by Riley Sager
“Be careful,” she calls out as smoke pours from her mouth.
It’s thick smoke. Black and roiling and so strong I can smell it from the Bartholomew’s roof. Below me, I hear the agitated shriek of a fire alarm echoing through the halls.
I look at George, his beaked face stoic as he stares at my burning parents. “Please don’t push me,” I say.
His beak doesn’t move when he answers.
“I won’t.”
Then he uses a stone wing to nudge me off the roof.
I wake with a jerk on the crimson sofa in the sitting room, the nightmare clinging to me like sweat. I can still smell the smoke and hear the blare of the fire alarm. It’s as if I’m not awake at all but simply caught in another, similar dream. The smoke tickles my nose and throat. I cough.
That’s when I understand what’s going on.
This isn’t a dream.
It’s really happening.
Something in the Bartholomew is on fire.
The smell of smoke drifts into the apartment. Out in the hallway, the fire alarm blares. Contained inside that incessant clanging is another sound—pounding.
Someone is at the door.
In between those rattling knocks comes Nick’s voice.
“Jules?” he shouts. “You in there? We need to get out of here!”
I fling open the door and see Nick standing there in a T-shirt, sweatpants, and flip-flops. His hair is mussed. His eyes are fearful.
“What’s going on?” I say.
“Fire. Not sure where.”
I yank my jacket from the coatrack and shove it on, even as Nick starts to pull me out of the apartment. I shut the door behind me because I read that’s what you’re supposed to do in the case of an apartment fire. Something to do with airflow.
Nick keeps pulling me along, into the hall, where a thin haze of smoke is made more pronounced by the bright strobe of the emergency lights on the wall. I cough twice. Two harsh barks that get lost in the sound of the fire alarm.
“Is there a fire escape?” I say, shouting so Nick can hear me.
“No,” Nick shouts back. “Just fire stairs at the back of the building.”
He pulls me past the elevator and interior staircase to an unmarked door at the far end of the hall. Nick gives the door a push, but it doesn’t open.
“Fuck,” he says. “I think it’s locked.”
He pushes the door again before ramming his shoulder into it. The door doesn’t budge.
“We have to take the main stairs,” he says before pulling me back the way we came.
Soon we’re again at the elevator and stairwell, which now pumps out smoke like a chimney. The sight is so jarring that I come to a halt, immobile with fear, no matter how much Nick tugs my arm.
“Jules, we need to keep moving.”
He gives another shoulder-wrenching yank of my arm, and I feel myself pulled unwillingly toward the stairs. Soon we’re descending them. Nick moves at a quick, steady pace. I’m more frantic, speeding up then slowing down before being pulled along again.
The smoke is thicker on the eleventh floor—a fog-like, undulating wall. I lift my jacket to cover my nose and mouth. Nick does the same with his T-shirt.
“Go on ahead,” he says. “I want to make sure no one else is still up here.”
I don’t want to go down the rest of the stairs alone. I’m not sure my body will let me. Already I’ve come to another halt. Dread seems to be riding on the smoke, curling around me, oozing into my pores.
“I’ll come with you,” I say.
Nick shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous. You need to keep going.”
I grudgingly oblige, stumbling down the steps to the tenth floor. On the landing, I peer down the hall, squinting against the smoke in search of Greta Manville’s apartment. The door is barely visible through the haze. For all I know, she’s already made her way out of the building. But what if she hasn’t? I picture her in the grip of one of her sudden sleeps, oblivious to the smoke and the screaming alarm.
Just like one of Nick’s tugs, the image pulls me down the hall, toward 10A, where I pound on the door. It opens immediately. Greta stands in the doorway, covered in a tent-like flannel nightgown and the same slippers she wore earlier. She’s tied a bandanna around her head, which hangs over her nose and mouth.
“I don’t need you to rescue me,” she says.
Only, she kind of does. When she sets off down the hall, it’s at a snail’s pace, rivaling me in hesitation. Although in her case I think it’s less fear than poor health. Her breath gets heavy before we even reach the stairs. When I try to ease her down the first step, her legs sway like windblown palms.
“That’s one,” I say.
Which leaves roughly two hundred more steps to go.
I peer down the stairwell, gripped by fear when I see nothing but smoke curling upward.
I cough. Greta does, too, the bottom triangle of her bandanna fluttering.
I grip her hand. We both know we’re not going to make it down those steps. Greta’s too weak. I’m too terrified.
“The elevator,” I say, hauling her back up that one meager step we managed to descend.
“You’re not supposed to use an elevator during a fire.”
I know that. Just like I knew about closing the apartment door.
“There’s no other choice,” I snap.
I head to the elevator, dragging Greta in the same way Nick dragged me. I can feel her wrist twisting beneath my fingers, resisting my pull. That doesn’t slow me. Fear propels me forward.
The elevator isn’t stopped on the tenth floor. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be. Still, I had hoped that maybe, possibly it would be there waiting for us. A stroke of good fortune in a life devoid of it. Instead, I’m forced to pound the down button and wait.
But waiting isn’t easy.
