I looked up, expecting to find the steady green savior light of the intercom panel, but instead found a charred poster of Paris that Virginia had bought some time ago. Panic settled into my bones. I'd traveled to the left side of her room, not the right. She'd hung the poster next to her closet.
I followed the perimeter of her room like a good sniffer dog, making a mental map of the area of her room I had covered. My lungs burned. My eyes felt like they’d been clawed out of my sockets. And they might as well have: between the sheets of sweat and suffocating smoke, I couldn't see a thing. My senses seemed like they had been reduced down to that of a blind man: touch and hearing only.
As for the hearing part, I focused on mewling little sounds, for Virginia weakly calling for me. But I could hear only the roar of fire, the crackling sound of consumption, and the deep guttural groans of the dying house.
Soon its bones would weaken and collapse right over my head. Soon, we would all die.
With my arm stretched out in front of me, I swept it side to side like a windshield wiper. I didn't feel anything unusual; I didn't catch Virginia or Dillon in my survey.
But I sensed something all right. I sensed something hideous.
I rolled onto my back and scurried backwards, propelled by the certainty of looming terror. The glowing smoke swirled like an opening portal and Dillon stepped through.
Areas of his dirty mop hair had been singed off. There were oozing bloody patches on his head that glistened in the dancing flame light. A cut on his temple bled heavily where Virginia had struck him with the lamp. But despite his injuries, he seemed alive and well, almost as if he relished the pain and drew invigorating strength from it.
He grinned down at me, his red crescent wound looked downright sinister.
I started screaming. I flipped onto my hands and knees and raced toward the window, but his hand clamped down on my injured ankle as final as an iron manacle. I could feel the carpet burning my cheek as he dragged me deeper into the room, into the belly of the fire, where nobody would survive.
I kicked frantically at his clamped hand, his arm, and his legs. The smoke was as insidious as an army of ants, penetrating my eyes and lungs, unrelenting and forever advancing. The marauders launched another attack, making me sick from pain.
Dillon’s hard grasp loosed them all. Every dormant one. I rolled to the side and retched, gasping for air and reaching out for something, anything, to stop my terrible inexorable final journey into the belly of the fire.
Suddenly, Virginia rose up behind him, with Amy Mathews’ prized trophy firmly in hand. It was a crystal Waterford vase fixed on a wood base, commemorating one million in sales.
We’d poured in a bottle of champagne and drank triumphantly to Mom, to Froggy, to Tenzing Norgay, even to Monica Schaffer, to everything and everyone we could think of that had brought us to this incredible point. After we’d emptied the vase, we very proudly, and with much to-do, placed it on the mantle, where it stayed, until Virginia brought it up to her room after she got home from the hospital.
The Waterford glittered in the firelight. Then she brought it down, hard, slamming the vase against the back of Dillon’s head. Crystal shards skittered down his shoulders, dancing in the dull orange light. He fell to his knees, losing his grip on my leg.
"Run!" Virginia cried. "Get out of here!"
I choked and gagged for breath. "Not without you!" I cried, tears streaming down my face.
"I'll be right behind you. I promise."
And the smoke swallowed them both up whole.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
I needed to find my sister. I needed to drag her out with me. There’s no way I’d leave her behind. Together, we would make our way over to the sash window that would deliver us once and for all away from this blazing onslaught. Together, we would survive.
I struggled to my feet and staggered toward the approximate location of where I’d seen her last. I barked my toes on something and fell.
"Jinny!" I screamed out in pain and fear. Soon, I’d hit the bottom of my endurance. You can do it, I told myself, gasping for air. You can do it. I tried to get up. I tried to stand, to keep going, but my strength was swilling away. "Help me . . ." I begged something—anything— that could lend some assistance. Help . . .
Get up, girl! The urging came from within, from some cheerleader whose run with the football team was about to come to an end. Get up! Keep goin’!
I struggled up to standing again, but my bad leg quavered so badly with fatigue and pain that I crashed back onto my knees. I kept going on my hands and knees though, crawling like a baby, with big baby tears spilling from my eyes.
