Brad took off again and was in the lead as he raced across the field to Nana’s back yard, but as he did he was startled by the smoke clouds that raced in towards us.
“Come on! We have to hurry. I hope that rescue team gets here soon.”
We followed Brad but the path was anything but even and I tripped and twisted my angle. It hurt a lot for the first few seconds but the sight of the smoke behind me made me soon forget the pain. I picked myself up and Meagan and I continued running to the house only my foot hurt too much for me to run really fast.
Brad came back to help me and that’s when familiar sounds pierced my ears and made my legs feel like rubber. Meagan screamed when she saw the shooting ambers behind us and that sent more chills shivering up and down my spine. Brad put his arm through mine and motioned for us to hurry and that’s when I thought we were going to die.
I held my breath as a hot coal the size of a basket ball flew through the air above us and landed a few hundred feet on the far side of us. It instantly ignited the ground around and I stared in horror as I thought that we really weren’t going to make it. Brad pulled my arm.
“We have to get to the house and get her out and then run like the blazes down that road. I know your foot hurts, Sarah, but we really have to move it!”
I could only hope that Nana was in the house because we really didn’t know that for sure. The three of us jogged through a shrubbery garden that ran alongside the field, and then we hustled across the back yard towards the house. The smoke was now very predominant and the smell filled the air all around us.
We took turns yelling for Nana as we ran but we couldn’t hear her answer. In fact, I couldn’t hear anything except my heartbeat pounding in my ears so I’m not sure I’d hear her even if she did answer.
Instinctively, I looked behind me and that just added more terror to my already shaken body.
“Meg, look. It’s just one big inferno back there. And the smoke….the smoke…”
“I know and it’s not that much better on this side over here, either. Let’s go.”
We crossed the back yard and finally made it to the back door step. Brad whipped the door open for us and I hobbled through with my ankle that now pounded with pain.
“We’ll search upstairs and maybe you can do this floor, Brad, okay? Yell if you find her.”
I have no idea why I volunteered to go upstairs when it hurt to just walk on the level floor, but there was no time to change the plan so Meagan stomped up the narrow staircase and I limped quickly behind her. We called out for Nana, but she didn’t respond.
“Sarah, check the closet and under the beds in our room. I’ll do Nana’s room.”
I flopped down onto my knees and whipped back the comforters to the beds but she wasn’t under either of them. My ankle stung as I stood back up and opened the closet door. I called for her but she wasn’t there. Then I remembered that Nana has this privacy thing and probably wouldn’t have gone into this bedroom anyway just because our things were in it.
Our things! We had no time to gather our clothes or belongings and I knew that everything we brought would be burned. For one very brief second I stared at our clothes in the closet and then shook my head. There was no time to think about it. We only had time to find Nana. As I shot passed the dresser I saw my cell phone on it so I grabbed it and stuffed it in my shorts pocket.
I limped out of our room and into Nana’s and Papa’s room where I found Meagan just staring into Nana’s closet.
“What is it? Is she there?”
“No. Oh, sorry. Foolish, I know, but we painted that wall, remember? See, we signed our names on it and Grandpa wrote, ‘I love my girls’. It’s just, just hard to walk away from.”
“I know. I remember that. We had so much fun, didn’t we? I have to get a picture of this. Look, I found my cell so let me snap a couple before we go.”
I took several pictures of the wall and fought the tears because it was one memory that I couldn’t just ignore. Brad’s voice ended our trip down memory lane and brought us back to reality.
“Is she up there?”
Meagan stuck her head out the bedroom door and yelled back.
“No. Let me just check the bathroom.”
A minute later I was still staring at the wall and I could hear Meagan yelling down to Brad that Nana wasn’t up here. That’s when I realized that we had better get back to looking for her. Brad barrelled up the stairs.
“Okay, is there a basement to this place?”
Meagan and I looked at each other and I knew that there was a door to one.
“There’s a basement but not like any that you know, right Meg? It’s more like a cold hole in the ground, like a cellar with just a furnace and the hot water heater on a cement floor. No rooms or recreation room or anything. I’ve only ever been down there once and it was too cold and creepy even then.”
“Yeah, me too. We never went down there.”
Brad huffed as he headed to the stairwell.
“Yeah, well it may be creepy but it’s the only place we haven’t looked, so maybe she went down there to stay clear of the smoke. Where’s the door?”
The door was hidden inside the closet so Meagan opened the closet door and pointed to a plain door the same color as the closet wall.
“Here it is.”
She opened the door and reached inside.
“There’s a switch here. Let me get it.”
Meagan flicked the switch several times but the light wouldn’t work.
“I don’t believe this.”
“Okay, girls, think. Where will we find a flashlight?”
I knew where they were so I hobbled into the kitchen and found two flashlights in the junk drawer. I gave one to Brad and kept the other one to use so we could help look for her down there.
“It’s kind of small and dark so we’ll go down too and check the fruit cellar to see if she’s in there and maybe you can look around the furnace.”
