Ablaze

Only Harris’ arms protected the lifeless girl from the fire raging without. Crap. His arms were alright, and his overalls were quality, but she needed more than that to shield her.

Harris lowered the girl to the floor gently, even if it wouldn’t matter in the end. “Stay there! I’ll just redecorate really quick.”

Gallows humor was like an extra-helping of oxygen, giving him super-strength. He put his shoulder to the heaviest piece of stand-alone furniture in the suite—a chest of drawers—and pushed it toward the flimsy hotel door, the best conduit for the flames.

The damn thing dug into the carpet like a mule.

“Fuck.” He heaved until his back and shoulders screamed in protest. The thing lumbered an inch, screeched, picked up speed, and slid into its new place.

“Great functional make-over,” Harris muttered as he hobbled to the girl.

“Mayday!” Jung’s voice broke through on the spattering radio. “Mayday! Ladder to the fourth-floor tower window! Sarkisian and the vic are trapped!”

Harris hugged the girl to his chest. Every movement was a win against mounting heat. “We’re okay, little lady.”

“Repeat… fourth floor… trapped,” the radio droned on, Jung dead set on ruining Harris’ pep-talk.

“Trapped, shitrapped.” He focused even harder on surviving. What did he have to live for, apart from sticking it to Jung? Dad. The house. And… Dad. It wasn’t a long list, but Wisconsin would shove Sarkisian Senior into some invalid facility without him, so he had to walk out of this fire alive. Had to get out onto the balcony with the girl.

The door was only glass, but when he tried it, it wouldn’t budge. His heavy gloves were crap for fiddling with the lock. Harris, smash! Harris, twist out of the way! His arm covered the girl’s pale face and neck on instinct. Because she was in nought but her skin, and Murphy’s law—

Because he had to protect her.

A lumbering step through the jagged break in the glass—and they were free of the trap room, if not the fire.

Outside, wind spun the smoke into thin strands, stretching away from the corner tower for half a city block. That the City of Milwaukee was there the entire time seemed fantastical after the dimness within the building. After it had been only him, Jung’s voice, and the girl for such a long time. Yet, here it was, under the clear sky, with cars zipping along and honking, and masses of people going about their lives.

He glanced into the girl’s face. “Weird, right?”

She peered at him sightlessly, cheeks as gray as the smoke except where the lipstick shot through the skin with a single line of red.

Harris’ smile slipped. Jung wouldn’t like what he was about to do, but being right meant nothing to him if this girl died in his arms. He took a long drag of purified air, wrestled his oxygen mask off and slapped it over the girl’s face. “Help is on its way. Plenty of air. No worries.”

Yup, no worries. A hotel door and an art déco chest stood between them and the inferno. Its tongues billowed at least one window over now, scorching whatever cheek he turned to it, but the second was right as rain. No worries at all.

“Everything is under... under...” The shakes started in his hands, threatening to crawl up his arms, into his shoulders, then take over his entire body. If his muscles gave up, he’d drop the girl. So, he couldn’t cave in. “… under control. I’m totally in control.”

The girl wheezed something inside the oxygen mask, and his mind turned it into a vote of confidence. The girl cheered him on. The effect of this lie conjured by adrenaline and smoke was so invigorating that he bent his ear to her. “What was that?”

“Mom,” the girl moaned in one piteous note, like a dial-tone. “Mom. Mom.”

Maybe she believed moms could fix things? Normally, Harris would have cringed at such a suggestion, but this was the first thing the girl said to him. He couldn’t just ignore it. So, he coughed ash and phlegm out of his throat. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you back to your family safely. Just need to wait a bit, ’kay?”

“Angel comes... with fire... fire... fire,” the girl insisted. She sure enjoyed repeating words, but as few as they were, her voice tugged at something in his soul.

“Fire, yes. But we’ll be fine, because it’s Thursday.” This was the dumbest conversation, but his mind was no longer stuck in the first gear. His shakes receded completely. He was holding her aloft, but she was holding him up. They had a connection. “Cool people like us don’t die on Thursdays.”

He’d believe it if he was in the girl’s place, but she maintained a skeptical silence, as her conciseness flitted away.

“No, no. Stay with me. Keep talking.” His breath caught, hoping for a huge gasp from her, a sign of her coming fully awake. Bubbling of saliva on her lips. Quivering of her eyelids. Anything! He’d take it if she told him he was full of it, and it was the slowest rescue in history. He was never more desperate for a woman to speak to him. “Please?”

Nothing.

“Well, okay.” He grasped for things to say to her. “I wish I had your faith. But here’s the thing. We don’t have any moms up here, nor angels. They can’t help us, you see. I’m all you have, so let’s hope I’m enough.”

It had to be, because the alternative left Harris with Dad’s medical bills, a buckling retaining wall in the yard and Jung’s ass-hole-ier-than-thou-ness. He suddenly craved more. Why couldn’t he have more to live for? Something… important.

