Joseph Caldwell - Lazarus Rising

“Wait a couple of months,” the doctor had said. “Then get an HIV test. It’ll be negative. We’re not worried ourselves, but it’ll give you peace of mind. Strictly routine. More for you than for us.”

When the doctor had repeated his assurances the third time, his voice more casual with each repetition, Johnny felt that this was a memorized exchange that had no real meaning. He had his response ready. “I will. Definitely.”

After his hands had been thoroughly bandaged and the steroids emptied into his system, he had argued with the doctor about his release and signed the official forms relieving the hospital of responsibility. A nurse, older, somewhat squat and wearing a black leather vest over her hospital whites, had showed him a door at the back of the emergency room that led to a corridor. She pointed to the left and said, “That way and you’re out.”

Johnny had hurried along the corridor and continued on to the promised exit. He thought he could hear someone approaching from behind, the dogged reporter probably or some officious hospital administrator who had found, among the intricacies of his signed form, an unnoted legalism that invalidated his release. He reached the door and leaned against the crossbar. He stepped out into the sea-scented night and began his walk to the loft.

With the tip of his forefinger peeping out of the bandages, he pressed Dempsey’s bell. The pressure, slight as it was, pushed itself into his hand and it seemed that all the wounds had been forced open, that the crusted blood had cracked and split, that new blood would soon seep through the layered mitten of gauze and tape.

During his walk from the hospital, a teenager, a truck driver at a stoplight and a long-haired man walking a dog had, in irresistible inspirations of originality and wit, said, respectively, “Put ’em up, slugger,” “Ready for round three?” and “Like your mittens, man.” Johnny, too tired to comment, too eager to get to Dempsey’s, had chosen to ignore each offering to the sum total of the world’s wit as it was made, and had kept right on walking.

The teenager had giggled, the truck driver guffawed. Only the dog walker accepted the silence his statement deserved.

The fire itself had not been that threatening to the fire fighters, even though most of the building had been gutted. When a piece of machinery, something presumed to be the size of a printing press, had crashed through from the fourth floor to the third, the lieutenant had shouted the order to take up the line and get out. Johnny, Acosta behind him, started to work immediately and managed an orderly retreat without either of them stumbling or getting tangled in the hose.

Out in the street, Johnny pulled down his facepiece and took a good clean breath, then another. Midway through the third breath he noticed the iron door with the razor wire across the top. He hadn’t recognized the building until now. This was the Lunch Room. He jumped over the crisscrossed hoses and pushed against the door. It clanged open.

Johnny started down a gangway. It passed under an overhang of the first floor that led to a small courtyard in the back of the building. A door that might lead into the basement was nowhere in sight. He scanned the brick wall. Chipped white paint covered the bricks up to the first floor. There were no windows on his level. No doors. He looked up. Iron shutters were closed on all the windows above, the smoke leaking out around the frames, unable to blow out the heavily rusted metal.

As Johnny watched, the smoke began seeping out around the shutters of the first-floor windows. The fire had broken through from the floor above. It had come downward one floor at a time. The basement would be next. But he could find no way into it. Could he have been mistaken? It might not be the Lunch Room after all. That had not been the iron door Dempsey had shown him.

There was a muffled crash high over his head to the left. He looked up, but nothing had changed. The smoke still seeped, faint wisps rising easily into the air above. As he brought his gaze back down, he saw what could be a space at the far end of the courtyard, what seemed an indentation between this building and the next. Another crash was heard, less muffled, followed by what sounded like a rain of pebbles. The smoke around the window frames was getting thicker.

Johnny finally found a door in the recess around the corner of the building. Maybe this was the Lunch Room? But it was locked. Contradicting his instincts and his training, he was about to declare himself satisfied that no one was inside when a thought flickered through his mind. It was so swift, not even an instant, come and gone, a spark extinguished before it could flame forth. Dempsey could be inside.

He knew this couldn’t be true, but now, unbidden, he could see her. She was there, helpless, the last breaths scorched with smoke, the struggle lessening, the mind, the effort dimming. Soon she would breathe her last. She was on the floor, one arm reaching toward the door. She would not be wearing her painter’s jeans or her sweatshirt. She would have dressed for the occasion, for the Lunch Room, in her black slacks, her white silk blouse with the floppy collar. There would be the speck of blood, just below the crook of the elbow, where the drug needle had stuck, the smoke hovering over it, licking it, tasting it.

Johnny kicked at the door. It rattled but didn’t open. Twice more he kicked, then a third time. He considered going back to the truck for a crowbar, but couldn’t afford the time. On the fourth kick, the door opened and Johnny’s foot slammed itself down just inside the room. A billow of smoke charged at him like a dragon come to protect its horde. A man, coughing, hacking, rushed past him, then another.

“Anyone in here?” Johnny yelled, but the men had disappeared around the corner of the building. He slipped his mask back over his nose and mouth and turned the screw that let the oxygen flow. He squatted down and moved into the room, bumping into a chair, a table leg, what seemed like a small cabinet.

He quickly dropped onto all fours, then lowered himself down on his stomach, keeping as close to the floor as possible, where the smoke wasn’t as thick. He swept his arms along his sides to make sure no one had fallen. His hand whacked a couch, then hit something soft.

Someone was there. It was a woman. He had felt her breast. The alarm on his face piece sounded. His oxygen was out. He slid the mask down and realized he’d lost his gloves somewhere. Maybe he had left them on the truck. He had no time to care. He shoved his arms under the woman’s back and pulled her toward him. There was a grunt as she tumbled down onto the floor.

Johnny could have stood up, lifted her, and carried her to the door, but that would be through the thickening smoke filling the room. He hooked his hands under her arms. Still on his stomach, he lowered his head and dragged her toward the door.

Again a rumble was heard over his head, louder, and Johnny thought he could hear the straining of wood against wood. The ceiling could go at any time. A spattering of plaster was already sifting down. He could feel his throat, his chest, being rasped more and more by the smoke, the heat digging into the raw flesh of his mouth, the taste of charred plaster on his tongue.

Someone lurched against him, hitting his shoulder, knocking his nose into the woman’s hair. From the side of his eye, Johnny saw a figure stumbling out the door, yet another man.

Johnny kept his head low. His breath was short gasps, his nose still buried in the woman’s hair. Now they were out the door of the Lunch Room. Johnny looked down at the woman. Of course, she was not Dempsey. She was not nearly as beautiful. He easily lifted her and carried her through the courtyard and through the iron door topped by the razor wire.