Текст книги "The Death Cure"

Автор книги: James Dasher

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

CHAPTER 47

Minho pointed his gun at the ceiling and fired, making Thomas jump. The noise of the crowd collapsed into complete silence.

Minho didn’t need to say a word. He gestured to the woman to speak.

“It’s crazy out there. It’s all happened really quickly. Like they’ve been hiding and waiting for a signal or something. This morning the police were overpowered and the gates were opened. Some Cranks from the Palace joined them. They’re everywhere now.”

She paused and took the time to meet a few gazes. “I promise you don’t want to go out there. And I promise that we’re the good guys. I don’t know what the Right Arm has planned, but I do know that part of it includes getting all of us out of Denver.”

“Then why are you treating us like prisoners?” someone yelled.

“I’m just doing what I was hired to do.” She turned her attention back to Thomas and continued. “I think it’s a stupid idea to leave this place, but like I said, if you’re going to, you can’t take more than a couple of people. Those Cranks spot a big group of fresh meat walking around and it’s all over. Weapons or no weapons. And the boss might not like it if a crowd shows up—our guards see a van full of strangers and they might start shooting.”

“Brenda and I will go,” Thomas said. He didn’t even know he was going to say it until it popped out of his mouth.

“No way,” Minho shook his head. “Me and you.”

Minho was a liability. His temper was too short. Brenda thought before she acted, and that was what they needed to get out of this alive. And Thomas didn’t want to let her out of his sight—plain and simple. “Me and her. We did pretty well for ourselves back in the Scorch. We can do it.”

“No way, man!” Thomas could swear his friend almost looked hurt. “We shouldn’t split up. All four of us should go—it’ll be safer.”

“Minho, we need someone back here to watch over things,” Thomas said, and he meant it. This was a whole roomful of people who might be able to help them take WICKED down. “Plus, I hate to say it, but what if something does happen to us? Stay behind and make sure our plans don’t die. They’ve got Frypan, Minho. Who knows who else. You said once that I should be the Keeper of the Runners. Well, let me do it today. Trust me. Like the lady said, the fewer we are, the better our chance of going unnoticed.”

Thomas looked his friend in the eye and waited for a response. Minho didn’t answer for a long time.

“Fine,” he finally said. “But if you die I will not be happy.”

Thomas nodded. “Good that.” He hadn’t realized how important it was that Minho still believe in him. It went halfway to giving him the courage he needed to do what he had to do.

The man who’d said they could take Thomas and his friends to the boss ended up being the one to guide them. His name was Lawrence, and regardless of what was outside, he seemed eager to get out of the room full of angry people. He unlocked the big door and gestured for Thomas and Brenda to follow him—Thomas with the pistol and Brenda with the Launcher.

The group made their way back down the long hallway and Lawrence stopped at the door leading out of the building. The dull light from the ceiling shone on the man’s face, and Thomas could see that he was worried.

“Okay, we have to make a decision. If we go on foot, it’ll take a couple of hours, but we have a lot better chance of getting through the streets. We can hide on foot easier than if we take the van. The van would get us there faster, but we’d be spotted for sure.”

“Speed versus stealth,” Thomas said. He looked at Brenda. “What do you think?”

“The van,” she said.

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. The image of the bloody-faced Crank from the day before haunted him. “The thought of being out there on foot scares me to death. The van, definitely.”

Lawrence nodded. “Okay, then, the van it is. Now keep your mouths shut and those weapons ready. First thing we gotta do is get in the vehicle and lock the doors. It’s right outside this door. Ready?”

Thomas raised his eyebrows at Brenda and they both nodded. As ready as they’d ever be.

Lawrence pulled a stack of key cards out of his pocket and unlocked the many latches lined up on the wall. He clenched the cards in his fist and pushed his body up against the door, then slowly cracked it open. It was dark outside, a lone streetlamp providing the only light. Thomas wondered how long the electricity would hold up before it stopped, like everything else eventually would. Denver could be dead in days.

He could see the van parked in a narrow alley about twenty feet away. Lawrence peeked his head outside, looked left and right, then pulled it back in.

“Seems clear. Let’s go.”

The three slipped out, and Thomas and Brenda sprinted to the van as Lawrence secured the door behind them. Thomas felt like a live wire. Anxiety had him glancing up and down the street, sure he’d see a Crank jump out at any second. But though he could hear the far-off sound of crazed laughter, the place was deserted.

