To Protect & Serve (26 page)

“We need more hoses up on twelve. Go up the right wing stairs. We’ve got to get that smoke contained if we’re going to get anyone above that thing out.”

“Got it,” Gabe said before leading the charge back to the truck where they each grabbed several lengths of hose.

“Go! Go! Go!” someone yelled from one side as people from the building raced out past them.

Through the commotion Jeff heard the distinct sound of a hand slapping the side of a nearby ambulance, which sprang to life and began picking its way through the emergency vehicles choking the street. How many people had already gotten out? More importantly, how many were still above those flames? “God, please be with us. We’re going to need all the help You can give us with this one.”

From the first floor to the tenth, they had to fight traffic. People, some holding small children, some old, some young—all with that look of bewildered panic etched on their faces filed down the stairs to the left.
Stay right, and keep climbing
, Jeff told himself, wishing he could calm the terror in every eye he passed. However, at the tenth floor the mass of people slowed and then stopped altogether.

Jeff hoped the other stairwell was jam-packed to overflowing with people coming down from above because not a single, solitary soul was coming down this one. The smoke, gray and menacing, caused them to have to stop on the tenth to put on their masks. Then through the growing smoke they proceeded up, and for the first time Jeff noticed the slippery stairs. At least the sprinklers were going to give them some help. However, the smoke pouring out of the eleventh floor door was like a blinding blanket that only got worse the higher they went. Anyone that ventured into it without a mask and air would surely succumb before they got below it.

“Baker and Stevens, you set up at the front, Miller and Jameson start left and get anybody out you find. Jeff, you’re with me,” Gabe yelled through his mask. “Let’s go!”

When Gabe opened the door, it was like running headlong into a broiler. Even through the fire suit Jeff felt the flames heating their way into his skin. They entered a hallway pock-marked with blazing carpet as pieces of flaming ceiling dropped like rain from above. It was then that Jeff noticed the absence of water accompanying the downpour. He looked up, and the fact that the sprinklers were dryer than the carpet swept fear right over the top of him.

He didn’t have time for fear though, so he picked his way behind Gabe through the flames to the wall on the far end of the hallway, leaving the others to their tasks.

Fourteen minutes and counting before the air ran out.

At their end of the hall a flaming set of boxes stood on either side of the exit. Whoever had been carrying them down wouldn’t have to worry about coming to get the rest, but for those trying to get out, they closed off one more route to safety. That thought made his hands work that much faster when they found the wall water supply valve.

Gabe threw the hose onto the floor and grabbed one end. “I’ll get it hooked up, get some water on that mess.”

Without question, Jeff grabbed the other end, stretched it as straight as he could and then turned to aim the water at the flames shooting up from the boxes. The wait for water seemed interminable to the point that he almost dropped the hose to go see what was wrong. However, just before he did, he heard the screams from the other side of the door where he stood. Turning to it, he glanced down the hallway to the nearest good escape, but all he could see were fire-blurred figures moving like ghosts. It was true. These people hadn’t gotten out. They were trapped, and they would die unless…

The water gushed out of the hose, knocking him a step backward, and immediately he aimed it at the carpet in front of the door as Gabe appeared at his side.

“No, at the exit!” Gabe yelled.

“There’s someone in there!” Jeff yelled back, knowing how much smoke was already choking through that apartment. “Get them out first!”

The two feet in front of the door cleared, and Gabe rushed past Jeff. It took one shoulder for the door to give way for Gabe, and Jeff saw only the figures, huddled next to the ground just before a section of the ceiling behind them crashed down. A scream jumped to his ears. “Get them out! I’ll get this!” He saw Gabe’s hesitation. “I’m all right. Just get them out! I’ll get this exit cleared!”

Determination coupled with training surged on him as he proceeded back down the hall, aiming the water across the heat pulsating at him from the now-unrecognizable heap of boxes. If he could just get that passageway open, they would have a chance.

