Slaughter

He wasn’t sure what had awakened him at three a.m. At first he thought he must have something to do, and either he or A

But he knew it was unlikely that either he or A

He felt worry slip away as he felt himself drawn again to sleep. The apartment—the entire building—seemed quiet now. All he could hear was the steady rhythm of A

She stirred and turned away from him, drawing up her knees. Her familiar, gentle snoring comforted him.

Maybe that was what had awoken him. A

He might have gone back to sleep. He wasn’t sure afterward.

There was a muffled shuffling sound from out in the lobby. A

She and Emilio lay facing each other, staring puzzled into each other’s eyes.

A

Sirens were wailing off in the distance. A lot of them. It took less than a minute for Emilio to be sure they were converging on Off the Road.

His building!

Emilio sprang out of bed and yanked on his pants, which were folded on a nearby chair. He fastened his belt, slid his bare feet into slippers. After cautioning A

He felt the brass doorknob first, to make sure it was cool. Then he was through the door, and up the steps to the lobby.

The smell hit him first. Something burning. Then he saw a thick pall of black smoke clinging to the ceiling. Tenants were ru

Though the fire was obviously upstairs, the elevator was at lobby level. As its door slid open, people tried to stream out but were blocked by others. Every few seconds someone was ejected by force out onto the lobby floor.

Finally they managed something like order, and came stumbling out one after the other. The last one out, a woman whose name was Karen and who Emilio thought was a painter, paused at the elevator door and reached back inside before stepping away.

“No!” Emilio cried. “Don’t send the elevator back up! Don’t use it! You can be trapped in it.”

Karen stared at him, comprehended, then stopped the elevator doors from closing and stuffed her purse in the door. The elevator stalled, stopped, and began to ding over and over. It was already filling up with smoke.

Karen, in a blue robe and one blue slipper, stopped ru

“Get out, Emilio! There’s nothing you can do.”

But there was. “A

“There!” Karen cried, and pointed.

A

The door hung open, its vacuum sweep dangling and broken.

They were three feet away from it when a huge apparition burst in. A New York fireman in full regalia, boots, slicker, gloves, a hat, and some kind of respiratory mask.

Emilio and A

The first one who’d come in stared at Emilio from behind the mask.

“I’m the super,” Emilio said.

“Get out for now,” said the gruff voice on the other side of the mask’s visor. “But don’t go away.”

“We’ve got no place to go,” Emilio said. “This is home.”

“Better leave it before it falls on you,” the fireman said.

One of the firemen who’d gone upstairs was back. The one talking with Emilio and A

The smoke was thickest where it was backed up at the door, though the door itself had been removed and lay shattered off to the side. Emilio and A

“How did this happen?” Emilio shouted, as if maybe the fireman was at fault.

“Don’t know how yet,” the fireman said. “But it looks like it started on the upper floors first, then another fire in the basement. On timers, so the fire would move up and down, catch people in a kind of pincer movement of flames.”

“Then somebody did this on purpose,” Karen said.

“Yes, ma’am. That’d be my guess.”

“Whoever did it wanted to kill people.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am.”

Emilio and A

The fireman studied the flames for a moment. “Don’t waste time, then,” he said. “Get some distance between you and the fire.” He patted them both on the shoulder. “Go!”

The fire seemed to close in on them, and the smoke thickened, as if the flames wanted to take advantage of the firefighter’s departure.

But they both knew the way. Emilio knew these streets.

The acrid smoke made their eyes sting and caused them to water. Their throats felt raw, and every cough hurt.

Squinting so he could see at least partially, Emilio took A

Emilio and A

When they could see better, Emilio looked more carefully at Off the Road. The building was burning fiercely. Flames seemed to show in every window.

Almost at ground level, toward the rear where it wasn’t noticeable from the street, there was movement. Emilio knew that a basement window was there; it was small, but it let in light.

Now it was letting someone out. A small figure fleeing the fire. At first Emilio thought he was imagining it. He used a wad of tissue to wipe tears from his eyes. Yes! A woman, judging by her size, was exiting the building via the basement window. Both arms were visible now, a leg crooked sharply at the knee. The figure didn’t look so much like a woman now. Something in the way it moved.

It was a small man, wearing a baseball cap crookedly cocked on his head. Outside the window, he glanced around, noticed Emilio staring at him, and trotted, then walked to join the gawkers down the street.

He glanced back again. In the brightness of the streetlight and police and FDNY flashing lights, Emilio noticed an elfin quality about him. Because of his ear. One large ear stuck straight out from his head and came to a sharp point. He had his head turned so Emilio couldn’t see the other ear. The jockey-size man moved away, back among the gawkers. He was so graceful that he almost danced. Within seconds he was invisible.

“Did you see that?” Emilio asked.

A