The little girl, silhouetted by that one low-watt light bulb on the back wall, stands as motionless as the statues.
“Tell her to come to me, Viet,” I whisper, though I doubt she will. The last thing she saw before all went dark was a big wet ape—me. “Tell her it’s okay. Tell her we’re here to save all the girls. She’s going to be fine. Tell her to come to—”
A bright flash from my right. Bebebe!
Sparks fly from the metal wall just above Viet’s prone body.
“Aaaaaa!”
“Viet?” I scoot towards him. “You hit?”
When he doesn’t answer, I grab his arm and pull him back a few feet so that he’s no longer where the shooter last saw him. I look toward the small door in the dividing wall. Still closed.
“Viet, are you—”
He mumbles something in Vietnamese and rolls onto his back. “Uddha,” he manages.
Buddha, I think he said. I look at three Buddhas in the last row. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Mai jabbing the barrel of her Glock toward the back wall. Which one does she mean? The center one?
Viet groans.
“Where are you hit?” I ask. Then I see his bleeding calf, where the round hit the side of his lower leg.
“Lay,” he groans, which looks strange coming from his permanent smile. “Good lay.”
Oh man. He’s saying his good leg.
“No set,” he says, straining. “Li-el hur.”
No sweat. Little hurt.
“Geh gul.”
Get the girl, I think. She’s still standing motionless next to the statue. Viet rolls back onto his stomach and points his weapon at the last Buddha in the center column.
“Here,” I say stripping off my shirt. I quickly wrap it around his calf and cinch it tight. “To stop bleeding. Understand?”
“O-ay,” he says. “Go geh gul.”
She’s only about ten feet away but it’s a long ten. I drop onto my belly and low crawl as fast as I can across the open space, scuffing my elbows and stomach on the raw cement. The girl remains motionless until I’m three feet away then abruptly disappears behind the Buddha. Without hesitation, I spring to my feet and curl around to the other side of the big statue, hoping for the element of surprise.
A man, his head facing away from me, pushing the girl against the Buddha’s back.
I’m in the bedroom, my gun trained on the naked— “No!” I shout.
The man startles, spins, and lunges toward me. I slam my palms against his shoulders to stop him, then push one and pull the other to spin him about until his back is against my chest. Using his face as a handle, I yank his head back against my shoulder, shoot my right arm out in front of him, and then whip the thumb side of my fist back into his Adam’s apple. Repeat for good measure. The blows won’t kill him—I don’t think—but for the next few hours he will wish they had. I fling his limp body aside, hearing something clatter as he thumps to the floor. Maybe it’s one of those big curved knives or a gun. Too dark to see.
Got to get out of the open because there’s still someone behind one of the statues in the back row. I scoop up the comatose little girl and slip around to the other side of the Buddha. I’d like to take her out the back door, but then what? Leave her there? Even if I knew how to tell her to run down the road until she sees big Dung, she’s not responding to anything. Better to stay right here in the dark behind the statue.
I strain to see Mai across the way. She’s huddled behind the Buddha in the center column with her little girl crouched behind her, the girl’s arms encircling Mai’s waist. Cong and Phouc crawl over to get behind Mai. Four people in a line taking refuge behind the Buddha. I try to nudge my statue with my shoulder; it’s solid, made of stone or concrete. Good cover, fair concealment.
“Viet,” I whisper, “tell the girl to stay with me. Tell her not to step out from behind the statue.”
Viet’s voice is tight, pained. No doubt the nerves in his leg are rebelling now.
The poor bedraggled girl doesn’t react to what he says. She’s got to be in shock. I make a cursory check to see if she’s been hurt, all the while she stands motionless, her eyes in some far off place. Then, without a word, she squats and wraps her arms around her legs.
I’m a little closer to Mai here and better able to see her. I shrug a What-do-we-do-now? She shrugs one back. We can’t advance and we can’t go back toward the door where we entered. We need to help Samuel and Phat Ho on the other side.
Got an idea. I reach into my pocket, pull out two quarters, and hold them up, hoping Mai can see them in the semidarkness. She nods. I wave to get Viet’s attention and he manages a nod. I pantomime throwing them against the back wall. Mai gives me a thumbs up.
I launch the coins as hard as I can at the far corner. If someone reacts with gunfire, I want the rounds to go away from us. The coins clatter loudly off something that must be metallic.
