by Lynn Bulock
One doorway, on the right. That would be the bathroom. That meant that Tyler’s room should be there on the left, just a few more feet down. He swept the area with his fingers again and found another break in the wall. The smoke was almost overpowering now, and the noise of the fire incredible.
“Tyler? You in there?” he called. There was no answer. Mike crawled into the room and raised up on his knees. He could see next to nothing. Shapes and shadows were the only landmarks in the dank smoke. In the corner was a shape that was probably the dresser. Closet doors gaped open and he reached inside. He found shoes, toys, but no little boy.
Coughing again, he backed out into the room. He had to find Tyler soon and get out of here. Their survival depended on it. Across from the closet, flanking another wall was a twin bed. He remembered that from being in the house after Lori moved in. The room wasn’t large, only five or six steps of free space between the closet and bed. He shuffled on his knees over to the bed.
Mike could feel covers flung back and puddling on the floor. Strong instinct made him delve into the blankets on the floor. Wasn’t this where he would hide if he were a little kid in this situation? If not in the closet, under the bed was the “safest” place in your room. That was the way a little boy would think. It was the way he was being urged to think now. He could only thank God silently for the guidance while he groped.
At the corner of the bed he felt something warm and soft. It was a small foot, and he followed the path up to sturdy legs, hauling Tyler out from under the bed.
“Mike?” The child was only semiconscious. “I gotta have my fire engine.”
He had to cough for quite a while before he could answer the child he gathered in his arms. “Okay, buddy. I’ll grab it and you. Then we’re getting out of here. Come on.” Outwardly all he could do was choke on the fumes and smoke around them, but inwardly Mike was praising the God he had only found in this inferno of smoke and flames for leading him to Tyler. Now He had to get them out of here and to the child’s mother. Breathing in a silent prayer, Mike knew that He was the only one who could do it.
They had been in there forever. Lori couldn’t believe how long it had been since Mike went into that house. Gloria was sitting next to her, holding Mikayla and trying to comfort her. Right now Gloria was doing a better job than she could have done herself.
Dogg was leashed and fastened to a tree next to them. If he pulled much harder, he was going to snap the metal lead or uproot the tree, she was sure. Barking and whining, he pulled with his whole body toward the house. Lori didn’t even try to quiet him because she felt the same way. She wanted to go in there with all her being, and only knowing that she would be absolutely no help kept her sitting on the ground, wrapped in the blanket Gloria had brought her.
Her prayers were constant and almost mindless. She couldn’t form coherent words anymore, just powerful thoughts of protection for Tyler and Mike. The house didn’t matter, but the people certainly did. Could they really come out all right after that much time in a burning building?
There were firefighters here now, Carrie among them. She was standing over Lori, shaking her shoulder. “Where’s Mike? And where’s your little boy?”
“Tyler ran back in the house. Mike went after him. They’ve been gone too long…” Lori choked out. She had run out of words. Carrie looked toward the house.
“I’ve got to alert the captain we have people in there. Whoa, people coming out.” She launched herself toward the doorway, nearly obscured in black, oily smoke, where Lori could see a figure charging through.
It was Mike, with a limp Tyler under one arm and that darned fire engine that started it all clutched in the other hand. He only made it a few feet out into the grass before he loosed his precious burdens and fell to his knees.
Carrie was there to pick up Tyler and scream for others to help the two of them. In a flash the crew moved Mike and Tyler farther away from the house and there were medical personnel checking them both out.
Lori wanted to hold her boy, thank Mike for risking his life, talk to them both. But she held back at the edge of the crowd to let the paramedics do their job.
Were they both alive? All right? Her heart hammered in her throat as she searched the scene for clues. They were both sooty, but appeared to be breathing. As she watched, one of the men quickly picked Tyler up and moved him into a sitting position where he choked and retched. “Mama! I want my mom!” he called.
