So I began to believe I was going to die. At that point, the thought came almost as a relief. I was so sick of myself, so sick of the things I'd done that night. Sick at what I'd done to Rashid. Sick that I had crouched in that closet as if I were some kind of predatory monster, ready and willing to strangle that poor girl, Maryanne. How was I supposed to go home after that? Make love to my wife, play with my children? How was I supposed to go to church again and shake the hands of my neighbors there and wish them God's peace?
To be honest, if it had just been me, I think I would've sat down right then, right there, invisible in the darkness. I think I would've just laid my forehead on my knees and waited to be blown away.
But of course it wasn't just me. It never was. Serena was out in that blackness somewhere. And the people upstairs-all those thousands of faces, flickering in the movie-light-and the faces waiting on the street outside-and the faces all over the city and on the TV, too-the faces in the wars all around the world which somehow were one war and which somehow, insanely, I'd become a part of.
So I took a step forward, a slow, tentative step into that almost-visible dark. I began edging forward bit by bit, staring, listening. Unable to see-blind here-blind completely-I became aware of sounds first. It was not as silent in the cellar as I'd originally thought. There were still some muffled noises from the theater above. Voices-music-dim-impossible to make out. And there were other sounds, too: a steady hum of machinery, an electric buzz, a soft click or two, the hollow whisper that a furnace makes. My foot touched a wall, but when I reached out my hand to the right, I felt a space beside it, an opening, maybe, into another room, another hall. I couldn't tell. I went through. I went slowly on, feeling my way. I could sense death near me, like a figure walking beside me in the dark.
Soon I became aware of something else. A smell. It was faint but definite. Sour, stinging, organic. It was the smell of sweat and urine, the smell of fear: a human smell. I tried to follow it.
The scent grew thicker, harsher, step by step. My heart beat harder. I paused to sniff the air, to test it, trying to figure out the way to the source. Then I started moving again, reaching out with my hands to feel the way.
I don't know how long I went on like that. I remember I banged my shin at one point. At another point, I stumbled over something hard and staggered into nothingness a few terrifying steps before I regained my balance. Mostly, though, I just moved, slowly, blindly, my hands out in front of me, until the progression became dreamlike, until it seemed it would simply continue and continue and never end.
Then at last-at last, I began to see. Not much at first. Small lights here and there, lights I guess the killers couldn't disable. There was a green indicator on a machine of some sort and a red indicator not far from it. And there was another of those soft white fluorescents glowing somewhere around a corner out of sight. My eyes fed on these and began to pick out shapes. Large, looming structures all around me. There was nothing I could make sense of. The trace of grillework here, a clawing metallic arm arching overhead, a large clockwork of some sort with pendulums and pistons moving quietly but powerfully. I felt I had stepped into the heart of some great and terrible machine.
I stopped moving. I peered around me, disheartened, bewildered. Where the hell was I? What was I supposed to do now? How would I ever find the detonator in this dark? How would I ever find Serena?
The smell was dense here, dense as dense. My nostrils stung with it. My eyes teared. And the noises: guttural hums, periodic soughs, steady whirs of movement-they were louder, closer. I felt as if black mills and engines were hovering over me in the darkness, hovering almost hungrily, like living creatures, ravenous beasts. For a moment or two, in my tension and confusion, the sounds of them, their huge presence, that smell-it all nearly overwhelmed my senses.
And so, for a moment or two, I didn't hear those other, softer sounds nearby: the sound of something moving on the floor, the sound of a soft, struggling, breathless human voice.
Then I did hear it. I turned quickly, searching for it. I stepped blindly toward it. My foot touched something heavy and soft. I dropped to my knees, reaching out with my hands. I felt her. Yes, and I could see her now, too. I could make out the dim shadow of her. Struggling, tied. I put my hands on her arm.
"Serena!" I said, my voice breaking. "Serena. It's me. It's Jason."
She struggled harder, went on trying to speak even more urgently than before. I felt my way to her shoulder, to her face. I felt for the gag across her mouth. It was the same sort of duct-tape gag I'd used on Rashid. My heart was wild as I tried to get a purchase on it. I was wild with surprise and joy-and surging terror, too, because she was alive-which meant there was a chance I might save her-which meant there was a chance I might fail to save her, a chance she'd die under my hands.
My fingers found the edge of the duct tape. I worked it off her. I felt for the rag in her mouth. She was already trying to spit it out. I got the tip of it, worked it between her lips and pulled it free.
Serena gasped and coughed. She gulped air. I held her close to me, my eyes swimming. I felt her press her face against my neck. Then she pulled back. She looked up at me. I saw her eyes gleaming out of the dark.
"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it," she whispered fiercely. "I knew you'd come for me."
A Lost Chance of Escape
I tried to free her. I picked at the duct tape that bound her wrists behind her back.
"Don't," she croaked. "There's no time. Jamal already went upstairs. He has the button."
"Damn it!" I said. I couldn't get the tape off her. I couldn't find the end of it.
"Stop," she whined. "We have to go."
"Okay." I looked around at the vague and monstrous shadows. "We have to find the detonators."
"That's no good. They're all over. They go off if you touch them. There's a timer, too. It goes off no matter what. We have to get out."
I nodded once. She was right. I worked my hands under her. I took her into my arms and stood. She was small and light, nothing to carry. And I guess the adrenaline must've been pumping through me, too. I barely felt the weight of her.
As seconds passed, I stood there, holding her, looking around, disoriented. The looming, grinding machines-whatever they were-seemed to hem me in and bear down on me on every side. I couldn't see a way through them. I wasn't even sure which way I'd come.
"Go that way. That light," Serena said, lifting her chin toward it.
I found it. That pale fluorescent light around the corner, the one I'd noticed before. I moved toward it, maneuvering through the gothic silhouettes. Now I could make out the doorway. I maneuvered her through it. I came into a corridor. I saw the light. It hung above a door.
"Hurry," she said.
I carried her down the hall. The smell of her surrounded me. I could smell her fruity little-girl perfume and the cotton of her sweatshirt, clean and soft as a baby's pajamas. I could smell the urine where she'd wet herself and her sweat which carried the scent of her sex in it and the scent of her fear which was stronger than all the rest. In the pale light, I could see her frightened features, scrunched and shuddering. She was crying with terror. I felt an almost-crushing tenderness for her, something like what I'd felt for my children when they were babies in their cribs.
"We're gonna be all right," I told her.