Chapter 3: Death Around the Corner

I first thought something might be wrong when, in the middle of a movie, I began to smell smoke. Leaning over to my friend, I asked, “Do you smell something?”

“No,” he said.

Eventually the movie ended, we gathered our things and left the theater, and I turned my phone back on. It buzzed. Then buzzed again. And again. Texts from a local alert line. I read …