by John Freitas
PULSE
When Gravity Fails
Pulse
By
John Freitas
ISBN-13: 9781530117567
© 2016 John Freitas. All rights reserved
Acknowledgment
Thank you NASA for everything you do.
“A fish swimming in the ocean does not know it is in the water until a wave comes.”
Dr. Paulo Restrepo - Marlo-Pitts Observatory
The one o'clock sun shone bright in the clear blue skies of Southeast Texas. Christine was in the laundry room, transferring clothes from the washing machine to a laundry basket. The warm and dry weather in rural Brenham made it perfect to hang a large white sheet and clothes on a clothesline. The thirty four year old mother, with blue eyes and freckles peppered on her face gathered several clothespins, picked up the heavy basket and walked to an open door leading to inside of the house. An eight year old boy and a six year old girl were playing in the living room.
“Kids, today is a beautiful day, why don't you go outside to play?"
“Ok mom, as soon as I finish this game." answers the boy. The girl is too busy brushing and talking to a doll.
The mother opened the laundry room door to the outside, the central alarm beeped a few times and a breeze of warm air entered the room. It was a little windy outside. The kids bikes were leaning against the house, not too far from the vegetable garden that was now populated with tomatoes, peppers and a few okra plants.
Christine walked up to the clothes line, puts the basket down and hung the first garment. They have been living in the country side for 6 months now. After being laid off from an oil company in downtown Houston, her husband found a management position in an ice cream factory nearby. Because the cost of real estate is low in this part of the state, they bought a three acre land with a two story house in a place that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. There were no other houses around them.
The land was surrounded by a cattle farm meadow in one side and a corn field in another, so the three acres sometimes felt like one thousand. Christine liked the life in the country most of the time. She felt calmer with the constant contact with the outdoors which brought the fragrance of her lavender flowers, the dance of the butterflies and the singing birds. The air felt cleaner than in the city, but she missed the busy neighborhood a little. She especially missed the quick access to supermarkets and stores.
The family's two German Shepherds came to check on her with a wagging tail and a smiling face. They are two months old. The female licked her leg while the male grabbed the shoe laces on her tennis shoe and pulled it. Christine looked down and smiled.
"Hey, leave my shoe alone!" shouted out Christine while shaking her foot. The dogs hopped around her with their tongues out for a few more seconds and left.
Christine held a clothespin between her teeth and picked up a large white sheet. She threw one side across the line and started spreading it. The sheet shone bright against the sun making difficult to look straight at it. The wind gently pushed the sheet against her face.
"Mom, come here quick!" called the boy from inside the house.
"Mom!" called the girl.
"What happened?" shouted the mother while running towards the house still holding a clothespin.
As Christine approached the door, she felt light headed. She ran through the laundry room with the sensation she was going to lose her balance at any minute and she had a tickling feeling in her stomach. It felt as she was walking in an aisle of a descending airplane.
Christine stopped at the living room entrance. She let go the clothespin and used both hands to grab each side of the door frame. She looked at the children and gasped.
"Look Mom, we can fly!" said her son in an excited voice, while bouncing from a wall towards the ceiling. All the toys were hovering a foot above the ground, lightly colliding against each other. Her daughter was slowly coming down from the ceiling towards the sofa and as soon her feet touched it, she jumped up and back towards the ceiling, giggling.
The clothespin was still falling in slow motion half way from the floor, while spinning on its axis.
***
1
Sean Grayson and Carter Strove -- West Memphis, Arkansas
The alarm blared and instructions crackled through the speakers. Sean Grayson was used to the interruptions, but it startled him anyway. He gave the Stroganoff one more stir and then tossed the wooden spoon aside on the counter where it left an oily, brown smear of grease.
He shut off the heat to the stove burner he was using and pushed the pan back onto one of the cold eyes. Sean double checked the dials on the stove again out of reflex to be sure they were off. There had been more than one company that had run out of the firehouse to go put out someone else’s stove fire only to come back and find their own quarters full of black smoke. No West Memphis firefighters had burned down their houses yet, but the town was small and the stories always made the paper.
“Let’s go, Grayson,” Lieutenant Foster shouted.
Sean turned away from the stove and ran to gear up. “Just double checking the burners, L. T.”
“Didn’t ask. Don’t care. Don’t make me ask twice, Firefighter.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Beef Stroganoff is a stupid breakfast anyway.”
Sean chuckled. “Yes, sir.”
He gritted his teeth as he ran down the stairs. There was the traditional pole, but the stairs were closer to the kitchen. Since Lt. Jim Foster had replaced Brosky, he was still flexing his muscles and establishing his authority. Foster had been a firefighter across the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee. There was animosity about him promoting up from the outside and especially from Tennessee. Sean tried to stay out of his sights.
