Post by daniel on Apr 30, 2008 21:19:36 GMT -5
The fire-fighting business had been slow lately. Not that the firehouse crew didn’t have enough to deal with otherwise. There were the normal medic calls, of course. With the retirement community nearby, they got several of those a week. And then there were the various car accidents that kept them alert when the old folks were quiet. Those ranged from slightly more than fender benders, to ones where nobody walked away. And then there had been a few false alarms, but nothing more than a simple kitchen fire here and there. Each call was a potential for danger, of course, and they treated them all with equal respect to safety. Lately, though, things had seemed a little...anticlimactic. The crew was getting antsy. That meant a real fire was due soon, and it was going to be huge.
Daniel liked to work along side the one of the local fire stations when he had the time. They welcomed his being there because of the medical background. They needed someone for all the medical calls they were getting and to help out at the scene for when the Paramedics were backed up. For Daniel it was a means to avoid going home to a empty apartment. Having to lay in a empty bed, remembering how badly he missed his other half. Most of the times, he didn't go inside, he worked on the outside all the time, however this was different.
They needed more people on the instead to help clear out all the people on the inside. Because it needed to be done fast.
Well, this was it. And it was a doozy. Bad enough that the black-and-whites there to help evacuate and section off the neighborhood pulled up to the scene and breathed a collective “holy nuts.” Not a firefighter, though. Nobody wants to see a hero lose their nerve. Swearing wasn’t professional for a career firefighter. For Daniel, swearing was something he rarely did. No one really ever heard Daniel swear before.
At least, not out loud.
In his head, Daniel was cursing enough to make a soldier blush. His shoulders screamed from the stress of having to hold his own weight, plus the weight of his equipment. His gloves were slipping on the already tenuous hold he had on the ledge. Knees won’t hold up to that drop, he thought looking down, and then promptly muttered, “Crap.” Where the hell was the F.A.S T. team? Where the hell was Mack?
Where the hell was the ground?
He tried to adjust his grip. If he could get rid of his gloves, he could hold on a little tighter with his bare hands, but that was all sorts of Bad Idea. He wouldn’t be able to hold on with one hand alone while he stripped his gloves off. And he wasn’t quite ready to commit suicide.
Of course, he couldn’t hang here all day, either. He had to get back inside.
He had to find Charlie.
The flames had already begun to jump rooftops by the time the team arrived on the scene. It was spreading fast. Considering the flimsy construction of the apartment building, that wasn’t a huge surprise. Started with a “simple” kitchen fire. Ended with something much worse.
The first problem came when the fire began to spread over the roof of the second building faster than they could get the first one under control. The mutual aid teams hadn’t arrived yet from the neighboring stations, so Daniel and his crew were left trying to control it alone. Daniel split up the team; with half the company down below operating the pumps, he took the other half of the team through the blazing buildings to be sure all the apartments were clear. Most people had already evacuated their units on their own once the alarms had sounded, but there was always a chance someone hadn’t left and was either trapped, or just too d**n stupid and stubborn to leave.
Mitchell and Davis took the bottom half. Daniel and Jackson, the top. ‘Two in, two out,’ that was the hard rule—the ‘buddy system.’ One ‘fighter didn’t go anywhere without the other. Two go in? Two better come out.
“I’m gonna check out the bedroom,” Daniel had said from the living room of one of the units they’d had to break into. Jackson nodded. Thick smoke was beginning to pour through the ventilation systems of all the units and they still had the floor below them to case through, so wasting time wasn’t an option. He would be out of Jackson's sight for five whole seconds.
Daniel should’ve known better. He used to know how the fire acted and how it feed.. but that was long ago. It was his job to know better. The same feeling hit him, that same feeling he had when he seen Jack get killed in the line of duty. He still blamed himself for that. He knew he would never hear the end of this of this from Mack but at the moment, his mind was on getting people out.
He disappeared around the corner, and before he even entered the bedroom, he smelled it:
Garlic.
Lots of it. Someone was cooking, and it wasn’t Mama Romano’s favorite marinara sauce.
