“Barely,” Rick said. “It looks like it’s trying to feed off the carpet and the wooden floor. That’s why the roots are so long. It’s desperate to find food.”
“The floor will be weak over there.” Conklin paused behind Balenger. “Stay away from it.”
Ahead, Rick stepped onto the balcony. Cora got there next. Then Vinnie. Balenger left the stairs and looked for a way up to Carlisle’s penthouse. He glanced behind him toward where Conklin trudged up.
Creak.
The professor stiffened.
“I feel…” He exhaled. “…the stairs shifting.”
Creak.
Hesitant, he took another step upward.
Creak.
“Definitely shifting.”
“Don’t move.” Balenger watched the staircase begin to sway.
“I suddenly feel as if I’m on a boat,” Conklin said.
Crack. The staircase swayed more discernably.
“No!”
“Try to take my hand.” Rick braced himself at the top of the stairs and reached down. “Cora. Vinnie.” His voice was stark. “Grab me from behind so I don’t get pulled onto the stairs.”
Crack.
“If I reach up,” Conklin said, “that’ll shift my weight and make the staircase—”
As if anticipating his next words, the staircase wobbled.
Rick extended his arm farther, straining. “Damn it, I can’t quite—”
Crack.
“It sounds like it’s going to…” Vinnie held Rick tighter. Rick leaned farther down the stairs.
“Even if I stretch my arm, I’m not close enough.” Conklin’s voice trembled.
Crack.
“We can’t just let him…” Cora held Rick with all her might.
“The rope,” Balenger demanded. “Who’s got it?”
“I do,” Vinnie said.
Balenger rushed to him, unzipped his pack, and tugged out the rope. It was bundled in a figure eight. Thin. Made of twisted strands of blue nylon. Climber’s rope.
Urgent, Balenger made a loop at one end and tied a slipknot. He hurried next to Rick, his headlamp revealing the professor’s frightened features.
“I’m going to throw a loop around you,” Balenger told him.
Behind his spectacles, Conklin’s eyes were huge with apprehension.
“Raise your arms through the loop,” Balenger ordered. “Adjust the rope so it’s under your arms.”
CRACK.
The professor flinched as the stairs jerked.
“When the rope’s under your arms, tighten the slipknot. Make the rope as secure around your chest as possible.”
No reply.
“Professor, do you understand me?”
CRACK.
The stairs swayed out of control.
“No!” Balenger swung the rope above his head and hurled it toward Conklin. It fell past the heavy man’s shoulders. He swung the rope again, threw it, and felt his heart speed as the loop dropped over the professor’s head, catching on his left shoulder.
“Reach through it!”
Conklin pushed his hands under the loop and enfolded it with his arms.
“Under your arms! The slipknot! Tighten it!”
Barely able to control his movements, the professor obeyed.
“Rick! Cora! Vinnie! Grab the rope! We need to anchor it!”
“This post on the balustrade,” Rick said. “Wrap the rope around it.”
“Might not hold. Wrap the rope around each of you!” Balenger said. “Lean back! Hang on! There’s going to be a hell of a jolt!” He secured the rope around his chest in a belaying position and braced himself. “Professor, try to walk up!”
“Walk?” Conklin tried to keep his balance on the swaying stairs.
“Maybe they’ll hold!”
The professor swallowed. He took a step upward.
The stairway collapsed.
Balenger was almost jerked off his feet. The noise was overwhelming. He felt most of the force through his legs and arms. Even so, the sudden pressure of the rope around his chest took his breath away. Clutching the rope with his gloves, leaning back against the dropping force of the professor’s weight, he groaned. His feet slid.
“Pull!” he shouted to Rick, Cora, and Vinnie.
The pressure around Balenger’s chest tightened as the others stopped him from going over the edge. If not for his Windbreaker, he’d have suffered rope burns. Struggling to breathe, he suddenly felt the professor quit falling. The light from a headlamp bobbed below the edge of the fallen staircase. Balenger stared at the rope where it dug tautly into the remnants of broken wood.
