Lucy And The Loner

The last time she’d seen him, he’d been stretched out on the couch in the living room, the television still tuned to the Bullets game in its fourth quarter. He’d been sleeping soundly, but she hadn’t had the heart to turn off the TV, knowing he preferred to doze in front of the flickering light. So she’d pulled the edge of the cotton throw over his feet to ward off the autumn chill, and she’d crept up to bed, knowing he’d join her there later when he awoke and realized she’d gone up without him.

She had to find him. She couldn’t leave the house without Mack. If anything happened to him, Lucy would die herself.

In a distant corner of her brain, she recalled something from elementary school about how if your house was on fire, you should crawl along the floor, where there was likely to be more air, and touch any doors to check for heat before you opened them. Most of all, she remembered, you shouldn’t panic. But when she rolled back over, the scratch of the rug against her belly made her remember something else, too. She remembered that she slept in the nude.

So much for not panicking.

She tried to get her bearings and forced all thought from her mind to focus instead on survival—her own and Mack’s. She always discarded her clothes on the chair by the bedroom door before she went to bed, and—gee, what a coincidence—the door was also the best exit from the smoke-filled room. Certainly that was the direction she needed to pursue if she was going to find Mack.

Slowly and deliberately, keeping her breathing as shallow and steady as she could, Lucy clawed at the rag rug beneath her, pulling her body along the floor toward the chair. She fumbled around for a few seconds before her fingers lit on the boxer shorts and T-shirt that lay there in a crumpled ball. When she snatched the garments down to the floor, her hand skimmed against a soft patch of fur, and she remembered the tattered teddy bear who perpetually occupied that chair as if it were a throne.

She couldn’t save much, Lucy thought as she reached up again, but by God, she would take care of the two things that mattered the most to her in the world. She was going to get Mack and Stevie the bear out of there. When all was said and done, they were all she had left in the world anyway.

It took her only a couple of seconds to struggle into her clothes, then, clutching Stevie savagely under one arm, she crawled out into the hall and immediately lost her way. She could tell neither where the fire was coming from, nor where the smoke was thinnest, nor could she detect any heat that might give her a clue.

Yet she knew she had to make her way downstairs. If Mack wasn’t in bed with her, chances were good that he was still sleeping on the couch. If everything worked out the way it was supposed to, she would find him, rouse him, and they could flee through the front door together. Only problem was, by now she was so disoriented that she wasn’t sure in which direction the stairs lay, let alone the front door.

It took her two tries and too many valuable minutes to find her way to the stairs. When she finally managed to locate them, she slithered like a snake, step by step, to the bottom. Toward the end she began to feel woozier and even more confused, and she bumped her chin hard on something when she lost her bearings.

For a moment Lucy simply lay sprawled on the floor at the foot of the steps, dizzy and disoriented, uncertain about exactly where she was. Her head was pounding, her mouth was dry and her chest felt as if it was going to explode. All around her was darkness and heat, and she didn’t know which way to go. Vaguely she heard a strange sound and registered it as the whisper of the fire consuming her house.

Funny how quiet that sound seemed, she thought as a buzzing swelled up from somewhere deep inside her brain. Her mind was reeling now, and her lungs felt as if they, too, were being eaten by hot flames. She’d always thought fire would be louder than this, hotter than this, faster than this. She didn’t realize it would be so...so...so...

Somewhere in the house glass shattered, the odd tinkling sound seeming clearer than anything she had ever heard. Her hand clenched convulsively on the ragged bear she had managed to cling to, and she gripped it as fiercely as Arthur would have seized the Holy Grail, had he ever found it. But Arthur never had. Arthur had gone to his death never knowing the fate of that thing he’d sought so faithfully, so relentlessly, all his life.

Lucy didn’t want that to happen to her. Stevie the bear was the only link she had to her own Grail, and she didn’t want to lose him or the prize he signified to her. In some deep, delirious part of her brain, she vowed to herself that if she managed to get out of this thing alive, she’d go after that prize—her Grail.

Somehow, if she managed to get out of this thing alive, Lucy would find her twin brother.

