by CC Abbott
Loach and his boys didn't budge.
"Y'all going to help or not?" Boone yelled.
The two other men, Ronnie and Donnie, turned their faces away, and Eugene Loach just cupped a hand to his ear.
"Can't hear you," Eugene said. He blew cigarette smoke through his nose. It curled around his face so that he looked like a bearded Chinese dragon.
“Assholes,” Boone said and bounded to the front porch. He turned the knob and put his shoulder to the heavy paneled door. It didn't give. The dead bolt was thrown.
He drew the hooligan tool back like a spear and rammed it through the door panel. The wooden cracked in half, and when Boone yanked the head of the tool out, the panel came with it, along with a blast of heat and smoke that drove him down the porch steps. The heat burned his lungs, and he had to squeeze the smoke out of his eyes.
"There ain't nobody screaming, you dumbass. It's just gas releasing or something!" Loach yelled.
They stood five yards behind Boone now. Their fire coats were unbuttoned, and their mattocks were stacked against the live oak where they had been resting.
"Don't go in there by yourself,” Loach said. “You ain't even got all your equipment."
"Then you cover with me an attack line, and Ronnie and Donnie can be our backups. Two in, two out."
"Dream on, possum. Ain't no way me and my boys are risking our lives to rescue another critter."
Boone knelt on the plank floor as he turned on his breathing tank. Heat rose from the planking, and he could feel it through his Nomax pants. The thought of diving into a conflagration gave him pause. If the porch was already hot enough to warm his fireproof pants, what would it feel like to walk into a blast furnace? What if Eugene was right, and the sound that he thought was screaming turned out to be another wild animal? How would he explain that to Lamar?
No.
Wild animals don't know words.
He crossed the porch and reached inside the door. The deadbolt was an old-fashioned twist bar, and he pulled it down. With a screech, the bolt withdrew, and Boone kicked the door open.
Inside, the living room was a wall of flames. Through the smoke, he could make out a pile of furniture and an old sideboard on the opposite wall. The floor seemed intact, as least as far as the stairway, which was about ten feet to the right of the door. He couldn't see any hot spots there, so it would be his first target.
He crouched, ready to make his first move, when Loach grabbed his mask and pulled it away from his face.
"Hold up, rookie, you ain't going in!" Loach yelled. "It's suicide!"
"Let go of my equipment!" Boone easily pulled the mask out of Eugene's hand, which seemed to surprise him.
"There ain't nobody in this fucking house!" Eugene screamed.
Another scream. More garbled than before.
Boone pointed at the steps inside. "See? It came from upstairs. You had to hear it that time."
"See what? You hearing another possum, if you ask me!"
"I didn't ask you!"
Boone shrugged to get loose. Every second they wasted, the fire got worse. By opening the door, they had let in a huge source of oxygen, which was at that very moment feeding the fire. But Loach was having none of it. He hooked Boone's left arm, and Ronnie, who had come up on the porch behind Boone, grabbed his breathing tank and lifted it, trying to rock Boone off his feet.
“Back off!” Boone brought the staff of the hooligan down on Loach's forearm.
"Goddamn!" Loach howled and let go. "You about broke my arm!"
Boone bent over at the waist, lifting Ronnie off the ground. He dropped to one knee while reaching across his body for Ronnie's fire coat, and then dumped him unceremoniously on his ass. Before either of them could stop him, Boone leapt inside the house, ducking to let the wash of heat and smoke pass above him.
He continued to duck walk until he reached the stairs. He looked up. The stairwell was functioning as a chimney. It drew smoke from the first floor to the second. There were still no visible hotspots, but Boone knew that the fresh oxygen from the front door was being sucked upstairs, too. It would only feed the fire.
In training Lamar had repeatedly warned him about second stories. You had to worry about the ceiling and the floor. Either or both could give way without notice, and you would find yourself sandwiched between a ton of superheated material.
"Childress!" Loach called.
Boone glanced back. The three men squatted at the door. They beckoned for him to come back. Their coats were still unbuttoned.
