Chapter 15
I nearly fell on the next flight.
My legs felt weak and disconnected.
We reached the first-floor landing.
Smoke was thicker there.
Tanner pushed the door into the lobby.
A wave of smoke rolled through.
Someone shouted, "Other exit!"
There wasn't time to discuss it.
Behind us, the stairwell door banged.
We went through.
The lobby looked like a different building.
The decorative table near the mailboxes lay overturned.
Glass from the front entrance covered the tile.
Smoke came from the east hallway, thick enough now to sting my eyes.
A fire burned somewhere out of sight.
Not huge.
Not yet.
But real.
The younger guy from 301 ran straight for the broken front entrance.
"Wait!" I shouted.
He didn't.
He disappeared outside.
Mrs. Patel followed more carefully.
Tanner had Marcy by the hand.
Dombrowski coughed hard enough to bend over.
I looked back.
The woman from upstairs emerged from the stairwell.
Half her neck was missing.
I didn't wait.
We ran outside.
Cold air hit my face.
The eastern sky had begun turning gray.
The parking lot looked as though a storm had passed through.
Car doors hung open.
One vehicle idled with nobody inside.
Shopping bags lay across the pavement.
A sedan had jumped the curb near the leasing office.
The younger guy from 301 was already sprinting toward the far row of cars.
Mrs. Patel headed for a blue SUV.
Marcy and Tanner moved toward a white Mazda.
Dombrowski stopped.
"Where's your car?" I asked.
He pointed toward the other side of the building.
"Come with me."
He shook his head.
"You cannot go around there alone."
"My pills."
"Forget the pills."
"My car's over there."
"Forget the car. Come with me."
He looked across the lot.
A woman moved slowly between two parked vehicles forty yards away. Another figure stood too still near the dumpsters.
Dombrowski said, "Go."
"I'm not leaving you."
"You are."
"Mr. Dombrowski—"
"I'm old."
"You're sixty-eight, not ninety."
"Seventy-two."
"Congratulations. Get in my car."
He smiled.
Then the woman between the cars turned toward us.
Her face was bloody.
Dombrowski's smile vanished.
"Go."
I hesitated.
One second.
Maybe two.
That was all.
Then I ran.