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REVELATION 16:1

Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God

upon the earth.

~ * ~

"This guy's brain is oatmeal," C.J. said. "Look at him." The man still sat on the floor and muttered about God and the hellbeasts that ruled the earth.

"Forget him," Alex said shortly. "Look at this." He was standing at the door to the first of a long row of tiny offices; inside, a teenage girl gawked at him and struggled frantically to wrap herself in a robe that still bore manufacturer's tags.

"It’s all right, miss," McDole said in a soothing voice. "We've come to get you out of here." His words simply didn't register. "I said, we've come to get you out of here!" he repeated loudly.

The hallway erupted with sound. The startled group of rescuers rushed from room to room, trying to calm the frenzied people as cries of "Please!" and "Help!" mingled with sobs and other entreaties, and as they finally quieted, the group realized just how poorly the prisoners had been treated. Most suffered from ongoing exposure and shivered constantly; no doubt more than a few were n the early stages of pneumonia, and almost all of them lad muscle and tissue damage from the chains tightly encircling their ankles. They were malnourished and weak, and Perlman was infuriated when he discovered how badly some of the women had been beaten. When he reached a cubicle containing an obviously pregnant roman, he whirled and strode back to the man on the floor. "Why is that pregnant woman tied?" he demanded. When he received no answer, he raised the man's eyelid with his thumb, released it, then slapped the man sharply. "Snap out of it! We need answers now!"

Surprisingly, the fellow did try. "She—" He frowned, as though it was difficult to concentrate. "She doesn't want the baby," he finished at last.

Perlman glowered at him. "Why not?"

The man blinked and realized they were all staring at him. "Because of Howard," he explained. "It's his.”

“Who's Howard?" Alex asked.

"It must be the dead man downstairs," Frank said. "He made it a daily habit to . . . have relations with the women."

"He raped them?" Perlman was so enraged his face was turning crimson.

"He called it breeding," the white-faced man told them. He struggled to his feet and gazed blearily down the hall. "They aren't doing so good."

McDole put his hand on the man's arm. "What's your name, son?"

"Stephen. I'm a . . ." His words faded away.

"What?" Elliot prompted.

Stephen's eyes fogged. "I . . . don't know. I can't remember."

Alex clapped his hands briskly and everyone turned their attention to him. His face was determined. "Let's get these people the hell out!"

~ * ~

"You have to go faster!"

Alex pushed Stephen away. "Stop it! I don't have time to listen to you!" he snapped.

"Stephen," Perlman said from behind the emaciated young man, "can you help over here?" Stephen hurried to Perlman's side and began helping with a woman whose expression was dazed as they pulled a heavy sweater over her head, then pushed her feet into a pair of sneakers. Stephen had been foraging haphazardly in the wholesale outlets on the higher floors, running up and down with armloads of mixed-up clothes and shoes. A good thing—none of the rescuers had even considered there wouldn't be clothing available for these people to wear. At the far end of the hallway, Louise was sitting with the pregnant woman and rambling on in a calm voice, talking about how nice it would be for them all to walk around free in the sun again. Stephen hadn't been lying; when the doctor had tried to untie her, she'd gone into a rage and started screaming at him to perform an abortion immediately. He finally had to sedate her and leave her bound; it was a good bit of foresight that he'd thought to bring several Tel-E-Ject syringes of diazepam along with the syringes of V-BAC. Injecting everyone, including Stephen, had been quick and silent; most just sat there and accepted the shot. It was unnerving.

"Doctor—" Stephen tugged on Perlman's sleeve. "Don't you know what time it is? There're five more to go."

"We know, Stephen," McDole answered as he hurried by, pulling a man and two women toward the stairs. "We're going as fast as we can. There're more people than we expected and the chains are tougher."

"Go faster," Stephen repeated. His face was starting to show a fine edge of panic.

A few doors away the loud hiss that had backgrounded their conversations over the last several hours stopped. "We're ready!" Alex called. A scraggy-looking man stumbled out and squinted, then grinned and yanked on a baggy pair of jeans. "Four now," he croaked. "I'm Nathan. What can I do to help?" He hastily pulled a sweatshirt over his head and shoved sockless feet into a too-large pair of Nikes.

"See if you can find someone who's strong enough to pair off with you and take the pregnant woman out," Perlman suggested. "She might not be able to walk. I had to drug her pretty heavily" Farther down the hall, the hiss of the torch started again.

Nathan raised a finger. "We'll only have to carry the lady downstairs," he said. "Then we'll grab a cart from Walgreens and push her the rest of the way if we have to.”

"Great idea." Perlman pointed to the woman struggling to her feet. "Can you take her, too?"

Nathan nodded. "She'll come around. How many more?"

McDole began counting on his fingers. "Still four, including her" He tilted his head toward the sedated woman’s cubicle. "Think she's calm enough for Alex to go in yet?"

"Sure," Perlman said. "But we'll go with you, just in case."

"Once she's loose, that'll make three left," McDole said with satisfaction.

"Free!" Alex yelled. A sallow-faced young man tripped out of a room, then fell to his knees.

Perlman ran to his side, then clucked worriedly. "This guy's in pretty bad shape, Buddy. I don't think we should wait any longer for the ones that are ready to leave."

"Hey, Alex!" Buddy yelled.

"What?" Alex and Elliot paused in the midst of dragging the tanks on to the next room.

"The far end." McDole waved his finger. "The pregnant one. It's getting late."

