Monday Mourning

37

THE FLASH OF FLAME WITHERED AFTER THE OPENING BURST, BUT choking black smoke began filling the room.

I couldn’t get to my feet. The ropes held me twisted backward, ankles bound to wrists. I rolled back up onto my knees.

My eyes burned. My throat grew raw. Though heat was building, my body shook. This fire would not burn itself out. I had to get away or die.

I tried to think but my mind was drifting, bringing up fearful images from other places, other days.

Chalky white bones in a woodstove. A carbonized skeleton in a burned-out basement. Two blackened bodies in a charred Cessna.

“Cut the crap, Brennan!” I shouted aloud. “Think!”

I drew a series of shallow breaths, coughed, repeated the litany.

“Think!” I yelled again.

My stomach heaved. I swallowed, spoke loudly again, this time to Tawny.

“Tawny! Can you hear me?”

Fire sizzled and popped behind me. In Tawny’s direction, only thickening smoke.

“Tawny!” I yelled again.

Back on my side, flexing and extending my hips and knees, I slithered across the carpet, each thrust wrenching my shoulder and abrading my face.

I was on my third push when a banshee shrieking rose from the armchair.

I froze, every hair upright on my neck and arms.

“Tawny!”

The keening continued, one high-pitched note of panic.

Mother of God! Was she burning?

“Tawny, can you walk?” I shouted.

The wailing faltered, gave way to coughing.

“Steady, soldier,” I said more to myself than to Tawny. “I’m coming.”

Three more thrusts and my body struck the chair. Gasoline and dust felt thick on my skin.

“Cover your mouth,” I panted, as loudly as I could. “If you can, get down on the floor.”

The coughing grew frenzied.

Pushing up against the chair with my shoulder, I rolled back onto my knees and tried to rock it again and again.

“Tawny! Get down!” I screamed. “Now!”

Behind us something whooshed. One wall erupted in flames that rushed the ceiling, washing the room in swimmy orange light.

I felt movement, then Tawny thudded to her knees, drew in her limbs, and collapsed into a knot beside me.

Nausea, pain, and fear were taking their toll. I could barely breathe, barely think. But my sluggish brain had computed what my eyes hadn’t seen.

A rope trailed from a dog collar on Tawny’s neck. Her hands and feet were unbound!

I swiveled to her.

“Tawny,” I coughed. “You have to help. You can save us, Tawny. You can save us.”

The human knot contracted.

Think, Brennan, think! Had the spreading fire impelled her? Or had that one barked command worked better than kindness? Was she still programmed to respond to orders?

Nothing to lose.

“Tawny, untie me!” I shouted.

The scrawny neck turtled up.

“Now, Tawny, now!”

Tawny’s face came round. When our eyes met, pity jumbled my resolve to be hard.

“You’re going home, sweetheart. To Maniwaki. To your mother.”

My chest burned. I coughed uncontrollably.

“To Sandra,” I choked out.

Something flickered in the hollowed-out eyes.

“To Sandra,” I repeated.

Tawny’s face slackened as a world she thought dead skittered through her mind. Her mouth opened, trembled, then morphed into an O.

“Sandra,” I repeated.

Without a word, Tawny spun and crawled beneath the smoke toward the rear of the building.

I tried to grab her. The ropes stopped me cold.

“Tawny!” My voice cracked. I coughed until my belly screamed and I tasted blood.

When the spasm passed, I twisted and peered in the direction Tawny had gone.

Nothing but thick black smoke.

My heart shriveled. I’d been left alone to die.

Dear God! Was I alone? Was Anne already dead?

“Tawny!” I called out. “Please!”

Nothing.

As before, I writhed and thrashed. As before, I collapsed exhausted on the filthy rug, skin raw, lungs in agony.

The room began to recede. I thought hypnotically: I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.

Then I heard scraping and banging, like the hurried opening and slamming of drawers. Seconds later a dark form took shape in the smoke and scrabbled toward me.

Tawny’s skin gleamed like alabaster. One hand covered her mouth. The other clutched a long, flat object.

What?

She jerked convulsively. A blade flashed firelight.

A knife!

Tawny’s knuckles looked white and bloodless. For a moment she stared at her hand, as if trying to figure why the knife might be there.

Then she pounced and rolled me so my face mashed the carpet.

I felt breath on my neck, weight on my back.

My God, she’s going to stab me. “Q” still controls her.

I waited for the blade.

Instead I felt pressure at my wrists. Sawing.

Tawny was cutting my bindings!

Wrenching my head sideways, I gulped for air.

“Faster, Tawny. Hurry!”

I strained the ropes outward as Tawny slashed back and forth across them. Though my arms were numb, I sensed a loosening as fiber after fiber yielded.

An eon later my hands flew apart. Driving my feet downward, I rolled to my back.

Pain roared up my spine and across my shoulders and hips. My vision blurred.

“The knife,” I gasped.

Two Tawnys reached out, then fell back coughing. I grabbed the knife, dropped it.

I clapped my hands, shook them, banged them on the floor. When I tried again I had enough feeling to grasp the handle.

Within seconds I’d freed my ankles.

I tried to rise, toppled. Beside me, Tawny hacked and gagged.

Groping with one hand, I found a cushion. In two thrusts, I hacked off and bisected the outer covering, placed one half over Tawny’s nose and mouth, and pressed her palm to it. The other half I slapped to my face.

An icy tingle was moving from my toes to my feet. I pushed up, slid one knee forward. Moved a hand. Advanced another knee. My limbs were working.

