by Jesse Reiss
Chapter 25
The sharp sound of breaking glass jolted them awake. It came from the ground floor. Paula bolted up and glanced at the clock: 4:06 a.m. Angelina sat up and the two girls looked at each other, frozen in fear. They heard nothing further.
A moment later a second sound of smashing glass cut through the silence.
“Mom! What’s happening?” Angelina cried, jumping from the bed in her nightgown.
There was a whoosh of air as the bedroom windows that were slightly ajar swung open by themselves and the curtains billowed in the draft now coming into the bedroom. The door to the hallway seemed to pin itself against its frame as air rushed under the small crack. Angelina felt a strong breeze coming into the room as it disorganized her hair.
Paula fought back the panic rising in her. She clumsily flipped on the light and reached for the house phone at her bedside. “Call Mac on your cell! I’m calling 9-11!”
Angelina picked up her cell phone that had been charging on her bedside table and flipped it open. She waited the tense few seconds for it to turn on. As she did she heard tires screech and through the bedroom window saw a car’s rearview lights as it tore off down the street, away from the house.
Coming in through the open window, Paula smelled the smoke. It was wafting up and into the room. The operator picked up. “Help! My house is on fire! Someone threw something into my house and it’s on fire!”
Angelina had pulled up Mac’s house phone number and it rang a few times before a sleepy voice picked up with a drowsy, “Hello?”
“Mac! Help us! It’s Angie! Our house is on fire and we’re upstairs!”
“What?!” She heard crashing sounds as Mac likely fell from his bed and stumbled into some furniture. “Have you called 9-1-1?”
“Mom is on the other line with them now.”
“Are you able to get out of the house?”
“I don’t know! What if there is someone down there?”
“Honey — I’m looking out my window at your house now. If there is anyone down there, they are dead or dying. We’ve got to get you out of there right now!”
“There’s lots of smoke. What do I do?”
“Get on some thick clothes and stay low to the floor where the air is clearer! I’m coming over with a ladder!”
“Please hurry!”
The line cut off as Mac raced to throw his bathrobe around him and slip into his loafers. Within seconds he was tearing down the stairs and out the front door.
Angelina looked outside the window and saw through the smoke and night air other neighboring house lights flicking on. The light from the flames below them were dancing over the lawn and shrubs. She could hear the crackle and hiss as they ate into the wooden house. The floor beneath her feet was getting warm and she could feel the heat pouring into the window as it rose up from the floor below like a radiator. She closed the window to try to stop further heat and smoke from coming into the room.
She looked over to her mother who was sitting on the floor beside the bed with the phone to her ear. She wasn’t talking. She was only crying. She crawled over the bed and knelt beside her.
“Mom! Do they know where we are?”
Paula nodded between sobs.
Angelina took the phone from her hand and placed it back on the nightstand. “We’ve got to get dressed. We can’t go out like this.”
Paula didn’t respond. “Mom!” Angelina shouted. Paula shook her head and covered her hands over her face.
Through the smoke Angelina crawled over to the dresser where her mother kept her jeans and shirts and pulled it open. Her mother was a size 6 and she was a 2. Angelina’s clothes were all in her room. She looked at the door, which now had smoke pouring into the room from all four sides like steam from a kettle. No going out there. She would have to wear her mom’s clothes. As she began to cough from the smoke, she yanked out two pairs of jeans and found two sweaters. She threw one of each to her mother. “Get these on!” she yelled. Paula responded, grabbing them and fumblingly started putting on the jeans.
Angelina donned the slightly baggy clothes easily and helped her mother with the sweater. They put on some socks and slip-on shoes. Luckily Paula’s feet were only half a size bigger than Angelina’s.
Angelina grabbed her mother’s purse and cell phone and looked out the window again. The black smoke pouring from the house was thicker and stronger, but the wind was carrying it off to one side, enabling her to see neighbors in their bathrobes scrambling around the house. One was running with a garden hose. She saw Mac in his bathrobe coming from across the street with a stranger holding onto a long ladder.
“Give me my cell phone,” Paula said between coughs, taking it from Angelina’s hands. She flipped it open and went to speed dial.
Mac waved to them and Angelina yanked open the window. Heat poured in, like opening an oven door. A moment later the ladder was slamming up against the house and being adjusted to reach the bottom of the window frame. Paula realized they were going to have to climb down the ladder and was even more terrified.
“Lee!” Paula screamed into the cell phone. She was in hysterics. “They’re burning down my house! (cough) Those assholes are burning down my house!” There was a pause. “(cough) Yes I did. Yes. (cough) Yes…no, I’m in my room (cough) and there’s smoke everywhere. Mac is outside getting a ladder…. (cough) Please come help!”
Lee was already out of bed and into the hallway. He slammed open Neil’s door. “Get up! The Russells’ house is on fire!”
Mac adjusted the ladder so the end was sticking right into the window frame. A spray of steam and water came into the window as a neighbor got the garden hose going and attempted to reduce the heat and flames beneath the open window.
Angelina picked up a wailing Lynx and lightly tossed him out the window. He landed on his feet on the lawn and was scooped up by a neighbor. She tossed her mother’s purse out the window. “You go first!” Angelina commanded.
“No! (cough) You first!”
