The Six: Complete Series (35 page)

“Oh my god,” Marie said as the windows near her head smashed and exploded all around them.

He grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved them both to the ground. The glass burst all around them and showered their backs in sharp little daggers. She tried to get up but he held her down with every bit of his strength.

“They’re still in there,” she cried.

“I know,” he said with his voice muffled by the ground, “but we have to help them from out here.”

She breathed in short shallow breaths. All he could do was keep her calm. There was no telling if they were even still alive in there.

When the air around them quieted and the blasts ceased, he slowly rose to his knees. The back of his neck stung and he could feel the beads of blood that dripped down his back. But he was alive.

“Let’s go,” he said as he put out his hand to help her up.

She looked up with her face covered in tears. He grabbed his shaking hand and pulled her to her feet. “Okay,” she said.

Kyle held her hand as they walked around the side of the house. The entire front of the house had collapsed. All that was left was a tired frame and wisps of smoke that poked out from small pockets of the house that were still erect. From behind the frame he could see the fleet of police cars that sat silent on the street. Firefighters pushed past the stone-faced cops with equipment on their backs towards the simmering structure.

He walked towards the police and was greeted with confusion and anger. The first few uniformed men hardly batted an eye at them but as the information began to click in their minds, they shifted from apathy to action.

A young man put his hand on his weapon and motioned over to his colleagues. “Stop!” he shouted. “Stay where you are.”

Marie pointed at the house and kept walking even though he was desperately trying to keep her held back. “They’re still in there,” she said.

The cops didn’t listen. They all had their hands ready to pull out on their guns. “Marie,” he whispered, “put your hands up.”

The two of them stood against the backdrop of the smoking building with their hands in the air. The policemen stepped towards them in guarded strides. Then, behind the row of navy uniforms, a woman in a pink shirt streaked towards them.

“Kyle!” she screamed.

He had never been more grateful to hear her voice. “Hannah?” he shouted back.

“Keep your hands up!” a policeman shouted.

“Hannah!” he shouted. “They’re still in there!”

She stopped short and looked at the policemen who were ready to pull their weapons. “Did you hear him?”

They motioned for her to stop talking.

“Excuse me?” she shouted. “There are people trapped inside.”

A pair of policemen came up to them and patted their sides. When it was clear they were not armed, the crew immediately appeared more receptive. “Where are they?”

Kyle pointed behind him at the kitchen which was still intact but bursting at the seams with billowing smoke. The cops motioned back towards the firemen who waited impatiently to move in. They marched towards the house.

He wanted to run towards Hannah and hold her but something caught his eye. A small figure crawled out from the back of the house and began to scale the fence that separated the burning house and a small ranch house next door.

“Hey!” he screamed.

The blonde boy turned and they locked eyes. It was that kid they took out of the basement. He was trying to escape. By the time he explained it all to the police, the boy would be two blocks away. Kyle sprinted away from Marie and towards the fence.

He was stronger and bigger than this teenager. There was no contest. In a matter of seconds he’d already caught up with the kid who struggled to gain a foothold in the slick wooden fence. Kyle grabbed the boy’s scuffed sneaker and pulled as hard as he could. The boy held the top of the fence as hard as he could but Kyle was stronger.

Milo slipped immediately and fell to the ground straight on his back. “What the fuck, man?” he said as he tried to get up. Kyle stepped on his chest and applied enough pressure to make him squeal.

“Shut up,” he said.

Milo went to swat him away but he was scrawny and stupid. “Stop,” he whined.

“Where’s the guy? They told me there’s a guy behind all of this?”

The kid averted his eye so Kyle pressed harder. It wouldn’t take much to crack a few ribs. “Where is he?” Kyle asked.

The cops were coming and the boy knew it was over. “He’s still inside,” he said. “He’s still in there.”

Simon woke up first. He’d fallen through the floor and landed on his arm. It was broken and he could hardly move. As he tried to sit up he saw another body on the ground covered in bits of wood and debris. It groaned and wriggled towards the open door.

On their walk to the kitchen, Irene had told them everything. David was the man behind it all. The goddamn man from the stupid kid’s show. How could that guy be behind all of this? It was hard to believe, but it was easier when he saw that familiar profile five feet away.

Simon found a long shard that had come from the window and palmed it. He slid against the floor and tried to match the man’s moves as to not attract attention. For every inch David went, Simon went two. He had almost caught up by the time David reached the wall.

He could do it.

He had to do it.

Simon got up on his knees and then to his feet. As his arm reached back, David spun around. He kicked out his leg and swiped it across the floor. Simon fell to the ground.

“You think I didn’t see you?” David said.

Simon grimaced as he tried to get back up.

“I’m getting out of here. Just give it up.”

He still had the glass. It wasn’t over yet. “No,” he said through gritted teeth.

David laughed. “Adorable. You have no idea what you’re up against. You think they’ll take you in with open arms? You’re going to jail. You’re all going to jail.”

Simon lunged at him but David was faster. He twisted Simon’s arm and pinned him to the ground. “Do you want another charge against you?” he said.

It was all talk. Edwin had done this day after day. No more.

Simon pulled back his leg and kicked David in the stomach and sent him rolling on the floor. “That’s not the point, David.”

Simon was gone.

Benjamin was gone.

Irene woke up to see Dennis miraculously kept up on the first floor by a long beam that ran the length of the room. The floor had given out through half the room and her own arm dangled between floors.

Her lungs burned as she took a breath and her mind was hazy. But all she knew was that they had to leave. No one had come to rescue them and it didn’t look like they ever would. There was commotion outside, loud screaming by that man and Marie.

It was up to her.

