The Fireman

by Joe Hill

  “After the shooting stopped, everyone was real quiet. The cellblock hadn’t ever been so quiet, not even in the middle of the night, when people were supposed to be sleeping.

  “A while later Miller and the others came down. You could smell homicide on them. Gunsmoke and blood. They brought their M16s and Miller stuck the barrel through the bars at us and I thought, Well, now it’s our turn. Damned if we went and damned if we stayed. I felt sick about it, but I didn’t fall on my knees and start to beg.”

  “Good,” Harper said. “Good for you.”

  “He says, ‘I want ten men for a cleanup crew. You do good, you can have a soda after.’

  “And the Mazz says, ‘What about a glass of cold milk?’ Needling him, you know. Only Miller didn’t get the joke. He just said, ‘Sure, if we have any.’”

  “The Mazz asks, ‘What happened out there?’ Like we didn’t know already.

  “Miller says, ‘They tried to escape. Tried to seize the truck.’

  “And the Mazz, he just laughs.

  “Miller blinks at him and says, ‘They were all dead anyhow. It’s better this way. We did ’em a favor. We made it quick. Better than burning alive.’

  “The Mazz says, ‘That’s you, Miller. Always thinking about how to help your fellow man. You’re the picture of empathy.’ I told you—the Mazz just has an instinct for running his mouth when anyone else would know to shut up. I thought for sure he’d get shot, but you know what? I think Miller was in shock, too. Maybe his ears were still ringing and he couldn’t hear the Mazz too good. All I know is he just nodded, like he was agreeing with him.

  “He opened the cell and the Mazz and I came out. Some other men drifted from the other cells. Guards had us sit down and take off our shoes and leave them behind, so we wouldn’t try and run. When there were ten of us, we went upstairs, flanked by men in body armor. They walked us down a long concrete corridor and out through a pair of double fire doors into the parking lot.

  “It was a cold, bright morning, so bright I couldn’t see at first. The whole world was just a white blur for at least a minute. I’ve thought about that a lot in the time since. The men they gunned down—they must’ve been staggering around blind while they got shot.

  “When my vision cleared I could see the brick wall was shot to shit. Most of the bodies were up against it, but a few had tried to run. At least one guy made it twenty feet across the lot before his head got blown off.

  “They had a town truck backed up to the rear of the building. They handed us rubber gloves and told us to get working. They wanted to get the bodies off to Portsmouth for ‘disposal.’ The guy I told you about, Devon, the birthday boy who brought us beers that time? He was out there, too, with a clipboard. He checked us off as we collected our gloves and would have to check us off again when we went back to our cells. He looked like a different man. He looked like he had had ten birthdays in the last month, not one.

  “At first it was easy throwing the bodies into the back of the truck, but after a bit, the Mazz and I had to climb up to arrange them and make room for more. Cold as it was, they were already going stiff. It was more like moving deadfall than you might think. I turned over Junot Gomez, who died with his mouth open, like he was going to ask someone a question. Maybe he was going to ask them what they were serving in Concord for breakfast.” Gilbert Cline laughed at that, a single, harsh sound that was more jarring than a sob would’ve been. “We had about forty of the corpses piled in the truck when the Mazz grabbed my elbow and pulled me down with him. He drug Junot’s body over the both of us. Just like that. No discussion. Like we planned it. It never even occurred to me to have second thoughts.

  “Well. I don’t know that there was anything to think about. The guards thought we were healthy for the moment, and they wouldn’t figure on two healthy men squirming in with a pile of infected corpses. And it wasn’t like it was safer to stay. Sooner or later they’d shoot the rest of us, for one reason or another. They’d shoot us and tell themselves it was the right thing to do, that they saved us from starvation, or burning alive, or whatever. The people in charge can always justify doing terrible things in the name of the greater good. A slaughter here, a little torture there. It becomes moral to do things that would be immoral if an ordinary individual did ’em.