As the flames engulfing the boxes surged upward crumbling what was left of the cardboard, Jeff heard the crack above him. Instinctively he jumped sideways as three sheets of ceiling tile crashed to the carpet behind him. Flames tore through the unburned carpet reaching for the ceiling as he fought to keep his balance and his sanity. “Don’t think about that. Just get this one open.”

More water and the flames on the boxes subsided and then died. Quickly he spun around and doused the ceiling and then the floor down the other direction, creating a semi-safe passage. In the next breath he reached over and tried the door to his left. It swung open. “Anybody in here? Hey!”

No answer. He wanted to go in and check, but there wasn’t time. The fire lining the hallway was gaining ground although the hose was doing all it could to keep it at bay. Forcing the water to clear the path in front of him, he snaked to the right. With a foot he kicked at the door as a small beeping penetrated the other sounds around him. Air was running out, as was time. “Anybody in here?” Again no answer although the fact that most of that apartment was already orange with flames as more of the ceiling dropped into it didn’t escape his consciousness. He prayed that whoever had been in there had made it out. That thought pulled him forward as the beeping in his ear became more persistent. With a kick he opened the next door.

“Jeff!” a blurry ghost said, stepping out of the flames like a nightmare come true. “Company 3 can take it. We’ve got air in the stairwell.”

He didn’t want to release the hose, but the beeping could not be ignored. Carefully he handed the hose off, and then fairly running alongside Gabe, they raced back to the far stairwell as Jeff’s brain ticked off the number of doors still not open. By the time he was at the exit, his brain had stopped counting for fear that he would completely give up hope. Down one flight and then the next they ran as his lungs began to scream as loud as the tank on his back. On the eighth floor they met up with both air bottles and another team of fully geared figures who were preparing to brave the inferno above. The last one was just donning his mask as Jeff yanked his off, gasping in the air. “Dustin?”

“You going back up?” Dustin asked even as Jeff changed the bottles on his back.

“Twelve,” Jeff said as he clicked the hoses together, grabbed his mask, and pulled it back on.

“Then I guess I’m following you,” Dustin said, and in tandem the four of them started back up the stairs.

This time there were a few people coming down the other way with firefighters for escorts, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

Hell could’ve been no worse, Jeff thought when they reentered the firestorm eating its way through floor 12. Other firefighters had raced past them on the stairs, up to the other unseen floors. He didn’t want to think about how many floors were above them or what state those other floors were in. This one was horror enough.

Waves of heat made the movement of the other teams resemble mere mirages. Back across the burning carpet, over the mounds of fallen ceiling, they stepped, picking their way back to their replacements.

“Go get some air!” Gabe yelled at the one he grabbed the hose from.

For the first time hope surged through Jeff. The other exit door was now open as were more of the apartment doors. That had to be a good sign. It had to be. One door, two, he opened, walking into them far enough to satisfy the dread in him that someone wasn’t still in there trapped.

Seven, eight more doors and this floor would be cleared. He banged through the next door calling his familiar, “Anybody in here?” ahead of him. However, an eerie silence met him, and he stopped. Listened. He felt the sound more than he heard it before he ducked back into the hallway. “This one might have someone!”

Stepping across the threshold, he followed the pounding of his heart into the darkened apartment. Strange, after all the others that the flames hadn’t touched this one. Back, back, into the black of the apartment until he found a door. He twisted the knob and pushed, but it gave only a fraction of an inch. It wasn’t locked, but still it didn’t open. “Fire department! Open up!”

“Just a second!” came the whimper from the other side. A pause and the door swung open to reveal a bent, frightened, gray-headed woman and two small children. The bathroom looked much like any other would in the middle of the night—nothing like the tomb it would’ve been had he not come to check.

“Hang on!” Jeff said, and he raced back to the hallway. “I need help over here!”

“You got somebody?” Dustin asked, stepping over the mound of flames on the hallway floor from the door he had just come out of.