Had to be phosphorus. Highly flammable. Well, no, not exactly. More like super hella über mega ultra flammable. He recognized it immediately, and the first thought he had was one of those unprofessional things he wasn’t supposed to say out loud. Ohhh, nuts...
There was only one reason why it could be there, only one reason to have phosphorus in any kind of significant quantity in the middle of an apartment complex: a methamphetamine lab. Someone was definitely cooking, and a whole helluva lot of it.
Daniel knew what to do: a quick check in the master bedroom to be sure no one was behind, then head out to call backup. The structural fire just became a HAZMAT, and this sure as hell wasn’t a place he wanted to be in about five minutes.
He barely glanced in the door when he saw movement against the far wall, someone inside. And that someone was standing there, and...washing the wall? Scrubbing it. Madly. Completely oblivious to the crisis going on around them. It was called “punding”—obsessive, compulsive behavior with meaningless tasks. And this guy had it bad. Dipping into his own proceeds, Daniel thought. He saw it all the time on medic calls. He’d have preferred to never see it again. Meth was the new fad, the suburban drug of choice. Everyone and their mother was doing it, now. Literally.
Amidst glass jars and chemicals clustered on a baker’s rack was what looked like a chemistry set from a Dr. Seuss drawing balanced on a collapsible card table off to the side of the room. Mason jars full of bright red powder—red phosphorus, probably emptied from road flares—sat uncapped all over the small table, right next to a sad looking little hot plate hooked to a portable tank of camping propane. Boxes of sinus decongestant lay scattered like playing cards on the floor. Stained turkey basters, and filthy funnels mingled next to bottles of acetone, and antifreeze, turning the whole bedroom into a surrealist’s interpretation of Hell’s kitchen. Anderson began to sweat.
“Sir?” he yelled through his mask, trying to get the guy’s attention. “Sir!” Sometimes, Daniel really hated having to be polite when it came to people like this. He’d have loved to call the guy a hundred other names he could think of right off the top of his head, none of which were even remotely polite.
Scrubscrubscrub.
Daniel noticed the rag the guy was using was virtually in shreds. His fingers looked raw, and there was a single patch on the wall in front of him he’d been concentrating, the paint worn down to the bare drywall.
Daniel crossed the room in two large strides. He’d knock the not a very nice person out and carry him out on his shoulder if he had to, which is exactly what he intended to do. There wasn’t time for this nuts. He placed his hand firmly on the guy’s shoulder and spun him around to get a look at his face…
God, it was a kid. Couldn’t have been more than fifteen. And brown eyes Daniel would have recognized anywhere. Dilated as all get out, sure, but there was no mistake. He knew those eyes. Knew that face—a little older, almost a man, now, but as familiar as his own. Daniel stopped and nearly fell over backward.
“Charlie?”
That was all Daniel had time to say. One second he was standing on the floor staring at his fifteen year old meth-addict son, the next he was sailing through the air to burst through the bedroom window at the end of a huge fireball.
Usually the meth labs were reason for the fire. In this case, the fire found the lab.
Glass splintered out all around him. He was utterly surprised that he’d managed to grab a hold of anything as he’d gone flying through the window. Dumb luck. He hung there for a stunned moment, unable to believe his ass wasn’t as flat as a pancake on the ground below.
It also happened to be Daniel’s dumb luck that the balcony built off the front of the apartment was just out of reach. He could even see it where he hung on the side of the building. Well, that was just peachy. Daniel had about had his fill of irony for the day. Charlie was nowhere in sight. Daniel's heart clenched tight in his chest. It couldn’t have been him. Just someone who looked like him. Okay, a lot like him. He wanted to scramble up back in to the window to see, but there was nothing to grab hold of, nothing to climb up on as his feet dangled heavily below him.
Flames were beginning to lick out of the window above where he hung, their “angel fingers” making grabs for him. “Charlie?” he attempted to yell, but came out more like a pathetic, choking whimper. A flashover. Daniel hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t acted fast enough. He’d been too distracted. Distracted by Charlie. If he hadn’t been thrown out the window, he would’ve died in there with him.
