“No,” the two replied in unison.
“Let’s hit it,” Trevin added.
The trio traipsed back through the drifted snow, this time with Stacy leading the way. At the corner where the store met the hallway, she paused.
“Are you sure you can do this without the flashlight?” Stacy said.
“We have the police lights,” Jadine said, surveying the room as she spoke. It was unclear whether the lights would help or hinder their work; they wouldn’t know until they started. “You go on and come back quickly.”
Stacy scurried away.
Jadine took a moment to strategize. The area in front of the office was horrifying to behold. There was little left of the two policemen beyond pools of blood and chunks of flesh. Even less was identifiable: a finger here, a foot over there. Jadine pressed her hand to her mouth willing herself to keep it together, to not vomit, and, most especially, to not break down. There would be time for that later. From the other side of the wall, she could hear the shuffling of oversized clown shoes. There was no more time to think. They needed to start fast and finish quickly.
“We’ll start here,” Jadine said, drawing Trevin further into the bloody mess. “Whe’ll start with the framework and hopefully have enough time to fill it all in. So, right-side up table, up-side down table, then fill the window hole. If we have time, we’ll stack the rest around the sides.”
“On it,” Trevin said leaping into action. He skated to the first table with Jadine right behind him.
The tables were small but heavy. The two moved as fast as possible, sliding across the icy puddles of blood, the table balanced between them, both helping and hindering the other in equal parts. At the wall, it was necessary for Jadine to kick pieces of the dead to one side. With a grimace of disgust, she forced the object as far away from the work area as she could without touching it. It helped to pretend it was a bundle of rags, not a pants leg with a partial appendage still shifting inside of it. With a shudder, she resumed the march of the tables.
With the first two in place, they moved further from the window to grab up a third. The farther they had to carry it, the more difficult it became to hurry. Not only did the slick floor slow them down, but Jadine’s arm were beginning to ache and burn.
Together, they hefted the first table into the hole in the window, pushing and turning it until they had it wedged in tight. It wasn’t silent work, or even quiet work. The metal table scraped against the window’s metal frame with a high pitch screech that hurt Jadine’s ears. Chunks of glass fell away and she could hear it shatter when it hit the office floor.
“Damn, that was loud,” Trevin whispered. The two paused briefly, ears straining to hear movement. A slow shuffling reached their ears.
“Hurry!” Jadine ordered, fear ringing in her voice. “We need at least one more in that opening to contain them.”
Hands shielding their eyes from the police car headlights, the two raced to the closest table and heaved it off the floor. The muscle’s in Jadine’s arms burned with the effort. Together they pushed it into place, both struggling to force it all the way in. At last, it wedged in tight, and they made their way to the next one.
Jadine’s breath, harsh and ragged, stung her chest and throat. Sweat dripped into her eyes. Angrily she swiped it away with one hand as she gripped the table with the other.
“Can we drag this one?” Trevin asked, his breathing as choppy as hers.
“Let’s give it a shot,” Jadine said.
With Trevin pulling from the front and Jadine pushing from the rear, they slid the table across the room. Two feet from their destination, the table stopped short, jerking painfully on Trevin’s arms. Jadine’s momentum nearly toppled them. She managed to roll to the side, sending only herself to the blood-soaked floor. Eye level with the table’s legs, she caught sight of the culprit: a disembodied finger, frozen to tiles.
“Lift, lift,” she commanded, scrambling to her feet.
Trevin lifted without question and the two half-ran, half-slid to the wall. Heaving the table high, they deposited it at an angle between the legs of the other tables.
“We’ll stack the rest,” Jadine panted.
They split up, gathering the chairs and stacking them around the base tables.
“I hope that’ll hold them,” Trevin whispered.
The clowns had begun banging against the tables, feebly. Now, with the window mostly covered, the heat was filling the office and slowing them down.
“Okay, it sounds like it’s working,” Trevin said, drawing in a deep breath. “What now?”
“I don’t – can you see anything we can use to block the doors?”
“Seriously? I can’t see shit,” Trevin said.
“Me neither,” Jadine said. “The car is sitting at the wrong angle. We need to find Stacy.”
One hand trailing against the wall, the other holding tight to Trevin’s sleeve, Jadine groped her way along the hallway to the backroom door. They slid through with ease, closing it silently behind them. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to this new level of darkness. Visualizing the room in her mind, she searched her memory for any objects on the floor or sticking out from the wall that might trip them up. In her mind’s eye, there was a clear path if they walked through middle of the room. A straight shot to the edge of the sink, then hook a right into the kitchen. Easy. Even in the dark, a straight line was a straight line.