But her thoughts as she fought off unconsciousness weren’t for Stevie or her missing twin or the odd emptiness in her soul that had accompanied her all her life. Her only thoughts—indistinct and incoherent—were for Mack. Oh, God...she had to find Mack....

Boone Cagney heaved himself out of the cab of the bright red ladder truck, feeling, as always, that faint thrill deep down inside him where the little boy who’d always wanted to be a fireman still lived. Quickly, dispassionately, he surveyed the burning house.

Not as bad as some he’d seen, he noted as he immediately reached for his bunkers, but not much would be salvageable after the fire was out, either. With a competency and ablemindedness that had come with years of fighting fires, he donned roughly fifty pounds of protective gear—pants, coat, helmet and gloves. Finally, when he had his self-contained breathing apparatus in place, he forgot all about the fact that scarcely ten minutes ago, he’d been sound asleep, and he headed into the fray.

A handful of civilians mingled in the yards of neighboring houses, but he had no way of knowing yet if any of them were residents of the one that was on fire. Probably none of them were, because no one was acting hysterical—yet. Because it was just past 3:00 a.m., whoever lived here had more than likely been home when the fire broke out. The chances were good that they might even still be lying in bed overcome by smoke, oblivious to the fact that their house was burning down.

He made a quick survey of the grounds, noting there were no toys to indicate the presence of children, nor fences to indicate the presence of a pet. Which didn’t necessarily mean that there weren’t any, but it was a good sign. A pickup truck was parked in the driveway far enough back to be safe from the flames for now, one of those sporty models that weren’t meant for transporting anything much heavier than a good-sized golden retriever. Even in the dark, Boone could tell the color was one of those weird mixes of pink and purple, so he guessed that at least one of the occupants of the house was female.

Although a good part of the structure had already been engulfed by flame, his practiced eye told him the source of the fire was probably somewhere in the basement, more than likely in the back. The aged garage, which stood independently of and behind the house, was also on fire, probably due to an errant spark from the burning building or stray bits of airborne, smoldering ash. Rolls of opaque black smoke bled from a number of broken windows around the base of the house.

While his colleagues advanced the hose lines, Boone went to work on the ladders. As far as he could see, the flames were confined to the lower level of the house for now, but they would still have to be quick in their search of the second floor above the fire. He noted one window on the side of the house was open, in spite of the cool October night, and, determining it to be the most likely place to find a resident, he called to another firefighter and suggested they enter the house there.

Immediately after crawling through the window, he was surrounded by smoke, but his vision was still clear enough for him to make out a bed. An empty bed. Its covers were rumpled and kicked to the foot, however, as if someone had awakened and left in a hurry.

A quick search of the two other rooms upstairs revealed one to be a home office of sorts, with a personal computer on the desk whose screen saver still danced and glowed eerily through the dark haze of smoke. The other room was evidently a spare bedroom, unused if the still-made bed was any indication. Exiting that one, Boone nodded to his partner in the search, and the two men headed for the stairway at the end of the hall.

At the foot of the stairs, he found a woman. Initially, he thought her unconscious, but when he rolled her over, she groaned, and he could see that she was barely hanging on.

“Morgan!” he called into the radio he carried to alert the firefighters outside of the progress inside. “I got a woman just inside the front door—foot of the steps!”

“No other victims found,” a voice crackled over the radio in response. “No one’s been able to get into the basement—that’s the source of the fire. But the neighbors said she lives by herself. Shouldn’t be anyone else in there.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway,” he said to himself, relieved that this rescue, at least, would be uneventful. The woman on the floor was small and slender, seemingly without weight, so he easily scooped her up into his arms.

He exited through the front door, and carried the semiconscious woman across the front lawn toward the street, then lay her effortlessly on the grass. When she groaned again, a sputtering cough erupted, and she flailed one hand in front of herself as if she were trying to physically grab hold of the fresh air. To help her out, Boone went back to the ladder truck to retrieve the oxygen they carried on all the rigs, returned to the woman and cupped the clear mask over her mouth.

As he monitored her breathing and waited for the ambulance, he noted the brown-and-black teddy bear she held clenched in one hand. It was threadbare in spots, ragged in others, and a fierce, hot fury gripped him at what her possession of the toy might mean. She coughed and sputtered some more, tears spilling freely from her eyes, but unable to wait any longer, Boone snatched the mask off her face and pulled her to a sitting position.

