C:\
With a small beep, a
command prompt appeared on the laptop screen, followed by a long line of
mysterious code, strings and combinations of random digits and numbers. The
code flew down the monitor as if blown by wind, expanding and extending for
almost a full minute. Then, as quickly as it had come, it disappeared, leaving
the screen pitch black. With another small beep, the monitor went out.
Then, with an ear-splitting
roar, the floor of the apartment opened in fire and smoke.
Jordan Longfellow jolted
upright and jumped out of his futon. He staggered for a moment, and very nearly
fell into the gaping hole in his third story floor. In a daze, still caught in
his dreams from a moment ago, he inched around the bedframe, toes burning,
until he reached his closet door. He threw it open and searched the shelves
frantically, hands grasping in the dark until they hit a small rubber
Tuppermaid. He yanked it open and pulled out a military grade gas mask and a
thick, ugly gray coverall. He pulled them on, zipped the fire suit up and
checked the breathers.
The panic struck him
then, as his adrenaline finally began to press through his exhaustion. How had
they found him, here, in one of his sanctuaries? The apartment was barely
bigger than a closet, but somehow they had managed to break through.
He glanced quickly across
the gaping, flaming maw. His laptop. He eyed the gap, then took a deep,
filtered breath. With a few short steps and an enormous effort, he leaped over
the gap to the other side.
A piece of concrete
buckled, cracked.
Jordan threw himself
forward.
His hands touched the
cool metal of his computer, and he grasped it to his chest as he fell backward.
There was no stopping it.
He cried out in pain as
the back of his head collided with the arm of the loveseat in the lower
apartment. For a moment, Jordan thought his neck might have broken. He lay
there, weary to his bones, breathing through the filters of his mask, staring
up through the black, flaming hole.
A shatter of glass.
A small pop.
Jordan’s eyes flew to the
window, then he flung himself over the back end of the couch. He fell to the
floor, but it didn’t feel right. Too lumpy and disfigured. He looked down, and
had to stifle vomit in his throat.
The corpses had obviously
been dead for a few hours. The man’s eyes bulged, and the woman’s skin was
beginning to turn a horrible shade of blue. Jordan rolled quickly off the man
and instinctively checked for a pulse, then withdrew his hand just as quickly.
It was obviously part of their plan.
He had to get out of
there, had to find some way out and into the darkness. Well, he thought
bitterly, at least I only have two floors to go.
