Chapter Eleven
Phil
For the first time in what felt like forever, my life felt complete. My work gave me purpose and Megan gave me hope. After the shaky start our first date had taken, things got considerably better. After I had opened up to her and shared my past with her, I felt a wall come down between us that I hadn’t even known was there. My mind was at peace, and I started to envision a future that included Megan.
It was all happening very fast; my emotions were speeding ahead of me, but I just couldn’t help it. Megan calmed me down and excited me all in the same breath. Everything was more enjoyable now because I knew I could share it with her.
Which was not to say that I didn’t have my set of worries. I worried all the time that my job would take its toll on our relationship. We were only a couple of weeks in, and I hadn’t seen able to schedule a second date with her yet.
We still spoke all the time, and she told me she understood. But it was still early into things, and I knew from experience that patience was not something that lasted indefinitely. I was arranging the equipment when the emergency alert went off.
“We’re up!” Kendrick yelled as he jumped into action.
Immediately, my mind jumped into firefighter mode, and everything else dropped out of my head. My only priority now was getting to where we needed to as fast as possible and handling the situation as quickly as possible. Engine twenty was ready for us, and Ryan, Mel, and Kendrick helped me load up the truck. Within six minutes, we were suited up and en route.
“What are we dealing with?” I asked Mel.
“Tenement fire,” Mel replied. “The building on Pike.”
I felt my body grow cold. “Squatter Pike?” I asked, using the better-known nickname for the tenement.
“That’s the one,” Ryan nodded grimly.
“There must be over twenty homeless families living in that building,” I said.
No one said anything. We all knew how high the stakes were. It wasn’t just a matter of getting there in time and putting out the fire. If we miscalculated, if we made a mistake, people would die. In addition to which the building was coming apart at the seams…it wouldn’t be able to withstand a big fire. As we closed in on the tenement, I poised myself at the door, ready to jump into action.
Kendrick, Ryan, and I jumped out of the truck and ran towards the building with our equipment in tow. I heard Mel fall back to call for back up. We’d need another team if we were going to put out this fire as fast as possible. I could feel the heat from where I stood; the fire had spread, and I suspected that no one had made the call until it had already done some damage.
The sidewalk and road was filled with onlookers, watching on in horror. Closest to the building were the few people who had managed to get out in time. They were poorly dressed, covered in soot, and clutching on to their loved ones. The men and women who had no one just stood there, looking at the building like some terrible monster rearing its ugly head.
“There are people still in there,” an old woman screamed. “There are kids…they’ll die.”
“Calm down, ma’am,” I told her. “We’re going to do our best to get everyone out.”
“Those poor children,” she screamed as though they were already gone.
Gritting my teeth with determination, I looked over at Ryan. “Let’s read this fire quickly; we need to get in there.”
“Why aren’t you doing anything?” a younger woman screamed. “My children are inside! I went to get milk… my children are inside…”
I felt her scream to the core of my being, but I knew that I couldn’t just run in there without thinking. That was a good way of killing myself—along with her children.
“Okay,” Kendrick said, running up to us. “The fire started on the west side of the building. We need to proceed carefully.”
We locked eyes for a moment in an unspoken understanding of the risk we were about to take. Then we headed into the building. Nearly two hours later, the fire had been put out and smoke was radiating around the building in curling clouds that made me shiver. I sat at the back of the truck, covered in soot and coughing occasionally. I had a blanket wrapped around my body and despite the heat that still radiated all around us, I was cold.
The crying was far off now—they had probably walked her away from the truck, but I could still hear her as though she were standing right next to me. I closed my eyes, but that only made it worse.
“Phil.”
I opened my eyes and saw Mel standing in front of me.
“How is she?” I asked immediately.
“Don’t beat yourself up about that,” he said firmly. “You did a fantastic job in there. Everyone did.”
“It wasn’t enough,” I pointed out.
“They were in the thick of the fire—you were too late before you even set foot in that building.”
“Where is she?” I asked, realizing that I could barely hear her crying now.
Mel looked pale. “They… identified her children’s bodies. They were exactly where she said they would be… they had been taking a nap while she went out for milk.”
“Where is she?” I asked again.
“She insisted she wanted to see their bodies.”
I closed my eyes. “And, they’re actually going to let her?”
“She nearly tore one of the paramedics’ eyes out when they refused,” Mel said.
“The sight of them will haunt her for the rest of her life,” I said, distraught.
“It’s her decision.”
“She’s is no frame of mind to make decisions in the first place,” I said, rising to my feet. “Someone needs to go over there and—”
“Stop,” Mel said, pushing me back into a sitting position. “That is not your place.”
I had seen their bodies. They weren’t even recognizable as human bodies. They were just shapeless mannequins covered in black dust and the smoky smell of burning meat. That was probably the hardest part of it all. Not the way they looked, but the way they smelled. I felt tears sting my eyes and pushed them back fiercely.
“We should have moved faster,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“We responded as soon as we got the call,” Mel pointed out. “We got here within eleven minutes of the call. There’s nothing more we could have done, Phil.”
A piercing, anguished, bone-chilling scream slashed through the air, and I knew instinctively she had seen their bodies…their tiny, burnt, unrecognizable bodies. They no longer had faces or features or hair; everything had been burnt off them, leaving behind only empty shells, husks of what they had once been.
“Madness,” I muttered under my breath. “Complete fucking madness.”
“Get in the truck and wait there,” Mel ordered me.
We drove back to the station in complete silence. Usually if we’d had a successful stint, the truck was full of laughter, conversation, and exaggerated tales of our own heroic actions. But if we had lost anyone, the atmosphere was so potent with heavy emotion and sadness that you could cut it with a knife. We got to the station and then each disappeared to our separate corners to lick our wounds and get over the losses we hadn’t managed to prevent.
I was sitting by myself in one of the bunks in the residential section of the fire station when I realized the only thing that might soothe me right now was hearing Megan’s voice.
Acting on instinct, I picked up my phone and dialed her number. She answered almost immediately, and her tone was slightly panicked.
“Phil?” she said.
“Hi.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked immediately before I had even said a word.
“I… What makes you think something is wrong?” I asked.
“The fact that you’re calling me at this time while you’re on duty,” she said. “And your voice. What happened?”
“There was a fire at the tenement building on Pike. It’s the building that all the squatters live in.”
“I know the one,” she acknowledged. “Were you able to put the fire out?”
“We were.” I nodded. “But not before we lost two people.”
“Oh God,” her voice was soft and earnest. “Phil…I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say anything,” I told her. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“You can’t save everyone, Phil,” she told me softly. “But the point is, you tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
“Don’t do that,” she insisted. “It won’t help.”
“They were children, Megan,” I sighed. “The boy was only five, and the girl was only seven. They were tiny little kids who burned to death.”
“Phil—”
“I can still hear their mother screaming… It was the most terrible sound in the world.”
“How long until your shift is over?” Megan asked.
“Not for another eight hours,” I replied. “I won’t be home till after midnight.”
“If you don’t mind some company, I’d like to be there when you come home.”
The moment she made the suggestion, I felt better, and I could see a little light once more. “You can go a little earlier and wait for me at my apartment. The spare key is under the mat.”
“I’ll do that,” she assured me.
“You’ll be there when I get home?” I asked, desperately wanting to see her.
“I will.”
“You promise?”
“Cross my heart,” she assured me. “I’ll be there waiting for you.”
They were the most beautiful words I felt I had ever heard in my life. And suddenly, my heart didn’t feel quite so heavy and my day didn’t look quite as dark.