12 Steps

by Iain Rob Wright

  Adam pushed with his hands, gritting his teeth against the pain in his cracked left elbow. At first, he thought he would never make it up, but like with pushing Margaret’s car, once movement started, it got easier. Eventually, he made it all the way back to his feet. Tasha had tears in her eyes, but she thanked him.

  “I won’t quit on you,” he said. “I promise.”

  Adam started towards the doors, but before he got there, they erupted in flames. The petrol underneath had been lit and it was now eating up the double doors from underneath.

  Behind him, John cried out. “I can’t get up. Help me.”

  Adam rushed over and got him under the arms. “Do you think you can walk if I get you up?”

  “I think I can try.”

  Tasha joined in and they got John standing – just about. His entire body was trembling and his face was a colourless mask in the glow of the fires. Adam told him to try to take a step.

  “I-I feel dizzy.”

  “I know, but feeling dizzy is better than feeling burnt. We have to get out of here.”

  John took an unbalanced step, but Tasha and Adam were able to steady him. “Okay, I’m up, so where do we go now?”

  Adam looked around. Every window was blocked by fire. Costa had managed to send half a dozen Molotovs into the hall, methodically closing off any chance of escape. Patrick’s suffering had ceased, his body now lying still and the flames all but puttering out. His face was a crimson mask, while his clothing was charred and black. The most horrific thing was his chest rising and falling slowly, the last embers of life still inside him.

  Does Costa realise the pain and suffering he’s caused? Does he feel nothing for the deaths he’s caused?

  He’s a monster.

  “Tasha, grab the blanket. We’re going into the kitchen.”

  Tasha grabbed the blanket and the three of them made slow progress to the small kitchenette at the back of the hall. Inside, Adam propped John up against the worktop and took the blanket from Tasha. “What are you planning?” she asked.

  “Water beats fire.” He turned on both the taps above the sink and shoved the blanket beneath them, keeping it there until it was wet through and dripping. Afterwards, he put the plug in the sink and left the taps running. Causing a minor flood couldn’t hurt when there was a fire, although he wondered how long it would take the fire to superheat the water in the pipes.

  “Back out into the hall,” Adam told them. “Quickly.”

  They got John under the arms again and helped him out of the kitchenette, then headed back for the double doors. The fire had risen, now burning the lower two feet of wood and quickly rising. Adam had the wet blanket draped over his shoulder, and its cold kiss was refreshing as his body grew hotter and hotter in the furnace of the hall. The fires were on the outside of the room but were gradually moving towards the centre. Soon there would be no refuge.

  “Hold onto John,” said Adam. “I’m getting these doors open.”

  Tasha grabbed John and moved back. Adam threw the sopping wet blanket at the bottom of the doors and then kicked it into place with his foot. The stifling blanket and sopping water was enough to kill the flames at the foot of the doors. Eventually, the water would evaporate and the blanket would catch fire, but for now there was a window of opportunity to get the doors open. But the only tool he possessed was his broken and battered body.

  He turned to Tasha. “We need to throw our weight against the door.”

  John moaned. “I really can’t.”

  “No, not you. Just me and Tasha. Do you think you can stand on your own?”

  John’s eyes were unfocused for a moment, but then he seemed to steel himself and nodded. “Just do what it is you’re going to do fast.”

  Adam nodded. “Okay, Tasha, after three.”

  Tasha gave him the nod.

  “One… Two… Three!”

  Adam and Tasha threw themselves against the doors and they gave a little. They weren’t locked as he’d first thought. They were jammed. He barged them again and the doors gave a second time, but there was a point past which they wouldn’t go. “Damn it. Costa’s jammed them somehow.”

  Tasha shoved one of the doors with her hand over and over. It caused a rattling sound. She looked at Adam, fire reflecting in her eyes. “I think he’s chained them together.”

  John groaned. “It’s hopeless trying to get through there. You won’t break a metal chain.”