"I know that, damn it!" They spun the tanks awkwardly, then hauled them to the far office as the doctor and Nathan hurried down. Alex fired the torch again, filling the air with a blast of light and heat as he pulled his welding goggles over his eyes. "Look the other way!" he called over the torch's noise.

Stephen was doing another check, his face wild. "There's two more." His fingers twisted around themselves. "A man and a woman."

"It's okay," McDole assured him. "We've got plenty of time."

"Less than an hour!" Stephen cried. “And some of the stronger ones wake up early!"

"We'll be fine," McDole repeated, though suddenly he wasn’t so sure. Would they really start moving before the sun completely set? He eyed the long hallway, noting the darkening shadows forming in the windowless inner cubicles.

C.J. looked up from his guard post at the stairwell. "We gotta get going, man." He peered nervously down the stairs. At least get 'em out of this dark building. It'll be a lot lighter outside."

All three jumped at the sound of shouting and McDole ran to join Alex and Nathan in the last office. Louise was backing out of the room. "She bit me," she said angrily.

"What's the matter with her, anyway?" In spite of the sedative, the freed woman was kicking at Perlman.

Alex reached around the struggling duo and twisted the torch off at the tanks, then slid his hands under the woman's shoulders and lifted her bodily from the floor. "Stop it!" he yelled, his nose inches from her own. "If you hold us up any longer, you'll get us all killed! Is that what you want?"

"I don't want to have that monster's child!" she cried. Tears were streaming down her face. "I don't—"

"We'll worry about that later, all right?" Nathan grabbed her chin and forced her head to stop its jerking. "Right now, let’s just get out of here alive. Now come on!”

"You've got to hurry!" In the hallway, Stephen’s voice was almost a scream.

Alex and McDole lugged the tanks into the hallway and the younger man's eyes flicked warily to the fading light. He turned to Elliot and Nathan. "Get the ones downstairs and go. McDole and I'll follow with these last two."

Elliot looked skeptical. "I don't know—"

"Just go. There's no time to argue!" He gave the blond-haired man a quick push. "The less people who have to run, the better!"

"Go ahead, man." C.J. pulled on Elliot's arm and guided him to where Nathan, the pregnant woman, and four others waited. "Kyle and Frank left already, and these folks will need someone to show them where to go. You're elected."

"What about you guys?" Elliot demanded

"We're armed," C.J. reminded him. His gaze stopped on Louise. "But take her with you."

"Forget it," Louise said. "I'm staying right here.”

“Listen—" C.J. began.

"Don't tell me what to do, hotshot." Her tone clearly said stubborn. "I make my own decisions." C.J. closed his mouth.

“All right," Elliot said. "We're taking off. But you guys . . . Jesus." His eyes were wide. "Be careful, okay?" He turned to the former prisoners. "Let's go, folks.”

As they hurried past, Stephen hovered around the torch like a panicked moth. "Come on, come on!" He looked ready to vomit. "They'll be coming any time!"

Alex's forehead glittered with sweat. "The sun won't set for another forty-five minutes," he said.

"It doesn't matter!" Stephen insisted. "This building is so dark that once it drops below the skyscrapers on the west, they're already starting to wake up. They'll get up, but they just won't go outside!"

"Christ," Alex muttered. "Buddy, help me get this thing over there. How many are left?"

"Only two," Louise told him. ”A man and a woman. They look like they're in okay shape."

"That's something—Stephen, will you get out of the way!" He gave a hard pull on the acetylene tank and jostled it close to an anxious woman already dressed in an oversized sweatshirt and denim skirt. "Buddy, get this guy outta here, will—

"Oh, damn it! OH, SHIT! I can't believe I did that!”

“What's the matter, Alex? For God's sake, what's wrong?"

The dark-haired man was frantically twisting a T-shaped handle on the tank of oxygen and glaring at the pressure gauge. He hissed as his fingers fumbled at it, then dropped helplessly to his sides. "We're fucked." He looked dazed. "I didn't back off the pressure. I blew the diaphragm in the regulator."

"You what?" Louise asked. Her face was ashen. "Can't you fix it?"

Alex shook his head, spun, and pounded a fist against the wall. "What a stupid, stupid thing to do!''

"Can you bypass it?" McDole suggested anxiously.

"I wouldn't get enough oxygen to make the flame hot enough. It wouldn't cut." He buried his fingers in his hair as the chained woman, her arms and face mottled with ugly bruises, moaned softly. "It's useless. We’ve got to find another way."

"I've got bolt cutters," C.J. said. He produced a small but new tool from his jacket and handed it to McDole. "Brought for an emergency."

"Let's see those." Alex snatched them from C.J. and bent to the chain. As with all the others, the end of the chain was padlocked to an old-fashioned radiator as immovable as a table-sized block of lead. "This is hardened steel. I don't think these are going to do it," he said grimly as he fought to make the edges meet through the metal link. The muscles in his arms swelled; there was a loud SNAP! and he blinked, then his face twisted as he held up the busted pieces of the cutters. "Too small to handle it."

"Go," the woman said suddenly. She squeezed Alex's wrist. "Come back tomorrow or something."

"You can't do that!" Stephen wailed from behind them. "Don't you see? Anyelet will kill her and the other one, too! You have to take them with you!"

"C.J., guard those steps," McDole commanded. He looked at Alex and Stephen, then motioned for Louise. "Everybody grab the chain," he said grimly. "Our only chance is to pull this radiator right out of the floor."