A resoundingclickand the two remaining doors opened.
Behind door number one: a man in a peach-colored face mask. Seated. Not moving.
Behind door number three: Abby Granger. Eyes wide, mouth taped.
“No!” Ivy screamed. “I switch doors! I want three! Please, I—”
With the alarm still going off and her own shouts echoing off the enclosed space, Abby didn’t hear the door open behind her.
Didn’t hear Tristan raise the thick burlap sack and yank it down over her head.
She did, however, hear the hiss of hydrogen sulfide gas being released.
?Chapter 75
Vaughn grabbed agas mask and his trusty crowbar from his trunk. Then he sprinted for the front door.
When he heard the sound of gas flowing somewhere inside, he pulled the mask over his head and wedged the crowbar between the door and the frame. He flexed; the door started to move. Now, he heard muffled cries from within. This was a good sign. Someone was still alive in there.
“Ivy!” He shouted, leaning all of his body weight on the crowbar.
There was a splinter and then apopas the door opened. It struck something on the other side, and someone yelped.
A woman rushed at him, coughing, sneezing.
It wasn’t Ivy.
“Out!” he screamed. “Get out!”
She ran outside.
Vaughn saw three doors in front of him, all open. In one of the small rooms beyond was a man in a mask.
“Move!” The man’s eyes were closed. “Fuckingmove!”
Vaughn sprinted forward.
It was Eugene Reeves, and he was unconscious.
Vaughn cursed, bent down, and threw the man over his shoulder. He was thin, frail. Easy to carry. With a grunt, he rushed outside, did his best to lower the man as gently as possible onto the grass. Expected the woman to come over and help, but she seemed to be in shock.
He sprinted back in, went to the second door.
Darnell.
Holy fuck, it was Darnell.
And he wasn’t moving.
The man was slumped on a stool that his girth almost completely enveloped. Vaughn grabbed his partner by the waist, lifted. Darnell barely rose half an inch.
“Darnell!”
The man coughed. A horrible wet sound behind the tape covering his mouth. Then his eyes snapped open, went impossibly wide.
“Move!”
Darnell was disoriented, maybe from the gas, maybe from the gash on his forehead.
