Free House of Doors by Chaz Brenchley Page A

hear the colonel puffing through the hatchway. Then they clouded abruptly, as though a storm had rolled into his skull. His body lost that grateful cling and he slumped utterly in her arms and now she really couldn’t hold him but she wouldn’t let go, so that they were both teetering on the edge of calamity, that long drop calling to her. Just a tumble, a shatter she’d never feel, and there would be Peter waiting for her; and wasn’t that better than a bullet  . . .?
    Apparently it wasn’t allowed her, even now. She could feel herself, both of them going, the dead weight of the body in her arms and the living struggling body that was herself not giving up, not even now, but going anyway – and then suddenly there was a third beside them and a strong grip on her shoulder, something to lean on, solidity.
    And that was the colonel, and she might have sagged in his arms if she hadn’t had a sagging body in her own and his voice in her ear, ‘Steady, now. Just lay the man down. Do you need help?’
    â€˜No, no,’ she gasped, meaning yes, yes, don’t let go  . . . But he took her at her word, and apparently she was right, or he was. He could let her go and she wouldn’t fall, not now.
    She lowered the unconscious airman to the leads, just by the curve of the glass there but safely so. She felt most extraordinarily safe herself, crouched beside the great trunks of the colonel’s legs. They were like pillars between her and the fall. She could put that from her mind and do what she was meant to, nurse the sick.
    Loosen the airman’s collar, check his breathing, try to bring him round. Vertigo, was it, that made him faint? Well—
    Something struck her head, and tangled in her cap.
    She didn’t scream, it was too strange for screaming, but she sat back on her heels and reached up. And touched stiff spikiness and warm softness both at once, and felt the flutter of life in it; and snatched her hand away and almost did scream then, only not with the colonel standing there. And would have reached back determinedly to pluck the thing out regardless, except that just then there was a shadow on the gray matt of the leads beside her, a dot that grew startlingly. She barely had time to glance up before here it came, a bird, a starling falling out of the sky.
    Falling, or plunging. Hurtling. It seemed to come down faster than it should. And hit its own shadow hard, hit the leads and broke in some way, horribly, and barely moved again.
    And here came another, and another, hitting the roof to left and right, dying or dead already. She risked one more glance upward and nearly lost an eye, barely had time to bat the thing away from her face. It fell like something dead already, but so fast  . . .
    And the sky was dark above it, dark with birds; and she barely had time to duck down again and cover her head before they hit like hail all about her.
    She heard the colonel swear, then heard his bellow: ‘You men! I need you, two of you up here, two at least  . . .’
    They would be for her patient, to carry him down out of this. For the moment she could crouch over him on all fours, feeling the impact of the birds on the arch of her back like thrown snowballs, stinging hard. Soon enough there were new voices, raised and roughened with shock, emitting strange oaths. That must be the kite flyers come to the rescue, wading through dead birds as they came. And then, ‘All right, Sister, we’ll take him now, if you’ll just  . . .’
    She crawled backwards to be out of the way, and came up against the chimney stack and that was welcome, something almost shelter. She could huddle against that and peep through her fingers to see them hoist their unconscious colleague and bear him away, manhandle him down through the hatchway while they tried to shield themselves and each other against the rain that kept on coming, the constant