STAIRWELL ESCAPE

2018

The solid clank of the fire door latch echoed in the empty stairway … hopefully empty. For a few seconds the only thing I could hear was the thump of my heart in my ears. It hurt too, like my heart was going to break my rib cage.

Please be empty. Please be empty. Please be empty. And please be safe. Please be safe. Please be safe. Pleaded my mind, as if repeating it over and over would make it true.

Oh, my goodness. Was this a good choice? I hadn’t the opportunity to think through my choice of escape. Are stairwells the safest place when monsters invade your office? We never covered that in the emergency safety meetings.

They don’t know about doors or how to open them, right? I’ve never seen anything like that in movies, anyways, I don’t think. Monsters don’t know about people things. How doors and such work. Right?

Up or down? Up or down? UP or DOWN!

I can’t do this.

All I really want to do is puke.

Did Gary really get torn in two? I … I … Oh, my goodness.

Up or down?

Up … the roof, that could be good. Right? But, what if that’s where the monsters came from? Maybe … maybe … maybe they snuck down the airshafts and vents. Maybe some of them are standing guard by the vents waiting to attack anyone coming after them. A whole back guard waiting to obliterate anything that moves.

I mean, really. Where the heck did those things come from?

So, then down … yeah? Down and then out past the elevators into the lobby and out the entrance.

But what if that’s their base of operations and a bunch of them are hunkered down there waiting as their hunting party chases people down to the lobby to be slaughtered.

Was there only one? I was so scared I didn’t even think to look and count. Is it only our floor? Is it only our building?

Up or down?

Up means better vantage point to see what’s happening maybe even a chance at a possible helicopter rescue. Up, means no other escape route except plummeting to certain death, or of course death by monster.

Down means no plummeting and a possibly just walking out the front door, but if there are monster swarms filling the streets it doesn’t matter if I get out at all. But, down means maybe there’s a military convey saving people and being rescued in a cool all terrain armored vehicle. It also means an unbridled assault by the angered monsters.

Up or down?

I drink in a full deep breath and exhale … quietly.

OK.

Here goes …

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