A Question of Will

by Craig Spector

  "Come with me," he told her.

  ~ * ~

  The fire spread quickly, engulfing the structure. Paul knelt over Julie and stripped off his jacket, placing it under her head. Sirens whooped in the distance; as Paul looked up he saw Engine and Ladder companies arriving on the scene. The Rescue One rig turned the corner, air horn blatting, Detective Buscetti following in close pursuit.

  Julie came to, coughing. Her eyes focused on him, filled with fear and grief. "I should have told you," she murmured. "It’s all my fault…"

  "No," Paul said, head bowed. "It’s mine."

  The scene whirled around them, fire crews spreading out as civilians peered from the perimeter, drawn to the spectacle. Georgie, the bellicose Fire Chief, bellowed in the background, throwing around his not inconsiderable weight. Buscetti’s car whooped a siren song, pulling up on the sidewalk. The doors flew open; Paul saw Steve, and Kathryn Wells. Buscetti pushed through the throng, Kathryn in tow. Kathryn saw Julie, and stopped. Then rushed forward to help.

  Behind them, another WHUMP! Thunderous. The house was engorged with smoke and flame. As it faded, they heard a voice, calling out from inside.

  "Somebody’s in there!" a voice cried from the crowds. Paul stared blankly, the shock of realization dawning. Necks craned and heads bobbed, morbidly alert. Dondi made his way to Paul, clad in bulky turnouts and boots, weighted with gear. Buscetti looked at Paul, eyes filled with alarm.

  "Who is it?" he asked. "Paulie, who?"

  The voice cried again, louder. Suddenly Kathryn Wells went pale, as purely maternal recognition kicked in. She knew the sound, even without words, even through the chaos and noise. It was the sound of her son’s cry. And it both riveted and terrified her.

  "OmiGod… my baby!" she gasped.

  The others looked at her, not comprehending. Her eyes were filled with raw and primal pain. "My BABY!!" she cried out, louder this time. Julie looked at her, mother to mother, and knew. Kathryn clawed at Buscetti’s sleeve. "My son," she said desperately, "My son is in there!"

  The weight of it hit home. Everyone looked from Kathryn to the house, to Paul, who watched as shock flickered in their eyes, brighter than any flame. One by one, realization ignited; as their stunned expressions turned to Paul he saw the horror reflected there. And in so seeing, glimpsed the thing he had only now come to fully grasp: his own complicity in all that had happened, not simply in the wake of his daughter’s death, but all along. If they all had a sin to bear, then Paul’s was pride, and hypocrisy. And if there was such a thing as God — and Paul now believed there was -- then there was something else, too.

  There was atonement.

  Somewhere inside, a massive beam fell. Flames glowed behind the windows, licking hungrily at the glass. The house was too hot for the crews to get in. Paul suddenly pushed past Dondi and Buscetti and the others, grabbed an oxygen tank and an ax off one of the rigs, started racing toward the steps.

  And before they could stop him, he ran back inside.

  ~ * ~

  Inside the house, the fire was alive, thick black smoke pulsing with an angry orange glow. The flames had raced from basement to attic, pooling across the cock loft, filling the narrow crawlspace, leaping from any opening. It was burning from bottom to top,

  Paul came in low, fighting his way through the inferno, searching. Standing was futile; the smoke too blinding, the heat too intense. Paul bellied down and crawled through the hell of his own making, calling out Will’s name.

  Something roared overhead; Paul glanced up to see a ceiling beam falling, sparks showering down as it hit inches from his face. He pushed it away with the ax head and continued.

  "WILL!" He cried. "WILL!"

  He could no longer see behind him, could barely see at all. The front door was as distant as the surface of the sun. The oxygen tank hissed; Paul sucked a great gasp, coughed and kept moving.

  "WILL!"

  Suddenly he heard him; desperately retching, dead ahead. Paul scrambled forward, found the boy huddled, blinded and choking. He quickly placed the mask over Wells’ face; Will clutched and gasped greedily. Their eyes locked as Will looked up, frankly shocked to see him.

  There was no time for words. No time at all. Paul grabbed Will and started dragging him back. The fire raged around them, unseen in blackness. Another great crash sounded; Paul turned just as a burning beam lurched from the void, slamming into him, knocking him sideways and down. His shoulder seared as Paul pushed Will away, a heartbeat before the entire wall collapsed.

  Paul hit the floor, legs pinned beneath sheet rock and rubble. Somewhere ahead came a great liquid hiss, as fire streams sprayed through shattered windows, the fire crews outside valiantly trying to beat back the flames. Paul peered through roiling smoke, caught a fleeting glimpse of the door, some ten feet away. A slim chance in hell. Then none at all.

