The Memory Painter

The lab had several natural gas sources: gas spigots, a gas line to the chemical fume hood, and a row of canisters used to fuel the burners. Diana tried to stay calm as she rifled through drawers looking for the keys. Conrad must have taken them all.

She reached for the phone to call the police. “The phone’s dead,” she said as cold dread began to take hold of her. “You need to get out of there. I’m going to try and break the glass.”

Finn ordered, “No, don’t. Just come unlock the door. I think I found the leak.”

Ignoring him, she grabbed a high-back desk chair with metal legs and managed to lift it chest level—just as the explosion shattered the glass wall into a thousand pieces.

The blast threw her into the air and launched her backward. Her body smashed against the wall of the control room and crumbled to the floor.

It took her a moment to refocus. Her arms were bleeding and covered in shards of glass. The chair had shielded her from the brunt of the blast, and she didn’t seem to have any other injuries.

She stood up in a daze and saw that Finn was on fire. Without thinking, she jumped through the broken window and ran to the fire extinguisher. She fumbled with it and finally managed to spray him down. He lay on the ground unconscious.

There was another deafening boom. The fire had found the sodium azide, a dangerous chemical used to synthesize drugs that became explosive under heat.

Diana saw Michael, still immobile on the table. She screamed at him over the roar of the flames, “Michael!” But the fire was about to ensnare Finn again. With strength she didn’t know she possessed, Diana hauled Finn’s body to the control room window and managed to hoist him up and drop him on the other side.

With Finn safe from the fire’s path, she ran to Michael before the flames could separate them. She shook him as hard as she could. “Michael? Wake up.”

Nothing.

She struggled to detach the sensors and slide him off the table, but she couldn’t pick him up. His body was too heavy. They both collapsed in a heap on the ground. She wrestled with his dead weight and squirmed out from under him.

Grabbing his feet, she pulled him across the room as the fire stalked them. A wall of flames blocked the path to the control room. Her only option was to get to the lab door.

“Come on! Come on!” she shouted at him, even though he couldn’t hear her. With superhuman strength, she half carried, half dragged his body to the door and then crumpled against it. Unable to breathe, she took off her shirt and wrapped it around her hand and tried the doorknob. It was still locked.

First she banged on the window, then she tried to break the glass with her foot. “Help! Somebody get us out.”

With a sob she realized no one would come. The smoke had encased them like a tomb. They were both about to die.

She cradled Michael in her arms and watched him sleep, wondering where his mind had gone. Was he remembering the life in Egypt that he had yearned for? She was just thankful he would never remember this.

Numb with shock, Diana looked at her feet—her shoes were on fire. She put her lips to Michael’s and whispered, with her last breath, “Find me.”

*

When Linz opened her eyes, she was gasping for air, suffocating on Diana’s memories—she and her husband just died. Cries came from deep within her soul. She had remembered too much too quickly.

She was sprawled on her bathroom floor. Forcing her muscles to move, she picked herself up. Her hands and body shook uncontrollably as she splashed water on her face. She put her head on the edge of the sink and left the water running. Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe. Her father … she couldn’t even think about her father right now, or she would lose every last shred of sanity she possessed. She needed Michael—no, Bryan … her mind was so confused.