Staying Alive

23

There were footsteps upstairs. The floorboards above them creaked and groaned as people walked and stomped around.

At first, John had been hoping it’d just been one person up there. One person who’d broken the window and entered the house. One person who was a threat.

Instead, it sounded like many.

Whoever they were, they weren’t speaking. That probably meant they knew, or suspected, that others were in the house. That wasn’t good.

Maybe they just wouldn’t come down into the basement.

But John knew that was too much to hope for. He knew enough by now to know that things simply didn’t go the way he’d hope. Usually, they went the worst way possible.

John watched as Bill and the others moved themselves against the wall. They pointed their guns at the end of the staircase.

John didn’t know what to do. He had no military training, and he knew his knife would be no good. Which was good. Truthfully, he was terrified of the thought of having to use it.

He moved against the wall himself, staying behind Bill. The two others were against the other wall. None of them moved.

The door above them opened. It creaked loudly.

But maybe they still wouldn’t come down. Maybe they were just opening the door to see if it was a closet or something. Maybe they’d lose interest when they saw that it led to a basement.

Then again, whoever they were, they were almost certainly looking for provisions. And everyone knew that tons of useful things were often kept in basements.

John’s heart was pounding in his chest. Adrenaline was coursing through him. He felt tense and wired. And cold with fear. He tried to keep his breathing under control. He felt like he was making far too much noise just breathing.

Footsteps on the stairs.

Heavy footsteps.

Someone was descending.

Each stair creaked. John’s heart leaped with each step.

It was brutal, the waiting.

He wished it could just all be over. No matter what the end, surely it’d be better than this. The suspense alone might kill him.

When the person was about halfway down the stairs, at least as far as John could tell, counting the steps in his head and doing guesswork, they switched on a bright flashlight. The beam hit the wall opposite the stairs. It was a concentrated beam, but it cast diffuse light across the basement. Dust particles seemed to hang in the air, glowing with light.

Everything felt still as the unknown person descended.

Just get it over with, said John over and over to himself in his head.

John saw the foot first. Wearing a heavy military-style boot, lots of laces, camo fatigues stuffed into the top of the boot.

Bill’s companion, the man in the civilian clothes, shot first.

The sound was defending, blasting John’s eardrums. It rang out through the basement, echoing horribly.

John crouched down in fear, acting instinctually, automatically, covering his head with his hands. Just a coward, he thought to himself, the thoughts ringing painfully through his head, almost as bad as the gunfire. Nothing more than a damn coward.

Another shot. A series of shots.

Muzzle flashes lit up the room. The flashlight dropped, rolling to the floor. Its clatter couldn’t even be heard over the gunfire.

John didn’t know what was happening. It was too much. Too fast.

More footsteps, thudding around upstairs. Yelling. Shouted commands. All guttural and intense.

“Tim’s down,” shouted someone, either Bill or the other guy.

John looked up. The civilian-clothed companion was down on the ground, bleeding profusely.

There was another body on the ground. It was a woman wearing military camo. She’d fallen headfirst down the last few steps, out over the open side of the stairwell. Her long braided hair ran down her back, out of a green military-style baseball cap. She lay face down, her gun underneath her body. One of her boots was still resting on a stair.

“They’re not going to come down,” said Bill, in hurried, hushed tones.

He was speaking mostly to the cop. Not to John. He knew John wasn’t going to be any good. He knew John was just dead weight, a worthless goner, no matter what.

There was no way out of this. And John knew he’d be the next to die. Maybe he deserved it. He wasn’t doing anyone any good. Not even himself.

“Yeah,” said the cop. John still didn’t know his name, and they were going to die together. “There’s no reason to. They’ll just wait for us to come up.”

“Or drop a grenade down here,” said Bill.

There was no discussion of the people upstairs simply leaving. But John already knew that that simply wasn’t going to happen.

“The window,” muttered Bill, gesturing with his head towards one of the small windows.

“Looks small.”

“We could get through it.”

“They’re sure to be outside, though. Waiting.”

“What do we do?”

“I’ve got no idea.”

“Shit.”

There was shouting upstairs.

“Throw it!”

Something clattered down the stairs. Something heavy and dense.

John saw it. It was a grenade. It lay on the dusty concrete floor. Time seemed to stand still for a moment.

But there wasn’t time to move.

It exploded.

The shock wave hit them. John’s eardrums rang from the sound of the explosion.

Bill’s heavy body hit him, knocking him over. John was on the ground, underneath Bill.

John knew he should have felt something. Some shrapnel piercing him. He should have felt pain. But he felt nothing except for Bill’s heaviness weighing down on him. It was hard for him to breathe, and his eardrums sang with pain.

With the ringing in his ears, it was hard to tell, but John guessed that silence followed the grenade.

There were thumping footsteps. Someone was headed down the stairs.

“Bill!” said John, whispering loudly. “Bill!”

But he already knew there’d be no response. Bill didn’t move. He wasn’t breathing.

John didn’t know why, and he didn’t know how, but somehow he had the strength to go on. The strength to at least try.

It took all his strength to push Bill off of him.

Bill’s dead weight finally fell to the side, making a sickening noise as it slumped down onto the concrete. The sound of cold death, boring, mundane, and terrifying.

Bill’s back was bloodied with shrapnel wounds.

The cop was down on the ground, not moving. He was lying face up, his chest and face torn up by shrapnel. There wasn’t any hope for him.

John felt dizzy and weak. He still had his knife. His only thought was that somehow he could get out through the window. Not that he could but that he needed to try.

A man wearing fatigues and a t-shirt jumped down the last few steps. His boots landed heavily on the concrete floor. The light was dim, but John could still see him. The dead woman’s flashlight lay on the ground, shining its concentrated beam at the opposite wall, offering only diffuse light to the surroundings.

The man saw John instantly.

He raised his handgun, pointing it at John’s head.

It was over. It was finally over.

There was nothing he could do.

A small bit of relief washed over John.

Finally.

The man pulled the trigger. John saw it all happen almost in slow motion.

He knew he’d be dead in an instant.

But nothing happened.

The gun had jammed.

John looked up, finally meeting the man’s gaze. He looked him dead in the eyes. And he saw fear.