Hooking Tawny’s arm, I tugged her to all fours. Together we crawled three-legged from the parlor toward the front of the house where there was less flame.

Six feet up the hall a tendril of night air tantalized my nostrils. Rising to a low crouch, I made a mad scramble to the foyer, threw open the door, stumbled over my parka, kicked it aside, shot outside, and flew down the walk, Tawny in tow.

The night smelled frosty and horsey and sweetly alive. Wind cooled my sweat-slicked face. Pellets of ice stung my cheeks, and ricocheted off my shoulders and head.

I wiped tears from my eyes and looked down at Tawny. She sat cross-legged on the ice, naked, weeping and rocking like a frightened child.

I gazed back at the house.

Smoke seeped from some windows, and billowed in a column from the newly opened front door. Fueled by the influx of air, flames were rising rapidly. Otherwise, not a hint of the nightmare inside.

My chest froze in midheave.

I listened.

No sirens.

No one was coming! Anne hadn’t phoned! No one had!

A hand flew to my mouth.

Anne. Could she be alive? “Q” had talked of three bodies in the ashes. Was Anne inside!

Darting to the stoop, I grabbed my jacket, rushed back, squatted, and wrapped Tawny. Sleet ticked and bounced off the nylon.

“Did you see another woman in the house?”

Tawny continued rocking and sobbing.

I gripped her shoulders and repeated my question.

Tawny nodded.

“Where?”

The bony shoulders trembled.

“Where?” I screamed.

“F-floor.”

“What room?”

She looked up, mute.

“The room, Tawny. What room?”

I shook her, repeated my question.

“B-b-back. Basement. I don’t kn-know.” Ash speckled her face. Sweat soaked her hair.

As I stood motionless, undecided, the acrid smell of burning slammed my nostrils, and the size of the orange glow increased.

Anne didn’t have time for 911! I had to go back!

But I was soaked in gasoline.

With shaking fingers, I unlaced and yanked off my boots, stripped to my undies, then shoved my feet back into the boots. After wetting my cushion cover with snow, I dashed back to the house, head a vortex of pain. At the open door, I dropped to a squat and duck-walked into the smoke.

Stumbling to the armchair, I snatched Tawny’s blanket, draped my shoulders, and groped my way toward the back of the house.

Again, I tried to recall the layout of the back hall. This time my tortured brain warped up a floor plan. Kitchen to the left. Parlor to the right, study or bedroom beyond. Basement stairs descending from a bedroom straight ahead.

Though flame-free, the hallway was dense with smoke. I felt my way blindly, chest and throat tormented.

My hamstrings screamed in protest. Now and then I winged an elbow or banged a shin. I blundered on, one hand extended, the other clamped to my mouth. I thought only of Anne.

Then my outstretched hand slammed something hard. My stomach lurched. I tasted bile.

I flattened my palm on the door. The wood felt warm. I moved it up. Warmer.

Please! No!

I touched the knob. Hot. I turned it, inched open a peephole.

Flames twisted from the bed and curled the drapes at the back of the room. In the dancing shadows, I saw a shape on the floor.

I flung the door wide.

“Anne!”

The shape didn’t move.

“Annie!”

Nothing.

Tossing aside my swatch of fabric, I crawled to Anne, pulled the blanket from my shoulders, and folded it lengthwise in layers beside her.

When I sat back, pain exploded in my head. I forced the throbbing to the basement of my skull.

Mustering my dwindling reserves, I rolled Anne onto the blanket, dug beneath her, and pulled an edge. The blanket unfolded and slid between Anne’s body and the floor. I felt my way to an end, wrapped one corner around each hand, and began backing out of the room and down the hall.

Anne weighed a thousand pounds. I tried to reassure her, gagged.

I hadn’t taken time to check for a pulse. Was she alive?

Please, God!

I tugged at my homemade travois, gaining inches with each burst. My arms and legs turned to rubber.

I heaved and heaved, coughing and panting, every cell shrieking for air. Now and then I flinched as something exploded or crashed in the house. Backing into the parlor, I twisted my head up and around for a quick assessment. Through the smoke I could see flames working up the walls. Only a narrow path down the center remained fire free.

Hours after setting out, I made the turn into the front hall. My eyes burned. My chest burned. My stomach burned.

Leaning a hand on the doorframe, I bent and vomited more bile. I wanted to sit down, to curl into a ball and sleep.

When my stomach settled, I regripped the blanket. My arms and legs trembled as I lurched backward, blindly pulling with all my strength.

The parlor was now an inferno. Flames crawled the woodwork, devoured the secretary, engulfed the couch. Things popped and spit, sending sparks toward the front hall and foyer. I was past feeling. Past thinking. I knew only to pull, back up a foot or two, and pull again.

The front entrance lay five yards behind me.

Three.

Two.

My mind chanted a mantra, urging my body not to fail.

Get through the foyer.

Over the jamb.

Onto the stoop.

When Anne’s legs cleared the doorway, I dropped to the ground and placed my fingertips on her throat.

No palpable pulse.

I collapsed onto Anne.

“You’ll be fine, old friend.”

Black dots swirled behind my eyelids.

Sleet pelted my back. The ground felt icy against my knees.

Around me, a cacophony of noise. I struggled to make sense of it.

Sobbing.

Was that Anne? Katy?

The yawing and spitting of flames.

Ticking.

Rain on the magnolia? No. Montreal. De Sébastopol. Sleet on the tankers in the rail yard.

What rail yard?

The rumble of distant engines.

Muted honking.

Coyotes wailing far off in the desert.

Not coyotes. Sirens.

The dots congealed into solid black.