She crawled across the floor and scooted herself towards the beam that Dennis lay on. She reached her arm out for him but he was too far away and she wasn’t strong enough to carry him across the foot-wide gap. The only way to him was to crawl across the beam herself.

Her ankle was certainly broken and each inch forward set off explosions across her body. “Dennis,” she said, “I’m coming.”

Irene rounded the corner as the beam began to groan under the pressure. She got to the end and stretched her arm out and got the very edge of his collar. With just a bit of him in her hand, she moved closer and onto the beam. It creaked under her body weight and she could hear the fibers cracking under the new mass.

With the extra foot closer, she was able to get both hands under his arms and pull him down the beam. “C’mon,” she muttered, “just a little bit farther.”

Pull after pull, she maneuvered down the wood and onto the remaining floor. As his feet left the last bits of the beam, the middle cracked nearly in half. He would have fallen to the basement, fifteen feet down. It would have killed him.

Dennis was unconscious and barely breathing. She wiped away the bits of debris that were stuck in his hair and his eyelids. “Dennis?” she said as she held him in her lap. “Can you hear me?”

He groaned but stayed flopped against her body.

“I’m going to move you,” she said. “I’m getting us out of here.”

The door was only five feet away but she could feel the bits of floor that remained were creaking under their weight. Irene rose to her feet and bit her tongue to keep from screaming in pain from her surely broken ankle. With her hands still wrapped under his arms, she dragged him like a sack of flour across the chewed up hardwood. He grimaced and moaned as he bounced over burnt two-by-fours.

As she got to the door, she heard them coming. They stomped against the grass and their equipment bounced against their backs. Irene still kept pulling. With her last ounce of strength, Dennis’ body fell over the door jam and onto the lawn.

“Ma’am?” a fireman asked as she fell to the ground.

The world took on a hazy blur as they grabbed her body and shoved an oxygen mask over her mouth.

A man with kind eyes and a sweet smile patted her back. “You’re going to be okay,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

She was safe. She was free now.

And she was safe.

Simon hovered over David’s body with the glass held tightly in his fist. The man pushed back with his fingers digging into Simon’s face in a haphazard way. One nail dug into the skin next to his eye and threatened to blind him if it moved just an inch over.

As his arm lurched back something grabbed his wrist.

It wasn’t David. Simon looked back and saw Benjamin with his arm outstretched and holding his wrist.

Simon tried to wrench it away. “Stop!” he shouted.

“Don’t do this,” Benjamin said.

All he wanted was to make him pay. The glass in his hand could do it. It would make him feel all the pain he’d caused to others. “No,” he shrieked. “Let me!”

Benjamin dug his fingers into Simon’s fist and slowly pried to the glass out of his hands. The ragged edges cut across both their skin and a line of blood beaded and dripped to the floor. Simon stayed with his foot still pressed hard against David’s chest. He’d stopped flailing underneath and his breathing had slowed to a light gasp.

“Get off of him,” Benjamin said as he pulled at Simon’s shirt. “You’re suffocating him.”

He pressed harder. “So?”

“So,” Benjamin said as he yanked him off of David and onto the floor. “Then they’ll never convict him. I want him to rot in jail. I want him to suffer for a lot longer than it takes for you to collapse his lung.”

David coughed as he clutched his chest and hoped to take a breath.

He wanted to kill him. It wasn’t good enough to let him go to trial. Edwin had barely been sentenced and he was going to be on the street before he turned fifty. “And what if he gets off?” Simon pulled against Benjamin’s hold.

“He won’t.”

“And what if he does?”

Benjamin pulled Simon in tight. “He won’t.”

Above them there was a fuss. A small team of men in uniforms gingerly walked across the charred and broken floor. “Hey!” Simon shouted. “Down here!”

A firefighter bent down and looked through the hole in the floor. “Sit tight. We’ll send a crew down there.”

They were being rescued. This was all about to end. The weight lifted off his shoulders and the sun began to shine again. It was almost over and he would be able to live his life again. He could feel the softness of his sheets and the smell of his mom’s waffles.

And then he felt the pain in his back.

He spun around to see David with the glass in his hand. The tip was drenched in blood. It took a moment for the sensation to travel from his muscles to the rest of his body. He screamed and reached out for Benjamin who stood right in front of him, his eyes still watching the firemen take inventory of their supplies. His fingers raked down Benjamin’s arm as he fell to the ground.

Benjamin grabbed him before he hit the floor. “Shit, Simon. Are you okay?”

He wasn’t sure. It hurt like hell but he was tired and his body wasn’t strong. “I don’t know,” he said through gritted teeth.

Benjamin placed him on the floor and pulled off his jacket and bunched it together. “Hold this against your side,” he said.

“Why?”

He jumped to his feet. “‘Cause I’m going to kill this motherfucker.”

David was busy attempting to scale the wall and up through the hole in the floor. Benjamin grabbed his shoes and yanked him down to the floor. There was crunch and a thud against the concrete. Benjamin lurched back and hit him in the face. And then another punch. A kick and then another thudding kick to the gut. David grunted with each blow as his body rocked side to side helplessly.

“Benjamin...” he said.

He wasn’t listening. There was a rage in his eyes that was a hundred miles away.

“Stop,” he said barely above a whisper.

He kicked and punched a half dozen more times before he stepped back and examined his work. The tip of his shoes were caked with blood and his face glistened with a layer of sweat. Benjamin backed away and ran over to Simon like nothing had just happened. “You okay?”

Simon peeked down at his shirt. There was blood but not an alarming amount. He felt okay enough to get on his feet. “Yeah,” he said. “And thanks.”

A rope unraveled from above them and landed a few feet from David’s broken body.

“You ready to go?” Benjamin asked.

Simon looked over at the fireman who gently glided down the rope and into the basement.

“Get me out of here.”