“Okay,” she said.
They retraced their steps, the air humming with deep vibrations. When they arrived at the lab, things were dropping from the ceiling around them, and it was a split second before Quinn realized it was Rodney collapsing from where he’d grown. They raced down the rear hall and stopped at the door leading to the roof. Quinn yanked on the door without looking outside, but Alice must have done so since her grasp on his arm tightened.
“Quinn…”
The door was locked.
“Quinn…” More urgency in her voice.
“Stand back,” he said, shoving the pistol against the gap between the door and its frame near the handle.
He fired.
The gunshot was deafening, but when he tugged on the doorknob, the door swung free toward them. He shoved them into the dark stairway, a last look at the pale mass of lurching flesh, closer now, so much closer.
He lunged through the door, slamming it behind him. There was no way to re-lock it so he ran, ripping up the stairs two at a time. At the top landing, Alice had unlocked the outside door and already spilled onto the roof. As he made the landing, a fire extinguisher caught his attention on the wall. He tore it free of its mooring and sprinted onto the roof.
The roof was covered with rock and felt spongy beneath his feet. He neared the waist-high edge and looked over.
The field behind the building was filled with stilts. They poured like a tidal wave across the earth, arms swinging, heads tilted up, mouths open and belching roars.
“Is the front clear?” he yelled over his shoulder.
“There’s a few around the truck!” Alice called back.
“Get down! Don’t let them see you!”
He tossed the fire extinguisher over the side as the first stilts neared the building. He took aim, breathing, locking the sights on the red steel canister. The sights shook. Don’t let the fear win.
He squeezed the trigger.
The extinguisher jumped and spewed a stream of thick, white smoke into the air. The stilts nearby staggered away from it, the rest slowing and hanging back as the cylinder arced out even more of its contents. Quinn dashed around the side of the building banging the pistol on the concrete lip as he neared its front. The stilts surrounding the truck looked up at him, glaring through the short distance that separated them.
“This way you ugly fuckers!” Quinn yelled and ran back the way he’d come. He only had to wait a moment to know that they’d taken the bait. They came into view, their eyes finding him as he pelted to the rear of the building. “Jump when it’s safe!” he yelled, but didn’t look back to see if Alice had heard him. The fire extinguisher was fizzling its last, and the herd approached it, coming closer like an army of thin apes. One of them reached out and batted the canister against the building. When it merely rolled a few inches into the grass and fell still, they flooded through the open doorway while others reached up, trying to grasp the edge of the roof.
He chanced a look over his shoulder just in time to see Alice lock eyes with him as she climbed onto the roof’s lip. Their gaze solidified into something almost tangible and then broke as she jumped.
Two giant hands latched onto the roof and pulled, a snarling face appearing behind them. Quinn shot the stilt through the head, bringing down four more before turning and running as fast as he could toward the front of the building. He vaulted the wall, hoping that he’d estimated correctly, and fell over the side.