Combustible (A Boone Childress Novel) (10 page)

"Ex
terior fuel sources? Heating oil tanks? LP?"

Firefighters feared LP, l
iquid propane. A pinhole leak and a random spark could create an explosion strong enough to blow down a house. A LP tank for a barbecue grill could swell to twice its size and become a poor man’s claymore, blowing jagged chunks of shrapnel straight through your body, turnout gear be damned. Most of the houses in Bragg County used LP for heating and had huge tanks sitting right next to the structure. That was enough gas to level a foundation and make a crater deep enough to drop a ladder engine inside.

Boone scanned the area again to be sure. "That's a negative, sir."

"How many occupants?"

"None,"
he said, and then added, "according to a company from the Atamasco station. They were first responders, and they state that the house is abandoned."

The
sound of static came through the line for seven long seconds. "Atamasco VFD has first responders?"

"
That’s a affirmative.”

"Is
their captain on site? Or their tanker?"

"That's
a negative." More static. "This is a suspicious situation."

Static again.
"Roger that. Our ETA is now eight minutes. Do not engage until we arrive. Roger that."

Boone
pursed his lips and shook his head. Discipline, he reminded himself. "Roger. Childress out."

He
released the talk switch on the mic and tossed it onto the seat. Nothing to do but wait. And stay out of the way of Loach and his company, who were parked on their butts in the shade of a live oak, passing around a pack of Camels.

Hat
and hooligan in hand, he walked toward the back of the house. It was atypical of low country farmhouses built in the early twentieth century. It had narrow windows, high ceilings, and an attic. Two doghouses protruded from the roof. Flames danced behind the windows in both of them.

Across
the roof, the fire had opened holes the size of a manhole cover, and acrid smoke and poured out. He could hear the pop and crackle of the dried-out rafters as they exploded from the immense heat. In his mind's eye, he saw splinters as long as his arm flying like jagged arrows in all directions.

He heard a
high-pitched squeal, and the window of the high doghouse blew out. Glass flew ten, maybe fifteen yards, raining down on the ground. Boone pulled an arm across his face and dropped to one knee. But the glass didn't reach him. It landed in the soil a few feet away, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

A
scream!

From
the attic. The same attic that was engulfed in enough heat and smoke to roast a man alive.

"
There's somebody in there!" Eyes fixed on the doghouse, he waved for the Atamasco company to join him. "I heard a scream. There! Another one. Someone's calling for help!"

Loach and his boys
didn't budge.

"Y'all
going to help or not?" Boone yelled.

The
two other men, Ronnie and Donnie, turned their faces away, and Eugene Loach just cupped a hand to his ear.

"Can't
hear you," Eugene said. He blew cigarette smoke through his nose. It curled around his face so that he looked like a bearded Chinese dragon.

“Assholes,” Boone said and
bounded to the front porch. He turned the knob and put his shoulder to the heavy paneled door. It didn't give. The dead bolt was thrown.

He
drew the hooligan tool back like a spear and rammed it through the door panel. The wooden cracked in half, and when Boone yanked the head of the tool out, the panel came with it, along with a blast of heat and smoke that drove him down the porch steps. The heat burned his lungs, and he had to squeeze the smoke out of his eyes.

"
There ain't nobody screaming, you dumbass. It's just gas releasing or something!" Loach yelled.

They
stood five yards behind Boone now. Their fire coats were unbuttoned, and their mattocks were stacked against the live oak where they had been resting.

"
Don't go in there by yourself,” Loach said. “You ain't even got all your equipment."

"Then
you cover with me an attack line, and Ronnie and Donnie can be our backups. Two in, two out."

"Dream
on, possum. Ain't no way me and my boys are risking our lives to rescue another critter."

Boone
knelt on the plank floor as he turned on his breathing tank. Heat rose from the planking, and he could feel it through his Nomax pants. The thought of diving into a conflagration gave him pause. If the porch was already hot enough to warm his fireproof pants, what would it feel like to walk into a blast furnace? What if Eugene was right, and the sound that he thought was screaming turned out to be another wild animal? How would he explain that to Lamar?

No
.

Wild
animals don't know words.

He
crossed the porch and reached inside the door. The deadbolt was an old-fashioned twist bar, and he pulled it down. With a screech, the bolt withdrew, and Boone kicked the door open.

Inside,
the living room was a wall of flames. Through the smoke, he could make out a pile of furniture and an old sideboard on the opposite wall. The floor seemed intact, as least as far as the stairway, which was about ten feet to the right of the door. He couldn't see any hot spots there, so it would be his first target.

He
crouched, ready to make his first move, when Loach grabbed his mask and pulled it away from his face.

"
Hold up, rookie, you ain't going in!" Loach yelled. "It's suicide!"

"Let
go of my equipment!" Boone easily pulled the mask out of Eugene's hand, which seemed to surprise him.

"There
ain't nobody in this fucking house!" Eugene screamed.

Another
scream. More garbled than before.

Boone
pointed at the steps inside. "See? It came from upstairs. You had to hear it that time."

"
See what? You hearing another possum, if you ask me!"

"I
didn't ask you!"

Boone
shrugged to get loose. Every second they wasted, the fire got worse. By opening the door, they had let in a huge source of oxygen, which was at that very moment feeding the fire. But Loach was having none of it. He hooked Boone's left arm, and Ronnie, who had come up on the porch behind Boone, grabbed his breathing tank and lifted it, trying to rock Boone off his feet.

