The Fireman I Loved to Hate by Jenna Gunn
Chapter 18
I glance over at Captain. He’s asleep in his armchair, feet up on the footstool, fingers interlaced over his stomach. His mouth is open and erupts with the occasional snore. The remote control sits on the arm of the chair.
I exchange a glance with Ben, who nods solidly at me. Michael does the same. I nod back to let them know the mission is a go.
Looking back at the Captain to ensure he’s truly asleep, I begin my quest. I lean out from my chair and toward the remote control. My hand is stretched out, fingers grasping. If my chair squeaks, the mission is aborted, because he will wake up instantly. This is not my first rodeo.
I’ve stretched as far as I can go, and my fingertips brush the remote. Cap doesn’t budge. I carefully tug the whole thing into my palm. Success!
I sit back just as slowly, so I don’t squeak the chair. Brandishing the remote over my head in a silent victory, I receive air fist pumps and air claps from my fans, all grateful there will be no more Bonanza today. Bridges shakes his head at me and goes back to his crossword. He relinquished control of his TV years ago.
I turn it to the teen drama we’re obsessed with, and Cap snorts and sits up. “I was watching that.”
I groan, and the crew joins me.
Tara says, “Come on, Cap, it’s Bonanza. It’s always a re-run.”
“All units!” Terri’s voice crackles the radio to life, and she sounds stressed far more than usual.
I immediately press the mute button, and we all listen with rapt attention. An “All units” is never a good sign.
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Preparing for a fire is always strange. We move like a well-oiled machine into our suits, file into the right vehicles, swing ourselves into our positions. Bridges cranks the rig into life, before the ear-piercing sirens scream above. We follow Ben’s truck out of the garage and onto the road.
There isn’t much traffic, thank goodness. I hate the traffic-heavy calls. I haven’t personally been in an auto collision in the rig, but I know others who have, and it’s rough. Fire trucks don’t have a lot of room for error, and when one thing goes wrong, everything else does. Not to mention whoever you were called to help is absolutely boned if you’re crammed into the side of a car.
Bridges and I sit in the gray silence of radio chatter and wailing sirens. We don’t talk on the way to a fire. We’re both in our heads, preparing for what’s to come.
This one is a big fire. A warehouse. Cap’s voice flies out of the radio to tell us we’re taking offense, meaning we’re entering the building. There are workers still trapped inside.
That’s my job. My focus.
Shockingly, we’re the first unit on scene; a few police cars and ambulances are scattered around the parking lot. The flames caress the roof and walls, and my mind goes into my meditative, hyper-focused state, while I slide out of the truck and get to work.
Protocols are executed by muscles who know their job. Bridges, Cap, and the others begin to prepare the hoses, while I run to the building itself. “How many inside?” I ask the radio in my helmet.
“Report says six,” Cap responds.
“What kind of warehouse is this?”
“Mechanical, from the sound of it. Caution.”
“Roger.” Six is a lot to rescue, but they belong to me, not the fire. Mechanical could go a lot of ways. Could be full of equipment or chemicals, but I didn’t hear any calls for industrial units, so we’re probably safe from the chemical element.
Probably.
The building itself is square, flat, and low to the ground. It would go unnoticed, were it not covered in fire. The main entryway is compromised. Window.
I’m not in my body anymore. I’m along for the ride. My voice sounds foreign when I relay information to the unit. Protocol is to keep them informed of my location at all times, so they know where to concentrate their work. My arms pull out my axe and swing it to smash the window.
My body climbs through the newly opened window and lands solidly onto the flat concrete floor. I’ve been transported into Hell.
Smoke soars against exposed steel rafters. Whatever mechanical goods were here are now roasted and half melted in spots. Everything glows red, orange, or black. The fire eats cardboard boxes, their contents pop and snap.
I shout, “Anybody here?” and look for signs of life nearby. Nothing. High above the warehouse floor, at the east side of the building, there’s a metal staircase with a wooden handrail leading up to what I imagine is an office. I call on the radio for ladders to the east high window.
But the response isn’t from the radio.
It’s from an old man, curled up in a forklift. A hardhat and flame-retardant vest offer some protection, but he’s too close to the scaffolding. The pallet load on the fork is burning and spreading. He can’t get out safely.
I rush to him, shouting for his attention so he stays put until I get there. I’m on the forklift before he can budge. I yank him out of the seat and haul him over my shoulders, then carry him out the broken window.
He coughs and shouts, “There are more people inside!”
“I’m on it,” I start for the window, but Bridges is there, backlit by even more firetrucks.
“You got enough O2?”
“I’m good.”
