Clean Romance: Loves of Tomorrow (Contemporary New Adult and College Amish Western Culture Romance) (Urban Power of Love Billionaire Western Collection Time Travel Short Stories)

by Unknown

  Alfons Aldenkamp—lovingly called Fons, went on to inform Heir Abrahams, “It is a fire, in high-blaze Heir Abrahams, it looks to be either the Van Der Veen or Johannsen home from here. God help them if they are still inside. I must be off Heir Abrahams, I’m needed.”

  With those few words, Fons takes off running into the night, with Heir Abrahams understanding his abruptness without explanation. Fons jumps into his buggy and rides purposely down the path.

  The headlights on Fons’ coach lights the way through the moonless night as he passes by other buggies heading toward the fire as Fons flees in the opposite direction. However, with blue lights flashing on top of Fons’ buggy, they all give him the right-of-way on the single lane, dirt road.

  Fons, an Amish firefighter, made it quickly to the community fire station where he works. He’s off duty tonight, but having seen the size of the fire just after the alarm, he knows that he’ll be needed to battle this monster-blaze. Fons estimates that it’s a three-alarm fire and plans to hop aboard one of the trucks as they head out to the emergency.

  While donning his firefighting gear, Fons recalls smelling the fire, that merged with his dream—which was bordering on being a nightmare as it was so real and frightening.

  In the dream, Fons was in a very large building with many rooms. He found himself separated from his team, flames were all around him and some billowed above him too. His self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) was not working. Suddenly Fons began to search from room to room for a way out, just before he needed a breath, he was awakened by the community bell. Fons was a little shaken by the memory, so he offered up a silent prayer of protection as he triple checked his equipment.

  Minutes later, the English Fire and Rescue vehicles are en route to the scene. Fons is one of only two Amish members at this station in the heart of Amish farmland. As the trucks and SUVs race to the site of the fire, they notice that the flames were unusually high for a structure with no flammable materials like carpet or other stored combustibles.

  If Mr. Johannsen has any combustibles, they would surely be in the barn and not in the home. As they approach, the fire-site looked like the burning pit of hell itself. Even the front yard and crops behind the house are on fire.

  Alfons drops his head in a thirty-second prayer after he counts only three Johannsens on the side of the road. They can be seen crying in agony, pacing like wild animals in a cage, and calling out the names of their missing loved ones. Febe, the youngest girl, Felix and Filip, her older brothers, Femke the oldest sister, and Ferdi Johannsen’s names are being screamed into the night by family and friends.

  In the lights of the emergency vehicles, Fons can see Ilsa Johannsen holding her youngest child—Faas, a boy who looks just like his Vader—father in Pennsylvania Dutch. Her son Frits is sitting at her feet screaming, and looking from left to right as if trying to make sense of what he is seeing and feeling.

  Fons’ heart catches in his throat when he does not see the angel-like girl who is Femke. The fright from his bad dream, the adrenaline from the task at hand, and his full heart hold Fons’ mind in a state of fear because he’s not sure if Femke is missing or just not at home.

  Fons prays that Femke is still on rumspringa, though by his calculations, and the other friends screaming her name, she should have arrived home yesterday. Fons continues to hope against hope that he’s wrong.

  “Ignaas, find out from the family what we’re dealing with, how many are accounted for or missing, what’s stored in the house and barn; you know the routine. Mike, Fons, and Danny, take hose three around back to make your sweep of the house,” the captain yells.

  “Looks like whatever started this fire didn’t plan for anyone to make it out to me. Or maybe I should say whoever!” the English fire captain says to no one in particular.

  “Right Captain,” the three men yell before grabbing their hose, pulling the SCBAs over their faces, and running toward the back of the house where only part of the ground is burning; unlike the front yard which is awash in flames.

