taser. Sometimes they use these things for torture. The electric lead stays hooked into you with a barb and you can keep getting shocked. How cool is that?'
I was in the middle of the floor and I was breathing heavy. 'What do you want me to do?'
'I want you to run, rabbit. Run away from the door.'
I took a step and stumbled down to one knee. I was too scared to run. Too scared to think. Not good, I told myself. I had to try to stay calm. I managed to get myself to my feet and I ran in blind panic down the other side of the hall, toward Andrew's and Bart's offices.
There was a faint bar of light under a doorjamb in front of me. I pushed the door and it swung open. It was Bart's office. The office was lit by a single candle on the desk. Albert Kloughn was duct-taped to the desk chair behind the desk. He had duct tape across his mouth and wrapped around his ankles. His eyes were huge and tears rolled down his cheeks.
I ripped the tape off his mouth and was about to go for the tape around his torso when I saw the bomb.
'Don't touch me,' he said. 'I'm b-b-b-booby-trapped.'
I snatched at the desk phone. No dial tone. I locked the door from the inside and pawed through the junk on Bart's desk, looking for something helpful. My hands were shaking and my heart was thundering in my chest. 'I hate this,' I said. 'I hate this game. And I hate the pathetic excuse for a human being who's out there stalking me.'
'You have to get help,' Kloughn said. 'This guy is crazy. He's going to kill us.'
'There are just nuts and bolts on this desk,' I said. 'I need something I can use as a weapon.'
'I know where there's a weapon,' Kloughn said. 'I can swivel myself in this chair and I was looking out the window into the warehouse when the crazy guy was hiding things. There's a room off to the side with glass windows all along.'
'The quality control area.'
'I don't know, but there's a workstation just by the door to that room. And he hid a gun there. It's right on top of the table part of the machine.'
There was a knock on the door. 'You're not allowed to lock yourself in Bart's office,' Clyde said. 'It doesn't matter anyway, I've got a key. But now you're gonna have to get punished before we can go on with the playtime.'
I heard the key scrape in the lock and I grabbed a wooden crate half-filled with gears and threw it at the window that led to the warehouse. The glass shattered and I dove through the window. If I got cut it wasn't going to be any worse than what was going to happen to me at Clyde's hands.
I hit the ground and rolled. I'd seen the roll done in the movies and it seemed like a good idea. Problem was, in the movies they weren't usually landing on two thousand metal gears. Still, I wasn't decapitated from the glass shards when I pitched myself through the broken window, so that was a point in my favor. I scrambled to my feet, sliding on the debris, and ran for the first workstation. Beyond the first workstation the room blacked out and I was going to have to feel my way to the side room where the quality control people worked.
I was almost to the workstation when I was hit by another paintball. Thank God, I must have been beyond the reach of the taser. The paintball hit square in my upper back. If I lived to see another day, I'd be bruised. I dropped to the floor and put the workstation between me and Clyde. I heard Kloughn give an unearthly blood-curdling shriek, the candlelight went out, and then everything was quiet.
I was guessing that Clyde didn't want to chance going through the broken window. He was going to have to go back to the hall and enter the warehouse through the door at the end of the adjoining corridor. That gave me some time.
I crossed the room as fast as I could, creeping along low to the ground, my hands outstretched to keep from smashing into a workstation. I found the wall with the windows and knew I was in the right place. I followed the wall to the door and then paced off to the workstation. Sure enough, there was the gun just like Kloughn said. I couldn't see the gun even when I held it inches from my face, but I could feel that it was a six-shot revolver and it was loaded.
I backed myself into the test room and closed the door. I took up a position behind a desk, kneeling with my forearms resting on the desk, two-handing the gun to keep it from shaking. I was doing deep controlled breaths, telling myself to focus, to be a professional.
I heard the door open and I shouted for Clyde to stop. There was a gunshot and I felt the hit to my shoulder. And in that instant, I unloaded everything I had. I squeezed off all six rounds, shooting blind. The last shot was followed by silence. It was solid black in the office. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Either Clyde was dead or else he'd retreated. I wasn't willing to leave the desk to find out. It was Dolly Freedman's desk. I reached into her top drawer and got her pepper spray. Then I ducked under the desk and waited.
I heard something scuff in the direction of the door and my heart stuttered. He wasn't dead! The monster wasn't dead. A sob caught in my throat and I blinked back tears. There was the rustle of clothing directly in front of me and I covered my face with my arm and hit the trigger on the pepper spray.
'Oh shit. Fuck!' A man's voice. Not Clyde.
The spray was knocked out of my grasp, a hand grabbed me by the front of my shirt, hauled me out from under the desk and dragged me to my feet, moving me out of the area, away from the spray.
I was told to hold still. I knew this voice. I was held tight to Ranger. He slid goggles over my head and I was able to see in the dark. Ranger had two men with him. Cal and Junior. And Junior was bent at the waist, gagging. That was the one I got with the spray.
'Sorry,' I said.
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand.
I looked to the door and saw feet. Clyde's. The feet weren't moving. Clyde hadn't jumped away fast enough. Turned out Clyde wasn't as smart as he thought.
'Dead?' I asked.