  Adam closed his eyes and thought. For a second he wanted to give up again – that was always his first thought – but he thought about John’s philosophy of finding solutions, and about the fact that whenever he gave up, people got hurt. “I don’t need to break metal,” he said. “Just some old wood.”

  Tasha moved back and helped steady John while Adam rushed back into the centre of the hall. With disgust, he realised that flames were nearing the bodies of Kevin and Betty. Kevin’s wife would still know nothing of his death, and now she wouldn’t even get to retrieve his body intact.

  “What are you doing?” Tasha called out to him.

  “Using the last of the energy I have left; so this better work.” Adam tried to sprint, but all he managed was an awkward lope. He did pick up speed with each step, though, and eventually entered a state of perpetually falling forward. Several times he was sure he was going to fall, his legs barely obeying him, but he focused on moving forward. Focused on the doors.

  He crashed into the double doors so hard that he thought it would be the end of him – the final injury his body could withstand – but when he collapsed, he remained conscious. The left door swung open, its handle cracked and hanging off by a few splinters of wood.

  I did it. Fuck you, Costa.

  The foyer was on fire.

  Adam scurried back, his ankles burning as they trailed dangerously close to the fire. Tasha was there too to help pull him back, but letting go of John was a mistake because he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

  “Shit,” said Tasha, looking back and forth, not knowing who to help first. “John, are you okay?”

  “Dandy.”

  “Adam, how ’bout you? You hit that door like a wrecking ball.”

  Adam’s vision was filled with stars and sparkly worms. Strangely, his back teeth ached. He examined the open doorway in front of him and knew he had struck the wood hard enough to snap the handle on the other side. The steel chain dangled from the opposite door.

  The fire in the foyer had formed a wall.

  Behind him, the windows were no longer visible, the fire now halfway to the rafters. They were going to burn to death in there. “I think I just broke my shoulder for nothing,” said Adam. “There’s no way through.”

  Tasha stood and stared at the fire. She seemed to be thinking. “We can do this,” she eventually said.

  Adam was actually lying on his side, unsure if he could get back up. John was nearby, and was in even worse shape. “What do you mean, we can do this?”

  Tasha looked down and grinned at him a little too madly for his liking. “The foyer isn’t large. It’s probably only six feet between the inner and outer doors. We can take a run up and jump through the fire. We’ll be right out in the rain as soon as we land.”

  Adam spluttered. “I can’t jump six feet. I can barely stand.”

  “But we’re going to burn to death. Our way out is right there. We just have to make the leap.”

  Adam groaned in agony. It took him almost a full minute to get back to his feet, and then he had to fight not to fall straight back down. He stared at the flames, trying to see a way through. Tasha was right, the foyer was small. The jump wasn’t impossible for a young, fit woman like Tasha. She might make it.

  “You need to go for it,” he said. “Get out and run as fast as you can for the road. Costa doesn’t have his rifle. If you get a head start, he won’t be able to catch you.”

  “We can all go.”

  Adam shook his head. “Even if I could leap through that fire, I could never outr
un Costa. I’ve been shot in the leg. And what about John?”

  “I’m pretty sure I died five minutes ago,” he said, sounding almost a little drunk. “Good luck, Tasha. Get yourself out of here so you can tell people I died being heroic and witty.”

  Tasha shook her head. “No, you’re both getting out of here with me.”

  Adam peered around the hall. The heat on his back was making him sweat buckets, and it was getting unbearable. Soon he would start to lose skin. “In about three minutes, this place is going to be engulfed in flames. Even if I could make it, there’s no way John would.”

  “Don’t quit on me… you promised.”

  “I’m not quitting on you. You can get out of here, so go.”

  “No, not without—”

  “Tasha, either you go or you die. At least if you escape you can make sure Costa pays for what he’s done.”

  John lifted his arm, but it flopped back down. “Get out of here, girl.”

