Fireproof

To say that the last week had sucked was a major understatement. Surprisingly though it had nothing to do with Blaze who was adjusting quickly to his life with Criss and me. He was a very happy baby and hardly ever cried or fought his sleep. It was fun watching Criss get attached to him and fall in love with him and it didn’t take long to get to the point that Criss and me were fighting over him. The guys were having fun picking at Criss about the whole situation but he had come around and was joking back about it.

Even with the entertainment of little Blaze, the week had still been horrible. It seemed like the idiots in town were out in full force and that house and buildings had all decided to spontaneously combust for some reason. I had been at the station for the last three days straight while Criss was at home spoiling Blaze. We had worked so many wrecks and medical calls and fought so many fires that I had lost count of the calls we had been on and I was running on about five hours of sleep for all three days. A couple of the fires we had worked had fatalities and it seemed like everyone I had touched or tried to rescue this week ended up dying and to me that was unacceptable. Day before yesterday we got called to fight an abandoned warehouse fire and Michael had fallen through the third story floor nearly taking me with him, but I somehow managed to grab a piece of metal and hang on for myself as well as to him until we both could be pulled back to safety. That had earned me a great amount of soreness and scrapes and bruises, but we were both still alive and that’s all that mattered.

“I’ll sure be glad when you pull out of this mood you’re in.” Michael said as he plopped down beside me on the couch.

For the first time in what felt like ages we were having a little bit of down time which was surprising considering it was storming pretty badly outside.

“Yeah, and I’ll be glad when you learn to not fall through floors.”

“Now that wasn’t nice. You act like I did it on purpose or something. Plus, nobody said you had to hang on to me.”

Now that wasn’t nice. As if I would let him fall. “Don’t say things like that. You go, we go.”

‘You go, we go’ was a saying we had at the station somewhat similar to saying that no man got left behind. If anyone was ever in danger, we either were all getting out alive or we were all going to have a bad day, one or the other.

“Go home and swap out with Criss.”

“Nah. He needs time with the baby. It’s doing him good.”

I tried to focus on what was playing on the tv but my eyes were getting harder and harder to keep open. Just as I dosed off, the tv and lights went out at the same time that Jep hollered for everyone to get down to the garage and the sirens went off at the same time. Those sirens weren’t our average sirens letting us know there was a wreck or a fire. It was siren that could mean just a false alarm or it was a siren that could mean all hell was about to break loose. It was the tornado siren.

“Fuck.” I mumbled as I pushed my aching body off the couch and jogged to the famous firehouse pole to slide down to the garage. Jep was in the store room trying to stuff every medical supply we had into any bag that he could find and I knew then that this wasn’t a false alarm.

“What’s going on, Jep?”

“There’s a huge tornado on the ground making its way across town. It’s pretty bad. Calls are already flooding in so we need to get the trucks and ambulances out before we get trapped in here. “

I joined Jep and the guys in trying to grab everything we could find that we might need and throw it into the two ambulance and fire trucks. I really wasn’t sure what to expect or anticipate how bad the outcome would be. Depending on the extent of the damage, this would be my first time dealing with a huge disaster if it turned out to be one which I was certainly hoping it wouldn’t. I had that feeling though that had just washed over me. That feeling that I had had the day I met Motley Crue in a not so cool way.

“We stick together until this thing moves out or ends. We’re going north to get out of the path and we will keep in touch with law enforcement to ensure that we are staying out of the path. Is that clear?” Jep said.

“Yes.” I answered climbing into the ladder truck.

We went north just as far as we had to go to make sure we were a safe distance from the path of the monster that was absolutely demolishing the town, leaving complete destruction in its path. We could only sit and watch and listen in horror as the black wedge of clouds moved slowly across the sky as the reports of destruction and injuries came pouring in. Jep finally gave the go ahead to start the search and rescue missions . We rode back towards town, picked a spot and went to work.

I had never seen so much destruction in my life before. I honestly really had no idea where I was at right now without the buildings standing and road signs up. For the first time in my career as a medical provider and firefighter, I had a feeling that wasn’t far from being overwhelmed. As we got out of the truck, people were screaming and calling for help from every direction and as far as we could see was just leveled buildings and piles of rubble.

“Fucking hell.” Pete said. “Where do we start?”

“I don’t even know. Just start somewhere. Guys, be careful.”

We each grabbed a bag of medical supplies and jumped into the rescues that had already begun. Hour after hour I answered calls for help for various reasons from people needing medical attention to some who needed help pulling someone else to safety. I eventually ran out of the medical stuff I had and it just became a job of searching for others and offering words of encouragement to the many now homeless people that I passed along the way. My body was completely numb from exhaustion and shock, the only thing that was keeping me going was my adrenaline. That and the small hope that under the next piece of debris I moved that there might be someone who was alive and waiting to be found. That wasn’t nearly the case though as the death toll continued to rise. It was hard to imagine anyone making it alive out of these once standing buildings but thankfully some people were walking away.

