by Adele Huxley
I stared into the snowy landscape for one more moment before turning to go inside. It felt like failure returning to the warmth. I was betraying the cold inside myself by seeking comfort in something empty. But I paused in the space between the doors, still in the cold but protected from the buffeting wind.
With my hand pressed to the frigid glass of the door, I promised myself I’d keep trying. Even when it hurt, even when I didn’t want to press on, I’d remember this moment. I chose the warmth over the cold, if only because the alternative wasn’t really a choice at all…
The moment I stepped inside, I was struck with the acrid scent of burning. The whole lodge reeked of wood smoke from all the fires, but this was different. Maybe opening the doors pulled the scent towards me first before anyone else had noticed. After a few steps down the hall, a handful of screams broke out and a clear word echoed through the lodge.
“Fire!”
A heartbeat later, the sprinkler system unleashed overhead, soaking me in seconds.
“That’s about right,” I muttered.
“Fire!”
That one word sent a panicked shiver right through my bones. I was standing in the kitchen at the time, going through the food inventory with Bruce. Before I had a chance to move towards the shout, my whole world turned into one giant shower. The hot pans fizzled and spat as the water made contact. Bruce jumped into action while I pulled my sweatshirt over my head in a feeble attempt to shield my eyes from the deluge.
As I ran out of the kitchen, I immediately saw smoke inside the lodge. I’m ashamed to admit, I wasn’t exactly the picture of cool and collected. My thoughts jumbled together to form an incoherent mess. Jack. Fire! Bryan. Gotta stop the water. Fire! Need to keep everyone calm.
“Where is it?” I mumbled as I rushed through the crowd. I checked all the fireplaces and found nothing. Then I spotted Bryan running towards the rental area, Chris on his heels.
A woman grabbed my arm as I tried to follow. “What are we supposed to do? We can’t go outside!”
She was easily twice my age and for a moment, I wondered why she was asking me. Water dripped down her face, running along the wrinkles of her cheeks. Shouldn’t I be asking her? Who made me the adult in this situation? “Stay inside, we’ll get the water turned off in a minute.”
As I reached Bryan’s side, Chris had already doused the small fire with a hand-held extinguisher. He scanned the area for any other hot spots, which seemed pointless in the drenching rain. Within a minute, everything was soaked through.
“What happened?” I asked as I blinked water from my eyes. “Was it…?”
Bryan shook his head, droplets of water flying from his hair. “No, nothing like that,” he muttered as he glanced over my shoulder. A handful of onlookers were within earshot, all thinking the same thing. Arson. “Just a tiny fire,” he said in a louder voice. “Probably just some kids.”
“Why didn’t the smoke detectors go off?” I whispered.
His eyes widened as he looked up to one of the wall units that should’ve been flashing. “I’m not sure…”
I turned my back to the growing crowd and voiced one more concern. “And isn’t our sprinkler system only supposed to go off in the area of the fire? Not the entire building?”
Bryan’s expression tightened as he nodded. “Yeah, actually. Chris? Can you come here?”
After blasting the counter with one last spray of white foam, Chris jogged over. He was even more jittery than normal, which I chalked up to all the excitement.
“I need you to go turn off the water before we flood the entire place. You know where the main water line is, right?”
“Yup. You got it, boss,” he said before he pushed through the crowd to the basement.
Bryan took one last look at the charred wall and grabbed my hand. “We need to check the control panel.”
The crowd didn’t part for us so easily. They pressed from either side, asking questions we didn’t have answers for yet. “What’s going on?” a voice called out.
“It’s under control. We just need to…” Bryan replied.
“Bryan! Bryan, is this the arsonist?” a woman shouted. I didn’t know who it was, but I could’ve punched her. We continued winding our way through the mass of people, but they closed in around us, demanding to know what was happening.
“It’s not the arsonist. It was a tiny fire, most likely an accident,” he said loudly.
