Run Away

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Five minutes earlier, Ash pushed open the door loaded with graffiti.

He entered the poorly lit foyer first. Dee Dee followed. They didn’t have their weapons out. Not yet. But their hands were poised near them just in case.

“Why would Simon Greene be here?” Ash whispered.

“Visiting his daughter, I imagine.”

“So why not say that in his text to Elena Ramirez? Why talk about this Cornelius guy?”

Dee put her foot on the rickety step. “I don’t know.”

“We should step back,” Ash said. “Do more research.”

“You step back then.”

“Dee.”

“No, Ash, listen to me. Elena Ramirez and Simon Greene are cancers. We need to get them now or they’ll spread. You want to be more cautious? Fine. Go back to the car. I have enough firepower to handle this.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Ash said. “And you know that.”

A small smile toyed with her lips. “Are you being sexist again?”

“You wouldn’t leave me either.”

“That’s true.”

“This place,” he said. “You know what it reminds me of?”

Dee Dee nodded. “Mr. Marshall’s brewery. The smell of stale beer.”

He was amazed that she’d remember. JoJo Marshall had been one of Ash’s foster fathers, not hers. He made Ash work the fermenters. Dee Dee had visited him there a few times and clearly, like him, had never gotten over that stink.

She started up the stairs. Ash did a little hop-step, so he could take the lead, but she blocked him off with her body and disapproving glare. So he stayed one step back. No one passed them on the stairs. In the distance they could hear the faint hum of someone playing a television too loudly.

Other than that, not a sound.

Ash glanced down the corridor of the second floor as Dee Dee continued to ascend.

No one. That was good.

When they reached the third floor, Dee Dee looked back at him. Ash nodded. They both took out their guns. They kept them low, by their sides, and maybe if someone opened a door right now, what with the crappy lighting in this place, maybe that person wouldn’t see that they were both carrying FN 5.7s with twenty-round mags.

They made their way to apartment B. Ash knocked on the heavy metal door.

They were ready.

No answer.

He knocked again. Nothing.

“Someone has to be home,” Dee Dee whispered. “We saw Greene come in.”

Ash took a look at the heavy metal door, put on, no doubt, to fortify against break-ins, but it had been done stupidly. The door was made of steel, but the doorframe was wood.

Not strong wood based on what Ash had seen of this place.

Ash took out his gun and nodded for Dee Dee to get ready. He raised his foot and kicked in the spot where the bolt slid into the wood.

The wood gave way as if it were made of dried twigs.

The door flew open. Ash and Dee Dee rushed inside.

No one.

Two single mattresses lay on either side of the floor. There were dried bloodstains on the floor. Ash took it all in, took it in fast, and knew something was seriously wrong. He looked on the floor. He bent down.

“What?” Dee Dee whispered.

“Yellow tape.”

“What?”

“This was a crime scene.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

They heard a door nearby open.

Dee Dee moved fast. She dropped her weapon onto the mattress, stepped outside, and closed what was left of the door behind her. A man had exited his apartment. He wore earbuds with music turned up so loud, Dee Dee could hear it from fifteen feet away.

He was near the stairs, almost ready to start heading down, and he hadn’t seen her yet. She stayed frozen, hoping that he wouldn’t turn toward her.

But he did.

When the man saw her, he pulled out his earbuds.

Dee Dee rewarded him with her full-wattage smile.

“Hello,” she said, almost making this simple greeting a double entendre. “I’m looking for Cornelius.”

“Wrong floor.”

“Oh?”

“Cornelius is on the second floor. Apartment B.”

“Silly me.”

“Yeah.”

He looked as though he was going to come toward her. That wouldn’t be good. She slipped her hand into her back pocket and readied the switchblade.

She’d have to slice this guy’s throat. Do it quickly and quietly.

Dee Dee waved at him. “Thanks for the help. Take care now.”

The man looked as though he might keep walking back toward her, but it was almost as though something primitive told him it was best to move on.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling up. “You too.”

They looked at each other another long moment before the man turned and hurried down the stairs. Dee Dee listened for a second, wondering whether he might stop on the second floor and warn Cornelius. But she could hear him reach the ground floor and push open that graffiti-filled door.

When he was gone, Ash exited the apartment door and handed Dee Dee her gun. He’d heard it all. They moved silently to the stairwell and made their way to the second-floor apartment B. Ash put his ear near the door.

Voices. Several of them.

Ash gave the signal. They got the guns ready. The plan was simple. Burst in with guns a-blazing. Kill any and all inhabitants.

He pointed the gun at the lock so as to shoot it — no need for any kind of subtlety — but suddenly two things happened at once.

The doorknob started to turn.

And from down the corridor, a man shouted, “Rocco, look out!”

“Rocco, look out!”

Simon heard the first burst of gunfire as Rocco pulled open the door.

They say time slows down at times of great danger, almost like Neo being able to see and dodge bullets in The Matrix. That was just an illusion, of course. Time is constant. But Simon remembered reading that this particular time illusion was caused by how we store memory. The richer and denser the memory of an event — for example, during moments when you are terrified — the longer you perceive that event lasted.

This phenomenon also explains why time seems to go faster as you age. When you’re a child, experiences are new and so your memories are fresh and intense — so again time seems to slow down. As you grow older, especially when you are stuck in a routine, very few new or vibrant memories are being laid and so time flies by. That’s why when a child looks back on summer, it seemed to last forever. For adults, it’s barely a blink.

So now, as Simon heard a man — Luther — scream through the bullet blasts — time seemed to be knee-deep in molasses.

