Oh dear. That window looked gorram small and wasn't getting much bigger as I approached. I could conceivably slow down to a more seemly pace and abandon the boy to his hidey-hole but down deep in my heart I knew his ma was in trouble and he would end up dead -- or worse -- on his own. Luckily for him, a million years of evolution caught up with me at that precise moment and awoke my previously dormant maternal instincts. I took a deep breath, tucked my shoulder in, and dove through the window.

I screamed as quietly as I could when an unseen glass shard tore open both my shirt sleeve and my arm, then I lost all my spare breath when I landed with an OOF on something that thankfully gave an inch or two beneath me. I laid there for a minute, trying to catch my breath without filling my lungs with dust. My eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness but I still jumped a foot when someone touched my shoulder.

"We got to get!" Charlie hissed. "This is Walleye's territory and he's fierce about protecting it. I know a safe way through if you can make it to the back of the building."

I grunted and slowly climbed to my feet. The material beneath me had been a pile of clothing -- shirts, trousers, jackets, you name it, they had it. All filthy as sin, of course. I held up a finger to Charlie then rummaged through the top layer. My fingers touched something silky and I pulled out an old petticoat, stained and mildewed but with occasional patches of white. There was no time to rip it apart now; I bundled it around my arm and could only hope there was a relatively clean patch over the wound.

Charlie was waiting impatiently at the doorway, jiggling from foot to foot. I cautiously crossed the room and peeped out over his head. Here was a hallway, dark and debris-filled, running the length of the building. Most of the doorways were doorless so there was some light making it's way inside but not a whole lot. I felt a tug and looked down; Charlie put his finger over his lips; I nodded my understanding and he grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hallway, unerringly avoiding the piles of trash and cast-offs.

The hall ended in a blank wall, but there was a doorway to the right that looked onto a loading dock with a large corrugated tin door, the kind that rolls down and which currently prevented us from leaving the building. As we examined the dock in the light of a single lantern hanging from above, I heard voices. I looked down at Charlie and saw my dismay reflected in his eyes. He pulled me away from the door; we ducked into the room just across the hall and crouched down into the corner made by the hallway wall and the back wall. Charlie kept fidgeting so I slapped him lightly and hissed "No moving!"

The voices drew near, then passed us and faded a bit as the men moved into the dock room. Somebody was givin' a gorram lecture in there -- it was a good 15 minutes before we heard the tin door roll up and then back down. Silence spread throughout the basement and I was just stirring to move out when I heard someone clear his throat.

I froze. It was as clear as if he were standing right next to us. My eyes did their damnedest to penetrate the gloom of the room; as far as I could tell we were alone. I glanced down at Charlie and nudged him, but he shook his head in bafflement. I pushed down on his shoulder to make him stay, then eased myself along the wall to the doorway, keeping my eyes glued to the lighter gray rectangle that was all I could see of the hall. Inches from the doorway, I froze again at the sound of a cough. This time I heard the rustling of cloth. Perhaps the man was rummaging through his pockets for a hanky, because he then proceeded to hack up half his lungs and three-quarters of his sinuses. If I hadn't been so gorram scared, I would've puked right then and there.

I took advantage of the coughing fit and peeked into the hallway just long enough to see the man doubled over on a chair just inside the dock's doorway. Luckily he was facing the other way. I pulled my head back and allowed myself a gasp of relief before I returned to Charlie's side.

"It's a guard," I hissed nearly silently. He looked bewildered and shrugged his shoulders; apparently this wasn't Walleye's standard operating procedure. We waited through a period of calm, then when the man started coughing again, I asked Charlie if any of these rooms had good hiding places. He thought for a bit and then nodded reluctantly. Apparently I wasn't going to like this.

We inched our way down to our doorway during another calm spell. When the next coughing fit began, I poked my head out to check that the guard was still facing the other way -- which he was -- and then that the other direction was clear -- which it was. I pushed Charlie out and followed him down the hall, expecting at any moment to hear the guard hail us. Charlie paused at a doorway, then shook his head and took off down the hall. I nearly tripped over debris trying to keep up, but then he vanished in a room halfway down the hall.

I could hear the coughing fit die away behind me so I hurried up and barreled into the room at top speed. Stupid mistake, of course. Only Charlie's quick grab prevented me from falling through the hole in the floor. I was beginning to think a million years of evolution was just plain wrong.