Brad shone his light down the stairs and my heart thumped against my chest. I screamed and grabbed Meagan’s arm.
“Oh, no!”
Chapter 18
The Sound of Panic
Nana was lying face up at the foot of the stairs with her head and back still on the bottom step and the rest of her body on the floor. There was blood all around her head and she was unconscious. As I tried to brush past Brad to get down the stairs to her, he instantly slapped his hand on the door jam in front of me and my chest slammed against it.
“Sarah, no! The stairs are broken.”
What? The second step to the stairwell had broken right off and there was only a small piece of a board sticking out on the right side by the wall with a couple of long nails poking through it. I swallowed hard as I stared at it and then down to Nana.
“She mustn’t have seen it and that’s how she fell. I have to get to her.”
“I know, Sarah, but just let me get down there first. I want to see what other steps are missing. This whole stairwell feels like it could fall apart any second.”
Brad shone the light on the stairs and all around the stairwell and then carefully stepped down and over the broken step. Meagan and I didn’t waste any time and we were right behind him. I had the other flashlight and I was shining it mostly on Nana as we descended. It hurt so bad seeing her just lying there like that. I guess I was over anxious and Brad put his hand up a couple of times to suggest we slow down.
“Just tread really carefully because this step is not that great, either.”
Just as he finished saying that, Brad slipped but was able to grab the wobbly railing to prevent falling down the rest of the stairs.
“Crap, no wonder she fell. These stairs are a flippin’ death trap.”
We got to the bottom and I held my flashlight over Nana as Meagan and I squatted beside her. Brad was shining his light all around her head and then huffed loudly.
“Wish we could call for an ambulance. She’s bleeding and somehow we have to ge
t her out of here. Is there something we can wipe some of this blood up with?”
I scouted around the dark, musky room and in the far corner on a small bench that Grandpa must have used as a place to fix small things there was a pile of old towels torn into small rags.
“Here, use these. Gees, look at the gash on her head. Oh, Nana, please be okay.”
I don’t know if it was the timing or her hearing our voices, but Nana began to stir and Meagan spoke to her softly.
“Nana, it’s okay. We’re here. How are you doing?”
“Oh, my head hurts so much and my knee - my knee ….”
Brad moved quickly to her legs and slowly straightened her one leg that was folded under her.
“It’s not broken, Mrs. Davies. It was just bent. Does that feel better?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
I was dabbing the cloth on her head and then a few seconds later she opened her eyes wide and stared at me as she grabbed hold of my arm.
“Where’s your grandfather?”
“He’s fine, Nana. Ali took him to the hospital and he’s ….”
“Hospital? Why to the hospital? What’s wrong with him?”
“Nana, he injured his leg and so Ali got the truck going and took him to town where the doctor can look at it. Just to get checked, you know.”
Meagan’s face was feeling the anxiety of Nana’s pain as much as mine was and neither of us was certain how much to tell her about Grandpa at this point. We knew we had to get her out of the house as soon as possible, though, so Brad asked her questions which let us know that she was cognisant and receptive enough to be able to get up the stairs.
“Okay, Mrs. Davies, we need you to sit up a bit. Can you lean forward and sit up at all?”
Brad and Meagan lifted her under her arms and helped her up so that she could sit on the bottom step. I held the cloth on her head even though most of the bleeding had stopped.
“How’s that, Nana? It’s not bleeding much now but do you feel okay?”
“No, Sarah, I don’t feel okay. My head hurts and I want to be with your grandfather but you say he’s in town already.”
“Yeah, he is. And if you’ll help us get up the stairs, we can take you to him.”
Nana looked around the gloomy basement as she felt the top of her head.
“I waited for you kids for so long but you didn’t come. The Barton’s came to get us but I couldn’t leave without your grandfather so I got on my old shoes and went looking for you. But the forest is on fire, did you know that?”
Meagan rubbed Nana’s cheek and smiled as she spoke in a slightly jittery voice.
“Yes, Nana, we know that. And it’s coming this way so we need to get out of this house really soon. Can you make it up the stairs?”
“I don’t know. I’ll try. I think I hurt my knee when I fell because it’s really painful right now. But okay, okay. I’ll try.”
Meagan and I helped Nana to stand but she was weak and fell back onto the step saying that she was dizzy. Brad pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and then bolted up the stairs, so Meagan and I knelt in front of Nana and tried to keep her calm.
A few minutes later Brad came barrelling down the broken stairs and said he’d spoken with Ali and that he had just arrived in town and had only this second met up with the ambulance.
“The attendants were lifting your grandfather into the ambulance while I was talking to him and he said it’ll be heading off to the hospital right away. So, that’s good. And they’re taking Don, as well, and he has a daughter somewhere, apparently, and they’re getting in touch with her. Now we just have to get us out of here.”
Meagan and I sighed and shouted at the same time, we were so excited. I felt as if a rock had been lifted off my chest and Meagan’s face gleamed even in the dull glow of the flashlight.
“Oh, Sarah, he’s safe. He made it.”
