by Robin Crumby
Outside in the cool night air, it was strangely quiet on this far side of the building, furthest away from the fire. There was a moonless cloudy sky. The light was eerily bright and strangely incongruous. An orange glow lit up the sky. As Adele woke shivering, something reminded her of November the fifth, fireworks night. She half expected to find a towering bonfire, explosions in a million colours and sparkles above their heads.
Mila grabbed her hand and they raced round to the other side of the building where they found a hive of activity. Smoke was pouring from two of the upper windows on the second floor, curling into the night sky. Fire had broken through the roof in one section further down. There was a line of around twenty women passing bucket load after bucket load of water hand over hand. They scooped water green with algae from the ornamental pond. Inside the French doors that led into the lobby area, there was another human chain passing the full buckets slopping up the stairs, towards the source of the fire.
With a shudder, Riley remembered Zed was likely still in the infirmary on the second floor. Common sense told her it was hopeless to try and reach him. She remembered her brief stint as the volunteer fire marshal at the surgery she worked at. Rule one was to get everyone out safely and wait for the fire brigade. The only problem was no-one was coming to help. Either she went in herself or Zed would die. In his weakened state, he couldn’t possibly get out on his own. She made up her mind. She had to reach him. It was up to her.
She hurried inside heading towards the staircase but Sister Georgina held her hand up to stop her. “It’s too dangerous. No-one’s allowed up there.”
“Try and stop me,” said Riley pushing past her. The Sister lunged after her to grab her sleeve but Riley was already gone, taking the stairs two at a time. She passed a gaggle of women coming back down, their buckets empty, ready to be refilled.
On the first floor landing, the human chain bent right towards the crackle and roar of the fire. She could hear raised voices shouting instructions, a note of panic as they fought to regain control. Riley shielded her face against the stifling heat and could see flames not twenty meters away down the corridor in one of the bedrooms on the first floor. The infirmary was higher up on the next floor up. The stairs were deserted and dark. She knew she had to be quick. The flames had already broken through between floors.
She was half way up the next staircase when she stopped dead. She had a sudden powerful sense of déjà vu. Instinct told her what she needed to do first. She dived into one of the bathrooms and grabbed a bath towel hanging on a peg, soaked it in a bowl of grey water left out for washing hands. Wrapping the towel around her head, she poured the rest of the water over her head and shoulders soaking her clothes to keep them cool and protect her against the heat.
She slowed her pace and tested her weight on each of the steps, suddenly afraid she might trip and fall, unsure of what lay ahead. There was a heavy fire door that granted access to the corridor that led to the infirmary. There was silence up here, suspiciously quiet, no sign of flames, but heavy smoke hung heavy from the ceiling all the way down to waist height. There was an impenetrable wall of heat and cloying fumes. It was impossible to get to him. She could feel the smoke catch in her throat, struggling to catch her breath in the heat. The cool towel wrapped round her head was already steaming as the water evaporated.
She got down on her hands and knees and tried crawling along the carpet staying low just underneath the layer of smoke. Lower down the heat was less intense, the air easier to breathe through the damp towel she was clutching to her mouth. Even so, there was an increasingly acrid smell that was overpowering. She started coughing, fighting for breath, gulping air greedily and feeling the panic begin to rise in her throat. She felt nauseous and spat on the carpet.
She shook her head to try and regain focus and continued on her hands and knees, feeling for the doorways to her left. First room was closed and locked, second one was the nurse’s station, but the door was wide open and the room empty. The nurse had gone. Perhaps Zed was already safe. She had to check to be sure. Third door down was Zed’s room. It was closed but thankfully not locked.
She put her weight against the door and levered it open with some difficulty. It felt as if she was fighting against an invisible force. Zed was beginning to stir, dreaming feverishly again, oblivious to the drama that was unfolding all around him. As the door closed shut behind her, it felt like all the air was being sucked out, as if a vacuum had been broken. The nurse had left a top window ajar in the corner and the fire sucked hungrily at this fresh source of air and oxygen. Behind her, she heard a funnelling of air as the flames leapt, rejuvenated. She didn’t have much time.
She shook Zed by the shoulders, whispering his name softly. His eyes flickered open, groggy and disoriented, then closed again. She tried again, shouting this time, an edge of panic creeping into her voice: “Zed, wake up, wake up.”
He stirred, his eyes wide, blinking at her, still vacant and far away. She slapped him hard across his left cheek and then resumed shaking him by the shoulders. The nurse must have given him something to help him sleep. She raised her hand to strike him again but his free hand rose up to grab her wrist before she made contact.
“OK Riley. Enough already. I’m awake.”
“There’s no time to explain. We need to go right now. There’s a fire. I’ll help you up.”
