when the door flew open

At once flinging the weapon away into the dark, he would have dragged the driver out of the Buick, but the bastard came without coaxing, barreling into him. They both went down harder than gravity required, Ethan on the bottom, rapping the back of his head against the quartzite cobblestones.   [586] On impact, when the door flew open, Fric found himself sliding off the seat, out of the Buick, onto the puddled pavement. Flat on his back, the worst of all positions when he couldn’t breathe. Rain falling in his eyes blurred his vision, but he worried less about the blurring than about a crimson tint that seeped across the night, making rubies of the raindrops. His thoughts clouded to match his vision—too little oxygen to the brain—but he was clearheaded enough to realize that the effect of the crap he had inhaled might be wearing off. He tried to move, and could, but not with any grace or control, rather like a hooked fish flopping on a shore. On his side, he had more ability to clench and relax his neck, chest, and abdominal muscles, which he must do in order to force out the stale air condensed like syrup in his lungs. More ability, but not enough. If paper were a sound, it would not be as thin as his wheeze had become, nor a human hair as thin, nor a film of dust. He needed to sit up. He couldn’t. He needed his inhaler. Gone. Although the world was crimson to him, he knew that he must look blue to the world, for this was one of the really bad attacks, worse than any he’d known before, an occasion for the emergency room, for the doctors and nurses with their talk of Manheim movies. No breath. No breath. Thirty-five thousand dollars to refurnish his rooms, but no breath. Funny thoughts crowded his head. Not funny ha-ha. Funny scary. Red thoughts. So dark red at the edges that the red was really black.   Currently not in a mood to teach the deconstructionist theory of literature, but in a mood to deconstruct anything in his way, with a wolfish fury howling in his skull, Corky needed to gouge eyes, to chew at the face below him, to tear with teeth, to claw and rip.