I paused for a second and glanced around. The hallway, a narrow well-lit corridor, had a cracked, speckled linoleum floor. The walls were plain, covered with a putrid yellow tinge that might’ve originally been painted white but had long aged. Unmarked doors-all of them closed-ran the length of the hall. Scattered at intervals, mounted high on the walls, were more of the TV sets like those I had seen in the kitchen, only smaller. They showed the well-groomed image of Bickerton again booming dire warnings, predictions of eternal torture waiting those who doubted the Word of the Lord. Running to the end where the hallway formed a T, I turned left again.
More unmarked doors, more TVs, and another hall at the end of this one. I turned right this time and kept running. Not a soul was in sight. I tried a doorknob-locked. A few more-they were all locked.
What the hell was I doing here? Jane was supposed to be working in the kitchen. She wasn’t there; the plan was tanking. I’d never find her running through hallways, rattling doors. This hallway alone had a dozen of them, the building had hallways going off in all directions, and there had to be half a dozen buildings in the compound.
A guy could get lost charging around these hallways, all of which were identical, nothing to show me the way back. All of the doors were locked. But what if one wasn’t? If I opened it, did I expect to see Jane standing there? Was I being foolish or what? I had to get back to the commissary. The receiving clerk seemed suspicious to begin with, and if I wasn’t back soon… well, I didn’t want to think about that.
I raced to the end of the hall, hung a right, and skidded around the corner. More of the same; just putrid yellow walls and closed doors.
I kept running and thinking. Maybe behind these locked doors were bedrooms like in a college dorm. Or maybe they were like prison cells. Maybe they all held teens, boys like Robbie and girls like Jane, young kids all locked up in these little cubicles. How many kids were held here? Where did they all come from and what were they doing on this base named after a serpent? Was Bickerton the head snake, or did they just pipe in his verbose diatribes to grant comic relief to the inhabitants? My thoughts whirled as I ran.
More doors, more running, more hallways. Quit thinking, O’Brien. Get back to the kitchen fast before you’re spotted dashing around these halls like a lunatic turned loose in a maze. I stopped, bent forward at the waist, and placed my hands on my knees, gulping air. But how did I get back to the kitchen?
Hold on, I thought. If there’s a kitchen here, then there has to be a dining room or mess hall close to it. I should have turned right when I left the kitchen, just as the receiving clerk had said. Sure, that’s it. What’s the matter with me? The restrooms would be located next to the mess hall and Jane would be working there, serving the food or cleaning tables just as she’d been doing at the Bright Spot Cafe.
I turned and ran back down the length of the corridor.
Stopping at the end of the hall, I tried to think: left or right? I wasn’t sure, but I took a left and raced to the end of the hallway where it dead-ended at a door with a small window cut into it. I hadn’t gone through any doors to get where I was, so I turned around and headed back.
About halfway down, one of the doors swung open and a boy with a mop and pail emerged. I was moving fast and damn near ran him down, but stopped before we collided. He had on khaki work clothes and appeared to be about sixteen. Now less than a foot away, he jumped when he saw me. Then he gave me a strange look, eyes wide with the brows riding high on his forehead. He eyed me as if I were some kind of alien being.
“Sorry, fella,” I said. “I’m the milk delivery guy, and I’m lost. Which way is the dining room?”
He didn’t answer. He just stood there, stiff, holding the mop in one hand and the pail in the other.
“C’mon, guy, where is it? I kinda lost my way,” I chuckled, a little levity, laughing at my foolishness.
He turned and pointed, shook his finger once or twice, then angled his hand and pointed to the left. Down the hall, then turn left was what he said with his finger.
“What’s the matter? You can’t speak?” I asked.
The kid shook his head and put his finger over his mouth.
“They won’t let you talk around here, is that it?”
He nodded and silently ambled away, head hung. I stared at his back as he made his way down the corridor. My God, what kind of weird place is this? Supposed to be a gun club. That’s a laugh. What kind of gun and target shooting club has facilities this huge, sermons blaring from every nook and cranny, and teenaged kids working who moved like zombies? The kids weren’t even allowed to talk. Teenagers in the L. A. County juvenile hall had fewer restrictions than the kids in this loony bin.
In spite of the sermons blaring from the closed-circuit TVs, I was sure this place wasn’t a Christian drug rehab center. Real Christians didn’t treat people like slaves and they didn’t have gun turrets on their facilities. I jogged to the end of the hall and rounded the corner in the direction the kid had indicated.
I stopped dead my tracks.
Three men were walking toward me, the two thugs who had attacked me at my carport and the redneck brute I’d seen sitting with Ben Moran at the Bright Spot Cafe. Moran had called him Buddy; I’d call him the Bear. They were talking to one another and hadn’t noticed me yet, but I figured if the Bear recognized me, he’d do more than just give me a growl.
I spun on my heel and scurried back to where I had just come from. I turned the corner and kept walking, stiff-legged, down the corridor. They’d seen me, I was sure, but I didn’t think they recognized me and silently prayed that they’d turn the opposite way when they reached the T. Was the blind guy correct when he said people didn’t notice guys in uniforms while going about their tasks?
A voice shouted, “Hey, you! You in the white uniform, what are you doing here? This area is off-limits.” Nope, the blind guy was full of crap; they noticed me.
The three guys turned toward me. I knew this was going to be trouble.
“You deaf, or what? Stop, I’m talking to you.” I pretended not to hear Buddy Bear’s angry demand and kept walking.
I picked up my pace some more and marched with alacrity straight down the hall. If they decided to push it, where could I go from here?
“Get him, boys!”
They decided to push it, so I ran.
I rounded the first corner I came to and heard the pounding of my pursuers’ boots hammering the floor. Buddy Bear’s voice echoed behind me: “Give it up, O’Brien. Yeah, we know who you are. You’ll never get outta here.”
I shot a quick glance over my shoulder. The goons appeared to be gaining.
“Last chance, asshole,” one of them shouted.
Head down, legs pumping, fight or flight…I choose flight. How do you fight an army of gun-toting bastards on their own turf? I ran with adrenaline valves wide open, the energy coursing through my system.
I slipped and skidded around another turn, then made a mad dash for the end of the hallway. Unmarked doors flickered past as I continued to run flat out. In a few seconds, I reached the end of the corridor and turned right. I didn’t look behind me. I didn’t want to waste the energy, but I sensed that they were getting closer.
A shot rang out!
“Jesus Christ!” I cried as the slug whizzed by my head and slammed into the wall. These sons-of-bitches meant business.
Another shot. The explosion reverberated in my skull.
If only I could find an exit somewhere and get outside of the building, out into the open, I might be able to make it to the truck and hit Sol’s panic switch, the one on that stupid beeper. But what could Sol do with only two of his men? What chance would we have against an unknown number of armed hoodlums?
The blasts were deafening; two more quick bursts, this time from an automatic weapon. The slugs ricocheted off the walls and buzzed around me like angry bees as I ran a zigzag pattern, racing for the hallway intersection. One more gunshot. Everything slowed. My legs were iron stumps. I moved dreamlike, reaching out for the next corner in this labyrinth of mindless hallways.