It was the fire that burned the apartment complex and an innocent boy’s life to ash.
I tilted my head downward and squeezed my eyes shut, hoping I seemed like a guy suffering from an oncoming hangover and not like a guy fighting the ghosts in his head.
“Dude,” Stone whispered.
“Yeah?”
“It’s not just the snow, man. You are not okay, I can tell.”
“I’m good.”
I held my head up and gave him my best fake smile. If it looked as false on my face as it felt, there was no convincing him. It seemed like he sometimes knew me more than I knew myself.
“Bullshit. You look about as sunny as it does outside.” He paused and looked into my eyes, but somehow he was seeing deeper than them. “I know. Plain and simple, Grady. I’ve seen you when you’re happy. This ain’t it. I know you. And, right now, you aren’t right. Just because we’re older doesn’t mean we have to bury our emotions, brother. Talking about stuff that’s bothering you is freeing, in a way. Take it from me, man. After I lost my parents, I didn’t wanna talk to anyone. I wished I was dead with them. I wished I would’ve gone through the windshield, gotten flattened by an eighteen-wheeler. Hell, at the very least, I wished I would’ve never woken up from my coma—”
“Don’t say that,” I said.
“No, I can say that because I don’t feel that way anymore. I’m glad to be alive. I’m glad I had a chance. I’ve got two wonky legs, but I know how to party. If I was six feet underground, getting munched on by the worms and maggots, I would’ve missed out on so much.” He sighed, crossed his arms over his chest. I noticed, even in the orange light of the flames, how his lips looked slightly blue. The temperature was still dropping, and the fire was proving useless. Then again, without it…we might’ve been a couple of ice cubes already.
“Listen,” Stone went on, “all I’m saying is that life goes on and wounds scab over. Whatever it is, it’ll get better. And it’ll fade away. I promise.”
I opened my mouth, unsure of the words I planned on saying, but Stone held up a hand.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want, but—”
“No,” I said. “You’re right. I should talk about it. I’ve just been bottling it and it’s been poisoning my insides. I can feel it taking years off my life.”
Stone remained quiet, studying me.
I cleared my throat. “Okay, if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna need a drink.”
“Well, I can guarantee you one thing,” Stone said, “the beer’s definitely cold.”
“Someone say beer?” Jonas said from his spot on the floor. He raised his head and was looking at us, the fire twinkling in eyes still heavy with sleep. “I’m always down for a midnight sip.” He looked around, focused on the window, which showed a wall of white coming down outside. “Fuck, is it still snowing? I was hoping I dreamt that.”
Through the glass, despite the frost, you could see the white flakes falling like daggers.
It didn’t seem like it was stopping any time soon.
Jonas blinked and shook his head. “Yeah, I’m gonna really need a drink, too, Grady.”
I got up and grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge, which was no longer running, but Stone was right—they were still ice cold. We cracked them open, and then I told the story of the dead boy.
Outside, the wind screamed and rocked the house, the low flames crackled in the fireplace, and the snow buried the world.
Here’s how it happened.
I’ve never told this story to anyone before because it’s not an easy story to tell. There’s just no way of telling it where I come out as the good guy, and that sucks. Naturally, when it’s your story, you want to be the good guy.
It was going on one in the morning on a Tuesday in late April. We don’t get many big fires in a town as small as mine. Just the occasional bonfire gone awry, or fireworks that torch rose bushes and some trees. Usually the fires we got called to could be put out with an extinguisher, but protocol is protocol, and even if someone calls 911 because they smell gas coming from their neighbor’s house, we roll out the whole brigade.
On that Tuesday in late April, the weather was in the seventies. People were generally in good moods. I didn’t mind the lack of action, so to speak. I’d been in the break room at our station watching one of the west coast NBA Playoff games, which usually went on well after midnight. Trailblazers versus the Clippers. It was a close one, probably going down to the wire for an amazing finish, but I never found out.
Because the alarm wailed.
Devereux, the lead during that shift, came in and told me and the others we had a live one, which meant it was no joke.
We instantly shot up from our seats and got our gear on.
The adrenaline undoubtedly pumped fast through all of our veins. This was what we became firefighters for. Not to save cats from trees and douse small rose bush fires (though I never turned down the opportunity to save a cat or some rose bushes when the time came) but to be heroes who scaled burning buildings and saved human lives.
I’ll admit, however, I wasn’t ready for this.
I’d seen my fair share of big blazes while working at the fire department, but nothing like what I’d seen on Swan Drive. The apartment building was a beacon. You could see it burning from a mile away.
We got there and we got to work trying to keep the evacuated occupants back. Most fought us, and I didn’t blame them. All their belongings were turning to ash. Things they loved and cherished, things they’d spent hard-earned money on. With every occupant supposedly accounted for, there wasn’t much we could do now besides watch the building burn.
The big hoses were on. They were loud as hell. There was so much happening, I was surprised I had heard the boy at all, what with the confused screams of the occupants and the rumbling truck engines and the water tanks pumping into the hoses.
But I did.
He screamed, I heard it clear as I hear the wind blowing outside now. He was yelling for his mom.
