Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4)

Michelle struggled to get to Trish but more patrons surged between them. The two were pushed in different directions.

An announcement on the P.A.: "Ladies and gentlemen, there's a fire. Evacuate! Evacuate now! Do not use the kitchen or stage exit--that's where the fire is! Use the emergency doors."

Howling screams now.

Patrons rose and stools fell, drinks scattered. Two high-top tables tipped over and crashed to the floor. People began moving toward the exit doors, whose red glowing signs were still obvious; the smell of smoke was strong but visibility was good.

"Trish! Over here!" Michelle screamed. Now two dozen people were between them. Why the hell had she gone back for the damn purse? "Let's get out!"

Her daughter started toward her through the crowd. But the tide of people surging for the exit doors lifted Michelle off her feet and tugged her away, while Trish was enveloped in another group.

"Honey!"

"Mom!"

Michelle, being dragged toward the exit doors, used every muscle in her body to turn toward her daughter, but she was helpless, crushed between two patrons: a heavyset man in a T-shirt already savagely torn, his skin red and bearing scratch marks from fingernails, and a woman whose fake breasts pressed painfully into Michelle's side.

"Trish, Trish, Trish!"

She might have been mute. The patrons' screams and wailing--from fear and from pain--were numbing. All she could see was the head of the man in front of her and the EXIT sign they surged toward. Michelle pounded her fists on shoulders, on arms, on necks, on faces, just as she too was pounded by other patrons.

"I have to get my daughter! Go back, go back, go back!"

But there was no stopping the tide streaming for the exits. Michelle Cooper could breathe only an ounce or two of air at a time. And the pain--in her chest, her side, her gut. Terrible! Her arms were pinned, feet suspended above the floor.

The houselights were on, bright. Michelle turned slightly--not her doing--and she could see the faces of the patrons near her: eyes coin-wide in panic, crimson streaks from mouths--had people bitten their tongues out of fear? Or was the crush snapping ribs and piercing lungs? One man, in his forties, was unconscious, skin gray. Had he fainted? Or died of a heart attack? He was still upright, though, wedged into the moving crowd.

The smell of smoke was stronger now and it was hard to breathe; maybe the fire was sucking the oxygen from the room, though she could still see no flames. Perhaps the patrons, in their panic, were depleting the air. The pressure of bodies against her chest, too.

"Trish! Honey!" she called but the words were whispers. No air in, no air out.

Where was her baby? Was someone helping her escape? Not likely. Nobody, not a single soul, seemed to be helping anyone else. This was an animal frenzy. Every person was out for himself. It was pure survival.

Please...

The group of patrons she was welded to stumbled over something.

Oh, God...

Glancing down, Michelle could just make out a slim young Latina in a red-and-black dress, lying on her side, her face registering pure terror and agony. Her right arm was broken, bent backward. Her other hand was reaching up, fingers gripping a man's pants pocket.

Helpless. She couldn't rise; no one paid the least attention to her even as she cried out with every foot that trampled her body.

Michelle was looking right into the woman's eyes when a cowboy boot came down directly onto her throat. The man tried to avoid it, crying, "No, move back, move back," to those around him. But, like everyone else, he had no control over his direction, his motion, his footfalls.

Under the pressure of the weight on her throat, the woman's head went back and she began to shake fiercely. By the time Michelle had been yanked away, the Latina's eyes were glazed and her tongue protruded slightly from her bright red lips.

Michelle Cooper had just seen someone die.

More P.A. announcements. Michelle couldn't hear them. Not that it mattered. She had absolutely no control over anything.

Trish, she prayed, stay on your feet. Don't fall. Please...

As the mass surrounding her stumbled closer to the fire doors, the crowd began to shift to the right and soon Michelle could see the rest of the club.

There! Yes, there was her daughter! Trish was still on her feet, though she too was pinned in a mass

of churning bodies. "Trish, Trish!" she screamed. Or tried to. Maybe she'd lost her voice. Maybe the shriek was simply lost in the cacophony.