Scar (7 page)

The neighbors were talking and shouting as the house continued to burn.

Many of them were on phones and 911 had been called repeatedly. There were still no cops or fire engines in sight, and nothing approaching. Some people were discussing the fact that there was a very small skeleton crew on this time of night, and that they would possibly need to call in authorities from neighboring towns.

Caelyn backed away from the house and the neighbors and put the scanner up to her ear to listen. There were bursts of communication, lots of jargon, and she thought she caught a mention of the fire. But as the seconds dragged into minutes, all she could do was wait and pray.

The fire was burning so hot and so bright that it hurt to look at it, and the smoke was making it hard to breathe, even from yards away.

He can’t survive in there
.

The thought left her cold.

She even heard the other onlookers saying that the “crazy kid” who ran inside, trying to play the hero, was likely a lost cause.

An old woman shook her head sadly. “Some people,” she said rather loudly, “have more bravery than good common sense.”

Caelyn wanted to scream at her, tell all of them that Elijah was ten times the person they would ever be. But she couldn’t bring herself to do anything more than stand there, no better than the rest of them.

And then, just as she was truly starting to give up hope, Elijah emerged out of the front door carrying something. He was covered in soot, like something out of a bad movie, and he was coughing and stumbling a little.

The neighbors surged to him, taking the toddler from his arms.

Caelyn ran to him as the onlookers began trying to attend to the child.

“Elijah,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Are you okay?”

He coughed some more and nodded. “Where are the cops?” he asked.

“No one’s come yet. People are saying they don’t have an available crew in town at this time of night, so it’s going to take longer for help to arrive.”

“I’ve got to go back inside,” Elijah told her.

The burly man came over again. “Listen kid, you’re a goddamn hero, seriously. But I can’t let you go back in that fucking house. It’s a deathtrap.”

Elijah looked at him. “I’m going back in,” he said. “I have to.
There’s
more people. I heard them screaming for help.”

Caelyn bit back tears and protests, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. Elijah was determined.

“I love you so much,” she told him. “No matter what happens, remember that, okay?”

Elijah looked at her and smiled, and somehow he seemed more carefree, more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. “Hey, I’m going to be fine. I’m goddamn invincible, kid.”

And then he was running into the house again.

The little girl was crying. Caelyn went over and saw that she had vomited up some black looking chunks on the grass and some of the older women were trying to soothe her.

“I want my mommy,” she screeched. “I want mommy.”

“Mommy’s coming,” someone told her. “A nice man is going to get her.”

Caelyn hugged herself, looking at the house. Every minute that went by, the flames grew. Pieces of the house were starting to fall off in large, frightening chunks. The roof was beginning to cave in.

Occasionally, there were loud, explosive sounds that came from inside.

He can’t survive another minute in there
, Caelyn thought. She was squeezing the scanner so hard that she thought it might shatter in her hands.

At this point, she didn’t even mind if Elijah was caught and went to jail. Jail would be something—she could visit him.

I’ll visit him forever, and I’ll be grateful to do it. I’ll be happy just to see Elijah’s face, hear his voice,
see
him smile. Please God, let him live. Just let him live.

Like an answer to her prayer, Elijah came out of the house
again,
this time he was helping two people hobble out of the front door. They were so burnt and blackened that it was hard to tell who was who.

“It’s Tom and Linda,” someone cried, and then the expanded group of neighbors rushed over and swarmed around them, trying to help.

Caelyn could hardly get to Elijah. People were touching him, thanking him, crying,
babbling
.

It was as if he’d transformed into something otherworldly, and people had gone from thinking he was insane, to believing he was a comic book hero.

They gave him some water, which he drank down as Caelyn grabbed his arm. “Promise me it’s over,” she said. “You’re not going back inside.”

“The older daughter’s still inside,” Elijah said.

“Elijah, the roof is caving in. You saved three people’s lives. Don’t kill yourself, please.” Caelyn realized she would beg him if that’s what it took. “Please, please. Don’t go back in. I have the most terrible feeling that you’re going to die.”

Elijah took the bottle of water, lifted it up and poured water over his face.

She could see he was horribly burned on his forehead and cheek and neck. “Elijah, you’re hurt.”

Others were clawing at him, too, telling him to stop.

But all he did was lean in and kiss Caelyn’s cheek. “I love you and only you. Remember that.”

Then he was pushing past everyone and running inside. There was no way he could make it back out again, Caelyn thought. She could feel the heat from the house all the way back at the top of the driveway. Getting close was painful, and she could see the flames licking the doorway. The front door was charred and blackened and beginning to fall off its hinges.

At that moment, the first police cars and fire trucks arrived, along with an ambulance.

When they pulled up, the cops immediately forced all of the neighbors back to the other side of the street, including Caelyn.

She tried to tell one of the
policeman
that her boyfriend was inside the burning house.

“We’ll do our best to get him out safely,” the cop said, but he was hardly even looking at her. They had a huge fire on their hands and seemed almost confused by where to start.

The EMTs had begun trying to deal with the surviving victims.

The mother and father were conscious, but not doing very well. The mother, in particular, seemed like she was having trouble breathing. They put an oxygen mask over her face.

Her husband was badly burned on his chest and arms, and they’d cut his shirt off in order to immediately begin treating the wounds.

More police and fire trucks arrived on the scene.