  “Nice and steady on me boys”, Mike says through the respirator radio set, in the lead position he can see the fire they must tread to enter the house and wants tries to give the men resolve to keep moving forward into the flames. The three men bravely run through waist-high flames as they enter the home, which a lesser man would run awayfrom. They are completely unaware of the rapidly closing exit behind them.

  *****

  The backyard and rows of crops are slowly forming a lake of fire to the rear of Mike and his team. Up ahead, they see the flames on every wall, every ceiling, and every crevice of the Johannsen home. Family photos that Fons knows to be in place are now covered by a layer of flames. “This fire is too hot, I am sure there is an accelerant at work here”, Fons thinks but will not say outloud for fear of being wrong.

  They walk down the hall and peer into each room. There is no need to go inside to look for signs of life since every room looks like a box of fire, in which nothing living could survive.

  “Mike!” The radio comes alive with the sound of the captain’s voice. “The back of the house is completely engulfed in flames; your only way out is through the front door. Make it fast because that option is rapidly closing and your roof is fully involved in the fire now. You copy?”

  “Roger that Captain, we’re looking for an egress now, over.”

  “Copy—Captain out! Come on guys, the clock is ticking, make it quick, you need to get out of there.” The Captain mutters into the wind to release nervous energy.

  Having scanned each room, Mike, the team leader, peeks out of the kitchen window to see which route to take after they exit through the front door. Seeing flames as high as six feet out front, Mike still motions his men forward knowing that they run the risk of a flashover or being trapped by the roof if they try to make their way back to the rear entry. Mike is as seasoned as they get with more than 20-years in the department, but he feels a pang of fear over getting his men out alive.

  The team’s luck runs out in the seconds that it takes Mike to choose an escape route. A large section of the roof collapses into the room. Fons jumps back to miss the debris and just like in his dream, he is separated from his team by rubble.

  Mike and Danny whirl the hose around, pointing it in the direction where they all once stood, as the raging flames lick at their face masks while they desperately work to keep the fire from engulfing Fons. “Fons, Fons, come in!” Mike yells in a controlled voice, suppressing his fear for the rookie.

  “I’m alright, I’m looking for a way out!”

  Everyone on comms can hear the slight tension in Fons’ voice. Anyone not directly involved in extinguishing the fire or creating an exit for their three brothers trapped inside has begun whispering prayers, and words of encouragement into the night.

  “Come on Fons, you can find a way out buddy.”

  “Let’s go boys get the hell outta there.”

  “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,” the firefighters pray.

  There in the room surrounded by flames, Fons has a flashback to his dream where he was reliving an actual event; a nearly fatal fire from three years ago.

  During Fons’ 10th fire call he was separated from the team and had to hack his way through an exterior facing wall while his colleagues chopped at it from the outside.

  Meanwhile, Fons made a rookie mistake—not trusting his equipment. He was able to breathe fine with his SCBA, but the panic caused him to believe that he had no fresh air and was suffocating inside his mask, so he pulled it off. Fons suffered some minor smoke inhalation before being rescued by a fire team, but it shook him to his core.

  Only, Fons never had a flashback on the job before, they always came in the middle of the night when he was safe and sound in his own bed. So tonight’s nightmare was still fresh in his psyche when the flames and isolation activated a Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) trigger and a
corresponding flashback. Fons had to fight the wave of panic that seemed to engulf him more fiercely than the flames surrounding him.

  By now the sound of the fire is deafening to Fons, even under his layers of equipment. The fire appears to be roaring, popping, hissing, and screaming at him. He knows that if he is going to survive he needs to think his way out of this predicament. Suddenly, the answer comes to him.

  “If I cannot go forward or backward, and left and right are equally bad options, I have no choice but to go up”, Fons said into his radio.

  Fons begins to climb the pile of what used to be the roof covering the front of the house. Inch by inch, using his firefighter’s ax much as a mountain climber uses an ice ax, Fons heaves his way out of the inferno. When his engine company hears him over the radio saying that he’s making his way up and out all efforts are trained on clearing the flames from what’s left of the roof. Every man, woman, and child watching the blaze has their eyes trained on the roof.

