Angry flames had all but caught up to us, casting sharp fingers of orange past the doorframe. The fire had become a hungry cat, and the three of us were mice cowering in a hole. I searched for a door to close on the opening and found only bare hinges where it had been removed. I jumped and backpedaled to the center of the room as the claws of the monster made a desperate grab for me, singeing my hair in the process. For a moment, the arc of the blaze retreated as if it had been sucked back into the realm of hell from which it had originated. Unfortunately, as with any storm, it was merely a false calm. The pause lasted no more than a breath before a second explosion rattled through from the opposite end of the house, forcing a blast of flame, heat, and burning debris in upon us.
We danced about, avoiding the flying detritus as best we could. All the while, we were struggling for each and every breath as a fresh supply of smoke billowed into the room. Carl hit the floor with a heavy thud, and I rushed over. He was kneeling, and I came down even with him. Although my eyes were burning and blurred, I could still see that he was looking worse by the moment.
“How are you doing, Carl?” I felt myself yelling just to be heard through the thickness in my own ears.
“Goddamn… Chest… Fricking… Killing… Me…” He wheezed in a breath between each word.
I wasn’t qualified to make a diagnosis by any means, but I’d seen this before, and the only thing that entered my mind was heart attack. I didn’t say it aloud, but I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was thinking the same thing.
“Do you have a handkerchief?” I raised my voice once again.
He nodded and began trying to reach into his pocket. I took over and rummaged through his coat until I found the large cotton square. I gave it a quick fold then pressed it over his nose and mouth.
“Breathe through this,” I instructed him. “And try to relax. We’re going to get out of here.”
He pressed his right hand up over the makeshift mask and nodded.
I climbed to my feet and began feeling my way clockwise around the room, keeping as low as I could in search of breathable air. I still had my shirt pulled up over the lower half of my face, but it was being overwhelmed by the ash content of the atmosphere. I could see that Ben was moving on the other side of the room, engaged in the same search from the opposite direction.
“Back wall,” Deckert croaked, barely audible over the din of the fire.
“Where?!” Ben screamed.
Deckert motioned with his right arm as he sputtered and coughed, repeating, “Back wall.”
I tried to move quickly in the direction he had indicated and nearly fell as I bounced from a stack of boxes. I was almost reduced to being on my hands and knees, so I sucked in a halting breath then half stood before propelling myself forward. I made it three steps before hammering face first into something that felt cold and metallic. I let out a yelp as my forward motion was immediately impeded and the air forced from my lungs. I groped through the harsh smoke, feeling my way in the darkness as I lowered myself down to the floor. I blinked hard and gulped in a breath, holding my hand against the metal for fear of losing it. I was just getting ready to yell that I had found the door when my eyes focused on the old refrigerator to which my hand was plastered.
“Over here!” Ben’s strained voice pierced through the roar.
“Where?!” I screamed out in return.
“On your right!” came his reply.
I twisted my head and could see him kneeling down next to the wall. On my hands and knees, I scrambled across the concrete floor toward him. Carl was still several feet away, and though he was still kneeling, I could see that he had propped himself against the waste pipe that jutted upward from the floor in the center of the room.
Before I reached my friend, he had gulped in a fresh breath of air and was now standing again. I could hear him thumping against the door, the hammering noises coming as punctuation to the high-pitched groan as yet another section of the drop ceiling grid crashed to the floor in the next room.
Ben dropped back down beneath the billowing haze. His face was smeared with soot, and his lower lip was bleeding. I struggled to focus on him and suddenly realized that my glasses were missing. Still, even with that handicap, I saw what could only be fear in his dark eyes.
“Metal door with a deadbolt,” he told me, his voice hoarse but raised in order to compete with the conflagration. “Fuckin’ keyed on both sides.”
Keyed on both sides; that was definitely not the kind of news I was wanting to hear. There was no way to open the door, and finding a key in this holocaust was unthinkable even if there was one to be found.
“What are we going to do?” I screamed the question, unable to keep the terror out of my voice. “Can’t you shoot it or something?!”
“This ain’t a goddamn movie, Rowan!”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Desperation, the greatest motivator of all, overtook Ben and became the deciding factor. With it as an impetus, it took him less than a second to seriously consider my idea. He clutched my shoulder and pushed me away as he ordered, “Move back! Get outta the way!”
I followed his instruction as if I had any choice, dragging myself backward as quickly as I could. As I watched, he reached inside his coat then withdrew his hand. In it was clutched a nine-millimeter Beretta.
“This is gonna be loud,” he screamed at me. “Cover your face ‘cause shit’s gonna fly!”
With the instruction given, he stood and felt about on the door for a moment. I watched the blurry scene playing out before me, as he settled on a spot then raised the handgun until it disappeared into the thick haze of smoke. I saw his legs move as he took a measured step backward.
A bright flash of yellow-white erupted within the billowing cloud, coupled with a sharp sound of the muzzle report as it echoed from the walls. My ears popped and filled once again, feeling as though they’d been punctured by ice picks, and then a tinny ring settled in for good measure.
At the same instant, something hard, hot, and sharp hit my cheek and sent a sting through it. I reached up and felt it protruding from the skin, and even more blood began to run in a warm rivulet across my face. My arm automatically flew over my eyes just as the next flash of light and controlled explosion made themselves known. The second was followed by a third and that by a fourth. By the time Ben had snapped off the sixteenth and final round from the semi-automatic pistol, the sound seemed to me to be no louder than the pop of someone clapping hands.