He squeezed my hand and continued pulling me through. It was so similar to times when we’d been ambushed by reporters that I had to remind myself these were my neighbors and friends, not assholes with cameras.
A middle-aged woman I thought I recognized but couldn’t quite place stepped right in Bryan’s path. “Everything is soaking wet. I’m holding you responsible for reparations.”
And with one comment, a fire of a different sort was kindled.
It was when Charlie stormed his way towards us, I finally realized who this woman was. Before I could get between the two of them, he launched into her. “Are you fucking kidding me? My wife nearly died trying to save your sorry ass. This man gave you a place to stay, food on your plate, and you’re… you’re…” He trailed off, words failing as he fought for the strength to keep from striking her.
Wet hair dripped down the side of her face as she tried to hide her fear and remain defiant. “I’m entitled to…”
“Oh, you’re fucking entitled all right,” he snapped.
“Please!” Bryan shouted as he put his hand up.
The panic was palpable. For some reason, I imagined those nature shows I used to watch with my dad. We were the skittish wildebeests attacking each other because we couldn’t see the real danger. I scanned the twisted expressions of the surrounding people, all scared, some angry. I had a chilling thought. Somewhere, the lion is lurking, waiting for the right time to strike.
The situation calmed the moment the water turned off. Like a flipped switch, the crowd dispersed and returned to their belongings. Heads hanging, spirits low, they set to work drying out anything they could.
“You there?” Chris crackled on our walkie-talkies.
“On our way,” Bryan responded. We quickly made our way downstairs to examine the fire alarm control panel. Again, I’m no engineer, but my throat tightened the moment I saw the device.
“This was deliberate,” I hissed.
“Hold on, let’s just look at it,” Bryan cautioned. I huffed incredulously, scanning over my shoulder as I heard Chris approach.
I appreciated Bryan didn’t want to jump to the worst possible scenario, but it was pretty fucking obvious someone had messed with the alarm system. The small door had been torn from one of its hinges while the flat panel itself hung on by a handful of wires. From the little I could see over his shoulder, it looked like several had been severed.
“Everything all good, boss?” Chris asked from the doorway. He, like the rest of us, looked like a drowned rat. A heavy wrench swung from his hand, the weight of it steadying him more than I’d ever seen.
Bryan grunted, engrossed in the fire panel.
“Any idea why the sprinkler system went off everywhere?” I asked Chris.
He shrugged as he walked into the small maintenance room. “Not a clue. I turned off the water to the entire building until we figure it out.” He shifted from foot to foot as he replied. I had to look away. His fidgeting made me feel like we were standing on a rocking ship.
Bryan spoke without turning. His voice was so firm and focused, it made me nervous. “Chris, I need you to go upstairs and find Dusty for me, okay?”
“Sure thing, boss.” He jumped so quickly I half expected him to salute.
“What do you need Dusty for? He’s just…”
When Bryan faced me, I was met with an expression I’d hoped never to see again. It was the same look he had when he saved me in the parking lot, the same look when he carried me into the First Aid lodge in New Zealand. We were in trouble.
“What is
it?” I asked, the breath catching in my throat.
“This was beyond deliberate. This was a calculated attack.” He spoke as he shuffled around me. He unfolded a stepladder and climbed to examine a sprinkler still dripping above us. “These aren’t supposed to all go off. They have this little glass piece that’s supposed to burst if there’s a heat source nearby.” I held the ladder as he stood on his toes to get a closer look.
“Okay… but couldn’t they have broken when the water came out?”
“No, it’s the other way around. The glass creates a seal. The only way so many could’ve gone off at once is if…” he trailed off, his gaze going distant. “Jesus…”
“What?” I asked frantically. I glanced at the clipped wires on the panel and knew this was going to be bad.
Bryan spoke quickly, like he was afraid he wouldn’t get it all out in time. “It’s a wet system which means water sits in the pipes. We have to flush it once a year, right? So the only way someone would’ve been able to do this is if the system had been flushed dry, the glass pieces broken, and then the water turned back on.”
