Allison Hewitt Is Trapped by Madeleine Roux Page A

and see he’s pointing at something. It’s a car, Phil’s car, and suddenly everything becomes clear.
    Phil’s running toward his old maroon LeSabre before either of us can put out a hand to stop him. Even if we had, Phil is a huge guy, with linebacker shoulders and enough weight to throw us off without effort. He’s sprinted down the stairs and over to the car, but he doesn’t even make it to the door before he’s stopped.
    I can’t explain it. Everyone knows it’s uncomfortable and heartbreaking to see a grown man cry, but it’s worse somehow when it’s your boss. He’s fallen just short of the car and stumbled down to his knees; his entire body is jolting forward and back as if he were being electrocuted. The gas cap is open, hanging down. It’s the same with the car next to his, Janette’s. There’s no gas. It’s been siphoned, stolen.
    He came with us to escape. That’s clear now. I should’ve thought of that possibility. I want to be mad, I want to stand him up and shake him hard and then slap him across the face. But I can’t. I want to ask him: Where would you go? Where do you think there is to go?
    Instead, I walk over to him and gently put my palm on his shoulder. He’s tense all over, one big knot of nerves and frustration. “It’s okay. I won’t tell the others.”
    We need to keep going, to push forward, but I don’t know how to rouse him from the grief. It’s just another wave of horror, another in an unending series of unwelcome surprises. Phil stops shaking after a moment and gets to his feet, slobbering across the back of his hand as he tries to wipe the tears and snot off of his cheeks and chin. There’s a tear caught in his goatee but I don’t say anything about it.
    “There are golf clubs in the trunk,” he says in a sad, calm voice. He pulls a key ring out of his khaki pants and goes to the trunk. Inside, a big bag of golf clubs wait, sleeping in the gleaming leather bag, their fat heads covered in hoods like executioners. Phil reaches over and carefully, lovingly pulls out one of the clubs. “Ain’t she a beauty?”
    She is.
    “Here, one for each of us.”
    Phil hands me a club. He tells me it’s a “driver.” It’s light, unnaturally light considering the enormous metal head. I pull off the cover and even in the dull, overcast light the silvery metal gleams. DIABLO is etched across its face. “We’ll take the drivers and the woods,” Phil says, handing Ted a club and keeping two for himself.
    He seems to be composing himself. I think just holding the clubs again brought him back to a state of normalcy.
    After that it’s time to keep moving. I’m getting nervous standing out in the open for so long. I keep imagining that just around the retaining wall to our right is an entire army of Groaners scuttling toward us. We go back to the cement landing, where Ted slaps Phil on the back and thanks him for the clubs.
    The fire escape hangs down from the apartments above, ending a few feet above the landing. I’m too short to make it up to the top rung by myself, so Ted gives me a boost with his hands cupped into a stirrup. I’m not excited to go first up a ladder that could very well take me right into a room full of undead, but there’s a shiny new golf club hanging from my belt loop and I’m itching to try it out. Not that I’ve grown tired of the ax, it’s just nice to know that I’ve got a backup.
    The wrought iron of the fire escape is freezing cold and covered in little pits that hurt my hands. I go as fast as possible, hoping to get to the top and inside a window before the creatures waiting inside have a chance to anticipate us. We still don’t know how they find us—is it scent? Is it something worse, some evil gift acquired at the moment of death?
    I reach the slatted metal landing with my teeth chattering from the cold. Once your adrenaline drops, the freezing temperature moves in, shimmying inside your clothes and making your bones ice over. The window