Nine Perfect Strangers - Liane Moriarty Page 0,146

“Push-ups are the perfect functional integrated-resistance exercise. It’s the only exercise that works every single muscle in your body. Twenty push-ups! Now!”

No one moved.

“Why do you ignore me?” Masha jabbed a finger at the screen. “Push-ups! Now! Or I will be forced to take action!”

What action could she possibly take? But they didn’t wait to find out. They dropped to the floor like soldiers.

Heather tried to lift and lower her tired hungry body in a parallel line as Masha counted out loud, “One, two, three! Drop those hips! No Harbor Bridges!”

Was she still in her hallucinogenic state, where she seemingly believed they all worked for her? Did she plan to kill them all? Heather felt a sudden, wild panic. She’d brought her daughter to this place. Zoe’s life could rest in the hands of this mad, drug-affected woman.

She looked around her. Frances did girl push-ups on her knees. Jessica cried as she, too, gave up and went from her toes to her knees. Tony, the former athlete, dripped sweat as he did perfect form push-ups at twice the speed of almost everyone else, in spite of having just popped his shoulder. Heather noted that her own darling husband kept pace.

“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty! Relax! Excellent!”

Heather collapsed onto her stomach and looked up. Masha had pressed her face so close to the screen that all they could see was a magnified image of her nose, mouth, and chin.

“I’m just wondering,” said the disembodied mouth. “Can you smell it yet?”

It was Napoleon who answered in the calm, gentle voice he would use for a toddler. “Smell what, Masha?”

“The smoke.”

68

Tony

The screen turned to static but Masha’s voice continued to ring through the room.

“Deep transformation is possible but you must detach from your beliefs and assumptions!”

“I can smell smoke,” said Zoe, her face white.

“That’s right, Zoe, you can smell smoke, for this house, my house, is burning to the ground as we speak,” said Masha. “Possessions mean nothing! Will you rise from the ashes? Remember, Buddha says, ‘No one saves us but ourselves!’”

“Look,” whispered Frances.

Wisps of black smoke drifted sinuously beneath the locked heavy oak door.

“Let us out!” Jessica screamed so loudly her voice turned hoarse. “Can you hear me, Masha? You let us out right now!”

The screen turned black.

Masha’s absence was now as terrifying as her presence.

“We need to block that doorway,” said Tony, but Heather and Napoleon were way ahead of him, returning from the bathroom carrying dripping-wet towels that they were rolling into tight cylinders, as if this was their job, as if they’d been expecting exactly this situation.

As they got to the door the volume of smoke increased suddenly and frighteningly, pouring into the room like water. People began to cough. Tony’s chest tightened.

“Everybody get back!” shouted Napoleon as he and Heather shoved the rolled-up towels between the door and the floor, forming a tight seal.

The low level of claustrophobia Tony had been experiencing ever since they first discovered the locked door threatened to turn into full-blown panic. He felt his breathing become ragged. Oh God, he was going to lose it in front of all these people. He had no job to do. He couldn’t even put the towels at the door because Heather and Napoleon were already doing it. He couldn’t help. He couldn’t kick down that door because it opened inward. He couldn’t fight anyone. He couldn’t do a damned thing.

He coughed so violently his eyes filled with tears.

Frances grabbed his hand and pulled. “Get away from the door.”

He let her pull him back. She didn’t let go of his hand. He didn’t let go of hers.

Everyone huddled at the point in the room furthest away from the door.

Napoleon and Heather came and stood with them, their eyes already bloodshot from smoke. Napoleon pulled Zoe close to him and she buried her face in his shirt. “The door didn’t feel hot,” he said. “That’s a good sign.”

“I think I can hear it,” said Carmel. “I can hear the fire.”

They all went quiet. It sounded at first like heavy settled rain, but it wasn’t rain; it was the unmistakable crackle of flames.

Something heavy and huge crashed to the ground above them. A wall? There was a dramatic whoosh of air, like wind in a storm, and then the flames grew louder.

Jessica made a sound.

“Are we all going to die down here?” asked Zoe. She looked up at her father with disbelief. “Is she seriously going to let us die?”

“Certainly not,” said Napoleon, with such matter-of-fact grown-up assurance Tony wanted