stairs, then past the ground floor into the basement through a small, dark door.
At the bottom, a dank corridor stretched beneath the Bank. A dim strip of low-energy bulbs made it just light enough to see their way to the other end. Before them lay a huge metal door, wide enough to go through in pairs – or to push a coffin through, as they used to do when it was a functioning hospital.
Shaw pulled out the keys once again and unlocked it. ‘Even if they find this exit, it will take them a while to get through this.’ He suddenly stopped. ‘Where’s Mary?’
Barb looked horrified. ‘She went back to find you. She … she wanted to stay here with you.’
Shaw felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. ‘I need to go back for her.’
Barb couldn’t argue, but she also didn’t think it was a search that would end well. She realised that this might be the last time she saw Shaw.
‘There’s something I need to tell you, Shaw.’
‘Now’s not really the moment. Tell me later.’ He went to move away, but Barb grabbed the top of his sleeve.
‘You have to listen. It’s important.’
He looked at her impatiently. ‘What?’
She pulled him down towards her, and she reached up to whisper in his ear.
He looked shocked as he stared at her, and she nodded. She took his hand.
‘You’d better get moving. Go. I’ll lock it behind you. Just keep going, and set the pace to these little ones at the front.’
He watched as Barb led them out.
As the last of the children passed through the door, she heard it shut behind them. She was aware of Max a little way back in the line, staggering about but keeping up.
About ten minutes out from the Bank, they heard shots that brought little squeaks of fear from the children. Barb turned and encouraged them to keep walking. Behind her she could hear Helen soothing and prodding the small group along. Whatever was happening back at the Bank, they needed to put as much distance as they could between them and it. She didn’t fancy her group’s chances against a well-armed professional team of Wuckers.