Monica O'Rourke: Suffer the Flesh

“Everyone down!” Zoey said, aiming her gun at the door. An eternity passed before the door finally opened, and two men wandered in before realizing anything was wrong. Claudia took a shot, and the bullet removed the top part of Jeff’s scalp, jets of blood shooting like a fountain.

Zoey fired, and the bullet chipped away the doorframe over their heads. The other man reached for his gun, but Kim and Jessica were quicker. One shot him in the thigh, the other in the stomach, and he went down.

From behind him, shots were fired into the room.

“Watch out!” Claudia cried, falling to one knee, aiming her gun at the men in the hall.

A bullet whizzed past Zoey’s ear. Kim was struck in the shoulder, and the impact knocked her off her feet.

“Kim!” Zoey crawled toward her.

The firing stopped, the men in the hall no longer targets. Marie ran over and applied pressure to Kim’s wound. Others came to help and pulled Kim to a safer part of the room.

The wounded man writhed on the floor like an enormous slug, clutching his injured body parts. Claudia carefully approached, wary of possible gunfire from the hall. She kicked the guns across the floor, toward Zoey.

A cell phone protruded from Jeff’s back pocket, and Claudia pulled the door shut before snatching the phone. Zoey glanced up. The Observation room! “Everyone move to the front of the room. Quickly! Get away from the glass.” Frenzied movements from everywhere, the wounded being dragged or carried to the front of the room.

A voice boomed into the room over the loudspeaker. “Very smart.”

Zack .

“Wise decision, Zoey. It is Zoey , isn’t it?”

“Yes, you piece of shit. I’m Zoey.”

“How do you propose to get out alive, Zoey?”

“How do you ?”

The loudspeaker sizzled, but there was no response from Zack.

“He can still hear us,” she whispered to Claudia. “I could hear everything when I was up there.”

Claudia nodded. She opened the cell phone, punched in 911. She shrugged—nothing.

“No signal this far below ground, Zoey,” James muttered. He shifted, propped against the wall. “We’re a couple hundred feet down. I had this place built years ago. We’re in the middle of nowhere, deep in the mountains. Miles from civilization. Even if you manage to somehow escape, you’ll never survive the elements.” He laughed and then groaned, took a deep breath.

“Shut up already,” Zoey muttered

“I’ll show you the way out,” James said.

She jerked her head back in his direction, eyed him suspiciously. “You will? Why?”

“Because you need my help. Because you’ll never make it out without me. And because I can use this as a bargaining tool.”

“Bargain? You’re insane.”

He licked his swollen lips. “You know I’m insane. But what’s this worth to you? Is my immunity worth the price of your freedom?”

“No, James. No way. You’re going down.”

“Suit yourself, Zoey. But trust me, you won’t escape. If you get past Zack, and even if you find the exit, you won’t get past it. It’s barricaded with a heavy oak door, with a combination keypad. Even my guards don’t know the combo.”

“You’re lying,” Zoey whispered.

“Am I?” He grimaced, clutched his stomach. “Why wouldn’t I have installed an additional safety measure? You’ll never get through it. Better hope I don’t die, Zoey, or you’re all fucked.”

His guards glanced at him.

“Oh, fuck this,” Kevin said. “I know the combination.”

“Do you?” James sneered. “Because I change it once a week. I changed it yesterday, in fact.”

Zoey looked at Claudia. “Know any way to get this information?”

“Because I’m a cop? We don’t beat confessions out of people. Anymore.” She smiled. “Besides, I doubt it would have much of an impact on him at this point.”

“Zack knows the combination,” James said coolly. “Why don’t you go ask him?”

“Somebody shut him up,” Zoey said.

“Know where we are, Zoey?” James asked. “The Adirondack Mountains. You have any idea how big the Adirondacks are? How cold it gets at night, even in summer? And here we are, in the dead of winter…”

Zoey looked away. Stared at her gun, considered bashing him in the head with it.

“You need my help. That’s the bottom line.”

She wondered why Zack hadn’t made a move. He was outnumbered at this point, but everyone in the room was a target.

She took Claudia aside and whispered in her ear. “The cell phone may work once we get to the surface. Maybe we’ll find the way out, and there’s bound to be cars. They had to have gotten in and out of here somehow.”

“What about Zack and his guys? How can we get past them?” Claudia asked.

“You really think they’re still out there? We outnumber them ten to one. We have more guns. There are three of them left. They haven’t made a move, and I’d bet they didn’t have a plan in mind in case something like this should happen.”

Claudia nodded, scratched her nose. “What do you want to do?”

“We have to check it out. Two of us with guns need to do a search.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Zoey nodded. She and Claudia approached the other women and quietly shared their plan. Out of view of the glass, she hoped Zack, if he was still upstairs, hadn’t heard anything.

“Get him up,” Claudia said, and the gut-shot man was pulled to his feet. She cracked the door, using him as a shield. She tossed him into the hallway as a diversion and he crashed into the opposite wall headfirst.

“Let’s go,” she said, gun poised, and stepped into the corridor.

Checked left, right. No sign of movement as Zoey followed her out. They walked back to back. No sign of life other than the wounded man moaning, writhing against the wall.

They reached the door to the Observation room. “I need to check it out.”

Zoey nodded, shuddered, goose bumps creeping up her arms.

“Guard the door. I’m going up.” Claudia drew a deep breath, scoped out the flight of stairs, and ducked into the bottom landing.

Zoey waited out the eternal minutes. The adrenaline still pumped through her veins like a drug, but she felt strangely calm. Empowered. Ready to face her own death, if need be. There was no going back now.

Claudia reappeared. “It’s secure,” she whispered. “One guy up there. Bound, gagged, throat slashed. Your handiwork I presume.”

Zoey shook her head in surprise. “I didn’t kill him.”

“They apparently don’t want witnesses. They’d rather kill their own guy.”

Zoey slumped against the wall. “What if they’re hiding in one of the rooms? How are we supposed to check more than a dozen dark rooms?”

“I’ll be right back.” Claudia disappeared up the stairs again. Less than a minute later she was back. “Master light switches. Power generator.”

“How’d you know?”

“I’ve been in this place a long time. Heard them talking, and I’ve noticed the generators and emergency lights. Makes sense, this far underground. Can’t rely on electricity.”

“At least the rooms are lit now. Let’s get started.”

With agonizing slowness they checked each room, Zoey standing guard at the door while Claudia searched. Every room they inspected, including the bathrooms was empty, except Room Six, where they had left Pete dead and Kurt tied down to the rack.

Now Kurt was dead as well, but with the amount of blood on his body, Zoey didn’t know if she was responsible for his death or if he had been executed.

Room Four. Punishment . The room she had luckily never had to face, the one where hysterical women were threatened with, dragged into.