Chase the Morning

Of course he would; I could hardly say anything else. But as the afternoon wore on I wished more and more I had put him off. The sky outside had stopped drizzling, but looked heavier and greyer and more thundery as the day passed. It was stifling; but worse still was the growing sense of oppression that hung in the heavy air. The whole office seemed to feel it; people snapped at one another, made stupid slips or just gave up working and sat staring into space. Dave fell silent; Clare made me three cups of coffee in twenty minutes. Gemma went off home with a headache. There was something almost menacing about it. I longed for honest thunder and rain to break the spell. Thanks to Mr Peters I couldn’t just slip off home; and I was glad of that, in a way. I didn’t want to be alone right now. The thought of it kept me working, though I didn’t seem to be getting very far. At last, around four-fifteen, I decided I needed some air to wake me up before my client came, and mooched out along the back corridor.

The glaziers had finished with the back door, and I swung it open and stepped out onto the balcony leading to the metal stairs. A few breaths of air were stirring here, freshened by the trees beyond the wall of the car-park; faint drops of rain sprinkled onto my face, like tears. I drew a few deep breaths, thought of climbing one floor up to the top, but decided against it. Mr Peters should be here in ten minutes, and I wanted to brush up, straighten my tie and so on. I was glad I’d put on my Cagliari suit today; these Continental types were more impressed by Italian tailoring. I went back inside, and was just passing the back of the office next to mine when I heard the first voices raised, a rising scale of protest, outrage, and sheer fright. Then the crash came.

In that sullen quiet it was appalling. It might have been thunder; but the shriek that followed froze my blood. Now there were other voices, angry shouts, cries and sounds of smashing, crashing, things falling – and more shrieks.

I froze, with every nerve in me raw and shivering. Before last night I might have gone running to see what was the matter; and who knows what might have happened then? As it was, it took all the strength of will I had to inch forward. And as I did so, I saw, blurred behind the ribbed glass partition of my office, tall shapes that strode back and forth amidst a crescendo of booming and splintering crashes. Then suddenly one stopped, loomed up with frightening speed right against the glass, and I saw a weird spiked crest bobbing, heard that harsh reptilian croak again, raised now in a crowing rasp of triumph.

Wolves.

That unfroze my limbs. I moved; I ran. As well I did; the glass exploded outwards above me. A huge fist burst through in a shower of splinters and spraying blood, clutching just where my head had been. There was no going back. I sprinted along the corridor, dived around the corner as I heard the back door of my office burst open behind me and boots come clashing out into the corridor. But I was just far enough ahead. I dashed out into the front hall, a devastated mess with nobody in sight. I skidded violently on the tiles, avoiding the overturned bookcase, and clutched at the sagging front doors. One came away in my hand, lurched sideways and fell; I sprang through the opening and out onto the landing. There were the stairs; but in four floors they’d have me. The lift – I risked a precious instant to lunge at it, jab the button. And miracle of miracles, the doors slid open.

I plunged in, slammed against the wall and just as the first of the Wolves came crashing out of the offices, I stabbed a finger at the control panel. The sudden look of relief on my face must have puzzled the Wolf, because he and the others at his heels halted, gaping, as if expecting something to happen. But nothing did. The doors stayed open. And I remembered in a sudden flood of terror that there was always a few seconds’ delay –

The look on the lumpen grey face changed suddenly to oafish triumph. Saliva gushed between the gravestone teeth, and he hurried himself forward, arms outstretched. With a soft mechanical sigh the doors clunked together in his face. Something crashed against the outside with jarring force; but the lift was moving. I sagged with relief again; but still I felt something was wrong the lift began to slow, the extra weight lifted off my shoulders – and only then did I realize what it was.

In my panic I’d pressed the wrong button. The lift had gone up. There was only one floor above, and nothing to stop the Wolves running up after me. I reached for the down button, stopped myself just in time; they’d page the lift on the way back. The cage bounced gently to a halt, and the doors clunked open. I flinched back, expecting to see tall shapes waiting, or coming spilling up out of the stairwell. There was nobody, nothing except clattering from below. I dashed to the railing and – very gingerly – peered down.