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Beth’s knees bashed the edges of the wooden stairs, her hands reaching for something to break her fall. She didn’t manage to grab the rail until she was three from the bottom, her wrist snapping back hard as it became lodged between the slats. Her stomach struck the step, winding her. Her first breath was asthmatic, her body hastily tugging in what it needed to stop her losing consciousness. But overriding it was the horrible notion that the baby had just been harmed.
The smoke about her was thinner, the air cooler. Her head felt suddenly cold. She was quickly on her feet though, yanking her hand from the rail and ignoring the pain that pumped through her frame. Beth supported herself by gripping the wooden globe of the banister and swung carefully around it to look down the passage.
Already disoriented, Beth jumped as country music blared loudly from behind the door of the den. There were noises from the kitchen, too. Radio voices under whirring sounds. She wiped the water from her eyes and peered up and down the passage.
Beth guessed he was trying to spook her, throw her off balance. She had to remain focused. He’d turned off the electricity, turned on all the appliances. Now he’d turned it back on. Where was the switch? He must be in the cellar. Even if he wasn’t, he had to still be inside the house.
Beth leaned back so she was standing at the bottom of the stairs again. She bunched her fist and struck the panelled wall to her left once, as hard as she could.
*
Marcia O’Doole and her two sons were standing at the chest, ready to heave it back. She knew Beth hadn’t been successful.
“Did you hear that?” Tyler whispered.
They all waited for the second impact but it didn’t come.
“Does that mean she’s found him?” Marcia’s voice cracked.
They waited and then the door exploded into flames. They shrank back from it.
Tyler hustled his mother and brother over to the window. “We have to go while we can! That was her signal!”
Marcia shouted above the rush of flames and the smoke detector on the ceiling that had just activated. “It might not have been. It could have just been something collapsing!”
“We have to go now anyway!”
She momentarily looked out of the window. Tyler was right. Better to take their chances outside than be burnt alive in the bedroom. “I’ll go first. Stay away from the window until I’m halfway down, and then send your brother down.”
Kevin shook his head violently.
She put her hands either side of his face and looked deep into his eyes. Was this the last time they’d ever look at each other? Marcia kept her own emotions in check. “I’ll be there to catch you! I won’t let anything happen to you!” They both knew it was a lie. Like when Tyler had told him Santa Claus didn’t exist but Kevin had chosen to continue believing. She knew he nodded now for the same reason.
The door and the portion of wall above it collapsed and flames blasted through the opening. Marcia released Kevin and clambered out. She hooked her hands over the sill and allowed her body to hang down. She waited for the bullets to slam into her but retained eye contact with Kevin. “I won’t let anything happen to you!”
“Climb out after, Mom!” Tyler was at the window pointing the rifle out of it in all directions.
“Get away from the window, Tyler!”
“I can’t see anybody.” He swung it left and right. “I’m going to see if I can help her!”
“What?”
“She might be lying on the landing. It should have been me going up there!”
Tyler slung the rifle on his shoulder.
“Tyler!”
Marcia watched him drag the stool over to the floor below the hatch opening. Her weight was dragging her down. She couldn’t pull herself back in. Kevin stood between them, eyes wide with terror.
“Tyler!”
She watched her eldest son jump up, swing at the hatch opening and crawl into the smoke above.
