Everyone's Dead But Us Read Online Free PDF Page B

forms. We found no one alive. If someone was buried under the collapsed steel struts, we couldn’t see them. The howling storm made it nearly impossible for us to hear any cries for help.
    We carried the dead bodies to shelter. We had to be extra careful with Sherebury’s to keep the two halves from completely separating. Before moving him, we wrapped him several times in numerous tablecloths. From under the eaves of Apritzi House, the nearest shelter, we looked back toward the remnants of the Atrium. All of us were soaked and breathing heavily.
    I said, “I don’t think there’s anything more to be done here.”
    One of the staff, I thought it was Henry Tudor’s valet, had joined us about halfway through our inspection. He said, “This is awful. I’ve never seen a dead body.”
    One of the archeologists came running from the direction of the castle. He pulled up to us. “I saw your light. People are fighting the fire inside the castle. We’ve got to help.”
    We plowed through the storm toward the massive structure. An orange-and-red glow pulsed beyond the hill between us and it. The light faded then grew again, faded, brightened.
    The castle was on the far side of the escarpment from the Atrium. We hurried around the hill. Five minutes later we emerged at the east end of the small bay. Somebody was going to have to build the castle tower again and maybe the whole place. The top half of the tower was gone and the bottom half was in flames. I realized now where the large chunks of cement that had hit the Atrium had come from. Concrete bits of castle tower must have been flung far and high by the explosion. Our rooms and everything in them were gone. As of yet, we saw no flames from the windows of the Great Hall or the library. The destruction of the library with all its irreplaceable first editions would be a horrendous loss. It had the most complete collection of gay books ever published, most first editions. The original owner had made it part of his will that a third of his fortune would be devoted to acquiring every gay book ever published. Those who had inherited or bought the island in turn had kept on with the tradition. Otherwise the money sat unspent in a rigidly controlled account through the Bank of England. The most recent owner had made it a point to check the book searches on the Internet for any title they did not have. When our set of rooms was not occupied in summer, people often took books up to the top of the tower to read. It might not have been equivalent to the destruction of the library at Alexandria, but the world could lose a lot of early gay literature this night.

 
    We rushed forward. In the castle bay, the fire on the one small boat was quickly dying. Behind us, we could see the boat at the end of the pier the archeologists had been heading for after their encounter with Sherebury The only other boat in the harbor was the listing yacht.
    As we neared the castle, I saw that the tower was undoubtedly a total loss. The next nearest villa was a quarter mile away. The wind was blowing from the inland side of the island toward the sea and the worst of the flames were being blown in that direction. It would be unlikely for the conflagration to spread inland. Between the tower and the rest of the castle were the solid oak doors and two-feet-thick walls. Perhaps the rest of the castle could be saved.
    Through the shattered stained glass windows of the Great Hall, I saw people inside. We hurried forward.
    At the threshold, I said, “Is this safe?” The noise from the storm was so great it was necessary to yell almost directly into Scott’s ear.
    “Do we have a choice?” he asked. We did, but we didn’t. We had to help.
    Inside the castle we saw at least six people. We joined them in the darkness lit mostly by the glow that leaped through the windows and one doorway from the tower’s inferno.
    In one corner of the Great Hall was a standpipe in a hose cabinet. Others had dragged the hose