TORMENT (43 page)

Garbarino crossed first.

Mia followed.

They wasted no time retrieving the board and running for the next rooftop.

“A fire escape leads down the side of the last mill building,” Garbarino said. “If they haven’t realized where we’re headed yet, we should have a pretty good head start.”

Wood shattered far behind them. The sound was followed by a roar. And then another.
Both different.

Neither Mia nor Garbarino looked back. They knew Masters and Austin were there. They knew the pair would give chase. Their only hope was to outrun them and cross the divides between the buildings a little bit faster.

When they reached the far end of the next to last mill, Garbarino chanced a look back and saw Masters and Austin climbing up over the far side wall. He
lay
the board out and dropped it down, nearly losing it over the edge. He pulled it straight and stepped aside. “Go.”

Mia crossed the board quickly. Garbarino followed. “Just run,” he said.

“What about the board.”

He jumped from the board and got to his feet. “Leave it, and hope one of them tries to use it.”

Free of the board, they sprinted across the last mill building roof and reached the edge. A ten foot drop led to the top of an old metal fire escape that looked like it might fall away from the building at any moment.

“Give me your hands,” Garbarino said.

They gripped each other’s hands tight. Garbarino helped her over the side of the building, lowered her down as far as he could reach and then let go. Mia yelped, but landed on her feet after a short drop.

Garbarino looked back. Masters had taken the bait, stepping up onto the wall and then out onto the board. His body dipped down a little bit as the board bent under his significant weight. Austin, on the other hand, seemed to know better. He took several steps back while Masters took a step forward. The board snapped and Masters dropped down the four stories for a second time.

Austin charged and launched himself through the air. He landed short again, but had been expecting it this time and latched onto the side of the roof, quickly pulling himself up.

Garbarino rolled over the side of the building, hung down by his arms and let go. He landed with a clang and felt the fire escape shake beneath him. He looked down and was glad to see Mia already half way to the bottom. He gave chase, rounding the stairway quickly. Flakes of rust and paint scratched his hands as he gripped onto railings.

He could hear Austin’s heavy feet above and each footfall shook the structure. He reached the final set of stairs right behind Mia. They hit the pavement running, but a nearby roar sent them to the ground.

Garbarino looked up. Austin had reached the edge of the building and stood above the fire escape. But he wasn’t the source of the blast that had knocked them down. It was closer. He turned to the side.

Masters.

He stalked toward them, knowing they couldn’t outrun him in the parking lot.

“We have to split up,” Garbarino said quickly.

“What? No.”

“He can’t chase both of us, and Austin—”

A loud clang above turned their attention up to Austin. He’d jumped onto the fire escape. Metal screeched and scraped against brick. The top of the metal stairway tilted away from the building. A second screech followed as the top heavy staircase peeled away from the building.

Garbarino scrambled to his feet and yanked Mia up. “Run!”

Masters turned toward the noise above him. The fire escape toppled over, Austin’s weight on top speeding its descent. It struck the ground with a boom, crushing Masters beneath a mess of hard iron. Austin fell away from the fire escape as it fell and landed on a car. He slammed through the roof and disappeared inside the vehicle.

Mia knew this was the last chance they’d get and she poured every ounce of energy she had left into her legs. The city streets next to the mills were empty of hunters and full of alleys and buildings to get lost in. If they could just reach one—

The crunch of metal turned her around. Austin pulled himself out of the car and locked his eyes on her. Despite the despair she saw in them, she also saw intention. Austin wouldn’t let them leave.

The giant man gripped the ruined roof of the car and peeled a sheet of metal roof away.

Garbarino saw two bright orange signs ahead. Just beyond them were several road construction vehicles. The pavement on one side of the street had peeled away and several manholes had been marked with bright orange paint. One of the manholes was open, its cover leaning to one side. “There!”

Mia looked ahead and saw the manhole cover. For a moment, she felt hope return. Austin and Masters wouldn’t be able to fit and she doubted they could force their way in. But when she looked back at Austin, she saw the sheet of metal spiraling through the air like some kind of giant killer Frisbee. It whistled through the air, arcing to one side and then angling toward her. A moment before the shard struck, she shouted Garbarino’s name.

Garbarino turned when Mia shouted and saw the metal slice through the back of her leg. She fell to the ground, unable to move, cringing in pain.

“Hold on,” he said, and picked her up under the arms.

As Austin charged, Garbarino dragged Mia toward the open manhole. When he reached it, Austin was nearly upon them. There was no time to climb down the ladder so he dragged her over the hole until her feet fell in and then dropped her. She disappeared into the sewer.

He followed her, leaping over the edge and catching himself on the ladder. With Austin only ten feet away, Garbarino reached up and pulled the manhole cover back into place. Before he could let go and climb down, the cover was struck from above. The force of the impact knocked Garbarino off the ladder. He hit the concrete eight feet below and struck his head.

