“Was just about to call you. Eli and his son and the girl slipped us.”
“I know,” Tyson said. “That’s why I’m calling.”
“You found them?”
“Yep.”
“They reach the lobby yet?”
“Not even close.”
“Where?”
“Fifth floor. For some reason they’re headed up.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Nope. They’re playing right into our hands.”
They burst through the waiting room door into the hallway deserted only for the woman’s dead body on the carpet.
Zach said, “We’re headed up now.”
forty-nine
Up they went, past the people coming down, the steps almost too narrow for two people to fit through at the same time but somehow they managed to make it work, keeping to the cinderblock walls and the metal railing and pushing onward.
Ashley didn’t quite understand what Eli was doing, why he was taking them up when they should be headed down, but it was clear he knew more about what was going on than any of them. So far his instincts seemed to be right, even when those instincts had almost gotten them killed. And so they kept going, past the fourth floor, past the fifth floor, until they reached the sixth floor and the continuous line of people almost disappeared completely. They were all behind them now, nothing in front of them, meaning they could keep climbing the stairs without any interruptions.
But that wasn’t Eli’s plan. He stopped at the sixth floor service door, pulled his gun from his pocket. “This way.”
Ashley and John withdrew their guns. She didn’t know about John, but she found a strange form of comfort in the rubber grip. Especially after everything she had experienced in the past two days. Especially after what David Smith said.
The girl, too.
Those words kept echoing in her head. They just didn’t make sense.
Eli went first, then John, then Ashley.
The floor appeared to be empty.
John asked, “What are we doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
Eli was looking up and down the corridor. Something caught his eye.
“Shit.”
“What is it?”
“Of course.” Eli shook his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about it before. Come on, let’s go.”
They started down the corridor. As they reached the end, Eli took his gun and swatted at the security camera positioned against the wall near the ceiling. He didn’t knock it down, though Ashley didn’t think that had been his intention. What he had done instead was made it so the lens was now focused not down the corridor, but toward the wall.
John glanced back at the camera. “They know exactly where we are.”
“Yes.”
“And they’re probably headed here right now.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t we head down with everyone else?”
Eli stopped to catch his breath. “They were expecting it. They probably have people down on the first floor waiting for us. We would have been walking straight into their arms.”
“But so would everyone else. There would have been a ton of witnesses.”
“You think these people care about witnesses?”
John said nothing to that. Ashley knew Eli had a point.
“My plan,” Eli said, “was to wait this out. They can’t keep this emergency going forever. It’s only been, what, five or ten minutes? They have to know there isn’t a fire by now, that there’s no real threat. They’re going to have to start letting people back into the hospital soon.”
John was nodding. “And when everyone comes back in, we slip out.”
“That was the original plan.”
“What’s the plan now?”
Before Eli could respond, the alarm stopped blaring. There was a sudden deep silence despite the echoing in her head. But the strobes kept flashing, which meant the alarm was still in progress.
“What does that mean?” John whispered.
Eli looked up and down the corridor. “I’m not sure.”
“We can’t wait here. We’re sitting ducks.”
They started back down the corridor, but slowly, the rubber soles of their shoes making small squeaks on the shiny linoleum. In the silence it was the loudest noise, and every time Ashley’s shoe made a squeak she jumped as if it were a gunshot.
It was so quiet that, several seconds later, they heard the faint and distant ding of an elevator as its doors slid apart.
• • •
A door was open nearby. Eli started toward it. John went to follow but paused, looked at her, and motioned her to go first.
Ashley gritted her teeth just thinking about how much her shoes would squeak. After they had come so far, it would be just her luck that her squeaking shoes got them killed. She lifted her foot and extended her leg and placed all her weight on the toe. She leaned forward and brought back her other leg and did the same motion of placing her weight on the toe until she had reached the door. She had done it without any noise, thankfully, and now here Eli was with his gun up, motioning John to hurry as well.
Footsteps sounded out down the corridor.
John made it through the door without any trouble. Here the floor was still linoleum, not carpet like it had been back down in Neurology.
John whispered, “Now what?”
Eli thought about it for a moment. He glanced around the room, which seemed to be a back office with medical equipment. “Stairs.”
“The ones we just used?”
Eli nodded.
John made a face. Clearly he didn’t like it. Ashley didn’t either. She also didn’t think Eli liked it much, but what else was there to do? These men obviously knew they were on this floor. They were already on this floor, for Christ’s sake, coming this direction. Time was running out.
Eli stepped up close to the door. He peeked around the corner. The footsteps were faint, the men no doubt trying to keep quiet, but still it sounded like they were headed this way.
Eli held up his hand. He whispered, “On three, you two run. I’ll cover you.”
John raised his gun in the ready position.
Ashley did the same.
Down the corridor, the footsteps grew closer.
Eli peeked around the corner again. At once his posture changed. He said, “Shit,” and then shouted, “Go!” and raised his gun down the corridor and started shooting.
• • •
John went first. He grabbed her hand, his gun in the other hand, and leaned out the door firing down the corridor. Then he was out and he was running and she was running, too, both of them running backward, firing up the corridor at the two men coming their way. The men were returning fire but the fire was sporadic, a few shots here, a few shots there. The wall coughed plaster and Ashley flinched as pieces hit her face. But still she kept shooting until there were no more bullets left. By then they were at the service stairwell door. She opened the door and started to take a step forward but screamed when she saw two more men standing just inside, both with guns. John, directly behind her, spun around. One of the men fired at John. John dove away as the other man grabbed Ashley’s arm and yanked her through the door and the other one kept firing and the sound in the stairwell made it seem like her head was going to split and she was screaming and tried kicking but someone held her legs in place and then something was over her face, something suffocating her, stealing her breath, and everything went dark.
fifty
One second she’s there, and the next second she’s gone.
It happens just like that.
The gunfire continues down the corridor, Eli shooting at the two men and the two men shooting back at Eli.
And Ashley is now gone, the door slammed behind her.
I push open the door and step into the stairwell and almost get shot. Bullets zing and thwack against the wall. Bits of cinderblock explode.
I duck down, covering my face, and peek over my arm. A man is standing at the top of the stairwell, right where it turns and ascends to the next level. He takes aim and fires again. I dive out of the way, rolling to the wall. I jump back up, my own gun aimed right at where he was standing, and I squeeze off as many rounds as I can before the slide kicks back. I’m no expert, but I know what that means. The gun is empty. Not good.