The van’s locks disengaged and Brenda opened the door and slid inside just as Lawrence did. Thomas joined them in the front seat and slammed the door shut. Lawrence immediately engaged the locks and started the engine. He was just about to gun it when a loud pop came from right above their heads and the van shook with a couple of thumps. Then silence. Then the muted sound of a cough.

Someone had jumped onto the roof of the van.

CHAPTER 48

The van shot forward, Lawrence’s hands gripped tightly on the wheel. Thomas turned and looked out the back windows—but there was nothing. Somehow, the person on top of the van was hanging on.

Just as Thomas spun back around, a face started creeping down the front windshield, staring at them upside down. It was a woman, her hair whipping in the wind as Lawrence sent the van tearing down the alleyway at breakneck speed. The woman’s eyes met Thomas’s, and then she smiled, showing a set of surprisingly perfect teeth.

“What’s she holding on to?” Thomas yelled.

Lawrence answered, his voice strained. “Who knows. But she can’t last long.”

The woman’s eyes stayed locked on Thomas, but she had freed one of her hands and balled it into a fist, then started pounding the window. Thump, thump, thump. Her smile stayed wide, her teeth almost glistening in the lamplight.

“Would you please get rid of her?” Brenda shouted.

“Fine.” Lawrence slammed on the brakes.

The woman flew into the air, shooting forward like a launched grenade, her arms windmilling and her legs splayed, until she crashed to the ground. Thomas winced and squeezed his eyes shut, then strained to get a look at her. Shockingly, she was already moving, shakily getting to her feet. She regained her balance, then turned slowly toward them, the headlights from the van brightly illuminating every inch of her.

She was no longer smiling, not at all. Instead her lips had curled into a fierce snarl; a big welt reddened the side of her face. Her eyes bore into Thomas once more, and he shivered.

Lawrence gunned the engine, and the Crank looked like she was going to hurl herself in front of the vehicle, as if she could somehow stop it, but at the last second she pulled back and watched them pass. Thomas couldn’t take his eyes off her, and in his last glimpse, her face melted into a frown and her eyes cleared, as if she’d just realized what she’d done. As if there was something left of the person she used to be.

And seeing that made it worse for Thomas. “She was like a mix of sane and not sane.”

“Just be glad she was the only one,” Lawrence muttered.

Brenda squeezed Thomas’s arm. “It’s hard to look at. I know how it felt for you and Minho to see what’d happened to Newt.”

Thomas didn’t answer, but he put his hand on top of hers.

They reached the end of the alley, and Lawrence swerved to the right onto a bigger street. Small groups of people dotted the area up ahead. A few were struggling as if they were fighting, but most were digging through trash or eating things Thomas couldn’t quite make out. Several haunted, ghostly faces just stood and stared at them with dead eyes as they drove by.

No one in the van said anything, as if they were afraid that speaking would somehow alert the Cranks outside.

“I can’t believe it happened so fast,” Brenda finally said. “You think they were somehow planning to take over Denver? Could they really organize something like that?”

“Hard to know,” Lawrence replied. “There were signs. Locals disappearing, reps from the government disappearing, more and more infecteds being discovered. But it looks like a huge number of them suckers hid out, waiting for the right time to make their move.”

“Yeah,” Brenda said. “It seems like it was a matter of Cranks finally outnumbering healthy people. Once the balance tipped, it tipped all the way over.”

“Who cares how it happened,” Lawrence said. “The only thing that matters is how it is. Look around us. The place is a nightmare now.” He slowed down to make a tight turn into a long alley. “Almost there. We need to be more careful now.” He turned off the headlights, then picked up speed again.

As they drove, it became darker and darker, until Thomas couldn’t see anything more than large, formless shadows that he kept imagining would suddenly leap out in front of them. “Maybe you shouldn’t drive so fast.”

“We’ll be fine,” the man replied. “I’ve driven this route a thousand times. I know it like the back of my—”

Thomas flew forward and was snapped back by the seat belt. They’d run over something, and it was caught beneath the van—metal, from the sound of it. The van bounced a couple of times, then came to a stop.

“What was that?” Brenda whispered.

