TORMENT (29 page)

Austin looked at the doors again. It seemed like they had some time. “Collins, go with them to the garage. Get all the gas you can carry in one trip. Chang, find a way up onto the balcony. Liz honey, you stay with me and watch the doors, okay?”

Liz nodded.

Before they left the sanctuary, Pastor Billy’s loud devouring of the protein bar drew their attention. He swallowed the final bite, moaning in ecstasy. He laughed for a moment before his face screwed with pain. Then he pitched forward and vomited. Chunks of the chocolate protein bar spilled from his mouth mixed with an impossible amount bloody fluid.

He sucked in a loud breath and then vomited a second time, more violently than the first. “No!” he shouted and emptied his stomach a third time. He looked skinnier and frailer than he had before. “No!” he shouted again, and threw himself to the floor. He landed with a wet splat and thrashed around in his own bile.

He hissed again and pulled himself to one of the disgorged protein chunks, picked it off the floor and ate it again. He vomited so hard in response that his back cracked when it arched. He fell again, his cape absorbing bloody liquid while he cried out, “I’m starving! I need food!”

Leaving Pastor Billy behind, the group set about their work, preparing for what might be their last stand.

34

“Here!” Garbarino shouted as he burst into the garage and headed for the gasoline containers. He picked up two and handed them Collins. The next two went to Mia. He picked up the last two and found one of them empty.

“Shit,” he mumbled. No one heard him. Mia and Collins had already gone back up the stairs. As he headed for the door, he saw a set of car keys hanging next to the door. He picked them up and inspected the Mercedes Benz logo keychain.

When it came to cars, he was something of a safety freak. He wore his seatbelt. But he also kept a flashlight strapped beneath his seat. The flashlight had a small razor blade function that could cut through the seatbelt should it become stuck. Beyond that, he kept a small first aid kit, survival pack, orange cones, roadside flares and a full-sized spare tire. He’d supplied all of this for his own vehicle, but new, a lot of luxury car dealerships threw in safety packages as perks.

So when he opened the trunk he wasn’t surprised to see a neatly packaged emergency kit inside. He tore into it, looking for one specific item. He smiled when he found two of them—roadside flares. They were small, but lasted a long time, and best of all, would set fire to gasoline a hell of a lot easier than trying to make a spark with a bullet.

He pocketed the flares and reached up to close the trunk. When he did, he saw a black leather briefcase. Curious, he picked up the case and opened in. On top of the case was an issue of
Playboy
. But what lay beneath the magazine really held his attention.
Money.
More than he could count.

Garbarino picked up a stack of hundred dollar bills and flipped through it. He shook his head.
Nothing but worthless paper, now,
he thought. He took the
Playboy
, rolled it up and stuffed it in his pocket. He threw the briefcase back inside the trunk and left, running to catch up with the others.

Upstairs, Austin watched the front doors with Liz by his side. He’d seen the number of people outside increase steadily to the point where they blocked out all the door windows. Exactly how many people were out there, he had no way to
know.
But there were enough.

“Are we going to be okay?” Elizabeth asked him.

“We’ll be fine,” he said.

“I don’t want Auntie Mia to get hurt.”

He looked down at her large blue eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Why do you help people?” she asked. “Your job is to save people, right?
Maybe to die for them.
Why?”

He smiled. “It’s what I’m good at. And most of the time no one else will do it.”

“We’re in a church,” she said. “Maybe God will do it?”

He sniffed out a laugh. “Sorry kiddo. In my experience, if God exists, He doesn’t give a shit. People kill people. People save people.
Simple as that.”

“Simple as that,” she repeated. “What about him?”

Austin followed her little pointed arm to a statue of Jesus surrounded by children. “If Jesus Christ walks through those doors with a cache of weapons I’ll greet him with open arms. Until then, he’s just a curse word.”

Elizabeth frowned. She wanted to say more, but the others all returned at the same time.

“There are four staircases leading up to the balcony,” Chang said.
“One on each side of these doors.
Two on the far side of the sanctuary.
One of them isn’t far from the exit.
There’s
a few windows back there. I could see outside. A few of them are back there, but not as many as out front. And that dude hasn’t stopped puking yet.
Freaking me out.”

A bang on the front doors made them all jump. Muffled voices from outside could be heard now. They couldn’t make out the words, but no one needed to hear them to know what was being said: Run. I’m sorry. I don’t want to.
The mantra of the mournful killers.

Garbarino slid to a stop and put down his gas tank.
“Five tanks.
Maybe twenty-five gallons.”
He took out the flares. “We can use these to set the fire.”

“What about him?” Chang asked, motioning to the sanctuary when
pastor
Billy wailed in anguish before searching for bits of protein bar.

