City in the Fire

by Fred Crawley

  “This way,” said Tina hurrying her past the lift doors through a door marked Fire Escape.

  Abi gripped the rail tightly as they made their way down the stairs. She wondered what floor they were on and whether they had far to go. It turned out they did not, Tina pushed open the door on the next floor down.

  The fire alarm was deafening. No one seemed to notice them as they walked into the open lobby but there were hundreds of people. Tina led her through them, weaving past smartly dressed men and women until they found a space. No one paid them any attention.

  “What’s going on?” said Abi as she tried to catch her breath.

  At the front, by the glass doors, three figures stood apart from all the rest. They were dressed head to toe in black combat gear and held black bags.

  Abruptly the alarm stopped ringing and the silence was deafening.

  “Listen up,” said one of the men at the front. His voice confident and authoritative, like he was used to being in charge. “As you know there is a fire and it’s starting to spread. The whole area is surrounded and we can’t fly in rescue teams.”

  Abi looked at Tina who continued to stare at the man. So she was right, there was a fire and they were trapped.

  “So far the fire hasn’t touched the business district but it will and when it does you don’t want to be here,” continued the man. “We are evacuating all buildings in the area including this one.”

  Evacuating, she heard the word but what she really thought of was Craig fighting his way back through the smoke and the heat and finding the building empty.

  “We are taking you to a secure local area where you will be safe until the smoke has cleared enough for rescue teams to get in.”

  “Where?” asked a woman near the front, she was still clutching a mobile phone.

  The man looked towards his colleague as if he wasn’t sure he was supposed to give out that sort of information. They both shrugged and he turned to the woman. “We’re taking you into the underground. We can seal off all the exits and they’re pretty secure, nothing to burn.”

  A murmur went around the room, all Abi could think about was Craig and the stupid argument they’d had that morning. Or rather, she’d had that morning because, the more she thought about it, the more she remembered him being completely reasonable and her just itching for a fight, doing everything she could to provoke one.

  “Now if you’ll all for an orderly queue,” said the man, “we can start moving you out at once.”

  People began to shuffle around, lining up behind one another, turning to face the direction of the door. The movement passed around the room like a wave and, when it reached them, Tina took Abi’s arm and tried to move her, but she wouldn’t go. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  Tina scowled at her. “What do you mean, ‘you can’t’? Are you alright?”

  She nodded. “I just ... what about Craig?”

  “What about Craig?”

  “What if he comes back? There won’t be anyone here and he won’t know where we’ve gone.”

  “Leave him a note,” hissed Tina.

  She shook her head.

  “You can’t stay here Abi, you heard what they said, it’s not safe.”

  Abi had no intention of staying anywhere. Craig was out there somewhere, looking for her, and she was going to find him. She slipped away from Tina and further back into the crowd. Tina began to follow her but, moments later, one of the men arrived, his heavy boots clonking on the hard floor and ordered her to get in line. Tina opened her mouth to argue but Abi slipped further back and couldn’t hear what the girl said.

  The queue snaked all the way to the back of the lobby and began to wrap around the corners. Abi hobbled, her swollen body aching from the movement, back towards the fire escape doors they had come in through. All the while she could hear the clonking of heavy boots behind her.

  She pushed her way into the lineup and forced her way through the protesting bodies to get out the other side. The door was just a couple of metres ahead but she still didn’t think she was going to make it. Then the front doors opened and the lobby filled with ashy smoke and heat. The line moved backwards and she thought it was going to fall like a line of dominoes. In the ensuing disorder Abi managed to reach the doors and push her way through.

  She leaned back against the door. The noise carried through from the other side but the smoke and heat did not. She fell forwards and put her hands on her knees, gasping for air and wondering what the hell she thought she was doing. There was no way Craig would want her to put the baby at risk by doing something as stupid as this. If she could ask him she was sure he would tell her to go with the others where she would be safe.

  There was no way she could leave him though. She couldn’t stand the idea of him out there by himself, pointlessly searching for her in the smoke. She had to find him, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t at least try.

  CHAPTER 12

  VICTOR STOOD IN THE ALLEY OUTSIDE THE ENTRANCE to the kitchen. He’d cleaned up as well as he could and then taken another shower before getting dressed in some old chef whites he’d found.

  The air was full of thick grey smoke and he could barely see the street at the end of the alleyway. He didn’t know what had happened but it couldn’t have been good. He hefted the plastic bag that contained the remains of Mr Fisher off the floor. A human head, he discovered, was surprisingly heavy. He needed to find a way to get rid of it, somewhere where it wouldn’t be found and if it was it couldn’t be traced back to him.

  At the end of the alleyway he stopped again. The opposite side of the street was obscured by the smoke but he could hear people talking. There weren’t many of them, perhaps as few as four, but until he could actually see them he had to think about the head in his bag. Of course, if anyone started asking questions, he had a kitchen knife wrapped in a thick tea towel stuffed in his pocket.

