Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [39]
He raced up into the chaos.
20. FIGHTING FOR AIR
Finney scrambled up the rungs past a sagging gutter and, keeping a grip on the ladder’s beam, placed one boot on the steeply pitched roof. For a split second he inspected the roofline, and then a hood of black smoke enveloped him. All he could see was the heavy aluminum ladder in his hands—and a millisecond later not even that.
Bouncing slightly, he tested the integrity of the roof and rafters as he made his way up the incline, crossing thick layers of moss-encrusted three-tab roofing. He was more than two stories above the ground and a fall could prove fatal.
The figure he’d seen from below had been in the gable twenty feet to his right. When the smoke didn’t clear after a few moments, he moved higher, slipping on a patch of moss that felt like a balled-up sock, the misstep nudging a shot of adrenaline into his system. The roof was spongier here, and he could feel the fire brushing the rafters under his feet. Sheaves of smoke crept out through overlaps in the roofing material.
He knew the roof was growing weaker, that it wouldn’t be long before he would drop into the house like a big yellow squalling Santa Claus.
When he reached the edge of the first dormer, he grabbed the gutter and placed himself directly in front of the window. The glass was intact, though when he put his flashlight to it, he found the windowpane had a mottled, tarlike coating on the inside. Moving close, he squinted through the black film.
It took a moment to realize he was staring at a face, a pair of wild gaping eyes only inches away.
For a moment the eyes inside the window searched his. Then they vanished.
When he broke the window with his gloved fist, heat traveled up his sleeve through the Nomex gauntlets sewn in to protect his wrists.
“Fire department!” he yelled, leaning into the funnel of rapidly escaping heat and smoke. The only reply was the sound of fire in the other room and a bottle popping dully somewhere in the heat. The room was all smoke, though he could see flame beyond the partially open door. “Over here. Come over here.”
No reply.
With great effort, he managed to wedge himself and his air bottle into the tiny opening. A moment later he was half in and half out. He remained stuck in that preposterous position, legs kicking, until he flopped inside and found himself in a small room devoid of furniture and knee-deep in debris. The smoke seemed to have the texture of hot pudding. Crouching under the worst of the heat, he worked his way around the room, the broken window now providing the fire with an abundant supply of oxygen. A blanket of flame began to spread across the ceiling like angry marmalade.
“Hello. Anybody here?”
Flame nosed around the top of the partially open door to his right. Beyond the door everything was aglow. Under different circumstances it would have been beautiful.
Moving swiftly, he crawled around the perimeter of the room, one arm and leg brushing the wall, the other arm and leg stretched out toward the center of the room, searching the rubble but finding only knots of old clothes, a mattress, empty food packages, broken dresser drawers. Soon it would all burst into flame.
As he passed the door, he tried to close it, but the half-burned wooden panels crumbled at the touch of his heavy gloves.
He had no business being here without a hose line, but then, had he waited for a hose line, the victim’s remote prospect of rescue would have been reduced even further. They’d already wasted too much time.
As he moved, the room grew noticeably hotter. His bunkers were fire resistant, but they weren’t fireproof, and like potatoes wrapped in foil, firefighters could be and had been cooked inside their protective Nomex layers. Cordifis had died that way, and Finney was beginning to think he might, too. He figured he had thirty seconds to find the victim and make an exit, forty-five seconds at the outside.
He made one complete circuit of the small room without success. As he came around a second time, something moved