False Prey: A Wildfire Novella (The Wildfire Saga) by Richardson Marcus

Author:Richardson, Marcus [Richardson, Marcus]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: The Freeholder Press
Published: 2014-11-30T08:00:00+00:00

7

THE DOORKNOB RATTLED, JARRING Thomas from his painful slumber. He rolled onto his side and groaned at the pain in his ribs then cracked his good eye open to look at the door. The knob rattled again. He heard a whispered voice on the other side of the door. A quick glance at the alarm clock showed the time was just shy of 2pm. Danny Roberts, the reporter—his protector for the time being—had only been gone a few hours.

"...want any trouble..."

Thomas sprang fully awake at those three muffled words. It was from a second voice, he was sure of it.

Suddenly someone pounded on the door hard enough to make a little dust drift down from the top of the door frame. "Hey, you Korean bastard! We know you're in there! Open up and this'll go a lot easier on you!" Someone else hooted in the background. That made three.

Oh Jesus, they found me!

The door shuddered again. "If you don't open this door, I'll bust it in!"

Fear propelled Thomas to ignore the many screaming nerves in his abused body. He rolled himself off the bed and got to his feet as quickly and quietly as he could. He padded to the bathroom in bare feet, hoping that there was a window or something he had overlooked before. There had to be another way out—

"...break the window, Carl..."

"Lemme get my truck, we'll smash—"

"Stop it! Please! If you promise not to do anything stupid, here—take the keys..."

Thomas froze, half-in, half-out of the bathroom. His eyes darted over the spartan room. Two beds, a cheap table, two ancient chairs, an old, low dresser with four rickety drawers, and an even older dinosaur of a TV. Two mirrors, one behind the TV, one in the bathroom. No other exits besides the big window and the front door.

I'm trapped.

A key rattled in the lock.

Where the hell are you, Danny?

Thomas lurched forward on his badly bruised legs and turned around looking desperately for a weapon, anything he could use to defend himself. No tools, no pieces of wood, no pipes, no nothing. His heart began pounding in his chest, a cold sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades. He grabbed his cell phone off the dresser and backed into the bathroom. With shaking hands, he tried to get the phone to turn on.

The damn thing didn't recognize his unlock password. He tried a second time with his swollen fingers. The phone wouldn't let him get past the unlock screen. Thomas looked at it in utter disbelief.

"Seriously!?"

The front door swung open and Thomas looked up, half-crouched with the phone clutched in both aching hands. The light from outside silhouetted the first figure through the door. It was the local man from the church that had threatened him with a knife. Mosby.

"Well, look who we got here..." The angry man smiled and stepped into the room. His accomplice—the one at the church who'd had a bat—stepped across the threshold behind him.

"S-stay away from me!" Thomas shrieked, one hand holding the phone like a club.

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