“When did you become such an expert on sprinkler systems?” I snapped. I was filled with a sour fear, so the comment dripped with a terrified anger.
“When we took this place over,” he said absently. He fingered the snipped wires on the control panel and shook his head.
I felt my pulse throbbing in my neck. That familiar flight or fight response prickled my skin. I jumped at every scuff and footstep overhead. I let him think, the silence in the room broken by the drip drip drip of water. I nearly screamed just to shatter the tension, but Bryan turned before the shout loosed from my throat.
“This isn’t good.”
I half-laughed and half-cried, the sound coming out like a cough. “No shit!”
“We need to get people on high alert and take this seriously. I don’t think whoever did this is done messing with us yet.”
“So it wasn’t the guy who attacked me? I mean, he’s still locked up over there,” I said, hooking my thumb in his direction.
Bryan nodded solemnly. “We need to see him first, find out if he really does know anything. Maybe being wet and miserable will get him to talk.”
The old man shouted the second Bryan slipped the key into the lock.
“You gotta let me outta here! I’m not supposed to be in here. I was supposed to be long gone by now. Please, you gotta listen to me!”
Bryan moved to unlock the door but I stayed his hand. “Keep him talking,” I whispered.
Catching on quickly, he called through. “What do you mean? Did you know this was going to happen?”
“Come on, man, let me out of here! It’s like a coffin. I’m freakin’ out in here.” He grabbed the doorknob from the other side and violently shook the door.
“I’ll let you out if you promise to talk this time.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you want. Fuck man, come on!”
The urgency in his voice was startling. He sounded like an animal caught in a snare, squealing because it sensed its fate.
Predictably, the old man rushed the door as Bryan unlocked it.
“We have to get outta here! I need to be long gone before…” he repeated. He tried to strong-arm past Bryan but stopped when he saw me standing behind him. After that, he didn’t put up much resistance. He walked backwards to the far wall and sulked. Bryan entered the room while I stayed in the doorway, silently watching.
“We’re going to try this again, okay? Because my gut is telling me you knew this was going to happen.”
The old man nodded, his eyes darting over my shoulder to freedom.
“All right. First, tell me what your name is.”
He smoothed back his wet hair and sighed, almost in defeat. “Gary.”
“Okay, Gary. Where are you from?”
“Here and there,” the old guy shrugged.
The muscles in Bryan’s jaw worked, but he fought to remain calm. “So you’re homeless?”
I saw a glimmer of humor in Gary’s eye as he looked up at us. “Home is where the heart is.”
Bryan pushed a rush of air from his nose. He was losing his patience… and fast. “What were you doing in the basement of our ski lodge?”
The old man cackled this time. I think he enjoyed having the power in the situation, getting people to actually listen to him for a time. “What didn’t I do?”
I stepped forward and put a hand on Bryan’s arm. “Listen shithead, we know you aren’t the arsonist. For one, you aren’t smart enough and two, there have been fires since we locked your ass up. So if you don’t feel like sharing what little you might know, I’m happy to lock that door and ignore you.”
“You wouldn’t…” he started to protest before I shushed him.
I tilted my chin down and used the most menacing expression I could muster. “No one but the people you’ve seen knows you’re down here. If something were to happen to the lodge, it’d be very easy to forget you were down here, what with getting the women and children out first. One scream drowned out in dozens. So, if all that’s perfectly clear, are you sure you don’t want to tell us what you know?”
Gary glared at me with a surprising amount of anger. “He was right about you.”
Although my heart lurched at that sentence, I couldn’t let him see he’d gotten to me. I turned my back to him and practically shoved Bryan out of the door. “Guess he doesn’t care. We’re done here.” My bluff paid off.
“Wait! Goddamnit, just wait a second. I don’t know the guy’s name or nothing, but I can tell you what he looked like.”