"We got no backup!" Loach yelled.
It's all on you, Boone told himself and jabbed the first seven steps with the end of the hooligan. The sharp tip found solid wood, so he took those steps before stopping to check the next five. They passed the test, too, except for the top one. He tapped the riser. The wood was spongy, but Boone decided to risk it anyway.
On the landing, he squatted again. He steeled himself against a wall of ferocious heat. Inside the turnouts, he felt his sweat sizzling against the fireproof fabric. He had to get out fast. The suit could protect him from flash hits, but the material itself could get hot enough to give him second-degree burns.
Inside the foyer, smoke ran across the ceiling and flowed down the walls to the floor, where it formed a stew of toxic fumes. One breath of that stuff, and Boone knew he would be a dead man. He stayed low, turning his head to the right and left, trying to hear the screams again.
Self-doubt seeped in. What if it really was another possum? What if he hadn't heard anything at all?
There were three doors. One of them was open, and in the small room, he could make out the clawed feet of an antique bathtub. The other two doors, on either side of the foyer, were closed. One of them had to lead to the attic. That's where he had heard the voice, he was sure. There had been no sound at all until the doghouse window blew out.
But which way? Opening a door in a fire was like lighting a match over charcoal bathed in lighter fluid. If he chose wrong and opened a virgin room, it could result in flashover, causing the whole area to simultaneously combust. Both doors looked exactly the same in the thickening cloud of smoke. The visibility was only a few feet now. He couldn't afford to wait.
He stepped forward onto the landing.
Crack!
Above him, a chunk of plaster the width of an oven door pulled loose from the lathing. It hit the floor in front of him, and he jumped back to the top step.
A second, deeper crack followed, and a beam tore loose from the ceiling. It collapsed onto the landing, spreading fiery debris the length of the hallway. Sparks shot through the smoke, and a handful of embers landed on the sleeve of Boone's coat. He slapped them out quickly and shook the ash to the floor.
The floorboards shuddered under the new weight. Boone knew if he stayed put, the floor was going to collapse and take him with it.
Crack!
Above him, another ceiling joist gave way, and a whole section of ceiling broke free. It swung down like a pendulum, smacking the side of his head before he could react. His helmet flew off, and the mask was pushed askew.
Noxious gas filled his facemask.
He clawed at the mask, trying to reset it, and took a step back into space. His foot searched the air in vain for solid ground, and Boone felt himself teetering. Spit and panic flew out of his mouth, and his arms lashed about like blades in a pinwheel twirling in the wind.
The stairs welcomed his fall.
Boone heard a beeping sound far away. He thought it was the alarm clock, and he lifted his hand to smack the snooze bar. The hand wouldn't move. His eyes wouldn't open, either. It should have bothered him. It didn't. His head felt fuzzy and soft, and there was a warm feeling in his belly that made him only want to sleep.
When he heard the beeping again, he knew it wasn't the alarm clock. The sound was higher pitched and rhythmic. The soft feeling was still there, and after a while, he fell back asleep.
The third time he heard the beeping, it felt like a
chime in his brain. It was sharp and unpleasant, and there was a bitter taste in his mouth. Something was crushing his hand. He wanted to tell someone, but his lips wouldn't move. His tongue was a swollen thing too big to fit in his mouth. He might have gone crazy if it hadn't been for the sound of Lamar's voice nearby. It was warm and low, and he was telling someone a story.
"The worst fire I ever fought? It was about a year before I met you, I reckon. I was still working for the Greenville Fire Department. We'd run out into the backwoods on a call. It was a four-alarm fire, and we were to be relief. When we got there, an old church was ablaze. There was a tank alongside the house, and it glowed as red as our pumper."
Somebody else spoke, asked a question that Boone couldn't make out. Lamar stopped talking, and Boone felt a flash of anger because they had interrupted him. Lamar never told stories, and Boone was afraid that if someone interrupted the flow of his words, the stream would dry up like someone had tightened the nozzle of an attack hose.
