Chapter 6 - Inferno and Rescue
The roar of the flames upstairs was terrifying—a deep, hungry rumbled sound that vibrated through the floorboards. Thick, swirling billows of acrid black smoke poured down the wooden staircase, rapidly displacing the air in the narrow basement corridor.
Wren began to cough violently, her weakened lungs struggling against the toxic fumes. In her arms, the baby let out a sharp, pained cry.
"Cover his face!" Rowan yelled, ripping a clean towel from her pack, pouring saline over it, and pressing it over the baby's head to shield his tiny lungs from the smoke. "Back into the corridor! We can't go up!"
"The stairs are completely blocked!" Dax yelled, coughing as he slammed the heavy wooden door at the foot of the stairs to buy them precious seconds. Fire was already eating through the ceiling joists above their heads, dropping glowing embers onto the concrete floor. "Is there another way out?!"
"There was a coal chute!" Wren choked out, leaning heavily against Kira. "In the back utility room! Where he kept the generator!"
Rowan sprinted down the corridor toward a small wooden door at the far end of the basement that they hadn't explored. She threw it open.
The utility room was pitch black and crammed with rusted machinery, fuel cans, and stacks of firewood. High up on the exterior foundation wall, eight feet off the ground, was a small, square metal hatch—an old coal chute that led up to the backyard.
"It's too high!" Kira said, looking up at the narrow opening. "And it's rusted shut!"
"Dax, give me a lift!" Rowan ordered.
Dax rushed over, cupping his hands. Rowan stepped into his grip, and he hoisted her up to the level of the chute. The metal was burning hot to the touch—the ground above was catching fire—but Rowan jammed the tip of a metal crowbar they had found in the utility room into the rusted latch.
She threw her full body weight into the lever.
SCREECH!
With a sharp metal groan, the old latch snapped. Rowan kicked the metal door outward. Fresh, cool rain air rushed into the choked basement, cutting through the suffocating smoke.
"I've got an opening!" Rowan called down. "Dax, pass the baby up to me!"
Kira carefully passed the tightly wrapped infant up to Rowan, who lifted him through the coal chute and placed him safely on the wet grass outside, beneath the shelter of a thick pine tree overhang where the rain couldn't soak him.
"Now Wren!" Rowan commanded, reaching her arms down through the narrow square hatch.
Dax lifted Wren beneath her arms. Wren groaned in pain, her body exhausted from labor and blood loss, but she dug her fingers into the concrete rim of the opening. Rowan and Kira pulled with everything they had, dragging Wren up through the chute until she tumbled out onto the wet grass outside.
"Kira, you next!" Dax shouted from below. The ceiling of the utility room was beginning to groan; flaming beams were collapsing inside the main corridor.
Kira scrambled up Dax’s back, grabbing Rowan’s outstretched hands, and was pulled out into the cool rain.
"Dax! Come on!" Rowan yelled, reaching down into the smoking hole.
Dax grabbed the edges of the chute, pulling his massive upper body up. But just as he hauled his knees to the ledge, a heavy, flaming oak joist collapsed behind him, slamming into his lower legs.
Dax screamed in pain, dropping back several inches.
"DAX!" Rowan lunged deep into the opening, grabbing Dax by the collar of his bunker gear. Kira leaned down beside her, grabbing his belt.
"On three!" Rowan roared. "ONE... TWO... THREE!"
With a burst of adrenaline born of sheer desperation, Rowan and Kira hauled Dax out of the inferno, dragging him onto the rain-slicked earth just as a massive fireball erupted through the coal chute behind them, sending a geyser of sparks forty feet into the night sky.
They lay on the wet grass, gasping for air, rain washing the soot from their faces.
In the distance, through the heavy downpour, red and blue lights flashed through the trees. The wail of approaching sirens echoed up Larkspur Ridge Road.
The Sheriff's department and backup fire units had finally arrived.
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Rowan sat up, pulling the crying infant into her arms, checking his breathing. His pink skin was returning; his lungs were clear. She looked over at Wren, who was lying on her side in the grass, watching her baby with tear-filled eyes.
"You made it," Rowan whispered, tears cutting through the ash on her face. "You're safe, Chloe. You're both safe."