Thanks to his dad’s efforts, he met a dozen great gals, chatted with them for hours, and none of them made him feel he could live the corner life shoved him in. This girl, who barely said two words to him, accomplished it. Lord knows how, since she said precisely the wrong words to get through to him. Mothers and angels just weren’t his thing, particularly mothers.

He cradled the girl to his chest, wishing he could ask her how she did it. Her trailing hair, matted with soot, covered her nakedness, except her skinny shoulder that stuck out. He fanned the red strands over that bump with gruff gentleness, then shook his head in exasperation.

Dammit, I’m losing my marbles. Where is the ladder? He dared a peek at the street below.

On the asphalt, the fire truck had maneuvered toward their corner. People shuffled, tilting the ovals of their faces up and lifting rectangles of their cellphones. They would be up here together with the fire at their backs, a four-stories fall at their feet and an empty sky overhead for a while yet.

“Angels with fire, huh? I’m voting for angels with ladders. Long, sturdy ladders,” Harris said as fatigue washed over him. “Am I right or am I right?”

The girls said nothing, but it didn’t annoy him. As long as she lived, he was fine with silence. On some surreal level, they clicked, and it was enough.

Ten minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence later, the ladder scraped the railing by Harris’ feet. The rescue squad’s ace shinnied up it as easily as if he was running on a treadmill.

“There you go, Squirrel-man.” Harris heaved the girl over to him, after retrieving his mask. “Do the thing!”

“You’re cheerful for a pot roast wannabe,” Squirrel-man muttered.

“That’s because I love my job.” Harris’ arms felt empty without the girl. Lighter, he corrected himself. His arms felt lighter without her. His body protested the separation, despite his mind screaming at him that he was out of his damn mind.

No, they didn’t click. He survived a near-death experience and eleven minutes of being cut off from the rest of the world in her company. They probably wouldn’t even tell her that, and if they would, they wouldn’t get it right. If it came to that, he wouldn’t get it right, either.

Squirrel-man snorted and moved down with the girl, clearing space for Harris to get onto the ladder. Ten seconds more, and it would be safe for him to start his descent. Only ten more seconds.

Ten-one-thousand. Nine-one-thouuu—

The rest of the count rattled in his ears, blending with a growing sound from inside the Avantgarde, like a honking bullet-train rushing at Harris at an unimaginable speed.

“Watch out!” Harris threw himself over the balcony’s railing and onto the ladder, even though regs required two more feet of clearance between him and the duo below. Conservative, far too conservative when a fireball swoops onto a guy.

Like in a slo-mo movie, Harris’ fingers grabbed the ladder’s rail. They dug into the metal, hands wrapped around, shoulders pulled out of their sockets as the rest of his body swung down to dangle above the street level. Four stories didn’t sound like much for the nation of skyscrapers, but when falling… it would be plenty.

Above Harris’ pounding head and a few inches of reinforced concrete, the fireball roared, unleashed, and a musical rain of shattered glass fell past him. The stone creaked, bulking under the blast of heat.

How could he hear the whistling of his breath and the drumming of his pulse in the inferno? Who the hell knows such things? Maybe a guy’s senses changed when he’d just almost died. Maybe his helmet amplified it. Maybe he simply didn’t give a shit when pain shot through his strained joints, head to toe. Before it overpowered him, he had to... had to... his legs threaded empty air, until he kicked up and sideways, to crawl onto the ladder properly.

Even though the fire had vented, he gripped the ladder in a death grip. The entire thing shook with him, including the pump truck on the ground. The entire world quaked, and he was falling with it.

“One-one-thousand.” A quick inhale after that. A slow exhale. “Two-one-thousand.”

A vision of a leaning fence back home, flaking paint and moss velveting every crack swamp up in his mind’s eyes. At the moment between life and death, he visualized his crumbling retaining wall. Jeez, he really needed to get a life, even if it seemed far less doable at the moment than back on the balcony with the girl next to him.

“Three-one-thousand.”

The world slowed down its swinging, but Harris didn’t trust this world. He slithered on his belly, one rung at a time, like some freaked-out cat.

“I got you,” Squirrel-man’s voice said above his sweating neck. Strong hands gripped him, urging him to unglue from the non-slip strip. “Climb normally, pal. It’ll get you down faster. I promise.”

“It’s easy for you to say. You didn’t have to almost die to get onto this damn ladder.” Harris rolled his tongue around his mouth and winced at the flavors. Blood, bile and… sweat. No tears, though it hurt to savor this unique brew. At some point in his aerial acrobatics, his chin must have hit metal so hard, he bit through his tongue. “Gimme a second.”

“On the count of three then. One. Two.”

No one-thousand? That was cheating.

“Three,” the Squirrel-man said.

Harris wheezed. “Four. Four-and-a-quarter...”

“Go!” Squirrel-man hollered right into his ear. The yell peeled Harris right off. Not the gentlest way to get over his shock, but in a pinch… He blinked tears away and stole a glance at the ground.

