A form emerged from the darkness. It was Jessica. She stopped in the gloom at the top of the stairs and stared at Frost and his burden. She looked down and shook her head. She said quietly “They’re all in your place. The soup’ll be hot soon.” She was broad shouldered and only a couple of inches shorter than Frost. She stepped forward into the watery light and sighed and said firmly “Give me his feet.”
Frost ticked his head sideways and said “Move.”
She said with both exasperation and resignation “For Christ sake, Frost, don’t. Don’t do this. It’s five floors.”
He waited, inhaled impatiently. Jessica stepped past him out into the corridor.
Even at the top where there was a little light, he did not try to see the stairs but stared straight ahead as a blind man might. Standing very upright he lowered his right foot to a stair. He lowered his left to the next, then continued.
At the landing he gave the corpse a heft to improve his grip. His heavy exhalations echoed in the stairwell. He took the next flight more cautiously. Right foot to a stair. Left foot to the same stair. Now there was a desperate quality to his breathing, almost a groan. He stood at the landing for ten or fifteen seconds.
Invisible in the darkness above him, but close, Jessica said “At least put him down and rest. He’s not in a hurry to get nowhere.”
Frost gave Joshua a mighty heave and doubled him over his left shoulder. But he was too weak for such a maneuver and stumbled backward. Joshua’s head thumped into the wall.
Jessica said “Jesus, Frost, don’t kill him twice.”
Frost was breathing a little better. He said “Mind your own business.”
“It’s my business as much as yours. You stubborn son of a bitch.”
Further up the stairwell Frost heard Grace pleading. “Please, Frost. You’re not as strong as you think.”
Frost said “I know. Shut up.” He went down the stairs one by one, with Joshua folded over his left shoulder. As he went he leaned with his right shoulder scraping against the wall of the stairwell.
Farther down there was a distant wavering light and the faint smell of smoke. The light grew stronger, as did the smell. Someone came up the next flight of stairs, rounded the landing and started up the flight down which Frost was struggling. The person was holding a cattail by the stem. The fluff, burst out of its dark skin, was burning weakly, sputtering. Frost looked down the stairs into the face of Brandon. He said “Get out of my way.”
Without looking, Brandon stepped backward down the stairs, keeping pace with Frost. He said “I come to light you down.”
Frost said “I don’t need any light.”
“I ain’t talkin’ to you.”
In the shadows squirming on it, Joshua’s face seemed to move, to dodge, thrust forward and retreat. In addition to this flutter of shadows, the face and the torch and the smoke were spinning in front of Frost’s eyes. But at the next landing he did not stop to rest. He said “Drunk. Already.”
Brandon continued backward down the steps, keeping pace with Frost. He said “I seen you was near the end.”
Frost said “You talking to me now?” He gave in to a kind of weak-kneed momentum, moving fast while he still could.
Brandon also increased his pace, stepping blindly backwards. He said “So I come to light you down.”
Through his own gasping breaths and the blood pounding in his ears Frost heard someone coughing. He heard a child crying. He plunged on down the stairs.
At the bottom Brandon dropped his torch on the tiled floor. There was a glass door. Brandon held it open, and Frost stumbled out through it into the cold dawn air, weaving, knees buckling. He turned his head and vomited a splash of yellow bile.
Jessica and Grace rushed past Brandon and helped Frost to sit on the top step. Frost slid the corpse down onto his lap so that Joshua again lay with his head flung back, mouth gaping, with the back of the free hand resting on the wet of a lower concrete step. Frost’s head hung down against the pelts of Joshua’s poncho.
When Frost looked up Will was standing waiting in front of him with a shovel. Frost said faintly. “I’ll be fine. Just dizzy.” He slid his right arm from under Joshua and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. Grace squatted behind him and put her hands on his shoulders and laid her face against his back.
Frost straightened. His breath was still heaving. He peered off toward the graveyard, as if he were trying to gauge how far away it was. He made no effort to rise yet, but sat there in the rain with the corpse of Joshua on his lap.
Will looked as if he were about to cry. Jessica went down the steps and stood beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. This started him blubbering.
Brandon walked off eastward toward the bridge. He walked not in a straight line but in long narrow curves. He had a bottle now.
Frost set his mouth and gathered himself.
Grace said “No, Frost” and “Will, get a wheelbarrow.” But Will just stood there beside Jessica, crying and watching his grandfather.
Frost raised his head, squinted westward, suddenly alert and birdlike in the burgundy-rimmed glasses. Grace rose and stared in the same direction. Then Jessica also did so, and finally Will, who spluttered “It’s Beast and Sorrow.” The two dogs were trotting at a good pace. Beast barked once at about a hundred yards distance. Sorrow barked, and then they ran. Wing and Daniel Charlie were standing by the building blocks. Sorrow jumped up against Wing, wagging her tail. Beast ran on to be greeted by Frost.
Frost slid carefully out from under Joshua and left him sprawled on his back there on the steps. He walked quickly past the others. The dog jumped up against him, whining and barking. Will dropped the shovel and ran forward and grabbed the dragging leash. Wing and Daniel Charlie watched Frost and the others approach. Then they turned suddenly. Far beyond them a figure was approaching.
Frost eased into a jog, and Will and Beast followed. But soon Frost stopped and looked back. In a scattered group his guards came around the far corner of the domicile. They were running. Marpole, Dunsmuir, Hastings, Airport, Newton, Boundary, Richmond, Lansdowne, Oak. Tyrell was at the front. Most of Wing’s men were there too — Nordel, Bridgeport, Burnaby. They had their spears. They had their bows slung over their backs, and also, by cords, their plastic bags of arrows. In the hands that did not hold their spears six of the men each gripped the leash of a dog that ran beside him.
Frost said “Will, stay here with Beast. Stay by the domicile.” He called “Jessica, get out all the bows and all the arrows. Grace, be ready.”
When Frost turned again Wing and Daniel Charlie were running westward. He jogged after them, with the world swimming in his vision.
Solomon’s eyes were wild, like the eyes of a terrorized horse, and his beardless face was ashen beneath a mane of tangled black hair. Until Wing and Daniel Charlie reached him he made not a sound, but when Daniel Charlie tried to calm him by patting his back he howled. He stomped side to side in a frantic dance and flapped his right arm. His left hung limp. The khaki shirt sleeve was torn and reddened, and blood dripped from his fingers. His faded and patched blue jeans were wet around the crotch. He screamed “Frost! Frost!”
Frost leaned on his knees, catching his breath. When he straightened, the world was still spinning. He spoke anyway. “Solomon, what happened?”
Solomon wagged his head from side to side. “Frost! Frost! Frost!”
Frost slapped him. Solomon froze, staring.
Frost said again “What happened?”
Solomon said “The bad men are hurtin’ everybody.”
Then Grace was there. She took Solomon’s right hand, and he went with her toward the domicile, howling again.
The running men surrounded Frost and Wing and Daniel Charlie. The dogs were barking and snapping at one another. Frost shouted “Settle down!” He shouted it again, and they were quieter. Tyrell said “We heard screamin’ from up there. Looks like Fundy tried to get his bridge back.”