Hope hid her face in Milly’s fur. When she looked up again, Ms. Abby had moved and was now talking with Ms. Lauren in quiet voices next to the window. Something was going on.
Ms. Lauren turned to Hope and the others.
“All right, kids. We have to move to another room.”
“Why?” Claire instantly asked, jumping up to her feet.
“It’s safer,” Ms. Abby told her.
“We’re not safe here?”
Ms. Lauren rolled her eyes. She waved for Claire to come to her, which she did. Ms. Lauren whispered something in her ear. Whatever it was, she clearly didn’t want Hope or Peter to know. Hope hated it when grown-ups did that. They were always keeping things from her and the other kids when stuff like this happened.
“Come on, Peter, gather any toys you want to bring,” Ms. Abby told him. “Hope, you can grab a toy or two as well.”
Hope didn’t feel much like playing. There weren’t that many toys here to begin with, and neither she nor Peter had even touched them. She was too scared for pretend. Still, she picked up a plastic doll with a bad haircut just in case. When she wasn’t scared anymore, she might want to play with it. Peter picked up a laser gun. Too bad it didn’t shoot real lasers, because then, he could use it on the bad people.
“Come on, let’s go. Everyone hold hands.” Ms. Abby took Claire’s hand, who held Peter’s, who held Hope’s. Hope held onto Milly’s collar with her other hand.
“Now, there’s going to be a lot of people out there in the hallways, so be careful and don’t let go of each other’s hands,” Ms. Lauren told them from where she stood by the door. She held a box of something in her arms. Hope thought it might be food.
Ms. Lauren opened the door and went into the hallway first. Ms. Abby with her handholding line followed after her. Ms. Lauren had been right about the people in the hallway; they were everywhere. The hallway wasn’t wide enough for all these grownups. Looking up from the forest of legs, Hope saw that they were all scared.
Although the crocodile of handholding stuck to the wall, people kept bumping into Hope. They bumped into Milly even more. She whined and crowded up close to Hope, which made it even harder to move. A few times, Hope almost lost her grip on Peter’s hand.
Suddenly, Peter stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Hope asked him.
“I lost Claire.” Peter turned around to face her, his other hand empty. “I don’t know what happened. She was there, and then she wasn’t. I lost my sister.”
“Remember what they say to do when we get lost? We’re supposed to stay where we are until someone finds us.”
Someone then bumped into Hope. She was hit hard enough for her head to strike the wall. It really hurt.
“It’s too dangerous to stay here. We have to go back to the room,” Peter insisted.
After hitting her head, Hope wasn’t going to disagree.
“Milly, go back,” Hope told her dog.
Milly cocked her head to one side, not understanding. Hope pushed her until she did.
Going the other way wasn’t much easier, but at least Hope could see when people were coming toward her.
“Hope! Hope!”
Hope looked around, thinking that Ms. Lauren or Ms. Abby had found her and Peter. Instead, Dakota pushed her way through the people and stood with them next to the wall.
“Dakota? What are you doing here?” Hope asked her.
“I got separated from my caretaker.” Dakota never called the woman who took care of her mom; she always just referred to her as her caretaker. Like Peter and Claire and a lot of other kids, Dakota was adopted.
“So did we. We were with Ms. Lauren and Ms. Abby and Claire, but now, I don’t know where they are. We’re going back to the room we were in,” Hope told her.
“I’ll come with you.”
Dakota was bigger than both Hope and Peter. People saw her and were less likely to knock her about, although she was still bumped into a lot. Dakota led them until Hope told her they had reached the room. After opening the door, Dakota held it open until Milly, Hope, and Peter were all inside.
***
“It’s scary out there,” Hope commented on the hallway.
“It’s even scarier out there,” Dakota gestured to the window. “Have you seen?”
Both Hope and Peter shook their head.
“Come on.” Dakota walked over to the window and pulled back the curtain.
“We’re not supposed to go over there,” Hope told her.
“Both my moms said it’s not safe,” Peter backed her up.