“Way I see it,” Austin said. “If he’s like the others, he’ll come back. No harm done. If he’s like us, and stays dead, well, I think it’d be the merciful thing to do.”

When no one argued, he said, “Everyone take a tank. Pour the gas around the perimeter, then down the aisles. Leave the area around the back door clear. Keep a full tank in the center aisle.”

“What are you going to do?” Mia asked.

“The foyer,” he said, taking the flares from Garbarino. “I want you all to take up positions on the balcony. When I come running, shoot anything you think is too close.”

“What do you mean, come running?” Mia asked, crossing her arms.

He stood and took her by the shoulders, looking in her eyes. “Someone has to get their attention. Traps only work with something inside.”

She regarded him for a moment. Out of all of them, he was the best. If he died, they’d be lost. But the truth couldn’t be denied. Someone needed to be the bait. And if any of them was ready to die, as much as she hated to think that way, it was him, the man born to die for others. She picked up one of the gas cans and pushed into the sanctuary. “Let’s move.”

The group quickly broke up, dousing the sanctuary and the foyer in gasoline. Once finished, Chang took up a position on the balcony nearest the front entrance. Collins stood near the back, keeping watch out one of the windows. Mia, Liz and Garbarino stood opposite Chang, ready to cover Austin. “We’re ready!” Mia shouted.

“All right,” Austin replied. “No matter what you hear, do not leave the balcony. Do not come down.”

“Copy that, boss,” Garbarino shouted in reply, his words punctuated by pastor Billy’s continuous vomiting.

In the foyer, Austin looked at his handy work. The large open space was covered in two large puddles of gasoline. The hardwood floor beneath would keep the flames burning long after the gasoline was consumed. A single dry patch of floor ran down the center of the foyer toward the sanctuary doors.

Austin chambered a round in his weapon as he approached the door. He had thirteen rounds and a single spare clip left. When they’d run from Paul in the dry riverbed he’d left behind his other gun. They’d also lost all three MP5s—which would have come in very handy now—and one of the shotguns. Between them they had four handguns, two shotguns and a shit-load of gasoline.

Against an army
, Austin thought.
An army that can’t die.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly and placed his hands against the doors. He shook the door hard and shouted, “I’m in here you sons-a-bitches!” He pounded on the wood and shook the door again.

But there was no response.

He shifted to the side and looked out the window. Just inches from his face, staring back at him, was Paul Byers. “I’m sorry,” Paul shouted back through the door. Then the shaking began. All six doors shook.

Collins’s voice echoed out of the sanctuary. “They’re leaving the back door! It’s working!”

The banging intensified.

“C’mon!” Austin shouted, but was starting to wonder if the horde of killers could break through the sturdy doors.

When the banging stopped, he wondered if he’d have to actually unlock the doors for them. He looked out the window again. Paul was gone, but a body, back to the door, blocked his view.

He pounded on the door. “What are you waiting
for!
”

A roar like a fog horn struck him and sent him down to one knee. Recovering quickly, he stood just as the man outside stepped to the side.

Henry Masters rocketed toward the door like a cruise missile. His chest shook as he ran; making the Eagle tattoo
flap
its wings. His cheekless mouth hung open, trailing drool.

Austin dove away from the door and sprinted down the landing strip of dry floor. Three seconds later Henry Masters hit the front doors.

35

“Get under him!” Tom Austin shouted to his ten year old brother.

“I am!”

Austin slipped beneath the pool water, the weight of his unconscious, naked father pulling him deeper. At eight years old, Austin had never rescued a drowning victim before. But it wasn’t just inexperience fighting against him. While his father weighed barely over one fifty, his dead weight made slick from the water seemed determined to slide to the pool’s bottom.

Austin saw his older brother, John, on the other side of their father, struggling to get a grip. Though John was two years older, and much stronger, his will was the weaker of the two. So when their father had passed out by the pool and slid over the side, his twelfth beer rolling away on the deck, John had screamed frantically for help while Austin leapt in after him. It wasn’t until Austin had ordered him in the pool that John had thought to help.

It was night, and the faint spotlight outside the house didn’t provide much visibility under the water. But when they reached the bottom, John saw Austin’s outstretched fingers counting down from three and knew what he intended.

Three.

The boys took hold of their father’s shoulders, gripping so tight that the bruises wouldn’t fade for weeks.

Two.

Tom planted his feet firm against the bottom of the pool, ignoring the burn in his small chest.

One.

The door exploded.

The force of the impact sent a portion of the hard door flying into Tom’s back. He spilled forward and slid to a stop within the strip of foyer floor that wasn’t covered in gasoline. He struggled to his knees and looked back over his shoulder, wondering why Masters hadn’t yet pummeled him into oblivion.

The giant man stood there, rubbing at his eyes, irritated and confused. Some part of the door, or part of the now missing wall above it, had gotten in his eyes.