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Beth returned to the second hatch. The ladder was red hot and so was the ring. Tugging the door back and briefly standing back from the intensified updraft, she estimated she could quickly turn her body in the opening, hang from the edge and only be about two feet from the floor. Her impact wouldn’t be too heavy, and it made up her mind that it would be quicker than trying to use the ladder. She would be dropping onto the blazing carpet, but hopefully she could hit the ground running and quickly open one of the doors on the other side and barge into the room. Then it would be a case of banging it to signal the O’Dooles.
For a brief second, the reality of what she was about to do froze her there. The logistics of the task had briefly misdirected her from the notion of dropping into flames and the likelihood of having to face the gunman alone. But the increasingly black smoke rolling up at her told Beth she had little time for second thoughts. She couldn’t even take a breath before dropping down. Beth wouldn’t get a lungful of fresh air until she made it into one of the other bedrooms, and even that wasn’t guaranteed.
But as she turned her back to the hatch, knelt and then allowed her bottom half to drop through the hole, she felt as if something else was driving her. An inner power Beth didn’t know she possessed.
She felt the flames heating her legs through her jeans as she extended them and her belly being scorched as her shirt rode up her body. Beth slid out of the hatch, straightened her arms and briefly looked down at what she would land on.
The conflagration was being drawn to the air in the attic above, and the yellow peaks rose steadily to meet her. She could see the fumes immediately emanating black from the rubber soles of her boots and knew her feet would combust if she remained there for more than a few seconds longer.
Beth released her grip on the attic above and landed softly in the fire, the flames curling around her legs before she jumped sideways to the door on her left. She pulled down on the handle and it was blistering hot, but her scream was lost above the roar of the blaze. The door didn’t budge. Maybe the heat had warped it in the frame. She pulled her sleeve over her hand and tried it again. No movement inwards. Beth rammed her shoulder against it and felt the panel scorch her skin.
She moved quickly to the next but she was moving away from her exit down the stairs, and chances were, if one door had been locked, so had the others. Her lips sealed shut and her lungs strained for oxygen. She could barely see the landing through the black vapour and scrabbled her hands along the bubbling wall, her fingertips hissing and her exclamations of pain locked tight in her head. As she tried to estimate the handle’s position, she felt the skin shrink tight to her skull.
Beth couldn’t open her eyes; they were clenched tight against the caustic chemicals radiating from the smouldering wood, so she remained motionless while she tried to locate the door and the flames ate through the clothes on her right side. Her fingers found the handle, and although she gripped it through the material of her shirt, she felt it sticking to the palm of her hand. She grunted inwardly again, feeling the heat shrivelling her right ear. The door didn’t move. He’d locked that one as well.
Beth couldn’t bear it any longer, and if smoke inhalation didn’t make her black out, she was about to pass out from the intensity of the flames. Should she try the last door? If she ventured any farther away from the stairs, trapped herself where the flames were hottest, she knew she wouldn’t make it. The third door was sure to be locked. She thought of the O’Dooles waiting for her signal, but had no choice.
Beth turned and bolted for the top of the stairs, her circulation pounding at her core as she stamped her way through the fire and tried to estimate where the landing finished. She waved her arms at the churning smoke, cracked her watering eyes and tried to discern anything that would let her know how much farther she had to go.
The floor ended and she was running into thin air.