The pair lay next to each other, both unconscious, while Mia’s leg bled out onto the dry sewer floor. Austin pounded the manhole lid several times and let out a roar. But then he fell quiet as a sea of voices approached. The killers were coming, and unlike Austin and Masters, they would have no trouble entering the sewer.

52

Mia woke suddenly as a pulse of pain exploded from her leg and jolted up her spine. She gasped at the pain, sitting up. The quick motion made her throbbing head spin.
I’ve got a concussion
, she thought, feeling a lump on the back of her head. She probed her leg with her other hand and found a warm wet patch of blood. She drew her hand back, not really wanting to know the true extent of her injury. The pain and blood told her enough.

Voices pushed past the pain.
The killers.
But would they come into the sewer?

The manhole cover above began to twist, grinding bits of stone beneath it.

Of course they will
.

Garbarino lay unconscious next to her. She winced as she slid over to him. “Joe. Joe, wake up!” She shook his arm. “Joe!”

For a moment she worried that he was dead, really dead, but then saw his pulse twitching beneath the skin of his neck.

Dust tickled her nose as it fell from above. She looked back up in time to see the manhole cover rise up. A crescent of light streamed into the dark tunnel.

The voices grew louder.

Austin’s horrid face leaned over the hole. “Life,” he growled through clenched teeth.

Henry Masters joined him, the pair looking like deformed conjoined twins cut apart at birth. “Peace,” he said.

Mia began quickly slapping Garbarino’s shoulder.
“Dammit, Joe!”

She struggled to her feet. The pain in her leg nearly pulled her back under. Her vision turned black and her limbs tingled. She held on to the tunnel wall. Her head continued to spin, but her vision returned.

As the voices above grew louder and more urgent, Mia took Garbarino by the wrists and pulled him into the tunnel. Each step was agony as the partly severed muscles in her leg twisted and flexed. She felt
an oozing
warmth spread from her thigh to her calf. She would bleed to death if she didn’t do something soon about the wound. But what could she do? Stopping would mean death, too.

But what held her attention more than the pain, was the continuing thought.
I’m not ready.
She felt like she needed just a few minutes of quiet to figure things out. She wasn’t sure what she believed still and what she chose might very well determine her fate. Should she decide that the world had become a literal hell and the only escape was forgiveness from a God she never believed in before, she might actually long for death. But if this life was all that she had, and the people trying to kill her were really just mutated versions of their former selves, than she would fight to the end and do her best to stay alive.

But she had no time to stop and think. A loud whump and a crack filled the tunnel. She saw a killer lying on the tunnel floor beneath the open manhole. The man stood, but his leg bent at an odd angle and he fell to the side.

A second body fell to the concrete floor.

The killers were flinging themselves in with no regard for their bodies. The first man had broken his leg. The second, a woman dressed in a tattered power suit, lay unconscious.

But the bodies of the first two cushioned the fall of a third man. He stood immediately, and spun around, looking into the dark, oblivious to the fact that he was stark naked. Mia wasn’t sure if the man could see her, but when he cocked his head to the side and then turned in her direction, she realized he could hear her.

Each step backwards was heavy. Her footfalls echoed. Garbarino’s feet scraped along the floor. Until he woke up, stealth would be impossible. And after that, if there was an after that, she still had to do something about the blood pouring down her leg. She could feel it in her shoe now, squishing with each step.

The killer launched toward them as more dropped into the tunnel like lemmings over a cliff.

“Garbarino,” Mia said, her voice pitched with fear. She shook his arms while walking backwards, unsure of where to go.

The killer gained quickly.

“Joe!”

Garbarino grunted. Mia raised her voice, shouting, “He’s going to kill us, Joe!”

His arms tugged and then yanked away. Mia fell back and landed on her wound. The pain blinded her and she heard sounds of a fight. Garbarino shouted in pain.

She began to weep knowing that the killer would be on top of her any second. When a hand took hold of her she flinched away.

“It’s me,” Garbarino said.

She blinked as the pain faded and her vision returned. She looked beyond Garbarino and saw the killer lying on the tunnel floor, his neck twisted at an odd angle. But the man’s neck moved slowly, twisting back into position. He’d be up and running in no time. Further beyond the immobilized killer, she saw more of them coming. “We’re not going to make it.”

“We will,” he said. He helped her up and pulled her into the darkness.

He led them through a series of tunnels, turning left, then right and repeating at every intersection they came to. The only light came from small holes in the manhole covers and drainage grates leading to the streets above. They stopped a few times, hoping to exit through a manhole cover and hide in the city, but the thundering footsteps of Austin and Masters shook the streets above them, possibly following the voices of the killers that streamed through the tunnels behind them.

They rounded a corner and were struck hard from the side. They fell to the side along with a single killer. Mia rolled over and saw the woman jump onto Garbarino’s back.