“It’s okay. I was watching from my own room until the evacuation order made us leave.”
Hope shuffled closer to the window. “What’s an evactation?”
“Evacuation. It’s when the people in charge want you to go from one place to another place.”
“Why?” Hope shuffled a little closer to the window again.
Peter walked past her and went straight up to it, so Hope stopped shuffling and joined him. They couldn’t see much other than the top of the creepy red ghost ship. Hope didn’t realize that the ship wasn’t actually red, and that it was just the lighting from the flares making it look that way.
“I don’t know why,” Dakota answered Hope’s question, “no one told us. They just said they wanted us to go toward the front of the ship, and that someone there would direct us further.”
“Do you think the ghosts are going to board us?” Hope wondered.
“Ghosts?”
Hope pointed to the wooden posts gliding past.
Dakota laughed. “That’s not a ghost ship. It’s a pirate ship.”
“Pirates drive around in those little fast boats,” Hope told her. She had seen them when they were attacked by pirates before.
“Yeah, but they used to use ships like that one. Back when pirates wore eye patches, and had peg legs, and parrots on their shoulders.”
Hope had no idea what Dakota was talking about. Since there wasn’t much to look at, she started to get bored with the window. Walking over to the far side of the bed, she looked through the toys there. She was still scared, but she found a deck of Uno cards that didn’t take any imagination to use.
“Do either of you want to play Uno?” she asked.
Both Peter and Dakota said they did, and sat down on the floor with her. Milly lay down behind Hope, her head resting on her one front paw, watching the card games. Dakota won almost every time, but sometimes Peter was the winner. Hope never won. She blamed it on the fact that she was scared and not paying enough attention, even though the others didn’t seem to be paying that much attention either. At one point, another thunderous crack shook the ship. Hope screamed again and just about jumped on Milly. The three of them stopped playing Uno then, and simply huddled together.
“Maybe we should evacuate,” Peter suggested after a little while, saying the new word carefully.
“We don’t know where to go,” Hope told him.
“Forward. Where else is there to go on the ship? We just go forward,” Dakota said.
“But someone might be looking for us right now.” Hope didn’t want to wander off and get in trouble like last time.
“Wouldn’t they have found us if they were?” Dakota asked.
“We should stay put,” Hope insisted.
“If we go forward, we’ll find someone and they can tell us where everyone else went,” Dakota continued to push.
“When you’re lost, you’re supposed to stay put!” Hope was getting mad.
“We’ll stay here a little longer,” Peter told them both.
Hope pouted. She was now both scared and grumpy. She played with Milly’s collar, undoing the clip and snapping it closed again, sometimes running it in circles around the dog’s neck. Hope did this until Milly pulled her head away, annoyed. After that, she just fidgeted with her fingers.
“I’m going to go look outside.” Dakota got up and walked over to the window. “Hey, the pirate ship is gone!�
�
Hope and Peter both scrambled up onto their feet and ran to the window. Looking out, they couldn’t see the posts anywhere.
“I told you it was a ghost ship!” Hope cried. “It disappeared!”
“It’s not a ghost ship. It probably just went somewhere we can’t see. Or maybe it sank.” Dakota tried to find an explanation, but she didn’t sound as sure of herself as usual.
“It was a ghost ship,” Hope insisted, walking away from the window. She seated herself back down beside Milly, who hadn’t bothered to follow the kids to the window again.
Peter soon rejoined her, but Dakota walked right past.
“Where are you going?” Hope worried she was going to leave without them.
“I’m just going to go look in the hallway and see if anyone is there.”
“Okay.” Hope actually hoped there was.
She and Peter listened as first the door was opened, and then as Dakota screamed. Both of them jumped to their feet, Milly as well, and Dakota came running back to them.
“It’s on fire!” Dakota screamed.
“What is?” Peter asked.
“Everything! The hallway! It’s all on fire!”
“We’re trapped,” Hope sobbed.
