“The whole staircase is falling apart!” Kara said.
Maybe she had been right about the sabotage, because metal like this didn’t just crack and break, unless it was really old.
“I’m going first,” Matt said, his breath ragged. “Stay here.”
“Don’t you dare die on me, Costa,” she hissed. Kara sounded scared. She rarely sounded scared, which told Matt that their situation was dire.
Holding tight to the railing, he walked along the edge of the staircase. His ankle throbbed and he felt blood drip down into his sneakers. But no broken bones, so he counted his blessings.
The railing was jerky, as if some of the bolts were missing, and as he stepped he could feel the metal beneath him give way enough to know that there were other compromised stairs. He counted as he went, and when he hit the landing he breathed marginally easier.
“I’m okay,” he called up to Kara. “Wait one sec while I feel things out.”
The floor felt solid, no weak spots. He put his hands out and touched the door. Pressed. Ran his fingers along the metal. He found the seams, but didn’t find a handle.
He and Kara needed to decide what to do next. He called to her, “Okay, walk along the edge of the staircase and hold the railing. It’s unsteady, but as long as you avoid the center you’ll be okay. There are seven steps after the broken one, they all sag toward the middle.”
“I’m coming,” she said, her voice rough around the edges.
He kept his hand on the railing and felt Kara’s progress as she traversed the stairs. Then she was at his side and he wrapped an arm around her.
“I couldn’t find a handle on the door. We should continue down.”
“We can’t see anything,” she said. “What if the stairs just end? What if they collapse from our weight? The elevator was wood and steel, functional. The stairs are metal grates. It’s clearly abandoned.”
“There’s electricity coming from somewhere,” Matt said. “I don’t hear it in the stairwell, but upstairs there was a faint hum. It sounded like a generator.”
“Then maybe we can find a light source. Or a window. If the place is abandoned or sealed off for some reason—”
“I think it was flooded.”
“Really? Why?”
“The moldy smell. It’s familiar. When Dante and I were kids we used to explore abandoned buildings, many of which had been damaged in hurricanes and shut down.”
Kara laughed, and that helped because it sounded like the old Kara, the brave Kara, the Kara who could help him figure out how to get out of this place.
“The by-the-book federal agent breaking into private property—I would never have thought.”
“We all do stupid things when we’re kids,” Matt said lightly.
“Let me try to get through this door, okay? If there had been a handle at one point, maybe we can leverage it or wedge something in a space and open it. If we can’t open it, then we go down.”
“Alright,” he said. He guided her hand to the door seams, then let her explore.
A minute later he heard the door creak.
“I got it,” Kara said, her voice strained. “I found the holes where the handle used to be, but they’re small, only big enough for my pinky fingers. I’m going to pull it open as far as I can. I felt it shift, so it’s not locked, but it’s heavy.”
“You pull. I’ll get my fingers in the crack and wedge it open.”
“If I slip, your fingers will be chopped off.”
“Don’t slip.”
“Matt—”
“Seriously, other option is going down the stairs, and you’re right, we can’t be certain all the steps are there.” He didn’t tell Kara about one of the buildings he and Dante had explored. The entire staircase had just ended halfway up. They couldn’t see it at first, and when they started up, the stairs sagged. They barely got down before the entire staircase collapsed. He didn’t want to think about encountering a gap in the stairs while going down with zero visibility.
