But it doesn’t matter anyway. My fire scared the man off. At least, he’s not there anymore. My ears are still ringing and there’s the gunfire back in the corridor, but I can just make out the sound of footsteps hurrying up the stairs.
I start up the steps, leaning toward the middle and looking up. I see them there, two men and Ashley. One of the men is the one who was just shooting at me. The other has Ashley draped over his shoulder like a fireman.
I shout at them to stop, which I realize a second later is stupid, as my gun’s empty and theirs, presumably, are not. This theory is proven correct when the man who was just shooting at me stops, leans over the railing, and shoots at me again.
Jumping back out of the way, I push myself against the wall, as if pushing hard enough might cause me to become absorbed by the cinderblock.
In that moment I’m aware of several things. My heart pounding in my chest. The footsteps above me heading up to the next level. The sporadic gunfire back in the corridor.
I weigh my options, but the truth is I don’t have many. Fact is, I hardly have any. I could try to go after Ashley, sure, but there are two men with guns-trained killers, no doubt-who still have bullets for their guns, while I currently have none. And then there’s the other option, which is diving back toward the gunfight behind me while, again, my gun is empty. Still, Eli has bullets, and if he doesn’t, well, then we’re both dead.
In the end, my decision is easy.
Because the man who isn’t carrying Ashley, the one who’s been shooting at me, heads back down the steps. Instead of hearing the two sets of footsteps going higher and higher, one is now going higher while the other is coming down. Right at me.
I dive back into the corridor.
• • •
Eli is coming at me right as I step out of the stairwell. He’s walking backward, shooting down the corridor. He bumps into me and spins around, his gun aimed at my face.
“Jesus Christ!” I shout, holding up my hands.
His eyes shift past me at the door. “Where’s Ashley?”
I shake my head, scanning the corridor. The two men are farther down there, making their advance. Behind me, the shooter is coming fast. Across the corridor is an open doorway.
“In there!”
I push Eli toward the doorway. He starts to protest, but that’s when the men farther down the corridor open fire again. Eli returns fire until, quite suddenly, his gun goes silent. By that point we’ve crossed the corridor into the open doorway. I slam the door shut and lock it, as if that’s going to do any good. Maybe provide us an extra second or two, but that’s it.
“I’m out,” Eli says. “How many rounds do you have left?”
“None.”
“Shit.”
Eli throws his gun at the floor, then takes a deep breath and looks around the room. We’re in an office. Filing cabinets line one wall, a counter with medical supplies lines the other. On the other end of the room is a door.
“Help me,” Eli says, charging toward the filing cabinets.
They’re heavy, but we manage to walk them over to the door just as someone tries to open it. A second later someone kicks at the door, but it only buckles in its frame.
Eli starts toward the other door, asking, “Where is she?”
“They took her.”
Eli opens the other door. A light automatically comes on. It looks like a lab. Hell, it is a lab, medical equipment everywhere.
On the other end of the lab is another door. If the layout is the same as David’s floor, then that door will lead out into a corridor that will loop back to the elevators.
We head toward the door, Eli scanning the contents of the lab, while behind us they keep trying to kick down the door with the filing cabinet in front of it. Pretty soon they’ll break the door down. Pretty soon they’ll enter the office and come tearing into the lab, which means we better hurry.
But Eli pauses at the door. He squints at something across the lab.
“What is it?” I ask.
He shakes his head and steps out into the corridor. I follow. We’ve gone maybe ten feet when suddenly he stops. Three gurneys are lined up against the wall. Eli goes to the first one, lifts the sheet hiding the bottom.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer me. He checks the second gurney, then the third gurney.
“Jackpot,” he says, bending and extracting a silver canister from beneath the gurney.
“What is that?”
“Oxygen.” He hands me the canister. “Follow me.”
He hurries back into the lab. He goes straight toward the corner where he was looking earlier. Here there’s a row of vials and beakers. He pushes them aside and grabs a Bunsen burner.
Eli snaps his fingers at me. “Give me the lighter.”
I check my pockets before realizing I gave it away. “I don’t have it.”
His head snaps up. “What?”
The door in the office buckles again. A few random gunshots accompany it this time.
Eli starts tearing open drawers, rummaging through them.
“What are you looking for?”
He shakes his head, concentrating, and then says, “Aha!” and pulls a flint spark from one of the drawers. He sets it and the Bunsen burner on the counter, then takes the silver canister. He unscrews the top valve, releasing a soft hissing noise.
“Take this and toss it in the office.”
I may sometimes be an argumentative son of a bitch, but at this point I’m not about to question anything. I take the canister and toss it into the office. When I turn back, Eli has the Bunsen burner in one hand, the flint spark in the other. He lights the burner, then looks at me, the seriousness deep in his eyes.
“Run.”
I run toward the other end of the lab just as the office door finally crashes open. I turn back at the last second and watch as Eli holds the Bunsen burner high over his head and then watch as he throws it into the office. The man standing there is the one from the stairwell. He raises his gun, but that’s as far as he gets. The Bunsen burner hits the ground, only inches away from the silver canister, and the world explodes.
The blast is enough to send a shockwave through the lab. Many of the glass vials and beakers shatter. Eli hits the ground, though it’s unclear whether or not it’s from the blast. The office beyond is filled with fire. At least one of the men is screaming. The sprinklers in the ceiling automatically turn on, and that alarm we heard before starts up again.
I scramble toward Eli. I kneel down beside him and ask him if he’s all right. He groans and nods and takes my hand, and I help him back to his feet. We hurry out of the lab into the corridor. Seconds later we’ve looped around to the elevators. The stairwell door is here. Down the hall we can see the three men. One of them is on the ground, motionless, while the two others stand over him. Neither one of them notices us, which is just as well. I let Eli go first, and then we’re in the stairwell headed down.
fifty-one
The first floor isn’t deserted like the others. We come out of the stairwell and there are people everywhere, mostly staff running around and shouting to be heard over the alarm. Whether the alarm had briefly gone off down here is impossible to say. The strobes are still flashing and the alarm is still blaring and almost immediately an employee spots us and hurries over and directs us toward the main exit.
“What’s happening?” Eli asks.
“We’re not sure, sir, but we’re looking into it. For now, please wait outside. We’ll let you know as soon as you can come back in.”
She doesn’t ask for our names, what floor we’re coming from, whether either of us is a patient. She’s too harried, too under pressure, to worry about things like that. She simply ushers us out the glass doors where even more employees are waiting. Someone else directs us toward the street. There are hundreds and hundreds of people lined up on the sidewalk. A few are in wheelchairs, some in beds.