Elizabeth Rockwell screaming when she caught on fire, the lighter having ignited her before bouncing to the floor still holding on to its flame as it landed next to Growler’s right pants’ cuff which he had inadvertently splashed with gasoline, Growler now on fire too but not like Elizabeth Rockwell who had become a living pyre.
When Growler stepped away from Elizabeth to beat at his pants’ leg, Camel and Kempis both opened fire … both hitting their target which then hit the floor howling.
Elizabeth still screaming lifted her arms out from her sides in a terror-and-panic pose reminiscent of that famous photograph of the Vietnamese girl who’d been burned with napalm, Elizabeth rushing toward Camel like one of hell’s angels straight from home and still fiery.
He realized of course she was coming to him for salvation but he also realized that if she reached him, here in this section of corridor which Parker Gray had soaked with gasoline, the entire corridor would go up in flame.
Quickly dropping the pistol he turned to a pile of white canvas tarps, grabbed one, and ran to meet Elizabeth, her heat even from ten feet away enough to warm his face and dry moisture from his eyes.
Most of her clothing had already burned off, she was naked in front and all the more blindingly on fire as her movement fed oxygen to the flames making them intensely blue.
In nearly thirty years as a cop Camel had handled drunks and psychos but never had he been charged by anything quite as terrifying as that burning woman with fiery arms reaching his way.
He lifted the canvas tarp between them like a protective curtain and neatly snared the still-screaming Elizabeth, embracing her, bringing the tarp around in the back and then using his weight to collapse her, getting Elizabeth on the floor and furiously tucking in the tarp to deny fire its breath.
Flames kept leaping out from the edges of the canvas, burning a hole in Camel’s shirt high on his chest, the skin there turning immediately red, hurting … and before completing the grisly task of extinguishing Elizabeth he also got scorched just above the belt-line.
Camel stood to check his clothes for fire then glanced at Growler down the corridor on his back. “Go see if the poor bastard’s dead,” Camel told Kempis who was just now coming out from the protection of that doorway. “If he’s alive cuff him to a radiator … you got cuffs?”
Kempis said he did then stayed standing there staring wildly at Camel.
“Jake, go on!”
Holding his breath Camel lifted the tarp to see what was left recognizable as Elizabeth Rockwell … her face had been scorched, skin blackened, lips burned away so that teeth showed, most of her nose gone too, leaving gaping nostril holes.
Let her be dead, he prayed … but Elizabeth opened her lids to look at him with hazel eyes that appeared impossibly wet and alive in contrast to the black-burnt flesh of her face.
“Hold on,” he told those eyes. “I’m going to get you to the hospital.”
Kempis returned and asked how she was, though he wouldn’t look over Camel’s shoulders to see for himself. “I think we both hit him in the legs,” Kempis said excitedly, “but with all the other wounds it’s hard to tell, like he’s been through a meat grinder, his pants were still on fire, I had to put it out—”
“Jake is he dead?”
“Yeah I think so, or just about.”
Camel fought to hold his temper. “Go back and cuff him anyway.” He tucked the tarp more tightly around Elizabeth and when Kempis returned, Camel told him, “We got two things to do, get this woman to the hospital and get Annie out of this building. You know the nearest hospital?”
Jake ventured a look at Elizabeth’s face and spoke quickly, “I’ll get Annie, where is she?”
No time to argue the point. “Okay listen to me,” Camel said as he prepared to lift Elizabeth. “Gray said Annie’s in a corner room on the second floor, you find her then use Gray’s car to drive Annie to The Ground Floor.”
“Where’s his keys?”
“I don’t know Jake, probably in his pocket, find them.” Camel was taking Elizabeth in his arms, Kempis looking away. “Just make sure you get Annie to The Ground Floor.”
“What about the guy we shot, I mean I fired because you told me to, I don’t even know who he is, what he’s done—”
“Go upstairs and get Annie,” Camel said as he carried Elizabeth down the hallway.
Kempis followed. “Teddy—”
“Jake, he’s the one who killed all those people I told you about, the decapitations … just leave him there, all you have to worry about is getting Annie out of here and taking her to Eddie’s place. I’ll meet you and we’ll call this in from there.”
“All right.”
When Elizabeth began slipping, Camel boosted her higher in his arms, his fingers slipping off the tarp to scrape loose a chunk of crisped flesh that felt like soft warm pork barbecue. He had to will himself not to drop her in disgust.
He carried Elizabeth outside and then around to Eddie’s Fairlane placing her as carefully as he could into the backseat, keeping the tarp around her, Camel thinking the interior is going to be ruined now, Eddie will never get this smell out. He looked down at hazel eyes watching him from somewhere far away.
Camel got in the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel, started the engine, snapped the lap belt closed, looked back at what had once been Elizabeth Rockwell, then took off.
He was going too fast when he got to the two-lane county highway, braking hard and making a sliding right turn that nearly clipped one of the brick pillars. The hospital waited another fifteen, twenty miles away, Camel almost sure she would die of shock before he got her there but he also felt obligated to try … Parker Gray had died while Camel, in typical cold logic, knelt beside him waiting for the inevitable, this time he was going to race the inevitable to a hospital.
