51
I drove around to the back of the store, which faced an empty communal parking lot for employees of the various businesses along the street. I stopped ten feet from the back door, put it in park, and got out. Chuck swapped places with me and got behind the wheel as we had discussed. My plan had the advantage of being simple and direct. It had the disadvantage of being the kind of plan that I usually come up with when I don’t have any time or resources to speak of.
Anne hopped out of the Rover. She took up position on the left side of the door while I stepped to the front bumper. The winch let out a soft electric whine as it began to turn in reverse, letting stainless steel cable spool out into my hands. I used the tow hook to make a lasso out of the end, like a miniature version of the collar I used on the Mother. The cable kept unspooling at my feet. When I judged that I had enough, I held up my hand and Chuck killed the winch.
I stepped up to the back door and pulled out my baton, holding it in my right hand, loop of cable in my left. The parking lot grew brighter as the truck’s reverse lights came on.
Anne nodded at me, both hands wrapped around Chuck’s Taurus. She was the best shot of the three of us by a wide margin, but even she wasn’t going to be able to fire that shotgun towards the hostages in the center of the room without killing some of them. So she opted for precision over firepower.
I counted to three under my breath, then slammed the end of my baton into the deadbolt keyhole. It went clean through, knocking the cylinder out the other side. I yanked the door open and the deadbolt fell out, ringing when it hit the concrete.
Everyone inside was still pretty much where Mr. C had last seen them. The big bag with the motorcycle helmet was on my right, next to the door. The two regular bags were about ten feet inside, closer to the hostages.
My reflection stared back at me from the glossy black faceplate of the big bag as he spun to face me. These things scared the hell out of me, and I had no desire to go toe-to-toe with one again any time soon. Fortunately, I wouldn’t have to.
The engine of the Range Rover roared as Chuck gunned it in neutral. I dropped my baton and used both hands to ram the loop of braided cable over the motorcycle helmet. I shoved hard against its chest and threw myself back out of the door and to the side as the Rover’s tires squealed and smoked.
The cable snapped taut as the Rover shot backwards. I had expected to be able to get the drop on the bag and get the loop over that helmet of his, snaring him in the same sort of trap I had used at the quarry.
I had not expected that it would grab the door frame as the truck yanked it head first towards the parking lot. It did manage to stop its body from being hauled out of the building. Its head, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. When the body came to an abrupt stop at the threshold the cable simply sheared right through its neck and the worm inside, sending the helmeted head flying out across the lot.
Two shots rang out before the helmet could bounce off the pavement. I got up in time to see both bags inside the store drop to the ground, identical holes in the center of their foreheads.
Anne and I stared at each other in the quiet aftermath. The whole thing had only lasted a few seconds. She shook her head, eyes wide. “I cannot believe that worked.”
“That makes two of us.”
I went through the door with my baton high, but the room was empty except for the hostages, maybe twenty in all. Greg and Mazie were seated front and center on the floor with gags between their teeth.
I motioned to Anne. “Go get Chuck so we can start cutting these people loose.” She dashed outside.
I holstered my baton and walked up to the group, uneasy. It was very quiet and the corners of the room were dark, the only light coming from a few camping lanterns on the table next to the hostages. Greg and Mazie were staring at me with wide eyes and shifting back and forth on the floor. That’s when I realized that the only sound in the room was coming from them.
Chuck and Anne trotted back inside, with Anne calling out, “Okay, let’s get started.” I put my hand up, palm out, towards them. They slowed as they sensed my wariness. Both of them did the dark corner check, same as I had.
I moved up to Greg and Mazie, carefully, and looked over their heads. Their hands were bound with nylon tie wraps that were secured to the floor by a metal bracket bolted into the concrete. Mazie’s restraints were bloody from where she had been fighting against them.
Behind her was the first row of five hostages, all sitting on the floor with their heads down, gags in place. But they were still and quiet. I moved around her and gingerly touched the man directly behind Mazie. He was stiff and cold and dead. Behind him was a wooden plank that was bolted to a metal bracket that was in turn bolted to the floor. The plank was screwed into his back, holding him upright. A quick glance down the row showed the same macabre support system attached to the other hostages.
Piotr’s voice rang out behind me, closing the trap.
52
“I thought you would be more angry when you figured it out. But your face just went kind of sad instead,” said Piotr as he stepped through the doorway behind us.
At the sound of his voice, Anne spun around and snapped off two rounds into his chest. It was fast, precise, and shockingly loud.
The bullets hung in midair for a brief moment, suspended by the same tendrils of milky fog that we had seen at the lake. Metal fragments clattered to the concrete floor as the tendrils seeped back through Piotr’s shirt to a spot over his heart. He shrugged gracefully, even apologetically.
One of the hugely swollen bags came through door behind him, sans helmet. His neck was purple and stretched taut with the massive trunk of the worm distending it, and his jaws were locked wide open by the thick black tentacles hanging and curling out of it. I doubted he could still get a helmet on over all of that.
Then another came in. And another. And still more until the door was flanked on both sides by a dozen of the glassy-eyed horrors. Anne’s knuckles went white around the grip of her pistol as she calculated the odds of taking them all down before they killed us, and then went slack as the same answer came up over and over again.
Chuck’s face was resigned as well. I could see the fight drain out of both of them.
Piotr sauntered over to the work table and picked up a pair of long-handled bolt cutters, likely left there for this purpose when he set all of this up. He then went over and clipped through Mazie’s restraints, catching her as she began to fall over. He helped her up, every bit a gentleman and walked her to over to his monsters. She didn’t bother struggling.
He moved back to Greg and turned to me. He searched my face with a critical eye, looking for something. Judging me. I stared back. He sighed, raised the bolt cutters over his head and swung them down, crushing Greg’s skull. Blood flew. I screamed and launched myself at him.
I made it halfway across the room before a tidal wave of inhumanly strong, foul smelling bags crashed into me and smashed me to the floor. I heard guns go off as I struggled, punching and kicking and tearing.
I gave it everything I had, but I never really had a chance. In the end, I wound up face down on the ground, with a bag kneeling on my back between my shoulder blades pointing my face at Piotr with both hands while his buddies pinned my arms and legs to the floor.
I stopped struggling when I saw what Piotr wanted me to see. He was holding Mazie’s head in both hands, and with a savage jerk, snapped her neck in front of me.
I came off the floor. The bags were able to immobilize me again, but this time two of them were down as well, heads crushed or missing. I could feel blood on my face and my right hand felt broken.
Piotr knelt down next to my face, just out of my reach as I struggled. “That’s much better, Abraham. But it seems that I’m going through these hostages pretty fast. We’ll have to be more careful, yes?” Anne and Chuck were standing at the front of the room with two stout cords tied around their necks.
