The moment the door shut again a hoarse cracked voice said, “I came to tell you—there’s somebody upstairs. I saw a light!”
“What?” Grace almost shouted it. Then he seemed to pull himself together. “That’s impossible. We’ve been right here. We’d have heard if—What kind of a light?”
“Just a little dim flickery kind of thing. The library was just closin’ up and they were tellin’ me I had to get out. But I swear I saw somethin’—quite a ways back from the windows.”
There was a moment of paralyzed silence.
Upstairs, in the musty darkness, Ken and Sandy were as staggered by the newcomer’s announcement as were the men below.
Grace’s authoritative voice broke the stillness.
“Barrack, you come with me upstairs! Get that gun out of the drawer there. You get back outside, Andy—and keep your eyes open. Cal, you take the back yard.”
Ken’s mind had begun to work again too.
There was no longer time to retreat by the stairs they had come up. They would run into Barrack and Grace before they reached the sidewalk.
Ken flashed his light toward the rear windows of the room they were in, hoping that it would reveal a fire escape beyond one of them. The little beam flattened out against the glass, unable to penetrate its thick coating of grime.