Arson, p.4
Arson, page 4
“Negative, Morganstern. Over,” Zeke responds.
Cursing, I remove my light from my gear belt and head back to the bedroom area. Coming across the bathroom first, I quickly look into the small room. There’s nothing but a claw-foot tub, a simple sink and a toilet in the room. Nothing else is in here but smoke swirling on the ceiling.
Moving quickly to the first bedroom, I open the door carefully.
“Ma’am. Ma’am, can you hear me?”
Slight coughing that sounds like a whisper alerts me that the homeowner is still in the room. Rushing around the bed corner, I look down and find a woman sobbing on the floor and looking helplessly up at me as tears stream down her face. Her dark gray hair is in curlers, and she’s wearing a Hawaiian-type robe and pink slippers. She continues to reach under the bed, trying to grab her dog.
“Help me! He’s scared. Bobo is scared and won’t come out from under the bed. I can’t get him! Please get him,” the woman pleads franticly.
I don’t even think. There’s no time for me to try to reach under the bed and rescue him, either. I grip the top mattress and move it off of the bed, almost throwing it across the room. It hits a dresser and knocks over several perfume bottles and a jewelry box of costume jewelry. I pick up the box springs and move it to the side. As soon as the box springs are moved, I find a little black terrier in a pink knitted sweater huddling in the middle of the bed under the headboard.
“Ma’am, I’ll get your dog. I need you to come with me and stay close,” I command the woman as I grab the black dog and turn to move from the room.
As we approach the door, I realize the entire door frame is on fire. Flames lick up the sides and at the top of the frame. The light switch near the door frame melts and runs down the wall as if it’s made of slime.
“We have to go out the window,” the woman shrieks while pulling on my arm and gear in the direction of a small window that will only fit the woman. My broad shoulders don’t stand a chance of getting through that window frame.
It’s all I can do to hold on to the little dog while she’s pulling on my arm and directing me in the opposite direction of where we need to go. She’s pulling on my gloves and my jacket, anything she can reach and makes gurgling noises with her mouth as she loses the ability to communicate.
“Ma’am, you live on the top floor. If we can get through the frame, we should have a clear shot through your apartment. Let’s try the door frame. If it doesn’t work, I’ll radio for a ladder.”
I know that’s bullshit. If we can’t make it through the doorframe, they won’t get the ladder over here in time. It’s the door or nothing, but I try to appease the woman to calm her enough to get her through the door.
Not wasting any time, I grab the scruff of the Hawaiian robe as she curses and begins to smack me as if I’m deliberately attempting to kill her by making her walk through the door frame. Shifting the dog to my armpit, I grab the woman’s back collar with my other hand and pick her up off of the ground as she screams.
“See you on the other side, ma’am,” I yell over the fire noise as I throw her through the door frame.
Keeping the dog in my armpit, I follow her through the door frame and reach down to scoop her up on the other side. I shake her off a bit and give her a once-over to make sure she’s not hurt. I did throw her a little hard to get her to clear the doorway. I needed her through it quickly so no flames would burn her, and I knew she wasn’t going willingly. Her hesitation would have hurt her more than me throwing her through the frame. She’s trembling and reaches for her dog just as I hear a crackle and creaking above her.
I know it’s coming before I can move us out of the way. Reflex and adrenaline kick in, but all I can do is look at the ceiling in what I feel is slow motion as a wall of fire starts to come down on top of both of us.
So, this is it, huh? This is how I go? I’m going to die while cowering with an elderly woman and a black terrier in a basic block apartment building. Fear rips through me in those split seconds, and all I can think of is that I’m not going to get to have that dinner with Darby. It seems like an asinine thing to think of before I die. We just met a couple of nights ago and haven’t even been on a proper date. I’m not going to have dinner with Darby. I’m never going to kiss Darby’s soft bow mouth or even hold her hand again like I did momentarily at the coffee shop.