Bababaclankclankclank!
A deafening burst of automatic weapon fire lights up the back of the last Buddha in the center row as bullets rip into the metal wall where my coins fell. Mai’s girl screams and tries to climb onto her back. Mine still squats behind me, staring at the floor.
The gunman didn’t reveal himself and no one came through the door off to the left. All that was gained is that we now know for sure that the man is armed. Is there anyone behind the other two Buddhas in the back row? If someone is behind the last statue on Mai’s side, the clatter of the coins and the incoming rounds had to have scared him to death.
Silence now, except for that dripping in the corner.
We wait. One minute passes, three, ten. Mai extracts her phone, pokes a button and holds it to her ear. Even in the relative silence, I can’t hear her. A moment later, she closes the lid and nods to me. Things must be going better where Samuel is.
Bebebe!
AK-47 from the other side of the wall, followed by a loud groan on this side and another piercing scream from Mai’s girl. Mine still stares at the floor.
That dim light bulb on the back wall hangs a little to the left of the center statue, illuminating just enough that I can see a silhouetted hand from behind it grab the Buddha’s boney right shoulder, the fingers bent, trembling. They struggle for just a moment longer before slowly sliding down the skeletal arm. A man’s silhouetted head extends out from the side. I sense more than see Viet take aim. The head drops and hits the cement with a sickening crack. In my gut I know the man’s dead. Viet must think so too, because he doesn’t fire.
The guy took refuge behind the Buddha but on the wrong side. The AK burst punched through the back wall and hit him in the back. Friendly fire that wasn’t so friendly.
Are there more men over here? Cong brought one down and I put another out of commission. What were the two little girls doing on this side? Being used to slow us down? Or maybe the men were up to no good with them before we interrupted.
We know the center Buddha in the back row is clear so that just leaves the two outside ones. My gut tells me they’re clear, but we need to be sure. I’m unarmed and Viet’s mobility is limited. It has to be Mai who moves up.
“Sam,” Viet whispers. I look over at him. “I ‘o there,” he says, pointing toward the wall. “Lay no prah-lem.”
I think he said that he will go up, that his leg is no problem.
“Tell ai to no o.” Tell Mai not to go. With that he begins scooting himself along the wall, leading the way with his rifle, dragging his wounded leg behind him. Hell of a troop, this guy.
Pointing at Viet, I motion to Mai to stand fast. She nods.
Pushing himself with his crutch-leg, Viet crawls about three feet before giving me a thumbs up and clutching his neck with one hand. I take that to mean the guy I throat punched is still down. Then he starts crawling to check out the partly lit back row of statues. That gives Viet an advantage since he’s mostly in the dark.
He slow crawls for another painful minute until he looks to be flush with the last row of Buddhas. He leans out a little, a little more, and a little more. On the PD, we call this slicing the pie. Each time Viet leans out a couple of inches, he makes a visual wedge. He doesn’t lean back because he’d lose what he gained. He continues doing this until he stretches his body out one last time to see around the statue. Another thumbs up. The closest Buddha to him is clear.
He inches forward, looks, and gives me another thumbs up that the center Buddha is clear, except for the man lying on the floor. Viet makes a cutting motion across his neck with his fingers. Dead. He slices the pie three more times before giving me one final thumb. The back row of Buddhas is clear.
Mai, clutching hands with the little girl, darts over to me. Behind her, Cong and Phouc get to their feet and go to check on the man Cong cut.
“Whoa, whoa,” I whisper loudly. “Get behind this statue with us, Mai. We’re still down range here. An AK punched through the wall and got that guy. The shooter may still be over there. Tell Cong and Phouc.”
No need. The two men have already figured it out and aligned themselves again behind their statue.
“I want to get the girls out of here,” Mai says. “I will show them the way back to Dung.”
“Okay, and I want to check on the man I throat punched. Keep yourself aligned with a Buddha as best you’re able.”
She nods. “You are bleeding.”
“Cement burns. No problem.”
“Do you want my gun?”
“No.”
She speaks to the little girl who has been squatting behind me. When she doesn’t get a response, Mai gently takes her hand and pulls her to her feet. She glances at the back wall, at me, and then bolts with the girls across the room. At the door, she places my girl’s hand in her girl’s hand and nudges them out.
“Lights?” she whispers.