“I don’t know,” Lawrence responded in an even quieter voice. “Probably a trash can or something. Scared the crap out of me.”

He inched forward and a loud, scraping screech filled the air. Then came a thump and another crash and everything fell silent.

“Got her loose,” Lawrence murmured, not bothering to hide his relief. He continued, but slowed to a fraction of his earlier speed.

“Maybe you should turn the lights back on?” Thomas suggested, amazed at how fast his heart was beating. “I can’t see a thing out there.”

“Yeah,” Brenda added. “I’m pretty sure anyone out there heard that racket anyway.”

“I guess so.” Lawrence turned them on.

The headlights illuminated the entire alley in a spray of bluish-white light that, compared to the previous darkness, seemed brighter than the sun. Thomas squinted at the glare, then opened his eyes fully and a bloom of horror rose up in him. About twenty feet in front of them, at least thirty people had emerged and now stood packed together, completely blocking the road.

Their faces were pale and haggard, scratched and bruised. Ripped, filthy clothes hung from their bodies. They stood there, every one of them looking into the bright lights as if they weren’t fazed in the least. They were like standing corpses, raised from the dead.

Thomas shivered from the chill that iced his body.

The crowd started to part. They moved in sync, and a large space cleared in the middle as they backed to the sides of the alley. Then one of them waved an arm, gesturing that the van should go ahead and drive past.

“These are some awfully polite Cranks,” Lawrence whispered.

CHAPTER 49

“Maybe they’re not past the Gone yet?” Thomas answered, even though the statement sounded stupid even to him. “Or not in the mood to get run over by a big van?”

“Well, gun it,” Brenda said. “Before they change their mind.”

To Thomas’s relief, Lawrence did just that; the van shot forward and he didn’t slow down. The Cranks lining the walls stared at them as they sailed past. Seeing them close up—the scratches and blood and bruises, those maddened eyes—made Thomas shiver again.

They were just approaching the end of the group when several loud pops sounded and the van jolted and swerved to the right. Its front end slammed into the wall of the alley, pinning two Cranks against it. Thomas stared in horror through the windshield as they screamed in agony and beat bloody fists against the front of the vehicle.

“What the hell?” Lawrence bellowed as he put the van in reverse.

They screeched backward several feet, the vehicle shaking horribly. The two Cranks fell to the ground and were immediately attacked by the ones closest to the front of the van. Thomas quickly looked away, filled with a nauseating terror. On all sides, Cranks started thumping the van with their fists. At the same time, the tires were spinning and squealing, unable to gain traction. The combination of noises was like something from a nightmare.

“What’s wrong?” Brenda yelled.

“They did something to the tires! Or the axels. Something!”

Lawrence kept switching the van from reverse to drive, but each time it only went a few feet. A lady with wild hair approached the window to Thomas’s right. She was holding a huge shovel in both hands, and he watched as she raised it over her head, then swung it down against the window. The glass didn’t give.

“We really need to get out of here!” Thomas shouted. Helpless, he didn’t know what else to say. They’d been stupid to let themselves fall into such an obvious trap.

Lawrence kept shifting and gassing the van, but they merely jerked back and forth. A series of familiar thumps sounded from the roof. Someone was up there. Cranks were attacking all the windows now, with everything from wooden sticks to their own heads. The lady outside Thomas’s window didn’t give up, smacking her shovel into the glass over and over again. Finally, the fifth or sixth time she did it, a hairline crack shot across the window.

The growing panic made Thomas’s throat constrict. “She’s going to smash it!”

“Get us out of here!” Brenda said at the same time.

The van moved a few inches, just enough to make the woman miss with her next swing. But someone slammed a sledgehammer into the windshield from above and a huge spiderweb blossomed like a white flower in the glass.

Again the van jolted backward. The man holding the sledgehammer tumbled onto the front hood before he could slam the glass again and landed in the street. A Crank with a long gash on top of his bald head yanked the tool from the man’s grip and got two more whacks in before a group of other people started fighting him for his weapon. The cracks in the windshield almost completely obscured the view from inside the van. The sound of breaking glass came from the rear; Thomas spun around to see an arm wriggling through a gash in the window, the jagged edges tearing its skin.