Instinctually, I close my eyes and squint while covering my head with one hand. Then I wait. And wait. Why am I waiting to die? Where’s the fire?
I peek open one eye to look at the fire, and my mouth drops. Out of the corner of my eye, I also see the elderly woman looking up as if she’s mesmerized. Even the dog is silent and wagging its tail.
Above us is a perfect arch of fire over our heads. It’s as if we’re in a bubble, and the fire won’t come down on us. It’s not raining down on us. In fact, it seems to be held back by some invisible force as if something is commanding it not to kill us.
I lower my hand a bit, and the arch drops as if it’s going to fall on us again. The woman screams and drops closer to the floor, and I bend my knees in reflex. My hand flies up above my head again, and the fire arch moves back up toward the ceiling. Stupidly, I begin to test the fire arch and lower and raise my arm to watch it respond to my arm movements. I don’t know how the hell I’m controlling this fire, but I am.
“Archie, where are you? We’re coming in to get you. Over,” Zeke’s voice comes in through the radio in crackles.
“I’m on my way. No need to send anyone. Over.”
Keeping my arm up and one arm holding the dog, I nudge the woman with my leg in the direction of her apartment door. Looking over, I see other patches of fire blocking our escape through her door.
“Come on. I’m going to try something,” I yell.
As soon as we move from where we were standing, the fire arch drops. I use my arm to move fire out of the way as we move through the room. As we approach large spots of fire, I wave them out of the way, almost like they’re nothing, as the woman clings to my shirt and trembles in either fear or awe. She’s half hanging onto me and half climbing up my back as I reach out with my arm and swing left to right, moving the fire spots away from us as we walk. I’m creating a path through the fire. I have no idea how I’m doing it, but I’m controlling the fire and moving it from one spot to the next.
I burst through the door into the fresh air, and Zeke runs over to us. He pulls up short when he sees the looks on our faces. I’m sure it must be confusing seeing a woman attached to my back muttering, “He’s Jesus. He’s Jesus.” I’m also sure that the shocked and confused look on my own face doesn’t help.
“Ma’am. Ma’am,” Zeke repeats, trying to catch eye contact with the dazed woman. “My name’s Chief Zeke Lightfoot. Is there anyone else in your apartment?”
The woman turns slowly to the chief, stares at him for a second with dazed, watery eyes, and responds in a stutter, “H-h-h-he’s J-J-Jesus.”
Shrugging my shoulders at Zeke, I detach the woman from my shoulder. “Ma’am, I promise you that I’m not Jesus,” I respond. “I don’t know what the hell just happened, but you’re safe. Here’s your dog. You both seem fine for being around that much smoke but let me take you over to the ambulance so they can check you.”
I turn the woman in the direction of the ambulance and shrug my shoulders at Zeke, who looks incredibly confused about how I’m alive and how the woman is alive. I don’t believe for a minute that he thinks I’m Jesus, but his eyes flitter back and forth between me and the burning building like he’s watching a confusing tennis match.
“Let’s make sure you have enough oxygen,” I say as I walk the woman to the paramedic with my hand draped over her shoulder. “Here we are,” I soothe as I move her to the paramedic. “See, nothing to worry about. It was nice meeting you. I’m going to go over to the chief and see if he needs more help. They’ll take good care of you here.”
The woman looks up at me with wet eyes and nods slowly. She seems dazed like she doesn’t know where she is. If she’s going into shock, they’ll take care of her. I need to get back to the action and help where I can.
Nodding briefly to the paramedic, I jog back to Zeke while adjusting my gear for more action. The building is still burning, even though the hose is making a dent. It’s pretty quiet, but that doesn’t always mean that people aren’t still in a building.
“Morganstern, head into the lower level. See if you can get Parks out of there. He’s doing the checks and made it to the first floor. I want him out before the whole damn thing comes down on him,” Zeke directs as he points to the entrance door, and I see fear on his face. “Drag his ass out if you have to.”