I hold up a finger for her to wait. I start to tell Viet to get behind the statue closest to him but he’s already crawling behind it. The guys might have been rusty but they’re getting back into the groove.
I nod my head to Mai, then squint against the sudden brightness. Once my eyes have adjusted, I dart up to the next statue in my column and peer around it. The man I punched is still lying in the fetal position holding the front of his neck, his breathing raspy. I’ve been hit there a couple times in training, and for hours after it felt like a pickup truck was caught in my throat. I hit this guy twice. I look around and spot some nylon rope on a bench near where I’d thrown the coins. Cong has moved up behind the center statue in his column and looks where I’m looking. He darts over to get it, moves back behind his Buddha for a moment, then dashes over behind mine.
I step around my statue and grab my squirming and whimpering man by his collar and drag him around to the so-called safe side. Armless Phouc moves over with me and kneels on the man’s head as Cong and I tie his legs and arms. The guy has probably never felt so miserable in his life. Instant karma.
One by one, the three of us move up to the next and last statue. I quick-peek around the emaciated Buddha’s shoulder to see that the man is lying twisted, though mostly on his belly. Blood seeps from a back wound. Rope not needed.
Mai runs up to help Viet. The Buddha in that row is laughing and in a mad mimic, so is Viet.
“Stay here,” I tell the men. I dash over to Mai. “How’s he doing?”
Mai was a nurse’s assistant for a while a few years ago. “The bullet hit the calf muscle,” she says looking down at an ugly bleeding hole, “but no come out. I want to get him out of here, but he wants to stay and watch the door. He insists.”
“You sure, Viet?” Actually, it would be good if he could stay and cover the room.
“No set. Li-el hur,” he says, repeating what he’d said earlier.
I look over at Cong and Phouc who are crouching with the tied-up man. Cong is tapping the butt of his knife on the bridge of the man’s nose. Toying with him. I look back to Mai.
“How are you doing, Mai?” Her clothes are dusty from lying in the cement; her face flushed. We’ve witnessed four people die in the last half hour.
A mental image of the ocean flashes through my mind: tropical beach, white sand, gentle warm wind, Mai and I on a blanket. There are beautiful beaches somewhere in Vietnam; I saw photos online. Maybe we can go there when this is all over.
“I am okay. You?”
I look about the warehouse. “Let’s get this done. Call Samuel and tell him that this side is secure. And ask what he wants us—” I jab my finger toward the small door near the corner. “Viet! Door!” I pull Mai down with me behind the Buddha.
Viet, still on his belly, raises his M-16 toward the back wall door that’s no more than fifteen feet away.
It remains closed.
I peek around one side of the Buddha and Mai peeks around the other. “Sam, what is it?”
I blink rapidly and shake my head. “I don’t know. I just… I just suddenly knew that the—”
The door swings open and slams against the wall and, for the next two seconds, everything moves as if it were a slow moving slide show.
A man with a rifle appears in the doorway. Young. Tan shorts. Red T-shirt.
Eyes searching. Scared.
Viet fires a deafening single round.
A hole appears over the man’s right eye.
Red mist sprays from the side of his head.
His weapon fires a burst at the ceiling as he falls back into the other room.
His feet sprawl awkwardly in the doorway.
One foot spasms for a moment, stops.
Quiet. Except for that far off dripping.
Drip… drip…
*
Viet remains in the prone, his rifle trained on the doorway. Kneeling now, Mai braces her gun arm against the side of the statue. Phouc and Cong crouch behind the emaciated Buddha that’s just diagonal to the door, Cong aiming what looks like a carbine at the doorway. Must be the dead man’s weapon.
My heart is beating so rapidly that my chest hurts. I take a deep breath to a count of four, hold it for a count of four, and exhale it for a count of four. I do it a couple more times until my heart rate slows and reduces my chance of blowing a heart gasket across the room.
How did I know about the door?
I signal everyone to stand fast and listen. I glance back at the other door, the one we all came through and the one the girls just went out. It’s opened just enough that I can see the double doors of the beige warehouse a few feet away. It’s raining again and now that I can see that, I can hear it on the roof. I guess my senses are picking and choosing what I need. That’s a good thing.
Two dead on this side of the wall, one tied up, and one of us wounded. I haven’t a clue what’s happening on the other side, but with all the shots fired and with Samuel over there, who knows?