Thomas unbuckled his seat belt and squirmed into the back of the van. He grabbed the first thing he found, a long plastic tool with a brush on one end and a sharp edge on the other—a snow pick—and crawled over the middle row of seats; he slammed the thing into the Crank’s arm, then again, then a third time. Screaming, whoever it was pulled their arm out, knocking pieces of glass onto the cement outside.

“You want the Launcher?” Brenda called back to him.

“No!” Thomas shouted. “It’s too big inside the van. Grab the gun!”

The van lurched forward, then stopped again; Thomas smacked his face on the back of the middle bench, and pain shot through his cheek and jaw. He turned to see a man and woman tearing away at the remaining glass in the broken window. Blood from their hands oozed down both sides of the hole as it got bigger.

“Here!” Brenda yelled from behind him.

He turned and took the gun from her, then aimed and fired, once, then twice, and the Cranks fell to the ground, any screams of agony drowned out by the awful noise of the squealing tires and overworked engine, the pounding of the Cranks’ attack.

“I think we’re almost loose!” Lawrence shouted. “I don’t know what the hell they did!”

Thomas turned to look at him; he was covered in sweat. A hole had appeared at the middle of the spiderweb on the windshield. Cracks completely lined the other windows—almost nothing outside was visible anymore. Brenda held her Launcher, ready to use it if things got completely hopeless.

The van went backward, then forward, then backward again. It seemed to be under a little more control, was shaking less than it had been. Two sets of arms came through the big hole in the back, and Thomas let off two more shots. They heard screams, and a woman’s face—twisted into a hideous scowl, her every tooth edged with grime—appeared at the window.

“Just let us in, boy,” she said, her words barely audible. “All we want is food. Just give us some food. Let me in!”

She screamed the last few words and pushed her head through the opening as if she actually thought she could fit. Thomas didn’t want to shoot her but held the gun up, readied himself in case she somehow managed to get inside. But when the van bolted forward again, she fell out, leaving the edges of the broken window covered in blood.

Thomas braced himself for the van to go backward again. But after a short, jolting stop, it went forward several more feet, turning in the right direction. Then a few more.

“I think I’ve got it!” Lawrence yelled.

Again forward, this time maybe ten feet. The Cranks followed as best they could—the short moment of silence as they were left behind didn’t last, though. Soon the screams and thumps and bangs began all over again. A man reached through the hole in the back with a long knife, started slashing left and right at anything and nothing. Thomas lifted his gun and fired. How many had he killed? Three? Four? Had he killed them?

With one last long, terrible squeal, the van shot forward and then didn’t stop. It bounced a couple of times as it ran over the Cranks who’d been in their path; then it smoothed out and picked up speed. Thomas looked out the back, saw bodies falling off the roof and onto the street. The remaining Cranks gave chase, but soon they were all left behind.

Thomas collapsed onto the seat, lying on his back, staring up at the dented roof. He sucked in huge, heavy breaths, tried to regain control of his emotions. He was barely aware of Lawrence turning off the one headlight that hadn’t been smashed, making two more turns, then slipping through an open garage door that closed as soon as they cleared it.

CHAPTER 50

When the van pulled to a stop and Lawrence shut off the engine, silence enveloped Thomas’s world. The only thing he heard was the rush of pumping blood inside his head. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing. Neither of the other two said anything for a couple of minutes, until Lawrence broke the silence.

“They’re out there, surrounding us, waiting for us to get out.”

Thomas forced himself to sit up and face the front again. Outside the broken windows, it was totally dark.

“Who?” Brenda asked.

“The boss’s guards. They know this is one of their vans, but they won’t approach us until we get out and show ourselves. They need to confirm who we are—I’d guess we have about twenty weapons aimed at us right now.”

“So what do we do?” Thomas asked, not ready for another confrontation.

“We get out, nice and slow. They’ll recognize me soon enough.”

Thomas crawled over the seats. “Do we get out at the same time, or should just one of us go first?”

“I’ll get out first, tell them it’s okay. Wait until I knock on the window to get out,” Lawrence answered. “Ready?”

“I guess,” Thomas sighed.

“It would really suck,” Brenda said, “if we went through all that just to have them shoot us. I’m sure I look like a Crank right about now.”

Lawrence opened his door and Thomas waited, anxious for his cue. The loud rap on the frame of the van startled Thomas, but he was ready.

