by Susan Stoker
“Oh!” she exclaimed as she tripped over something else and landed hard on her hands and knees. Deciding to go with it, Sophie began crawling. It was a bit easier to see, and breathe, near the floor. She pushed some boards out of her way and continued down the long hallway. She’d already crawled up the broken and rotting steps to the second floor and had begun to make her way down the confusing hallways.
She’d been counting doors, trying to decide how far down the hallway she’d made it, but had lost count somewhere. Pushing open the door next to her, Sophie called out, “Tadd? Louise? Are you in here?”
When no one answered, she continued on her way. She repeated her actions at the next door. And the next. She was beginning to think she was very lost and would never find her friends, when she looked inside one of the last couple of rooms in the hallway.
She stopped in surprise and stared.
Inside the room was a small coyote.
It was sitting in the middle of the room, surrounded by debris and graffiti on the walls. It didn’t make a sound, simply cocked its head and stared at her.
A shiver ran down Sophie’s back. There absolutely shouldn’t be any animals in the building. They would’ve run for their lives by now, she was sure of it. And without a doubt, a wild coyote definitely wouldn’t be in downtown San Antonio.
Sophie suddenly remembered her Internet search about skin-walkers. Chief had refused to talk about what they were, and had encouraged her to find out for herself. When she’d looked them up, she’d understood why Chief wouldn’t talk about them.
The Navajo people believed in skin-walkers, but didn’t talk about them for fear of retribution by the evil spirits. Basically, a skin-walker was a medicine man or witch who chose to use their power to inflict pain, and for evil instead of good. To become a skin-walker, the person had to commit the evilest of deeds—murdering a family member. Once that happened, they acquired supernatural powers and could transform into animals, and even other people, at will.
Sophie recalled reading that the animal forms the skin-walkers most often changed into were owls, foxes, crows, or coyotes. She remembered the brief glimpse she’d had of a coyote in Chief’s backyard the night she’d almost died from the carbon monoxide.
Had that been the skin-walker’s doing? Had the evil being somehow done something to her heater to make it malfunction?
“Go away,” she choked out, not taking her eyes off the coyote.
She could’ve swore it grinned at her. Its tongue lolled out the side of its mouth and it continued to stare.
Coughing, Sophie stayed huddled over on her hands and knees for another beat before whispering, “You won’t win. I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I’m not giving him up.”
With that, the coyote crouched down, as if readying itself to jump at her.
Backing up as fast as she could, Sophie reached up and slammed the door. The last thing she saw was the animal’s eyes glowing red through the smoke as it jumped through the air toward her.
Closing her eyes and flinching away, Sophie waited for the sound of the animal’s body slamming against the door she was holding shut with all her strength. But nothing happened. There was no thud against the flimsy wood.
Shaking her head in disbelief and wondering if she’d dreamed up the coyote being in the room in the first place, Sophie backed away. Hallucination or not, she was not going to open the door to check.
Her time was quickly running out. Black smoke was rolling down the hall in ominous waves. She couldn’t see any flames, but that didn’t mean they weren’t nearby.
Tears streamed down her face as the smoke got into her eyes and irritated them. She pushed open two more doors before reaching the last one in the hallway. Turning to look behind her, Sophie knew this was her last chance. She wouldn’t be able to go back the way she came. The smoke was too thick.
Pushing open the door, she quickly entered and shut it behind her. The door had a large hole at the top, and didn’t exactly close correctly, but it was better than nothing.
She coughed, a harsh hacking sound that seemed to come up from her very soul. Sophie stayed on her hands and knees for a long moment. When she stopped coughing, she heard something. Afraid she’d see the damn coyote when she turned to look, she slowly and cautiously tipped her chin to the side. And stared.
Huddled in the corner were two people. They were sitting together on the floor with their arms wrapped around each other. Their heads were bowed, their chins tucked into each other’s necks.
“Tadd?” Sophie asked incredulously. When neither of the people looked up, she quickly crawled toward them, saying again, louder, “Tadd?”
Sophie had never been so relieved to see anyone in her entire life as she was when one of the figures lifted his head. She would recognize her friend’s scraggly beard anywhere.
“Sophie?”
She laughed. “Yup. That’s m-me.”
“What in tarnation are you doing here?” Tadd asked grumpily, but ruined it by hacking up half a lung after he asked.
Sophie waited until he’d calmed down before saying, “I’m here to get you out.”
“Woman. You’re insane,” he told her.
“I know. But I couldn’t leave you in here.”
“You’re supposed to hate me,” Tadd said, looking her in the eye.
“I could never hate you,” Sophie said. “Now come on. We need to get to the window.”
“Louise can’t walk,” Tadd informed her.
Sophie had expected something like that. Tadd would’ve had her out of the building by now if she’d been mobile. “I’ll help you m-move her. We can’t go back the way I came in,” she told her friend. “Our only way out is the window.”
“If we lie down, the smoke’ll take us before the fire gets here,” Tadd said, not moving. “It was our plan before you got here.”
