For a Hero (27 page)

“There is no way. I won’t let you.”

“That’s the thing, Boy. You can’t stop me. I already cut the gas line. The house has been filling all day. All it needs is a spark. You do have a choice, though. You can stand out here and let them die, or you can run in and die with them, correcting your mistake with your last family, and ridding the world of your self-righteous ass.”

“Them?”

“Oh, that’s right. Silly me. I forgot to tell you. I was going to burn down the house with me and the old lady in it, but imagine my surprise when I get here to find your pretty little whore sobbing on the couch next to your mom.”

The world screeched to a halt around David. He could see what was happening, but he couldn’t move fast enough to do anything about it. It’s like he was caught in a tar pit. The image of Jenna in his mind consumed him. He had assumed she was safe. Now, everything was being ripped from him.

The old man watched David suffer. “It will all be over soon. You’ll have your chance to cry then.” He took one long puff of the cigarette and flicked it into the window he leaned near.

The explosion was deafening. David was knocked down flat to his stomach. His knees were being ripped into by the gravel of the driveway. He looked up, and the house was being eaten from the inside. Fire wrapped its tendrils over the planks and beams, chewing and climbing and devouring.

Not now. Not again. His eyes, once again, let darkness show him his most horrible memories. He could see his old house. He could hear his parents calling his name. He could feel the weight of the world on his back. He felt the fear that pressed him and kept him from running in.

No. David punched the gravel. It hurt. David didn’t care. He jumped to his feet. His mother and Jenna cried for help. Poncho howled in desperation. David ran toward the house.

Fire roared at him. It laughed. It bellowed. It ate his house in front of him. The monster stalked about the house, ripping everything good and valuable apart, threatening his loved ones. It seethed and cracked and weakened and tore and broke.

David roared right back. He put his hands to his chest, gripped his shirt firmly and tore it off of him. He wrapped the fabric around his mouth and stepped through the flames into his home.

*****

A beam fell and knocked Ms. Conlon to the ground. Jenna tried to move her, but couldn’t. “Please! Wake up!” she begged. “I need help!” She ran to the door, twisted the knob, nothing. It was jammed or locked from the outside. Jenna coughed, trying to breathe.

Frantically, she tried to run to the back, but the back door was in the kitchen and the flames were too intense. They were trapped! Running back to David’s mother, she knelt with her, holding her, covering her mouth from the smoke and shielding her body from the flames. The house groaned at her.

If only she could see David again. If only she could tell him ‘yes’. How cruel it would be if her life ended before she got the chance to tell the man she loved that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She might die and he would never know that she wanted to marry him. The thought broke her into pieces. She collapsed onto his mother and wept. The small dog hunkered by her, neither of them wanted to die alone.

Jenna held on to David’s unconscious mom and prayed for a miracle. She held on. She asked the Lord to send her a hero, a savior. 

CRACK. God NO! The roof cracked. Dust and debris begin to rain around them. This was it. She could see the roof was about to collapse around them.

With what could be her last breath, she sent a message up into the air. “David, I love you.”

It started with one crack, then three, and then a snap. There was a cool rush of wind as the roof began to fall down. Jenna’s heart stopped beating and she threw herself over Ms. Conlon. 

Nothing hit her. At all. She continued to hold her breath for a second.

Ten uneventful seconds pass and still, the burning wood had not crushed and sizzled them into oblivion.

Timidly, she looked up.

There, in the doorway, with light bursting behind him, stood David. The support rafters had fallen and he had caught them on his shoulders. They dug into his traps and blood flowed down his chest to the ground. His knees trembled under the weight and the whole house trembled with them, waiting for him to give out so it could crush them in the debris below.

Jenna’s heart started to beat again, enlivened by an overwhelming love and hope. “David!”

“Please, get you and her out of here. You don’t have much time.” His voice cracked like the wood around them.