“Come on, I know what to do.” Dakota led them to the bathroom and turned on the tap. “Find clothes or sheets or something. A towel, a towel will work.” She grabbed a white towel off the towel rack and stuck it under the tap. “Go find more stuff. And buckets, and glasses. Stuff that can hold water.”
Peter and Hope dashed out of the bathroom to find what Dakota had asked for. Hope went through the closet and drawers, while Peter looked for a bucket or something. As Hope grabbed shirts, pants, and socks, she wondered who they belonged to. Ms. Abby and Ms. Lauren had been borrowing this room, just the way Hope and Daddy were borrowing the one down the hall. She carried the pile of clothing back to Dakota, who was shoving a soaking wet towel up against the bottom of the door.
“Great,” Dakota said when she saw Hope, “give those to me, then find another bucket like Peter has.”
Hope handed over the pile of clothes, and saw that Peter didn’t have a bucket, but a flowerpot. The dirt and the plant that had been growing inside lay on the floor. Hope was able to find an actual bucket in the bottom of the closet.
“What are you doing?” Hope asked Dakota who was putting the clothes in the sink and the shower.
“We have to get this stuff wet and place it against the door.” Dakota turned on the shower. “We should also flood the sink and the shower. That’ll help.”
Hope didn’t understand what Dakota was doing. She thought you were supposed to put water on the fire, not other places. Dakota was older though, and had taken more classes. She probably knew what she was doing. Besides, Peter wasn’t arguing either.
As the clothes were soaked, the kids placed them on top of the towel. Dakota then filled up the bucket and the flowerpot, and told Hope and Peter to splash the water on the door. By now, the shower was about to flood out all over the floor because of the towels Dakota had put over the drain, and the sink was very full.
“Keep filling these up and splashing the door. I’m going to open the door to the balcony.”
“But there’s bad guys out there!” Hope protested.
“Maybe they went away. Better than the fire in here, I say.” Dakota ran for the sliding glass door.
Hope and Peter continued to fill the flowerpot and bucket, and then throw the water on the door and the pile of clothes. Eventually, both the shower and the sink overflowed, splashing water all over the floor. Hope squealed as it washed over her bare feet, soaking the bottoms of her new pyjama pants.
During all of this, Milly kept wandering around the room. She was whining, and sometimes even barking. A few times she got in the kids’ way, and once Hope shoved her hard enough to knock her over.
“Is the door open yet?” Hope walked into the main part of the room to ask Dakota.
“I can’t get it open!” Dakota screamed.
“Is it too heavy? Maybe Peter and I can help.” Hope knew that the doors to the balcony were very heavy and hard to open. She had seen some adults have trouble pulling them open.
“I haven’t even gotten to that part yet. Whoever owns this room, they locked the door with this string, and I can’t untie it!” Dakota was actually crying. Seeing her tears, Hope immediately began to cry as well.
Eventually, Dakota collapsed to the floor in a huff, wrapping her arms around her knees and sobbing into them. Hope went to her and cried alongside her. Once Peter realized he was the only one still using a bucket, he dropped it and walked into the main room to the find the girls. He didn’t cry like they did, but sat on the floor in a tight ball. Milly sniffed each kid, whining deep in her throat. The three-legged husky paced in circles, stopping occasionally to bark or growl at nothing. When she started howling, Hope didn’t bother to tell her to be quiet.
“Hope, Dakota, look.” Peter pointed at the wall, near the ceiling.
Both the girls looked up. Smoke was coming into the room. There was a small hole near the ceiling and smoke was coming through it.
“Oh no!” Dakota quickly got to her feet and ran for the bathroom. She came out a moment later with the flowerpot full of water, and splashed the water at the hole. The hole got a little bit bigger, there was a hissing sound, and the smoke stopped only for a moment.