“I know, I know. It’s such a relief to hear that. Now we just have to get Nana out of here so we can all be safe.”
Brad moved in close to Nana to help her to her stand up again. She stood up more easily this time and we helped her to slowly turn around so she would face the stairs.
“I didn’t know that step was broken. Your grandfather had said it needed to be fixed but you know how he hates fixing things. He’s not going to be too happy with me when he sees what I did to it.”
“Mrs. Davies, that’s okay. It’s not really important right now.”
Nana smiled at Brad and I could tell by the sparkle in her eyes, even through the dull lighting, that she liked him.
“Maybe you can fix it for us later on. That would be good. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, sure. But right now we need to get you up these stairs. Ali is going to be here in a few minutes and he’s going to take us into town so you can be with your husband. Okay?”
“Okay. Let’s see if I can get up these stairs without falling again.”
Brad stood in front of her so he could help to pull her up and Meagan stood behind Nana to push her. I was squatted at the side so that I could help lift her leg onto the first step, and that sent the sparks of pain through my own injured ankle.
Nana said she was still dizzy and that made it difficult for her to keep her balance, and a couple of times she humped over as if she was going to collapse. Meagan had her arm around Nana’s back and rubbed it gently.
“Nana, you need to lift your foot. Look, Sarah is helping you so come on. Step up on this. Good, that’s good.”
By the time we got her onto the first step the beads of sweat were streaming down my face. It was hot and stuffy in the closed in area of the stairs, but there was no time to take breaks because we had to keep her climbing up. Nana had one hand on the wall and the other on the railing which I kept reminding her not to lean on in case it gave way.
It took us a few minutes, but we got her to the next step and then Brad warned us that the step after that was quite loose and that we should be careful. He pointed to the side that was the safest to stand on and then I helped Nana lift her leg to that step. It was almost like lifting dead weight because she was only responding to me tapping on her leg and telling her to lift it. She accidently stepped on my fingers a few times and I all could do was groan quietly as she muttered to herself.
“I’m so dizzy. I don’t like it down here, you know. I hardly ever come down here.”
Brad was pulling her arms and smiling as he was talking her into taking each step.
“You’re doing great, Mrs. Davies. Just a few more steps. Okay, one more normal step and then we have some fancy stepping to do.”
We got her up the next couple of steps and then we were at the broken one. There was only a small piece of step to the left side by the wall that hadn’t broken off and I tried to get her to put her foot there but it was very difficult because she didn’t want to move.
“Nana, please, you have to work with us here. Lift your foot and put it on this piece here. Come on. We have to hurry.”
The back screen door had been banging for a while and the closer to the top of the stairs we got, the louder it seemed to get and the more it irritated me. This door had always opened and closed when it was breezy outside but Grandpa had a quick fix for everything and rarely went into any great detail when it came to repairs. He put a hook on the inside of the door so that they could keep it closed whenever it was windy outside. We hadn’t hooked it closed when we came in and for some reason, the sound of it banging this time had a daunting eeriness to it.
Nana, on the other hand, was a very methodical person. She planned things carefully and rarely took chances with anything. She always had to know everything about a situation first and then she’d examine it carefully before she would ever make a move. And even though we discussed the fire as we climbed the stairs, and even though she understood us and agreed that we had to get out of the house quickly, it was still a major challenge to get her to move. She had to know what was holding each step safely so that it wouldn
’t break.
“It’s just not very safe. Isn’t there something else we can put there? Why don’t you go see what Grandpa has over there so we can use that?”
Brad was shining the light on the step with one hand and pulling Nana up the stairs with the other. He looked behind him several times and his face was very solemn. I was at the bottom of this line up so I didn’t know what he was concerned with although I had a good idea.
“Brad, are you okay?”
“Yeah, but we really need to move a bit faster. Sarah, I know it’s hard but you need to force her to lift her foot onto that board there. And Meg, you’re going to have to really push her. I’ll pull her from here. Okay, on the count of three - one, two, three - go.”
It took several attempts before we had her left foot on the broken board and then as they carried her weight, I placed her right foot on the next step up.
“That’s it, Mrs. Davies. One more and we’re done.”
A few minutes later Nana was standing on the landing at the top of the stairs and I was so relieved. The muscles in my arms felt as if they were going to pop out and my fingers were throbbing from being stepped on.
Brad took her by the arm and pulled her into the main hallway as Meagan and I climbed up the rest of the steps and joined them. He led her into the small sitting room where she immediately plopped down into one of the big, brown comfy chairs. Brad motioned for her to stay there while he called Ali on his cell phone again.
“Okay, Ali’s on his way back for us and he should be here in about ten or fifteen minutes so maybe we should just stay in this room and wait until he gets here. I don’t think your grandmother is going to move very fast down the road anyway so it’s just going to be a lot of stress trying.”
Meagan and I crashed on the couch across from Nana and for a few seconds my body was thanking me for the rest. But then it occurred to me that we could grab something to eat while we were waiting.
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