"Turns out, we weren't the ready team, we were the strike team, and our target was that heating tank. The captain ordered me to open up with a quarter inch hose to cool off the tank. Steam from the spray condensed my mask and blistered my hands through the gloves. But I couldn't take the hose off the tank for fear that it'd blow all to kingdom come. That's when they hit me in the back with soaker spray. It was touch and go for the better part of an hour, me soaking the tank, them soaking me."
Lamar's voice trailed off.
The next time Boone heard the beep, he woke up soaked in sweat. Light flooded in as he cracked opened his eyes. Mom stood near the doorway of the hospital room, chart in hand, conferring with a man in a white coat. Boone recognized him as their family doctor, the man who once had happily given him a tetanus shot after Boone gouged himself with a rusty screwdriver caked with turtle poop.
On the opposite wall, the TV was tuned to MythBusters, which is one of Cedar's favorites. He wondered if she was watching now. Below the TV, Lamar sat in a green vinyl chair. A book was opened on his lap. He was wearing reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. They were about to slide off. Lamar was a handsome man in a rugged sort of way, so different from Boone's real father in looks and demeanor. By the window Abner stood with his back to Boone. His hands are clasped behind him. He was fiddling his wedding ring, a nervous habit. Why would Abner be nervous?
Boone blinked. The brightness stung his eyes. He tried to swing an arm across his face, but the IV catheter taped to his hand hurt. He yelped softly but loud enough for Mom to hear.
At the sound of his voice, she passed the chart to Dr. Tetanus and rushed to Boone's side. Her mouth opened wide, and she smiled so big that her cheeks turned her eyes into slits decorated with curling eyelashes.
"Hey, Boonster," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking his free hand in hers. "How's my boy?"
"That’s CPO Boonster to you," Boone said after a few seconds. It was garbled because his tongue was thick and his throat raw.
Mom had no trouble translating. "You had us so worried. All of us." She pointed at Lamar, who has nodded off in the chair near the foot of the bed. The ledge of the long window behind Lamar held several large "Get Well Soon" flower arrangements.
"This looks like a funeral home," Boone tried to say. It came out as "Dis wookie wikes funnel ohm."
"Looks like what?" Mom said.
"A funnel dome."
"A funeral home?" Mom said. "Don’t say such things."
Lamar stirred in his chair. "It almost was just that. Those boys from Atamasco saved your life."
"Shh," Mom said. "He's not ready for that yet."
"How long've I been out?" This sounded like English.
"Seven hours, give or take a few minutes."
"I feel weird."
"It's the narcotics. You were hurting earlier, so they sedated you. Gave you a little something to left you get on top of the pain."
"It must be working." Boone tried to sit up. A needle of pain shot from his bellybutton to his left scapula. "Ow."
Mom made his life easier by using the controls to lift the head of the bed. "Take it easy. Bruised ribs from the fall. You've also got a sprained neck and burned lungs. You're lucky to be alive. What were you thinking, Daniel Boone Childress? You rushed into an empty house, the other firefighters said. You risked your life because you thought you heard screaming?"
So much him not being ready for criticism. "I did hear screaming."
"After Lamar had warned you to follow procedure,” Mom said. “Those procedures are in place to save your life, you know."
"Can we do this later?" Boone said. "When you don't sound like you're talking through a can at the end of string?"
"Even with bruised ribs, you're still a smart aleck."
"That's a good sign, ain't it?" Abner said. He wore hiking sandals, canvas pants, and an angler's vest over a T-shirt, and his hair looked more unkempt that normal. He shooed Mom away from the bed. "You’re talking a grown man, not a child."
She sat in a straight back chair next to the bed. "Dad, he's my son."
"I recognize the resemblance. He's also my grandson."
Lamar cut in. "He also did what he knew was wrong. He put himself and the other men in danger."
Abner stared him down. "I guess it depends on your interpretation."
"Rules and regulations aren't open to interpretation, Dr. Zickafoose."