“Professor?” Balenger managed to draw a breath.
No answer.
“For God’s sake, can you hear me?”
A faint murmur.
“Talk to me,” Balenger said. “Are you hurt?”
“Uh.”
Sweat slicked Balenger’s face. “Professor?”
“Feel…suffocated.”
“That’s the pressure of the rope around your chest.”
“Can’t breathe.”
Christ, is he having a heart attack? Balenger wondered. “Take slow, shallow breaths. Slow,” he emphasized. “If you hyperventilate, you’ll throw yourself into a panic.”
“Panic’s an understatement.”
The rope creaked.
Balenger looked behind him. “Rick, Cora, keep holding the rope. Vinnie, get over here and help me pull him up.”
Vinnie hurried next to him and grabbed the section of rope that led to Conklin.
“Hurt,” the professor said as the rope shifted upward.
“We’ll soon free your chest.”
“Not the rope.”
“What?”
“Leg.”
Balenger and Vinnie strained to raise him. Conklin’s headlamp came into view, a chin strap securing it. Then his anguished face appeared, paler than before. His spectacles were gone. Without them, his eyes looked vulnerable. Fear made them wide.
Balenger and Vinnie pulled him higher.
The professor gasped. “Stuck on something.”
Balenger was conscious of Rick and Cora behind him pulling on the rope, preventing him from being dragged over. He heard the effort in their breathing.
“Vinnie.” Balenger’s voice sounded as if he’d swallowed sand. “Let go of the rope and tug him onto the balcony.”
Vinnie gradually released his grip. As soon as the professor’s weight was fully transferred to Balenger, Vinnie eased toward the edge. He grabbed the professor’s arm and pulled.
The professor winced but didn’t move.
“I see it,” Vinnie said. “The front of his jacket’s caught on a board.”
“You know what to do. The knife. That’s what you brought it for. Cut the jacket.”
Vinnie seemed to suddenly remember that he had it. He unclipped it from the inside of his jeans pocket, opened it, and sliced at Conklin’s jacket. For a brief moment, he looked in terror at the abyss into which the stairs had collapsed.
“Done.” He rushed back to Balenger and grabbed the rope.
This time, when they pulled, the professor moved. Slowly, painfully, the elderly man was able to help them. Bracing his elbows on the edge of the balcony, he squirmed his right knee over the edge. With an inward shout of triumph, Balenger moved along the rope, grabbed the professor, and helped Vinnie drag him to safety.
Rick and Cora were suddenly with him as well. The professor lay on his back, gasping as Balenger freed the slipknot and pulled the rope from him.
“Can you breathe now?” Balenger frantically checked the professor’s pulse.
Conklin’s chest heaved as he sucked in air.
Balenger counted a pulse of 140, the equivalent of an athlete’s heart rate after running several miles. For an overweight, out-of-condition man, it was far too high. “Does your chest still hurt?”
“Better. It feels better. I can catch my breath.”
&nbs
p; “Oh, shit,” Rick said.
“His left leg.” Cora pointed.
Balenger registered the strong smell of copper. Lowering his gaze toward the professor’s pantleg, he saw that it was soaked with blood all the way from his thigh to his shoe.
Conklin moaned.
“Okay, everybody, listen up,” Balenger said.
As the professor’s thigh oozed more blood, Cora turned away in horror.
“Forget what you’re feeling. Do exactly what I tell you,” Balenger ordered.
Rick put a hand to his mouth.
“We don’t have time for this,” Balenger said. “Everybody, pay attention. Do what I tell you.” He unclipped his knife and cut the professor’s jeans from the groin to the cuff. He spread the fabric. “Who’s got the first-aid kit?”
Conklin squirmed. There was a deep, four-inch-long gash in his thigh, blood spreading from it.
“Who’s got the first-aid kit?” Balenger repeated.
Vinnie blinked in shock. “Rick. I think Rick has it.”
“Get it out. Now.” Balenger tugged the rope around the professor’s thigh, tying it above the wound. “Who’s got the hammer?”