As the minutes continued to pass, Caelyn began to get the sick, sinking sensation that Elijah had finally gone back into the house one too many times.

She felt angrier and angrier as she watched the fireman fight the flames
with
their gigantic hoses, spraying the upper windows and into the front door.

Why did he have to keep going back inside? Was saving three people not enough for him? Wasn’t Caelyn enough of a reason to try and survive another day?

She knew that he’d been brave, but the aching pain reverberating in her soul told her that his bravery would not help her to get over the pain of losing her one true love.

And the firemen were taking forever to enter the house themselves. She’d heard the neighbors desperately trying to tell them that Elijah and the teenage daughter were inside, and the police and firemen just kept repeating the phrases that they were doing their best and they’d eventually get in, once it was safer to do so.

About six or seven of them were actually approaching the front door of the house when the unthinkable happened.

The roof, which had been blackened and smoking and looking progressively weakened, suddenly crashed inward, collapsing like nothing more than a charred piece of paper.

Half of the house was demolished in the blink of an eye.

A horrified wail went up from a person near the ambulance, and Caelyn looked over to see that it was the mother. “No!” she cried out, throwing off her oxygen mask and trying to fight through the EMTs and police as if wanting to go inside the house herself.

The whispers and conversation told Caelyn that her worst fears were realized. The daughter’s room was on that second floor, the one that had been wiped out when the roof caved in.

What were the chances that Elijah hadn’t been up there, trying to extricate the girl when the roof collapsed? Caelyn wondered.

That’s if he’d even gotten that far.

The crumbling of the structure had made the authorities even more cautious about entering the house. They continued to fight the flames with hoses.

Caelyn made her way over to the ambulance, where the husband was arguing with a policeman as he tried to comfort his sobbing wife. “Someone needs to go in there,” the husband said.

“Listen, it’s too dangerous right now,” the cop told him. “If our men had been inside when that roof went down, your daughter wouldn’t be any safer and all we’d have is a bunch more victims.”

“She’s going to die if nobody tries,” the husband said, holding his wife with one arm. “Can’t you at least try?”

“Look, we’re doing our very best and I can promise you—“

Suddenly, there was a rush of screams and cries from onlookers. Everyone turned to see what was going on.

“Someone’s coming out!” Caelyn heard.

“Oh my god!” another person cried.

Caelyn saw that somehow, unbelievably, Elijah had reemerged from the front door of the house, literally carrying the daughter’s lifeless body over his shoulders.

He collapsed to the ground and then the cops and firemen were all over them, and pandemonium ensued.

Instantly, there were people surrounding him—police officers, firemen, EMTs, and now the neighbors were crowding closer as well. They all wanted to get close to the action, wanted to know if the girl was alive, and everyone was talking about the hero who’d gone into the burning home three times to save the people trapped inside.

Caelyn tried to push through the throngs of people to get to Elijah, but it was nearly impossible.

The firefighters were still fighting the blaze, and cops were trying vigorously to push the crowd back.

More people were showing up, and even a news crew had arrived on scene with cameras and reporters.

“Excuse me, I’m his girlfriend,” Caelyn practically yelled, as she pushed and maneuvered her way around the onlookers.

An officer tried to stop her from getting closer. “Excuse me, you need to stay back,” he told her.

“That’s my boyfriend,” she said, trying to crane her neck to see if Elijah was okay. She was close enough to get a glimpse of him now, but she could only see a bit of Elijah’s arm, as there was a huddle of people tending to him and the girl he’d carried out of the house.

“Who’s your boyfriend, ma’am?” the cop asked.

“Him,” she said, pointing. “The one who saved those
people.
I need to find out if he’s okay.”

The
cop looked over his shoulder and then back
at Caelyn, before pulling the radio attached to his shirt and speaking into the receiver.

She couldn’t hear what he muttered into it. He looked at her again. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

Caelyn hesitated.

When the officer saw that, he rolled his eyes. “Please step back, please step back—“

“My name is Caelyn.”

The cop stared at her, not impressed. “Okay. I still need you to move back across the street, Caelyn. It’s not safe this close to the fire.”

“Look, I’m his girlfriend and I’m not going anywhere until you let me see him and know if he’s all right.”

The cop sighed. “Come on,” he said, ushering her quickly to where the paramedics were working on Elijah.

She put her hands over her mouth when she saw him lying on the ground, half-conscious, his face blackened from smoke and ash, his shirt being cut off his torso because of the fact that it had burned itself into his skin from the heat.

“Is he going to be all right?” she said, trying to control the panic rising in her chest.

One of the EMTs turned and looked up at her as he tried to get an oxygen mask set up for Elijah. “Excuse me, we need this scene clear. We can’t have this right now.”

“She says she’s his girlfriend.”

“I am his girlfriend,” Caelyn corrected him. “I’m not lying about it.”

Elijah lifted his head, opened his eyes and looked at her. “Hey kid,” he said, his voice rasping. He grinned at her.

“You need to lie down and be quiet, sir,” the EMT told him.

The cop turned to her and now his face was more concerned. “Were you in the house at all?” he asked her, looking her over closely. “Are you hurt in any way?”

“No, I never went inside. I was outside with everyone else.”

The cop escorted her away from the crowd slightly. “Your boyfriend did something very courageous tonight, if what people tell me is true. They say he went into that burning house and rescued three individuals.”