The cop’s hand shot up and gripped Matt around the throat, Matt letting out a choking sound. Even wounded, the officer was incredibly strong. He began to squeeze. It was like having a damn boa constrictor around your neck.
When he was in the Rangers and training regularly, Matt could bench-press two hundred and eighty pounds—and he was no weakling. But when he clawed at the cop’s hand, trying to free himself, it was like attempting to break an iron shackle.
The room was starting to blur and spin all at once.
He reached down and grabbed the cop’s lower lip, yanking on it as hard as possible.
“Cocksucker!” Clarence’s grip let up just enough for Matt to slap his arm and roll away, wheezing for air. His throat felt raw and bruised, as if he had just swallowed a glass of Tabasco sauce.
He decided there was no way he could go hand-to-hand with the cop, for the beast inside him was active and providing much of that strength. If he were to get out of here alive, he would need to grab the shotgun.
As he started for the gun, the door from the squad room flew open and all six-five of Ed Rafferty filled the door frame. Matt spun around to see Rafferty standing there with a look of surprise on his face, as if he had just walked in on someone sitting on the john.
Rafferty had his revolver at his side, out of the holster. He paused, taken by surprise, and Matt used this to his advantage. He stooped down, picked up the shotgun, pumped it and fired at Rafferty. The chief saw it coming and dove out of the way, the blast splattering wood chips from the door frame all over the floor.
Matt was reaching for the key stuck in his cell door when a bullet whizzed past him and ripped open the mattress, shooting feathers into the air. That smelly old thing deserved to be put out of its misery.
Not wanting to end up like the mattress, and sure that Rafferty’s next shot wouldn’t miss, he eyed the door in the center of the block, the one leading to the garage. He turned to duck out into the garage. The red-haired cop pawed at his leg in an attempt to stop him, but it was obvious the bullet wounds had taken their toll. Matt kicked him away. Clarence ceased moving, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The revolver appeared around the door frame, Rafferty intent on firing blind and hitting something.
As Matt pushed through Rafferty’s cannon went off, ripping past him by inches. Once inside the garage, he turned quickly and pointed the barrel at the door, expecting Rafferty to come through at any second.
He was an easy target out in the open, so he crouched behind the rear end of the unmarked beige car, still parked in the garage.
Thirty seconds went by. Forty-five. A minute.
Was Rafferty circling around to sneak up on him? He looked toward the garage doors and back to the door to the cells, trying to watch both at once.
No Rafferty.
The police chief was probably waiting for him inside the hallway; Matt dreaded the thought of leaving himself exposed, but he had to go in and get Liza out of the cell. There would be no leaving her behind, Rafferty or no Rafferty.
Staying low to the ground, he moved across the garage and listened at the door. There was silence on the other side, and he imagined Rafferty crouched on the other side of the entrance, the massive revolver waiting to blast anything that came through the door.
He pumped the shotgun, guessing that he had two shells left to work with.
Approaching the door, he held the shotgun in his left hand, out and away from his body. He would open the door with the right, stick the barrel in the door and fire blindly on an angle. Liza’s cell was straight ahead, and he felt confident the angle he took would keep the shot away from her.
If he were lucky, he would catch Rafferty right inside the doorway and blow a hole in him.
Ripping the door open, he jammed the barrel inside and fired, the gun bucking in his hand. It flew from his hand and landed next to the concrete steps leading up to the cell block. If Rafferty were behind the door, and Matt didn’t hit him, he would be dead in a matter of seconds, for he was now unarmed and exposed.
Wrist throbbing, he picked up the gun and pumped it, the door wide open.
The garage and the hallway were silent, save for the sound of his breathing.
Rafferty was gone and Liza’s cell door was wide open.
Outside, tires squealed on the blacktop and he knew he had been duped. He ran to the garage doors and peered out the window to see a Lincoln police cruiser speeding out of the lot with Ed Rafferty at the wheel.
Approaching the hallway, Matt aimed the gun, ready for someone to charge him, or gunfire to erupt, but nothing happened. The only person in the cell block was the dead cop. Rafferty no doubt had Liza in the backseat.
Inside the hallway, he rolled the dead cop on his side, unbuckled his gun belt, and put it on, tightening the buckle to the last notch. He wore it low on his hips the way Jesse James might have worn his six shooters back in the Old West.
In his haste, Rafferty had left the keys in Liza’s cell door, and Matt pulled them out and stuck them in his pocket. Then he entered the squad room, expecting to find reinforcements, but finding only empty chairs and desks. If there were any other cops at the station, they surely would have come running when they heard shots fired in the hallway.
The squad room was filled with standard issue gray desks and office chairs kept together with duct tape strapped over their wounded seats and backs. A white cup with a streak of dried coffee running down the side sat on the desk to his left, surrounded by a stack of pink and yellow forms.
Only thing worse than cold coffee is warm beer
, he thought, for no apparent reason.
He wanted to find the room where they kept the big toys, more weapons like the shotgun, and more important, the ammunition for them. There was a door with frosted glass panes next to the receptionist desk that he tried and found locked.
He pulled the key ring from his pocket, and the third key opened the door. Past the door was a narrow hallway, the walls painted yellow, two doors on the left and one on the right almost near the end.
He was about to start down the hallway when he heard a soft mewling sound. It was coming from underneath the receptionist’s desk. He hadn’t noticed before, but someone’s lumpy, purple-clad rear end stuck out from underneath the cutout in the desk. The legs were in white support hose, and the shoes were chunky and black.
