Burlap

39 - Anthem of the Angels

My screams echoed off the walls, intensifying until they all melted into one horrifying, never ending cry that sounded as through it were bleeding, seeping from the pores of the walls themselves. Shilling's body crashed to the ground beside Marcie's, a single circle of fresh blood bubbling at his temple, where the bullet from George's gun had exploded into his skull.

My arms wrapped around my middle, squeezing my stomach as if causing myself pain would erase what had been done. Erase the empty, yet hopeless, eyes in Marcie's detached head from looking at me from under her own body. When that didn't work, my fingers wound themselves in my hair, tangling in the strands and yanking at the roots as every pain filled scream left my throat more and more raw. My body rocked, unable to cope. Unable to breathe.

I failed. I didn't save her. She was dead. I'd let her life end in terror, in fear, when all she deserved was to find peace and happiness. What had I done? What had I become?

The word, "no" parted my lips, leaping from my tongue out into the open air over and over between guttural screams of denial. The world around me shattered, cracking and falling apart in great chunks, which whirled around me like a chaotic cyclone before stopping and dropping to my feet. Only for me to look up, hoping to see I'd imagined it all, and see her body, her head, laying there again, looking at me with such utter despair and disappointment that the whole thing started over again. The shattering, the tornado, the stillness, and the realization, forever on loop behind my eyes.

Two pairs of rough hands clasped around my arms, jerking me to my feet. My knees refused to cooperate, and I found myself hunched over, being carried between John and George, my arms stretched out across John's left shoulder and George's right one as the arm attached to each of those shoulders supported my waist. Both men's necks felt slick with sweat, and when my head lolled to the side, landing on the hollow between John's neck and chest, the sharp, acrid odor of smoke choked my lungs.

"Go. We can calm her down outside. Just go!" George snapped, forcing the three of us forward, toward the door they had somehow broken down. My body jerked in the direction they moved, John's hot breath colliding with my greasy hair and sending it flying every few seconds. The two men hauled me out, but something in me snapped to attention as we crossed the threshold to the stairwell. I panicked, twisting in their grips until I faced the thirteenth floor again.

"We can't leave them! We can't leave her!" I cried, shoving myself past them. My foot barely touched the grimy floor before they restrained me again, pressing forward until we reached the first set of stairs. Black fog rose from the lower levels, alarming my already panicked brain.

"What's going on? We have to free them! We have to let everyone know they can escape now! We can't leave them there to die!"

John shoved me against the far wall, holding me hostage as I screamed and protested.

"We can't do anything for them, Kate," he whispered, his face so close our noses brushed. Sadness, such deep sadness, emanated from his searching eyes that I stopped struggling, and tears cascaded from my eyes in thick waterfalls down my cheeks. "None of them will survive out there. No one will help them, or believe them. Didn't you see the emptiness in their eyes? It's been over for them for a long time. They're not human anymore, and we don't have time to get them all out. The building is about to collapse."

"But, Marcie-"

George pulled John back, glaring at me from beside him. "Marcie is dead. Her body is of no importance anymore. What do you expect to do? Bring her decapitated head to her mother for a proper burial? Don't be stupid."

I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut as I sobbed. "No! No, we have to try! We have to... We have to..."

"What, Kate?!" George yelled, shoving John aside to take his place in front of me. "We have to what?! They're all dead and have been for a long time, and unless you cut the crap and get your act together, we will be too, and it will be your fault for keeping us here with your idiotic hero complex!" His spittle sprayed across my face, mixing with the tears. Rage like a roaring fire glowed in his eyes, his fingers bruising my shoulders where he gripped them, as if to prove his point.