  “Anyway. There isn’t much more to tell. We hid under bodies while the other prisoners kept throwing more in. No one seemed to notice we were missing. Then, just as they were finishing, I heard someone jump into the truck and start wandering around. Bootheels clanging on metal. The bodies didn’t fully cover us and I could see between them and suddenly I was looking up at Devon and his clipboard, and damn if he wasn’t looking right back at me. We stared at each other for the longest second in the history of recorded time. Then he nodded, just a little. He got down out of the truck and banged the tailgate shut and it started up. One guard shouted to Devon and asked if everyone was accounted for and Devon said yes they were. He lied for us. He knew we were in the truck and he lied so we could slip away. Someday this is all going to be over and I’m going to find that guy and buy him a beer. No one ever deserved one more.”

  The fire whistled and seethed.

  “Then?” Carol asked.

  “The driver threw it into first gear and hauled out of there. Half an hour later we pulled into the big lot in Portsmouth where they were burning the dead. The Mazz and I got out of the truck without being seen, but we only made it as far as a culvert on the edge of that pond there. And then we were stuck. We couldn’t get across the pond and we couldn’t get across the lot. I’m not sure what would’ve happened if the Fireman didn’t show up. I guess we either would’ve frozen to death or given ourselves up and been shot. I hope I get a chance to thank him. It must feel pretty good to have him on your side. You almost feel sorry for anyone who goes up against him.”

  A prolonged, awkward silence followed.

  “Thank you, Mr. Cline,” Carol said. “Thank you for sharing your story. You must be tired after all that talk. Jamie, will you take him back to the lockup?”

  “The handcuffs, Jamie,” Ben said.

  Jamie stepped forward and Mindy rose to her feet and they moved in on Gil, one on each side of him. Gil looked from Carol to Ben, his gray eyes weary and hooded. He stood and put his hands behind him. The handcuffs made a ratcheting sound as Jamie snapped them onto his wrists.

  “I was going to ask if there’s a chance I might be transferred out of the meat locker and in with the other men,” Gil said. “But I guess not.”

  Carol said, “I’m very grateful to you for how forthright you’ve been. Grateful—and happy. Happy you are with us. Happy you don’t have to fear being hauled out into a parking lot and gunned down. But Mr. Cline, after what Mr. Mazzucchelli did for you, I am not sure it’s in the interest of this community to let you out. He helped you escape and you seem like a loyal soul. How could you not want to help do the same for him? No. Back to the lockup, Jamie. It may seem like horrible treatment, but you understand why it’s necessary, Mr. Cline. As you said yourself, the people in charge can always justify doing terrible things in the name of the greater good. I think I know pretty well what you were implying when you said it. I think we all knew you were taking a dig at me.”

  The corners of Gil’s mouth went up in a little smile.

  “Ma’am,” Cline said, “I hid under dead bodies less cold than you.” He glanced at Harper and gave her a short nod. “Thanks for the water, Nurse. See you around.”

  Jamie thumped him in the small of the back with her broom handle. “Come on, sexy. Let’s get you back to the honeymoon suite.”

  When she opened the door, the wind blew snow in halfway across the room. Mindy and Jamie escorted Gilbert out, the door thudding shut behind them. The house creaked in the gale.

  “Your turn, Harper,” Carol said.

  10

  “Tell me about my father,” Carol said. “Is he dying?”

  “His condition is stable right no
w.”

  “But he won’t wake up.”

  “I’m hopeful.”

  “Ben says he should’ve woken up by now.”

  “Yes. If it was a subdural hematoma with no complications.”

  “So why hasn’t he?”

  “There must’ve been complications.”

  “Like what? What kind of thing is a ‘complication’?”

  “I couldn’t say with any certainty. I’m a nurse, not a neurologist. A piece of bone in his brain? Or just a deep bruise on the brain. Or maybe he had a stroke while we were operating. I don’t have any of the diagnostic equipment I’d need to figure it out.”

  “If he wakes up”—Carol began, and her breath seemed to hitch before she could go on, although her face remained slack, expressionless—“how retarded will he be?”