“Three.” Together they raced through the apartment to the bathroom. When they got back to the door, one of the children sent up a helpless scream. It was a sound destined to be etched in the center of Jeff’s soul forever. “No. No. Sweetheart. It’s okay. We’re going to get you out.” Knowing the nightmares she would now have forever about this very moment, he picked her up and watched Dustin stand to hand him the boy.

“Get them out. I’ll get her,” Dustin commanded.

A nod, and Jeff was running through the apartment. He had made it just out of the apartment’s front door when a sickening crack sounded behind him.
Run!
was his only thought. How heavy the two figures clutching him were, he couldn’t tell, but it was as though they weighed nothing for his feet could have moved no faster. To the stairwell and down he raced as heavy smoke rose all around him. Somewhere around the fourth flight down, he realized that both children were crying. “Hang on. I’ll get you out. Just hang on to me.”

The instruction wasn’t necessary. They could’ve held on no tighter had they tried. He was nearing the bottom when finally he ran into a group of firefighters just as the beeping began in his ears.

“Could somebody take these two down?” he asked, handing them off. “I need a bottle.” It was in his hand in an instant, and without bothering with conversation, he started back up the stairs. It was crazy to make the change in the smoke. However, he wanted to get as high as he could before he had to switch them out. Higher, higher, and then as the smoke again increased around him, a thought hit him. He should’ve already met Dustin on the way down. Snap, snap went the hoses on his back as terror took over his motions. With a clank he set the old bottle next to the wall, changed it out with the new one, grabbed the handrail, and sprinted back up the stairs into hell.

The hallway was clearer now, but the apartments weren’t so lucky.

“Where’s Dustin?” Jeff asked Gabe who still manned the hose.

“I need someone to take this,” Gabe said.

“Where’s Dustin?” Jeff asked again as Gabe thrust the hose into his hands.

“Who’s Dustin?” Gabe asked, and then his attention snapped back to his tank. “I’ve got to go.” And he started down the hallway as Jeff’s heart screamed after him. Pandemonium reigned around him from firefighters, hoses snaking across each other, mounds of smoldering debris, and the crack
ling of the falling ceilings emitting from every door.

Another firefighter scrambled up close enough for Jeff to call to him. “Hey! Can you take this?”

The air thing. They all knew about it, so without question the man took over the hose. Instantly Jeff turned down the hall. Which one was it again? Rushing into apartment after apartment, he checked each one, looking for the one that looked familiar. Three down, he pushed into one that was lit in a spectacular ball of orange and red. Logically he couldn’t have explained it, but just below logic was the undeniable knowledge that this was the one he was looking for.

Two steps in, he suddenly understood the crack he had heard on his exit. The ceiling or what was left of it hung from the rafters in flaming shreds. Unlike its companions in the other apartments, a whole section had decided to come down in one fell swoop rather than a piece at a time. However, like its companions it had given no warning of its
collapse.

At that moment he heard it—the unmistakable chirping beep of a PASS. Worst case scenario. Firefighter down. Praying he wouldn’t need the help, but taking the precaution anyway, Jeff ducked back into the hallway. “Firefighter down! Firefighter down!”

No more time to summon help. Praying even as the flames shot up from the upholstery in the living room, he stepped through them in the direction of the bathroom and the beeping. “Please, God, where is he?”

By the window the carpet ignited a curtain sending it up in a whoosh that took Jeff’s breath right out of him. It was in that flash that he saw the boot, lying sideways under a pile of flaming ceiling tile. “Oh, God, no!”
Grabbing the first piece he came to, he slung it off of the immobile figure. “Hang on, Dustin, buddy. I’m coming.” A piece. Another. Across the room a second curtain flamed to life. The fire on the tile in his hand seeped its way through the cracks forming in his gloves, searing the skin it found there. “You’re almost out! I’ve almost got you! Hang on, Buddy!”