The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 48

Deirdre was still drunk but a sense of terrible danger was sobering her fast. She sat on the edge of the bed and fought down an almost overwhelming urge to curl up beneath the blankets again. Her arm still ached where Bigelow had pulled at it. Absently she rubbed it. She wanted desperately to drift back to sleep, but it was so warm in the room, stuffy and hard to breathe. Something must have happened to the ventilation system. For some reason her eyes had started to water.

She brushed at them, opened her mouth to yawn and ended up coughing.

The taste in her mouth made her gag. Bad liquor an something else. Smoke.

This time she managed to open her eyes all the way.

The door to the storeroom was partly ajar and through it heavy masses of hot air billowed into the room. She coughed again and stumbled to her feet, her mind clearing very fast now. Bigelow had shouted something about a fire. She had to get out, she thought, beginning to panic.

She slipped her feet into her pumps and ran to the door.

At the other end of the storeroom, almost lost amid the wax-museum tableaux of melting elves and reindeer and Santa Clauses, she could see Bigelow walking slowly forward clutching his trophy. He moved with a peculiar lurch, as if his shoes were sticking to the floor.

Finally he stumbled and fell. Deirdre covered her face with her hands as he sprawled full length on the floor.

He screamed once and between her fingers Deirdre saw the falling draperies cover him as the flames danced across the room and over the mound of twitching cloth. She slammed the door to shut out the horror, leaned against it, and began to sob hysterically. Gradually a deadly calm came to’her; there was something very wrong and then she realized what it was. The door at her back was warm and getting warmer.

She ran through the living room, the electric lantern on the end table throwing terrifying shadows against the walls. She found herself boxed in the kitchen nook, frantically searching for another way out, but there was none. The hysteria had left her completely now. She turned and faced the door; the wood was browning from the beat on the other side. At the bottom, a thick stream of burning, melted polyester flowed sluggishly under it.

She ran into the bathroom looking for thick towels or another robe that she could soak and put on. Bigelow had almost made it that way.

If it hadn’t been for his damned trophy … But there were no more towels, no robes. She darted back into the living room. The door was blackening now. She was trapped; there was no longer any hope.

She stumbled around the bed and pulled back the draperies from the picture window. Outside, the snow was drifting quietly down, gathering in little mounds of cotton on the narrow sill.

An immense calm mixed with a deep sadness filled her mind. The window, she knew, could not be opened. Even if it could, they were on the twenty-first floor and there was no fire escape. She could feel the heat behind her and turned to face it. The fire had burned through the door .and flames,now blanked the entire far wall of the suite.

The smoke was thick and searing. She had to get air, she realized.

There was a paperweight on the desk near the burning wall and she made a dash for it, scooped it up, whirled and threw it at the window.

The glass shattered cleanly and fell out into the night. She ran to the window and leaned out, ignoring the pain as the tiny shards of glass left in the frame gouged the palms of her hands.

The air was cold and flakes of snow whipped against her face. Far below she could hear the muted sounds of sirens -and men shouting, their voices crisp and clear in the cold night air. She closed her eyes for a moment; somewhere from down below she imagined she could hear the faint murmur of bells and Christmas carols. It was her favorite time of year….

Then she felt the heat at her back again and turned.

The fire was halfway across the room and there was no escape now.

She stood in the window, wrapped in a protecting blanket of cold air and snow and started to sob.

In her mind, she could already feel the touch of the flames. And with that thought, her rational mind collapsed, leaving only a sheer animal urge to escape.

She whipped the thin blanket of sheets off the sofa bed and pulled the mattress from the frame, then tugged it toward the window. It was the only possibility, it had to be of some help; it would protect her to at least some degree. She stood in the empty window clutching the mattress in front of her, then hesitated. Perhaps someone would come, maybe right now the firemen were battling their way through the storeroom, knowing that she was there.

But nobody knew she was there, she remembered. She had made sure of that.

She waited a moment longer but no one came.

Only the fire came, burning the desk and scorching the carpet and crawling along the painted ceiling. The upholstered arms of the sofa bed were blazing now and the varnish on the wooden coffee table in front bubbled and browned, then burst into flame. She couldn’t stand it any more; her fingers where she held the mattress against the radiation of the fire began to blister.

She turned, her back to the flame; she felt a gentle tug at the bottom of her slip and something warm caressed the nape of her neck. She gripped the mattress tightly. In the next instant she was falling through the blessedly cold night, her only emotion one of a terribly deadening sorrow.

. Her hair had caught fire in the last moment on the window ledge, as had the bottom of her slip. She didn’t realize this as she Plummeted the long, long distance down.

Her fall traced a long, flaming arc through the night sky.