by Mark Gordon
Chapter 11
Leaving Home
Sally lay on the floor of the balcony. Her ears were ringing and her arms were over her head in the classic protective position. As the noise from the plane’s initial impact began to fade away it was replaced by the sounds of small, breathy explosions. Sally knew very little about air disasters but she had a strong feeling that these blasts, while frightening, were just a precursor to what would be one final almighty eruption, as the plane’s fuel tanks burst and turned the whole aircraft into a massive incendiary bomb. Without rising to her feet, Sally starting scrambling toward the relative safety of her apartment, as lumps of burning metal started to ping down around her. She reached the open doorway and rolled into the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her with her foot.
“Ohmigod! Ohmigod!” she screamed as she lay on the floor with her hands over her ears. Then came the real explosion, and the noise seemed to suck all of the air out of the apartment, as the glass balcony doors blew in. She was peppered with tiny fragments of safety glass, as the heat poured in on a wave of oily smoke and embers. Thousands of pieces of rubble and metal were raining down onto the world outside her windows, as she felt herself going into shock, before passing out.
Sally had no idea how long she had blacked out for, but when she regained consciousness her head was throbbing, she was coughing uncontrollably and she thought that she was blind, because he smoke in the room had reduced visibility to almost zero. Now she cried with relief. At least she would be facing this nightmare with vision! She might go crazy, but at least she could watch herself do it. She stood up gingerly and headed to the balcony for fresh air, but as she stepped through the broken French doors she almost fell headlong to her death three stories below because her balcony no longer existed. Had she been in more of a hurry, she would have stepped into thin air and plummeted to the rubble-strewn street below. As it was, she was saved by a jagged section of concrete no more the thirty centimetres wide. She retreated one step back into the apartment and kicked what was left of the doors open to let the smoke escape. Then she stuck her head through the doorway so that she could breathe properly, and surveyed the damage outside, as the smoke cleared from inside the apartment. A westerly breeze was blowing most of the toxic plume from the burning airliner towards the coast, and she could see that the buildings across the street had taken the full force of the blast. Every window had been blown in, and one building was already in an advanced state of conflagration. Sally knew it would only be a matter of time before the fire spread to neighbouring buildings, and then to hers. No fire services would be coming to help; and she realised, with an overwhelming sense of grief and trepidation, that she would need to get out of her apartment and find somewhere safe for the night.
She grabbed a backpack, change of clothes, phone and charger, and her journal from her bedroom, put on a sturdy pair of trainers, and took one look around her apartment before heading outside. She headed away from the blaze, thinking that she should put as much distance between her and the fire as she was able. Once she did that, she could look for somewhere safe to stay for the night. If she wasn't in shock, Sally would have realised that she was living purely in the moment, like a wild animal. Her safe, normal life had been snatched from her, and all she could do was to try to stay alive, until some kind of order was restored. As she headed further away from her home, most of the streets were become much like her own. Closed shops and empty cars provided the backdrop to her nightmare. She saw no one.
After walking for half an hour she stopped in a shady shopping arcade to rest. She was thirsty. Inside a 24-hour convenience store she found a fully stocked refrigerator and helped herself to a couple of lukewarm energy drinks. At the counter she grabbed some chocolate bars and a box of crackers and went outside to eat. She didn’t realise how hungry she was until she began to wolf down the chocolate. She ate one bar and finished one of the drinks in two long swallows. After eating, she felt a little better and decided to rest for a few more minutes before resuming her journey. She lay down on a nearby park bench and within seconds of closing her eyes, though, she slipped into a deep sleep. When she woke up, she realised that the light looked very different. She checked her watch and saw that she had slept for almost two hours. It was now three in the afternoon.
Back in towards her apartment the smoke looked more extensive. Because there was no fire service to control the fire it was raging out of control, spreading from the original crash site. She needed to keep moving. She had walked almost ten blocks before she realised that she could make much better time if she had a bicycle. A car was out of the question. She had never had the inclination to learn how to drive, and didn’t have the first clue as to how cars worked. Also, the streets were clogged with abandoned vehicles, which would have made driving almost impossible anyway. She kept her eyes peeled for a bicycle store and after walking a few more blocks Sally realised she would need to find one quickly. The column of black smoke was blotting out the sun. The fire had changed direction and was moving fast. If she didn’t pick up her pace it was going to catch her. She changed tactics. She got away from the main road and headed into the residential streets behind the businesses and stores. After checking the yards of around a dozen houses, Sally finally saw what she needed in a yard- a mountain bike leaning up against the wall of a house.
The ride was non-eventful for the most part. Occasionally she found herself making a short detour from her main route, as cars blocked her path, but she made good time, and eventually felt that the fire was going to be no threat. From the smoke in the distance Sally guessed that the inferno was burning itself out, or had changed direction on the breeze. If she could find a high enough vantage point, she would be able get a clear view and make sure that she was out of danger. It was now late in the afternoon and she needed to find somewhere to stay for the night. She was resigned to the fact that she wouldn’t be going home any time soon, because she believed that the fire would have consumed her home. She wondered about her mother and if she would ever see her again, but when she felt as if she was about to cry, she forced her eyes shut hard and did her best to put it out of her mind, until she was safe, and could analyse the whole situation less emotionally.
With around thirty minutes of daylight left, Sally spotted a three-storey block of flats that was bounded by smaller homes. The roof of the apartment block looked flat and she could see a clothesline up there, so she knew that access was a possibility. She walked over to the building and found that her first potential barrier, the communal front door, was no problem - it was closed but not locked. She went inside. Security had obviously not been a big concern for the residents of this building, because she found the roof access door was also unlocked. She went quickly up the dark staircase and stepped out into a huge expanse of clear blue sky. From the edge of the roof she had an unobstructed view across the rooftops, back towards the city. In the distance, an oily, black column of smoke rose into the sky, but it had lost most of its ferocity. She had put enough distance between herself and the fire to relax from that threat. Now her immediate concern was to find somewhere to hole up for the night. She went downstairs, climbed on her bike and began her search.