Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [102]
He reached the top step, dropped to his knees, and crawled alongside the wall, the ringing bell a constant reminder that his air was nearly depleted.
The space turned out to be empty. He was disappointed and somewhat surprised.
As he was mulling over his options, the bell on the back of his belt stopped clanking and he felt a sensation similar to sucking on a snorkel with a hand over the end. He ripped his mask off and scuttled down the wooden stairs on his stomach, trying not to breathe until he reached the shallow layer of relatively good air an inch above the concrete on the main floor.
Perhaps there was another set of stairs. Perhaps the firefighters who’d given him directions had been confused. Or maybe he was confused. Inhaling shallowly, he continued on his hands and knees along the wall, heading toward what he guessed was the east end of the building. He had no idea where the exit was.
It was always this simple. Leary Way had been this simple.
One small misstep. Nothing portentous. This was how it started. The margin for error was always minuscule. You screwed up one step at a time; pretty soon you were in trouble, and a while after that, not too long after that really, you were dead.
He was still crawling when he heard the sounds an MSA mask makes as somebody at rest inhales and exhales. On his MSA backpack belt he carried, as did all Seattle firefighters, a PASS device, which he now held in his hand.
The PASS was the size of a double-thick cigarette pack and had two settings—one designed to emit a piercing whistle after twenty-five seconds of motionlessness, so that others could home in on a downed firefighter, the other a manual mode to whistle regardless of movement. He switched his to manual.
He saw a fuzzy light and realized they were within twenty feet of him, moving closer. He tried to stand and holler, but the heat knocked him to the floor.
It didn’t take a whole lot of carbon monoxide to get your brain swimming. He was dizzy. Nauseated. Sleepy beyond all expectation. His temples throbbed. His face was flushed and hot. His eyes dry. He was beginning to lose track of time. The sense of déjà vu became almost overpowering. This was so similar to Leary Way. But then, smoke was smoke. He could have been anywhere.
They were closer now, his rescuers. Wanting to be able to listen, he fumbled with the noisy PASS device until it was off. Now there was only the low, crackling symphony of whispers from the flame overhead.
“Hey,” he shouted. “Over here. Seattle Fire Department.” But they were gone.
Then he saw an opening, a doorway with lights and noise and people and activity; it was all so close he couldn’t believe his luck. As he crawled toward the light, a woman stepped into the doorway, her hands in the pockets of a long, gray raincoat that reached her ankles. For a moment he thought it was . . . it was—Diana. He couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t in full bunkers. When she took her hands out of her pockets she wore no gloves; her hands were as bare and smooth as milk.
She was blocking the doorway, and for some reason, as he looked up into her gray eyes, he no longer felt any urgency to get outside. “You been in there killing old ladies, John?”
“What?”
“You realize sooner or later you’re going to have to explain yourself.”
“Why aren’t you suited up?”
“We’re talking about you, sweetie. Not me. We’re talking about your criminal career.”
He tried to move closer, but moving made him dizzy. He staggered. Hands on his knees, he put his head down and let the blood run back into his brain. It felt as if someone were beating