Most of the messages calling the order to load up were automated and used a soothing woman’s voice. Carter Strove’s brother Michael was in the Air Force and said they used the same voice for the messages on the helicopters and fighters. Some study had shown that men attuned to a woman’s voice more than a man’s. As Sean thought about his ex, he wondered, if that could be true. Maybe you just couldn’t tune her out, he thought. Thinking about this brought up his anger floating to the surface against Carter. Sean pushed it back down in his mind.
He had missed the details about the call and location on the fire as his mind swirled around his most recent regrets in a life full of them.
“See?” Sean said to no one. “I didn’t tune into anything she said.”
He hit the locker room and pulled on his protective suiting as the other guys finished off.
“Running behind,” Carter said.
The other guys looked between the two men as they dashed out to the truck. Sean knew they were expecting a dust-up. Everyone had been waiting for the fight and it might still come, but Sean wouldn’t do it on a call and he was low on energy from not getting a taste of his Stroganoff.
“Yeah.” Sean left it at that and Carter walked past Sean with his head down. He was adjusting the strap to his mask.
Sean rushed through the rest and ran after Carter. When Carter Strove had first joined up with the company, there had been a firefighter named Horrace Carter that was old as dirt and tough as nails. Everyone called him Carter or Old Carter. Carter Strove then became Black Carter. Old Carter retired, but Strove was still Black Carter. No one thought anything of it until Lt. Foster took over after Brosky. Foster put a stop to the nickname. Memphis had a storied racial history and Foster wasn’t interested in tempting trouble. So, Black Carter went to just being Carter or sometimes “Just Cart
er” when the guys were feeling hot about the new Lieutenant’s rules.
Sean hit the truck last as it was already moving. He leapt through the open door behind the driver and slammed it closed. As he dropped his kit and took the empty seat, he saw he was right next to “Just Carter.”
Carter licked his lips and looked away through one of the back windows. Sean wondered if the guys had arranged it so they would be forced to sit by each other. He didn’t think they would.
Carter spoke over the sound of the siren. “Found your little present in my locker this morning.”
“Don’t know what you are talking about,” Sean said as he found buckles to check on his coat.
“Okay,” Carter said. “It was impressive though. I didn’t know you could stretch a condom all the way across the top of a helmet like that.”
“Maybe you just have never had to roll them down that far before,” Sean said.
“You can ask …” Carter stopped talking. Sean had an idea of how Carter planned to finish that sentence. It was good that he stopped. Sean wouldn’t have lashed out – not then, but the other guys were watching the exchange. It was good that he stopped. Sean realized through his bubbling anger that Carter had done it out of basic respect for their friendship and not out of any fear. Sean knew Carter well enough to know it took more than that to scare him. Carter shifted to another sentence. “Maybe we can compare helmets when we get back from the fire since you are so interested in mine. I take your message though, brother. Condom over the helmet over my head? Not very subtle.”
“I didn’t do it, Carter. You should report it to the L. T. since he told everyone to stop hurting your feelings about all this.”
“Yeah, right.” Carter shook his head. “Then I can get a canary hung in my locker by a string, huh?”
“If the Foster doesn’t want us calling you Black Carter, I’m guessing he’d probably hit the ceiling if we strung up a bird in your locker.”
Carter actually laughed out loud. Sean felt a sting in the back of his throat and behind his eyes. He didn’t realize in that moment how much he had missed his friend’s laugh. He missed it more than he missed his wife.
“You two were already divorced when I started seeing her,” Carter said. Any goodwill that was building from the laugh was blasted away by that statement. “I swear it.”
“It doesn’t matter, Carter. There’s a code and there’s a line and you crossed it. Every bit of bad blood you’ve dealt with has come from that. We fight for each other. We don’t take up with each other’s wives – divorced or not. Don’t act like you don’t get that. She’s the mother of my boys and you’re running around playing step daddy to them.”
“You knew she would date someone someday.”
“Don’t act like you don’t get it, Carter. We are friends. You should know better.”
Sean had almost said they were friends instead of they are friends. It would have been a very different statement and the moment scared him a little. They were about to go into a burning building together. This was a dangerous conversation to be having right now.
“I do get it, Sean, but I love her. I’m sorry that’s true, but it is. I don’t get close to people like that often. I’ve never felt this way about anyone I’ve dated. I can’t just throw that away. I can’t do it even though it is the right thing to do. I’m sorry, brother.”
Sean turned his head away and chewed at the inside of his mouth. “Stop talking to me right now, Carter.”
One of the guys across from them said, “Yes, please, shut up, both of you. It’s like a soap opera I can’t ever turn off.”
Sean felt the empty feeling inside again. It was like his guts were inflated with helium and he was about to float right up out of his life. He had felt it when Tabitha had confronted him about being addicted to Oxycodone after he hurt his back. He had kept working and kept taking it even when he had to buy it illegally from tweekers north of town. She had told him to quit or she was leaving with the boys. He hadn’t and she did.
He felt it again when he took a leave of absence for “medical reasons” and checked into rehab. Carter knew and even with all the garbage they put him through when the guys found out he was dating Tabby, he hadn’t said anything to anyone.