Rocco pulled the door all the way open.

Simon stood a few feet behind Rocco, so the big man’s broad back and shoulders blocked his view. He could see nothing.

But he could hear the bullets.

Rocco’s body convulsed. He hitched and jerked, almost as if he were doing some kind of macabre dance. His feet started backpedaling.

More bullets landed.

When the big man finally dropped on his back, the building shook. Rocco’s eyes were open and stared unseeing at the ceiling. Blood blanketed his chest.

Now Simon could see the doorway.

Two people.

A man approximately thirty was turned to his left, firing his weapon down the corridor, probably in the direction of the now-silent Luther. A woman with short red hair, maybe a few years younger than the man, aimed down and fired two more bullets into Rocco’s head.

Then she raised the gun toward Cornelius.

Simon yelled, “No!”

Cornelius was already moving, already reacting, but it wasn’t going to be enough. The woman was too close, the shot too easy.

She would not miss.

Simon launched himself toward her, trying to get to the woman before she could shoot. He screamed, hoping to distract her, hoping to buy Cornelius tenths of a second.

Just as the woman began to pull the trigger, Simon reached the door and shoved hard. The edge of the door slammed against her forearm, throwing off the woman’s aim just enough.

No time to hesitate.

When Simon landed on his feet, he reached around the door for the woman’s wrist. His fingers found skin — some part of the arm maybe — and his hand started to encircle it. He almost had a grip on her, a good grip, but then someone, maybe the man, crashed his body against the other side of the door.

The door smashed into Simon’s face, sending him spiraling.

Simon tumbled onto Rocco’s dead body.

The young woman stepped into the room and aimed the gun at Cornelius, who was trying to get his gun out of his pocket while running for the fire-escape window.

But Cornelius was too late.

He had no chance.

Simon didn’t know if time was slowing down or if the calculations running through his brain had sped up. But he could see the truth now.

There was no way both he and Cornelius could survive.

No way.

Which left Simon with no choice.

From his spot on the ground, he kicked the door, so that it would close on the woman. Almost casually, the woman stopped it with her foot. It had seemed a weak effort on Simon’s part, a poor attempt to stop her entry.

But it had bought Simon time.

Not enough time to stop the carnage.

But enough time for Simon to scramble-jump toward Cornelius.

The move had surprised the woman. She had expected Simon to come at her. But he’d gone the other direction. It wouldn’t save Simon. Just the opposite, in fact. It put him in the path of the gunfire.

His body was all that stood between the woman’s bullets and Cornelius.

She fired anyway.

Simon felt the searing pain as a bullet smacked his lower back on the left.

He didn’t stop.

He felt another hit him in the right shoulder.

Simon flung himself toward Cornelius like a defensive end on a blindside blitz, wrapping his arms around his friend’s waist.

He tackled Cornelius into the window.

Time must have slowed down for Cornelius too. Cornelius didn’t fight his natural instincts. He went with the tackle, letting his body fall back, using the time to pull his gun all the way out.

The two men both fell backward. The window shattered upon impact.

Cornelius had his gun out now. He reached over Simon’s shoulder and fired as they started to fall.

Somewhere in the hail of gunfire, Simon heard a man grunt and a woman scream, “Ash!”

Cornelius and Simon, still entwined, landed hard on the fire-escape grate — Cornelius on his back, Simon, his grip slackening, on top of him.

The impact knocked the gun from Cornelius’s hand. Simon watched the gun plummet toward hard asphalt.

The woman again, her cry pained: “Ash! No!”

Simon’s eyes started to flutter. His mouth filled with something coppery, and he realized that it was blood. He managed then to roll off Cornelius. Simon tried to speak. He wanted to tell Cornelius to run, that the redheaded woman wasn’t hit and that she’d be on them soon.

But the words wouldn’t come out.

He looked at Cornelius. Cornelius shook his head.

He wouldn’t leave.

This whole thing — from Rocco turning the knob to now — took fewer than five seconds.

From inside the room, the woman let loose a primitive, guttural scream.

And now, even in this state, even as he could feel some sort of life force leaving his body, Simon realized that the young woman was coming toward them.

Go, Simon tried to tell Cornelius.

He wouldn’t.

Simon could see the redheaded woman reaching the window. The gun was in her hand.

Again: no choice.

Using whatever strength he had left — and perhaps the element of surprise — Simon pushed Cornelius down the fire-escape steps.

Cornelius started tumbling down them, head feet, head feet, like a somersault.

It might hurt, Simon thought. It might break a few bones.

But it probably wouldn’t kill him.

There was nothing left now. Simon knew that. He could hear the sirens nearing, but they’d be too late. He dropped onto his back and looked up into the young woman’s green eyes. He’d maybe held out a glimmer of hope that there would be some mercy in them, some hesitation, but once he saw them, once his gaze met hers, he knew that whatever last hope he had was gone.

She would kill him. And she would enjoy it.

She leaned her body out the window. She pointed the gun at his head.

And then she was gone.

From behind her, someone had pushed her out the window. Simon heard the scream and then a sick splat as she landed on the asphalt.

Simon looked up and saw another woman — an old woman wearing an odd gray uniform with red stripes — appear. She looked at him with concern, hurried out to the fire escape, and tried to stem the bleeding.

“It’s over,” the woman said to him.

He wanted to ask her who she was, if she knew Paige, anything, but his mouth had too much blood in it. He felt his body weakening and slackening, his eyes rolling back. As the darkness descended, he could still hear the sirens.

“Our children will be safe now.”

And then there was nothing.