The Tipping Point (Surviving the Fall 9)

While she had expected him to pass out relatively quickly due to the loss of blood, it took just over a minute for his body to go limp, though he grew progressively weaker throughout the time she sat on him, keeping him from moving or making any sounds. As the blood flow slowed and his head sagged forward, bumping into her chest, she jerked her hands back and stood up, stumbling backward until she hit the wall. She stared at the man’s body in disgust for another long moment before the sound of distant talking voices broke her from her morbid preoccupation with the man’s corpse.

As she picked up the scalpels and went over to retrieve the sledgehammer from the first man’s face, she was overwhelmed with a sense of satisfaction—a feeling that was entirely unexpected. There was a sense of disgust and shame over the fact that she had just taken the lives of two people in a wholly violent and nauseating way, but at the same time she felt immense relief at knowing that there were now two less people who could hurt her.

“Two down,” she whispered to herself as she pulled the sledgehammer free with a quick and squelchy tug, “ten to go.” Dianne didn’t really expect to kill each and every one of the twelve men in the building, but there were undoubtedly at least a few more in between her and the exit. Whatever it took to escape and get back to her friends and family was what she was going to do—no matter how many stood in her way.

“Okay, Dianne.” She clenched the blades in her left hand and hefted the sledge in her right. “Ten more to go. You can do this. You can do this.”

Chapter 6

Washington, D.C.

While Rick, Jane and Dr. Evans tried to give a wide berth to the location where the engine noises were coming from, the destruction in the city and the direction they had to walk to reach their destination forced them on a more or less direct path towards the sounds. With the residential neighborhoods far behind them and commercial, government and industrial buildings on all sides, they were close to the river when they finally spotted what was causing the ruckus.

A couple blocks down the street, just on the close side of the river, were a collection of people with rifles on their backs wearing black and blue jackets with the words “Capitol Police” emblazoned on the back in white lettering. A few of them wore simple seamed caps while the rest had on baseball caps, and all of the headwear carried the same lettering as the jackets. Upon seeing how the people were dressed, Dr. Evans and Jane’s first reactions were to sigh with relief and start moving into a position where they could call out to them. Rick, however, grabbed them both by the arms and pulled them back into a nearby building where they could observe the people working without being spotted.

“What the hell, Rick?” Jane pulled her arm away from him, giving him a dirty look in the process. “They’re the good guys!”

“Are you sure about that?” Rick snapped back at her. “How do you know they’re not some gang that killed a bunch of cops and stole their clothing? Or even if they are police, that they’re not just going to try and take everything we have under some pretense?

“I… I don’t—”

“Exactly. We don’t know. Which is why we’re going to take our time, watch them carefully, and then figure out what to do once we have more information.” He looked at Dr. Evans, seeking confirmation and backup, and the man sighed and nodded slowly.

“Rick’s right, Jane. We’re three versus what looks like at least a dozen or more.”

“Son of a…” Jane cursed under her breath, looked around the room they were in and then sat down on a chair that was covered in dust. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Rick stood close to the front of the building, peeking out through the large window that had long since been smashed in, either by a person or by the event. He could see clearly down the length of the street, and watched carefully as the men dressed in police outfits continued walking down the road. They didn’t seem particularly concerned about their surroundings as only a few of them had their weapons out and at the ready. Most of them gestured and spoke with each other, spending a great deal of time pointing at scorched vehicles in the road that were blocking their path.

After ten or so minutes of watching, the source of the engine noise that the trio had heard finally came into view. A pair of massive bulldozers, both of them painted orange, drove side by side next to each other as they went down the street. They turned the corner in unison, their tracks rolling along effortlessly across the pavement. As the bulldozers neared the men they slowed down and the men scattered to the sides of the street, making way for the massive vehicles to do their thing.

With plows nearly as tall as the cabs on the bulldozers, they pushed forward with the blades at opposite angles, working together as they drove headlong into the crowd of vehicles blocking their path. The horrible sound of groaning, screeching metal echoed down the street, causing Rick to wince and cover his ears as the wreckage in the road was pushed aside by the powerful machines. The men dressed in police uniforms walked beside and behind the bulldozers, staying clear of the debris they pushed out of the way and checking to make sure nothing was getting caught up in the treads.

While the pace of the bulldozers was slow, they were nothing if not powerful and they continued moving along in a steady fashion. It wasn’t until the bulldozers and the men were less than a block away from the building where Rick, Jane and Dr. Evans were hiding that Rick realized that they had a problem. Turning around, he looked at Jane and Dr. Evans, both of whom were standing and watching just beside him.

“We need to get out of the building,” Rick whispered.

“What?” Dr. Evans looked at him. “What for?”

“They’re checking buildings as they’re going by. We need to ease into a back room or something so we don’t get spotted.”

Jane turned and headed behind the co

unter of the shop they were in, only to stop and look at the wall. “That… might be a problem.”

Rick slipped back from the window and stood next to her. Behind the counter, where the outline of a doorway leading into the back of the shop was visible, was a pile of debris from where the back half of the building had collapsed in on itself. Rick glanced around the rest of the small establishment, looking for a place for them to hide, when he realized there was only one option.

“We need to try and break through before they get any closer. Then we can escape out the back and head around them.” Rick motioned at Jane and Dr. Evans. “Come on, let’s try to clear a path!”

As Rick and Dr. Evans moved towards the counter, intending to circle around and start work, Jane began tugging at a large cinderblock sticking out from the wall. As she pulled, the block and the rubble above it shifted, tumbling down towards her. She jumped back, trying to get out of the way, but tripped and fell down in a corner behind the counter as the rubble rained down on her legs, pinning her down and trapping her in place. Rick and Dr. Evans ran to her side and she groaned in pain, gritting her teeth together to try and keep from making any noise that might attract attention.

Rick knelt down next to Jane and took her hand as he looked at the piles of wood and rubble covering her lower half. “Are you okay?!”

Jane nodded slowly, closing her eyes and keeping her jaw clenched shut from the pain as she hissed through her teeth. “I think so. It hurts like hell, though!”

“Grab the bags,” Rick whispered to Dr. Evans, “And bring them back behind the counter. We’ll have to hide out back here while we try to get her free.”

Dr. Evans did as Rick asked, tossing their bags near the front of the shop over the counter before heading around behind it with Rick and Jane. Rick was already working on pulling the rubble off of Jane, setting it gently to the side to keep from making too much noise, and Dr. Evans joined in. With their limited weaponry they knew that if they were discovered and the men in the street were hostile, things weren’t going to go well.