Elizabeth felt fifteen digrees colder when she realized that Floyde wasn't at his desk, that the people milling around the lobby looked like "Shell Shocked" was about fifteen miles behind them and shrinking fast, and that the animal control workers running towards the elevator that 'Lis and Mary had just vacated were already hot, sweaty and annoyed. One was shouting into his walkie talkie as he ran. 'Lis caught the words "Sounds like another one" as they ran past.
She wasn't close enough to hear very much. Mary was still having hysterionics, and her hands were welded into a strangle hold on 'Lis's elbow.
"Hurry, hurry, I don't want it to happen I don't want it to happen Idontwantittohappen..."
"Calm down." Elizabeth said, and then said, to herself, if anything has happened, it hasn't happened to Floyde. It WOULDn"T happen to Floyde. Floyde is just taking Care Of Things, and tomorrow he'll have some lovely story for you, won't he darling girl?
She didn't really understand how she could make it to her car. Lis was emotionally dizzy now, her head whirling around in a desperate attempt to make sence of things. Things were refusing to be Made at all, and Sence seemed to have stayed in the building behind them.
Lis only realized she had reached her car when Mary's grip loosened and the blood flowed back into her left arm.
"Open the car, Lizzy!" Mary said, and that snapped Lis out of the rest of her fuzz. Lis might be pronounced "Liz" but "Lizzy" had all the attraction of sunbathing in a nucler war. Lis reacted with a burst of irritation, fumbled for her keys for only HALF a minute (as her purse contained a dictionary, a bible, her hair brush and Emergancy Makeup--not in a case--a first aid kid and enough spare change to fill the Grand Canyon, among other things) and got the door open in less. Mary sat down, not in the front seat, but in the back, making pathetic weeping noises that only generated more compassion for her.
I'll help her, Lis thought. Helping her is the right thing to do. And I'm already this far in...and I'll probably be safe...safe out of the building.
And then her brain screamed every image from upstairs back at Lis, spinning around and around until Elisabeth Lark felt like she was about to faint.
There was a hand on her shoulder. It was Mary.
She was holding out a small vial of amber colored liquid.
"You looked like you were about to faint." She said...and some small, incapasitated part of Elizabeth's brain noticed that the panic was gone from her face.
"It'll help." Mary said, and Elisabeth took the vial and drank only the smallest sip. And she was right...that bitter taste brought Elizabeth back to reality.