Chapter 63
BOOM!
The explosion was so loud it rattled the windows in her room and woke Felice up from what felt like the deepest sleep she’d ever experienced. At first, she thought she’d dreamed it. She grabbed her glasses and struggled to sit up in bed, finally using both hands to push herself upright. She groped in the dark for the lamp on her nightstand, finally finding the switch, but nothing happened.
She smelled gas, and then, smoke. She walked unsteadily to the bedroom door, tried the wall switch, but nothing happened. The power was out. In her groggy state, she wondered if the sound had been a lightning strike, but would that shake the dorm?
Felice tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t move. She turned the handle to unlock it, leaned against the door, and pushed hard. Nothing. The smoke smell was strong. Looking down, she saw wisps of it pluming from beneath the door.
Something deep in her lizard brain finally connected. Fire. The explosion was real. The power was out and something was blocking her door. She grabbed the bedspread from her bed and dropped to the floor, gagging and coughing, stuffing the spread under the door to block the smoke.
Her legs felt floppy, like uncooked spaghetti, but she went back to her bed, groped in the dark until she found the bottle of water she kept there, ripped the case off her pillow, soaked it in some of the water, and wrapped it around her nose and mouth.
Get out,her lizard brain said. You’ve got to get out.
She turned to the window and, after yanking the blind up, she pushed on the lower window sash. It didn’t move.
Get out. Get out.
The lamp was the heaviest thing in the room. She picked it up, took a step backward, and swung as hard as she could. The glass shattered. Using the base of the lamp, she knocked the rest of the glass fragments out of the window frame. There was a screen too, but she battered it until it broke free.
She took a breath, looked around the darkened room. Her phone. She needed her phone. It wasn’t on her nightstand. But she always left her phone right there. Her mind was muddled, she was panicking. What to do?
Just go. Get out.
Felice slung one leg over the windowsill, then the other, then dropped down onto the ground. Drifts of pine needles broke the fall, but she felt stabbing pains from the soles of her feet where she’d stepped barefoot on glass shards.
She was down on all fours, so she crawled away from the dorm, still gagging and coughing. When she was a hundred yards away she managed to stand upright.
Livvy! Where was Livvy? She looked around. The woods surrounding the dorm were quiet, the nearly full moon the only light breaking through the tree line. She smelled gas.
“Livvy!” Her throat was raw, her eyes burning.
“Livvy!”
Could Livvy have slept through the explosion? Felice wasn’t sure. She had to find her friend’s room, but she was so disoriented, her brain so muddled. She forced herself to look at the window she’d crawled out of, then spotted the next window down. Livvy’s room.
She grabbed the lamp she’d thrown through the window, and made her way to the next window down, battering at it with the lamp base until the screen tore open and the glass shattered.
Smoke poured out of the window. “Livvvy!” she screamed. “Livvy!”
There was no answer. With a rush of adrenaline, Felice somehow managed to heave herself up and through the open window. She dropped to the floor, clutching the damp pillowcase to her face. Through the smoke she spotted Livvy, unmoving on her bed.
Flattening herself to the floor, Felice crawled hand over hand to the bed. “Liv!” she screamed, but her friend didn’t move. She grabbed Livvy’s hand, felt for a pulse. It was warm and there was a pulse. She also spotted her own phone on the nightstand, right beside Livvy’s, and grabbed both phones and stuffed them into the pocket of her pajama pants.
“Liv! Wake up!” She shook her friend’s shoulders. “Fire! We’ve gotta get out.”
Livvy’s head turned slightly in her direction. Her eyelids fluttered. She tried to speak, but was seized with a fit of coughing. “Huh?”
Could she still be this drunk, Felice wondered? How much wine had she had?
Giving up, Felice grabbed Livvy’s arms at the elbow and yanked her off the bed. Once Liv was upright, Felice wrapped an arm around her waist. They were both gagging and coughing in the thick smoke. She took the pillowcase from her face and wrapped it around Livvy’s. “Come on, girl. The dorm’s on fire. We’ve got to get outta here. Can you walk?”
