John O'Brien - Sanctuary

“Alright, let’s move up,” Gonzalez says but keeps her thin beam of light aimed at the back room. Two more steps in the hall and the panting gets significantly louder.

“I can hear that,” McCafferty says as her beam joins the first.

For a moment, Gonzalez is unsure of what to do. Her instincts say get the hell out as they only have four of them in the house and an unknown number of night runners in front of them. Plus, Henderson and Denton are slightly spread out. They could quickly be overwhelmed in this small hall if there are a lot of them. That there are night runners is no longer in question but there is a small, nagging notion that there may be a little girl inside.

“Sounds like we have night runners in the back room,” she says quietly over the radio.

“What do you want to do?” McCafferty asks as they are both frozen in place in the narrow hall.

“I think we should get the fuck out,” Gonzalez whispers.

“I’m with you on that. What about the girl?”

“There are night runners in here. I’m not….”

That’s all Gonzalez gets out before a high-pitched shriek emits from the back room and fills the hallway. It deafens the two of them in the enclosed space and sends their heart rate and adrenals into high gear. The shriek is followed by the immediate appearance of a night runner at the bedroom door streaking for the two of them. The two women are shocked by the appearance of the creature so close, with its skin and eyes glowing in their goggles, but not to the point of inaction. The night runner runs directly into their twin beams of light. Their instincts take over. The hall is suddenly filled with the strobe-like flashing against the walls and the muted cough of rounds transiting through suppressors. The first rounds to strike in the center of its chest halt the night runner’s momentum, standing it up as if jerked upward by a puppet master. The subsequent rounds tear into a chest already spotted several times by bullets entering, launching the night runner up and backwards into the room from where it came. Gonzalez and McCafferty pause in the hall with the aftermath ringing in their ears waiting for others to arrive. Silence ensues.

“What do you think?” McCafferty says in the silence.

“I don’t know but I can’t hear shit now,” Gonzalez answers.

“Me either,” McCafferty whispers.

They pause a moment longer. Images of their past battles float through Gonzalez’ mind. Where there’s one, there’s always been more and a lot more , she thinks eyeing the back rooms waiting for more shrieks or night runners to emerge. She is torn. Her first priority is to her team but they also have a little girl to look for. She wouldn’t feel right if they were to leave and she were here. On the other hand, with night runners in the house, or at least the one, what is the chance that she’s still here?

“Gonzalez, McCafferty, you two okay?” Denton asks.

“Yeah, we’re fine. One came out of the back bedroom. We don’t see or hear any others. We’re heading into the bedrooms,” she answers shrugging at McCafferty as she has apparently made up her mind.

Gonzalez nods to McCafferty and they both proceed slowly once again down the hall. The open doors at the end are only a few feet away and they are both acutely aware of just how quickly the night runners can materialize. The tension filling the hall compresses to the point that it feels like they are walking under water. With Gonzalez covering the room the night runner emerged from, McCafferty carefully pokes her head around the doorway. Nothing stirs. She moves further into the room, weapon up and ready for any movement. Nothing. A quick sweep through the closet shows only a scattering of clothes and boxes. She returns to the hall to report all clear.

Entering the far back bedroom, they step over the bullet-ridden corpse lying on the floor inside the door. Although fully expecting to find another night runner hidden within, they don’t find anything else.

“We’re coming back to the living room,” Gonzalez announces over the radio, receives the familiar two clicks of acknowledgement, and they join Henderson in the dining room.

“We’ll check the basement. Henderson, cover the hall just in case,” Gonzalez says with Henderson nodding in reply. She relays the info to Denton.

The two cross the distance to the door quickly. With Gonzalez covering the door from the side, McCafferty reaches across the door and tests the handle. Locked. With a shrug, she glances at Gonzalez with a “what now” look. Gonzalez waves her to the side and lowers her carbine at the latch. She hesitates a moment, not wanting to shoot through the door and hit someone on the other side. She doesn’t know if the door was locked from this side or the other. The fact that the door is locked but the front door left open makes her think that someone could be on the other side. Without seeing a quick solution, she gives a mental shrug and, after warning Henderson and Denton, pulls the trigger for a short burst.

The striking of the bullets causes the door to explode with a shower of splinters by the door handle. She nods to McCafferty who reaches across and swings the door open. The beam of light from Gonzalez’ laser streaks downward. Where she was expecting a night runner – perhaps locked in – or a very scared girl, she is only met by a flight of stairs heading down. A stench, unlike the odor of rot outside and smelling like an open sewer, rushes up the stairs.

“I’ll go first. You cover over the top of me,” Gonzalez whispers to McCafferty who nods.

Stepping down the concrete stairs into the chill of the basement, she swings her M-4 from side to side as she searches areas as they come into view; the beam of light follows her searches and defines where her barrel is pointed. Cautiously, step by step, she draws closer to the basement floor with the stench being the only assault so far. Reaching the bottom, she looks to the far end of the small basement and sees a figure lying on a few blankets spread on the cold, hard floor.

“McCafferty, get down here. I think we may have found her,” she says pressing the mic button at her throat.

With McCafferty on the way down the steps, she walks over to the figure on the ground. She kneels down next to a teen girl on her back with her eyes closed. She gives the girl a slight shake to see if she awakens but the young girl remains still with her eyes closed, although she did move loosely and without any rigidity when Gonzalez shook her. She searches for a pulse and finds a weak but steady one. Feeling her chest, she feels it rise ever so slightly.

“I’ve got a girl down here with a weak pulse and shallow breathing but she’s alive,” she says over the radio.

They pick the girl up, noticing the worn, dirt-stained jeans and once white top, and carry her outside, picking up Henderson and Denton on their way. They place the girl on the thin strip of green grass serving as the front lawn.

“Carrie!” Kelly yells seeing them carry the thin figure outside and answers the question of whether they found the right girl.

“Denton, go see if there’s an IV and saline in the med kit,” Gonzalez says kneeling by the frail body.

To her, it’s obvious that Carrie has been without food and water for a while and looks like exposure victims she has seen in the past. Kelly kneels on the other side calling to Carrie, stroking her face. Denton returns and pulls out a bag of saline with an IV kit. Gonzalez was trained some time ago and knows she’s no expert at inserting an IV. She had a hard time finding a vein even back in training. She looks to the arm and notices the veins deflated through dehydration. She doesn’t feel comfortable trying to find a smaller one in the hand, and she’s definitely not going for the jugular, so she tries to insert the needle into the arm. Several attempts later, she’s rewarded with a spot of blood in the needle. Taping the needle in place and hooking up the bag, she turns the drip on high.