Jeff Strand - Single White Psychopath Seeks Same

“Sure.”

“Thanks. Let’s get out of here.”

There wasn’t a window in the door, so I opened it as silently as possible and peeked out. The hallway was empty. We left the operating room and began to quickly but softly move down the corridor. Our first job was to get to the cell area and hope that Mortimer hadn’t been able to catch up to Roger.

Hoping we wouldn’t get lost, I turned at the intersection. I didn’t particularly want to walk by the dart room, and I assumed there was another way around. The cell area was on the far left side of the structure, so if I just kept heading that way…

A gunshot. One that sounded like it came from the far left side of the structure. I picked up my pace, and Charlotte followed.

Off in the distance, I saw Mortimer run across an intersection. He didn’t see us, or even look in our direction.

We began to run even faster.

We reached the cell area. Roger immediately spun around and pointed a gun at us, but relaxed when he saw who we were. “Give me the card! Quick!”

I tossed the red card to him. He caught it in the air. The other prisoners were pressed against the cell bars, anxiously waiting to be set free.

“Are they right behind you?” he asked.

“Not at the moment, but pretty soon, yeah.”

“What do you think made the alarm go off?” he asked.

“I have no idea. Try a different cell this time.”

“If it goes off, what do we do?”

“We run. I’ve got some keys, and I’m pretty sure they belong to the vans that brought us here. We can smash through the gates and drive somewhere to get help.”

“Then everyone else will die,” Roger said. “I told you, they’re going to execute the prisoners if anything else goes wrong!”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “Well, there are four of them out there. Josie’s hurt pretty bad. What about Mortimer?”

“I might have broken his nose,” said Roger. “I knocked the gun away from him, but he ran away before I could use it.”

“He could come back with something worse.”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I’ve got a gun. There’s only one way they could come in. We can keep them from getting in here, can’t we?”

“But nobody knows we’re here. They had Charlotte for months. They could just lock the place up, leave us to rot for a couple weeks.”

“Can we please stop talking and do something?” asked Charlotte.

“Try it,” I told Roger.

He waved the card over a cell reader, across the path from the one that had previously set off the alarm.

The cell didn’t unlock. The alarm went off.

“Shit!” Roger shouted.

“We’ve gotta get out of here!” I said. “Give me the gun!”

Roger handed it to me. I headed for the doorway, and then held the gun out to a heavyset, redheaded man in the cell closest to the exit. “Don’t let anyone through that door. We’ll be back for you. I promise.”

The man gave a grim nod and took the gun. Roger, Charlotte and I fled the room and ran down the hallway.

“Don’t worry,” I told Roger as we ran. “We’ll get everybody out of here.”

“Hell yeah, we will,” Roger said. We ran without speaking for a few seconds. “Hey, Andrew?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you promise not to be offended if I share something with you?”

“Sure.”

“You smell really bad. I mean, nasty beyond description. I’d almost rather be back in the cell.”

“I’ve missed you, Roger.”

“I missed you, too, Andrew.”

WE REACHED the far right end of the structure, which stopped at a wide white door. The pass card worked on it, and we went through.

Beyond the door was a small garage. Surprisingly, it looked like any other filthy garage, although standard equipment like a vice certainly carried a foreboding aura.

The van was there.

“I think we’re saved!” I said, unable to contain my relief even though it was far too early to relax. After a couple of tries I found the correct key on Foster’s key ring, and we all got inside, me in the driver’s seat, Roger and Charlotte in the back.

“Anything useful back there?” I asked, setting my machete on the passenger seat while I started the engine.

“Some chains, big metal clamps, something that looks like a cattle prod…”

I reached under the visor. There were two garage door openers. I pressed the button on the first one, and the door behind us began to open with a loud hum. It opened slowly, almost maddeningly so.

“Come on…come on…” I whispered, because you never know when a slow-moving garage door will hear comments like that and decide to speed things up a little.

“I’m not seeing anything good back here,” Roger said.

“Come on…come on…” Charlotte said to the garage door, obviously working under the same theory I was.

I expected a pair of legs to become visible in the gap any second. Or, more likely, for the white door to fly open. I revved the engine. The door was about three-quarters of the way up.

The white door flew open.

I slammed my foot on the gas pedal. The tires squealed and the van shot forward. There was a horrible screech as the roof scraped against the rising door, but then we were outside the garage. I turned on the headlights and kept the accelerator floored.

I pressed the button on the second remote, praying that it opened the gate. Nothing happened. I pulled it from the visor, and then slammed on the brake. “It’s got a code!”

“Just ram the gate!” Roger shouted. He scurried to the back of the van and peered through the rear window. “The front door’s opening!”

The rest of the fence looked quite a bit less sturdy than the main gate, but I couldn’t exactly work up any speed plowing through a couple of feet of snow. I fastened my seat belt, and then turned the van toward the main gate, backed it up about ten feet, and then floored the gas pedal again.

“Hold on!” I warned. Roger and Charlotte both grabbed something to brace themselves. I gritted my teeth, waiting for the impact.

The van smashed into the gates, safety glass from the windshield flying everywhere. The air bag inflated in front of me. The gates didn’t budge.

I put the van into reverse and backed up again. “Three of ‘em are coming out the front,” said Roger. “And another one, the one whose nose I broke, he’s coming out of the garage!”

“That’s the whole party,” I said.

“I’m not a weapons expert,” Roger admitted, “but the things they’re carrying look a lot like machine guns.”

At that moment, there was a loud series of clanging and shattering sounds as machine gun fire ripped through the side of the van. Roger and Charlotte dove for the van floor, glass raining down upon them.

I returned my attention to the gate, ducked down as far as I could, and then floored the accelerator. It was hard to steer the van with the air bag in the way, but I managed as well as I could.

As machine gun bullets continued to hit the van, it struck the gate a second time. I heard Charlotte grunt as she smacked against the back of my seat. The gates held firm.

Then the machine gun fire ceased. After a moment, Roger peeked through the broken rear window.

“I don’t want to be Mr. Doom and Gloom,” he said, as the van’s engine began to sputter and it began to sink on its deflating tires, “but they seem to be passing out grenades.”

I PUT THE van into reverse again. Even though I had the accelerator against the floor, it seemed to be struggling to hit five miles per hour. I wondered what my chances were of taking all four of our pursuers out via vehicular homicide.

Something slammed against the side of the van, followed by Daniel’s charming voice shouting “You idiot!”