  They didn’t use the word retarded to discuss brain damage, but Harper didn’t think it was the time or place to correct her. “He may suffer no impairment at all or he may be severely damaged. At this point I’d just be guessing.”

  “Would you agree, though,” Carol said, “that he should’ve recovered by now? This is an unexpected outcome, isn’t it?”

  “I was hoping for better.”

  Carol nodded, slowly, almost dreamily. “Is there anything you can do for him?”

  “With what I have on hand? Not much. I rigged up a way to pass him fluids—watered-down apple juice—but that will only sustain him for so long. If the infirmary was better stocked, though, it would open up a range of options to improve his care. It would give me more flexibility with other patients, too. That’s what I was hoping to talk to you about. I spoke with John—”

  “Yes,” Carol said. “So I heard.”

  Harper continued as if there had been no interruption. “—and he has a plan to get us the supplies—”

  This time Ben broke in.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Ben asked Carol. “Didn’t I say we could trust the Fireman to have a plan for us?” He spoke in a flat, almost bored tone, but beneath that there was an edge in his voice.

  Harper tried again. “John thinks he can help us get what I’d need to look after your father and see to his long-term care, if he remains incapacitated. I think it ought to be considered.”

  “Tell me,” Carol said.

  Harper laid out the Fireman’s plan: how he wanted them to take Ben’s police cruiser to Verdun Avenue, use one of the camp cell phones to call an ambulance, wait for them to show up, and then—

  “—then John says he’ll send a phoenix to chase away the EMTs and any police who come along with them,” Harper finished. She felt this was a rather lame way to wrap up and was, briefly, nettled with John and John’s perverse theatrical impulses. “I’m not sure what he means by that, but he hasn’t let us down in the past.”

  “It’ll be another of his stunts,” Carol said. “One of his distractions. He does like his distractions.”

  Ben said, “I don’t see why we need his help. We can take down an ambulance without him. We have enough guns.”

  “To get how many people killed?” Harper asked.

  “Oh, it won’t come to that. We’ll put it to them like this: either you give us what’s in the ambulance or you wind up riding in one. Most people are pretty cooperative when they’ve got a rifle poking them in the eye.”

  “They’ll have guns, too. They’ll have a police escort.”

  “Sure. But when we meet them, I’ll be in my uniform and driving my police cruiser. They won’t be on guard. We’ll have the drop on them before they know what’s up,” Ben told her.

  “Why go it alone?” Harper asked. “Why not do it John’s way?”

  “The last time we did things John’s way, someone nearly murdered my father,” Carol said.

  “What happened to your father happened here, back on our ground. John’s plan worked.”

  “Yes. It worked out all right for him.”

  “Now what does that mean?”

  Instead of answering, Carol said, “When was John planning to give us the benefit of his help?”

  “Three nights from now.”

  “We can’t wait that long. It’ll have to be tomorrow. Ben, I’m trusting you to do this without any violence unless you absolutely have no other way.”

  Ben said, “Right. Well. There’ll be four of them—two responders in the ambulance, two in the police cruiser—so there better be five of us. Jamie is the best shot in camp after me. Nelson Heinrich used to have his own NRA Facebook page and is apparently good with a rifle. That girl Mindy Skilling who just walked out of here could place the 911 call for us. She’s old enough, so I wouldn’t feel irresponsible about taking her along, and she’s dramatic. Went to Emerson, I think? I figure—”

  “Wait. Wait,” Harper interrupted. “Carol, there’s no reason we can’t hold off for three nights. Your father—”

  “—is nearly seventy years old. Would you wait three nights if it was your father? If you could do something now?”

  It was in Harper to say, My father wouldn’t want people getting shot for him, but she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth. In truth, she thought Carol was right. If it were her father, she would’ve begged the Fireman to do whatever he could, as soon as possible. Begging wasn’t the sort of thing Julie Andrews did, but Harper wasn’t above it.