"Jinny!" I choked out. "Where are you?"
The smoke reached down my esophagus and scraped my lungs raw. I'd never thought much about lungs before, certainly I had never given them much credit. They were always just there, quietly pulling in air. In. Out. In. Out. Without any input from me whatsoever.
But as I dragged in one breath after another, and winced with burning pain, I realized I was slowly suffocating to death. Hot particulates lined my throat and lungs, blocking the life-supporting exchange of oxygen.
My vision started to dim. If I wanted to save Virginia, I needed to get one fortifying breath of fresh air. Just one. Then I could gather some strength and return for her. I scrambled towards the window, toward the cold oasis that awaited me on the other side of the pane.
But I had to get to it first. The marauders breached my walls. My legs felt heavy and leaden. I kept going, fighting the urge to lay my weary head down on the plush carpeting and watch transfixed as the raging blaze roared over my head in an awe-inspiring arc, carrying me towards the soft bright land of nothingness.
Get on your feet!
The cheerleader was back. She was a good Southern girl, with a slight country twang, her long blonde hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail. She had a big future ahead of her. She had hopes and dreams. She wanted to go to college. She wanted to cheer all those hardworking boys onto a G-O-A-L! She didn't want to die. And the nice girl didn't want me to die either.
Just a little bit farther!
I could see her so clearly. She wore a tiny pleated royal blue skirt that flashed her caution-orange briefs every time she lifted a leg in glee. Her sweater had a few varsity letters sewn across her ample bosom. I could even smell her. She smelled of perfumed lotion and melting plastic. No, not melting plastic. Burning hair. And that wasn't her. That was me. I was her, and she was me. And we were both about to die if I didn't hurry my ass over to the window.
You can do it!
I dragged in another breath, and another, wincing with each painful effort, fumbling and forging on through the wall of smoke, praying for divine intervention.
No, go left! cried the cheerleader.
Was that it? Divine intervention? Angels didn't have to have wings, did they? Who says angels couldn't be well fed cheerleaders, wearing scandalously short skirts? I turned left, and suddenly, momentously, the smoke cleared and a finger of fresh air rushed down my throat.
I'd never felt so invigorated. It was as if someone had popped me with a shot of adrenaline that went straight through my veins, propelling me faster and faster towards the window, despite my leaden legs and my trashed ankle.
There it was, just a few feet away! Plumes of smoke billowed out of the half opened sash, rushing out in great swaths as if driven by the same animal drive of survival as me.
Heedless to the sheets of pain, I latched onto the window ledge, pulled myself up to standing and wrenched the window fully open.
You did it! Cried the cheerleader, who pumped her arms and executed perfect air splits.
While she finished up her battle cry of Gimme a Y! Gimme an E! . . . I folded myself over the ledge, stuck my head into a clean patch of air, and sucked in great gulps of air. "Yes, we did it," I mumbled to the cheerleader. "We did it . . ."
Suddenly, Virginia crawled out from under a blanket of smoke. She dragged in
a long breath, coughing and choking, reaching for me.
"Jinny!" I said, struggling to get out of the window so I could pinion myself against the sill and pull her out. I made it out. I reached for her. She reached for me. Our fingers brushed against each other. "Grab my hands!" I strained to reach her, to touch her, to save her.
Finally, we locked hands. I stood and started shimmying out of the window, bringing her with me, but suddenly my leg collapsed. Slick with sweat, we lost our grip. I skittered down the icy slanted roof, far away from my sister.
"No!" I screamed, trying to catch the gutter on my way down, but missed, and tumbled straight off the roof and onto the bushes far down below.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I laid on the ground for a few stunned seconds, gaping up at the clear starry night just visible through spindly branches. As I watched glowing embers drift across the sky, I could think only about the vast sea of fresh clean air, paying grateful homage to the planet for providing such a bounty.
Slowly, my lungs stopped burning. I could feel the molecular exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. It was miraculous. It was life enhancing. And it was something my sister was missing.