With my hands on Bryan’s chest, half way out of the door, we looked at each other. I’d cracked him, but we both knew he might say anything to save his own skin.
Bryan took the lead, playing the good cop again. “Go on.”
The old man crossed his arms as he spoke. “It was in Denver. He came up to me, bought me lunch, asked me if I’d like to earn some money. Wouldn’t tell me what the job was until I agreed to keep my mouth shut.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Older guy, gray hair, nice suit… real nice suit. He’s the sort that looks like he has a manicure every week, ya know? Real rich and fruity.”
“That narrows it down,” I muttered. I wanted to believe this guy was just fucking with us, but my instincts told me otherwise. “He’s bullshitting,” I said as I pulled on Bryan’s arm for dramatic effect.
Gary rummaged around in his pockets, swearing and tossing food wrappers on the floor. “Ha! Here! This is what he gave me… along with five hundred bucks.” He thrust out a soggy piece of paper, which Bryan grabbed. Without another word, we shut the door and locked it again, leaving Gary to pound on the inside. “You pieces of shit! You can’t do this! You can’t keep me in here.”
We studied the letter as we walked away, Gary shouting until he went hoarse. It was a handwritten jumble of instructions, the handwriting all different sizes and colors of ink. I spotted a few addresses, houses I knew had been targeted by the arsonist. There were a few physical descriptions of Bryan and me, and a weird sketch that I think explained how he’d screwed with every sprinkler in the building. The double-sided paper was like a laundry list of mayhem, most of which had already come to pass.
“I have no idea what the hell is going on,” I whispered to Bryan finally.
“Neither do I.” I hated the fear I saw in his eyes. “But we need to work with whatever we have.”
“If this is all he was supposed to do, what comes next? Why doesn’t he want to be in here?”
He pressed his lips together in a tight line and pulled me close, but even in his arms, I found little comfort.
Not that I’m a strong believer in signs from the universe, but some force seemed to be actively reminding us that you can always sink lower than you thought possible. Cramped in a lodge with a hundred other people? What about cramped and soaking wet with a hundred miserable people? What about cramped and soaki
ng wet in a lodge with limited power and three shitty fires to keep us warm?
Every time I thought, It can’t possibly get worse than this, the universe intervened to say, Fuck you, it can. And will.
Buckets had been collected and distributed around the Great Hall so we could wring out our belongings. As I worked through the pile of my own stuff, I was glad to find a few of the clothes deep inside my backpack had managed to escape a complete soaking. After a few minutes drying out by the fire, I took them into the bathroom to get changed.
Amazing what warm, dry clothes in a dire situation can do for your mood, but I still couldn’t meet my eyes in the mirror’s reflection. I hadn’t been entirely blameless in the fight with Marie and I knew I had to apologize to Miah. Even if I couldn’t salvage anything with him, I knew it was something I had to do for myself.
From a distance, I checked the spot where Marie and her family had set up their beds. Like the rest of the lodge, the Goldbergs were busy fixing their things. I checked the rental shop next and found it empty. I idly wondered if Marie was responsible for the charred wall, perhaps a poorly stubbed cigarette.
And then I spotted her across the Great Hall talking to Drew and Trig, but didn’t see Miah anywhere nearby. This actually gave me hope I’d be able to apologize to him without Marie standing beside him, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I searched the lodge top to bottom and still saw no sign of him.
The longer I looked, the more worried I got. It could’ve been possible I kept missing him, entering a room as he left, but the lodge wasn’t that big. There was no way he would’ve been able to dodge me for that long.
When I saw Marie next, she was with her parents. Taking a few deep breaths, I forced myself to go over. When she saw me approach, I nearly turned back.
“Well, well,” she said with a tilt of the head. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Have you seen Miah?”
“Like I’d tell you,” she scoffed.
“Marie!” her father scolded.
I couldn’t stop my smile as she looked suitably admonished, but I kept my mouth shut. “I can’t find him.”