"Sure they are."
"Not mine."
Boone tried to whistle to shut then up, but he only managed to spit on himself. “What happened after I got hurt?”
Lamar gave him the technical details. “The structure was a total loss. The house was in the Frisco VFD’s district so we had containment duty. No other injuries were reported, only yours. I completed preliminary reports on the—”
“Did anybody search the site for victims?”
“We did a visual search,” Lamar said. "The fire marshal office is following up later."
“Just a visual? You only looked around?”
Lamar shook his head slowly, as if to say, will this boy ever get it through his thick skull? “The debris wasn’t stable enough to risk any more injuries.”
He wanted to know how Eugene and his boys had arrived so soon, but between the meds and Lamar's bad mood, he decided not to press the issue.
For now.
Mom pinched Boone’s chin and gave it a shake. “Let it go, Boonster. You’re hurt. Your body’s got a lot of mending to do, and it will happen faster if you set you mind at ease. Doctor’s orders.”
“Stop calling me Boonster.”
“It’s better than possum.” She straightened the sheets and blankets at the foot of the bed. “We do have a dilemma. You’ll need to spend the next couple of days resting. Lamar and I have work commitments, so we need someone to watch over you.”
“A babysitter?”
“More like a day nurse.”
“I’ll be fine by myself.”
Boone didn’t know if it was the drugs speaking or the need he suddenly felt to escape hospitalization. Other people like to be fussed over but not him. No thanks, he could take care of himself.
“Think again, buster,” Mom said. “Once the meds wear off, you are going to notice some serious pain. We need someone to check your vitals, feed you, and control your dosages.”
“How about putting one of those paper cones around my neck, too? To keep me from chewing on my bandages.”
“That can be arranged,” Mom said, “if you don’t stop chewing on me.”
“I’ll check in on him,” Cedar said as she walked into the room. “Since he went to so much trouble to get out of an appointment with me.”
“Yeah!” Boone pumped a fist. Then he groaned. Sudden moments weren’t a good idea. “Mom, this is Cedar—“
“No need to introduce her,” Mom said. “Her beagle’s one of my patients. Hello, Cedar. How are you?”
Introductions and greetings were passed around, ending wit
h Cedar reiterating that she would be glad to keep an eye on Boone until he felt better.
Mom exchanged a quick look with Lamar. “Thanks, Cedar, that’s very kind of you.”
Then something dawned on Boone. “How did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t at first,” Cedar said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “I was already in the waiting room, and the nurses were talking about a cute but stupid firefighter who got hurt. I knew it had to be you.”
Boone knitted his brow. “Why were you in the waiting room?”
"Luigi's in the hospital, too,” she said, sniffing. “He was attacked walking home."
Cedar had been crying. She tried to cover it up with makeup. That was her first mistake because she never wore makeup, and she wasn’t very practiced at applying it. The shade she had applied was too dark for her complexion. It made the area under her eyes look like dual pink half moons.
“Dr. Zickafoose,” Lamar said as he rose easily from the chair. “How about a Pepsi?”
“I’m a Co-Cola man myself.”
“I’m buying.”
“Let me get my coat.”
He grabbed his jacket, and the two men made room for Cedar.
“What happened to Luigi?” he said. “How is he?”
Cedar explained that after leaving Boone and Cedar last night, he had set off down Highway 12. He ran against traffic on the edge of the pavement. A car came speeding around the bend. The driver flicked the lights from low beams to high. The sudden light threw Luigi off balance as he stepped from the pavement to the shoulder. His foot sank into a mound of loose sand, and he tripped, falling headlong into the beams.
The driver slammed on the brakes. Wisps of smoke rose into the light of the taillights, and Luigi thought for a moment that they were stopping to help him. Until he saw three doors open and four people piled out. They carried plastic baseball bats and wore George Bush masks and blood-red, long-sleeved shirts.
"Look boys," the smallest of the Clintons said, "the pork chop fell down and he can't get up. Stupid Mexican."