Not with the alarm still bouncing off the walls and the strobe lights flaring and smoke still rolling up the steps and Nick now God knows where. I keep coughing and my eyes keep watering, although now it might be real tears and not from the smoke. Fear clangs in my skull. Louder than the alarm.
When the elevator finally arrives, I push Greta inside, close the grate, press the button for the lobby. With a rattle and a shudder, we start to descend.
The smoke is heavier on the ninth floor.
And still worse on the eighth.
We keep descending into plumes far thicker and darker than on the floors above, blowing through the elevator cage in choking drafts. When we reach the seventh floor, it’s clear that this is the source of the fire. The smoke here is sharper, stabbing the inside of my throat.
Through the smoke, I see firefighters coming and going along the seventh-floor hall with firehoses that have been carried up the steps so that they spiral around the elevator shaft like pythons.
Just when we’re about to move past the seventh floor, I hear something other than the elevator’s hum and the shrieking fire alarm and the clomp of firefighter boots on the stairs. It’s a sharp bark, followed by the skitter of claws on tile. A furry blur darts past the elevator.
I slam the emergency-stop button. The elevator comes to a quick, quivering halt as Greta gives me a fearful look.
“What are you doing?”
“There’s a dog,” I say, the words riding on the back of another cough. “I think it’s Rufus.”
The terrified part of my brain tells me to ignore him, that Rufus will be fine, that I should focus on getting us to safety. But then Rufus barks again, and the noise pierces my heart. He sounds almost as scared as I am. Which is why I pull open the grate. After that comes the thin-barred door, which is more stubborn than it looks. It takes both hands and an extra-hard tug to pry it open.
The elevator itself has stopped three feet below the landing, forcing me to pull m
yself up onto the seventh floor. I then crawl along the floor to evade the smoke—another of those things-to-do-in-a-fire facts I never thought I’d use.
While crawling, I cough out Rufus’s name, the sound lost in all the noise. I peer through the smoke, trying in vain to catch another glimpse of him. He’s so small and the smoke is so thick and my eyes are pouring tears. Through that watery haze, I see firefighters stomping into 7C, their voices muffled under helmets and face masks. Through the open apartment door comes a hot glow.
Flames.
Pulsing and bright and painting the hallway a hypnotic orange-yellow.
I climb to my feet, drawn to it. I’m no longer afraid. All I feel now is intense curiosity.
I take a step down the hall, coughing again as I go.
“Jules,” Greta calls from the elevator, “grab the dog and let’s get out of here.”
I ignore her and take another step. Although I suspect I have no choice at all in the matter. I’m being compelled.
I keep walking until there’s a noticeable warmth on my face. The heat of the flames caressing my skin.
I close my eyes against the smoke.
I take a breath, sucking it in until I start to cough. Rough, heaving ones that make my body convulse.
Dizzy from the smoke, I experience a jolting moment during which I have no idea where I am, why I’m here, what the fuck I was just doing. But then I hear a bark behind me and I whirl around, spotting a familiar shape hurtling through the smoke.
Rufus.
Panicked and lost.
Him and me both.
Blindly, I drop to the floor again and lurch forward before he can zip past me. I then pull him into my arms, Rufus barking and struggling and pawing my chest in agitation. Rather than crawl back to the elevator, I inch forward on my behind, scooting awkwardly until I reach it. Carefully, I drop the three feet back into the cage and, clutching Rufus in one hand, slam the grate shut with the other. Beside me, Greta shoots me a startled, fearful look before hitting the down button.
Lower we go, into the bottom half of the Bartholomew, the smoke getting lighter the farther we descend. By the time we reach the lobby, it’s been reduced to a light haze. That doesn’t stop me from coughing. Or wheezing when I’m not coughing.
Greta stays quiet, unwilling to look at me. God, she must think I’m insane. I’d think the same thing if I didn’t know the reasons behind my recklessness.
As we leave the elevator and make our way across the lobby, we encounter a trio of EMTs on their way into the building. With them is a stretcher, its wheeled legs folded. One of them looks my way, a question in her eyes.
I manage a nod. One that says, We’re okay.
They move on, heading up the stairs. We go in the other direction, following the hoses that stretch from the front door. Me and Greta and Rufus. All of us cradled together as we step outside to a street painted red by the siren lights of two fire trucks and an ambulance stopped at the curb. The block itself has been closed to traffic, allowing people, many of them members of the media, to gather in the middle of Central Park West.
As soon as we hit the sidewalk, reporters push forward.
Camera lights swing our way, blindingly bright.
A dozen flashbulbs pop like firecrackers.
A reporter shouts a question that I can’t hear because the fire alarm has set my ears ringing.
Rufus, as irritated as I am, barks. This draws Marianne Duncan out of the milling crowd. She’s dressed like Norma Desmond. Flowing caftan, turban, cat’s-eye sunglasses. Her face is smeared with cold cream.
“Rufus?”
She rushes toward me and lifts Rufus from my arms.
“My baby! I was so worried about you.” To me, she says, “The alarm was going off and there was smoke and Rufus got spooked and jumped out of my arms. I wanted to look for him, but a fireman told me I had to keep moving.”