She nodded and began to pull at his mother, slowly. Jenna hadn’t thought it possible for her to do this, but David gave her strength. Steadily, she drug Ms. Conlon out through the opening he left for them. Poncho barked at the flames and followed Jenna and his mommy out the door, singed from the fire, but perfectly fine.

Once she had safely escaped the heat, she looked back in. “David! David, please come out!”

She could hear him grunting and struggling to get out from under the tremendous weight of the beams. Jenna moved closer until she could see his silhouette through the fire. From the side of her view, another figure limped toward him. It had something in its hands. With a quick jerk, the figure swung the board into David’s knees and he and the roof collapsed together, leaving only rubble.

“No, David!!”

*****

David lay on the floor, covered with shards of his old home. The fire roared all around him. With every breath, he consumed more and more of the precious little oxygen that his enemy, Fire, had left for him to breathe.

His shoulders bled, his knee was busted, but he was calm. His family was safe.

A shuffling to his side caught his attention. David turned to see the old man, burned and broken, on his knees from the weight of the small wooden board with which he hit David. “Dammit, Boy. Goddammit.”

“Looks like the girls are going to be ok.”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Boy. If I can’t take them with me to hell, then I will just have to take you.”

David took a deep breath and started to push the boards off of him.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting us out of here.”

“You can’t! There is no way out! This is the end! For both of us!”

“You don’t understand, Dad.” David stood, popped his knee, and pulled a splinter or two out of his shoulders. “Because of you, I spent my entire life walking around in a world made of glass. I had to be so careful. I was afraid of hurting you, and everyone else. You gave me that fear. I get it now. You taught me to be afraid of who I really am. But I guess I don’t need to be careful anymore, do I? You can take it, can’t you?” He asked the question of his father, but also to Fire, who burned around him, threatening to eat him alive.

“No!” The old man started to panic. “How are you doing this? You’ve been beaten! You’ve been burned! You have holes in your skin and cracks on your bones! There is smog in your lungs! You can’t get out of this! You are not that much of a man!” He swung the board at David another time. David let it hit him, silently and still.

“I have enough strength to get you out of here safely.” He then stepped forward and with one move, disarmed the man who could have been a father to him, but didn’t try. 

“See? You can hit an old man. You have a monster inside you, just like me, Boy. You always cast me aside growing up. I have never been good enough, strong enough, smart enough. But look now, striking your father, you aren’t as good as the world thinks you are. Die with me here. It is your place. Give up.”

David limped forward, and cradled his broken father in his arms. Despite his dad’s squirming and protesting, David marched toward the wall with stability and might. With one bare hand used as a battering ram, he broke through the smoldering wood to open a chasm large enough to pass through.

Once more, a crowd of police, firemen and spectators watched David pull a life from the greedy mouth of Fire.

Medical personnel ran up to him and took his father away on a gurney. With the weight and burden gone, and the lives of his family safely tucked away from harm, David fell to his knees and blackness found him.

*****

A soft, damp patting on his face woke David up. His eyes opened slowly, and light filled his vision like a slow drip. His mom lay on a gurney next to him, Poncho by her side, barking with his tail wagging wildly.

David sat up. The pain finally caught up with him. “Oh geez.” A quick examination found bandages wrapped around his shoulders and his knees. The attendant in the ambulance with them continued to pat away at the scrapes on David’s face. “How’s Jenna? How’s my Mom?”

“Slow down, Chief. Your mom has been asking about you. She is fine, by the way. She won’t have much to say; I put her on some pretty heavy-duty pain killers. Looks like you are the big hero again today. How do you feel?”

“Pretty beat up. Hey, have you see-“ he needed to find Jenna.

“Hold on.” He eased David back down. “You have some healing to do before you go looking for anyone. You are pretty spectacular though. I’ve never seen such dense muscle fiber adhesion to bone before. Nothing cut past the first few layers. Looks like you are a blessed person.”

David’s little bed started to shake. He glanced over and saw Hank rattling the bars. “Hey Chief! Kicked some serious ass again today, I see!”