“If you think I’m giving up and laying down to die, you’re insane,” she told Tadd. “M-My boyfriend is a firefighter. He’d be embarrassed if his girlfriend didn’t fight to live. In fact, I literally promised him I wouldn’t ever give up. S-So I’m not. No way. Now, come on. Get your ass up and over to this window,” she ordered.
Sophie was scared. Terrified really, but she’d be damned if, after the best morning of her life, she was going to give up. Nope, that was what the skin-walker wanted. For her to die. But she wanted to live. Wanted to have more time with Chief. Wanted to see her friends find men they could be happy with. Wanted to see the stupid fundraiser flag football game. She hadn’t even gotten to meet Chief’s mother or people yet.
She had way too much to live for. If she had to jump out the damn window, she would…right after she shoved Tadd and Louise out in front of her.
* * *
Chief pushed open the rotting door to the building and took a deep breath. Feeling Driftwood’s hand on his back, he pressed forward into the darkness. He stumbled over debris in his path, but continued. He heard Sledge through the radio in his mask telling him that there should be a stairwell about thirty feet to the right of the doorway. The smoke wasn’t terribly thick at the moment, but he knew as soon as he started heading upstairs, it’d get thicker.
Moving as fast as he could, Chief made his way over beer bottles, planks of wood, and other miscellaneous debris to the stairway.
He stopped suddenly when he heard what sounded like a bark from somewhere in front of him.
Peering through the smoke, Chief blinked. Tadd’s Australian Shepherd, Charlie, was standing in the middle of the hallway. He barked again, as if to say hurry up, and spun and disappeared up the stairs that were to his right.
“Chief?” Driftwood asked from behind him. “You good?”
“I’m good,” he said immediately, and walked quickly toward where he’d last seen the dog. Looking up the stairs, he swore.
“Damn,” Driftwood said, coming up next to him. “Looks bad. You sure about this?”
The black smoke obliterated the upper half of th
e stairs. Once they were halfway up, they wouldn’t be able to see anything. “I’m sure,” Chief said. And he was. Tadd’s dog wouldn’t be in this godforsaken building burning down around them if his master wasn’t nearby.
As they climbed the stairs, the black smoke enveloped them. Most rookies dropped to their knees when the smoke got this thick, instinctively trying to get lower so they could see, but it was useless. There wouldn’t be any more light at their feet than there was at their heads.
If they weren’t wearing their masks, crawling would give them a better chance of breathing, but it wouldn’t allow them to see any better than they could right now. Holding out his hands in front of him to keep from running headfirst into any debris, Chief pressed on.
Sledge’s voice came over the radio. “Okay, we’ve got some guys down here who say they know Tadd. They’re saying he usually stayed in the last room on the right of the hallway at the top of the stairs.”
“Ten-four,” Driftwood responded.
Chief could feel his friend’s hand on his shoulder as they carefully, and as quickly as possible, made their way down the long hallway.
As they were inching along, Chief swore he heard Charlie bark once more. Encouraged that they were going the right way, he pressed on. Twice more as they made their way down the hallway, he heard the dog bark.
The warning alarm went off on Chief’s air pack, but he ignored it.
“Five minutes, Chief,” Driftwood warned through the radio.
Chief shook his head. No. He wasn’t going back. No way in hell. He’d make Driftwood get out though. Sophie was in this hellhole. He wasn’t leaving her.
Just then, Chief’s hands hit something in front of him. He fumbled around, trying to make out what it was. A wall. Turning to his right, Chief quickly felt for a door handle, a hinge, something to indicate there was a room there.
Bingo. A doorknob. Grasping it, Chief pushed.
Smoke rolled all around them, and even though he was wearing earphones and had on a Nomex hood, helmet, and face mask, he could hear the crackling of the fire above him. Not only that, but the building itself was groaning and moaning as if in its death throes.
He’d been in enough fires to know that he and Driftwood didn’t have a lot of time. The entire building was going to collapse in on itself. The roof above the third floor was most likely fully engulfed and, sooner rather than later, would collapse in on the second, and the walls would begin to cave inward.
And since this building was already falling down in disrepair, the entire structure would likely be engulfed much sooner than one that was newly built or in good shape.
For the first time, Chief fell to his knees and began to crawl. He could feel what he was crawling over easier if he used his hands. The last thing he wanted to do was step on or walk over a body and think it was just another piece of debris.
Sophie was close. He knew it. Just as he’d known something was wrong when he’d saved her from dying in her house. His soul was screaming at him to hurry. That Sophie needed him.
“We’re standing by,” Sledge told him through the headset. “You’ve got four minutes, bro. Get your ass to the window. Come on, Chief. Now.”
The alarm on his air pack was beeping constantly now, but Chief barely noticed it. He turned left, trying to get his bearings and find not only the window in the room, but Sophie as well. He heard one short, quick bark from Charlie, as if telling him he was going the wrong way. He immediately turned and went in the other direction. He crawled for ten seconds and stopped short when he felt something pliable under his hand.
Feeling his way up what could only be a leg, Chief encountered three humans huddled together against a wall. Propping his hand above them, he gasped in surprise when the window he’d leaned against gave way. Fresh air streamed into the room, momentarily clearing the black smoke away.
Looking down, Chief saw the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen in his life. Sophie’s blue eyes blinking up at him.
