Chapter 12 - The Window to the Alley
The kitchen was already thick with the sweet, metallic haze of the gas, but the back window leading to the overgrown alley remained unlatched. Officer Vance slammed his shoulder against the glass, shattering the single-pane frame in a shower of glittering shards that rained down onto the linoleum floor.
"Climbing through," Vance grunted, hoisting Clara carefully over the jagged sill and lowering her gently into the tall grass outside, where the fallen oak tree blocked the exit.
Sarah followed immediately behind, clutching the two infants tight against her chest like fragile glass, stepping carefully over the broken glass to avoid cutting her boots. She handed the babies down to Clara, who pulled them close beneath her grey pants and makeshift blankets to shield them from the biting wind.
Martha emerged last, clutching the heavy manila folder and the flash drive in one hand while using the brass anchor to smash the remaining glass shards out of the frame.
"Is everyone out?" Martha demanded, coughing as a wave of smoke billowed out from the kitchen doorway behind her.
"We're out!" Vance yelled back, grabbing Martha by the arm and dragging her over the sill just as a low, subterranean rumble shook the ground beneath their feet.
The sound wasn't a sudden explosion; it was a slow, agonizing groan of stressed timber and snapping concrete as the foundation charges began to detonate in a synchronized sequence. The back wall of the house shuddered, dust and insulation spewing out from the vents like a dying breath.
"Run!" Sarah shouted, her voice breaking as she helped Clara crawl around the massive trunk of the fallen oak tree that blocked the service alley.
They scrambled through the dense brush, their clothes tearing on thorny blackberry bushes, putting as much distance between themselves and the collapsing structure as their exhausted bodies would allow.
Behind them, the roofline of the house folded inward with a heavy, thunderous crash, sending a massive plume of gray dust billowing into the clear morning sky.
When they finally collapsed behind a concrete drainage ditch fifty yards down the alley, the house they had fled was nothing more than a smoking pile of splintered wood and ash.
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And sitting right on top of the ruined rubble, resting on an unburned section of the front porch railing, was a ringing cell phone.
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