I peeked out from beneath my arm and saw that a small shaft of light was streaming in to illuminate the cloud of smoke. Ben dropped himself downward and wheezed in a deep breath. As he came fully into my field of vision, I could see that his hands and face were cut and bloodied from the blowback of the shrapnel.
I couldn’t hear him, but I could see him laboring for a breath as he moved himself to the door. The shaft of light flickered as he reached up and tugged at the barrier. It didn’t budge.
My heart fell, and the acidic bite of terror forced its bitter taste upon the back of my tongue. A gelid finger ran up my spine before chilling the back of my brain, and I swore I heard the sigh of the Dark Mother calling me. In the front of my mind, I saw my wife’s tense face and clearly heard the echo of her voice, “Aye, go. You go, but you’d best come back.”
I continued to watch as my friend worked his finger into the hole and then seemed to struggle with it for a moment. His hand jerked as if something had given way, and he pulled hard.
Suddenly, he fell back, and the door swung inward allowing the light to grow from a small shaft to an enormous beam. Coldness spilled in across the floor, and the smoke punched upward for a second then began rushing outward through the opening as more flowed in from behind. Fresh air hit us low, and we gulped at it as we crawled across the floor. Unfortunately, it also provided a new source of oxygen for the insane combustion behind us.
The orange flames that had been clawing at the doorway now paled to a bright yellow as they expanded. The wooden doorframe that had until this point only charred and smoldered now offered itself up for sacrifice as fully involved fuel. In an instant, the remaining bits and pieces of drop ceiling crashed downward and swung in through the blaze-encircled opening.
I scrambled up from the floor, making a half step-half leap into the space between Deckert and me in the process. He was still leaning against the waste pipe but was now slumped and unresponsive to his surroundings. I covered the short distance fast, but the flaming debris had a head start.
I landed just short of Carl, and a single heartbeat after, a piece of burning acoustic tile impacted his back and set his coat ablaze. I scrambled to my knees and pulled my bare hand up into my coat sleeve, slapping at the flames to keep them away from his head as I struggled to pull his coat off. Ben was immediately on the other side, hefting him up and extracting his right arm from the sleeve. With a quick twist, we wrenched Deckert out of the lined trench coat and threw it across the room.
Ducking under his limp arms and draping them over our shoulders on either side, we supported him between us and rushed headlong for the now open door. The cold air embraced us as we stumbled through the opening, me going first. Ben supported Deckert’s weight from below as we struggled up the concrete stairwell, slipping and sliding on the fresh snow.
Ben pushed upward, and I shouldered more of Carl’s weight as he moved up the stairs. I twisted to increase my support and slipped from the edge of the step, tumbling backward. Ben caught Deckert and held him as I grabbed frantically for the handrail. I managed to grip the cold metal at the last moment, keeping myself from crashing at the bottom but ending up a pair of steps below the two of them.
I started back upward, and a heavy “whump” sounded behind me. A rush of hot air and smoke pushed past through the door and into the exterior stairwell, forcing us to choke on our breath once again. Flame licked past me on the right, and I ducked my face into my shoulder as I continued to move. Fear kicked in once again, and I scrambled up the stairs, ducking beneath Deckert’s shoulder and taking the lead once again.
The frozen precipitation was coming down hard above us, forming its own brand of haze in the atmosphere, and our labored breaths puffed out like bursts of steam escaping from an old locomotive. The frosty air filled my lungs only to be vomited back out in a violent sputter. I hacked violently and felt myself going lightheaded. I pushed hard, the muscles in my legs burning with the strain. We had to get away from the house, and Ben wasn’t going to be able to drag both of us. I gulped in another deep breath and willed myself to hold onto it.
I topped the stairs and pushed out, trying to pull the dead weight behind me, all the while hoping that the “dead” part would remain a figure of speech. I found my footing as I stepped into the yard and pressed forward. A split second later, Ben crested the flight of steps, and we limped away from the danger of the house, trudging through a good two inches of icy, white fluff.
We were stumbling almost drunkenly across the yard, traveling in no particular direction other than away. The sound of a distant siren tickled the inside of my ears, thrusting itself past the ringing that had been left in the wake of the close-proximity gunfire.
I hoped that it was on its way here.
My cheek was beginning to throb where the shrapnel had impacted it earlier, and I remembered that it was probably still protruding from my face. The fog in my brain was starting to clear, ushered away by the quick dose of adrenalin my body elected to inject into my bloodstream at the bottom of the stairs. I realized that I was aching in more places than just my cheek, and I was going to have to take inventory at some point.
However, at this particular moment, Deckert was my primary concern. I released the breath to which I had willed myself to cling and drank in a new volume of the clean atmosphere, continuing to press forward. Even though we were heading away from the house at a wounded trot, the stench of the fire remained with me as if I was still standing in the basement. I was afraid to look back at the house because I feared that I would see the monster chasing after me. I could still feel the heat at my back.
I continued on my trajectory in the opposite direction of the burning house, not exactly sure where we should go. I only knew that we needed to get far enough away that we would be safe, and then we could use a cell phone to call for help.
I was just about to look up and try to gain my bearings when the dull pain of a full-force tackle tore into my back. I was twisted away from Deckert by the blow, and pitched forward. An unintelligible banshee wail soaked through the curtain of semi-deafness in my ears, and someone rode me to the ground, flailing madly all the way.