The highway wound through a forest, Camel driving as fast as he could and still stay on the road, glancing in the rearview mirror and Jesus Christ there she was, RIGHT THERE … Elizabeth’s face leaning over the seat back right there at Camel’s shoulder, he wondered how in God’s name did she find the strength to sit up … the fire had transformed that face into a horror mask, blackened with little left of her lips or nose, most of that gray blond hair burned off, ears only remnant folds of charred flesh, her teeth grinning white. Camel might’ve survived the shock of having that fright-face suddenly at his shoulder but when he saw her eyes he jerked away from Elizabeth and lost control of the car … because while her head was held rigidly forward, as if she was leaning to see out the windshield, her eyes were straining to the left, bulging from the sockets to find him, to plead with him, as if those undamaged eyes desperately wanted Camel’s help getting out of that ruined face.
The Fairlane was fishtailing while Camel worked the brakes to slow down without going into a completely uncontrolled skid. These maneuvers were only partly successful because while he did manage to get almost stopped, at the last moment the car veered off and hit a tree dead center … with sufficient impact to rocket Elizabeth over the front seat and into the windshield, which instantly spider-webbed into a thousand cracks but did not break out … Camel’s lap belt limiting him to hitting his face against the steering wheel.
Pinpoints of light exploded in front of his eyes and he kept saying, “Jesus.” Not taking the name in vain but saying, “Jesus, Jesus” as a prayer, the most earnest he’d ever prayed … and continued praying as he got out of the car, went around to the passenger side, propped Elizabeth in the front seat, and retrieved the canvas tarp to put over her.
She had remained dead silent until now when she said, “Oh.” Camel thought he should offer a reassuring word, none came to mind.
Elizabeth held a hand toward him, he didn’t know what she wanted, wasn’t sure she knew either. He tried to push her hand back so he could close the door but she kept reaching for him, finally he grabbed her wrist and forced it inside … his palm coming away wet with serum.
Wiping that hand on his pants Camel walked to the front of the car, bumper bent in a wide-mouth U around the tree. Steaming green antifreeze bleeding onto the ground told Camel the radiator had taken a crippling hit but, amazingly, the car started. He reversed onto the road and took off again.
A mile later the temperature gauge had pegged itself way over past H, these small-block V-8s notorious for running hot even with a good radiator, engine’s heat coming through the fire wall to roast his legs, Camel wondering how it must have felt on hers.
No choice but to throttle on full bore waiting any moment now for the engine to seize but the old Ford motored its heart out delivering Camel and his damaged cargo right to the hospital’s emergency room entrance.
He looked at Elizabeth and again wanted to say something but she was beyond words.
Running to the hospital’s double glass doors, he encountered two orderlies just exiting.
“What happened to you?” one of them asked with a casualness that Camel found maddening. “Somebody Joe Louis your ass, didn’t they?”
He had no idea what the orderly meant, Camel hadn’t yet felt pain from his nose, broken on the steering wheel in the crash, and was unaware of blood creeking down his face.
The orderlies each took an arm.
He pried their hands off.
“You on something buddy?” one of them asked. “What’ve you been taking?”
He looked at their faces, they appeared to be concerned for him but wary too, expecting Camel to turn violent at any moment. He knew what he had to say … there’s a severely burned woman out in the car.
When they tried again to get Camel inside he settled for raising his right arm and pointing at the car.
They saw the busted windshield on the passenger side.
“Someone in there?” one of them asked.
He nodded.
“Worse shape than you?”
Camel nodded again, closing his eyes with the relief of finally being understood.
They grabbed a gurney and ran to the car, Camel following. When the first orderly opened the door Elizabeth started to fall out and the second orderly had to reach down and grab her. When he saw what he had in his hands, he said, “Jesus.”
Camel thought yeah I know that prayer.
They got Elizabeth on the gurney and rushed her inside, Camel arriving at the treatment room just behind a doctor, young guy with orange-red hair that stuck high all over his head like a comic wig, who lifted the tarp and mumbled, “Jesus.”
Everybody praying tonight.
Quickly recovering his composure the doctor began giving orders to the nurses, yelling for the orderlies to put through for a helicopter because the best he could do was stabilize the patient for a flight to the nearest burn center.
As the nurses assembled equipment Elizabeth turned her head and found Camel. She unbent one burned arm and reached for him as she’d done after the crash. The doctor turned and looked at Camel. Nurses staring too. Everyone still for a moment as if frozen in a living tableau … then just as abruptly all their animation returned, the emergency room once again filled with clatter and activity as the nurses brought in IV drips and hypos, sponges and sterile wraps, the doctor nudging Camel aside and telling him, “Go across the hall to the other treatment room, I’ll get someone to take a look at you as soon as we can.”
“I’m fine,” Camel said just before doing a most astonishing thing, the first time he’d ever done it in a long life full of all possible opportunities and provocations: he fainted.