Justice by David Wood Page A

jacket, took a deep breath, forced the air out of his lungs in a whoosh, and squeezed sideways into the narrow passageway.
    Maddock watched his friend fade slowly into the darkness. The footsteps were coming closer.  “Are you almost there?”
    Bones let out a grunt and, with a dull scraping sound, forced his bulk out of the crevice. “Come on.”
    Maddock followed quickly, though his muscular frame made things difficult for him, too. When both were on the other side, they shone their lights around, looking for a way out.
    They were in some sort of old cellar, forgotten by the looks of it. Dust and cobwebs coated the ancient brick walls, and black mold clung to the beams above their head.
    “We need to find a way out, and quick,” Maddock said. “If the Sons catch up with us, and we’re waving these flashlights around, our side passage here is useless.”
    Bones quickly spotted a trapdoor in the ceiling at the far corner of the room. “There’s no way up.” He shone his beam down on a crumbling pile of wood that might have once been stairs.
    “We’ll have to do this in proper military fashion,” Maddock said.
    Bones grinned. “Just like the obstacle course. Let’s do it.”
    They quickly positioned themselves beneath the trapdoor. Bones knelt and Maddock climbed onto his friend’s shoulders. Maddock wasn’t exactly a lightweight, but Bones had no trouble lifting the smaller man up.
    Maddock tried the trapdoor. It wouldn’t budge.
    “Guess you’ll have to bust through it.” Bones’ voice didn’t indicate the slightest bit of strain at holding Maddock’s solid one hundred eighty pounds. The man was a beast.
    “Unless there’s something heavy sitting on top of it.”
    “Always the optimist,” Bones said. “Just try it.”
    Maddock drew back his hand, palm open. If this didn’t work, the sound was certain to draw their pursuers directly to them. That could get ugly. Nothing he could do about it now. He threw all of his strength into the blow. He struck the soft wood with the heel of his palm, letting out a guttural keop , martial arts style. The trapdoor shattered like a movie prop. Two more blows and the way was open.
    “Nothing like dry rot to make you look like a badass,” Bones said.
    Maddock climbed up into a pitch black room, turned and reached back to help Bones up.
    “Don’t bother. I got this.” Bones took a few steps back and ran toward the corner below the trapdoor. He leaped up, kicked off of one side of the wall, and then the other, each push propelling him upward. With a grunt of effort, he caught the lip of the trapdoor with the tips of his fingers. “Okay. Help?” he gasped.
    Under a different set of circumstances, Maddock would have let him fall as a punishment for his hubris, but they didn’t have time. He grabbed Bones by the wrists and hauled his friend up.
    “You’re strong for such a little guy,” Bones stood and reached out to tousle Maddock’s hair, but Maddock knocked his hand aside. “So touchy. Where do you think we are?”
    “A storage area.” The beam of Maddock’s light fell on crates marked COSTUMES and a heap of outdated lighting fixtures. “A theater, by the looks of it.”
    “Any prop weapons we can use? A spear or something?”
    “Not that I can see, but let’s try and make it tough on these guys.” He hefted one of the crates and placed it over the gaping hole in the floor, and then leaned a few of the lighting fixtures onto it to add some weight. It wasn’t much, but it might slow the Sons down. Now to find an exit.
    Bones had already found the door. “Locked,” he said after trying the knob. “But not for long.” He lashed out with a powerful side kick and the door swung open with a sharp crack of breaking wood as the facing shattered.
    Maddock shook his head. “You have the delicate touch of the finest craftsman.”
    “I get crap done. That’s what matters.”
    They came out in a dark hallway that led to a narrow stairway. The dust