The crowd didn’t disperse. If anything, it swarmed their truck thicker, necks craned, eyes widened.

One set of eyes down there could be bright with glee, watching their owner’s handiwork. If only the cops could pick the arsonist from the gawkers… They sure arrived in sufficient numbers to spare a couple of detectives or someone else who could point out the man who put the girl in the burning room in the crowd. Then… then firefighter Sarkisian would have a couple words with the perp. Oh, right. Sure. That’s how it always goes.

Aside from the black-and-whites, an ambulance was pulling out with wailing sirens and flashing lights, but two more stood by. So was an extra fire engine, preparing to pump. The news-crew filmed like mad, the camera swiveling in every direction. Local News at Six got all the drama they were after, and then some.

Amidst this pandemonium, Harris’ gaze picked out a stretcher with a slim figure draped into a thermal blanket. Red hair haloed her head, bright as a stop-sign, basically impossible to miss.

Harris jerked from under Squirrel-man’s hand. “Thanks bud, I’m all good now.”

“Any time, Truck Twelve.”

Once on the solid ground, Harris paced a little. He needed to walk the numbness out of his limbs, and if his legs were carrying him after the stretcher toward the ambulance, so what? No law said he couldn’t go there. It was basically his duty to find out if the girl would pull through. Would be like a badge for the job well-done and stuff. Jung should add it to the manuals next time he reviewed them.

And speaking of the devil… Jung popped in front of him, too-white teeth flashing from sooty face. “You lucky son of a bitch!” Jung said.

It was his words, not Harris’, and Jung’s knew Mom in the Biblical sense, so who was Harris to—

Actually, he didn’t give a damn about Jung screwing his mother for once. Ambulance 38′s Lance was hitching a new oxygen mask over his girl’s face, and Harris… he had to see.

“I... I can’t afford to die, Sir. My bank will go broke,” he quipped by rote, straining his stinging eyes to see if her chest rose and fell.

The lieutenant barked out a laugh just as Lance jabbed a needle into the girl’s shoulder. Phantom pain pricked Harris so sharply, he winced. Without taking his eyes from the emptying syringe, Harris pointed at the ambulance. “Excuse me, Sir. Let me just...”

“Sure, go get yourself checked out.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I meant to say.”

“You look a proper mess.”

“Thank you, Sir. I strive to be just like my dad.”

Crap, did this just pop out of his mouth? He must have banged his head harder than he thought. That could explain other things too, like how he was aware of a connection with the girl.

Jung’s face hardened. “Go get yourself checked, Sarkisian.”

Whatever. Jung was just... Jung. Harris fixated on the ambulance and the girl who was asking for her mom and angels. “Right away, Sir. As you see, I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

Harris stumbled toward the paramedics. “Hey, Ambu-Lance! How’s EM business today?”

Lance didn’t bristle at the nickname, a sure sign that shit was serious. He barely even glanced at Harris or, to be more precise, at the lower part of Harris’ face. “Get the cut cleaned up once we’re done here. The bruise… well, it only makes you prettier.”

“Uh-huh. Always wanted one just like that. Great size, and the colors are just wow.” Harris instinctively fondled his chin. Caked blood scratched his fingertips. Something sticky smeared all over them. His tongue tasted a tangy film of blood on his teeth too, but nothing seemed loose in his mouth, thankfully, because a dental bill wouldn’t improve his life.

“Don’t strain yourself to thank me.” Lance pushed the stretcher inside his truck and slammed the doors shut. “Hello there, on the wheel! We’re taking her to the Central.”

As far as the paramedic was concerned, their exchange was over, but Harris trailed Lance around the ambulance. “Was this an overdose?”

Lance shrugged and nodded in one fluid move. “Plus, smoke inhalation, but oxygen should clear that up. Plus, maybe something else, an underlying condition, the hospital can tell what. She’s stable for now. Why are you asking? Considering EMT work or what?”

“Not really, no. Up there she spoke about angels with fire. I wondered why.”

“Wonder no more.”

“It fucking sucks.”

Harris didn’t know what he referred to, but Lance did. “Life sucks, dude,” the EMT said, sighed philosophically and climbed into his seat. “On the bright side, no fire angels on site means today isn’t the Judgment Day yet, just your regular local apocalypse.”

The ambulance’s driver honked for Harris to stand clear and drove away. This was it then. Lance gave him all the answers. His shift was done, and he would never see this angel-fancying girl again. Except…

Harris removed the helmet and tugged off the liner to scratch his greasy skull, then hawked a gob of ash-tasting spit on the asphalt.

Except Lance’s answers were crap. Clear-cut, snappy, and total bullshit. They didn’t settle the weird emotion the girl stirred up in him. If a date Dad had set up made him feel like that, he would ask her out again, even though he wasn’t a second date kind of guy. If she agreed to a second date, he’d figure out why she had him at her first delusional word. And this would be far more intriguing than all the dates that came before combined.