The Kidnapping

Rendezvous - Kidnapping Part 5

          When the roll up door was raised, me and Greg was greeted with a flower that we had only heard about in legend: garlic. It was woven into a reef that hung on the glass door of the old shop. A tall bald man opened the door, looked me up and down, then Greg and finally at the bundle we had with us. He was wearing a flak vest with a magazine pouch attached low at the side so it would swing at his hip like a gun holster. Inside that make shift holster was a spray can of some kind. From the flowers and smell, I figured that it wasn't pepper spray. "Hurry up," he grumbled, and ushered us inside.

The scene inside warmed my heart a bit. The inside of the building was bare. The walls suggested that at one point it was a store of some kind, with peg boards for hooks designed to hold up goods for sale during happier times. The hooks were gone, but the peg board remained. An ancient cash register sat towards the back collecting dust on a glass counter that now only held dusty cobwebs.

A large round table sat in the center of the room. The bald man sat in a folding chair opposite of the door. Five other people sat around the table. They were all wearing flak vests, and double checking their ammunition. "I'm Jeff," the guy said. He pointed at two women to his left. "That's Sarah and Samantha. The twins." They were not paternal twins. But each one gave a nod almost in unison at the mention of their names, their eyes never looking up from their weapons. "The one closest to the door there is Harry. Next to him is Bob and Dweezle."

Each one nodded in time at the mention of their names. No one bothered to get up or even look at us. They each had two glocks set out in front of them, and about a hundred fifty rounds of ammunition. A couple even had hand grenades. They all wore grim faces of determination. Me and Greg waited, listening to the music of clicks and ticks of people checking and re-checking their weapons. The soundtrack of battle preparation.

"Well," I said raising my voice over the noise. "I guess you're the one's who's gonna..."

"We'll escort you all the way to the drop off," Sarah said without raising her eyes up from her equipment. "You'll find four pistols in the back, and about eighty rounds of ammunition total, already loaded."

"Each of you have at least eight magazines. Why is it that we're only getting two," Greg grumbled.

"Because," Jeff said, "You got the very difficult job of dropping off a bag. We have the easy one of holding off every vampire in the city while you do so. We need the ammunition more than you do."

"Normally Greg's an idiot," I grumbled. He gave me a glare but didn't say anything, "But this time he's right 'Jeff'. We need ammunition too. Can't tell what we're going to walk into."

"Well, we had plenty for you until one of you two idiots killed one of the older ones," Bob replied, checking his hand grenade. "When you did that, you painted a target on yourselves and everyone in this damn city."

"But, that's impossible," Greg snapped. "We weren't anywhere near that blood sucker when he..."

Dweezle turned and looked at us. One of his eyes was whited out. A deep scar ran down his face from his eye socket all the way down his cheek. He merely pointed at the ankle biter. "Doesn't matter," he said. "But cheer up, you can have our ammo when we die. How's that?"

"If we can even get to you when you do," I grumbled. "Come on Greg, let's get loaded up."

The warmth in my heart had faded into a cold bitterness. We walked back into the storeroom and found it to be empty except for two boxes and a shelf that had our pistols on it. I opened one of the boxes and found more cans of that spray. "Set the ankle biter down," I muttered as I began spraying myself with the can. The pungent odor of garlic filled the room.