He got gingerly to his feet, his legs weak and unbalanced. She supported his large frame, holding him tightly around his waist and maneuvered him towards the door which had swung closed again. At first the door appeared locked, vacuum sealed by the difference in air pressure, but she hauled it open with all her might. As she did so the roar of flames grew suddenly louder and from the far end of the corridor came a surge of heat.
Riley pushed Zed down to the floor and dived on top of him as an explosion of heat and flame enveloped them and swept past them into the infirmary, blasting the door half off its hinges. Riley could taste soot and burning human hair in her mouth and nose. She got Zed on to his hands and knees and they started crawling side by side towards the stairwell. The smoke was cloying and darker now, only a few inches from the carpet. It was hopeless now, she couldn’t see anything, tears rolling down her cheeks. The heat behind them was intense. Zed’s whole body convulsed with coughing but she encouraged him onwards, grabbing his good arm and half hauling him a few more inches towards safety.
The fire door stood resolute in front of them, a formidable barrier to both them and what followed closely behind. If they could just get to the end of the corridor and beyond, they would be clear, but the whole corridor was now completely dark, a wall of choking smoke. It was only by feeling her way along the wall and counting the doorways that she realized they must be within touching distance. But where was the door? Had it been blown off its hinges by the blast?
Her breathing was coming in short rasps. Zed was finished and near to collapse. She reached out along the carpet, stretching and hoping. It seemed to be growing hotter by the second. The carpet fibres were melting and sticky to the touch from the heat below and all around. The corridor had become a furnace and would soon to become their tomb. She thrust her hand out one last time and touched the flat painted surface of the fire door, its paint was just beginning to blister. Her fingers found the edge of the door and she managed to prise it open, forcing it outwards. The rush of cooler air was delicious and intoxicating.
The two of them half stood and fell outwards on to the landing, pulling Zed’s legs clear to allow the fire door to close. They both lay there for a few seconds with their chests heaving, panting hard, trying to get their breath back before a darkness enveloped Riley.
She was dimly aware of voices behind and beneath her on the stairs. Hands helping them back up. She was barely conscious as they supported her down the stairs. Her head rolled against a supporting shoulder as they half-dragged her down towards ground floor level. She was carried through a conservatory filled with pot plants and acres of glass and
finally outside to be lowered gently on to the grass. It felt deliriously cool and moist on the back of her bare arms, soothing the burning sensation on exposed flesh at her wrists and knees through ripped jeans.
One of the last things Riley remembered was Adele hugging her tightly round her neck. She lay there staring up into the night sky, watching clouds drifting lazily over their heads. The flames from two upper windows bathed the trees and grass all around her in light, casting a warming orange glow. She was a spent force, every last ounce of strength gone. At she drifted in and out of consciousness, the upstairs windows began to resemble demonic eyes flaring wildly. The flames licked the outside of the building, making the iron gutters and fixings glow and spark. Alongside her, Zed’s body lay motionless, as one of the women pumped his chest with the palm of her hand, trying to resuscitate him. Riley grasped his hand, squeezing it hard and then passed out.
Chapter Thirty-Six
As dawn broke at the Chewton Glen hotel, the fire had burned itself out. The southern end of the main building was a scarred, smoking wreck, blackened timbers exposed to the pale light of the new day. Laid out on the lawn were a dozen bodies covered in blankets and sheets or whatever they could find to hide their faces. Most of them had been simply overcome by the smoke, waiting to be rescued, trapped in upstairs rooms by the rampaging flames.
Riley sat consoling Stella, her face blackened, hair singed in places. Judging by other people’s reaction to her appearance, she must look a right state. Stella had her head in her hands, sobbing. So many of her friends were gone, their lives extinguished. It seemed so wrong that they should have survived the virus only to be killed by something innocuous like a candle left to burn unattended. Sister Immelda had said that the candle had most probably simply fallen over, out of its saucer and on to a carpet or against a drape and caught alight. In a few minutes, the whole bedroom would have been ablaze and then from there, a fire uncontained would have spread rapidly to the other rooms on the same floor.
Stella looked up, tears streaming down her face. Mila came and joined them sitting cross-legged on the picnic blanket next to her. She threw her arms around Stella and just held her, gently rocking backwards and forwards. There was nothing that anyone could say to make it better, so she said nothing. The three of them stared back at the hotel, as it smouldered quietly, its energy spent.
Sister Theodora was busying herself organizing others, handing round cups of tea, hot buttered toast and blankets for those who had fought so hard throughout the night to save the hotel and rescue the trapped women.
Mila stroked Adele’s hair one last time, kissed her gently on the forehead and rose to go find the others.