Brenda eased her door open slowly and stepped out. Thomas followed her, straining to see in the darkness, but the room was pitch-black.

A loud click sounded and the place was instantly flooded with bright white light. Thomas threw his hands up and squeezed his eyes shut, then, shielding himself, squinted to see what was going on. A huge spotlight mounted on a tripod was pointed directly at them. He could just make out the silhouettes of two figures on either side of it. Scanning the rest of the room, he saw that there were at least a dozen other people, all holding various types of weapons, just as Lawrence had said there would be.

“Lawrence, is that you?” a man called out, his voice echoing against concrete walls. It was impossible to tell which person had spoken.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“What happened to our van, and who are these people? Tell me you didn’t bring infecteds in here.”

“We got jumped by a huge group of Cranks down the alley a ways. And these guys are Munies—they forced me to bring them to you. They want to see the boss.”

“Why?” the man asked.

“They said—”

The man cut Lawrence off. “No, I want to hear it from them. State your names, why you forced our man to come here and destroy one of the few vehicles we have left. And it better be a good reason.”

Thomas and Brenda exchanged a look to see who should talk and Brenda nodded to him.

He returned his gaze to the spotlight, focusing on the person to the right of it. That was his best guess at who’d been doing the talking. “My name is Thomas. This is Brenda. We know Gally—we were with him at WICKED and he told us about the Right Arm and what you guys are doing a few days ago. We were on board to help, but not like this. We just want to know what you’re planning, why you’re kidnapping immune people and locking them up. I thought that was WICKED kind of stuff.”

Thomas didn’t know what he’d expected, but the guy started to chuckle. “I think I’ll let you see the boss just so you get the damn idea out of your head that we’d ever do anything like WICKED.”

Thomas shrugged. “Fine. Let us see your boss.” The man seemed sincere in his disgust with WICKED. But it still didn’t make sense why they’d taken all those people.

“You better not be blowing things out your butt, kid,” the guy said. “Lawrence, bring them in. Somebody else check the van for weapons.”

Thomas kept silent as he and Brenda were led up two flights of dingy metal stairs. Then through a weathered wooden door, down a dirty hallway with one lightbulb and wallpaper peeling from the walls, then finally to a large space that might’ve been a nice conference room fifty years earlier. Now all it held was a big, scarred table with plastic chairs scattered haphazardly around the room.

Two people sat at the far side of the table. Thomas noticed Gally first, on the right. He looked tired and disheveled, but he managed a slight nod and a small smile—nothing more than an unfortunate wrinkle in the mess that was his face. A huge man was next to him, more fat than muscle, his girth barely contained between the arms of the white plastic chair he sat in.

“This is the headquarters of the Right Arm?” Brenda asked. “Consider me a little discouraged.”

Gally answered, his smile gone. “We’ve moved around more times than we can count. But thank you for the compliment.”

“So which one of you is the boss?” Thomas asked.

Gally nodded at his companion. “Don’t be a slinthead—Vince is in charge. And show some respect. He’s risked his life just because he believes that things should be made right in the world.”

Thomas held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “I didn’t mean anything. The way you acted in your apartment, I thought you might be the guy in charge.”

“Well, I’m not. Vince is.”

“Does Vince know how to talk?” Brenda asked.

“Enough!” the large man yelled in a deep, booming voice. “Our whole city is overrun with Cranks—I don’t have time to sit here and listen to childish spats. What do you people want?”

Thomas tried to hide the anger that had lit up inside him. “Just one thing. We want to know why you captured us. Why you’re kidnapping people for WICKED. Gally gave us a lot of hope—we thought we were on the same side. Imagine our surprise when we found out the Right Arm was just as bad as the people they’re supposedly fighting against. How much money were you going to make selling humans?”

“Gally,” the man said in response, as if he hadn’t heard a single word Thomas had said.

“Yeah?”

“You trust these two?”

Gally refused to meet Thomas’s gaze. “Yeah.” He nodded. “We can.”

Vince leaned forward, resting his massive arms on the table. “Then we can’t waste any time. Boy, this is a look-alike operation and we didn’t plan on making a single dime off of anybody. We’re collecting Immunes to mimic WICKED.”

The response surprised Thomas. “Why in the world would you do something like that?”

“We’re going to use them to get inside their headquarters.”