Bridges nods and takes the man to the ambulances, I assume. I’m inside the warehouse before I see him get there. I go deeper inside. One down, five to go.
I find another worker under some wet boxes and haul him outside. As I carry him, I wonder if I’ll ever get to ask him whether he was the one who wetted the boxes, or if it was a fortunate coincidence. Wet cardboard doesn’t burn well at all. Four.
The ceiling cracks above when I go back in. It won’t hold for long. One hiding in the washroom. She’s fast on her feet-I don’t have to carry her for half the trip to the window, but when the flames close in on us, it’s the shoulders for her. Pantyhose can leave nasty burns on the legs. Three.
I see the sky through parts of the ceiling this time. Not good. I call out again and hear a woozy, “HEY!” A man under a table. He’s frail and old, and I’m half concerned I’ll break him. But broken bones heal better than burns. I cradle him until we get to the window, then it’s over the shoulder for mobility through the window. Two.
Smoldering debris falls in sheets from the ceiling. Ashy explosions pop on my right. Things that hadn’t burnt yet are now catching fire from the ceiling’s collapsing parts. In a fire, everything moves, so you have to listen for actual voices, not look for movement. But sometimes, twisting metal can sound like people, too. I spot movement, before I can call to it, and an I-beam falls in front of me, narrowly missing my head and boots.
A warning.
I shout, “Hello!”
“HELP!” the mystery shape responds.
I run to it, hiding beneath some random scaffolding. They’re not burnt, but coughing and wheezing, while smoking puffs out the mouth. It’s a woman, and she reaches desperately for me as I arrive. “Mr. Greene,” she chokes out and points to the office.
I can’t even see the staircase anymore, much less the office.
“Pull your collar over your nose,” I tell her. She’s in jeans, so I guide her to my window instead of carrying her. Jeans don’t burn easily. Halfway there, a cracking sound above takes my attention. An enormous piece of ceiling plummets toward us.
I shove her out of the way. She stumbles and falls but misses out of getting whacked in the head by the debris. Like me.
Embers burst against my mask, and everything becomes blinding flashes and heavy smoke. I grab nearby scaffolding and it is almost too hot to hold, even with my gloves. My head aches from its own weight. Is my mask loose? I’m not sure.
“Are you okay?” the woman shouts.
I nod and ashes fall from my helmet and grace my jacket. “I’m fine, come on!” If I didn’t already know where the window was, I’d be lost. The smoke has blanketed it, and I know the flames are coming next for the hole. I give her a boost over the edge and another firefighter helps her over.
I ask the firefighter for a ladder and she finds me one. I can’t risk the staircase’s integrity giving out. I shoot off for the office again.
One to go.
My body wants to quit. But we don’t quit anything, I tell it. I push us to where we last saw the staircase. The wooden railing is burning. The staircase is only a guide to get me to the office. I follow the fire railing up to where the office probably still is. There’s no debris below it.
I prop the ladder up to the office window and realize there are other firefighters in with me. Weird. They’re supposed to announce when you have help joining you.
I begin climbing and my muscles tell me to take a nap instead. After carrying four people, they think they should get a rest. I tell them again, We don’t quit anything.
At the top of the ladder, I pull out my axe again and smash the huge window. Glass rains down on a desk and computer. The east half of the room is raging in flames. In the far corner, a small bald man is fighting with a smaller metal door.
I shout. “That’s hot!” but he’s trying for it, anyway. People don’t use logic when they think they’ll burn to death. “Mr. Greene?”
He nods and shouts, “I need the safe!”
“Not if you’re dead!”
“I need it!” He spasms into a coughing fit. I grab him but have to yank him from his grip on the safe. “NO!” he shouts and flails, punching my mask.
The seal breaks and smoke floods in. I choke, my eyes water, and I lock my grip on Mr. Greene’s wrist, then hoist him onto my shoulders. He’s too weak to fight me anymore.
My head swims as I struggle to find the window. Smoke has found the new gap and cloaked it. But I hear the other firefighters at the top of the ladder and see gloved hands come through the smoke. I pass him off like a bag of dog food and he vanishes into the black. Then my footing trembles.
I’m not getting enough air. My mask is compromised, but it’s almost always a bad idea to take your mask off, so I leave it in place. Office ceiling is disappearing to the office floor, which is beginning to shake. Stars pop in my vision. I’m so damned tired…
We don’t quit. When I can’t hear Mr. Greene shouting and coughing about his safe anymore, I know the top of the ladder is clear. My knees wobble and my hips try to buckle, as I pull myself through the window. Below me, the firefighter descends to the warehouse floor and gets Mr. Greene out. My job is done. Zero. I step to the next rung, and it snaps beneath my foot.
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