  He crossed the road towards the voices as quietly as he could.

  Four dark shapes emerged from the fog, as he got closer he could hear that they were arguing about what they should do and where they should go. Two men and two women, they sounded old. Victor wondered if it was the same people he had seen in the hotel lobby. One of the men wanted to head towards the river where he thought the rescue attempts were most likely to start, one of the women was arguing that they should stay near the city centre because the fire hadn’t reached it yet.

  Victor began to get a picture of what he was facing; the fire was all around the city. It seemed impossible but if the old folks had been up to the roof of the hotel they would have been able to get a pretty good idea of how far the fire had spread.

  He slunk back towards the wall and wondered what he should do. It might have been a good idea to join up with the oldies, they seemed to have a pretty good grasp on the situation, and they were ancient so he could probably get the whole head in a bag thing past them. On the other hand he had a whole city to play with; he couldn’t hear any police or fire engine sirens. If there was no one in charge then he could do anything he wanted and that seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up.

  A window broke somewhere behind him. It might have been an accident but for the laughing and shouting that followed. Maybe he wasn’t the only one with the idea to make some trouble while he could.

  “What was that?” said one of the old women.

  Victor turned and walked away from them, he didn’t need their help and he was sure he would have a lot more fun without them around. As the smokey shadows closed around him he turned his mind to what he should do first.

  CHAPTER 13

  ABI DIDN’T KNOW HOW LONG SHE HAD BEEN unconscious but it was long enough for the smoke to become so thick she could barely see through it and for the temperature to reach sauna level. She had waited in the fire escape until she heard the main doors close and even then she had continued to wait until she was sure everyone had gone.

  Now she was outside and after taking two steps
away from the building she turned and could no longer see it. She coughed as the air clogged up her lungs and reached for her bag. She pulled out a packet of tissues and held one over her mouth. It didn’t make much difference but she felt like she could go more than a few steps without needing to cough up a lung.

  The smoke stung her eyes and forced her to squint but she couldn’t see where she was going even with her eyes wide open. She reminded herself that this was the third time that day that she had walked along the road and that she ought to be able to navigate it pretty well, even without being able to see. It was mostly a straight line into the town centre anyway.

  She walked in the direction she thought she should be going but without any landmarks it was difficult to tell. She could feel the fire on her back and that too seemed to suggest she was going the right way.

  It was difficult to move. Her lungs burned and the muscles in her hips and back throbbed with pain. She was desperately thirsty and only now realised that she hadn’t taken the opportunity to have a drink while she was in the office.

  Hours seemed to pass, it was impossible to tell how long but the world began to darken and she didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. She might have walked straight past the coffee shop and she wouldn’t have been able to tell. And she really needed something to drink, her throat felt raw and tender, she couldn’t even spit.

  Gradually the smoke diminished. She would have had trouble recognising a friend across the street but she could see buildings. She didn’t recognise where she was and that probably meant she had gotten turned around somewhere or other but there were shops here.

  She stopped in the middle of the road and turned around. There was a pub on the corner but all of the windows had been broken. Next to the pub there was a bookies and next to that there was an estate agent. They all might have had water inside but they looked as if they had been ransacked and the idea of going into any of them scared her.

  On the other side of the road there was a pharmacy and an electronic repair shop. Both had their windows broken and now she could see shards of glass on the ground. She didn’t like the idea of walking over that in her flimsy little sandals but the third shop in the row was a newsagents and its windows were fully intact.

  The windows were covered with posters offering discount calls to African, India and China, so she couldn’t see inside. The sign on the door had been turned around to read ‘closed’. She tried the door anyway but was not surprised when it failed to open for her.

  Standing on tip-toes she could peer over the signs into the darkness. She couldn’t see anyone inside but she knocked on the door anyway. It sounded impossibly loud in the stillness of the city.

  She stepped back and waited, hoping against hope that someone friendly would come to the door and take pity on her, but there was nothing. After a moment she walked back to the door. She banged against the glass for longer and hard enough that she thought she might break it. Then she stepped back and waited, if there was anyone in there they would have heard her. If there was anyone within a mile radius they’d probably heard her.

  Still there was no answer.

  She looked around, as if there might be a solution hidden amongst the broken glass and rubble that littered the streets, but she didn’t see anything. Except...

  ...the thought was so foreign that it took her a moment to process it. All the other windows were broken, and that had probably been done by selfish people who wanted to steal money or something. It wouldn’t really be wrong for her to break a window to get some water. She had tried to do it the proper way and she was sure that whoever owned the shop wouldn’t want to let a pregnant woman suffer.

  She walked over to the first large rock she saw which actually turned out to be half of a brick. It took a lot of concentration and effort to be able to bend over. She felt as if she was going to lose her balance and fall down but she didn’t. She managed to get the brick and stand back up.

