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Stacy awoke on her back with a slow, stinging pain puncturing her face. She raked a hand across it and yelped. Several sharp fragments of glass cut into the skin on her hands, and she watched as rivulets of blood trickled between her fingers.
The small of her back felt sore, and her legs felt heavy. Stacy shook her head, clearing out the cluttered thoughts of confusion and pain to see the house’s first floor in flames. The radiant heat felt like it would scorch her skin. Bright streaks of hot orange light licked the sides of the house. The wood on the French door became ash, and the tiles on the porch began to melt.
Stacy looked back to see Chavis and Brown further in the yard. Checking to ensure she had nothing broken, Stacy pulled herself up and loped over to Officer Chavis. He lay on his side. Dark burns had mottled the skin on his face, and his arms bubbled like they’d been cooked on an open flame. Chavis let out a dull moan and mumbled something Stacy didn’t recognize.
Behind Chavis, Officer Brown had managed to get himself into a kneeling position. A brick from the front of the house lay next to him, sprinkled with blood. He looked at Stacy with one eye completely closed and covered in blood. Brown had a deep, open head wound that turned his uniform’s navy blue collar into a garish dark red.
“Gas fire,” Stacy proclaimed. Her voice sounded like the words were formed of smoke, the lungs charred.
Brown touched the side of his head gingerly. “I’m okay. Just hurts like hell.”
Stacy looked back to see the flames spreading up the front and side of the house. She pointed back to Chavis.
“Stay with him. And call for help.”
Brown wobbled in his stance but nodded in agreement. Stacy grunted and dragged herself to the side of the house.
She hadn’t seen anyone leave the house after the explosion. There was a chance Monica and George were trapped inside.
As she shuffled to the side of the house, she saw that it burned like a bonfire. Orange flames were garish against the brilliant brick, and the black smoke made dark columns into an otherwise perfectly blue sky.
Stacy kept moving until she came to a back door. The door was connected to a room that looked like an addition to the original house, based on the white siding and not brick, and how it jutted out from the back part of the house at an odd angle.
Stacy withdrew her Glock. Thick clouds of black smoke choked the air, and she began to cough. She turned her head to the side and practiced a breathing exercise that sometimes helped her thwart a lung attack.
After a few seconds, Stacy climbed the stairs to the back door. She touched the handle—warm but not hot.
“Monica? George?” Stacy waited but only heard the crackle of the fire as it chewed up and melted everything in its path.
Stacy stepped back and kicked the door, denting it, but it didn’t budge. This time, she kicked harder, near the handle. The door finally buckled and fell inside the room.
Inside, the smoke was thick and hung near the middle of the room. Stacy crouched down and began crawling on the carpeted floor. She cursed under her breath because it would only be a matter of time before the fire would scorch the carpet and anything and anyone that was near it.
Stacy coughed again—harder this time, with more heft. She held her Glock in one hand and felt ahead of her with the other.
A plume of fire exploded into the blackness, the flame rolling inward like a mushroom cloud.
Stacy heard someone let out a low, guttural scream, like a mortally wounded animal. It sounded like a man’s voice.
“George!” Stacy hollered before smoke enveloped her words and breath. “George. It’s me, Stacy.”
Stacy could hear a thud from deeper inside the blackness, but the screaming stopped. As she continued pushing farther into the room, her hand traced across something slick and greasy.
She looked down to see the face of Monica DeVito. She lay on her side with a hand over her waist. Her skin was fiery pink and a sick shade of brown. Stacy couldn’t recognize any features on her face aside from the skin that burbled in the simmering heat. Her arms and hands were also severely burned, with the skin singed right from the bone.
“Oh, God. Monica.”
Stacy took two fingers and checked for a pulse. There was none. Monica was dead.
A second explosion came from another spot deeper into the recesses of the room. This one shook the entire room. Looking up, Stacy could hear the ceiling begin to crack and buckle.
She sat on her butt and pushed herself away from Monica’s body. The deep groan and splintering of ceiling tiles grew louder. Stacy managed to turn herself over on her stomach and crawl to the small sliver of daylight near the door.
Stacy began to lose strength and energy. Her coughing worsened, or maybe she’d been coughing all this time, but no air was going into her lungs, only acrid, toxic smoke. Her legs and arms began to get heavy, and the clarity of sight began to wane.
As Stacy crawled and pushed toward the door with all the strength she had left, the ceiling caved in.