I clawed my way out of the bush, struggled up to standing, and looked up at the window. Great flames licked the casement like the lashing of a giant reptile tongue. There were dark char marks along the white paint. Flashes of fire broke out intermittently along the roofline, flames that had eaten their way through the ceiling and were closing in like a predator going for the jugular.
Suddenly the flames cleared and I could see Virginia's silhouette, retreating and emerging again. "Jinny!" I cried. Could she not see the window? Why didn't she fling herself out of it! Maybe she needed my voice to guide her to the escape route. "I'll catch you!" I yelled. "Just jump!" And then I became the plump cheerleader with hopes and dreams and terror gnawing in my belly. "You can do it! Keep going!"
But she didn't do it. I watched, fingers helplessly pressed against my mouth, as she appeared and retreated again from view. Suddenly, I saw Dillon. His tall figure working, writhing against the orangey-red backdrop. They were fighting still!
Quickly, I limped over to a trellis that we'd strapped to the downspout long ago. I could climb it and crawl up to the window and drag her out. I stepped on the first flimsy rung. It collapsed under my weight. I caught myself with my bad leg.
A jolt of hot pain stopped my breath cold. I groaned as my eyes welled up with tears. When the initial wave of nausea passed, I packed some snow against my throbbing ankle, trying to numb the pain. Then I turned back to the trellis, my only hope of saving her.
I reached up high for a sturdy rung, one that hadn't rotted from sprinkler spray, and tested it. It held. I hung on my arms as I lifted my right leg to the highest possible rung. I eased my weight onto it. It held.
I was climbing yet higher, about half way up to the roofline, a good five feet off the ground, when the trellis rungs cracked under my weight and collapsed in unison, sending me pummeling to the ground.
The hard strike knocked the breath out of me. I gaped like a fish and screwed my eyes shut, panic stricken as my lungs refused to pull in a single wisp of air. The marauders were back, in brute force, but what did they matter if we all died of asphyxiation?
So I laid on a cold hard crust of snow, my focus brought back again to the simple matter of air and how to get some. Slowly, ever so slowly, my lungs opened up as stingy as Scrooge and let in minuscule amounts of air. Enough to stave off certain death, but not enough to get going.
My chest relaxed a little; the air came more easily. I would not die, not like this. Not without my sister. I was laying there, thinking about Virginia and how I could help her, when the cold set in.
At first, the sharp crisp winter air had been a sweet antidote the fiery innards of the house. But now . . . now, as I lay in a heap of snow in a wet pants and t-shirt sodden with sweat, I felt my first shiver.
How nice. I sat up and packed some more snow onto my ankle and climbed back up to my feet, somewhat woozily, and looked up at the window. Both Dillon and Virginia were nowhere to be seen.
"Jinny!" I called again, cupping my hands around my mouth. But then I stopped, as a cold hand of reason stole over me. Dillon could also hear me. If he knew I was alive, he could dash outside, and far more mobile than me, drag me back into that flesh-melting inferno, where his eyewitness would go up in smoke. How convenient!
My hand burned. I plunged it into a mound of snow and scanned all the windows, searching for signs of Virginia. Maybe she'd somehow made it downstairs. I saw only flames.
I stifled a sob. Jinny. My hard-fighting, sweet dummy of a sister was still inside, locked in mortal combat with Dillon, still fighting for her life. But what could I do? The trellis lay in a shattered heap. Of course, Ben had used a more strenuous route, but I couldn’t climb up a tree in my state.
I withdrew my cold hand from the snow, and clamped them both under my armpits. Think! What to do!
The shivering started in earnest. The cold, fresh air had restored me. But now it was turning sinister. The insidious cold crept into my body and stole into my bones.
As I watched the sea of raging orange flames, I realized it was warm inside, hot even. I shivered once more, a teeth chattering one that knocked my reasoning askew. The wall of heat . . . the flesh-melting temperatures . . . I forgot all about that.
I could go back in, warm up a little, run really fast. Okay, limp. I could limp as fast as I could. I could find Virginia. I could find Ben. Where had he gone? The loader. The lion. Oh God. Don’t think about that now.
