Firestorm (21 page)

“That’s it,
Mrs. Davies. One more and we’re done.”

A few minutes
later Nana was standing on the landing at the top of the stairs and
I was so relieved. The muscles in my arms felt as if they were
going to pop out and my fingers were throbbing from being stepped
on.

Brad took her
by the arm and pulled her into the main hallway as Meagan and I
climbed up the rest of the steps and joined them. He led her into
the small sitting room where she immediately plopped down into one
of the big, brown comfy chairs. Brad motioned for her to stay there
while he called Ali on his cell phone again.

“Okay, Ali’s on
his way back for us and he should be here in about ten or fifteen
minutes so maybe we should just stay in this room and wait until he
gets here. I don’t think your grandmother is going to move very
fast down the road anyway so it’s just going to be a lot of stress
trying.”

Meagan and I
crashed on the couch across from Nana and for a few seconds my body
was thanking me for the rest. But then it occurred to me that we
could grab something to eat while we were waiting.

“Nana, we’re
starving. Do you have anything we can grab very quickly to
eat?”

“Yeah, go help
yourself. There’s a couple bowls of salads in there that we were
supposed to eat last night.”

Meagan ran into
the kitchen and I hobbled behind her, but as I opened the fridge
door and pulled out the huge blue bowl that was filled with potato
salad, she wandered onto the porch. I filled three plates with the
salad and then went out to see what she was looking at.

“Look how close
it is, Sarah. Nothing but smoke right up to Heaven. It’s covering
the whole area across the back down by the water, see it?”

“Yeah, that’s
from the amber that shot across it before. It’s close but I think
we should stay in the house and wait for Ali. There’s no way we’re
going to get Nana to walk on the road. I just hope he gets here
soon.”

“Me, too. I
just can’t get over how fast it’s spreading.”

“Meg, let’s get
back in and grab some of that salad while we’re waiting.”

We grabbed the
salad plates from the counter and took them into the sitting room
and it only took seconds for the three of us to eat it. Brad jumped
up to look out the window a few times for Ali. Meagan and I sat
there restless as well, and that’s when I figured that if we were
going to just make ourselves nervous waiting, we should do
something.

“Come on, Meg.
Let’s go upstairs and get our stuff so we don’t have to leave it
behind.”

Meagan agreed
and Brad said he’d stay with Nana so we went upstairs to grab our
things and stuff them into our duffle bags. It took us only seconds
to yank our clothes off the hangers and shove them in the bags, but
as we did the remorse of what was happening began to set in.

“It’s all going
to burn, isn’t it, Meg? All of this will be gone in about an hour,
their whole life, their home, everything.”

“Not
everything. Most of their stuff is in storage, remember? And this
old house is in need of some serious repair so it’s not all lost.
And besides, they have a new house waiting for them back home.”

“I know, but I
wish we could save all this stuff. So many memories are here, all
the things we did on holidays.”

Meagan zipped
her bag and headed for the door.

“I know, I
know. Are you done? We have to go now.”

It felt as if I
was standing on death’s doorstep. Everything here would soon be
reduced to ashes and there was nothing we could do to prevent it. I
picked up my bag to follow her and that’s when we heard what
sounded like a siren.

“Sarah, is that
an ambulance? Wow, they came for Nana after all. Come on. Let’s go
see.”

I was about to
follow her but instead I sauntered to the window to take one last
look, and my heart fell to my feet.

“Oh my god,
Meg! That’s not a siren. A shooting amber just landed on the back
porch.”

We raced down
the stairwell and my ankle stung but I didn’t care. Meagan slammed
open the kitchen door at the bottom of the stairs just as Brad
pushed in from behind us. My heart pounded inside my chest as we
all froze and stared at the back porch through the open door. Brad
gasped and I tried to speak without crying.

“Meg and I saw
the amber hit it from upstairs. This is a wooden house and it’ll
burn fast.”

Brad pulled us
both backwards and through the kitchen doorway.

