MirrorWorld

5.

“You’re on fire,” someone says, explaining why I wasn’t immediately greeted with violence upon flinging myself from the back of the ice creambulance.

I don’t need to ask where. I can feel the heat upon my head. During my time at SafeHaven, I let my hair get a little out of control. As the stench of burnt hair wafts around me, I reach up and calmly pat the top of my head until the smoldering brown mane is extinguished.

While playing fireman with my scalp, I take in the crowd surrounding us. A circle of humanity stands twenty feet away, pushed back by the flames behind me. Some look a little stunned by my emergence from the blaze, but most still look angry and capable of violence. They’re just waiting for a new trigger to push them past the fear of this fire and the bloodied man that emerged.

One man, a particularly burly specimen, is the first to break ranks and step toward me, menace in his eyes. And for what? Because I was in a vehicle that had the audacity to play a plucky tune during a protest? While I was in an asylum, the world seems to have gone nuts. I relax my body, prepared to deal with the man in a way that will keep others from making the same mistake. But he stops short and looks a bit surprised.

Allenby emerges from the inferno with a shout of fear. Her explosive hair, like mine, smolders. I shake my hand through her hair, cutting the stands of bright orange away before her head looks like a fiery troll doll.

Blair exits next, falling to the ground and rolling. “Shit, shit, shit!” But he’s not on fire.

“Get up,” Allenby says, and kicks Blair’s foot. She understands that of the two dangers surrounding us, the crowd surrounding us is worse. To them, we’ve become the antagonizers. They don’t want their pound of flesh from the government or the man, they want it from the ice cream truck. And now that it’s on fire—judgment meted out—they’re weighing the fates of the people who exited the offending vehicle. I consider pretending to be one of them, shaking my fist against injustice, but I can see it’s too late for that. These people might not be thinking straight, pumped full of fear, but they’re not stupid, either.

With a subtle movement of my hand, I tap Allenby’s hip. She glances up at me. Makes eye contact, until I glance away, looking at the shop door to our left. Only three people stand on the sidewalk between us and the door, which will hopefully provide access to a staircase.

I pull Blair to his feet. “Follow her.” Then to Allenby. “Slowly.”

Allenby does her best to ignore the cold stares of the people surrounding us and steps up onto the sidewalk. Blair, far more shaken up, manages to stay silent and follow her. But his hands are shaking. Watching the crowd, without making eye contact, I bring up the rear. The people in front of the store—two twentysomething women and a young man—instinctively part for their elders. They’re either not worked up enough to be violent or have correctly assessed my capabilities: afraid, not stupid afraid. Not yet, anyway.

The door remains shut when Allenby tugs on the handle. A man appears in the window, his thinning gray hair combed back tight, his light blue eyes wide with fear. I see Allenby’s lips moving, mouthing the words, “Help us,” without letting the crowd hear. She’s smart. Understands people.

I pause on the edge of the sidewalk, unsure if we’re going to make it off the street or if I’m going to reenact the battle of Thermopylae, by myself, while Allenby and Blair make a futile run for it.

For a moment, the old man doesn’t move, but the way Allenby is able to plead for her life, just with her eyes, is impressive. The man nods and unlocks the door.

The heavy, painted green door opens, its well-oiled hinges slipping silently, until—jing jing. A bell at the top of the door clangs loudly. The crowd starts, bouncing back like someone has just fired a gun.

The old man pushes the door open wide, allowing Allenby and Blair to hurry inside. I make a step to follow, but am stopped by movement at the fringe of my vision. The large man, whose build, crooked nose, and response to the ringing bell suggests a pugilistic history, strides toward me. I could get inside without facing him, but a man of his bulk would make short work of the door.

“You the jackass who switched on the music?” the pugilist asks as he wipes his nose with both thumbs, makes twin sledgehammer fists, and starts bobbing.

“Yes,” I tell him.

The crowd around us buzzes with excitement, eager for the violence to begin.

“I thought it was an ambulance,” I add. The statement makes the man pause for a moment, long enough for him to notice that I’m not backing away, nor have I taken up a fighting stance.

“Ain’t you afraid?” he asks.

I jab. The fast strike slips past his defenses, crushes his nose, and staggers him back. Before he has a chance to realize I’ve broken his nose, I kick him square in the nuts. The great thing about having no social fear is that I can fight dirty and not feel bad about it later. The pugilist howls and drops to his knees. I finish him off with a roundhouse kick that knocks him unconscious and spills him into the road. He’ll live, but he might not be able to reproduce, which is my little gift to the world today.

