Ten Plagues

Bits of pulverized brick whizzed overhead. Choking dust coated the inside of her nose and throat. She covered her face and waited until the buzzing debris from the new explosion passed. Forcing herself to her feet, she tripped and went down and realized she’d stepped on a boy.

She caught the shoulders of his jacket. “Get up!”

He looked up at her, dazed.

“Get up and run!” She dragged the boy. She knew she shouldn’t move him, but another brick slashed inches from her face and she knew this was kill-or-cure time.

“You’ve got to get away.” She thrust her face close to his, hoping to penetrate his daze.

Blood trickled down his forehead. Cinders rained down.

Keren staggered as she tried to haul the kid upright. “Run. Now. Move! Move! Move!”

He shook his head. His eyes cleared and he gained his feet and stumbled away. Keren moved forward and fell over shattered brick. This time she stayed down and crawled. The rubble on the ground cut her hands and knees. She reached another victim. This one was already trying to stand. Over the crackling flames and crashing stones, she shouted, “Run, get out of here!”

A falling brick struck Keren in the shoulder and she fell flat on her face just as someone ran out of the building.

“How many are in there?” she yelled.

The kid didn’t answer as he ran past.

Keren saw a dark lump off to the side, crumpled on the ground, and she got to him and yanked at another fallen, dazed teenager. The kid’s face was shredded from brick fragments, his eyes glazed. Keren dragged him to his feet. She suspected only pure survival instinct made him move in the direction she shoved him. She saw two other boys crawling in the right direction and let them go it alone.

She was close enough to the building to see a young child hovered against the side of it. He was frozen, his eyes wide with terror. She crawled toward him.

A stream of staggering, screaming people came out of the building. The man who’d gone running up to the building right before it exploded—tall, dark-haired, commanding, covered with blood and gray soot—brought up the rear, shoving at two kids, yelling and urging them forward like a general on the battlefield. “Get out, go, go, go!”

As the man ran down the steps, the door he’d just charged out of blew off the building and whizzed inches from Keren’s head. Flames raged out of the opening. The man threw his arms around both boys and dove under the shooting flames. They skidded across the cruel pavement.

The air turned white hot from the new blaze. It was alive with glowing embers and toxic smoke. Choking, Keren struggled on toward the little boy. A blaze flared out of a broken basement window and enveloped her. She dropped to her belly and wrapped her arms over her head, afraid her hair would catch fire. The instant the burst of fire ebbed, she crawled forward on broken bricks and glass.

When she reached the child, she caught him to her. Bricks rained down. She forced the child away from his hideout. He got the idea, wrenched away from her, and ran.

She looked at the inferno that engulfed the front entrance and every window in the building. There was no way to get inside to search for survivors. Turning away, she saw the man was on his knees, beating on the flames devouring one of the boys.

The man’s face was coated. His clothes and hair were gray with ash.

Keren charged in, snagged one of the boys by the back of his sweatshirt, and jerked him to his feet. Something solid slammed the man to his knees beside her. A stream of blood cut through the grit on his face.

He staggered to his feet when Keren would have expected him to be down for good. “The whole building’s coming down.”

He tore at the boy’s burning jacket. The panicked boy fought him, but the man ripped the coat off.

Keren shoved the other boy forward then turned to help the bleeding man. Turning to her, his eyes blazed with life in the midst of death. His spirit hit her almost as hard as the bricks. His square shoulders, and the honor and compassion in his eyes, didn’t match with this soul-destroying neighborhood. What was he doing here? Besides bleeding. She reached to help him get away.

The old building howled like an angry monster. Flames reached for the heavens. The buildings on both sides were engulfed in flames and near collapse, too. The man glanced back. Keren’s gaze followed his. Through the choking grit, she saw someone lying unconscious at the corner of the building, near the alleyway.

“Chico,” the man said. “Please, God, not him.”

She heard the true prayer in his voice.

The whole building, now engulfed in flames, shifted forward.

She turned to order the man to get away before she went back for the boy. But he was gone, running toward the boy, right into the teeth of the fire, toward certain death.