This is nuts. Never in my wildest imagination did I think I’d be involved in something like this.
Mai plunges her hand into her pants pocket and retrieves her phone. “Are you okay, Father?” she whispers desperately. She nods to me that he is. “Next to me,” she says. “Okay. Yes, I will.” She hands me the phone.
“Samuel?”
“Anyone hurt there?”
“Viet. Took one in his leg. But he’s good to go. He took out the guy at the door. We have two enemy dead and—”
“Tell me later. This is the layout here. Just inside the door is an open area, fifteen feet by fifteen. That’s where the guard by the door is lying. Looking straight ahead from there is a tan-colored wall. That is probably where the girls sleep and probably where they are now. Some of them. There might be more in a room of sorts on the right side of the building about halfway down. I can hear crying in there. To the right of the door where the dead man is are two rooms: an office and a kitchen. Phat Ho and I have cleared them and the three people in them are no longer a threat. We have also cleared a restroom where we first came in. The guard there is no longer a threat. That leaves the sleeping quarters and the other room for us to clear. There will likely be a threat in one or both places.”
“Where are you now?”
“We are in the office looking out. We can see the door to the sleeping area and to the other room. I can also see the man Viet downed.”
“Mai said she is sure that she shot someone.”
“I know. But we don’t know if there are other guards in the unknown room or how many are in the sleeping area other than the Khmer Rouge man. He ran inside after we exchanged shots.”
Oh man.
“The best strategy is for us to wait outside these two doors, stall for time, talk them out. But I do not know if anyone has called Lai Van Tan. There may be reinforcements on the way. I want these kids out of here and us out of here as soon as possible.”
“New rules.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” An old uniform partner used to say, “new rules,” whenever a situation dictated that we threw out the procedural handbook. It was new rules when we entered the warehouse a while ago and it’s new rules again.
“One more new rule,” Samuel says. “You and I will go in the sleeping quarters unarmed. Too many friendlies there. Tell Mai that I want her and the others to go into the other room without guns. You disagree?”
“No.”
The troops on the PD would say it’s crazy, and it is. A cop never gives up his gun, even if a bad guy has the drop on him. Still, I agree with Samuel. There is no way I would go into that room with a firearm and I’m glad Samuel won’t have one. As far as the old vets are concerned, they’re good, but are they good enough and disciplined enough after all these years to control their emotions and their trigger finger in a room full of kids? I don’t know and neither does anyone else.
“Good. We will improvise as we go along. Ready?”
“Expect us in two minutes.”
I quickly fill Mai in on the conversation. She doesn’t bat an eye when I tell her that Samuel says no guns.
“Put yours in your waistband,” I say. I look over at Cong. “Unload and leave the Carbine in here. There are many children over there.”
“Okay,” he says without hesitation. “I have knives.” He unloads the weapon, lays it down, and pockets the magazine.
“You okay?” I ask Viet.
He nods without looking away from the doorway. “Lek urts, ut I okay.
“We are going to go inside. You stay here and watch the door. Understand?” He nods. “That wall behind the man is where the children are. You understand?” He nods. “A bullet could penetrate it. Samuel and I will be in there. Understand?” He nods. “If you have to shoot, aim high. Head shot only. If you miss, the bullet will hit the ceiling, not go through the wall.”
“I un-er-sand. Shoot like e-ore. Through head.” His permanent smile seems a little larger.
“Yes, sir.”
I move over to the wall next to the door and forcefully push out the thought of an AK round punching through my back. Mai joins me. Cong comes next followed by Phouc. Call us a poor man’s SWAT stack. I make a curve in the air with my finger, indicating that we go around the door and to the right.
I look down at the dead man and the pool of blood haloing his head, his AK-47 lying across his chest.
“You familiar with that weapon?” I ask Mai.
“Yes.”
“I’m not. Strip the mag and eject the round in the chamber as you pass.”
“Yes.”
I cut the pie around the door facing, which reveals the open area Samuel mentioned, and a sort of hallway between the room on the right and the one on the left. Samuel and Phat Ho are in one of the rooms to the extreme right. I curl around the door opening and move rapidly to the right until I see Samuel peeking around the door facing of the closest room. He moves aside so I can duck in. Phat Ho looks at me with dead-fish eyes. His arm stump is bleeding.
