Lethal People - Джон Локк

The fire started in Greg and Melanie’s basement just after midnight and crept upward through the stairwell silently, like a predator tracking food.

Greg had never read the stats or he’d have known that home fires can turn deadly in just two minutes and that his odds of waking up were three to one.

Against.

And yet both he and Melanie had managed it. Was it because she’d screamed? He wasn’t sure. But she was screaming now. Groggy, disoriented, coughing, Greg stumbled to the door. Like millions of others, he’d seen the movie Backdraft, and although the proper term for the event depicted in the fi lm was a “flashover”and not a “backdraft,” he’d learned enough to touch the back of his hand to the top of the door, the doorknob, and the crack between the door and door frame before flinging it open.

As he did that, Melanie rolled to the edge of the bed and grabbed her cell phone from the charging cradle on the nightstand. She pressed 911 and cupped her hand around the speaker. Now that Greg was in motion, she felt better, like part of a team instead of an army of one. Only moments ago, Melanie had taken her panic out on Greg’s comatose body by kicking, punching, and screaming him awake. When he finally began to stir, she’d slapped him hard across the face several times.

Now they were working together. They’d silently assessed the situation and assigned each other specific roles in an unspoken plan. He’d get the kids; she’d get the firemen.

Melanie couldn’t hear anything coming from the phone and wondered if she’d misdialed. She terminated the call and started over. A sudden blast of heat told her Greg had gotten the door open. Melanie looked up at him, and their eyes met. She held his gaze a moment and time seemed to stop while something special passed between them. It was just a split second, but they managed to get eight years of marriage into it.

Greg set his jaw and gave her a nod of reassurance, as if to say he’d seen what lay beyond the door and that everything was going to be all right.

Melanie wasn’t buying. She’d known this man since the first week of college, knew all his looks. What she’d seen in his eyes was helplessness. And fear.

Greg turned away from her, shielded his face, and hurled himself into the rising flames. She couldn’t hear the 911 operator over the roaring noise, but she heard Greg barreling up the stairs yelling to the children.

She yelled, “I love you!” but her words were swallowed up in the blaze. The searing heat scorched her blistered throat. Melanie clamped her mouth shut and turned her attention back to the phone. Was someone on the other end? She dropped to her hands and knees, cupped her fingers around the mouthpiece, and shouted her message as clearly as possible to the dispatcher she hoped was listening.