I immediately take off in the direction of the entrance. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a news crew van pull up. I’m not surprised. Local crews usually come out if they get a whiff of gore or something big is on fire. A man with a brown suit in his early thirties hops out of the side door on the van and begins yelling directions to the camera crew and driver. I sprint past without making eye contact before they can stop me and ask me for a statement.
The entrance to the building is covered in flames. Flames lick up the side of the doorway and even above the doorway, making entering the building without getting burned a challenge. Even though I have gear on and could get through it easily enough, I don’t want to linger or even mess with it. Without thinking of any consequences, I try what worked in the woman’s apartment. I reach out my arm, and the flames that are on the doorframe move as if hit with wind and rain until they aren’t there.
I race through the doorway and into the smoke-filled hallway.
“Bennett! Bennett, where are you?” I yell frantically. The fire is consuming the hallway walls and the rafters above me. I have a feeling that my buddy is trapped somewhere. Thoughts of Chief Smythe enter my mind. I can’t lose another friend.
“I’m in 1C!” Bennett yells back.
As soon as I rush through the door, I realize that the floorplan for 1C is the same as the apartment I was just in to save the woman and her dog. At the end of the living room is a kitchen with a cut-out pocket window. Everything is on fire between the kitchen and the exit. Bennett can’t get out without running through a gauntlet of fire. Using my hands, I shift the fire to make a path to the kitchen.
Rounding the corner to the kitchen, I find Bennett squatting low to keep safe from the smoke and holding an unconscious child around age nine. Bennett looks up, and I can see the confusion on his face even through the small window of his helmet. “Where the fuck did you magically come from?”
“Abracadabra, mother fucker,” I yell over the din of flames burning everything in the apartment. I grab him by his gear jacket and yank him up from the floor. “We need to move now!”
Bennett is frozen in shock and won’t move. Taking the child from his arms and throwing him over my shoulder, I grab Bennett again to get him moving. We move as a team back through the living room as I raise my arms to make a path through the fire. Bennett curses behind me, but I ignore his words so I can focus on getting us out of here.
“What the ever-loving fuck?” Bennet cusses again as the fire moves at my whim in front of us. “Are you doing this with your hands?”
Right before we reach the door, a dark cherry wood bookshelf consumed by flames falls into our path blocking the door. The heat off of the shelf is like hellfire. There’s no way we would get out of this apartment on a normal day. But today isn’t a normal day. For some reason, I can do something cool with fire today, and I briefly wonder if I can do something else cool with fire. I know I can move it sideways. But can I move it down like I’m extinguishing it? I guess it won’t hurt to try.
Holding out my hand, I slowly move it towards the floor in a downward motion. The flames lower to the floor and into the shelf as if they’re fizzling away.
“Move! I don’t think I can hold it for long. This is our shot. Go through. Move, Bennett!” I practically shove him over the shelf. “Are you waiting for a fucking engraved invitation?”
Bennett steps stealthily over the shelf boards and tentatively walks out of the shelf. I follow while holding my hand low to keep the flames low the entire time. After he’s through, I do the same movements and jog through the door into the hallway.
“Stay low! Get to the exit,” I direct.
“The exit’s covered too! I think you need to go first.”
We head toward the exit together as wooden beams rain down behind us. The whole inside of this place is coming down, and we have seconds to spare.
As we approach the entryway, I hold out my arm again and push the fire to the side. I haul balls through the doorway and keep my hand raised as Bennett pops through right after me. I take a step backward into the fresh air looking back up at the consumed building and watch the fire consume the entryway as I drop my hand. I lift my helmet in disbelief and wipe the sweat from the intense heat from my face.
As soon as I turn around, I come face to face with Zeke. He has his mouth slightly open and is looking at me like he saw a ghost. A reporter has a microphone in my face, and lights from a camera blind me, so I squint from reflex. I also hear about forty people start to clap.