  “All right. I’ll talk to John. See if he can move things up to tomorrow night.”

  Carol fussed with the black curl of hair that fell across her forehead. “John John John John John John John John. If John is in no hurry to help my father, I’d feel awful about rushing him.”

  “He isn’t delaying for no reason. His ribs are knocked in, Carol.”

  Carol nodded sympathetically. “Yes. Yes, of course, John must be allowed to rest. I don’t want him disturbed. We don’t need him. Nurse Willowes, Ben will require a list detailing everything you need to give my father the very best care.”

  “That won’t work. I have to go with them.”

  “Oh, no. No, you couldn’t. You are so brave and kind to want to go, but I need you at my father’s side. We can’t risk you.”

  “You’re going to have to. Ben is only going to have a few minutes in the ambulance. Do you really want him picking through two hundred bottles, trying to make sense of pharmacological abbreviations? Personally, I wouldn’t take a chance on it, if it were my father.” Turning it around to see how Carol liked it.

  Carol gave her a baleful look.

  “My father needs more than good medicine. He needs a good nurse,” Carol said. “One is no good without the other. Be sure you come back.”

  Harper didn’t know what to say to that. The whole conversation had been confounding, full of hints she didn’t understand and implications she didn’t like.

  Carol said, “Ben, I want to talk over the plan with you. I want to know everything. Who you’re taking with you. What Verdun Avenue is like. Everything. Nurse—” She flicked her glance at Harper. “You can find your own way back to the infirmary, I hope.”

  It surprised Harper that they would just let her walk out unsupervised. To a degree, she thought herself as much a prisoner as Gilbert Cline, only with a nicer cell. They had brought her to the House of the Black Star under guard, and she had expected to leave the same way.

  A part of her wanted to walk out the door right away, before Carol changed her mind and decided to send her back with Bowie or one of the Lookouts hanging around outside. She already had in mind a modest detour on her way back to the infirmary. But she forced herself to wait, fingering the black buttons on her overcoat. There was, after all, still one other matter to address.

  “Carol . . . I was hoping we could talk about Allie. She’s been walking around with a rock in her mouth for days, because she believes she has something to atone for. I think she’s doing it, partly, because she looks up to you. She wants to impress you. She wants everyone to know how devoted she is to camp. Can’t you make her stop?”

  “I can’t,”
Carol said. “But you can.”

  “Of course you can make her stop. Tell her she’s punished herself enough. You’re her aunt and she loves you. She’ll listen. You’re almost all she has. You’re responsible for her. You need to step in before she has a collapse.”

  “But we’re all responsible to each other,” Carol said, her face assuming a maddening serenity. “We’re a house of cards. If even a single card stops supporting its share of the weight, the whole camp will collapse. That is what Allie is trying to tell you. She carries your stone in her mouth. Only you can pluck it out.”

  “She’s a child and she’s acting like one. It’s your job to be the adult.”

  “It’s my job to look after more than a hundred and fifty desperate people. To keep them safe. To keep them from burning alive. In a way, I am a nurse, too. I have to protect this camp from the infection of despair and selfishness. I have to protect us from secrets, which can be like cancer. From disloyalty and disaffection, which run like fevers.” As she spoke, she straightened in her chair, and her wet eyes glittered with a sick heat. “Since my father fell, I have tried to be what all these people need. What they deserve. My father wanted Camp Wyndham to be a nice place for people who had no other place to go. And that’s all I want. I just want it to be a nice place . . . and I think it’s nicest when we all look out for each other. My dad thought so, too.” She clenched her hands together and then squeezed them between her knees. “We’re stronger together, Harper. And if you’re not with us, you’re all alone. These days, alone is no way to be.” Her look, Harper thought, was almost pitying. “Don’t you see that?”

  11

  Harper followed a barely discernible path beneath an obscure sky.

  Whichever way she turned her face, snow blew into it. The wind gusted. A tree cracked. Boards wobbled and flexed underfoot, requiring her to proceed slowly to keep her balance.