CHAPTER ONE The blast shoved me backwards. I tumbled down the steps and hit the wall on the third floor with such force that my breath left my body. I slid down and landed, feet out. Clouds of dust gathered around me. I was covered in dirt, bits of door, and blood. I hadn't expected this. Anger, a gun, maybe, but not a bomb. The air was white with plaster dust. I was coughing, which hurt my ribs. I couldn't see anything ahead of me. My eyes were dry and chalky, and the inside of my mouth tasted like paint. I closed it, and my teeth ground against chunks of plaster. The world was eerily quiet. I couldn't even hear myself breathe. Then I realized that the concussion had knocked out my hearing. If someone was crying, someone was calling for help, if someone was coming to the rescue, I couldn't tell. I hadn't realized how much I relied on my hearing until it was gone. I moved slowly, feeling for problems. My back felt like someone had slammed it with a two-by-four. I guess a wall was infinitely more serious than a two-by-four. My left arm burned. My chest hurt, but I attributed that to the loss of air. I could now take shallow breaths, but they were filled with plaster dust. The coughing continued. I could feel it digging into my throat and rib cage, but I couldn't hear it. I felt like I was alone in a blizzard, a soundless hot blizzard of white. A jagged piece of wood stuck out of my thigh. A small piece. I wrapped my fingers around it and pulled. It came out easily, followed by only a little blood. The wood hadn't hit anything vital. I touched my face, felt bits of stuff fall onto my lap, my fingers slick with blood. But I couldn't find too many wounds. Maybe the blood wasn't mine. I hadn't been the one closest to the explosion anyway. I'd just left the third floor. I was on the fifth or sixth stair, heading to the landing. The stairs then made a ninety-degree turn to the left, and continued upwards to the fourth floor. I'd heard voices discussing unlocking the door, the click of a handle---or maybe the lock itself---and then the explosion. It had to have been a powerful blast to hit me. The concussion had gone outward, and I had been protected by distance, and a plaster-and-lath wall. God knows what would have happened if I had been on the landing. I'd probably be dead now. Shouldn't someone have come up the stairs? Out of the other apartments? Was the building more destroyed than I thought? I couldn't tell. I slowly got to my feet, bracing my hand against the wall. The wall seemed sturdy, but I couldn't see it clearly. The dust still swirled, giant clouds of it. Debris fell near my feet, some of it heavy enough to send vibrations through the floorboards. It felt strange not to be able to hear the thumps as the wood, the hardware, the whatever it was, landed. I was in some kind of shock---not thinking as clearly as I could---but I wasn't sure what that meant. I wasn't sure what had happened to the others. Wouldn't they have been blown backwards like me? Down the stairwell, landing in a pile? I climbed up the stairs, keeping one hand on the wall as a brace, the other extended toward but not touching the railing. I wasn't sure what the explosion had blown loose. I reached the top step and swayed just a little; the wooziness hadn't disappeared. I made myself breathe, but the air tasted of smoke, and blood. The landing had been ripped to pieces. The stairs going to the fourth floor disappeared into the clouds of white. I wheezed---at least, I think I did---and coughed some more, then I got on my hands and knees, distributing my weight as I crossed the ruined landing, heading for the ruined stairs. Someone had to see if anyone survived. It took me a long time---forever---to crawl up those stairs, using what was left of the wall to brace myself. My hands kept brushing nails and jagged bits of wood. I tried not to put too much weight on my knees---I didn't want to puncture any more skin. The dust was as fine as baby powder. My eyes were finally starting to tear, to work the dirt out. I still couldn't breathe very well, and I had never been so dizzy in my life. Then I reached the fourth floor. Puffs of debris, like fog, floated in the hallway. The door itself was gone, blown open, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. On the opposite side of the hall was an even larger hole. One that seemed to go on forever. Inside, a fire burned. No walls remained. That apartment was mostly gone. The blast had gone outward, leaving wood and bits of shrapnel in the wall across the hall. Wood, metal fragments, bone. My fingers shook as I reached toward the blood-covered whiteness sticking out of the plaster wall. My mouth was dry and I couldn't get the charred smell of the hall off my tongue. I made myself look away from the bone fragment, down the dusty and ruined hall. No one. Maybe the others had gotten blown into the next apartment. Maybe they had already gone for help. But even as I had those thoughts, I knew they were wrong. Beneath the piles of wood---the shattered plywood door, the bits of plaster from the walls, the ruined tables---were two people. I crouched and started lifting the debris, one jagged piece at a time, hoping to find them. Praying that they were alive. Copyright 2005 by Kris Nelscott Excerpted from War at Home by Kris Nelscott All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.