The cloudy skies slowly faded to complete darkness as search and rescue efforts continued now with the aid of flashlights and generator powered lights. The number of missing people was shrinking, sometimes with a happy ending and sometimes not. Extra help was starting to roll in from nearby towns and volunteers which was starting to speed the process up a little bit. This was something that was going to take several days to finish up though, unfortunately.

The dark sky gave way to sunny skies the next morning and it almost felt wrong for the sun to be shining after what had happened yesterday. How could anything positive come after something so evil had delivered such a devastating blow to a city? Most people were happy to see the sun rise simply because it was something positive, but I would have much rathered it to not rise after what mother nature had thrown our way. She could be such a bitch sometimes.

I turned around hearing my name being called which was the first time I had heard my actual name in a long time. I had been turning around and looking at anyone who yelled ‘hey’, ‘over here’, or ‘help’. James, one of the many police officers that we often worked closely with, was walking toward me, his blue uniform nasty and muddy like every other person out here.

“How’s it going, James?” I asked him

“I guess about as good as it can be given the situation. How are you?”

“Well, I’m still going and that’s about it. I’m not quite sure how, but I am.”

“Yeah, I think that’s the case with everyone. Look, why don’t you come with me for a little bit?”

“Is it emergent or something that can be done without me? I’m helping this family look for their dog at the moment.”

“I think you should take a break. I’m pretty sure you haven’t sat down since before this happened yesterday. I really do need you to come with me.”

“Alright.” I said, way past the point of being too tired to argue.

I made my way to his car and got in, sitting down for the first time since yesterday, just like he had said. He handed me two bottles of water both of which I drank all of immediately. I really wanted to pour one of the bottles over my head, but I knew I wasn’t far from being dehydrated and drinking it was more important than wearing it right now.

“Oh, I’m also supposed to give you the message that Criss and Blaze are okay. They weren’t in town when the tornado hit and Criss has found a friend to watch Blaze until things settle down.” James said.

“Okay, awesome. I was worried about them but I had no way of checking on them. That’s a relief. So where are we headed?”

“To, um, your house.”

My heart sank. That thought had been in the back of my head since this all happened, but I hadn’t thought much about anymore until now. “To my house or to what used to be my house?”

“I’m sorry, Parker.”

“Shit.” I mumbled, running a hand through my messy hair.

My dad had built his house out in the middle of nowhere to have room for his hangar and a short runway. It was surrounded by trees and fields and it was very quiet and peaceful most of the time. If you didn’t know where you were going you wouldn’t even know the house was back there. Some people would hate living like that, but I liked it.

As we turned down the road that led to the house we eventually hit the path that the tornado had taken. The trees were bare and snapped giving the usually scenic road an eerie look and feel. Up ahead I could see what little bit was left of the house and it wasn’t hard to see that the house was a complete loss. My heart sank lower and lower as we got closer and the extent of the damage became clear. What was absolutely amazing to me though and the first little bit of positive that I had witnessed yet, was that the airplane hangar was still standing with minimal damage.

“Thanks for the ride, James.”

“You’re going to stay out here? I was just bringing you to see. I was told to bring you back to town and to a shelter to rest.”

“Let me guess, orders from Criss?”

He smiled. “I swear you guys are related somehow. You should be anyway.”

“I’m fine, James. Go home to your family and hug them tight. The hangar looks good so I have somewhere to sleep if need be. I’m serious. Get out of here.”

“Be careful, Parker. You need to rest and get some food.”

“I’m good. Thanks again, James.”

I got out of his patrol car and looked around, trying to figure out where to begin and what to do. I started with going to check out the hangar and the planes to make sure everything was good there. To my astonishment, there was only minor rough damage to one corner of the roof and the planes were sitting just as I had left them the last time I had been in here. That was no doubt the work of my Dad from somewhere up above. I smiled and resisted the urge to cry as bad as I wanted to because there was a lot of work to be done here. In the ten minutes that I had been home I had decided that I would rebuild the house in the same spot and try to pick back up with life.

The sun went down on yet another day and I did what I still could with a flash light which was mainly just sorting through thing at the house. I took what I had managed to salvage and stored in the extra room in the hangar. When the sun came back up I started sorting the bricks from the wooden frame of the house so that the wood could be burned and whatever could be done to the bricks. I had lost count of how many days had passed so far and how long it had been since I had had food and sleep. I knew I needed to stop and rest, but for some reason I just couldn’t.

Storm clouds started to roll in again later that afternoon and I decided that I should probably try to get a tarp or some kind of cover over the hole in the roof of the hangar in case it started raining again. To do that though I needed to pull two of the airplanes out of the hangar which was going to be an interesting task. I honestly didn’t know if I had the strength to pull them out of the hangar.

I hooked the tow bar up to the nose of one of the planes and started pulling on it, slowly but surely getting it out of the hangar. I got it straightened out on the taxiway and started tugging again to pull it a little further from the hangar. I stopped for a second to catch my breath and let my muscles quit burning before preparing myself to give another tug on the airplane. For whatever reason, this time when I tugged on the tow bar, the plane moved a lot easier which I was not expecting. I fell face first to the taxiway, my face colliding with the concrete and finally sent my world into deep blackness.