She’s started to cry. Streaks appear in the cold cream, plowed by tears.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you, thank you!”
I can only muster a nod. I’m too dazed by the sirens and the flashbulbs and the smoke that continues to roll like a storm cloud in my lungs.
I leave Greta with Marianne and gently push my way through the crowd. It’s easy to differentiate residents of the Bartholomew from the onlookers. They’re the ones in their nightclothes. I spot Dylan in just a pair of pajama bottoms and sneakers, looking impervious to the cold. Leslie Evelyn wears a black kimono, which swishes gracefully as she and Nick do a head count of residents.
When EMTs emerge with Mr. Leonard strapped to the stretcher and his face covered by an oxygen mask, the crowd breaks into applause. Upon hearing them, Mr. Leonard gives a weak thumbs-up.
By then I’m pulling away from the crowd, on the other side of Central Park West. I walk north a block, putting more distance between me and the Bartholomew. I drop onto a bench and sit with my back to the stone wall bordering Central Park.
I cough one last time.
Then I allow myself to weep.
NOW
Dr. Wagner looks surprised, and rightly so. His expression is similar to his voice—passivity masking alarm.
“Escaped?”
“That’s what I said.”
I don’t mean to be this standoffish. Dr. Wagner has done nothing wrong. But I’m not ready to trust anyone at the moment. A by-product of living at the Bartholomew for a few days.
“I want to talk to the police,” I say. “And Chloe.”
“Chloe?”
“My best friend.”
“We can call her,” Dr. Wagner says. “Do you have her number?”
“On my phone.”
“I’ll have Bernard look through your things and find the number.”
I let out a relieved sigh. “Thank you.”
“I’m curious,” the doctor says. “How long did you live at the Bartholomew?”
I like the doctor’s word choice. Past tense.
“Five days.”
“And you felt like you were in danger there?”
“Not at first. But yes. Eventually.”
I look to the wall behind Dr. Wagner, at the askew Monet. I’ve seen the painting before, although I can’t remember what it’s called. Probably Blue Bridge Over Waterlilies, because that’s what it depicts. It’s pretty. From my position on the bed, I can see the curve of the bridge as it arcs over the lily pads and blooms in the water below. But I know that looking at it from another viewpoint would yield a vastly different result. The lines of the bridge wouldn’t look quite so clean. The lilies would widen into indistinct splotches of paint. If I were to get up close, the painting would probably look downright ugly.
The same can be said of certain places. The closer you get to them, the uglier they become.
That’s what the Bartholomew is like.
“You felt like you were in danger, so you fled,” the doctor says.
“Escaped,” I remind him.
“Why did you feel the need to do that?”
I sink back into the pillows. I’m going to have to tell him everything, even though that might not be the best idea. This time, it’s not a matter of trust. With each minute that passes, I get the sense that Dr. Wagner only wants to help.
So the question isn’t how much to tell him.
It’s how much I think he’ll believe.
“The place is haunted. By its past. So many bad things have happened there. So much dark history. It fills the place.”
Dr. Wagner’s brow lifts. “Fills it?”
“Like smoke,” I say. “And I’ve breathed it in.”
THREE DAYS EARLIER
21
I wake just after seven to the same sound I heard my first night here.
The noise that’s not a noise.
Although
this time I no longer think someone’s inside the apartment, I’m still curious about what it could be. Every place has its own distinct sounds. Creaking steps and humming fridges and windows that rattle when the wind rushes against them at just the right angle. The key is to find them and identify them. Once you know what they are, they’re less likely to bother you.
So I force myself out of bed, shivering in a bedroom made frigid by windows that have gaped open all night. A necessity after the fire. It made the whole place smell like a hotel room in which the previous occupant had smoked a carton of cigarettes.
Padding downstairs in bare feet and flimsy nightclothes, I stop every so often to listen—really listen—to the sounds of the apartment. I hear noises aplenty, but nothing that matches the noise. That specific sound has suddenly vanished.
In the kitchen, I find my phone sitting on the counter, blaring out the ring tone specifically reserved for Chloe. Worrisome, considering the two of us instituted a no-calls-until-coffee rule back when we roomed together in college.
“I haven’t had my coffee yet,” I say upon answering.
“The rule doesn’t apply when a fire is involved,” Chloe says. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. The fire wasn’t nearly as bad as it seemed.”
The blaze itself was confined to 7C, Mr. Leonard’s apartment. It turns out the heart palpitations Nick told me about earlier had returned. Rather than call 911, as Nick strongly recommended, Mr. Leonard ignored the warning signs. Later, while he was cooking himself a late-night dinner, a heart attack arrived. His fourth.
The fire started when Mr. Leonard dropped the pot holder in his hands when the coronary struck. It landed on the stovetop, where it quickly ignited. The fire spread from there, eventually encompassing much of the kitchen while Mr. Leonard crawled to the door in an attempt to get help. He lost consciousness just as the door swung open, fanning the flames in the kitchen and sending gusts of smoke into the upper floors of the Bartholomew.