Lori couldn’t stand being away from him any longer. She pushed her way through the onlookers. “I’m here, Ty. Now do whatever the doctors tell you, okay. Don’t fight them.” He was conscious now and struggling, and she stroked his face. His skin was smooth and unburned. “Is he okay?” she asked the nearest paramedic softly.
“I think so. He needs oxygen, for sure. We’ve got to get him stable, but I don’t think he’s been burned any.” He looked at Lori. “I’m going to take him over to the truck. Come with me.”
She nodded, looking over to where two other paramedics worked over Mike. “We need oxygen here, stat. Somebody cut away that shirt so we can assess the arms, neck, chest.” The smaller woman barked commands. With a touch of the surreal Lori realized that this was the team who had nearly delivered Mikayla.
Now here they were again, reaching out to save a life instead of welcoming one into the world. Following the man who cradled Tyler in his arms, she kept up her prayers for everyone involved. Now her prayers had words again, blessings for Kenny and Rosa as they worked over Mike, for the nameless man who was giving her son oxygen, for all the people milling around here beginning to put out the fire and treat the people involved.
Looking back she could hear Dogg, still barking his lungs out under the tree. Beside him Gloria stood, white as the blanket around her shoulders, holding Mikayla and watching as Kenny and Rosa labored over her son.
They had so much in common at this moment. From across the yard, Lori prayed fervently. Please, Lord, don’t let either of us lose our sons. It was all she could do for now. Catching Gloria’s gaze across the space, she clasped her hands. Gloria saw the gesture and nodded, sinking down beside Dogg. Lori could see her lips moving, as well. Gloria had one arm around the baby, the other hand in the big animal’s fur. Dogg lay down next to her and stopped barking while around them all the chaos of the fire filled the yard.
Chapter Fifteen
Mike opened his eyes and knew exactly where he was. He wasn’t happy with that knowledge, but he recognized the look and the smell of a hospital even before he could figure out why he was there. In a few moments that became clear, as well.
He was foggy, probably from drugs. If he’d sucked in as much smoke in that house as he expected he had, life wasn’t going to be pleasant for a couple of days. He couldn’t remember much after staggering out of the house with Tyler. Fresh air had never felt so good. Then Kenny and Rosa and others had swarmed over him and things got kind of hazy after that.
Time to try and take some kind of assessment of what was what. There was definitely an oxygen mask over his face, but no breathing tube. That was a good sign. It was the worst smoke inhalation that he’d ever had to deal with, but the lack of a breathing tube, or a hole in his throat, were very good signs.
His right arm hurt worse than he could ever describe. He vaguely remembered thrusting it out on the charge out of Tyler’s bedroom, keeping a falling piece of ceiling from hitting the boy. Obviously the burning chunk hit him instead. The good news, he told himself, was that if his arm hurt this severely, it was a second-degree burn. Third-degree burns destroyed enough tissue and nerve endings that it didn’t hurt as badly. The pain was saved for later, for the skin grafts.
This was bizarre. He was almost thinking like Lori might, trying to find the little miracles in this awful situation. Was that a consequence of starting to trust God like she did? He’d have to ask her, when he could talk. And when he could talk to her. Where was she?
There was nobody else in this hospital room, a fact
that surprised him. Once he knew where he was, he expected a few people around him, from nurses and doctors to his mom and Lori.
Of course the women wouldn’t be here if they were in another hospital instead. A thrill of fear coursed through him at the thought of Lori standing over another bed like this, watching Tyler. Please, God, let him be okay. I can take the pain. But let him be okay. It was the last of his coherent thoughts before he drifted off in his haze of drugs and pain to where the nightmares waited.
Hours later, or perhaps only moments that felt like hours, he swam to the surface again. This time the room was full of people, as he’d expected. A nurse was changing an intravenous bag, there was at least one other medical person helping her do stuff and Gloria, looking frazzled, stood in the corner watching everything. He wanted to tell her he was all right. But even if he spoke behind this oxygen mask, she wouldn’t be able to understand him.
