Authors: Faith
“Amen.” Felicia was in tears.
Lacey dried her eyes. Her insides were shaking so she rubbed her stomach. She put the window down to get some air because she was feeling a little nauseous. The choir singing “I Need You to Survive” seemed to calm her stomach. “Felicia, look at them.” She pointed over to the congregation singing. “This right here is some old school spiritual warfare.” She closed her eyes and let the singing minister to her.
________
Inside of the building Edem was still holding on to his mother’s hand.
“Edem, baby, my head is throbbing. I’m just going to close my eyes for a little while,” Mama Eloise whispered.
“No, Mama. Keep your eyes open. Do not close your eyes.”
“Baby, I’m just getting so sleepy.”
“Mama, please! Please don’t close your eyes. Stay awake. Help is on the way. Over here! Over here! Help my mother!” Edem called out to the approaching firemen.
Mama Eloise tried her best to keep her eyes open, but in her heart she said a silent prayer to God:
I have run a good race, but thy will be done
.
At that moment, Edem felt someone tugging on them. He opened his burning eyes as wide as he could to see through the smoke-filled place. He could feel the firemen pulling him out while saying “We got you, Sir. We got you.”
As a fireman pulled his hand away from his mother, Edem panicked. “What about my mother? Get my mother! Forget about me! Get my mother!”
“It’s okay now, Sir. Just try to stay calm.” The fireman said, and carried him out of the building.
Edem was laid on a stretcher, and the EMS began to attend to him. He was fighting their efforts. All he could think about was leaving his mother behind.
The firemen returned into the building to try to retrieve all of the victims inside of the fire. As they began to carry people out it, looked like a massacre to them. One by one the firemen carried the people out.
Mama Eloise was placed on a stretcher inside of the ambulance, and they quickly put an oxygen mask on her face. She was drifting in and out of consciousness. She could faintly hear the choir singing:
“…I care for you
You care for me.
I love you,
I need you to survive
…”
A slight smile came across her face, and once again she closed her eyes.
“She’s in cardiac arrest! We got to get her to the hospital now!” the EMS tech yelled. They slammed the ambulance door shut, and the ambulance quickly left to rush Mama Eloise to the hospital.
Junior was inside of another ambulance with an oxygen mask on his face. He kept taking it off and asking the EMS workers if his family was okay, and if they got out safely.
“Sir, you have to calm down. You need to breathe. I’ll see what I can do to find out what’s going on about your family. But right now, you need to breathe so please stop taking the mask off your face.”
Out of the entire Blanks clan, Lizzie was the last one to be brought out. She was not hurt and was able to walk out on our own two legs. Frantic and in tears, she expressed the need to locate her family members. She ran from ambulance to ambulance. One of the firemen told her that she needed to get checked out. “I just need to find my family!” she demanded.
“There’re some people who’ve already gone to the hospital. Just let EMS check you out and we’ll find out what’s going on with your family.”
“No, I need to find my family!” Lizzie said, pushing him away from her. She spotted Edem in an ambulance and jumped in. “Edem! Oh my God! You’re okay!”
Edem removed the oxygen mask from his face. “Lizzie, where’s Mama? Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. You’re the first one I’ve seen. I don’t know where anybody else is. I don’t know if anybody’s okay. The man said some people have already gone to the hospital.” Tears flowed down Lizzies face. “Edem, why is this happening?”
“We got to find Mama. We got to find out if she’s okay.”
“I’ll go look. There are still a bunch of ambulances left to check.”
“Lizzie, be careful. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Lizzie replied and gripped Edem’s hand. She then continued to go from ambulance to ambulance. She was horrified as she walked past dead bodies in body bags and began to hyperventilate. She was so scared that some of her family was in those body bags.
After going to four ambulances she finally saw Mud and jumped into the ambulance.
“Ma’am, you can’t be in here,” The EMS worker tried to tell her.
“This is my brother, and I need to make sure he’s okay.” Lizzie reached out and took ahold of Mud’s hand. “Mud, open your eyes!” she pleaded.
Mud opened his eyes. He seemed dazed and confused. He was trying to speak but the oxygen mask was preventing Lizzie from understanding what he was trying to say.
“Don’t talk. I’m just glad you’re okay. I’m trying to find everyone else. Edem is in the next ambulance, but I haven’t found anyone else yet.”
Mud kept trying to speak but his hands were so weak that he couldn’t remove the mask from his face.
“I love you, Mud. I’ll be back.” She kissed her brother on his forehead before exiting the ambulance.
Lizzie stood outside of the ambulance. In the midst of the chaos she looked around, and it look like a war zone. There were lines of ambulances and fire trucks. They were still bringing bodies out of the pavilion. She didn’t know what to do. Her heart began to race even faster and she found it hard to catch a breath.
The same fireman spotted her and went over to her. “Ma’am, come on. Let’s get you checked out.”
“No! You don’t understand! My family… I need to find my family. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know who’s alive. I don’t know who’s dead. I just need to find my family!”
The fireman put his arm around her and guided her to an empty ambulance. “She needs to be checked out. She keeps repeating herself. I think she’s about to go into shock,” he advised the EMS workers.
They put a dazed and confused Lizzie in the back of the ambulance. Her eyes were wide open but they had a blank look to them. She could hear everything that was going on around her, but she could not speak. As much as she tried, she could not open her mouth to respond to the many questions they were asking her. All she could do was stare off into the distance, seeing everything but not being able to do anything. On the inside she was screaming,
I need to find my family!
As the ambulances pulled off in a rush to get everyone to the hospital, she could hear the church members off in the distance singing “I Need You to Survive”. The more she listened to the choir singing, the more tears fell down her face. Her breathing slowed down after a while, and she slowly began to breathe at a normal pace. She didn’t have the strength to fight the EMS workers, and allowed them to put her on the stretcher and tend to her. All she could do was pray that her family was safe.