Virginia—I could save her. And I could warm up a little in the process. Then I could go find Ben and save him too. I looked again at the raging wall of heat. Yes, I could save them both.
And I started toward the front door.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Whoof!
The roof collapsed, sending a great arc of glowing cinders into the dark night sky. My heart stopped. I could feel it seize mid-beat in my chest.
I collapsed to my knees and screamed, "Virginia!"
But then a wisp of hope restarted my heart. She’s still in there, somewhere. Maybe she wasn’t buried in fire and flames. Maybe I could still save her. Maybe there was still time.
I hurried toward the house. She would not die in there, alone, lying in a coffin of fire. I would get through the flames somehow, and even if it meant dying in there with her, I would get to her. At least she wouldn’t be alone, fighting off Death all by herself.
Onwards I went, holding my arm up against the heat, trying to see past the wall of flames. There was a pleasant warm zone between the bone chilling temperatures outside, and the flesh melting temperatures inside that gave me pause. I pushed past the comfort zone and blundered toward the front door.
We would take this final step together. We would—
Dillon stumbled through the front door, a lone surreal figure, silhouetted by the eerie wavering glow of fire, his face dark with soot. He gasped for breath, making his way down the steps past me, as if in a daze, and dropped to his knees in the snow.
Flames roared out of the windows. I put up a futile arm, choking and gagging. But suddenly, I heard a resounding crackling sound, and a whole section of the house collapsed, sending a wall of heat toward me, sending me stumbling backwards.
Virginia. Grief swamped me, thick and foul. My sister lay deep in the roaring funeral pyre of our once beloved home. Hot tears pooled in my eyes, turning the blaze into a giant orange and red blue.
I sobbed, welcoming the tears, wanting them to come and wash this horror all away. My throat ached. I cried into my hands as memories of my sister rushed to me, so many sweet, sweet memories, a lifetime of them.
I remembered her parading around in her prom getup, a hot pink tuxedo. Her young date had loved it. She’d asked a freshman to go with her to the senior prom. The poor guy’s parents nearly had an aneurism.
I could see their twin mohaw
ks now, finning inside the hotel ballroom. Then there was Froggy. Library bean bags. Beam me up, Scotty! Tenzing Norgay. Books. So many books. Sharp boogers. Jinx! Horse bite. What is wrong with you. Ha! Ha! Ha! Her laugh echoed in mind, ricocheting around in the hollow shell of my blown-out heart.
The flames roared.
Dillon.
He fixed his gaze on me like a hard mask.
He saw it. I saw it, too. I’m a live witness. I’m a dead woman walking.
If I survive, Dillon will spend the rest of his life behind bars. If I don’t . . . he will innocently saunter out of this nightmare, claiming that a house fire sadly killed the Ward sisters. He’d probably come up with some sickly sweet story about how we were roasting a chicken—so cozy and cute—and then the oven erupted in flames and he’d tried so hard to put it out—so hard!—but it just got out of hand and then . . . cue crocodile tears.
He started toward me, but then he stopped and cocked his head, listening.
I heard it too. Distant sirens. The long plaintive wail of help coming. They were coming to arrest him, maybe shoot him on sight like a garbage eating bear.
Then he turned to me and smirked. He knew. I knew, too. I’d be charred lunch meat by the time the cops finally broke down the front gate. I wanted so badly to run to the front gate and wave them over, but I needed to get to Ben. He was all I had left.
I started toward the lion cage, dragging my bum leg behind me, using it to propel me forward. I could see the shape of the lion, hunched in the shadows. I could see a mound, wearing Ben’s puffer jacket. That the lion wasn’t gnawing on him gave me hope.
But he was a killing machine, programmed to kill. And he was hungry. I’m sure Dillon saw to that. I tripped and pummeled forward. I caught myself on the fence, rousing the interest of the lion. I glanced over my shoulder. Dillon followed.
Ben lay unmoving. I had to go in, and drag him out somehow. I had to try and help him.
I Am The Lion: A Riveting Psychological Thriller Page 21