Charlie was dead.
But Charlie had been dead. For a long, long time. Dead and buried. It didn’t make sense.
God, he was exhausted. He felt like he’d been hanging forever there on that window. His fingers ached. His shoulders throbbed. It’d be so easy to let go. Maybe he wouldn’t even feel the ground at the inevitable, abrupt end of it.
Daniel liked to work along side the one of the local fire stations when he had the time. They welcomed his being there because of the medical background. They needed someone for all the medical calls they were getting and to help out at the scene for when the Paramedics were backed up. For Daniel it was a means to avoid going home to a empty apartment. Having to lay in a empty bed, remembering how badly he missed his other half. Most of the times, he didn't go inside, he worked on the outside all the time, however this was different.
They needed more people on the instead to help clear out all the people on the inside. Because it needed to be done fast.
Well, this was it. And it was a doozy. Bad enough that the black-and-whites there to help evacuate and section off the neighborhood pulled up to the scene and breathed a collective “holy nuts.” Not a firefighter, though. Nobody wants to see a hero lose their nerve. Swearing wasn’t professional for a career firefighter. For Daniel, swearing was something he rarely did. No one really ever heard Daniel swear before.
At least, not out loud.
In his head, Daniel was cursing enough to make a soldier blush. His shoulders screamed from the stress of having to hold his own weight, plus the weight of his equipment. His gloves were slipping on the already tenuous hold he had on the ledge. Knees won’t hold up to that drop, he thought looking down, and then promptly muttered, “Crap.” Where the hell was the F.A.S T. team? Where the hell was Mack?
Where the hell was the ground?
He tried to adjust his grip. If he could get rid of his gloves, he could hold on a little tighter with his bare hands, but that was all sorts of Bad Idea. He wouldn’t be able to hold on with one hand alone while he stripped his gloves off. And he wasn’t quite ready to commit suicide.
Of course, he couldn’t hang here all day, either. He had to get back inside.
He had to find Charlie.
The flames had already begun to jump rooftops by the time the team arrived on the scene. It was spreading fast. Considering the flimsy construction of the apartment building, that wasn’t a huge surprise. Started with a “simple” kitchen fire. Ended with something much worse.
The first problem came when the fire began to spread over the roof of the second building faster than they could get the first one under control. The mutual aid teams hadn’t arrived yet from the neighboring stations, so Daniel and his crew were left trying to control it alone. Daniel split up the team; with half the company down below operating the pumps, he took the other half of the team through the blazing buildings to be sure all the apartments were clear. Most people had already evacuated their units on their own once the alarms had sounded, but there was always a chance someone hadn’t left and was either trapped, or just too d**n stupid and stubborn to leave.
Mitchell and Davis took the bottom half. Daniel and Jackson, the top. ‘Two in, two out,’ that was the hard rule—the ‘buddy system.’ One ‘fighter didn’t go anywhere without the other. Two go in? Two better come out.
“I’m gonna check out the bedroom,” Daniel had said from the living room of one of the units they’d had to break into. Jackson nodded. Thick smoke was beginning to pour through the ventilation systems of all the units and they still had the floor below them to case through, so wasting time wasn’t an option. He would be out of Jackson's sight for five whole seconds.
Daniel should’ve known better. He used to know how the fire acted and how it feed.. but that was long ago. It was his job to know better. The same feeling hit him, that same feeling he had when he seen Jack get killed in the line of duty. He still blamed himself for that. He knew he would never hear the end of this of this from Mack but at the moment, his mind was on getting people out.
He disappeared around the corner, and before he even entered the bedroom, he smelled it:
Garlic.
Lots of it. Someone was cooking, and it wasn’t Mama Romano’s favorite marinara sauce.
Had to be phosphorus. Highly flammable. Well, no, not exactly. More like super hella über mega ultra flammable. He recognized it immediately, and the first thought he had was one of those unprofessional things he wasn’t supposed to say out loud. Ohhh, nuts...
There was only one reason why it could be there, only one reason to have phosphorus in any kind of significant quantity in the middle of an apartment complex: a methamphetamine lab. Someone was definitely cooking, and a whole helluva lot of it.