The nurse had set up a makeshift surgery in one of the outbuildings that had once been a soft-play gym for toddlers. Its padded floors were bright blues and reds that made for comfortable mattresses to treat the walking wounded and those more seriously injured by the fire. In the corner, on the far side, she found Zed wrapped in a blanket, clutching a steaming hot mug of milky tea. Someone had cleaned his face up, but around his eyes and ears there were streaks of dirt and singed hair and eyebrows that reminded Riley of the 7/7 bombing victims on the London Underground all those years ago. There was a look of terror etched on his face, staring blankly with unseeing eyes. He was alive, but had needed CPR to get him breathing again, overcome by the fumes when Riley and others had dragged him out. He nodded gently at Riley and blinked his eyes rapidly as she approached, a weary smile on his face.
“Looking good Zed. You just can’t stay out of trouble eh?”
Zed tried to sit up but the strain was too much and he slumped back. Mila helped him upright. She put an arm behind his back and he leaned back against the bright red cushion that smelled of hospitals. The disinfectant did a poor job of masking an unmistakeable smell of young children, a heady blend of nappies, rancid milk and an undertone of vomit.
“How are the rest of them? Stella, Adele?”
“Don’t worry, they’re all fine. But there are many that didn’t make it out. Apparently there was a group upstairs in a dorm room on the second floor who died in their sleep. Never woke up. They found all six of them all together in a room full of smoke and fumes. They carried them out but couldn’t resuscitate them. There wasn’t a mark on them.”
She shook her head, still trying to dispel the mental image of those women lying dead in their beds. “If I was going to die, that’s how I’d like to go. In my bed, asleep, dreaming of being with my family on a beach somewhere hot.” Her voice trailed off.
“Where’s Adele?” asked Riley slowly regaining her wits.
“She’s fine. She’s helping in the kitchen, buttering toast with Sister Mel,” said Mila.
Zed’s voice was croaky and he reached for a glass of water by his side, clearing his throat before continuing. “We need to get out of this place. Get back to Hurst, to our own people. They’ll be worried about us. We’ve been gone too long already. What if they sent a rescue party? Followed our trail into town, straight to the hospital? We’ve got to get back.”
“Not till you’re well enough to move. Remember what the nurse said,” said Riley.
“We don’t have time enough to wait around here,” said Zed.
“We can’t just leave these people in their hour of need. Look around you.”
She extended her arm towards the twenty or so people stretched out around them. Some were fighting for breath from smoke inhalation, others in agony from burns being bathed with wet towels, the nurse bustling between them.
“They need us,” continued Riley. “They’ve lost a good number of people. We can’t just ship out after all they’ve done for us.”
“There’s nothing we can do for them. And let’s not forget, they still have Joe locked up like some animal. They got what’s coming to them.”
“Hold on, you’re saying they brought this on themselves? You can’t seriously be suggesting that none of this would have happened if men had been around to save the day?”
“Don’t twist my words Riley. I’m just saying that what comes around goes around. Cosmic forces. Karma. I’ve seen it before.” He glanced up and raised his eyebrows. “What would the Sisters say: ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways.’ Something like that. I’m just saying that natural forces are at work rebalancing. Honi soit qui mal y pense and all that.”
“What does that even mean?” said Mila puzzled.
“You know, the Order of the Garter. Evil comes to those who think evil. You must have heard that before right? Jack’s forever banging on about it. ”
“Nope. I swear you make this stuff up.”
“It just means that life has a funny sort of way of getting its own back. What comes around goes around. And you can’t say that the Sisters didn’t have this coming.”
“No one deserves to die Zed. Whatever they think or believe. Just because this lot have strong views about men, doesn’t mean they deserve to die?”
“I’m not saying that at all. Don’t misinterpret what the Sisters have done here. Don’t kid yourself that this is the fulfilment of some weird feminist crusade for female empowerment. Whatever happened to sexual equality being the goal? Whoever said that to be happy and prosperous, required that someone else, an entire sex, had to be subjugated.”
“People are entitled to create a new community based on different values. If people don’t like that, then they should leave.”
“You mean, if men don’t like it, they should leave? Careful Riley. You’re beginning to sound like them.”
“Don’t get me wrong. This ethos would not be my choice. I don’t want to stay any more than you do. But you can’t say it’s not refreshing to see the boot on the other foot for a change.”
“Just goes to prove that women can be just as prejudiced as men if you give them half a chance.”
Riley looked back mockingly. “Prejudiced may be, but I wouldn’t say evil, would you? It’s not like we’re depriving you of basic human rights, forcing
you to stay indoors and never show your face in public. We're not saying you can’t drive a car, vote, have a job, or any of the other stuff that women were routinely denied in some countries. Women will always have more of a bias towards nurturing than men. Call it oestrogen trumping testosterone any day of the week. You don’t see women slaughtering each other for bragging rights.”
“And I wouldn’t say locking a man up in a stable as part of some cult breeding programme is very progressive either. Would you?”