I didn’t hesitate. I broke free from my post on crowd control duty and rushed to the building.
“Miller!” Devereux shouted. He tried grabbing me, but I slipped right through his grip. In all my gear, I don’t know how I moved so fast.
Each advancing step made the kid’s screams louder. The agony, the desperation…I wasn’t prepared for that.
“Mommy! Please! Mommy!” he shouted.
“Hold on, kid, I’m coming!” I shouted back as I busted through the front doors. The smoke was so thick, I could barely see inside, and the roar of the flames pounded my eardrums.
The boy was on the second floor. I trucked up the steps, breaking quite a few in the process, almost getting stuck more than once.
“Keep yelling, kid!” I said, “I’m close!”
He kept yelling.
I was scared as hell. The ceiling above me had fallen in a little ways down the hall. There was a big hole in the floor, too, one I’d have to jump over if he was in one of the apartments at the end. I told myself that this was what I trained for over and over, that this was why I wanted to become a firefighter in the first place. Helping people, saving lives, that was all that mattered.
Then, with a huge crash, a part of the building behind me caved inward. I heard the rest of the foundation groaning. I swayed on my feet, and I reckoned I had about three minutes before it all fell down and buried both the kid and me for good. That three minutes would go fast.
And it did.
I spent all that time trying to get my bearings right, and before I knew it, I was nearly out of time.
“Help! Help! Help me!” the boy shouted.
I located the source of the screams. They came from 22B. The door was locked, but I kicked it open. A spout of flames flashed and reached out for me. I held my arms up and warded them off, and then plunged inside.
I didn’t see much. There was a burning couch, a knocked-over TV, glass all over the floor. The wallpaper
was curling and singed. Smoke hung around the ceiling like a rain cloud.
“Kid! Kid! Shout again! Let me know where you’re at!” I yelled.
“Help—”
The sound of his voice was coming from behind me now. Somehow.
Then I realized the problem…
Behind me was the connecting wall to 22A. I fucked up, had gone into the wrong apartment.
I told myself there was still time, that I could still save him.
Unfortunately, as I turned, ready to head out the door, the ceiling caved in and it damaged a good portion of the connecting wall, offering me a glimpse into 22A.
I saw it all like I was having an out-of-body experience.
There, in 22A, a blond boy stood in the middle of the living room. He couldn’t have been more than five. He was clutching a teddy bear to his chest, and his face was dark with soot. Tracks cut through the gray on his cheeks from a constant stream of tears.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Hey! I’m right here! Hold on! I’m—” There was a hole in the connecting wall I was pretty sure I could kick through.
But I never got the chance. My time was up.
The ceiling in 22A fell and buried the boy in the blink of an eye. I remember screaming and reaching out. Then I remember feeling weightless, falling.
The next thing that happened was me waking up in the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask over my face. Devereux told me I went through the floor and a couple of guys pulled me out before the building could bury me. I was lucky to be alive.
I sat up, ripped the mask off, and stood on wobbly legs. Besides feeling lightheaded and having a few first-degree burns, I was okay.
I stepped toward the building’s remains, and that was when I caught them pulling the boy’s blackened body from the wreckage, all twisted and broken and scorched. It didn’t look human.
And here I was, still breathing, barely a scratch on me. I didn’t even have a broken bone.
You get that? I was okay, but a little boy who had had the rest of his life ahead of him was gone.
That’s the story.
We were all silent after that. I had nothing else to say anyway, but the way Stone and Jonas were both staring at me was making me uncomfortable. Like I was under a microscope, and I can’t imagine it was a pretty sight. Tears were stinging the backs of my eyes. I was pretty sure I was going to break down and start sobbing.
Finally, Stone spoke. “That’s…that’s terrible, man.”
“Yeah, I’m so sorry,” Jonas added. “Fuck, you needed this vacation more than all of us put together.”
“Yeah, you needed this vacation, and it’s been ruined by a blizzard in July.” Stone shook his head. “I’m sorry, Grady, but dude, it wasn’t your fault,” Stone continued. “You’re a dumbass, but you’re not so dumb that you don’t realize it wasn’t your fault, right?”
“I didn’t save him. I fucked up,” I said and looked away from my friends. The tears came now, slow, but I made like I was pinching the bridge of my nose and wiped them away before they became too noticeable. “It was my job, and I let the kid die.”
Jonas got up and sat by me at the fireplace. To my surprise, he put an arm around my shoulder. That was odd. Jonas wasn’t too practiced in the way of sentimentality, especially to anyone other than his wife and kids. He held his mostly-full beer bottle in his free hand. I thought that was also odd because I was sure this sudden burst of sentimentality came from the booze.
I was wrong, though. As it turned out, one of my best friends just cared for me.
“You did what a bunch of other people wouldn’t have done, Grady,” Jonas said. “You literally braved a burning building to save a boy.”
“I was doing my job,” I said.
“But how many others did you see running into the burning building?” Stone said from the couch.
“No one,” I answered, “but they didn’t—”
“Hear him? Yeah, bullshit. Odds are there was at least one other firefighter there who heard the boy, but saying something would mean having to go in and save him. The kid was probably screaming loud enough for the people in Akron to hear him.”
