The Last Marine

They made it across the street in a stumbling, desperate run. The quiet brick house felt like a fortress on a battlefield. Quinn shoved Sarah and Lily against the side wall, hidden from the street by a thick, overgrown azalea bush that smelled faintly of rain.

"Stay here. Don’t move," he commanded, his voice a harsh whisper.

He crept along the side of the house, poker held at the ready. The windows on the first floor were all locked, dark and imposing. They looked like the unblinking eyes of a sleeping giant. Then he saw it. A small, ground-level window, half-hidden by weeds that had grown up around it. It was a basement window, a metal-framed casement type with a single pane of glass. It was their way in.

He returned to Sarah. "We’re going in through there," he said, pointing. "It’s our only chance."

She looked at the small window, then back at him, her eyes clouded with fever. She gave a slow, weak nod, a gesture that took a visible effort.

Quinn worked quickly. He took off his jacket, wrapping it around the hooked end of the iron poker to muffle the sound. With three hard, sharp jabs, he shattered the small pane of glass. The noise was still loud in the relative quiet of the afternoon, but it was a muffled crunch, not a sharp crack that would carry for blocks. He carefully cleared the remaining shards of glass from the frame with the poker, cutting his hand in the process but barely registering the pain.

The opening was small. He slid through first, his shoulders scraping against the metal frame, and dropped into the pitch-black space below. He landed in a crouch on a cold concrete floor, listening. Silence. The air was stale, thick with the smell of dust and damp earth. He waited a full thirty seconds, letting his eyes adjust to the near-total darkness, his ears straining for any sound of movement inside the house. Nothing. They were alone.

"Okay," he whispered up through the opening. "I’m going to pull you through. Sarah, you first."

Getting her inside was a slow, agonizing process. She had no strength left. Quinn had to reach up, grab her by the shoulders, and carefully guide her limp body through the narrow frame. She cried out in pain as her wounded arm brushed against the side of the window. Lily followed, small and trembling, her eyes wide with fear in the darkness. Quinn lifted her through the opening and set her gently on the floor.