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He pushes the door again before ramming his shoulder into it. The door doesn’t budge.
“We have to take the main stairs,” he says before pulling me back the way we came.
Soon we’re again at the elevator and stairwell, which now pumps out smoke like a chimney. The sight is so jarring that I come to a halt, immobile with fear, no matter how much Nick tugs my arm.
“Jules, we need to keep moving.”
He gives another shoulder-wrenching yank of my arm, and I feel myself pulled unwillingly toward the stairs. Soon we’re descending them. Nick moves at a quick, steady pace. I’m more frantic, speeding up then slowing down before being pulled along again.
The smoke is thicker on the eleventh floor—a fog-like, undulating wall. I lift my jacket to cover my nose and mouth. Nick does the same with his T-shirt.
“Go on ahead,” he says. “I want to make sure no one else is still up here.”
I don’t want to go down the rest of the stairs alone. I’m not sure my body will let me. Already I’ve come to another halt. Dread seems to be riding on the smoke, curling around me, oozing into my pores.
“I’ll come with you,” I say.
Nick shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous. You need to keep going.”
I grudgingly oblige, stumbling down the steps to the tenth floor. On the landing, I peer down the hall, squinting against the smoke in search of Greta Manville’s apartment. The door is barely visible through the haze. For all I know, she’s already made her way out of the building. But what if she hasn’t? I picture her in the grip of one of her sudden sleeps, oblivious to the smoke and the screaming alarm.
Just like one of Nick’s tugs, the image pulls me down the hall, toward 10A, where I pound on the door. It opens immediately. Greta stands in the doorway, covered in a tent-like flannel nightgown and the same slippers she wore earlier. She’s tied a bandanna around her head, which hangs over her nose and mouth.
“I don’t need you to rescue me,” she says.
Only, she kind of does. When she sets off down the hall, it’s at asnail’s pace, rivaling me in hesitation. Although in her case I think it’s less fear than poor health. Her breath gets heavy before we even reach the stairs. When I try to ease her down the first step, her legs sway like windblown palms.
“That’s one,” I say.
Which leaves roughly two hundred more steps to go.
I peer down the stairwell, gripped by fear when I see nothing but smoke curling upward.
I cough. Greta does, too, the bottom triangle of her bandanna fluttering.
I grip her hand. We both know we’re not going to make it down those steps. Greta’s too weak. I’m too terrified.
“The elevator,” I say, hauling her back up that one meager step we managed to descend.
“You’re not supposed to use an elevator during a fire.”
I know that. Just like I knew about closing the apartment door.
“There’s no other choice,” I snap.
I head to the elevator, dragging Greta in the same way Nick dragged me. I can feel her wrist twisting beneath my fingers, resisting my pull. That doesn’t slow me. Fear propels me forward.
The elevator isn’t stopped on the tenth floor. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be. Still, I had hoped that maybe, possibly it would be there waiting for us. A stroke of good fortune in a life devoid of it. Instead, I’m forced to pound the down button and wait.
But waiting isn’t easy.
Not with the alarm still bouncing off the walls and the strobe lights flaring and smoke still rolling up the steps and Nick now God knows where. I keep coughing and my eyes keep watering, although now it might be real tears and not from the smoke. Fear clangs in my skull. Louder than the alarm.
When the elevator finally arrives, I push Greta inside, close the grate, press the button for the lobby. With a rattle and a shudder, we start to descend.
The smoke is heavier on the ninth floor.
And still worse on the eighth.