“Lady,” he said, giving her a quick shake to help rouse her. “You’re okay. But I need to know if there’s anyone else inside the house.”

A new series of rough, ragged coughs rocked her for a minute, and more tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving stark, clean streaks in the soot that smudged her face. Then she looked up and gazed at him with wide, panicked eyes, eyes that were so big and so blue, he nearly forgot for a moment where he was. Hastily, he brushed the odd sensation off and reminded himself that he had a job to do.

“Mack,” the woman whispered hoarsely, the single word barely audible. She stared vacantly at the burning building for a moment, then riveted her gaze to Boone’s with an intensity that shook him to his core. “Mack is still inside the house.”

Great, Boone thought. Why was he not surprised? Her rescue had been too easy, too neat. Evidently she didn’t live alone after all. Obviously her neighbors didn’t know her as well as they thought they did. Or maybe she just had a boyfriend they didn’t know about.

“Is Mack your husband?” he barked out, the roar of the flames behind them growing louder, threatening to drown out their voices. “Your boyfriend?”

She started coughing again, then stared at him, obviously still confused and uncertain. “My husband?” she finally repeated, her expression bewildered, those blue, blue eyes gradually sharpening their focus a bit. “No, I—I’m divorced. And I don’t have a...a boyfriend. Mack is my—” She seemed to recall the gravity of the situation then, because she grabbed his coat savagely and cried, “Mack! My God, he’s still in there!”

With one strong hand, she jerked Boone down until his face was within inches of hers, and her eyes filled with tears again. “You’ve got to get him out of there. Mack is all I have left. He’s...he’s...” She began to cry in earnest then. “God, he’s only three years old! Please...you have to help him!”

Boone’s entire body went rigid. “Where was he the last time you saw him?”

“Asleep on the couch in the living room,” she said, crying freely now, her sobs blurring her words. “He was sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake him when I went to bed, so I Just left him alone. I...I... Oh, no...”

Something hot and coarse knotted in Boone’s belly. Once more, he noted the teddy bear the woman clenched in the hand that wasn’t gripping his coat. He hadn’t seen a child’s bedroom, nor any other indication of a child’s occupancy, save the teddy bear in the woman’s death grip.

But they hadn’t made it down to the basement, he reminded himself, a sick feeling gnawing at his belly when he remembered the radio announcement that the other firefighters hadn’t been able to make it down there. That’s where her child’s room must be. Good thing she’d left him sleeping on the couch, Boone thought. Otherwise the kid would have been a goner.

Man, a kid, he thought wildly. There was still a kid in there.

“Where’s your living room?” he demanded. “Where’s the couch he was sleeping on?”

The woman seemed to snap out of her stupor some, because her next directions were offered with some degree of coherency and a great deal of demand. “Turn left when you go through the front door. The couch is on the far side of the room.”

Boone nodded. “Okay, we’ll get him out. You stay put. Thompson!” he shouted out to one of the other firefighters nearest the front door. He heaved himself away from the woman, shoved his helmet visor back down over his face and began to race toward the burning house. “There’s a kid inside! We’re going back in for a kid!”

Boone had fought enough fires that watching his back was second nature. What other people might consider a terrifying situation was just another job for him to do. Usually. But when there was a kid involved, something inside him got anxious. Something inside him got scared. Something inside him got wary.

This time when he entered the house, it was with a single-minded intent to locate a three-year-old boy.

The general rule of thumb in his line of work was that where victims of fires were concerned, adults acted like dogs, and children acted like cats. While the former tended to run, the latter would normally hide. Boone hoped like hell this kid wasn’t an expert at hide-and-seek. Otherwise, they were both going to wind up toast.

Left, he reminded himself as he passed over the threshold and into an incinerator. She told you to turn left.

When he’d entered the house the first time, the flames had been confined pretty much to the back of the house. Now, suddenly, there was fire everywhere. The smoke, too, impeded his progress, blinding him at times. Without wasting a moment, he motioned Thompson toward one side of the room, and Boone moved to the other, looking for a couch against the opposite wall, finding it exactly where she had said it would be.