  Tasha looked like she was about to argue further, but Adam put a hand on her and shoved her towards the exit. “I won’t give up trying to get out of here, but this might be your only chance. You can do it.”

  Tears streaked Tasha’s face, but so did soot. If she didn’t escape now, she would burn to death or die of smoke inhalation.

  It’s the smoke that gets you first.

  Then she seemed to finally get it. “I expect to see you out there right after me, Adam. Don’t give up and die in here, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Tasha glanced at the flames, and from the look on her face, she clearly thought this was goodbye. She didn’t say anything, just pulled up her hoodie and yanked the drawstring. Then she pulled her hands up into her sleeves. Dressed all in black, she looked like a grim reaper.

  Two deep breaths and she was moving, sprinting towards the burning foyer. She leapt at the threshold, and Adam was impressed by the thrust behind her jump. The fire and smoke swallowed her up, so he was left hoping that she made it safely to the other side. That she was already racing across the car park for the road.

  Good luck, Tasha. Go write a good story about this.

  Is Costa waiting for her? Or will her escape take him by surprise?

  “This has been a dreadful night,” said John. “I feared my time was short but… it wasn’t supposed to be this short.”

  Adam sighed. “Your daughters.”

  “J-Jess and Judith. The most beautiful girls you’ve… you’ve ever seen.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  John sat up and started coughing. Sweat poured from his face, collecting in his dark eyebrows. “I wish I could live another… another fifty years to see them grow and have families of their own. I’m g-going to miss it all.” He started coughing again, covering his mouth. Black smoke now filled the hall. Adam felt a stab in his heart and wondered if he was having a heart attack. His throat hurt and a tickling started in his chest. He balled his hand into a fist and coughed into it. He was ready to die because he had nothing to live for – no family, no exciting career, and not even any friends after tonight.

  But John has a family. He might be a drunk, but he’s a good father and a loving husband. His family don’t deserve to get the news that he’s dead. How will his daughters feel? Will it break them? Ruin their studies? Their careers? Their lives?

  No. Not happening.

  Adam marched over to John with purpose, so much so that John shuffled backwards nervously. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting you out of here.”

  “How? There’s no way out.”

  “There is. We just watched Tasha do it.”

  John’s eyes rolled wearily. “You can’t make that jump.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t even make it halfway, but the fire is only a few feet high around the doors. I’m going to walk it – and I’m taking you with me.”

  Adam ignored John’s arguing and fought to get the man standing. Fortunately, John had a little bit of strength of his own, or else Adam might have failed, and by the time John was on his feet, the fire had almost closed in on them. Adam’s vision was swirling, and the back of his neck roared with red hot pinpricks. He dragged John over to the doors and grabbed the blanket off the ground. It was smouldering and blackened in places, but likely flame retardant. He tossed it over John’s head and then ducked underneath him, grabbing him in a fireman’s carry. He thought about Costa’s rifle, and whether he should get it, but it was abandoned beneath the seats and unreachable now.

  “You’re going to get us killed,” John said with a moan.

  “What? Faster than the two minutes we have left? You’re getting out of here, John. You’ve held on this long, so you’re going to hold on a little longer and make it home to your daughters.”

  “Adam…”

  The time for words was over. Adam faced the fire, the thing that had taken Katy and James from him, the thing that turned his every dream into a nightmare.

  He stepped forward.

  At first he felt nothing, his legs disappearing up to the knee in flames. Then it felt like a Chinese burn. Then it felt like he was standing in a bucket of scalding water. Then it felt like no other pain he had ever felt before.

  I can’t do this. It was a ridiculous idea.

  He could step back into the hall and make another plan, or he could step forward and remain inside the agonising fire.

  Adam stepped forward, wobbling as he fought to balance John on his shoulder. Left foot in front of the right, he immediately took his third, and then his fourth. His steps were small, his legs straining to bear the weight of the man on his back, his body straining to bear the wounds on his body. Still, he kept going, picking up speed as his flesh burned and blistered. John moaned, obviously feeling the heat, but he used no words. He knew he was about to live or die, and silence was the only appropriate response.