“Back off!”
Boone brought the staff of the hooligan down on Loach's forearm.

"
Goddamn!" Loach howled and let go. "You about broke my arm!"

Boone
bent over at the waist, lifting Ronnie off the ground. He dropped to one knee while reaching across his body for Ronnie's fire coat, and then dumped him unceremoniously on his ass. Before either of them could stop him, Boone leapt inside the house, ducking to let the wash of heat and smoke pass above him.

He
continued to duck walk until he reached the stairs. He looked up. The stairwell was functioning as a chimney. It drew smoke from the first floor to the second. There were still no visible hotspots, but Boone knew that the fresh oxygen from the front door was being sucked upstairs, too. It would only feed the fire.

In
training Lamar had repeatedly warned him about second stories. You had to worry about the ceiling and the floor. Either or both could give way without notice, and you would find yourself sandwiched between a ton of superheated material.

"Childress!"
Loach called.

Boone
glanced back. The three men squatted at the door. They beckoned for him to come back. Their coats were still unbuttoned.

"
We got no backup!" Loach yelled.

It's
all on you, Boone told himself and jabbed the first seven steps with the end of the hooligan. The sharp tip found solid wood, so he took those steps before stopping to check the next five. They passed the test, too, except for the top one. He tapped the riser. The wood was spongy, but Boone decided to risk it anyway.

On
the landing, he squatted again. He steeled himself against a wall of ferocious heat. Inside the turnouts, he felt his sweat sizzling against the fireproof fabric. He had to get out fast. The suit could protect him from flash hits, but the material itself could get hot enough to give him second-degree burns.

Inside
the foyer, smoke ran across the ceiling and flowed down the walls to the floor, where it formed a stew of toxic fumes. One breath of that stuff, and Boone knew he would be a dead man. He stayed low, turning his head to the right and left, trying to hear the screams again.

Self-doubt
seeped in. What if it really was another possum? What if he hadn't heard anything at all?

There
were three doors. One of them was open, and in the small room, he could make out the clawed feet of an antique bathtub. The other two doors, on either side of the foyer, were closed. One of them had to lead to the attic. That's where he had heard the voice, he was sure. There had been no sound at all until the doghouse window blew out.

But
which way? Opening a door in a fire was like lighting a match over charcoal bathed in lighter fluid. If he chose wrong and opened a virgin room, it could result in flashover, causing the whole area to simultaneously combust. Both doors looked exactly the same in the thickening cloud of smoke. The visibility was only a few feet now. He couldn't afford to wait.

He
stepped forward onto the landing.

Crack!

Above him, a chunk of plaster the width of an oven door pulled loose from the lathing. It hit the floor in front of him, and he jumped back to the top step.

A
second, deeper crack followed, and a beam tore loose from the ceiling. It collapsed onto the landing, spreading fiery debris the length of the hallway. Sparks shot through the smoke, and a handful of embers landed on the sleeve of Boone's coat. He slapped them out quickly and shook the ash to the floor.

The
floorboards shuddered under the new weight. Boone knew if he stayed put, the floor was going to collapse and take him with it.

Crack!

Above him, another ceiling joist gave way, and a whole section of ceiling broke free. It swung down like a pendulum, smacking the side of his head before he could react. His helmet flew off, and the mask was pushed askew.

Noxious
gas filled his facemask.

He
clawed at the mask, trying to reset it, and took a step back into space. His foot searched the air in vain for solid ground, and Boone felt himself teetering. Spit and panic flew out of his mouth, and his arms lashed about like blades in a pinwheel twirling in the wind.

The
stairs welcomed his fall.

Boone heard a beeping sound far away. He thought it was the alarm clock, and he lifted his hand to smack the snooze bar. The hand wouldn't move. His eyes wouldn't open, either. It should have bothered him. It didn't. His head felt fuzzy and soft, and there was a warm feeling in his belly that made him only want to sleep.

When
he heard the beeping again, he knew it wasn't the alarm clock. The sound was higher pitched and rhythmic. The soft feeling was still there, and after a while, he fell back asleep.

The
third time he heard the beeping, it felt like a chime in his brain. It was sharp and unpleasant, and there was a bitter taste in his mouth. Something was crushing his hand. He wanted to tell someone, but his lips wouldn't move. His tongue was a swollen thing too big to fit in his mouth. He might have gone crazy if it hadn't been for the sound of Lamar's voice nearby. It was warm and low, and he was telling someone a story.

"The
worst fire I ever fought? It was about a year before I met you, I reckon. I was still working for the Greenville Fire Department. We'd run out into the backwoods on a call. It was a four-alarm fire, and we were to be relief. When we got there, an old church was ablaze. There was a tank alongside the house, and it glowed as red as our pumper."

Somebody else spoke, asked a question that Boone couldn't make out. Lamar stopped talking, and Boone felt a flash of anger because they had interrupted him. Lamar never told stories, and Boone was afraid that if someone interrupted the flow of his words, the stream would dry up like someon
e had tightened the nozzle of an attack hose.

"Turns
out, we weren't the ready team, we were the strike team, and our target was that heating tank. The captain ordered me to open up with a quarter inch hose to cool off the tank. Steam from the spray condensed my mask and blistered my hands through the gloves. But I couldn't take the hose off the tank for fear that it'd blow all to kingdom come. That's when they hit me in the back with soaker spray. It was touch and go for the better part of an hour, me soaking the tank, them soaking me."