Chapter 5 - The Fire and the Ash
The fire didn't start with a roar. It started with a soft, hungry whoosh.
The gasoline-soaked chute ignited instantly, a wall of bright orange flame racing down the metal slide toward us like a living thing. The heat was immediate and blinding, blistering the paint on the walls and scorching the hair on my arms.
"Back!" Mark screamed, shoving me into the small room.
He slammed the heavy metal door shut just as the flames hit the bottom of the chute. The windowless door shuddered as the fire roared against the other side, the wire-reinforced glass glowing a dull, angry red.
We were trapped.
The small room was sealing us in, and the hemlock gas was still hissed from the ceiling vent, though the fire outside was rapidly consuming the oxygen in the shaft, drawing it through the cracks in the door.
"The cellar door!" I shouted, coughing as the smoke began to seep through the seams. "Dad came through the cellar! There has to be another way out!"
Mark ran to the back of the room, where a heavy wooden door sat half-hidden behind a stack of old cardboard boxes. He threw the boxes aside, revealing a heavy iron bolt.
He slid the bolt back and threw the door open.
It led into the main basement of the house—a vast, dark forest of concrete pillars, dusty shelves, and old furniture. But the air here was cleaner, free of the toxic gas.
"Go! Go!" Mark yelled.
I carried Lily through the doorway, her head resting limply against my shoulder. Behind us, the fire was already beginning to warp the metal door of the coal chute, the heat radiating through the concrete walls.
We ran through the basement, our flashlight beam cutting through the darkness. The ceiling above us groaned as the fire began to eat its way up into the kitchen. I could hear the crackle of burning wood, the smell of pine and old paper filling the air.
"The storm doors!" Mark said, pointing to a set of wooden steps leading up to a slanted ceiling. "They lead to the backyard!"
We scrambled up the steps. Mark threw his shoulder against the wooden doors, but they didn't budge.
"They're locked from the outside!" he yelled, his face slick with sweat and soot. "There's a padlock on the bar!"
"Break it!" I screamed.
Mark looked around, his eyes landing on a heavy iron pipe lying on the steps. He grabbed it and began to smash it against the wooden frame of the doors, the splinters flying in the dark.
Below us, the cellar door we had just come through burst open.
A figure stood in the doorway, framed by the flickering orange glow of the fire behind him.
It was my father.
He was coughing violently, his clothes smoking, his face blackened by soot. In his hand, he still held the heavy iron tire iron.
"You can't leave, Rachel," he wheezed, his voice barely a whisper. "If you go out there... they’ll know. They’ll know what we did."
"I don't care about what you did!" I screamed, backing up the stairs, pressing Lily’s face into my neck to protect her from the smoke. "I only care about her!"
"She belongs to us!" my father roared, his eyes wide with a manic, terrifying light.
He lunged up the stairs toward us, raising the iron bar.
But before he could reach the middle step, the floorboards above him groaned.
The fire had reached the kitchen floor directly above the cellar stairs. With a deafening crash, the heavy oak dining table fell through the ceiling, bringing a shower of burning beams and plaster down with it.
The debris hit my father squarely, pinning him to the stairs.
He didn't scream. He just looked up at me through the flames, his eyes filled with a strange, terrible peace.
"Keep her safe, Rachel," he whispered, before the smoke swallowed him.
With one final, desperate blow, Mark shattered the wooden frame of the storm doors. The doors flew open, and the cold, damp night air rushed in, sweet and clean.
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We scrambled out onto the wet grass of the backyard, collapsing onto the lawn as the first sirens began to wail in the distance.
Behind us, my grandmother’s house burned like a torch against the black sky.