“Mom, this is easier for me. (cough) Like climbing a tree. You are the one afraid of heights, so you are going first!”
Paula looked at her daughter and knew she was right. Angelina was the one with the steadier nerves right now, while Paula was in a panic. Angelina was the younger one. She saw confidence in her daughter’s eyes and for a moment she realized her daughter was more capable in caring for herself than she was. She looked out the window again. The drop was approximately twenty feet and Paula knew Angelina was fit and daring enough to leap without even the ladder if she needed to.
Angelina helped her climb out the window and onto the ladder. “Now, take it one step at a time and go down one rung at a time, always keeping one hand (cough) and one foot on the ladder, okay?” Paula nodded her head and took her first step.
“We’ve got the ladder steady”, Mac shouted from below as he and the neighbor stood at the base holding either end and awaited Paula’s descent.
Approaching sirens began to wail in the distance.
After three carefully placed steps down the ladder, a sudden explosion tore through the ground floor, shaking the entire house. A fireball burst through the kitchen windows, knocking back the neighbors on the lawn.
The ladder shook and Paula screamed, losing her balance. She toppled to one side, the ladder twisting with her. She made an effort to hold on, but couldn’t hold her own weight. She fell the twenty feet and landed on her side in the planter below.
“Mom!” Angelina screamed.
Braving the heat from the flames, several neighbors rushed to her side as she lay in the planter. She was conscious, but woozy. One larger male grabbed her from the back under the arms and two others grabbed her legs. They picked her up and carried her out of harm’s way.
A fire truck came tearing into the scene, announcing its arrival with flashing lights and a deafening wail. Two others and an ambulance followed it.
Like a graceful cat, Angelina knelt on the windowsill and grabbed the
ladder. She swung her body out the window and like climbing the monkey bars on a playground, she swung beneath the ladder from rung to rung until she was approximately ten feet from the ground and dropped, landing upright with her knees bent.
She ran over the lawn to the sidewalk where people surrounded her mother. Paula’s left arm lay awkwardly at her side and she was looking back at the house, watching in wide-eyed shock as it burned.
Angelina rushed up and wrapped her arms around her. They cried with relief that they had made it out alive.
A moment later EMT medics were at their sides asking questions about their injuries and if there were any other people inside. Mac answered the questions, explaining Paula’s fall. A gurney was brought from the back of the ambulance and Paula was carefully moved onto it for fear of any spinal or internal organ damage from her fall. An oxygen mask was placed over her mouth to give some relief from the smoke she had inhaled.
Angelina refused all assistance. She was fine, she insisted, and she yelled at one medic who insisted she leave her mother to be evaluated herself.
Through the flashing lights swirling red everywhere, plumes of smoke, running and yelling people and walkie-talkies squawking, Paula watched and listened to the flames as her house burned. Angelina stood by her side holding her hand, taking it all in. Mac held onto Lynx and her purse off to the side. Medic personnel were repeatedly prodding and probing, taking their vital signs and asking questions.
Fire hoses stiffened as they erupted to life and huge water jets shot out at the house from two angles. The power of the hoses shattered glass and blew off window shutters like dry leaves blown from a gutter. Smoke and steam poured forth from the ground floor as within seconds the flames disappeared from view.
A chopper hovered high above the rising smoke cloud, adding its noise to the cacophony. Several neighbors in bathrobes and disheveled clothing were standing on the street and in adjacent lawns, having been moved away by the emergency crews. A few had cameras out and were documenting the excitement.
A Honda Accord with a mini police siren light attached to the roof came up the road, joining the throng of emergency vehicles that were now there. Lee and Neil jumped from the car and went rushing up to the back of the ambulance, taking in the sight of the smoking house.
Paula was lying in the gurney with her arm in a sling and a small oxygen tube now running under her nose. An IV in her good arm was pumping a painkiller and fluid cocktail. Her face, hair and clothes were gray with ash and soot and so were Angelina’s.
Lee was relieved to see they were okay. Angelina released her mother’s hand and wrapped her arms around Neil, squeezing him tightly. He hugged her back, conscience of her breasts against his chest.
“See what they did to my house?” Paula said to Lee, taking his hand in hers. They looked over as fire crews dressed in yellow suits with tanks on their backs and axes in their arms were entering the smoldering home.
“I see it. I see it. We got a good idea whose behind this now and we’re going to get ‘em,” Lee responded with some determination.
The drugs were having a startling effect in calming her. She smiled. “Got some good news though. That coin was authenticated and is going to sell for a couple million. Angelina and I are gonna use that money and the fire insurance to buy us a bigger and better place.”
Lee smiled. He liked women who were fiercely independent and looking at the bright side of life, even in its most tragic moments.
“I think they’re taking me to the hospital to get this arm fixed up. Angie’s gonna stay and answer questions and see what we can salvage.” She looked over at Neil, “Can I trust you again with not letting my daughter out of your sight?”
“You can trust me ma’am,” he said confidently.
Angelina smiled, feeling a sense of security wash over her.
“You don’t mind if we move back with you two until we get our feet back on the ground, do you?”
“I insist you do,” Lee said, wiping soot off her forehead.
The gurney was lifted into the ambulance, the doors were closed and it slowly pulled away.