Cora forced herself to look at the blood. In the headlamps, her red hair contrasted harshly with her pale cheeks. “I do.”
“Give it to me!”
Cora forced herself into motion, unholstering the hammer from her equipment belt.
Balenger wedged the handle under the rope and twisted, tightening the rope around Conklin’s thigh. The blood stopped flowing. “Hold it like that.”
Balenger took the Pro Med kit from Rick. “Your water bottle. Get it out. Rinse the wound. Who’s got the duct tape?”
“I do.” Vinnie came out of his shock.
“Get it ready.”
“Duct tape? We use it for covering the sharp edges of pipes so we don’t get cut. How’s it going to—”
“Just do what I say.”
Balenger unzipped the Pro Med’s bag and opened its two compartments. About to reach in, he frowned at his dirty gloves and replaced them with latex ones from the kit. “Cora, your right hand’s free. Aim your flashlight toward the kit.”
He pulled out packets of alcohol wipes and ripped them open. “Rick, pour water on the wound. Cora, aim your flashlight toward the gash.”
Using his jacket sleeve to wipe sweat from his eyes, Balenger stared at the water rinsing the wound. With the bleeding temporarily stopped, he saw the jagged flesh. “The artery hasn’t been cut.” He used an alcohol wipe to clean dirt from the edges, then leaned close, staring hard at a piece of wood projecting from the wound. “Who’s got the Leatherman tool?”
“I do.” Rick freed the snap on its pouch and handed it over.
Balenger opened it to the pliers mode. “Keep rinsing the wound. How are you feeling, Professor?”
“Sore.”
“Is the rope cutting into you?”
“Yes.”
“If that’s your only pain, you’re doing well. The rope not only stops the bleeding, the lack of circulation numbs the wound. But we can’t keep it like that too long. Swallow these.” Balenger tore open two Extra-Strength Tylenol packets and gave him four pills. “They’re not Vicodin, but they’re better than nothing.”
Conklin shoved them into his mouth. Rick gave him a drink of water.
“My flashlight. I dropped it when the stairs collapsed.” The professor sounded as if he blamed himself. “Vinnie lost his, also.”
“We still have three.” Balenger used an alcohol wipe to clean the end of the pliers. He smelled the sharp fumes. “Here we go. Cora, keep your light steady.”
Balenger inserted the pliers into the gash and gripped the splinter just above where it was embedded into flesh. As gently as possible, he pulled it out.
The professor gasped.
“The worst part’s almost over,” Balenger tried to assure him. “Keep aiming the flashlight, Cora. More water, Rick.” As blood was rinsed away, Balenger saw another piece of wood, smaller, almost hidden in the flesh.
Working to steady his hand, he probed the pliers into the gash, heard the professor moan, and tugged out the splinter.
He stared into the wound, searching for other debris, then picked up his open knife and cleaned it with an alcohol wipe. He inserted the tip and moved it back and forth over the raw flesh, feeling for any resistance, anything hard within the flesh. He exhaled, then set down the pliers and the knife.
“That wound needs stitches,” Cora said. “A lot of them.”
“We’ll have to make do with what we’ve got. Rinse it again,” Balenger told Rick. He ripped open four packs of triple antibiotic ointment and squeezed their contents into the wound. “Doing okay, Professor?”
“Feel sick.”
“I don’t doubt it. You’re on the verge of shock. Vinnie, get over here and kneel beside me. Good. Now take off your work gloves and put on gloves from the first-aid kit. Excellent. Now squeeze the wound together.”
“What?”
“Squeeze the wound together.”
“Are you crazy?”
“It’s the only way to do this. You need to hold it together while I seal it.”
“For God’s sake, seal it with what?”
“The duct tape.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Never mind. If you can’t do it…” Balenger turned. “Rick, get over here, put on latex gloves, and hold the wound together.”
“All right, all right, all right,” Vinnie said. He squeezed the edges of the wound together.
As ointment and watery blood oozed out, the professor screamed.