No one would for a couple of days, Mike suspected. His throat felt raw, as if he was suffering from a bad case of strep throat. If he had a voice at this point, it wouldn’t be pretty.
The nurse was the first one to notice that his eyes were open. “Hey, Mrs. Martin, he’s with us. Come over here and talk to him while I mess around with this. Maybe you can distract him from the nasty things I have to do. Just move in on that left side and you’ll be okay. You can touch anything over there and not cause him any pain.”
Any more pain, Mike felt like telling her. Like he’d notice much more anyway. The drugs seemed to be doing their job as best they could, but to cause him more pain than he was already in, someone would have to rip off body parts. And even the burn nurses wouldn’t start doing that for another day or two.
His mother was there in front of him. “Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital,” he mouthed, hoping he could make himself understood. “Which one?” he rasped. It didn’t look like the Peace Hospital in town that he was familiar with. And he knew about most departments there from visiting other people or getting them to the place.
“This is the burn unit at St. John’s in Washington. It was the closest place that had everything you needed.” Her voice was a bit shaky. Mike wanted to reach out and hold on to her, tell her everything was going to be okay. It was rough to see his mom this worried.
“Tyler? Lori and the baby?” he mouthed. He hoped his mom could understand that part. It weighed on his mind heavier than his own burns to know that Tyler was all right. If the boy was as uninjured as possible, he could take the next few days like a man, knowing he’d done his job.
“Tyler?” His mother asked, and he nodded as best he could. “He’s here, but not for long probably. They’re going to keep him overnight, treat him for smoke inhalation and make sure he’s okay. But he has no burns, and he’s already trying to fight his way out of bed so he can come see you.”
That was Tyler. Mike felt relief that the boy was basically all right. “And I’ll have you know that he insisted on having that toy fire engine ride here in the ambulance with him. Last I looked it was on the bedside table, because that was the closest the nurses would let him have it. If it was up to him, it would be in the bed.”
Mike smiled. Anything that was happening right now was bearable knowing Tyler was all right, and Lori and the baby stayed safe. There was something else he wanted to tell his mother, or ask her. Whatever it was, he couldn’t form the words. It would come back later, he was sure of it. “I love you,” he mouthed to her. Reaching for her hand, he squeezed it.
“Oh, Mike, I love you, too. I was so worried. I still am, but I know you’re going to be all right now. It may be a rough couple of days, but we should be able to put up with that. We have before.”
He tried to nod to agree with her. It took a lot of energy, and that was something he didn’t seem to have much of. He was drifting off again. The nurse was still doing something that didn’t feel too good. And now he remembered what he wanted to ask her. He needed something for the nightmares or flashbacks he was having. He didn’t remember them from other fire-and-rescue episodes, but they were there now whenever he closed his eyes. Okay, Lord. Time to help me ride out another wave of this stuff. If he couldn’t get any medication that would quench his fear, prayer would work. If Lori were here, she’d tell him that it would work better than any other medicine. He smiled, thinking of her and that piece of wisdom. The noise in the room receded as Mike drifted off again, back to the place where everything was on fire….
Had she ever been this tired before? Lori thought not. Even that second day after Mikayla was born, when she felt as if she’d walked face first into a brick wall, there hadn’t been this kind of exhaustion.
Everything she owned was probably gone. She couldn’t imagine what kind of effort it was going to take to go through things in that house and find anything worth saving. She praised God again that Tyler was not badly hurt and she and the baby were both untouched. At least they were untouched physically. But her heart hurt.
What was the purpose of all this? Why did the Martins have to lose part of their property? Mike was lying in a bed in this same hospital in far worse shape than Tyler was. And to what end? The only good, if you could call it that, which might come out of this would ultimately ruin another family’s life. Clyde Hughes wasn’t an island any more than anyone else, and his actions would rebound on his wife and children.