Inside of the pavilion the sounds of the choir singing had sent chills up the firemen’s spines. Once outside the burning building, two of them looked at one another. “Man, do you see this?” one said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the other fireman replied.
“I sure hope everybody survives, because I haven’t been to church in years. But I think I might go to this one.”
“Yeah, and I might have to join you.”
At that moment another ambulance raced past them on the way to the hospital.
________
Memory tapped on the window of Lacey’s truck. “A lot of ambulances have left. You might want to go on to the hospital. I asked them where they were taking them, and they said the ones that are alive are going to Wesley Long Hospital.”
“Okay, thank you, Memory.”
Lacey saw Madear walking up behind Memory.
“Oh, baby, I’m so glad to see you!” Madear hugged Lacey so tight that it almost hurt. She then placed her hands on either side of Lacey’s face and said, “It’s going to be okay. You know that, right? It’s going to be okay.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Madear, I think we should all go to the hospital,” Memory interrupted.
“Okay, baby. I’ll go tell the church to head up to the hospital.” Madear said, and headed back in the direction where the congregation had been singing.
“Lacey, I can drive if you want me to. I’m sure Madear can catch a ride with someone,” Memory offered.
“Thanks, Memory but I’m okay. We just I just want to hurry up and get to the hospital so we can know what we’re dealing with.”
Chapter 2
The victims of the fire flooded Wesley Long Hospital, and one by one, concerned family and friends began to arrive. The waiting room was so full that security had come and asked some people to clear out. Most of the congregation gathered outside of the hospital in the parking lot. They could not in good conscience leave the hospital without knowing what was going on with the church family.
Lacey was so wrapped up into what was going on that she didn’t pay attention to the absence of Ruthie. “Wait a minute. Has anyone seen Ruthie?” she asked.
“She wasn’t inside the pavilion?” Madear asked.
Lacey was getting concerned. “No. We all left out around the same time.”
Felicia pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “I’m going to try to call her,” she said.
Ruthie’s phone continued to ring until it went to voicemail.
“She’s not answering. I don’t know where she could be. Let me text Tricia to see if she’s heard from her.”
“I just texted Tricia, and she said she thought she was with us,” Lacey said. She then tried texting Ruthie hoping she was too upset to talk on the phone.
“Maybe you should ask someone if she’s here. I mean, you never know and it couldn’t hurt,” Memory suggested.
“Yeah, I think I will,” Felicia said and got up. She walked up to the nurse’s desk and said, “Hi. We’re missing a family member. Is there any way that I can find out if my sister-in-law was brought in as one of the victims of the fire? Could you check to see if she’s been admitted?”
“What’s her name, sweetie?” the nurse asked.
“Ruthie Blanks.”
The nurse typed the name into the computer. “Yes, she’s here. She’s in Room 357,” she informed Felicia.
Felicia let out a sigh of relief and hoped that Ruthie was okay. “Oh, thank God! I hate to bug you again, but is there any more news on the rest of the Blanks family?”
“So far there’s nothing in the computer, but that’s a good sign. That means they’re still working on them. But I promise you, once we have any information on your family members we’ll let you know.”
Felicia dropped her head. “Thank you!” she said.
The nurse put her hand on top of Felicia’s and said, “Mrs. Blanks, we’re all praying for you.”
“Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.” Felicia walked back into the waiting room. “I don’t know why, but Ruthie is here. She’s in Room 357. Let’s go.”
Lacey got up to follow Felicia. She looked back at Madear and said, “As soon as you get word on anybody, call me and I’ll come back down.”
“I got you, baby. You just go make sure everything is okay and y’all stay calm, cuz like I said, God is in control, so you just deal with what’s in front of you right now and let Him handle the rest.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Lacey responded and hurried to catch up with Felicia.
________
It seemed as if it took them forever to go through the maze of Wesley Long Hospital to reach Ruthie’s room. When they entered the room, Ruthie laid in the bed asleep. Lacey and Felicia walked to either side of the bed and they both held onto each of her hands.
Ruthie opened her eyes.
Lacey smiled as she looked down at her. “Hey, stranger!”
“Where’s Edem?” Ruthie asked. Her eyes pleaded for an answer.
Felicia shrugged her shoulders and said, “Honey, I’m sorry, but we don’t have any information on anybody yet. What are you doing here anyway? You left when we.”
Ruthie cleared her throat and pointed to the water. Lacy poured her a cup of water and handed it to her. After Ruthie guzzled down the water as if she was dying of thirst, she began to speak. “I left something at the office so I came back, and that’s when I saw that the pavilion was on fire. I called 911, and I started freaking out. I’m sorry I didn’t even I think about calling you guys. I was just trying to get to Edem, but before I could get there the windows exploded and… oh my God!”
“Calm down, hon,” Lacey said as she caressed Ruthie’s hand. “But are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, and the babies are fine. They just wanted me to get a little rest because my blood pressure was a little elevated.”
“Well that’s understandable,” Felicia said.
“I just can’t believe this is happening. Why? I mean, who would do this? There were locks on the doors of the pavilion. This was not an accident. Somebody meant to kill them, and they might ty to kill us!” Ruthie was getting upset again.
“Wait a minute!” Lacey said with a confused look on her face. “Are you sure you saw locks on the on the doors?”
“Yes, big thick chains were on the doors with a padlock on it, so this was no accident. Somebody tried to take our family out.”
“Who…” Felicia couldn’t even think straight. She had a look of horror on her face. She stared at Lacey and shook her head in disbelief. She wanted to freak out, but she didn’t want to upset Ruthie any more than she already was.