“I know this is tough,” Balenger told Conklin. “I promise it’s almost over. But first, I need to ask you to do something really hard.”
“What?”
“Keep your knee straight while Rick lifts your lower leg.”
“Yes,” Conklin said, “that’s going to be hard.” He closed his eyes and fought the pain.
“Ready?”
The professor nodded.
“Rick,” Balenger said. As Rick lifted Conklin’s leg and Vinnie held the wound together, Balenger peeled duct tape from its roll, the silvery strip reflecting the lights. He pressed it over the bottom of the wound and began wrapping it around the professor’s thigh. As more of the wound was covered, Vinnie shifted his hands up, still squeezing the edges together. The professor sounded as if he was about to weep from the pain.
Balenger kept winding the tape around the wound. He put on a second layer, then a third, a fourth. “Okay, Rick, you can lower the leg.”
The professor shuddered.
“Now let’s find out if anything leaks. Cora, untwist the rope.”
The group tensed as Cora removed the hammer’s handle from the rope, creating slack. Balenger aimed his flashlight at the duct tape. They stared.
“Pins and needles,” the professor said.
“That means the circulation’s returning.”
“Throbs. Hurts. God.”
Balenger kept staring at the duct tape and silently prayed. He watched for blood to leak from the edges and the seams. “Looking okay.” The tape remained silvery.
He grabbed the professor’s wrist and again checked his pulse. One hundred and twenty. Lower than it was. Not good but not terrible, given what the professor had been through. Still no blood seeped past the duct tape. “Yeah, looking okay.”
He pulled his cell phone from his jacket.
“What are you doing?” Conklin asked.
“Calling 911.”
“No.” The professor found the strength to raise his voice. “Don’t.”
“No choice,” Balenger said. “You need an ambulance, Bob. A hospital. Stitches, antibiotics, treatment for shock. Maybe an EKG. If that duct tape stays on too long, you’ll get gangrene.”
“You mustn’t call 911.”
“But we can’t screw around with this. Just because I patched you up doesn’t mean you’re ou
t of danger.”
“No,” Conklin said. “Put down the phone.”
“But he’s right, Professor,” Cora said. “We need to get you to a hospital as soon as possible.”
“Outside.”
“What?”
“Take me outside. Then call 911. If ambulance attendants find you in here, they’ll alert the police. You’ll all be arrested.”
“Who the hell cares about being arrested?” Vinnie said.
“Listen to me.” Conklin drew a breath. “You’ll spend months in jail. The legal bills. The fines. What happened to me is exactly why the police don’t want us doing this. They’ll make an example of you.” He shivered. “Vinnie, you’ll lose your teaching job. Rick and Cora, no university will hire you. If Frank makes that call, your lives will be ruined.”
“He said ‘Bob.’” Rick frowned. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t understand,” the professor said.
“A minute ago, Balenger called you ‘Bob.’ Not ‘Professor,’ not even ‘Robert.’ ‘Bob.’ I’d never dream of calling you that. At the motel, he introduced himself, but after three hours, for the life of me I couldn’t remember his first name. Not you, though, Professor. Just now you called him ‘Frank.’ My God, the two of you have met before. You know each other.”
“You’re imagining things,” Balenger told him.
“Like hell. You came in here as an observer, and all of a sudden, you’re running the show. You saved two of us from getting killed and acted like it was business as usual. Clint Eastwood crossed with Dr. Kildare. Who the hell are you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Balenger said, his stomach churning. “There isn’t time for this. We need to get the professor to a hospital.”
“Get me outside,” Conklin said. “Then phone 911.”
“It took us two and a half hours to go this far.”
“Because we dawdled. If you hurry, you can get me outside in a half hour.”
“Quicker, if we use the crowbar to pry the front door open,” Vinnie said.
“No! You can’t leave a sign that you were in here. If the police look around and find a broken door…” The professor trembled. “I’ll never forgive myself if I ruin your lives. You need to take me back the way we came in—through the tunnel.”