Book Excerpt
so much of the pony keg he and his
suitemates had tapped. Stupid, really
stupid, he told himself.
But then he corrected himself, he
really hadn’t swilled that much beer.
He’d drunk more lots of other nights
and not felt half as smashed. Same
with his suitemates. Both guys could
usually hold their beer, but they’d
both been slurring their words, and
when they first went to bed he was
pretty sure he’d heard one of them
barfing out the living room window.
Now, strangely, he was awake
again, and it was still the middle of
the night, and he had the bed spins
for the second time in a couple
hours. How was this possible?
Usually when he went to sleep with
a load on, he slept like the dead until
sometime around noon the next day.
Only something had disturbed him.
He struggled to remember. Had it
been a shout? If that was it then
he’d heard it in a dream because
it had been an old lady’s voice,
but a harsh and forceful voice and
incredibly loud, and there weren’t
any old ladies in Davis Hall.
In spite of having a terrible case
of the spins he was keeping his eyes
closed and starting to sink back into
sleep. He was so totally out of it he
didn’t even care if he blew lunch all
over his bed. But then he heard the
voice again. “Get up!” The voice
slammed him, as impossible to ignore
as a dental drill in his ear. Actually it
was even worse than that because it
was coming from inside his head, like
some strange old lady was locked in
there wanting to get out.
He struggled to open his eyes,
working hard against the heaviness
of alcohol, feeling like a diver trying
to swim to the surface in a pool
filled with Jell-O. Had it been beer
or tequila shots he’d been drinking?
He really hadn’t had that much to
drink. How could he feel this
hammered? He heard the voice a
third time, a female drill sergeant
shouting, “Get up!” and this time
it slices through his drunkenness like
a sharp knife cutting through rope.
Knowing he had to stand if only to
stop the painful caterwauling in his
brain, he slid one foot out of bed
and put it flat on the floor.
Weird. Davis Hall had a lousy
heating system so the floor should
have been cold, but it was hot. In
fact, it was really hot. He pushed
himself up on one elbow, took a
deep breath through his mouth,
and right away started to cough.
Boy, am I a mess, he thought as he
continued to hack. He tried to suck
down another breath, but it caught in
his lungs like a jagged piece of chicken
bone. He sat up reflexively, and that
was when he began to realize that,
between the hot floor and the air,
he had a much bigger problem.
He was still coughing, nearly
retching, as he reached over and
fumbled for his bedside lamp. When
it came on a surge of panic helped
sober him because he saw that the
room was full of thick gray smoke,
so much that he couldn’t even make
out the door about ten feet away.
He lurched out of bed, stumbled to
the window, and threw it open. He
shoved his head into the cold air and
took deep breaths until he stopped
coughing. Slowly, as his brain started
to work he looked down three
stories to the frozen ground, and
then his eyes went across the street
to where a man was standing in the
shadows. The man was nearly
invisible, just a shadow slightly
darker than the night, but John
hesitated because he thought the
man was staring up at him. “Help,”
he called, his voice hoarse from
coughing and barely more than a
whisper. “Fire.”
Strangely, the man did not move.
John blinked. Was he imagining this?
Smoke was pouring out the window
all around him, but the guy wasn’t
budging? The smoke had to be easily
visible from across the street, and
yet the man continued to stare up at
the dorm like he was waiting for
something to happen, or maybe like
he was looking directly at John.
What was wrong with this jerk?
“Move!” Another shout pierced his
brain, the feeling like somebody was
stabbing the inside of his skull with an
ice- pick. It made him forget about the
guy and think about his roommates
and all the other people on the floor.
Where had the fire started? Did they
know about it? Were they already
evacuating? Why weren’t the alarms
going off? Weren’t there supposed to
be sprinklers?
Feeling a surge of panic he left the
window open, got down on his hands
and knees where the smoke was
much thinner, and crawled toward his
door. On the way he pulled on the
jeans he had thrown off when he got
into bed and pulled on his boots. He
didn’t bother to lace them. The
bedroom door wa s hot, but no hotter
than the floor. He opened it and
looked out. More smoke, but
thankfully no sign of flames.
He crawled into the living room,
found a pitcher of beer that was still
three-quarters full then grabbed a
crumpled sweatshirt off the floor
nearby, soaked it with the beer, and
held it against his face like a filter.
Then he crawled to the door that led
to his roommates’ bedroom. When he
turned on the wall light he could
barely make out two lumpy forms
under the blankets on the two beds.
