The knife kept nosing its way out.
Ahlward gave a hard, two-handed shove. Latch came loose. Inertia threw Ahlward backwards, off the desk top, onto the swivel chair, stricken by astonishment.
Milo moved unsteadily toward the gun. Reached out for it, touched the butt, missed. The weapon skidded across the wooden surface and sailed away, landing somewhere on the floor.
Ahlward dove for it.
I felt a hand on my wrist, yanking. Freeing my hands. “C’mon!”
Milo limped toward the door. I followed him, dazed. Watching Latch sink to the floor, the knife still embedded in his neck. Hands grabbing the handle, gurgling, trying to yank it free.
Salivating blood.
His eyes rolled back…
Yanking me.
The two of us out the black door, slamming it.
Into the hall. Four black-shirts, smiling, as if savoring the tail end of a joke. They saw us and the smiles hung in mid-air.
Milo howled at them and kept coming. The smiles vanished and they looked terrified. Naughty kids, unprepared for reality. One, a dark-haired fat boy with an old man’s jowls, wore a bolstered pistol and reached for it. I used my shoulder and hit him hard. Ran past the sound of pain-screams and cracking bone.
Running through a cardboard alley.
Warning shouts. The crackle of gunfire.
We took the first turn available, meeting up with two more Gestaposcouts- girls. They could have been sorority sisters discussing pledge night. One put a hand to her mouth. We hurtled past, bowled them over, heard girl- squeals.
Fuck chivalry.
More gunshots.
Louder.
I looked back as I ran, saw Ahlward, pumping his legs, screaming orders that no one was heeding. Calling for his troops, but the troops were frozen, unprepared for reality.
A cold rush of wind as something tore into a carton inches from my head.
Another turnoff, just a few yards away. We ran for it. Above all the noise I could hear Milo gasping, saw him put a hand to his chest.
More gunshots.
Then a louder sound.
Earthquake loud, rumbling up from the cement floor. Rattling the floor as if it were paper.
Cartons tumbled in our path like giant, tantrum-stricken building blocks. Someone screamed.
More screams. Panic. The way the schoolyard must have sounded.
Another rumble. Even stronger, bouncing us like toys, knocking us to the floor.
More boxes toppled. Cartons shot up in the air, tossed by an unseen juggler, and landed with dull, sickening thumps.
Milo tripped, was down. I helped him to his feet. He looked deathly, but resumed running.
No sign of Ahlward, a jumble of cardboard behind us, shielding us.
We made the turn. Black-shirts scattering. The auto-shop smell of seared metal…
Another roar.
The hiss of disintegrating plaster.
We climbed over boxes, ran around them. Milo stopped, hand on chest, legs bowed, head down.
I called his name.
He said, “… fine…” He swallowed air, did it again, nodded dully, and began moving again.
Another explosion. The building shivered like a wet puppy. More cartons crashed down around us, a Vesuvius of PRINTED MATERIALS.
We swerved, dodged, managed to make our way through the rubble. Another turn. Past the forklift…
Metal clatter, more hiss. More thunder. Screams of agony.
The hiss grew louder. Joined by an unmistakable odor.
Burning paper. A sudden, burgeoning heat.
Demolition music. Tongues of orange licking the ground just a few feet away.
Filthy, inky smoke oozed from between the boxes, rising to the top of the warehouse, darkening it.
The heat intensified. Through it another cold rush.
Ahlward emerging from the smoke, howling soundlessly, ignoring the smoke that churned behind him, mindless with hate.
He aimed again.
There was a clearing in the cardboard wall. I ran toward it, realized Milo wasn’t with me. Looking over my shoulder, I saw him. Hand to chest.
A wall of smoke had risen between him and Ahlward. Shots came through it.
Milo looking from side to side, disoriented. I went back for him, grabbed his hand. Felt the resistance of his weight on my wrist, straining the sinews…
I pulled hard. He managed to get going again. I saw the sliding metal door of the loading dock just a few yards up. Shredded like foil and blackened around the edges.
Metal fragments scattered on the ground. Glinty treasure on a bed of masonry dust.
And something else.
A black-shirt. Prone. Blond crew cut. Pale, broad face. White eyes. Husky body stretched out, limp.
Two pieces of body. The trunk separated from the legs. Bifurcated by sliding-door shrapnel.
Closer to the door, another corpse, half buried in metal and offal. A charred head above hamburger. Four others, barely discernible, moist spots in the ash pile.
My gorge rose. I began to choke.
Chemical fumes.
The warehouse was a furnace, flames reaching to the ceiling, smoke thickening as it rolled toward us, a greasy tornado.
A black form emerged from the charcoal mass.
Ahlward, sooty and singed, jerking his head from side to side as if shaking off leeches.
Sighting us. Screaming. Lifting his big black gun.
I went for the largest hole in the shredded door, pulled Milo through it, slipping on the blood-slick floor, feeling the crunch of metal and bone beneath my shoes.
Outside. Fresh air. Gasoline-stink air.
The two of us lurched along the loading dock.
Fumes and flames poured out of the warehouse, out of shattered windows, the ravaged metal door. Shooting out of the gaping holes that had been blown in the wall.
Milo’s breathing was raw and labored. I pulled him down the stairs, into the parking lot.
An incoherent scream rose at our backs.
Ahlward out on the dock, highlighted by the burning building. Looking very small. Aiming. A true believer.
Gunfire.
A frog-song ratatat.
Didn’t know a pistol could make a sound like that.
Another burst. From our backs.
Trapped?
Frogs sang again.
I looked over my shoulder, saw Ahlward jerk and fall, saw the pistol go flying into the inferno.
The flames rolled out of the warehouse and ate him.
Dessert.
