Thomas Scott
THOMAS HUFFED, TRYING to get the water out of his nose. He could smell the smoke, too, growing thicker as the seconds passed. He looked around the room from his vantage point, on the platform over the tank.
John Junior’s dad was throwing his shoulder into the door. Hanlon ran to help him. Mei’s mom was checking on Mei’s dad, who was sitting on the staircase, while John Junior’s mom was helping Amato up, getting him free from the zip ties.
Everyone was talking at once, words stumbling over each other, but Thomas could make out one phrase from Hanlon, as he and John Junior’s dad took turns throwing themselves into the door.
“It was her,” he said.
The “her” was Billy’s mom. She’d disappeared, and someone had set them up to die. He had no idea why, and he didn’t even care. He was just glad to be out of the water.
“Will someone just call the police or the fire department?” John Junior’s mom yelled.
“We can’t do that,” Mei’s mom yelled back. “All the cell phones are in the car. Another brilliant idea from Hanlon.”
“Hey, I had no idea something like this was going to happen,” Hanlon said.
“Well, maybe you should have been paying more attention,” John Junior’s dad said, before throwing himself into the door again, wincing as it barely budged.
Thomas reached for his phone, before realizing it was gone; Hanlon had taken it from him back at Amato’s office, wiped it down, and tossed it in the dumpster.
The smoke was getting thicker. Thomas could feel it in his lungs now. He coughed once, twice. Looked around. No one was paying attention to him anymore.
He rolled onto his side, and then his stomach, to push himself up, see if he could help with the door, when he noticed something built into the wall under the platform. He crawled to the edge and peeked over and saw an old vent. It looked just about person-sized, and where it led had to be better than here.
His body ached, but he managed to roll onto the floor and duck-walk under the platform to the vent. It didn’t take too much effort to wrench free. After he did, he was glad his pants were wet, so he was able to wipe away the black streaks of dirt the vent left behind on his palms.
He stepped out from under the staircase, the room now hazy. Amato and John Junior’s mom were coughing hard. John Junior’s dad was on his knees, panting. Hanlon was trying to get him back up. Mei’s dad, meanwhile, was screaming “Jian!” and kicking the door.
Thomas coughed, said, “Hey.”
Paul kept kicking, kept screaming.
“Hey!” Thomas yelled.
Everyone turned and looked at him, like they’d forgotten he was there.
“I found a way out,” he said.
He ducked under the staircase and got to the mouth of the vent. It was black beyond the opening, with nothing to light the way. No telling what kind of terrible things were in there. Living things. Dead things. Filthy things. And with his clothes wet like this he’d be like a mop, picking everything up along the way.
He shuddered, took a deep breath, and started crawling.
Luckily, the trip didn’t last long, and as he moved toward a square of gray light, the smoke seemed to lessen. He came up on another vent. He put his shoulder into it and it collapsed forward, rattling to the floor.
Thomas climbed into the main room of the warehouse, near where they had come in. Flames were licking up the walls, up into the wooden rafters. His chest and knees were nearly black. He wiped his hands off the best he could and tried not to think about it as he felt something pushing him.
Thomas moved forward, and John Junior’s mom was behind him, climbing out of the vent.
She stood up, stared at him for a moment, and said, “We were wrong.”
Thomas looked down and saw that Daisy was next, with someone behind her.
“I just…” Susan said.
Thomas smiled. Tried to make it seem nice, even though he didn’t have a very nice smile. “Let’s get out of here first.”
They ran through the door, the others behind them. The sky was draped in a heavy blanket of dark clouds, but the air was clean. Thomas took deep, greedy breaths of oxygen. He fell to his hands and knees, happy to be alive. He leaned back and felt raindrops smacking his face.
Mei’s dad dashed past him, to Hanlon’s car, and screamed out, kicking the tire, pounding his fist on the hood. Thomas crawled a few feet forward to get a better look, to see what the problem was.
The tire was flat, and there was a screwdriver sticking out of the side.