Peter got up quickly and grabbed the bucket, running for the bathroom. He returned with it full of water and splashed it over the wall. He and Dakota started doing this over and over again, just the way Hope and Peter had done with the door. Hope searched the room again, but couldn’t find anything else that would hold water besides a single drinking glass in the bathroom. She used the glass a few times, but compared to how much water Dakota and Peter were throwing, it seemed pointless. Instead, she knelt in the water covering the bathroom floor, no longer worried about wetting her pyjama pants, and used her glass to empty the water from the toilet. She didn’t think about how gross toilet water must be, she thought only about adding to the water on the floor. If there was enough, it would spill out into the room. When the toilet was empty, she flushed it to get more water.
Milly was howling a lot now.
After a while, Hope noticed that Peter and Dakota were no longer running into the bathroom. She got up and walked into the main room to find them. Both of them were sitting against the mattress against the window, panting. They were pooped out, as Hope’s mom would say. Hope plopped down next to them in her soaking wet clothes. All three kids wrapped their arms around each other and sobbed. There was nothing more they could do.
When the first flame flashed briefly through the hole in the wall, Hope wailed, adding her voice to Milly’s.
This was it. With nothing left to do, this had to be it.
A loud thump came from the door. The kids cried out, frightened. Their scared minds didn’t even try to figure out what it was. When it happened again, and again, they cried louder.
“Hope!” a rough voice called into the room.
Hope got up and looked down the little hallway just in time to see her daddy pushing his way into the room around the wet stuff. Thick, black smoke billowed into the room over his head. The big hallway behind him was very bright, with an intense yellow light. While Hope watched, her daddy squeezed inside and slammed the door, narrowly avoiding being grabbed by a man who was on fire.
“Hope!” Her daddy made his way over to her and fell to his knees, sweeping Hope into his arms in a tight bear hug.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Hope cried into his chest. He smelled like smoke.
Daddy let go of Hope and quickly looked around the room. Milly was whining, licking his arm, and wagging her tail, but he ignored her. His face was all sooty.
“Let’s get you out of here,” Daddy spoke to Hope and the other kids. He then started coughing. When he was done, he got up to his feet and went to the balcony door. He was walking really fun
ny.
“Daddy, you’re bleeding!” Hope pointed to his leg.
“I know. Don’t worry about it. I’m all right.” He was no longer paying much attention to Hope; she could tell by the way that he was talking. She didn’t care, she was just glad that he was here. Her daddy was here to rescue her.
Pulling out a big knife, Daddy cut the string that was holding the door closed and then yanked it open. He was very strong, and had no trouble with the heavy door. Hope enjoyed the breeze that came through the opening. She hadn’t noticed how hot it was in the room.
Another flame flashed in the wall.
“Daddy!”
Daddy looked outside on the balcony. “Shit!” he cried. It was a word he wasn’t supposed to use, a bad word. He came back inside. “All right kids. Stay right here by the mattress for a second.”
Hope, Dakota, and Peter did as they were told. Daddy walked in his funny way to the closet and looked inside, coughing the whole time. The flames flashed again, and this time they didn’t go away. The wall was on fire. Daddy came back with four lifejackets.
“Come here.” He knelt down by the open door and Hope saw it was very painful for him.
She and the other kids gathered close to him, fearfully glancing at the burning wall. Milly crowded up close to Daddy as well.
“Peter, Hope, put these on.” Daddy handed them lifejackets.
Hope had been taught how to put one on during her swim lessons and was quick to do so now. Next to her, Peter did the same, and then helped Hope adjust her straps.
“Dakota, this one is adult sized, but it’s all we’ve got.” Daddy put a lifejacket on Dakota and tightened the straps a lot. “It may slip off of you. Are you a good swimmer?”
“Yes, Mr. Cole,” she nodded.
Once the lifejacket was on Dakota, Daddy took the other adult lifejacket and put it on Milly. Milly didn’t seem to like it much; Daddy had put it on her crooked because of her legs, but she didn’t try to pull it off.
“What about you, Daddy? Where’s your lifejacket?” Hope wondered.
“There aren’t any more, but don’t worry, I don’t need one.”
“The fire is getting bigger,” Peter pointed out.
Survival Instinct (Book 3): Fighting Instinct Page 32