“Mom? I don’t feel so good again,” Tyler croaked from the bed.
“Ring the button on the bed. Let me get the bucket,” Lori said, used to this by now. The doctors and nurses had warned her that nausea and vomiting were one way the body cleansed itself of the smoke for hours, or even days, after exposure. And, thank heavens, the staff psychologist also explained that just dealing with the fear that was left over from the fire could make Tyler feel ill, as well.
So it wasn’t a surprise to deal with these bouts every couple of hours. Lori prayed that they’d subside soon. Tyler was sick again, but he’d pushed the call button this time. It was taped to the rail of the bed, where he could have control of it. The doctors said that was important, too, to give him as much control as possible over life in the hospital.
The only thing he had absolutely no control over was sharing his room with his mother. She wasn’t going anywhere for quite some time, except perhaps to look in on Mike.
Even with all there was to do for Tyler, Lori’s arms felt empty without the baby. She was so thankful that Carrie had found a way for Tyler’s preschool teacher to take Mikayla in for a few days. There was just nobody else right now; Gloria was at the hospital, as well, and Lori knew that even if she called what little of her family remained, no one would come to Friedens to help her out of trouble. They’d pretty much cut ties when they found out Gary had gone to jail, and nothing had ever restored the relationship.
So here she was, pretty much alone. No, never totally alone, she reminded herself as the nurse bustled in to help with Tyler. God was here with her, even in this awful situation. And He’d stay here by her side no matter what happened. Still, while the nurse was getting Tyler set to rights, and talking about a Popsicle for him to replace some of his lost fluids, Lori wished she could travel a different road for a while. One that still led her to walk with the Lord, but maybe through a shallower valley. Or even a nice, sunny meadow. She smiled a little at the thought. There was definitely a meadow someplace in her future. All she had to do was find it.
The nightmare was the worst yet. Mike actually yelled as he came into consciousness. It hurt like blazes. There was a cool, comforting hand on his forehead when he opened his eyes. Lori. She looked like a vision. “Are you real?”
“Ouch. Don’t talk. Yes, of course I’m real, silly. Your mom needed a break and Tyler is sound asleep. I’m wearing a beeper so the nurses’ station can get in touch with me if he wakes up. I couldn’t stay away any longer.”
He slipped off the oxygen mask, earning himself a glare. “I can do this once in a while. I’ll probably be off it tomorrow an
yway.” Even whispering didn’t feel so great, but he had to talk. “He’s okay, right?”
“Tyler? A lot better than you. Mike, I can’t ever thank you enough for this.” Her eyes were brimming.
“Don’t try. I owe you as much as you owe me.”
Lori’s brow crinkled. “How can that be? All you’ve done is take care of me since we met.”
“Yes, but you brought something with you I didn’t have before. Faith. Lori, I didn’t go into that fire alone.”
He didn’t say any more, but she understood. “Oh, Mike, that’s great. I wish I could do something for you to ease the hurt. I’ve been praying all the time. If there’s any silver lining to this, maybe this is it.”
She never ceased to amaze him. The woman had lost just about everything she owned. Her son was in the hospital. And she was rejoicing with him, actually rejoicing over his newfound faith. “If you want to pray about something, ask the Lord to take away these nightmares. Or visions. Or whatever they are.”
“Bad, huh?” She stroked his forehead again.
“The worst.” He started to tell her about them, but she put those soft, blessedly sweet fingertips on his lips and he kissed them instead of talking.
“Don’t tell me. Not in words. How about I get you a pad and pencil and you can write them down?” Then she looked him over and grimaced. “Guess that would be pretty hard to do without putting a lot of strain on that right arm.”
He shrugged, mostly on the left side. It hurt less that way. “I’m supposed to keep things flexible. We could try.”
“Then I’ll go find something. Tyler’s been drawing pictures himself. Big ugly ones with lots of orange and red crayon. Maybe I’ll get you a box of crayons, too.”