  Adam kept going, step after step. When he made it to step nine, he thought the fire would never end. His legs were going to melt into mush before he ever made it outside. Then he felt the rain on his face, sucked in by the fire as it searched for oxygen to burn. He was right at the edge of the foyer.

  Just a few more steps. Keep going.

  It hurts so much.

  He took another step. Ten. Another. Eleven. Another. Twelve.

  Then he was outside. Twelve steps had taken him to freedom. He had faced the pain and come out the other side.

  He collapsed onto the road, spilling John down painfully beside him. Both of them grunted as their bodies bounced awkwardly. Adam’s legs were like white-hot pokers. He could no longer feel his feet. The rain on his face was ice-cold – the most amazing feeling.

  I’m alive.

  Behind him, Sumner Village Community Hall’s roof collapsed and sent a million fiery embers into the night sky.

  “John, are you okay?” Adam couldn’t even turn his head to look.

  “Not particularly. I think I might pass out now.”

  Adam chuckled. At least John was still alive. But the fire was now raging at their backs. If they didn’t move, they would slow-cook to death or end up flattened by falling masonry. The problem was that Adam had used everything he had left to make it out the building. His legs were ruined. His body was broken. He was done. When he tried to move, his limbs responded only with pain.

  What damage have I done to myself?

  “We need to get away from here,” said John, and like a slug, he slithered up to Adam’s side. His hands patted at his arm, shaking and prodding. “Come on, move.”

  “I can’t, John. I’ve got nothing left.”

  John tugged at him, rolling him onto his side so that they were facing one another. “If we stay this close to the fire, we’re going to end up as pulled pork. Cooked meat.”

  “I’m a vegetarian after tonight.”

  “You’re dead if you don’t move. Come on.”

  Adam put his arm out and scrabbled at the tarmac. He tried kicking with his legs but he only moved an in
ch. He grew dizzy, the heat frying his brain.

  John kept trying to pull him, but eventually he too was unable to continue. He rolled onto his back and hissed. “Well, at least we tried. There’s still time for a miracle.”

  Adam panted on his side. It was hard for him to get his words out when he spoke. “I-I doubt it.”

  Adam heard footsteps in the puddles. Costa had come to finish them off. He’d been waiting outside the whole time.

  “You made it out,” said Tasha. “Thank God.”

  Adam managed to turn his head, but that was all. “What? Tasha? No! Get out of here.”

  “I couldn’t leave while you were trapped inside. I had to stay and see if you made it out.”

  “We did, but that’s as far as we got,” said John. He sounded sleepy.

  Tasha grabbed her hair and whipped it over her shoulder. “It’s unbearable. I need to get you both away.”

  Adam protested as she grabbed his wrist and started dragging him along the ground. “Tasha, get out of here. Costa could be anywhere.”

  “I can’t let you burn to death.”

  “Just… no… let go!” Adam’s leg’s dangled behind him as she dragged him along on his face. His knees scraped along the gravel, but the pain was a relief. He could feel the road. He even managed to twitch an ankle. I think shorts will be out of the question, but I might still be able to walk at least.

  “Okay, the heat is bearable here. Go back and get John.”

  Tasha nodded and sprinted back towards the blaze. She was like a heroic firefighter out of some film – better than the rest of them. While she might have a problem with booze, she wasn’t a selfish asshole like Adam or haunted by anger like Patrick. Alcohol hadn’t yet ruined her life. She needed to get out of this alive.

  Adam tried to move, but he struggled to get a feel for his limbs. They were there, but they were numb, like he’d slept on them funnily all at the same time. His body was asleep. His mind was screaming.

  John moaned as Tasha started dragging him along the car park. It was a miracle the man was still alive, but he was surely on borrowed time. He could be bleeding internally or turning septic. If he had any chance of survival, he needed to be in a hospital by the time the sun came up.