  Paul thrust the air tank into Will’s arms. "GO!" he cried. "GO!!!!"

  Will started to move, then stopped. "No," he gasped, then furiously tore through the pile of wreckage. He grabbed Paul’s hand, started pulling him forward, as Paul pushed with all his might. The rubble groaned and shifted. And suddenly he was free.

  Will collapsed, gasping. Paul scuttled forward, pulled him into his arms. Searchlights swept the noxious clouds: Dondi and the Rescue crew, searching wildly. Paul called out. The men rushed forward, helping them up.

  And together, they escaped, seconds before the fire consumed the room.

  ~ * ~

  Outside, fire crews and police swarmed. A News 9 van had arrived on sight; lights and lenses flashing and flaring. Link Lenkershem scoped himself in the van’s side mirror, preening and prepping and checking his hair.

  Paul and Will emerged with the others: scorched, soot-smeared and scarred, but intact. A murmur crossed the crowds as Julie ran to embrace her husband, and Kathryn did the same for her son.

  Buscetti saw Will and signaled. The cops moved in. As they took him into custody, the detective stepped up. "William Wells, you’re under arrest," he said for the second time. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you…"

  Will looked up, hands cuffed behind him, a new kind of defiance gracing his features. All eyes were upon him: Paul and Julie, his mother, the police, the crowds and cameras, the world at large. He shook his head.

  "I’m done staying silent," he said. He looked at Paul, looked at them all. "I killed Kyra," he told them, then nodded to Paul. "And he saved my life."

  Will twisted in the grip of the law until he faced Julie. "I’m so sorry…" he said.

  Julie met his gaze. There were tears in his eyes, tears in her own. Link Lenkershem hovered in the background, leering with joy as his cameras zoomed in, thinking: this is great, this is so fucking great…

  The paramedics came forward then and hustled them back to the waiting ambulance, as the uniformed cops moved to keep the crowds at bay. Around them, hoses arced and sprayed as the engine crews battled to knock down the blaze. The structure was completely engulfed, the destruction total. The house on Marley Street would take its secrets with it.

  Paul’s gaze tracked from Will to Julie to Kathryn to Dondi, came to rest on Detective Buscetti. "Give us a minute, will ya, Stevie?" Paul asked. "Please…"

  Stevie cast him a wary and level look, then shook his head ruefully. "Sure, Paulie," he said, but his eyes said, we’ll talk later. A lot. Paul nodded wearily. Buscetti turned and gently herded the others away.

  As the medics tended their injuries, Paul looked to Will. The boy looked different somehow, and not merely from the deprivations of his ordeal. Something had changed in his eyes; the practiced deadness now gone, replaced by something else — shock and pain, yes, but with it, something awake, aware. Alive.

  Paul winced and watched Will watch the house burn, flames illuminating the darkened sky. And as he did, the question formed anew. "Why?" he asked. "Why did you tell them that?"

  Will shrugged. "I dunno," he said softly, th
en added, "Maybe we’ve both got enough blood on our hands…"

  Wells looked at him, and Paul nodded, humbled. And as their eyes met, something passed between them. A million other questions would follow, from a million other angles, but there were no easy answers, no simple solutions, no escaping the fact that there was a price to be paid, for all of them, a lifetime of wrongs to be righted. What was done could not be undone, and they would all have to learn to live with that, as best they could.

  But as the boy faced the man, they saw each other as if truly for the first time. And in so seeing, they knew: whatever meaning was to be had, was to be made -- one day, one moment, one choice at a time. None of them knew what the future would bring; they could only resolve to learn from the past, and to try, as best they could. To face what they had done. To heal the damage, such as they might. And to move on. It may have seemed to some a comfortless truth. But it was the only one there was.

  Paul and Will looked at loved ones and strangers alike, all backlit by the burning house, the conflagration gradually giving way under the force of the most elemental of battles. The fire would eventually falter, as fire always does; tomorrow there would be wreckage, and survivors, and an empty lot, where something once had been. In the fullness of time, someone would come, as someone always does -- unsinged by calamity, or bearing the scars of their own private holocaust -- and would begin to build again. It was not a matter of bad or good. It was simply the nature of fire. But the same could also be said for hope.

  It was ever thus; it ever thus would be. And as the smoke and ash settled on Marley Street, they knew: whatever else may come, something was born there, amidst the flames.

  A beginning, perhaps.

  At the very least, an understanding.

  For

  Keith Gordon Spector

  "Rusty"

  1956-1999

  brother, father, husband, friend

  "No man may keep you in the dark any longer,

  walk now in the light"

  -- Anonymous memorial at murder site