The EMT swatted at Hank to make him stop. He stuck his tongue out in reply. Behind him was Scott, who was wiping the sweat and tears of worry from his face. “Hi there, Chief Conlon. Sure is swell to see you up and about after all that.”

Hank punched Scott in the arm. “Stop being such a baby. Everyone knows that the Chief can handle anything.” David smiled at their banter.

The commotion at the ambulance started to attract people, and soon reporters and police were crowding around, asking all kinds of questions. The EMT again started trying to move the large group back, insisting that David need his space.

Nothing caught his eye until he saw the one person in the whole world that he most wanted to see.  A small, determined person pushed her way through the crowd. For such a tiny frame, she sure could shove a reporter out of the way. Jenna’s face was brightly lit up and her arms reached out to him.

David tried to sit up again, but the EMT’s firm, gloved hand kept him down.

A brown, leather purse swung through the air, smacking the EMT in the arm.

“Oww, Lady! Why did you do that?”

“Let the boy see his fiancé!” David’s mom answered. The puppy barked in support.

“I didn’t know you were awake,” the EMT grumbled, but he seemed to let up after that.

Hank grabbed Jenna at the waist and lifted her into the ambulance. David rose and wrapped his arms around her. “I am so glad you’re safe.”

“Me? You! I am so glad YOU are safe! You were the one inside when the building fell down. You saved me, David. You saved all of us. I can’t believe it. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Baby.”

The reporters all saw the photo opportunity and started snapping pictures.

“Did I hear my mom say ‘fiancé?’” he couldn’t help but ask.

“Yes.”

“So, is that a y-“

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, David Conlon, I will marry you.”

She kissed him all over his face and then hard on the lips. He kissed her back.

Hank started a slow clap. The whole crowd joined in. Everyone cheered in celebration while their Chief and the love of his life professed their affection.

Hank looked over at Scott, with tears in his eyes. “I’ve always wanted to start a slow clap. It’s like a dream come true.”

A moment later, EMTs, under police supervision were hauling away the old man. His burns and injuries horribly scarred his body, but he lived.

Everyone watched him go by in silence. He screamed at David. He cursed him. “Why didn’t you let me die?!?”

David answered with composure. “Because then I would be like you. I am my father’s son, not yours.”

*****

On Christmas Day, David lay in bed with his beloved. His bandages were falling off, and the skin beneath already looked healthy enough to kiss, Jenna thought.

They were cuddled close and love was in the air. He had let her decorate his place. The gold, and red and green sparkles went nicely with the blue and clear of the décor, or at least Jenna told him that it did. He didn’t mind at all.

She lay peacefully in his arms. Her eyes told a story of love and peace and happiness. He could have stared forever into those beautiful eyes. Their gleam reminded him of something. 

“Oh, how could I forget?”

David reached below the bed and pulled out a little purple box, wrapped in glistening paper, with a silver ribbon tied into a perfect little bow. “Merry Christmas, Jenna.”

She gasped. “Wow, David. When did you have time to get this?”

“I have some pretty good connections. Open it.”

Jenna tore into it, leaving little scraps of paper all over their bed. David noticed, but thought that it added a pretty Christmas shine to the comforter.

When she found the little, felt cube, she fell completely silent. She slowly opened it, and inside shone the most perfect golden ring she had ever seen. Its diamond had a million facets and filled the room with a dancing white light.

Her eyes crept from the ring up to David’s face. “It’s beautiful.”

“I hoped you’d like it.” He took it from her and slid it carefully on her ring finger.

“Oh my god, David. I love it. This is the best Christmas present I could ever hope to receive.”

“It’s not just a Christmas present. It’s also a sign telling everyone else in the world that you belong to me.”

She launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “It’s perfect. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Me neither.”

She stopped for a second, and pulled back. “There is something I want to tell you though.”

“What’s that?”

“You can’t quit your job.”

“After what you saw happen yesterday, almost every other woman in the world would say the exact opposite.” David laughed. “Why do you say that?”