The Tipping Point (Surviving the Fall 9)

The single patient room next to the stairwell was small and sparse, with a neatly made up bed in the corner, a television on the opposite wall and an uncomfortable-looking recliner near the window. Dianne eased the door open quickly, relieved that the hinges didn’t let off so much as a creak, then swiftly closed it and turned to look for a place to conceal herself. The only place inside the room that she could hide in was the bathroom, which—like the room itself—had a door without a lock on it. The shower was built into a deep recess in the wall, though, and the curtain was thick, tall and permanently affixed on rollers to a bar mounted into the wall itself.

Dianne eased into the shower and closed the curtain on the side closest to her, wrinkling it up a bit to try and make things look natural. She leaned to the side and took several deep breaths, the backpack, weapons and supplies stuffed in her jacket all contributing to a slowly growing feeling of claustrophobia.

“Breathe, Dianne. Breathe.” She whispered to herself again as she clenched her eyes shut and took slow, steady breaths, willing the feeling away before it could overwhelm her.

There, in that small bathroom inside a small patient’s room on the third or fourth floor—she could no longer remember how far up she was—she leaned against the cold tile wall and waited for what she fully expected to be death to come for her. Her death, in that moment, was inconsequential. Her thoughts instead turned to Jason, and how he was in pain and suffering from a fever and infection that would soon consume him. She thought of her children and wondered if Tina and Sarah would be able to take care of Mark, Jacob and Josie or whether they would succumb to the cold, thieves or some other threat.

With no word from Rick and no way to get in touch with him, giving up seemed easier than ever. She was one woman against a dozen armed men, all of whom were undoubtedly angered beyond belief and would kill her—or worse. Dianne flicked on her light and looked down at the pistol in her hand and at the strap of the rifle hanging over her shoulder. Going down fighting was the honorable way out, and she figured she could take at least three or four of them with her, and perhaps wound a few others along the way.

The scrape of footsteps on the stairs outside the room was faint, but caused Dianne’s thoughts to seize up and her body to tense. She held her breath, listening as a pair of feet plodded up the last few steps and stopped just outside her room.

“We’ve got to stop for a few minutes. This walking and climbing nonsense is killing my back.”

“Yeah, just be glad we’re not back at the gas station. That fire killed a few of the workers. He is pissed. His best bitch was one of them. Died in the first explosion.”

“That one with the long blonde hair?”

“Yup.”

“That was his favorite?” The voice chortled. “Did he not know she was getting used by everyone and their brother, too?”

The other voice laughed. “Nope. Best hope he doesn’t find out, either, otherwise he’ll start killing all the rest of ‘em and leave us with nothing at all.”

“He won’t kill the kids. They’re good for labor if nothing else.”

“Until they get to a certain age, am I right?”

As Dianne listened to the two men carry on with their conversation, she felt herself growing angrier by the second. With all of the drama surrounding Tina’s capture and subsequent liberation and Jason’s injury, Dianne hadn’t given much thought to the other people not part of the gang who had been at the gas station. While she wasn’t all that surprised to hear what the men were saying, she was nonetheless infuriated by it.

She glanced down at her pistol again before slipping it into its holster, then carefully put the small sledgehammer in between her thighs to keep from bumping it onto the floor of the shower. She rummaged through her pockets, pulling out the medical tape and a few of the sealed scalpels. She unwrapped them slowly, wincing at every crinkle in their packaging as she wondered when the men would hear, but they were too absorbed in their conversation to pay her any mind.

Once she had three of the scalpels unwrapped, she pressed them together and carefully wound a long piece of medical tape around them, both strengthening them as a weapon and giving herself extra grip when holding on to their handles. The three blades were lethally sharp and shimmered in the glow of her flashlight, and though they weren’t meant to be used as offensive tools, she had no doubt that they’d stand up to at least a few slashes and stabs.

Dianne’s hands shook as she worked, both from adrenaline and rage, and when she finished working on the scalpels she picked up her flashlight from the small shelf in the shower where she had placed it, slipped it into her pocket and took the sledgehammer back into her left hand. Using the gun would virtually guarantee that she would be able to kill both men, but mere escape was no longer her objective. Her mind was clouded with a red mist, obscuring common sense and reason and her sense of self-preservation. She would kill as many of the men in the facility as she possibly could, and with each death there would be one less terror afflicting the innocent.

Chapter 3

Washington, D.C.

Rick had expected the city to be quiet, but it was quite the opposite. A soft whistling wind carried through the devastated streets of Washington, sending swirls of ash and bits of trash tumbling and floating along. The wind played a backdrop to a chorus of groans, creaks and snaps as the buildings in the city settled into their new existence. Foundations warped by the intense heat popped and snapped as they cooled while bits of roofs and walls that hadn’t completely collapsed slowly moved around in the wind, parts of them occasionally crashing down.

The steady crunch of Jane’s, Dr. Evans’ and Rick’s footsteps echoed through the rubble as they stepped over the remains of cars and buildings, picking their way slowly toward the center of the city. The sun was sinking slowly in the sky behind them, making each step more difficult than the last and forcing them to slow down so that they wouldn’t trip and fall.

The Capital Beltway (Interstate 495) and other roads that intersected with it helped to form fire breaks that kept large swaths of buildings and neighborhoods intact from the fires that raged nearby. The timing of the initial explosions meant that most vehicles were away from residences at the time, which further helped to keep those sections from being completely destroyed in the initial fires.

After crossing the beltway near Falls Church, the trio made their way east, with their goal being to make it to Arlington by the following night. From there they would strike out across the Potomac River, either by bridge or by boat, and they would then be inside Washington proper. Dr. Evans first wanted to visit Foggy Bottom, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Washington and the home of the United States State Department, a choice that struck Rick as more than a little odd.

“Dr. Evans, I’m not an expert on politics or the federal government or anything of that nature, but why would the NSA have a facility there?”

Dr. Evans grunted as he jumped over a telephone pole lying in the street. “My suggestions are based entirely off of what I overheard and read during the initial attacks. There was a lot of talk going on about a ‘control center’ in Washington, and Foggy Bottom popped up as one of three potential locations, though again, it’s all based on what I overheard and caught glimpses of in paperwork I shouldn’t have been looking at.”

Jane chuckled and clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Tsk tsk, Doc. Reading things you shouldn’t have?”

“Yes, well, at the time I was scared that I might go to jail. Little did I realize there was a fate in store for me that’s far, far worse.”

“You said three locations, right?” Rick tried to steer the conversation back on track. “What were the other two?”

“The NSA cooperated on the project with the CIA after they bought it out.”