Quake Read Online Free PDF Page B

left ear.
    Nick’s right foot found a calf and he climbed, his left foot landing on a man’s lower back milliseconds later. From there, his momentum took him up a spine, onto a pair of shoulders. When his foot touched someone’s head, he immediately leapt over the top of the pile.
    In flight he lost hold of the judge’s arm and hit the marble floor hard and tumbled. As the walls shook on either side of him, Nick pushed himself up and appraised his body for injuries. Pain on the entire left side of his body. A cut in the middle of his forehead had opened and blood streamed down his face and spilled onto the white marble.
    He spun and found the judge on her hands and knees, the floor lifting and falling beneath her, trying to toss her off like a mechanical bull. He helped her up as more bodies spilled out of her courtroom and into the hallway.
    Though his ears were ringing, he heard the judge shout, “I’m fine. Just run.”
    Thinking only of Lauren, Nick started down the hallway, bouncing off the walls like a ping-pong ball, each smash giving him a jolt of pain instantly dimmed by adrenaline.
    Above his head he heard a creaking sound and looked up to see flakes of ceiling raining down on him, bouncing off his head and shoulders like hail.
    He kept moving. Ran past the elevators. Accelerated as he approached the red metal door at the end of the hall. Crashed into the crash bar and barreled into the stairwell.
    The stairwell was pitch black and moving like a special effect in one of Lauren’s Harry Potter movies. He gripped the green rail as tightly as he could and started down the cement steps, taking two or three at a time, hoping against hope that one of his legs wouldn’t give out.
    On the second landing he paused. He listened hard and heard the screams of men and women emanating from each of the first three floors. What he didn’t hear was the guttural groaning of the courthouse structure. At least for the time being, the building wasn’t in immediate danger of falling.
    The violent shaking finally stopped. Maybe the worst was over.
    If there had been bombs inside the building, it was possible that all of them had already gone off.
    It was also possible that the bombs were set on a timer and that more explosives were scheduled to detonate in a few minutes in order to create maximum chaos and wipe out as many of the city’s first responders as possible.
    Maybe Nick was safer remaining in the stairwell until help arrived.
    But then Nick heard the familiar sound of steel beams bending. If the upper floors collapsed, Nick would be trapped under the rubble and likely killed.
    Lauren can’t lose another parent.
    He grabbed hold of the handrail and hurried down the stairs as quickly as he could.
    When he reached the door to the first floor, he slammed into the crash bar but the door didn’t budge. It wasn’t locked, Nick was sure of that. Locked doors in public buildings created fire hazards. He pressed his face against the glass of the narrow vertical window that looked out onto the lobby. A pillar had toppled over, lodging itself against the metal door, trapping him inside.
    Cursing under his breath, Nick pushed at the crash bar again. His feet slid backwards as though he were moonwalking. He needed to gain some leverage, but the stairs were too far back. So he retreated to the first step and got himself into a three-point stance. Like a linebacker waiting for the center to snap the ball he remained motionless, trying to decide exactly which part of the door to strike. Then he took off in a sprint and slammed his left shoulder into the crash bar as hard as he could.
    Immediately, he went down in searing pain. Grimacing, he scanned the side of the door; it had opened only an inch or so. But it had opened.
    Nick just needed to put more strength into it.
    Yeah, right , he thought. He’d given that try everything he had.
    Suddenly the stairwell began to shake again, this