Livvy’s knees buckled and Felice hauled her back upright. She half walked, half dragged her toward the open window. It was like hauling a living hundred-pound sack of potatoes.
“Liv!” Felice yelled. Her friend’s face slowly swung around to give her a blank stare. “You have to jump out of this window. Can you do that? Can you jump?”
Without waiting for a response, she bodily picked Livvy up and shoved her headfirst through the window. As soon as Livvy’s feet were clear, Felice jumped down too, falling with a soft thud atop her.
“Come on, we need to get away from here,” Felice said, yanking Livvy to a seated position. “I think there’s a broken gas line. The whole place could explode any minute.”
Livvy slowly nodded. Her voice was as hoarse as Felice’s. “Okay.”
Felice stood and pulled Livvy to her feet. She wrapped her arm around her waist. “Away. We’ve got to get away from here. Can you walk now?”
Livvy mumbled something unintelligible.
Moving as fast as she could with the dead weight of her friend, Felice staggered away from the clearing where the dorm stood and toward the tree line, still gasping for air. Her legs and lungs gave out when they were about fifty yards away, and they both dropped to the ground at the base of a tall pine tree.
Felice pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped 911.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“Fire,” Felice croaked. “At the Saint. I think there’s a broken gas line. I heard an explosion, and then the lights went out.”
“Ma’am, where at the Saint?”
Felice coughed. “Staff dorm. In the old golf cart barn. Send an ambulance. My friend… I think there’s something wrong with her.”
“Is she conscious?”
She glanced sideways at her friend. “Just barely. Please hurry.”
“Ma’am? Is there anyone still inside the building?”
“What?” Felice’s brain wasn’t registering right. “What did you say?”
“Did everyone get out? Of the burning building?”
Oh God. KJ and Garrett? Had they come back last night? Her brain was foggy.
“I’m not sure,” Felice said. “Hurry, please.”
She turned to Livvy, whose eyes were open but unfocused. “Liv. I’ve got to go find KJ and Garrett. Will you be okay here?”
Livvy’s head lolled back against the tree trunk. “Uh-huh.” She coughed, bent forward at the waist, and vomited.
“Oh my God,” Felice muttered. She pulled up the hem of her friend’s T-shirt and gently dabbed the vomit away from her mouth and face.
“Stay here,” she said.
She was dizzy and so unsteady on her feet. Slowly, she forced herself to move back toward the dorm. Smoke was pouring from the broken windows. She paused, trying to reorient herself, but the world seemed to be at a tilt, like she was walking in a carnival funhouse.
Felice tried to think. Where were KJ’s and Garrett’s rooms? Finally, she thought she’d regained her bearings. Their rooms were on the other side of the building.
She was so tired, she wanted to slump down to the ground and go back to sleep. But she picked up the lamp and forced herself to keep moving.
When she found what she thought was the right window she swung the lamp hard, repeating the action she’d used on her own window.
Smoke poured from the room, and the heat was intense.
“KJ!” she screamed. “Garrett!”
No answer, and she could see flames licking at the doorway. The heat drove her backward, away from the window.
Felice staggered on toward the next window. She paused, gulping for air, exhausted from her efforts, and in that moment, the window blew open, showering her chest and face with bits of glass. Smoke and flames shot out.
Her lizard brain kicked in again.
A hose. Hurry. Find a hose. Put out the fire.
There was a faucet on the exterior wall nearby, but no hose. The fire was spreading. If KJ and Garrett were in those rooms, there was no way they could be rescued. Not by her.
Get away.
She staggered away, maybe a hundred yards. She bent at the waist, her hands on her knees, and puked, the vomit splattering on her legs and her chest.
Her face was cut and bleeding. Her head was throbbing.
Her lizard brain had one more thought.
Your friend needs you.