Page 90 of Gone Tonight
I need to talk to this guy. But with the manager hovering nearby, I can’t just walk right up to another customer and ask to join him at his table.
I’m so lost in my thoughts I almost miss the first sign that something is terribly wrong.
Then I hear a woman cry out, and I look up to see the family at the nearby table staring at me, their expressions wary.
For a wild, shaky moment I wonder if the manager has somehow spoken to them and turned them all against me.
It isn’t until I smell smoke that I realize they aren’t looking at me. They’re staring at something behind me.
I whip around and see thick, black smoke curling around the edges of the kitchen door.
Then the swinging door bursts open, crashing against the wall, and the cooks come tearing out. The fire is impossibly swift. Red and orange flames leap out of the kitchen and climb up the dining room wall as if someone splashed around an accelerant.
The restaurant erupts into chaos.
Shouts and high-pitched screams fill the air as parents pick up their children and run toward the front door. Chairs are knocked over in the scramble as a loud voice yells in vain for everyone to keep calm. Black smoke rolls through the restaurant like a slow, suffocating wave. As I watch, it seems to swallow up the softball team in their matching jerseys.
I can’t move. I’m mesmerized.
Fire has always transfixed me.
I watch the flames blaze higher, stretching out like a sheet billowing in the wind, covering one entire wall before reaching for the ceiling. Someone pulls the fire alarm and a siren blares.
I cough as tears leak from my stinging eyes. Smoke sears my lungs.
In the distance, I hear sirens, but they sound far away.
I can’t see anyone else right now—they’ve all disappeared. I’ve waited too long. I need to get out, right now.
The front door where I came in is all the way at the opposite end of the restaurant. I noticed a closer side exit earlier, but I can’t see it anymore. There are big windows all around the restaurant, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to open any of them. Smoke keeps pouring into the room, obscuring my vision.
Terror chains me to my seat.
I don’t know which way to go. I take another breath and cough harder, struggling to pull clean oxygen into my lungs. My throat is burning and smoke clouds my vision.
If I try to make it to the front door, I may not get there in time. I could crawl toward the side door, but what if I can’t find it?
This is how people often die in burning buildings. Smoke inhalation kills them before flames ever touch them.
Before I can do anything to try to save myself, a figure bursts out of the kitchen, seeming to dart through a wall of fire, almost blending in with the smoke.
I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman, but the person is heading directly for me in the booth.
Like I’m their target.
“Catherine!”
Dizziness engulfs me. This can’t be happening. It’s impossible.
My mother has a streak of black soot smearing her forehead and a small towel tied over her nose and mouth. Her eyes hold a wildness I’ve never before seen.
She grabs my arm and yanks me out of the booth. “Move!”
She half drags me to the side exit as my body is racked by uncontrollable coughing.
Nothing makes sense. Not my mother’s presence here, not the lethal-looking knife she’s clutching in her free hand, and not her words.
“He’s here,” she whispers urgently. “He’s been watching you.”
