example and plunged headfirst inside.
He was surprised to find the floor was still there. He landed with a
thud on his left shoulder, rolled, and stood up. A thick wall of black
smoke knocked him backward to his knees. Ashes poured over his face
and matted his eyelashes. His eyes burned so badly he couldn't see
where he was, he couldn't breathe, and the heat inside the bedroom made
his skin feel as though it were melting. He dropped down to the floor
and took a deep breath of cool air. Then he began to crawl forward on
his belly.
There was almost a foot of clean air trapped between the floorboards
and the dense, deadly smoke. Taking another deep breath, he shouted
Caleb's name.
The sound of his voice was lost in the crackling inferno. He slowly
inched forward. He couldn't see anything, but he hoped he would bump
into a clothes closet. Every bedroom had one, and he knew that
whenever his little sister had become afraid, she'd hidden there. He
hoped to God, Caleb had done the same thing.
The bed was his second choice, but he found it first. He hit the side
of the headboard, squeezed himself along the length, and reached
underneath, sweeping his arm back and forth in a wide arc.
There wasn't anything there.
Every second that passed was another second closer to the babyws
death.
Cole was silently praying and begging for God's help as he made one
final sweep under the bed. He was just pulling back when Caleb grabbed
hold of his hand. The baby let go just as quickly. Cole rolled his
shoulder under the frame, lifted up, and reached for him. Caleb had
squeezed himself up against the headboard. Cole found a leg and gently
pulled.
He could hear him whimpering and making loud, sucking sounds with his
thumb in his mouth, and Cole thought those were the most beautiful
noises he'd ever heard, for it meant that Caleb was unharmed.
He lifted the baby into his arms and rolled to his knees. Caleb threw
himself backward and grabbed his baby doll off the floor. A forked
flame of fire leapt up from between the floorboards as Cole pulled
Caleb back.
"Let's get out of here, " he whispered to the baby, his voice hoarse
and raw from smoke.
He wanted to wrap Caleb in a blanket from the bed, but when he reached
for it, he saw the embers raining down from the ceiling on top of it.
The blanket ignited and rapidly burned. In desperation, Cole tucked
Caleb's head under his chin, wrapped his arms around him, and doubled
over, his hope that his own body would shield the baby's.
He figured he had only a couple of seconds left to get out. The
bedroom was closing in on him. Flames where shooting up from the
cracks in the floor and dropping down from the ceiling above.
And then the walls began to move as though they had suddenly come
alive. They bulged forward, hovered, then, with an eerie swooshing
sound, they slowly receded before throbbing forward once again. It was