The Trafficked

75

Mann and Father Finn saw the smoke from half a mile away. Neither of them looked at each other. Both understood what it was that they were racing towards.

‘Our father, which art in heaven…’ Father Finn prayed.

‘What provisions have you for putting out fires?’

‘We have just the hoses outside.’

‘Can we expect help from anywhere else?’

‘No. The local council have been trying to get rid of us for years. We are on our own, Johnny. I pray that everyone is out.’ The air around was already carrying a hint of smoke in it.

They were getting nearer now. People were out of their houses on the side of the road. They were shouting at the Father, waving their arms for him to slow and hear what they had to say. He leaned out of the window to listen as they hurtled past, inevitably slower on the dusty road than they had been on the highway.

‘The black riders came,’ they shouted. ‘Motorbikes and cars.’

Mercy met them as she ran towards the car as it spun into the driveway. She was screaming.

‘Quick, Father. Becky and Eduardo are inside. We cannot get them out.’

She lumbered after them. Ramon was working the water hose. The older children were handing buckets of water to the adults. Mann looked up and saw Becky at the bedroom window. She was holding Eduardo. The wooden balcony was already alight. She was trying to open the balcony door. She was yanking it. Mann could see that she was panicking so much that she wasn’t functioning. He knew what he had to do. He had no choice.

‘I am going in the main entrance,’ said Mann.

‘No, Johnny. You are too weak. You’ll never make it.’

‘Ramon, point everything you have at the entrance. We will come out on the balcony. Father, get ready for us to jump onto something.’

‘I will clear as much as I can here, Johnny. I have the sacks of rice in the Jeepney still, the ones we picked up in Manila. You can jump onto those.’

‘Ready, Ramon?’ Ramon’s head nodded but his face was set in fear. Mann looked up at the window. He could no longer see Becky. ‘Hose me down, Ramon.’ Ramon drenched Mann with the water. Mercy handed him a wet towel and he put it over himself.

‘Okay Let’s go.’

Ramon came behind Mann and blasted the front door as close to it as he could. Mann kicked it open. Clutching his side, he reeled back from the explosion of heat that hit him. Ramon hosed all around and the others threw buckets inside.

Mann kept the towel over his head and raced inside and up the stairs. The hot air heated his lungs like breathing in a furnace. Ramon followed him in and was keeping the flames in control as far as the upper landing. Mann beat the flames around the bedroom door with his wet towel and kicked it open.

Becky and Eduardo had passed out on the floor. Mann hit the floor himself, crawled towards them and dragged them back towards the balcony. He would have to be ready to get them out the second he opened the balcony doors. It would create a through-tunnel of air and the place would be a furnace in seconds. He was choking now. The acrid cinders were catching in his throat and making him retch. He cursed his useless side that stopped him pulling them both at once. He got them to the window and looked down. He saw Father Finn below, the children dragging the sacks towards the house. Father Finn saw him, his face said that they were ready, and Mann reached up, turned the handle of the latch, pulled it all the way down, gave it a good yank, and opened the window a fraction. He shook Becky. She did not stir. There was no way he could carry them both together and jump far enough beyond the balcony. He was going to have to do them one at a time. Mann picked up Eduardo, ready in his arms. He looked back at the door. It would be burning through soon. If he opened the balcony door it would be in seconds rather than minutes. He looked back at Becky; he had no choice, he had to do it. He steeled himself, then he opened the balcony door and threw Eduardo out over the burning balcony and onto the waiting sacks below.

A blast of flame from the balcony sent Mann reeling backwards The entire platform was fiercely alight now. For a second it eased as Ramon blasted it with the hose. Mann dragged Becky into his arms. The balcony was all but gone in flames. Ramon’s hose ceased to have any effect on it. The heat was biting the back of Mann’s throat. He heard the roar of the fire beneath him and the sound of glass shattering in the house. His skin began to scorch. He was clutching at the small amount of oxygen left in the room and he knew he was passing out. He looked behind him. The door to the bedroom was all but burnt through. He looked at Becky, he was glad she was unconscious. Hopefully she wouldn’t feel the pain.

‘I’m sorry, Becky, truly sorry, but…’ he kissed her face ‘…but we are not going to fucking die here. Agreed? That’s it then, no argument.’

With his last atom of strength he stood to his feet, wrapped the wet towel over his and Becky’s heads and cradled her in his arms.

He looked back towards the door, any second now it would be too late. There was a huge roar all around them. The whole refuge felt like it was about to collapse. The glass was cracking and about to shatter in the balcony doors. Then it would be too late and they would be engulfed in flames. It was now or never. Better to die on the way out than be trapped here.

He took one last look at Becky, took a step back, and ran at the balcony doors, blasted them apart with a kick and jumped into the fire. It was like jumping into a lava flow. Mann threw himself and Becky forward straight into the mouth of the volcano.

At that second when his clothes caught fire and he felt them stick to his body, at that exact second when he felt the excruciating pain of death and he opened his mouth to cry out in agony, it was filled with a cold, hard torrent of water from above.