“It’s okay. You can come out,” Matt said reassuringly.
“Please don’t shoot me.”
“I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Promise?” A sniffle.
“Promise. Come on out.”
The woman shuffled backward, her purple skirt riding up. She stood up, never taking her gaze off the shotgun.
“Relax. I won’t hurt you.”
“But I heard shooting.”
“I know. Listen, ma’am ...”
“Linda.”
“Okay, Linda. Do yourself a favor. Go home, pack some bags and get out of town. Something awful is about to happen and anyone who isn’t on Chief Rafferty’s side is going to get hurt. Understand?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t have time to explain. Just get out. And if you have family here, tell them to leave too. Pronto.”
“But—”
“No buts. Get going.”
Linda opened the desk drawer, took out a black handbag roughly the size of Alaska, then shuffled quickly down the hallway and went out the front door. Matt hoped she would take his advice and leave town.
He proceeded down the opposite hallway, one leading deeper into the station. Matt unlocked the door at the end with the fifth key on the ring. It was the room he wanted, and he had hit it on the first guess.
He flicked the switch and the lights hummed to life, revealing racks of shotguns, assault rifles, tear gas launchers, Kevlar vests and riot gear. Scanning the room, he spotted what he was looking for; boxes of shotgun shells that were useable in the twelve-gauge he was carrying.
Opening one of the boxes, he removed the shells and slid them into a bandolier hanging on the wall. He reloaded the shotgun, and draped the bandolier across his chest, Pancho Villa–style. Then he left the room, wishing he had time to grab more goodies.
He opened the garage door, climbed into the sedan and started it up. Then he sped across the lot for Saint Mark’s Elementary.
He parked one block over. Hoping no one would see him, he got out, carrying the shotgun, and jogged up the driveway of a red Cape Cod style house. Its backyard butted up against the rear of the school, with only a fence and three feet of concrete separating the two.
He stubbed his toe on a turtle-shaped sandbox crossing the yard, but kept going, hopping the fence at the rear of the property. His wrist flared a bit, but he tried to block it out, along with all the other aches and pains he had acquired since returning to Lincoln.
He slipped between the garage and the school building so that no one could see him from the house, then ducked and checked the frosted basement windows. He rattled them to see if they were open, but neither would budge.
Going in one of the doors was unthinkable; Rafferty surely had guards posted at the doors, and even if he didn’t the chance of being spotted was too great. So he opted to smash a window.
He lowered himself down into the basement of the school, dragging the shotgun in after him.
A rusted boiler took up most of the room, with pipes and gauges jutting from the monster. Cobwebs covered its surface, giving the boiler a seedy, dangerous look, as if it could pull an unsuspecting child near and deliver a blistering burn.
He started across the room, searching for a door (and unconsciously giving the boiler a wide berth) and ducking to avoid the pipes crisscrossing beneath the ceiling. Many a maintenance man must’ve uttered a curse after banging his head.
Matt squinted in to the gloom and saw an opening. The heavy steel door that guarded the boiler room was wide open. Why the hell would someone leave the door to a dangerous room like this wide open?
It occurred to him that something might have opened the door and gooseflesh broke out on his arms. What if one of them was down here, looking for intruders? Perhaps Rafferty went through and opened all the doors, allowing his creatures to roam the school and seek out any unwanted visitors.
He raised the shotgun, gripping it until his knuckles were white.
“Get ahold of yourself,” he said. Being this tense in a combat situation could get you killed. He was liable to blow a hole in his own foot being this wired up, but he couldn’t help it.
Slipping into the hallway outside the boiler room, he caught a smell that reminded him of rotten eggs. And something else beneath it.
The corridor extended fifty feet to his right, and the smell wafted strongly down the hallway. He could hear wet sniffing coming from that direction, the sound of a predator scenting prey.
Had it smelled him already?
There was a yellow door at the other end of the corridor, and he backed up toward it, taking a glance at the boiler room door and noticing the metal handle was twisted like Play-Doh. It had been in this room, perhaps moments before he’d broken in. If he had gone in sooner, he might have been ripped apart as soon as he broke the window.
Thank the Lord for small favors.
He moved quicker, backpedaling toward the yellow door until he bumped into it. Keeping the shotgun pointed at the other end of the hallway, he reached behind his back and fumbled with the handle.
Please in the name of all that is holy do not be locked.
The door opened as the thing charged down the hallway, chuffing and growling.
Matt slid through the door and backed up as fast as he could, banging against something, a table. There were several tables set up in rows, with metal chairs. A spiked flagpole with the Stars and Stripes draped from it stood near the door, and next to that another flagpole with a green-and-gold flag on it. He realized he was in the cafeteria.
A second later, the door blew off its hinges as the creature crashed through. Matt fired, the flash illuminating his foe’s face for an instant, revealing the sickly yellow eyes, bared teeth and dripping saliva. Even hunched down, it was big, maybe seven feet at full height.
It skidded past him, overturning a table.
He pumped the shotgun and readied to fire, but it was on him too quickly, batting the gun away. The shotgun flew from his hands and landed at the monser’s feet.
Sensing it had him, the thing backed up, picked up the shotgun, and flung it across the floor. There was no reaching it now.
He reached for the sidearm in the gun belt, but the thing got a grip on his shirt and flung him toppling over a metal chair.
If anything else were in the building, they were sure to hear the clatter in the cafeteria and send reinforcements.