Sean suspected some of the other guys knew too. It was a small town. He suspected some of them were watching him and Carter because they wanted to see if it would push him back onto the Oxy. They would continue to work with a guy screwing someone else’s wife. They wouldn’t risk their lives on a guy that was high or unstable because he just wanted to be high.
Sean pushed the empty, floating feeling back down and cleared his mind.
The truck stopped and they unloaded. The apartment building was engulfed on one side. Two other companies from the battalion were already there. One was dousing the side of the burn. The other was taking people down from windows.
The Captain shouted orders to Lt. Foster that Sean couldn’t hear. He watched the flames lick out of windows blackening the brick. He turned to help the crew hook up another hose. The entire building would be up soon. This was about to become a surround and drown situation.
Foster called, “Carter, Baker, Grayson, we need one more team to pull survivors from the interior rooms. Lt. Timms will assign you a path at the door. Move.”
The three ran toward the building as the others were hooking up the hose. Sean pulled on his mask as the Lieutenant at the door showed them where to go up. “You got ten minutes tops, boys. Any longer and the place will fall in around you and anyone we leave up there. Watch each other.”
Sean stepped in first without thinking about it. Baker grabbed his belt and Carter grabbed Baker behind him. Sean engaged his oxygen as they took the stairs. After three steps they were surrounded by blinding smoke. The fire and water were concentrated on the other side of the building, but the stairs already felt wet and spongy under his feet. Sean suspected that they had less than ten minutes.
Sean shouted through his mask. “Anyone here? We are here to help. Hello? Are you here?”
In this level of smoke, he suspected that anyone alive would be unconscious and quickly moving to not alive.
Baker used the head of his ax to strike just above the doorknob once and twice before the door flung open. Smoke hung thin around the ceiling inside, but much thinner than out in the halls and stairs.
Thicker, black smoke poured into the unit from the open doorway. The trio followed to walls and opened bedrooms as they shouted. Breakfast plates and a half full glass of milk sat on the table. The glass had balloons on it and reminded Sean of the ones Holden and Grant drank from back when they were a complete family. Holden was eight and moving away from those types of cups. Grant was recently four and was only just pushing into using a big boy cup.
The men looked under beds and in closets where kids tended to hide. Sean kicked open the bathroom and saw the plastic shower curtain with balloons printed on it. The words on the balloons read “Up, Up, and AWAY!!!” The toothbrush was a superhero that Sean didn’t know. He had a blue cape and was in mid flight.
“Hello?” There was no answer and they moved back out into the hall.
Three steps up and Sean kicked someone in the leg. A woman in a waitress’s uniform lay passed out on the steps. Sean leaned down and saw her nametag read Cathy. There was a red balloon sticker on it with the word “Up!” She was breathing. Sean shook her, but she didn’t open her eyes. “She’s alive, but not responding.”
“I’ll take her,” Carter said. “Try to search one more floor before they pull us.”
Carter grabbed her up in his arms and ran down the stairs without waiting for an answer. Baker and Sean hit two more apartments. On their way out of the last empty one, a wash of dark water poured off the landing above onto the stairs. Flame belched over the edge above them and the boards snapped above their heads showing thick darkness beyond.
“We need to hurry.” Sean took a step.
Baker pulled Sean back
by his arm. “No. Wait.”
The landing above crackled and collapsed into the stairs. The stairs broke through and dumped into an electrical room under them. Flame flashed up from the room below. The fire had come in around them.
“Pull out! All teams, out now. Over.” The order came over the radio at Sean’s shoulder.
Baker pulled again and Sean followed him down the stairs cluttered with smoldering, wet debris.
The radio crackled again. “Sean? This is Black Carter. There is a boy, seven years old, in that first apartment we searched. Mother says he’s in there. We missed him. Over.”
Lt. Foster’s voice broke over. “Don’t use that nickname, for God’s sake, and the pull out order was given. The building is coming down.”
Sean stopped on the stairs and Baker turned and looked up at him. “We are out of time. We searched. He may have already been pulled out. What’d you want to do, Sean?”
Sean thought about the balloon sticker on the waitress’s nametag, the cup and the shower curtain. He hadn’t pulled back the shower curtain.
Sean turned and ran back up the stairs.
2
Captain Michael Strove – Pacific Ocean off the coast of Russia
Captain Michael Strove banked and put a little more distance between his wing and the imaginary wall of air that represented Russian waters. He was well within International water, but the three Russian megs racing into his radar from the south told him that they did not fully trust his judgment. These cat and mouse games were common practice, but since the collision over the Black Sea on the other side of the continent, these games were more tense.
Michael thought he could understand their point. If a Russian fighter came fifteen miles off the coast of America, they would have an even stronger reaction. It wasn’t Michael’s place to decide whether his missions were the best decision. He was just to carry them out successfully.