  There was a pretty good chance, she realised, that she wouldn’t be able to throw the rock hard enough to break the glass but she had to try anyway. She pulled back her arm as she approached the door. She swallowed and the dryness of her throat made her want to cough. She was ready to throw the brick but just before she did a face appeared in the darkness.

  Abi felt a wave of relief wash over her but it was nowhere near as good as a real wave would have been right then. She dropped the rock and went to the door, expecting the man behind it to let her in.

  The face disappeared.

  “Hello?” she called out. “Hello can you help me?”

  The door opened with a sudden violence and a short, grey haired man stood there. Even though it was what she wanted she stepped back in surprise.

  “Oh thank you,” she said, recovering and walking towards the open door. “Thank you.”

  “Go away,” he said.

  “Please, I just want some water.”

  “There’s no water here, get lost.”

  She looked down at herself, wasn’t it obvious that she was pregnant and that she needed help. “Please,” she said and coughed a little just so he knew she was in need. “I’m pregnant, I just need something to drink.”

  The man looked at her. “You were going to break my window?”

  She nodded. “I just need some water.”

  Suddenly he pulled out a baseball bat, one of the metal ones that she hadn’t seen since she was a kid. “Get the fuck out of here,” he shouted and spat. He stepped towards her, waving the bat.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and she realised that she was crying but couldn’t generate tears. “I just want some water.”

  “No water for you,” he said. “Get out of my sight or I’ll make you.”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t quite believe what was happening. All she wanted was some water and she was pregnant and desperate and most of all she was scared. Why wouldn’t he help her?

  He came towards her and looked angry enough to actually hit her with the bat. She backed away and almost slipped off the curb. He kept coming towards her and all she could do was walk backwards into the road where there was broken glass and rocks and she could trip over and break her neck.

  “Get the fuck away from here,” he shouted and she nodded.

  “I’m going,” she managed to say. “Please, I’m going.” She nodded and he stopped when he reached the curb, apparently unwilling to follow her onto the road. She turned around and hurried away as quickly as she could.

  She walked as quickly as she could manage which wasn’t nearly as quickly as she would have liked. The newsagents and the angry man disappeared in the smoke behind her but she was no better off than she had been before. She was still desperately thirsty and exhausted too.

  A bench materialised out of the smoke like an illusion and for a moment she thought that was exactly what it was. She drifted towards it like she was the one made out of smoke. She touched it and it was real. Still crying she fell onto the hard wooden seat and let her misery engulf her.

  CHAPTER 14

  VICTOR LIKED WHAT HE SAW. EMPTY SHOPS FULL of all the things he coveted. It was like being a kid in a sweet shop. His pockets were stuffed with twenty pound notes which he didn’t even need but would be useful when he finally got out.

  It felt as if, for first time in his life, he hadn’t had anyone to tell him what to do; no overbearing father, no prison guards and no Mr Fisher. He could go anywhere and do anything he wanted. Although the smoke seemed to be clearing so maybe he should be quick about it.

  He walked on through the smoke, feeling the burden of Mr Fisher’s remains still in the bag. He wanted to get rid of them soon but he hadn’t found a good place. If the worst came to the worst, he supposed, he could dump them in the fire. Fire probably wouldn’t be hot enough to destroy them but they should destroy any evidence that linked him to the killing.

  He reached into the bag and pulled out a bottle of water. Still cold from he pub fridge but warming up. He had money, food and drin
k; what else did he need? He had some thoughts about finding somewhere to lay low for a few hours, maybe somewhere he could enjoy a rest and stash the money he’d taken. That sounded like a good idea, if he had a place to stash it then he could come back for it once he’d been rescued.

  Victor looked at the buildings that he passed, any one of them might be perfect except they were too conspicuous. He didn’t want anywhere that the owner would be rushing back to, he wanted somewhere that looked as if no one cared whether it burned to the ground.

  He took a turn off the high street figuring that his best chance of finding somewhere suitable lay in the side streets and alleyways. It had even occurred to him that the hotel kitchen might be the perfect place. He knew it well so he could find somewhere to hide his stuff, he could even put it in his locker, and no one would question why he was going back there after the fire was out.

  The only problem was returning with Mr Fisher’s head. If he could get rid of that then there was nothing stopping him from going back.

  He crossed the road. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was. He could see a few shops and, like everywhere else, the windows were broken and the street was littered with broken glass and the things that thieves had dropped on their way out. Victor wasn’t sure why they had dropped anything, no one was coming to tell them off so there was no need to rush. It seemed to him like you could take all the time you wanted and get everything you wanted.

  He turned another corner and another. He passed a man leaning against the side of a pub clutching a box in his arms. At first he didn’t think twice about it, Langford was full of beggars asking for spare change and cigarettes. Then as he got closer he saw that the man was no beggar. He was dressed in a suit, although a ripped and dirty one. The box he was holding was for an expensive looking mobile phone.