What about the shelves themselves? Maybe she could use them to batter down the door, or break the boards. She grasped the top shelf as firmly as the nerves in her deadened fingers allowed, and yanked. There was a loud cracking sound, but the wood held. Desperately, she hung all her weight on it, bouncing, jerking down as hard as she could. She felt something give and then it came down with a sickening screech as the nails pulled from the wall. She landed hard, smashing her knees into the floor, but didn’t feel much of anything through the numbing cold.

The broken wood of the shelf hung down above her head, and a stinging pain ran along her forearms. Blood dripped slowly from her elbows, and she held her arms up to look at the two long, ugly scrapes that ran the length of each forearm where they had caught the edge of the next shelf on the way down. Most of the skin was gone, and yet she felt nothing more than a slight, irritating pain—bothersome, but not unbearable. Even the bleeding was slowed by the frigid air.

She got to her feet and yanked one of the broken pieces of shelving from its brace. It was about six feet long, one end jagged and splintered, and it felt heavy and awkward in her clumsy hands. She felt sleepy again, as if someone had slipped her a drug. Time was running out.

She flipped the piece of wood over, straight end pointing at the opposite wall. Taking a deep breath, she gathered it under her arm, bracing with both hands as tightly as she could, and stumbled towards the door, falling into it as hard as she could. The broken shelf scraped backward under her armpit, and she could feel the splinters digging into her tender flesh.

The door shuddered, and held strong.

Blood now ran freely down her side. Oh Jesus, she thought, please help me. It was getting harder and harder to stand. Her legs shook uncontrollably, and she felt nothing in them at all now to her waist. Her arms refused to obey what her mind told them to do. She had dropped the piece of wood after ramming the door, and now she stared down at it dumbly. Why had she ever thought that would work? It was a waste of precious time. There had to be some other way.