“Hurt?” I whisper. He shrugs.
“The Khmer Rouge man nicked him,” Samuel says, watching Mai strip the AK. “But it is not his good arm.”
Looks like we’re in an office. Samuel said they took care of three people. They aren’t in here so they must be in the kitchen. Mai slips in, followed by Cong.
As Phouc approaches, the door straight across from us opens and a soaking wet man steps out, along with the sound of rain spattering in water, a gush of humidity, and the rich smell of mud. He shuts the door before I can see in.
Without missing a beat, the armless Phouc whips a fast roundhouse punch with his right arm stump into the man’s face, knocking him to the left. Before the guy completely loses his balance, he’s hit with a left roundhouse stump that’s even faster. That one knocks him upright. Phouc hooks his right foot behind the man’s left foot, and head butts the hapless fellow’s already bleeding nose. He falls back onto the cement with a splat.
Mai grabs the downed man’s arms, drags him into the room with us, and pats him down for weapons.
She nods to her father. “He is—”
The man grabs Mai’s leg and starts to pull himself up. I step in that direction just as Cong’s hand snaps out at the man’s leg and snaps back just as quickly, and at the same time Mai hits his face with a quick palm-heel strike. The guy lets out an awful scream and curls into a tight ball, his trembling hand reaching toward his bare, muddy foot.
Mai hit his nose, so why is he—
“He no get up now,” Cong says, wiping his knife on the writhing man’s pants. It takes me a second to understand that the guy isn’t reacting to Mai’s palm-heel strike. He’s fussing about the muddy blood just above his heel, his Achilles’ tendon. It’s been sliced all the way through.
Phat Ho, a red scarf dangling from his hand, looks at it intently. This time Cong might have reacted quicker than the garrote master, but I’m guessing there are bodies lying around this part of the warehouse with purple faces and protruding tongues; he has only one scarf left.
“Drag that man back into that corner,” Samuel says to Cong and Mai. “Sam, we go now. Mai, secure that other room.”
*
Samuel and I cross the open space to the door that leads into what we believe is the girls’ sleeping quarters. I don’t like dividing our manpower between two rooms. I’d prefer if we all went into this room, squared it away, and then all went into the mystery room. But that just isn’t doable given the volatility of our situation and our small numbers.
Just as I think that entering the room without a firearm is another less than desirable tactic, albeit the best given the circumstances, which includes the necessity to act fast, and just as I wonder how we’re going to do it—knock, charge in, call the gunman, or gunmen, out—the door opens a little and a set of eyes peer through the crack.
Samuel front kicks the door so fast that I see only a flash of his red Converse slamming it into the set of peepers. He slips through the opening before it bounces back off the man’s skull and I rush in behind him in a low crouch.
Bebebebe!
I turtle my head against deafening gunshots and chunks of wood showering down on me. My peripheral vision detects a man to my left, about fifteen feet away, working desperately to clear a weapon jam. I start to rush him when something streaks over my head and whacks into the armed man’s face. A shoe, Wingtip, redish-brown. The man yelps.
Screaming coming from somewhere in the room. Lots of it. Girls.
“Get him now, Son,” Samuel says, in the same calm voice he used at dinner when suggesting that I try the spring rolls.
I lunge toward the gunman, who has now lowered his weapon and is covering his bloody mouth with his free hand. He raises the rifle, but I knock it aside with my closest forearm. Samuel’s shoe-fu must have weakened the man’s grip because the AK flies out of his hands and strikes the wall. When he lunges for it, I whip in a roundhouse kick to his gut, dropping him to his knees.
He looks to be in his fifties, dark skin, small stature, with lean, hard muscles wrapped in a dirty white T-shirt. He’s got a red and white checkered cloth wrapped around his neck. Got to be a Khmer Rouge guy.
I sense more than see Samuel rush by me.
I whip another roundhouse at the Khmer Rouge Man, this one at his face, but he bobs his head out of the way and catches my leg in his arms. He whips both of his arms in a circle, as if he were trying to manually turn an old airplane propeller. The action sends a shock of pain through my hips as I go airborne, horizontal with the floor, and spinning three sixty. I tuck my body hard and hit the cement on my butt. A shock wave of pain streaks up my spine, but at least I didn’t land on my head. I’m terribly dizzy, though.