The boy was loud, Jonas was right about that. He was so loud, I sometimes still hear him.
Jonas put out his hands as if to say his point was made. “But you were the only one who went in after him. I believe you when you said you went rushing into the flames without a moment’s hesitation. If that’s not something a hero does, I don’t know what is.”
“Yeah,” Stone agreed, “and no one else followed you.”
“A hero’s successful,” I said. “Otherwise, you’re not really a hero. And no one else followed because going in was stupid, as I proved.”
“Whatever,” Stone said, “think what you want. Think you’re not a hero. Think you’re a monster for plunging into a burning building and trying to save some kid. But know you’re wrong. Know the outcome wasn’t your fault. You did all you could.”
“I went into the wrong apartment. If I’d just gone into 22A, that kid would’ve been alive.”
Jonas clapped me on the back hard. “The cards just didn’t fall that way, Grady. I’m not a religious fella, but I think if there is a God or Gods, He or She or They do everything for a reason, and I think it was just that kid’s time to go.”
What kind of God does that? I wondered. Takes innocent lives because it’s their time?
I guess it’s the kind who ended the world with a blizzard.
I knew there was no arguing with them. I felt how I felt at the time and there was no way around it. The boy was dead, and there was no getting around that, either. I was no hero. I had failed.
What’s worse is that after they pulled his body from the wreckage and everything settled down, we learned the fire originated from the boy’s apartment. The fault belonged to the boy’s mother. She and a guy had been smoking crack in her bedroom while her boy watched cartoons not five feet outside her door. She got so high, she passed out with the burning pipe. She most likely went peacefully while three stories of flaming wreckage crushed her son.
The world isn’t fair sometimes.
3
The Madness
The time was 3:46 a.m. and I was tired as all hell, but after telling my story, there was definitely no chance of sleep. On top of that, the snow outside hadn’t stopped. I stood as Jonas was yawning and talking about hitting the hay. I needed another drink. Didn’t matter if it was beer, whiskey, or Kool-Aid. My throat was scratchy and my tongue felt like a desert.
“Yeah, I’m hitting the hay, too,” Stone said. “Matter of fact, just wake me up when the snow’s melted. I packed my Speedo, not my North Face.”
I crossed the kitchen floor and gripped the refrigerator’s handle. It felt like touching dry ice. I pulled it open. No light came on. I reached past a Silver Bullet for a bottled water, but before my hands closed around the can, someone banged on the door so hard I jumped and knocked over nearly everything on the middle shelf.
“What the hell?” I said. There was that bad feeling in the pit of my stomach again. Momentarily forgotten but never completely gone.
Stone, Jonas, and I all looked at each other, then Stone shrugged.
We were three grown men, three grown men that shouldn’t have been scared shitless, but here we were.
“Seriously, what the fuck?” Jonas whispered.
The pounding came again, this time more rapidly. My blood pressure spiked to deathly levels. It sounded like whatever was outside wanted in badly, and no flimsy piece of wood would stop them.
Then a voice shouted.
“Please! Let us in! Help!”
I barely heard whoever it was over the wind, but I stepped toward the door regardless.
“What are you doing?” Stone hissed. “Are you crazy?”
Maybe, but as I got closer and the voice outside grew louder and more desperate, I recognized who it belonged to.
It was Eleanor.
“Please! Let u
s in! He’s coming!”
I threw open the door, and Eleanor and Mikey spilled inside. I caught Mikey by the collar of his jacket, but Eleanor went onto the couch, knocking over a lamp on the end table. It didn’t break, but it could’ve for all the use we were currently getting out of it.
I rushed over. “What’s wrong?”
“Who’s coming?” Jonas asked.
Stone added: “Yeah, what the fuck is going on?”
Eleanor looked up at me. Her eyes were damp with tears. There was dried blood at one corner of her mouth. She wiped at it but it stayed.
“My dad. I don’t know—he’s—something’s wrong with him. He shot Mom,” Eleanor gasped.
I heard her, but I wasn’t sure I heard right. “What? Your dad did what?”
“He killed our fucking mom!” Mikey shouted.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Stone said. He was up on his crutches now, and he walked over to us. Jonas kept his distance, shakily raising a beer to his lips. I took it upon myself to latch the deadbolt and put the chain on the door. That bad feeling in my stomach had jumped from my gut and into my chest, where it spread out in painful branches.
Mikey was babbling and railing off a stream of frightened expletives; Jonas was talking about calling the police; Eleanor was crying; Stone was leaning one shoulder on the wall and frantically tapping his cell phone’s screen; and I was just trying to understand what the hell was happening.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s all take a deep breath and calm down. Then we can go over this slowly.”
The shouting stopped. All eyes focused on me. For a while, I said nothing and just observed, not believing any of this.
Eleanor’s hair stuck up in every direction. The dried blood on her face didn’t seem to belong to any wound she had, and there were other spots on her clothes. It was Mikey who had it the worst. His shirt, which I originally thought was red, wasn’t. It was actually white, but blood had soaked it and turned it a dark pink color.
The Snow: A Supernatural Apocalypse Novel Page 5
