Chapter Thirty-Five
(Thursday Night, Time Unknown—Carl)
Carl woke slowly, struggling through waves of pain that crashed over his body. He sat up, and regretted it immediately. One of his fingers was probably broken, and his left shoulder spasmed when he raised his arm to feel his face.
Perversely, he wanted a mirror. The bruises on his face and abdomen, and the blood that had spurted from his broken nose to cover his lower face and the front of his shirt, probably looked pretty awful. He wanted to see his reflection, so he could find the best words to describe it. To whom? His readers?
He laughed briefly, discovering a broken rib. At least one, maybe two, but who cared? Apparently on some level he still thought he could get out of this, if he was planning a column. Obtuse of him, but he might as well try.
Well, pounding on the door was out. It hadn’t seemed like a bad plan, but one of the thugs had come in and turned out to be handy with a baseball bat. Carl had passed out when he’d been hit behind the right ear. He hoped he didn’t have a concussion on top of everything else.
At least he’d woken up, which in itself was a resounding victory (that was the proper tone for the column). But time had passed, possibly several hours. His watch hadn’t survived the beating. Sheffield hadn’t come yet, though, as far as he knew. Carl was grateful to be alive, but he still needed to do something. Something…else.
He froze when he heard footsteps approaching the door of the room they’d put him in. The floor creaked as whoever it was looked through the window Carl had broken earlier. Carl slammed his eyelids shut, imagining a giant gate that would seal off the room with the goons on the other side.
“Still out,” he heard. “Probably won’t wake up till tomorrow—or not at all, the way you bashed hell out of him.”
“Who cares?” another voice responded. This one had a whining edge to it. Okay, Carl dubbed him Whiny. Whiny, who was skilled with a baseball bat.
“Not s’posed to let the prevert know about him,” the first voice said. “Any noises in there and we’ll hafta do some splainin’. Might end up killin’ ‘em both, I don’t know.” So this was Killer. Killer and Whiny. Who was the “prevert”?
Carl heard a distant pounding noise. It sounded oddly familiar. Maybe it was what had woken him up? He strained to hear what was going on.
“Okay, let ‘im in,” Killer said. He walked away from Carl’s door. Carl gulped dusty air, then had to hold his breath to keep from coughing. Somehow he’d gotten short of breath, trying to be still. Stupid. He’d been pretending to be unconscious, not dead.
He heard a door open, then a muffled conversation. Was that Sheffield? Carl drew himself up painfully and staggered toward the door with the grace of wildflowers in a spring breeze (for the column again…but maybe that was too much).
Several minutes of silence followed. Finally he heard the girl’s voice, coming faintly from somewhere near the building’s entrance. From the tone, she was saying something scornful.
He decided he liked her spirit, and was trying to force a grin when suddenly she shrieked and cried out. “No!” he heard, and he was nearly at the door when he heard a gun fire twice, then once again. He breathed as quietly as he could and waited.
The girl’s voice had quieted somewhat—she was sobbing angrily, not screaming. Carl leaned out through the broken window, but quickly jerked his head back when he saw someone approaching. It was neither of the thugs who’d brought him here, which pleased him somewhat, but he wasn’t about to assume whoever had shot them was necessarily on his side. Maybe this was the prevert?
The girl’s voice rose again, taunting someone, then died away after what sounded like a slap. Carl’s hands tightened, but he seemed unable to make them into proper fists. He looked down. Ah. Two broken fingers.
He stared at his hands, wondering what was going on out there, until he heard liquid splashing on the floor. A moment later the acrid tang of fresh gasoline burned in his already-mistreated nose.
Oh hell, he was in the rear of the damned building. Maybe there would be an emergency exit or something? And what about the girl? Was she hurt? He stuck his arm through the broken window and unlocked the door. He opened it and slipped out, trying to move silently.
He spotted a figure in the gloom ahead. Dim artificial illumination spilled through windows in the front of the building. So it was dark outside. He squinted at the man pouring gasoline. Backlighting. Great. Now if Carl only had a gun it would give him an easy shot. But…he had to challenge the guy somehow anyway. He wasn’t going to stand still and be incinerated.
A crashing sound came from behind him. He spun quickly. The remnants of the glass in the window he’d broken earlier had chosen this moment to fall out of the frame. Oh…that was just unfair.
Carl turned his head. The figure he’d seen earlier was pointing something at him. Carl tried to jump to the side, but a bullet grabbed his left shoulder and spun him to the floor.
He lay there, in full view, and tried not to move. His shoulder didn’t hurt, not yet. He didn’t know how much blood he was losing, but he didn’t dare turn his head to look. If he showed any sign of life, he was sure the man who’d shot him would finish him off. Of course he might anyway.
Carl could hear the guy moving around, but nothing more from the girl. Finally the man at the front of the building gave a satisfied grunt and stepped outside.
The warehouse roared. Air rushed from Carl’s lungs as the front of the building seemed to explode. He rolled to his knees, goggling at the ferocity of the flames. Almost absently, he felt his shoulder to check the bleeding, but all he could say for sure was that his hand was bloody when he was done.
He got to his feet, but stayed low to avoid inhaling more smoke than he had to. He moved back into the building. This would be a good moment to find that door or back window he’d wondered about. Carl hoped the guy who’d set the fire had left quickly, rather than hanging around to shoot him again if he got out.
A few minutes later he realized he wasn’t going to find an exit. The old warehouse building had already filled with smoke. His lungs and eyes burned, and he didn’t see any way out—except the door the arsonist had used, on the far side of the flames.
Carl gazed into the raging inferno that had swallowed the front of the building. An interior door drifted up into the air, crisping and curling as it floated above the flames. He was going to have to try to run through that.
He spotted an old blanket on the floor and hurried to the bathroom to soak it and his clothes in water.
Should he try to run right away, before he passed out from the smoke or was crushed when the roof fell on him? Or would it be better to wait and see if an opening appeared in the flames?
Either way, he was pretty sure it was going to hurt.
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Shiver on the Sky Page 55