Kids. Girls. Screaming. Running by me.
I push myself up just in time for the man to scissor my neck with his legs. I try to grab them, but I’m wrenched off my butt and jerked forward into a somersault. I manage to tuck my chin into my chest, so the landing isn’t bad, but my neck feels like a stretched, three-foot column of pain, including the spot where I got hit when Mai and I got jumped.
“Vovinam, Son!” I hear Samuel call out from the door. “Leg specialist. Do not fight his fight.”
Advice is nice but help is better. Man, my neck hurts.
When I sit up, the man, now on his knees, grabs my right ankle and yanks it toward him, which slams me onto my back again. That hurt and this is getting old. How I long for soft mats.
My head fuzzies clear enough that I can see his ugly grimace— bleeding black teeth on top and a couple of dark ones on the bottom—and that he’s about to crank my ankle until it breaks. It also occurs to me that the guy isn’t trying all that hard to kill me. No, he’s toying with me. That’s just plain dumb and a whole lot mean.
I fast-scoot my butt toward him. “Eat this, pal,” I say, chambering my free leg. My heel slams into his ugly mouth, which frees my caught foot and sends him sprawling. He sits up on his elbows and makes an even uglier face when he opens his mouth to release some of the blood that’s pooling inside. Two of his top teeth are gone. Must have swallowed them. He shakes his head back and forth, spraying blood in the air like a hound dog’s slobber.
I look over where his AK landed. Gone. Samuel must have picked it up. Where is he, anyway? I start to get up but Khmer Rouge Man jumps to his feet, lunges toward me and scoops up my right foot with one of his. Before he can do one of his vovinam tricks with my leg, I push myself toward him on my rear, chamber my free leg again, and ram my foot into his closest shin, impacting all the tender nerves just under the skin. He grimaces, drops my foot, and stumbles back.
I rock forward to come up into a squat, but the guy takes a fast, limping step toward me and launches himself into an aerial somersault to land butt-first on my chest, slamming me once again onto my back. Before I can process how amazing that move was, he begins wailing on me with his fists.
I do a double shield with my forearms to protect my face, though his blows are hurting my arms. After the fourth or fifth bone rattling hit, I see an opening between his shots, it’s just his nose, but I’ll take it. I thrust my right index finger deep into one of his nostrils, then whip my hand to the side. He’s too busy screaming to notice me draw up my leg. I hip bump him off me and onto the floor.
On my feet now, I can see that Samuel is gone, as are the girls. The guy he force fed the door is squirming and trembling on the floor, his mouth silently opening and shutting like one of the koi back at the house. Whatever Samuel did to him is giving the man some kind of a seizure. He’s also missing a Wingtip.
Khmer Rouge Man grabs my ankle with one hand, his other still covering his bleeding nose. Man, this guy has no off switch. I stomp his wrist with my other foot to shred his hand off my ankle. He spins around on the floor and tries to kick, missing me by three feet.
What do I do with this guy? I need to get out of this room, but I don’t want to kill him and I don’t want him to follow.
As if on cue, he removes his hand from his nose, and struggles to see through his pouring tears. He scoots toward me and tries to do a scissoring ankle trap, but falls short by a foot and a half. All those tears are affecting his depth perception. He pauses, his labored exhalations shooting blood out of his trashed nose. He’s lying mostly on his right side, his right leg bent, his left lower leg resting on top making a little bridge. In its center, his kneecap.
If I think about it too long, I won’t do it.
I lift my knee as high as I can, and slam all two hundred pounds of me down onto the bridge.
He loses consciousness before he can complete his scream.
I peek out the door. Samuel and the girls aren’t in the hall. No one is. There’s crying coming from the mystery room, at least two kids, maybe more. I look into the office to see if Samuel might have ushered the freed girls in there. Nope. Just the moaning man with the severed Achilles tendon. In the next room is a cooking stove, refrigerator, preparation counters, and three dead bodies. The purple-faced man was clearly the target of Phat Ho’s garrote, and the other two, judging by how badly they have been mauled, tried to fight Samuel. A cleaver and two handguns lie on the floor next to the bodies.
He must have taken the girls outside. No doubt he’s calling in the transport bus. I take a deep breath to oxygenate myself. I’d like to do more but there’s no time. Hopefully, there will be later.
I step over to the door, push it open, and walk into hell.