Chapter 6
Darby
My coworker friend, Lee, comes over and taps me on the shoulder with a pencil. She's twitchy and excited about something, but I’m on the phone with a mortgage client and can’t very well hang up immediately. I gesture to give me a minute, and she returns the gesture with a “come on and hurry up” hand-waving gesture of her own. Her wavy black hair is askew, and her stylish, purple glasses are fogged up with the exertion of breathing hard. She’s tapping her foot and waving furiously for me that we need to go somewhere.
“What the hell? Is the building on fire?” I ask as soon as I disconnect with my client.
“You have got to see this shit,” Lee breathlessly sputters while grabbing my hand. “We need to go to the breakroom. I think there’s something you want to see on TV.”
She leads me down our workplace’s plain hallway and into our tiny breakroom with a few vending machines, an old couch, and a huge TV.
“What? What is so fucking urgent?” I ask but stop suddenly in shock.
Archie is on TV. My Archie. Well, I mean, he isn’t my property or anything, but we have a date Friday night. I told Lee about the date and described him after the coffee shop date. Apparently, she was eating her usual snack of pretzels in the breakroom and saw his name pop up on the TV.
“Holy shit!” I mutter, sitting down on the pleather breakroom couch in shock. It lets out a squeak of air and sounds like I just ripped a fart. I don’t even blink or deny it.
On TV, a reporter interviews Archie, but it doesn’t seem like a normal interview. People keep coming up to Archie and touching him. There’s an old lady in the background holding a little black dog screaming, “Thank you, Jesus.” People keep coming up to Archie while he’s being interviewed, taking selfies with him and calling him a hero.
The reporter keeps asking him how he moved the fire. Moved the fire?
“What the fuck did I miss?” I ask mostly to myself.
“Your new boy’s a hero. Apparently, he saved an old woman, a dog, a kid and one of his fellow fire buddies,” she says, ticking each item off on her fingers. “They’re saying he can move fire. Like control it,” Lee explains quickly. She looks at me skeptically like I can provide answers. “Did you know about this?”
“I didn’t. But from the look on his face, I bet he didn’t either.” Archie looks just as shocked and almost like he wants to run away from the crowd and decompress. He’s sweating from the fire, nerves, or both and looking around at the large crowd like he’s not sure where to focus. “How can he move fire?”
“No idea, but it’s badass. He’s also hella hot. Girl, jump on this guy’s dick before I do,” Lee says jokingly, dragging out the last words.
The screen flips to a previously recorded segment that shows a basic block apartment building with nothing fancy about it. Flames are shooting out of the windows on several floors, and flames lick at the entrance door frame. Suddenly, the fire goes away, and Archie comes barreling through the doorway with his hand raised and with a kid draped over his shoulder. He stops just past the doorway and continues to hold out his arm for a few moments to allow another fireman through the doorway. The news reporter keeps asking what happened and asking if the anchors in the studio are seeing what he’s seeing.
“What in the world?” I ask myself in a whisper as my phone pings in my dress pocket. The text message is from a number I don’t recognize.
Text from Unknown number - “Hi. This is Archie. You gave me your number at the coffee house. I’m not sure if you heard, but I had some excitement I’d really like to talk to you about. I know we have a date for Friday night, but do you think you can meet tonight at my apartment? I understand if that sounds weird, but I need to talk. I think I also may need your help.”
I tap my phone against my other hand for a few seconds. Archie wants to explain what seems to be the hot news in Jensen City. Part of me wants to run over to him and give him a big hug. Telling him everything will be OK and that people will accept some wonky power would be wonderful right now. It would also be a huge lie. I know that people can be cruel and awful when they find out you can do something unusual. Perhaps that’s what Archie understands that I would know, and that’s why he wants to talk to me. I’m the one person that can tell him how to protect himself from people trying to take advantage of him. He’s probably freaking out right now. I quickly enter his number into my phone contacts and fire off a text back to him.
Text to Archie – “Hi back at you. I saw you had some excitement. It’s all over the news. Are you OK? I can come by when I leave work in about twenty minutes. Send me your address.”