  Mike and Danny back their way out of the building and fix their eyes on the gaping hole that was the roof also. When Fons emerges out of the pit of fire, there is a firetruck with a cherry picker, waiting to take him to the ground. As the ladder and bucket lower Fons back to the earth, he removes his SCBA and takes a deep breath of natural air; feeling grateful to be alive.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” the Captain says as he high-fives the firefighter to his left.

  “Fons, great work in there. Way to keep your head and find your own exit out of that piece of nasty business. How are you feeling?” the fire captain says as Fons steps warily out of the cherry picker.

  Fons coughs profusely before saying, “I’m alright Captain how are Mike and Danny?”

  “They’re both fine, not a scratch on ‘em. You get yourself over to the medics and get checked out.” Before Fons could protest the Captain barks, “That’s an order!”

  “Yes, sir Captain!” Fons says disappointedly. He desperately wants to go inquire about the Johannsen family’s condition. The thought of those sweet children, Mr. Johannsen, and his Femke burning to death in the flames makes Fons’ knees buckle as he tries to walk away, with tears streaming unseen down his face, hidden by sweat, soot, and the dark of night.

  “Woe, nice and steady buddy. You doin’ alright? Where are you headin’?” a voice that appears out of the dark shouts to him. As Fons’ head clears itself of grief and fatigue, he recognizes the sound of Rick’s voice.

  Rick is old enough to be Fons’ own father but he’s built like Paul Bunyan—6’6’’ tall, 300 pounds of rock hard muscle, and capable of running with a grown man over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry position.

  Fons has been weightlifting with Rick at the firehouse and has developed quite a physique himself—although not as bulky as Rick’s, he has managed to cultivate a hard, lean, sculpted body on his own 6’3” frame.

  Being a modest Amish man, Fons’ love of exercise and body sculpting is purely for his work as a firefighter—or so he tells himself.

  At the moment, Fons’ hard body is of little use to him. The adrenaline is wearing off, muscle fatigue is setting in, and the grief of losing members of his community is weighing on him. Rick’s supportive shoulder keeping Fons up and on his feet is a welcome feeling to Fons on many levels.

  “I’m heading over to the medics,” Fons says.

  “I’ll walk with you if that’s alright. You did good tonight kid, I’m proud of you,” Rick said in a fatherly tone. Fons appreciates the interaction, as his own father is ashamed of his son’s profession.

  When Fons expressed that he wanted to help his community by saving lives and property as a firefighter, Fons’ father accused him of only wanting glory and praise.

  He chastised Fons for ‘wanting to be seen by the community’ and for ‘constantly needing to bring attention to himself”, as his father put it. Fons wished that his own father was there to say ‘well done my son’, but he knows that he will never hear those words from his father, or any member of the Amish community. But at this moment what he needs to hear more than anything is that Femke has been found unharmed.

  Fons’ thoughts of Femke are interrupted by the Captain bellowing out orders indicating which truck was going back to the station and which was staying to watch over the smoky mess which was once the Johannsen family home. Fons is too tired to sleep and too worried to leave. He paces and watches and searches the faces among the onlookers for Femke.

  *****

  As the sun rises on the smoldering farmhouse, a large white tent is being erected for the Johannsen family’s temporary shelter. Amish men can be seen already pouring over floorplans for a new, identical home for the family. English firefighters and police forensic experts are picking through smoking rubble. And, Amish women are preparing food at wooden tables. Everyone is busy fulfilling their role, keeping busy at moving forward.

  The two surviving Johannsen children, who are thankfully too young to understand what’s happening, beyond the sight of their family home burning to ashes, are safely away at the home of their maternal grandparents.

