Flashback

The other boys took that as an order to open fire. The sound of six weapons firing at once was absolutely deafening in the echoing cement and concrete vault. Gene D. didn’t even have the right-side panel fully open yet, and sparks leaped off the steel. The rest of the boys shoved and jostled to fire through the four feet or so of open space between the partially opened shutters.

Val had ducked around the abutment in the turning tunnel just as Coyne had fired and fifty or more barbed flechettes sparked against the walls and continued ricocheting down the long passageway. If Val hadn’t made the turn just when he had, he’d be dead. If he’d continued running, the barbs would have shredded him in full flight and he’d be dead.

Then Coyne was shouting with the others and obviously firing out through the gap in the shutters, pushing other boys in front of him even as he did so. Val knew this because—even though he knew it was the most stupid thing he could do—he had to see what was going on and he’d peeked around the barb-gouged corner.

Someone, probably Omura’s security, was firing back. Val saw Toohey’s shaven head explode in a red and gray mist and the slim boy’s body tumbled against Cruncher and went down. Dinjin screamed something and then he was hit and his body went down like a sack of potatoes. There was none of the dramatic flying backward that Val had seen in a million movies, just a deadly, final, sickening drop when a boy was hit.

“Keep shooting! Keep shooting!” screamed Coyne in a weird falsetto. Even as he backed away from the opening, he was lowering his flechette sweeper toward the huddled backs of his screaming, shooting friends.

Fuck this. Val turned and ran as hard as he could. It took bouncing off a cement wall at the first branching of the tunnel to make him realize that he’d dropped and forgotten his flashlight. He’d been running blind in the darkness. He had to turn left along a narrow side tunnel at the next branching, but he’d never even find the branching in this darkness. He was screwed.

He’d picked himself up and was shaking his head when there came a flash brighter than the sun and then a sound louder and more terrible than anything Val Fox had ever heard. A blast wave picked him up and threw him fifteen feet down the main corridor. He was only vaguely aware of losing skin on his knees and elbows as he hit and slid on cement, his jeans and sweatshirt ripping.

Flame billowed and blossomed around the first turn in the tunnel behind him. Val glimpsed a scarecrow silhouette throwing itself aside right where Val had hidden a few seconds earlier, and then the second shock wave hit him and rolled him another ten feet down the black corridor.

He could see now.

Val pulled the ski mask off and tugged the Beretta from his waistband. The pistol was under the wool as he ran. The storm drain was illuminated red and orange by unseen flames, Val’s shadow leaping ahead of him as he ran for his life, ducking rebar hanging down here and there, listening to the chaos still exploding thirty yards behind.

Somebody from outside must have fired an RPG or something. Or something. There was no way that any of the boys still in that first section of the drain could be alive after that.

Men’s shouts. More shots. Security people or cops or military were inside the drain with him. Their clever idea of keeping them out by leaving the interior grate rebar in place hadn’t worked for thirty seconds. Someone had just blown the shit out of the steel panels, rebar grate, boys’ bodies, everything.

And now they were inside.

Val was running so hard and panting so loudly that he almost tore right past the narrow defile extending to the left of the main drain passage. He skidded, sneaker soles screeching, and doubled back and in.

The flames were receding behind him, and this narrow passage—barely wide enough for his shoulders—was dark.

To get to the higher drain and eventual exit, he had to find the narrow, round opening above him with the metal rungs. But he’d never see it in this blackness.

More shouts. Men were running past his side passage now, shooting ahead of themselves down the tunnel. They had machine guns.

Of course they have machine guns, dipshit.

The best Val could do to find his vertical pipeline was to keep jumping every few paces, dragging his free left hand along the roof. He was still carrying his ski mask and Beretta in his right hand. The odds of missing the small aperture were great, but he was goddamned if he was going to slow down.

Problem was, he’d checked out this sewer drain and it dead-ended about thirty yards beyond the vertical access he needed.

More shouts behind him. Footsteps on cement. Lots of men running. A voice echoed down his passage, although he couldn’t tell what the man was screaming.