I glance at the crowd, which is stunned by the sudden and extreme violence. It’s more than they bargained for and didn’t go the way they expected. But it won’t hold them back forever, and now that I’ve hurt one of their own, they’ll be out for blood.

Moving casually, I step toward the shop and slip through the door, carefully closing and locking it behind me.

The shop is full of eclectic antiques. There’s a tall 1950s radio, glowing with power. A stained-glass lamp. A medieval helmet opened to reveal a secret decanter and shot glasses. I feel like there is someone I would like to tell about all this, but there isn’t anyone. My only friends are Shotgun Jones and Seymour, and their tastes run a little closer to the crap given away on The Price Is Right.

“Crazy,” Allenby says. She takes my wrist and pulls me away from the door. “This is Matt Williams.”

The old man nods at me.

“How can we get to the roof?” I ask.

He points up. “I live on the second floor. Fire escape goes to the roof. Stairs are around back.” He starts leading the way but isn’t going anywhere fast.

I snap my fingers at Blair. “Get to the roof. Make sure the chopper knows where we are.”

Blair runs for the back of the store. I hear his feet thundering up the staircase a moment later.

“Help Mr. Williams to the roof,” I say to Allenby. “I’ll try to slow them down.”

When Allenby reaches out to take Williams’s arm, he shrugs away. “I’m not going anywhere. This is my store, and I’ll be damned if I let them hooligans make a mess of things.” He hobbles behind the counter and retrieves a shotgun. He struggles with the pump action for a moment but manages to chamber a shell. “I’ve seen war before.”

War?

“And I’m not afraid to shoot the first of those bastards to come through my door.”

I pat his shoulder, say, “Thank you,” and head for the back of the store.

Allenby rushes up behind me and says, “We can’t just leave him! They’ll kill him.”

“Do you want to stay because you think it will change his fate? Or is it because you fear being ridiculed later on for leaving an old man to die? If it’s the latter, I won’t say a word. If it’s the former, you’re a fool. He chose his path. Respect it.” I start up the rugged stairs without looking back.

One of the shopwindows shatters. Allenby starts up the stairs, revealing her personal truth—her life is worth more than her honor. There is no help we can provide for Williams that will avoid his death. But ours… we still have some control over how our lives come to a close. At least for a few more minutes.

The apartment above the store smells like history—dust and mold hidden within the folds of countless overfull bookshelves. If the fire outside reaches this building, the apartment will all but explode. This much brittle, dry paper will ignite like gasoline.

“Here!” Blair shouts from the back.

We hurry through the living room to the kitchen, which is equally packed with old books. A pile of them has been spilled on the floor, apparently shoved away by Blair, who is peering back in through an open window above the spilled books. He waves us on. “This way!”

Blair’s feet clang on the fire escape as he runs toward the roof.

A second window breaks beneath us. It’s followed by a shotgun blast, a scream, and then the sound of thunder as countless people stream into the shop. If Williams screamed, the sound was blocked out by the rumbling, which I can now feel in the floorboards beneath my feet.

Allenby crawls through the window, but not nearly fast enough. My hand hits her ass and shoves. She spills forward with a shout of surprise. I dive through, spin around, and close the window. As Allenby starts to protest about her rough treatment, I lie down on top of her, which fills her with enough fear to close her mouth.

“If you stand, they’ll see you,” I whisper. “Crawl away before standing, but quickly. It won’t take long for them to figure out why the books have spilled.”

She nods and slides forward. I hold my weight off of her and follow, but our stealth is a wasted effort. The window behind us shatters as a book—an old leather-bound Bible—careens through, strikes the black metal railing, and explodes into a flurry of ancient pages. A baseball bat begins clearing away the remaining glass shards.

“Go!” I shout as the distant chop of a helicopter reaches my ears. “I’ll hold them here.”

“But…” she says, clearly confused about why I would stand my ground here but not downstairs.

“They can’t overwhelm me here,” I say.

She understands, and runs up the stairs to the second story. I glance up and see Blair climbing a ladder to the roof. The helicopter sounds about a minute out. It will take nearly that long for Allenby to reach the roof. One minute, I tell myself and then turn to face the first person through the window, which is actually a pair of people, one holding a knife, the other a Louisville Slugger.