“Come on. We
have to grab your grandmother and get out of here now.”

We darted back
into the sitting room and Brad grabbed Nana’s hands and pulled her
to her feet.

“Come on. We
have to go.”

“I smell smoke
– and fire. It’s close by, isn’t it?”

Meagan and I
pleaded with her to hurry but she kept saying she was dizzy and
wanted to sit and rest just for one more minute. I was so scared
that my own head began to feel dizzy and my voice shook when I
tried to talk to her. Brad ran back to the kitchen and Meagan took
over pulling at her arms as I tried to coax her to move.

“Nana, you have
to stand up. Come on. We have to get out of here.”

Brad returned a
second later and said the back wall of the kitchen was totally in
flames and that it was burning faster that we thought.

“We have to get
out now. Let’s go through the front door. Come on, grab her
arm.”

Nana’s eyes
welled up and she wiped the tears away with her hands.

“You’ll have to
go without me, girls. I can’t walk fast enough to beat that
fire.”

I pulled on her
one arm as Meagan pulled on her other one.

“Don’t talk
like that. We’re all going to get out together.”

I listened to
my own words and tried to stay calm but my thoughts drifted back to
the dream for a few seconds and icy chills shot up my back. The
smoke was seeping under the door and now invaded the hallway and
the sound of the sharp cracks of the fire a few feet away quickly
filled my insides with panic. I realized that we were going to have
to fight to get out alive.

Brad pushed me
aside and grabbed Nana’s arm and forced her out of the chair.

“Now! We have
to get out now. This house is on fire and we need to get out of it
now.”

He wrapped
Nana’s arm around his neck and Meagan took her other arm and
together they practically dragged her out towards the front door.
Nana tried to walk and then began to yell.

“Misty. Where’s
Misty? We can’t leave her here. We have to get her.”

“Mrs. Davies,
there’s no time to get anything. We have to get you out of here
now.”

Nana continued
to cry as they hustled her towards the front door, and I grabbed
the duffle bags that were on the floor in the hallway and followed
closely behind them. In that few seconds, the smoke had filtered
through most of the house. The sound of the inferno behind us was
deafening and yet through it I could hear the distinct sound of
things burning and crackling. I looked back as I waited for Brad to
open the front door and it scared me so badly that I pressed
against them in a panic to get out. The entire kitchen was caught
up in flames.

Brad flung the
front door open and he and Meagan pushed Nana through it and onto
the front doorstep, and within seconds he was dragging all of them
down the front steps. I was right behind them and the fire was
right behind me. The horrifying sound of things burning was so
mesmerizing that my legs were filling with pins and needles and I
couldn’t even tell if I was moving or not.

Nana screamed
for Misty non-stop and then suddenly, I heard Misty’s cries over
the sound of the fire. I wasn’t sure what to do but I knew that I
couldn’t just ignore her. I stepped back and peaked into the
sitting room and there she was, a ball of orange and black fur
hiding on the floor in the corner between the couch and the wall.
She was too scared to come to me even when she saw me.

I called her
several more times but she still wouldn’t move so out of
frustration I ran to the front door and tossed the duffle bags onto
the doorstep. The smoke was getting heavy and there was an
threatening crash from the kitchen. I looked back quickly and saw
part of the ceiling cave in as the flames took it over.

I just wanted
to run out the door behind the others but I couldn’t leave Misty
here to die. It wasn’t fair to her and so I scooted across the room
and picked her up and held her close to my chest. A second later
there was another crash and the fire was in the hallway. Suddenly,
the one side of the living room burst into flames.

It startled me
and I gasped in fear as I looked all around. In just those few
seconds, the fire had spread through to the hall and was at the
doorway so that I couldn’t get out of the room. The smoke came at
me fast, almost as if I was its sole target. I screamed for help.
No one came. I called out to Meagan but she didn’t answer. The fire
roared and yet all I could hear was my own heart beat pounding in
my ears.

