Page 69 of The Witch’s Orchard

I duck under the smoke and try to locate the source of the scream. On the other side of the room, his leg caught under a fallen wood beam, is Tommy Hoyle.

Bottles of chemicals are stacked on an old table, and they’re burning. Fire belches out of the bottles, streams across the table and down the other side, where another bottle has spilled. The bottles are everywhere, overturned and discarded, piled up in a pitifully undersized plastic trash can and stacked on makeshift shelves against the back wall. There are two large, smashed windows back in the main portion of this floor, anda big squishy tube leads to one of them. Smoke billows out everywhere it can go, but the room is still foul-smelling and hazy.

This is the cause of the fire and the smell and the screams. This is the source of the bang, I realize with sudden awareness. Not a gunshot. Worse.

This is a meth lab. It is melting down. This whole place is about to blow.

Coughing, I wrench my phone out of my back pocket and dial 911. I can’t hear anything. If someone is there or not, I don’t know. I shout, clear as I can, that there’s a fire at an exploding meth lab at the old DrakeCo factory, then cram my phone back into my pocket. I duck down, as far under the smoke as I can, and look around.

Lying in a folding camp chair against the nearest wall are a couple of full-face respirator masks. Made of soft green rubber with a big black canister at the end, they look like they came from an Army surplus store. I grab the nearest one and slide it over my head, hoping the filter’s still half decent. I grab the other one and crouch-run over to Elaine.

Questions of her being high or armed or both flit through my mind, but as I approach her all she can seem to do is stare, wide-eyed and more than half crazed, at Dwight Hoyle and scream.

I grab her by the shoulders and shake her.

“Elaine!” I shout, my voice coming out muffled through the mask. “Elaine! Can you walk?”

I grip Elaine hard, pull her to her feet, and drag her out of the room. Her legs are jelly, all but useless. Still, she’s thin and light and fragile-feeling, so I drag her all the way around the corner and prop her against the wall nearest the stairs. She slumps down, still screaming, eyes wide open in addled terror.

Another bang. Dust falls from the ceiling.

“Damn it!” I shout.

I fight against her wriggling, panicked form and squish the mask down over her head so the respirator covers her screaming mouth. I’d rather have her suck rubber than go on scream-inhaling the toxic fumes.

“Get out!” I shout through my own mask. “Get out of here! Go!”

Elaine doesn’t move. She only continues her screaming.

“Help me! Help me! Please!” Tommy shouts from the other room.

I leave Elaine and run back the way we’d come. The smoke is worse now. Black and awful. I duck under it and find Tommy. The beam is on fire and flames lick at Tommy’s pant leg. Another beam has fallen from the ceiling and smashed the table. The chemicals leak all over the floor, catching flame.

“Is Mandy here?” I shout as I make my way back to him. The question sounds absurd. Like I’m just knocking on his front door again.

“What?”

“Mandy? Where is your wife, Mandy?”

“She’s not here!”

“Her car is—”

“She’s not here! Fucking help me!”

“Damn you, Tommy Hoyle!”

I grit my teeth and grab Tommy’s hand. He grips back. I pull. He doesn’t budge. I sit back on my butt, brace myself on my elbows, and kick the old fallen, flaming timber. Once. Again. The sound of my steel-toed boot on the wood is like the crack of a bat, but it still doesn’t shift. I breathe through the respirator and tense my body. Brace. All my strength. Again. Finally, a single point shatters into flaming splinters and Tommy pulls free.

“Come on,” I yell.

He does. He crawls out after me. We rush around the corner and I look for Elaine. I shout her name but she is gone. All I can do is hope she found her way out.

I lead Tommy down the rickety staircase, through the smoke.

BANG! BANG!

The whole building rattles, shakes. The windows vibrate. The plywood clatters against the windows. We both duck instinctively, covering our heads with our arms. Tommy screams again, and I resist the urge to punch him in the face for putting me through this to begin with.