* * *
Sophie got Tadd and Louise to the window, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t get the stupid thing open. She’d tried banging on it, shoving at it, even finding a piece of wood nearby and hitting it until her hands hurt from the repeated blows against the glass.
Slumping down to the floor, hacking coughs ripping through her body, she frantically tried to think of what else she could do.
How could she have gotten so close to freedom to be denied now? And what in the hell was the window made out of? Steel? Every other damn pane of glass in this stupid building was broken or had holes in it. But not this one. Of course not.
As if he could read her mind, Tadd said between coughs, “Picked this room because it was one of the only ones with an intact window. Kept out the bugs, cold, and some of the heat.”
Of course it did. And now that damn window was going to be the death of them. Literally.
Sophie didn’t want to give up, but she had no idea what to do. She couldn’t see two inches in front of her, could only feel Tadd and Louise next to her now.
She coughed again. Then again. She couldn’t stop. It was getting harder and harder to breathe and the only thing she could think about was how upset Chief was going to be. It was dumb to go rushing into the building like she was Superwoman. But Tadd had been the closest thing to a dad she’d had in a long time. She couldn’t just stand around hoping he was okay.
Something moved in the corner of her eye and Sophie turned in that direction, her heart in her throat, hoping to see a fireman standing there.
But no. It was the damn coyote. It looked her straight in the eye, then turned and bounded into the smoke and disappeared.
Sophie shook her head. She couldn’t have seen it, she couldn’t see anything other than black smoke. She reached up a hand once more and weakly pounded on the glass. It didn’t even crack.
The tears began in earnest then as she carefully put her back to the wall and wrapped her arms around Tadd. He had his arms around Louise, and the three of them held each other as they coughed.
“I tried,” Sophie whispered. “And we would’ve m-made it if the s-stupid window wasn’t m-made out of Kryptonite.” Her words were lost in the surprisingly loud room. Between the cracking of the wood over their heads and the roaring of a fire that was way too close for comfort, Sophie knew it was only a matter of time now.
She closed her eyes and prayed that it wouldn’t hurt. That the toxic smoke would kill them before the flames reached them.
Damn skin-walker, she thought to herself as she squeezed Tadd closer. It wasn’t fair that she was going to die when she’d finally found a man who didn’t care that she stuttered. Who seemed to love her exactly as she was.
For a moment, Sophie thought she’d heard something. When she cocked her head, she was even more confused.
Drumbeats.
No, that couldn’t be right.
But it was. They were rhythmic and slow, but definitely drumbeats.
As she listened, Sophie began to get dizzy. She could feel her body getting heavy and even her coughing slowed. This was it.
For the first time since she’d entered the burning building, she wasn’t afraid. Closing her eyes, she relaxed against the wall.
She jerked when Tadd shoved himself up in her arms.
The room was still as dark as it’d been earlier, but something had startled Tadd.
All of a sudden, the smoke around them seemed to lighten. It was being sucked out of the room as if a vacuum had been turned on. And was that…fresh air? Sophie took a deep breath and promptly began to cough.
She opened her eyes as wide as they could get, as if that would help her see better, and stared into the face of what looked like an alien.
She blinked.
Not an alien. A firefighter in a mask.
And not any ol’ firefighter. Hers.
“Chief,” she tried to say, but coughed instead.
A loud beeping noise infiltrated her consciousness, but Sophie did
n’t even wonder what it was. She reached up her arms and Chief immediately lifted her off the floor and into his embrace. He took a step to the side and Sophie could see the fireman behind him knocking loose glass out of the window frame.
She stared at the now broken window. Tadd and Louise were still sitting on the floor waiting for assistance out of the building. Both were conscious and watching the firemen with wide eyes.
The next couple of seconds went by in a flash. The window cleared, the other firefighter helped Louise off the floor and literally handed her to someone on the other side of the window.
Sophie was confused. They were on the second floor; how could someone be standing outside to take hold of Louise? But then she decided she didn’t really care what was going on anymore. Chief was there. Everything would be all right. Then it was Tadd’s turn; he stepped out of the window on his own. This time, Sophie saw a hand covered in a thick glove reach in and take hold of his wrist as he was helped outside.
Chief shuffled them to the open window and they waited as the other fireman climbed out ahead of them.
Sophie felt a hand on her face and she looked up at Chief. He’d removed his mask by pushing it up and over his head, causing his helmet to come off. He didn’t even seem to care. “Where’s Charlie?” he asked urgently.
Sophie’s brows went down. “Charlie?” she asked, then promptly coughed.
“Tadd’s dog,” Chief clarified in a husky tone.
“He’s not here,” Sophie told him.
Without another word, Chief helped her step over the window sill to a huge ladder propped up against the side of the building. Whoever the other fireman was who had showed up to rescue them along with Chief, was waiting about four feet below, obviously to steady her as she climbed down.
Sophie looked up—and promptly panicked for the first time. Huge plumes of black, evil-looking smoke rolled out from under the roof one story above their heads. Flames were shooting out of the window on the third floor. The building itself was still creaking and moaning as if begging to be put out of its misery.
