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Mac woke with a jolt that instantly brought to his attention the fact that he couldn’t move. An attempted shout later proved that he couldn’t speak, either, and any attempt to make a sound seemed to completely choke him. He took a deep breath through his nose and tried to adjust to his surroundings. It was dark, which didn’t give him much of a clue as to where he was. His arms and legs were tightly bound in a generous amount of duct tape. Cloth was shoved so far into his mouth that it took a conscious effort to keep from gagging. It seemed to be held in place by even more duct tape. All in all, the most he could do was wriggle a few inches like a slug.
“Okay, I just intercepted their radio signal, and you guys might want to get moving,” Riley’s voice crackled in his ear, and relief hit him like a truck. His com hadn’t fallen out or been taken.
“Why?” Jack asked suspiciously.
“Well, they seem to be planning to flood the place with some kind of poisonous gas in about… eight minutes, tops.”
Mac groaned and let his head fall to hit something metal beneath him.
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Jack said. “Mac, where are you?”
Mac rolled his eyes even though he was the only one who benefited from it. It was a good question. He needed to figure out where he was if he wanted any hope of getting out
“Mac?”
He squinted to look around, guided only by a thin sliver coming from a crack somewhere. Metal boxed him in from all sides—probably the morgue of the abandoned hospital they were in, then.
“Mac, you’d better come in right now.”
Judging by where the light was coming from, he was in a body shelf feet first. Maybe he could brace himself against the back and propel himself out—and with any luck, not land on his head and crack his skull open on the concrete floor.
“I’ve got his location,” Riley’s voice came again, sounding tense. “He’s a floor below you, and he’s not moving.”
“Got it,” Jack said curtly. The line went quiet and Mac inched as far as he could before shoving off the wall and straight into the metal door headfirst and ow, shit, that hurt. Maybe he wouldn’t be going out that way.
“Okay, Riley, I’m here, and I’m not seeing him,” Jacks voice came again. Mac could faintly hear him in inside the room, and he pulled his feet back and slammed them against the back of his metal coffin. It barely made any noise.
“That’s where his com is sending a location from.”
“Well he’s not here!” Jack snapped. “It must’ve fallen out, or something.”
“Uh, okay.” Riley sounded nervous now. Mac slammed his feet against the wall again, but didn’t have any more luck than the first time. “Shit—three minutes until they’re flooding the place. Jack, you gotta get out of there.”
“Not without Mac!”
Mac grimaced, braced his feet, and pushed himself hard. The sound of his head colliding with the door again was deafening, but maybe that was just because he was hearing it from inside his own skull.
“What was that?” Jack asked. Mac readied himself for another push.
“What was what?”
Bang. Mac let out a short grunt of pain that forced the gag further into his throat, cutting off his oxygen flow and effectively choking him. He barely registered the sound of Jack flinging open every door through his struggle for air until his senses were suddenly flooded with light and the upside-down face of his friend.
“Found him!” Jack yelled.
“Great, now get out of there!” Riley yelled back. Mac was yanked out of the shelf and thrown over Jack’s shoulders, receiving and excellent view of the ground as Jack sprinted out of the building. He squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to keep himself from getting sick and didn’t open them until he felt himself being set down on grass. Jack ripped the tape off and Mac retched out the cloth that had worked its way halfway down his throat.
“You good?” Jack panted as he cut through the tape holding Mac’s limbs. The hospital looked to be several hundred feet away. “You okay?”
Mac nodded. “Yeah.” He winced at how hoarse his voice sounded. “I’m good.”
“You sure about that?” Jack interrogated. “Because I’d sure like to know what happened to your head if you’re ‘good’.”
Mac frowned and reached up to feel his head. He immediately regretted the decision when his skull exploded with pain.
“I had to get your attention somehow,” he muttered. His hand came away from his head stained with blood.
“So you slammed your head into a steel door?” Jack asked incredulously. He ripped open a package of gauze and handed it over. “You could’ve cracked your skull open.”
Mac gave a lopsided shrug and winced as he pressed the gauze to his head. “Better than poisonous gas.”
“I can’t leave you alone for a second, can I?”
“Guys!”
They turned to see Riley running up to them, her backpack flapping wildly after her.
“Everyone okay?” she asked breathlessly as she got closer.
“Mac might’ve broken his head, but we’re good,” Jack said. “You?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Riley said. She leaned on her knees to recover from her sprint, and a few giggles worked out with her pants.
“What?” Mac asked suspiciously. Riley shook her head, her laughter increasing.
“I’m glad you’re okay, and all, but—” she dissolved into another fit of giggles, sinking down onto the ground.
“What?” Mac asked again. A grin was pulling at his mouth despite his best efforts.
“Jack hauling you out of there like a sack of potatoes was the funniest thing I’ve seen,” Riley got out. Jack rolled his eyes
“Okay, laugh it up,” he said.
“No, no, you gotta see it,” Riley gasped. She pulled out her phone and showed a shaky video of Jack dashing away from the hospital, Mac swinging wildly over his shoulder.
“I’m never deleting this,” she promised.
“Look at your face,” Mac said to Jack, pointing at the strange expression Jack wore while running.
“Hey, you try outrunning poison gas while carrying you,” Jack protested. “You’re no sack of feathers—if you two buffoons are done laughing, I for one would like to go home.”
“We can watch it again in the car,” Mac told Riley, starting up another round of laughter from her.