She glanced up and, seeing the men coming for them, stayed close behind him as he started gently nudging people aside so that the two of them could get by. He needed to keep distance between them and the men coming after them, but at the same time he didn’t want to make it too obvious lest the men spot him and Jax running.
Alex excused himself to the people on the stairs, repeating along the way that he needed to help patients on the ground.
The descent of the seven flights of metal stairs, even pushing past people, seemed like it was taking forever. Alex kept track of the distance back to the men hunting them. The men were getting closer all the time, because they were far rougher about pushing people out of the way. At least most people, when they saw the white coats he and Jax were wearing and heard his repeated explanation, did their best to let them by.
A lot of the patients were petrified to be up on the rickety metal fire-escape stairs at night. They held on to the railing for dear life, inching along at a snail’s pace. They bottlenecked the people above them trying to get down. Jax gently but firmly lifted the hands of more than one person from the railing and with encouragement and reassurance got them moving.
From his vantage point up on the stairs among the confused people making what they considered to be a terrifying descent, he gazed out over throngs of people screaming, crying, running, wandering aimlessly, even sitting down, in the middle of a near-stampede. The thought occurred to him that he couldn’t imagine a scene any more chaotic than mental patients trying to escape a fire.
Irrational people in the hundreds were unable to cope with the necessary but simple task of getting away from a burning building. Half of them, it seemed, were crying for help and waiting for it to show up rather than escape the area.
Pushing past the frightened people on the stairs, Alex and Jax finally made it to the ground. They found themselves in the rear of the hospital among hundreds of people all rushing about in confusion. In the distance people were also pouring down emergency stairs from other areas of the institution.
There were a few orderlies and nurses trying to organize the patients and tell them where they needed to go. There were patients who were staying at the hospital for less serious conditions and some of them, too, were trying to help their fellow patients away from the burning building. There were a few people, driven by insanity, who, like salmon trying to swim upstream, were trying to push their way up the stairs against the flow of people coming down.
The lights suddenly went out as the electricity failed. The emergency generators should have kicked in. They didn’t. Two battery-backup security lights did come on, but they were far from adequate to light the whole back area of the hospital.
In the near darkness the fire looming above them seemed all the more frightening. The eighth floor was now also fully involved. Alex could see flames making their way across the roof from there to the main part of the hospital. He also saw fire on the fifth floor. He suspected that it had been set, just like the fire on the top floor had been.
Panicked people cried out and rushed faster to get away from the building as glass blown out of windows by the fire rained down on them. People on the ground were speared by shards of falling glass. Bloody people cried out for help. Some people stumbled and fell in the darkness. Alex and Jax helped a number of them to their feet so that they could get away.
All the while, they steadily and silently made their way across the flowing current of people coming off the fire escapes and running away from the building. Alex had walked over the uneven ground that rose and fell over the roots of the big old trees often enough that he could probably have done it with his eyes closed, so the near darkness wasn’t a hindrance.
Over the bobbing heads of people, he spotted a couple of the orderlies coming through the back parking lot. They pawed through the escaping people, searching, looking at everyone.
Alex rose up on his tiptoes and waved an arm to get their attention. He figured that they wouldn’t be able to recognize him in the flickering light of the flames, and they would only key in on his white coat. When they saw him, he pointed urgently away from the hospital.
“They’re over there!” he yelled. “They went that way!”
The bluff worked. The two men turned away and took off in the direction he had pointed to.
Jax arched an eyebrow at him. “That was risky.”
“Not as risky as them catching up to us.”
At the metal entrance door, he gently pulled, testing it. It was locked. He searched through the keys, trying each in turn, not knowing if Henry would have had a key to unlock an exterior door. The fourth key worked.
Alex paused to glance back over his shoulder at Jax.
She gave him a look. “I’m not waiting here,” she said before he could suggest it. “Hurry up. Let’s get what you need and get out of here before those men find us.”
Alex opened the door just enough for them both to slip inside. There was one emergency, battery-powered light some distance down a hall to the side. The exit sign above them over the door was lit up, casting the room in an eerie red glow that gave them at least a little light to see by. The sudden silence inside the place was unnerving.
Alex smelled gas.
He looked down the dark corridor toward where he knew the kitchens were, but he couldn’t see anything.
“They must have opened a gas line,” he whispered to Jax.
“What does that do?”
He looked at her, realizing then that she wouldn’t know, and realizing, too, how much the drugs were affecting him. He explained as he made his way through the dimly lit room toward the metal detector. “Natural gas is used in the kitchens, in the ovens and stoves, to make fire. It’s highly flammable. If it isn’t controlled, and enough of it escapes out into the air, it can easily explode.”
“Then we should get out of here, now.”
“You’re right. I just need to get the keys first.”
Jax skirted the metal detector and stood at the desk where Doreen usually sat, waiting as Alex groped around in the dark and finally located the table against the wall. He felt along the back of the tabletop and found a lone tub. He reached inside and to his relief his keys were still there along with his pocketknife.
“Got it.”
“Alex!”
He spun around to see Dwayne silhouetted against the red exit light. He came out of the dark swinging a nightstick. As Alex ducked, Jax snatched the blue pen attached to the clipboard and yanked it off, breaking the string.
Before Alex had finished ducking the swing of the nightstick, she used the pen to stab the side of the guard’s neck three times in rapid succession. He cried out. His hands flew to the puncture wounds in his throat. At the same time he turned to attack her. That was a mistake. As he lifted his nightstick Jax stabbed his eyes out with two lightning-quick jabs.
Before he could let out much of a scream, Alex had him from behind. He gripped the man’s jaw and twisted with all his might until he heard a sickening crunch of sinew and bone. He let the limp Dwayne slip to the floor.
“Why didn’t you use the knife?” he asked as she dropped the bloody pen.
She looked on the verge of frustrated tears. “My fingers are numb. They’re not working very well.” She gestured vaguely. “I must have dropped the knife out there somewhere.”
Alex put an arm around her waist when he saw her start to sink. “It’s all right. You’ll be able to rest as soon as we get to the truck. You’ll be all right after the drugs wear off and you get some sleep.”
“I’m not sure I can make it, Alex.”
“Sure you can. I’ll help you.” He tried to sound more confident than he was.
She glanced back toward the door. “I remember them saying that Dwayne was waiting to let Yuri in when he came back.”
Alex nodded. “I remember. I’ve got my keys. Let’s get out of here before Yuri gets here or the place blows up. We’ve done everything we can.”