  Ilsa Johannsen, stricken by grief and shock, is in an English hospital. She hasn’t spoken more than gibberish in several hours now. Incoherent sentences comprised of lucent phrases and the babbling of a grieving wife and mother pour out of her without end, amid streams of tears and occasional laughter. A sad case—to be sure.

  The nurses tending to Ilsa wonder how she will be able to go on after such a horrific loss, yet route for her to find a way. Ilsa’s fractured psyche is stuck somewhere between remembering her family as it was before they went to bed the night before, and how horribly changed it has become.

  No sign of any of the missing Johannsens can be found so far, and it is unlikely that any will be located in the future. Even metal items melted from the intense heat of last night’s fire. Forensics confirmed that a large quantity of accelerant was used inside and outside of the home.

  Investigators are already asking, who would want to harm this Amish family so badly that they would douse an entire yard and home with chemicals?

  No one, Amish or English seems to have any answers or theories on possible motives. By all accounts, Mr. Johannsen is a quiet man, a little stubborn, but fair in his dealings. He is very devout, and a loving father people are saying. His wife Ilsa is said to be the same.

  Fons finds himself walking aimlessly around the site of the fire, still in his firefighting gear from the night before. His heart is breaking into a million pieces with every step. Fons realizes that Femke is gone to be with the Lord and that he will never have the chance to tell her that he loves her.

  In fact, Femke barely knows that Fons is alive, for the community has said if any girl will leave this Amish life behind, it will be the wild and corrupted Femke.

  Femke Johannsen is the apple of her father’s eye and the spitting image of her mother Ilsa. Some of the community leaders say that she’s too beautiful for her own good. That a wild beauty like Femke could cause good men to sin in thought if not deed.

  All of the Amish women have thrown daggered eyes in Femke’s direction at one time or another after catching their husband or sweetheart staring a little too long at the girl. If you’d ask Femke, she’d say that she’s an ugly duckling. She has often cried about this to her younger sister Febe, who at three years old, is too young to understand.

  A tearful Femke could be heard saying, “Oh Febe, how could it be that I am so disliked and considered so ugly that no one will even look at me?

  “You’re beautiful Sister, I want to look just like you when I grow up too,” Little Febe replies.

  “Thankfully you look like Father Febe. But, I look just like our mother and she is beautiful to me. I have even heard the others say so.”

  She could also be heard saying, “But me, I only get disgusted looks from the women and girls. And, I am so ugly that they care not to even be my friend. Boys only look at me when they think I cannot see them. As
soon as I try to return their gaze they turn away, lest they are forced to speak to me to be polite. If it were not for my family I would be all alone in this world.”

  “Poor Sister, do not cry, I love you,” Febe says through her own tears of compassion for her sister’s plight. She showers the elder sister with hugs and kisses until Femke giggles with joy. Soon, Femke forgets her loneliness and thoughts of being an unattractive outcast.

  But Fons doesn’t think Femke is ugly, he finds her to be ‘the most beautiful creature I have ever seen’, and he says so to himself every time that he sees her. Thinking that he will never see her again causes him to cry again. This time, his tears will not be hidden by sweat and soil. So overcome by grief, Fons falls to his knees and sobs uncontrollably.

  A nearby detective sees the firefighter and comes over to give aid to a grieving, fellow civilservant. “Hey, brother, you okay?” Detective Price asks as he places a firm hand on Fons’ shoulder.

  Fons, so in need to talk about his loss to someone begins to unload on the detective. Unable to hear him clearly because of the surrounding noise and Fons’ crying, Detective Price kneels down to get eye-level with Fons.

  Fons stares into Detective Price’s eyes, needing to truly be heard and understood. Realizing that telling this stranger would be his only opportunity to say how he feels, for he certainly could not tell anyone in the Amish community, Fons decides that he would tell the stranger everything. Fons begins to speak as Detective Price listens intently.

  “The woman that I love died here last night and I could not save her. I could not save her family. She has gone to be with our Lord and I never had the courage to tell Femke that I love her.”