Daniel knew what to do: a quick check in the master bedroom to be sure no one was behind, then head out to call backup. The structural fire just became a HAZMAT, and this sure as hell wasn’t a place he wanted to be in about five minutes.
He barely glanced in the door when he saw movement against the far wall, someone inside. And that someone was standing there, and...washing the wall? Scrubbing it. Madly. Completely oblivious to the crisis going on around them. It was called “punding”—obsessive, compulsive behavior with meaningless tasks. And this guy had it bad. Dipping into his own proceeds, Daniel thought. He saw it all the time on medic calls. He’d have preferred to never see it again. Meth was the new fad, the suburban drug of choice. Everyone and their mother was doing it, now. Literally.
Amidst glass jars and chemicals clustered on a baker’s rack was what looked like a chemistry set from a Dr. Seuss drawing balanced on a collapsible card table off to the side of the room. Mason jars full of bright red powder—red phosphorus, probably emptied from road flares—sat uncapped all over the small table, right next to a sad looking little hot plate hooked to a portable tank of camping propane. Boxes of sinus decongestant lay scattered like playing cards on the floor. Stained turkey basters, and filthy funnels mingled next to bottles of acetone, and antifreeze, turning the whole bedroom into a surrealist’s interpretation of Hell’s kitchen. Anderson began to sweat.
“Sir?” he yelled through his mask, trying to get the guy’s attention. “Sir!” Sometimes, Daniel really hated having to be polite when it came to people like this. He’d have loved to call the guy a hundred other names he could think of right off the top of his head, none of which were even remotely polite.
Scrubscrubscrub.
Daniel noticed the rag the guy was using was virtually in shreds. His fingers looked raw, and there was a single patch on the wall in front of him he’d been concentrating, the paint worn down to the bare drywall.
Daniel crossed the room in two large strides. He’d knock the not a very nice person out and carry him out on his shoulder if he had to, which is exactly what he intended to do. There wasn’t time for this nuts. He placed his hand firmly on the guy’s shoulder and spun him around to get a look at his face…
God, it was a kid. Couldn’t have been more than fifteen. And brown eyes Daniel would have recognized anywhere. Dilated as all get out, sure, but there was no mistake. He knew those eyes. Knew that face—a little older, almost a man, now, but as familiar as his own. Daniel stopped and nearly fell over backward.
“Charlie?”
That was all Daniel had time to say. One second he was standing on the floor staring at his fifteen year old meth-addict son, the next he was sailing through the air to burst through the bedroom window at the end of a huge fireball.
Usually the meth labs were reason for the fire. In this case, the fire found the lab.
Glass splintered out all around him. He was utterly surprised that he’d managed to grab a hold of anything as he’d gone flying through the window. Dumb luck. He hung there for a stunned moment, unable to believe his ass wasn’t as flat as a pancake on the ground below.
It also happened to be Daniel’s dumb luck that the balcony built off the front of the apartment was just out of reach. He could even see it where he hung on the side of the building. Well, that was just peachy. Daniel had about had his fill of irony for the day. Charlie was nowhere in sight. Daniel's heart clenched tight in his chest. It couldn’t have been him. Just someone who looked like him. Okay, a lot like him. He wanted to scramble up back in to the window to see, but there was nothing to grab hold of, nothing to climb up on as his feet dangled heavily below him.
Flames were beginning to lick out of the window above where he hung, their “angel fingers” making grabs for him. “Charlie?” he attempted to yell, but came out more like a pathetic, choking whimper. A flashover. Daniel hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t acted fast enough. He’d been too distracted. Distracted by Charlie. If he hadn’t been thrown out the window, he would’ve died in there with him.
Charlie was dead.
But Charlie had been dead. For a long, long time. Dead and buried. It didn’t make sense.
God, he was exhausted. He felt like he’d been hanging forever there on that window. His fingers ached. His shoulders throbbed. It’d be so easy to let go. Maybe he wouldn’t even feel the ground at the inevitable, abrupt end of it.