“Fire! Get up!” he croaked.
Neither one moved. John crawled to
the window, stood up, and heaved it
open to let in some fresh air. He
stuck his head out and took a quick
breath so his lungs could work. “Get
up! Get up!” he shouted. At that,
Steve, one of the suitemates, made a
groaning sound and started to cough.
John crawled over and jerked him out
of bed and onto the floor.
“Wha’re you doin’, man?” he
mumbled, barely coherent. He seemed
terrible out of it, much drunker than
he should have been given how much
beer they’d consumed.
“The dorm’s on fire.” John slapped
him hard across the face. “Wake up!”
Steve barely seemed to register
the slap. John dragged him to the
window, pulled him up, and hung him
out. “Breathe!” He left Steve and
crawled over to Mike’s bed. Like he
had with Steve, he grabbed Mike by
the arm and jerked him to the floor.
“Lemme ‘lone,” Mike slurred.
John slapped him just the way he
had Steve, alarmed at how little Mike
responded. He dragged him over to
the window and pulled him to his
feet beside Steve, and a second later
both suitemates were hanging out
the window coughing.
“Stay here,” John said. “Don’t leave
the window unless you can get out
on your own. I’m gonna go pull the
alarm and knock on the other doors
on the hall. I’ll be back in a minute.”
John crawled toward the door that
led into the hallway, felt it, and
realized it was hotter than the other
doors had been but still not in
flames. He cracked the door, half
afraid a wall of fire would come
shooting inside. He was relieved to
see only thick walls of smoke in both
directions. He tried to recall where
the smoke alarm was located. They
had showed him during freshman
orientation, but of course he hadn’t
paid attention.
To the left was a double with two
girls, one from Massachusetts, the
other from Virginia. He had fantasized
about getting the blond from Virginia
into bed, but now he only thought
about keeping her alive. He tried the
door handle, but it was locked. He
banged on the door, then swiveled
around, sat on his butt, and hammered
the door with both feet. The third
time the lock gave and the door
swung inward. “Get up!” he shouted.
Fortunately the girls had gone to
bed reasonably sober. They were
coughing, but they woke up and
got their window open.
“Get out as quick as you can,
okay?” he said.
As soon as they said they would, he
crawled out and since the girls’ room
was the end of the corridor, he went
2
in the other direction. He kicked
in three more doors and got the
occupants out of bed before he
managed to spot the fire alarm in
the near darkness. He stood up,
broke the glass, and pulled the
switch. Suddenly the loud smoke
alarm filled the hallways with noise.
With the alarm blaring, he
continued on. That’s when he saw
the flames glowing lurid and yellow
through the smoke. He also saw the
bathroom door. Knowing what he had
to do next, he crawled into the
shower, turned it on, and soaked
himself from head to toe, then tore
the shower curtain from the rod and
soaked it as well. Crawling back into
the hallway, he took the biggest
breath he could, stood, and wrapped
the dripping shower curtain around
his head and torso and ran toward
the flames at the farthest end of
the hallway.
His lungs were burning before he’d
gotten halfway, but there was
nothing he could do. The wall just
past the last room door was totally
in flames. He grabbed the door
handle and jerked his hand away
because the metal was so hot it
blistered his skin. He took the
shower curtain, put a thick wad of
it against the handle, and tried
again. The door was unlocked, and
he stumbled inside, went straight
to the window, and jerked it up.
He sucked down a couple quick
gulps of air then went to the single
bed in the room. He tried to wake
the sleeper, but she did not open her
eyes. John could hear voices in the
hallway now as other students from
other floors responded to the alarm
and began to knock on other doors,
making sure everyone was out.
“Two guys in three-twenty-one!”
he shouted into the smoke. “Get
them out.”
He went back to the window, took
one more breath, returned to the
bed, and heaved the girl over his
shoulder. She was deadweight, nearly
impossible to carry in his current
condition. John stumbled to the
door, which was now on fire. He
shouldered it open, felt a lick of
flame on his exposed ear and neck
and kept moving, passing open
doorways as headed toward the
stairway at the far end of the hall.
As he was going down the stairs
he met two campus security officers
coming up. They took the comatose
student from his shoulders.
“Any others up there?”
John nodded as he bent over
coughing. “Gotta check on my
suitemates,” he managed after a
few seconds. “Three- twenty-one.”
“We got ‘em both a minute ago,”
one of the officers said. They carried