The dream. This
was my dream. I yelled again for Meagan but she couldn’t hear me. I
had to get out but there was no way out. Everything around me was
on fire and its roar shook my insides. I stood there in a panic
looking around the room. There was only one way to go and that was
through the window.

I looked around
for something to throw at the glass to break it but Nana had packed
everything small and there was nothing around me to throw. Nana and
Grandpa didn’t have modern electronics so there wasn’t even a DVD
player or anything that I could get to. I looked back at the
doorway that was now overtaken with smoke. It was my only option. I
just had to take a few steps to the door way and turn right and
then dive out the front door. It seemed easy enough but my legs had
turned to rubber and I couldn’t move.

The smoke was
closing in on me and it was becoming difficult to breathe so I
grabbed the bottom of my shirt and pulled it up to cover my mouth.
I knew that if I didn’t get Misty out soon, she’d suffocate, too.
Although the doorway was just a few feet away, it seemed like the
greatest challenge in my life just to get to it.

I forced myself
to focus on getting out through the door but the smoke was
everywhere and it was stifling my nerve to run into the hallway. I
knew that I would have just do it, that I’d have to fight the smoke
and dart the flames but I had to do it.

The tears
streamed down my face and I couldn’t stop them and that just added
to my frustration and burned my eyes even more. I swallowed hard
and held my breath. Now! Go now! I held Misty tight and ran.

The flames
raced me to the doorway and I could feel the heat permeating from
them. My legs prickled and my chest pounded. I stepped into the
hallway and headed to the front door. The dream had become real and
I was terrified.

And that’s when
I felt Brad’s hand snatch the shirt at my shoulder and pull me
towards the front door. My head was dizzy and everything was dark
from the smoke. Seconds later I was outside and he rushed me down
the front steps.

He dragged me
to the road and the whole time I coughed and gasped for air. Meagan
hugged me and then yelled at me for going back in as she took Misty
from me. I was so overwhelmed by what had just happened that I
collapsed into Brad’s arms.

“Why didn’t you
just follow us out?”

“Misty. She was
crying. I had to get her.”

Meagan came
back and put her arms around me and we stood in a group hug for
several seconds. Brad had both his arms around me and still I
couldn’t stop shaking.

“Sarah, are you
okay? Can you walk?”

I saw the
concern in Brad’s eyes and I knew that he had been worried about
me. But I felt safe and I didn’t want it to end and I didn’t know
how to answer him. I had to go back for Misty and I was almost
positive that if he had been me, he would have done the same
thing.

“Sarah, sweet
Sarah, what am I going to do with you?”

The sound of
the fire was like a mighty thunder and Brad raised his eyebrows at
me and then motioned for us to get onto the road.

“We have to get
away from this now. Ali will be a few more minutes and we can’t
wait here for him. We have to start walking. Ready?”

Nana struggled
to walk with her injured knee and we knew that we would have to
really support her. That’s when I noticed Grandpa’s wheel barrel at
the front of the road by the ditch. Grandpa was always doing
something in the yard and he must have left it there when he was
working on the ditches by the road.

Brad didn’t
miss a beat and he had it on the road right away.

“This is
perfect. Help me get her in.”

Meagan held the
wheel barrel as steady as she could while Brad and I helped Nana to
get inside it. She was angry at us and said that no one should have
to travel this way. I wasn’t sure if she was really upset or if it
was just the emotions of watching her home burn that got to her,
but there was no time to discuss it.

Brad took hold
of the wheel barrel handles and Meagan and I picked up our bags
that had been flung onto the road and the three of us walked as
briskly as we could down the middle of it. It was a paved road, two
lanes wide, which made the journey more tolerable than if it had
been a gravel road. But it was outlined in wilderness bush and
trees and it wouldn’t take long for the fire to get to it, and we
knew that we were literally in a race against time. And so far the
fire seemed to be winning.

A minute later
Brad’s cell phone rang but he said we didn’t have time to stop to
answer it. I reached into his pant pocket and answered it because I
knew it would be Ali, and it was.