"Are you talking about the stairway?" I asked.
My boot had stopped at the edge of the blood above Eric's head — a dark map on the tile, already skinned at the edges, the shape of a man who had walked through a scream and then stopped walking.
He nodded. "Packed. Top to bottom. Getting through it costs us time we might not have."
He left the rest sitting there, and I knew exactly which part he hadn't said.
"And there's a chance they come up while we're inside it."
"Always a chance." He turned his hand over. The blade caught the corridor light and gave it back dull. "In a space that tight."
"We can manage the risk."
"We can." He didn't move. "Two of us in a stairwell with a hundred of them and no room to swing, we'd probably come out the other side."
"But."
"But her coming back down through it wouldn't go the same way."
Which was exactly what I'd been turning over since the corridor and hadn't wanted to put in words.
