STAIRWELL TO NOWHERE

I’M BEING CHASED. I can hear their footsteps below me, echoing up from the depths of the dimly lit stairwell. The brown concrete walls play acoustical tricks, casting echo upon echo and making each footfall sound like a gunshot. The noises boil and swell around me, growing first loud, then soft, then loud. I know only one thing: I have to get away.

My breathing is ragged. I feel heavy and slow, like I’ve been running for hours without respite.

“Allah Akbar!” shouts a voice below me.

I turn up the next flight of stairs, reach the next landing, turn and climb again. Soon I’ve put two more landings between me and them. Ear cocked under my grimy Kevlar, I pause to listen. Have they given up?

More sounds. Pant legs swishing together. Footsteps bark a pursuit. I am the hunted. And I have no way out but up.

I swing up another flight of stairs. They’re not far behind now. Not far at all. I’m on the edge of my endurance. Part of me just wants to sink to the stairs and wait for my fate to catch me.

The marine in me says keep moving. Never give up. Never. In our line of work, you fight; you die. You do not turn pussy.

Up another flight of stairs, no pause at the landing. I spin and hit the next flight in full stride, bounding upward, taking three steps at a time. If I had my M16, I’d lay in ambush and kill them all as they came for me. But I’ve lost my rifle. I have no grenades. I can’t even feel the normal comfort of my K-Bar knife tucked away on my hip. I’ve got nothing left but my fists.

“Allah Akbar!”

If they catch me, I will die. It won’t be painless, and it won’t be quick.

The stairs seem steeper now. I climb them two at a time, and when I look up, they seem to go on forever, like those long sets of stairs running to the top of those ancient Mayan temples in Mexico. Each new flight seems ever steeper, ever more of a challenge to my fading strength and endurance.

“ALLAH AKBAR!” They’re right behind me.

Move, Marine! Move! I will my legs to carry me forward. I grip the handrail and pull myself to the next flight. Just as I hit the stairs, a metallic rattle echoes behind me.

A spasm of light seizes the stairwell. Thunder reverberates off the walls, demolishing my hearing just as smoke billows up around me.

They’re throwing grenades.

Again.

The blast knocks me off my feet. I get up and unleash the last reservoir of strength within me. It propels me upward, feet chugging. There are no doors, no avenue of escape. I can only climb and keep climbing. But the stairwell never ends.

Another grenade detonates on the landing below. Shrapnel whips and scythes around me, pockmarking the walls. Everything below me is shrouded in smoke.

I’m losing the race. Fight or flight. It is the last option of every mammal. Terror sends me up the next flight of stairs. I reach another landing, my right hand scrabbling for purchase on the railing. I slip and fall facedown. Below me, I hear them coming.

A coil of smoke spins away from the landing below. It reveals a figure. Wraithlike, it slides back into the shadows.

Please God. Please. They’re too close. I’m done.

Fight, Marine. Fight.

I run on legs of rubber. I smack off the wall, lose my balance and fall. Get up. Keep going.

Knees are almost shot. I test them with every step. One more stair. One more. The landing is just out of reach.

My legs are finished. They’re but deadweight now. It’s over.

Another metallic clatter as a grenade lands a step below me. I kick it away. It ricochets off the wall and explodes. The concussion pins me flat on the landing. A dull, hammerlike blow deadens every sense. The world goes gray.

How am I alive? I feel no pain. I crawl forward, pulling myself to the next flight with only my arms. My legs trail behind me, as useless as a paraplegic’s.

Footsteps. I turn to see a cloud of gray-black smoke roiling and twisting up the stairwell at me.

There is movement in the smoke.

“Allah Akbar!”

The first coils reach me. I try to hold my breath as a tendril snakes along my body and across my face. The smoke probes me, searching for entrance. I can’t hold my breath long, and in a spasm I suck in corrupted air. The world goes dark. The last thing I see is a dirty boot on the landing.

This won’t be pretty.

Please. Please. Jessica.

No. I will not plead. I will be a Marine to the end.

The smoke engulfs me. I have lost.