My Stupid Girl (32 page)

We had to do something, we couldn’t wait to
either burn to death or get crushed. Lucy looked at me with the fierce
determination I had seen in her eyes when she was in the frozen lake and I had
told her I was going to let her go so I could get a better hold of her.

“I’m sure the teachers who are not in the
building have called the fire department; they will be here soon.” She sounded
hopeful.

She was probably right, but it wouldn’t be
fast enough. The fire had started only a few minutes ago and already a third of
it was burning. I scanned the whole side of the barn that wasn’t on fire yet.
The windows were too high to get to and the walls were double boarded, so there
was no chance of kicking them down. 

“Lucy, follow me.” I had to scream for her
to hear me over the rising hysteria. We slithered, staying close to the ground,
to the doors on the other side of the barn. They were blocked. This had to be
some fire code violation that nobody thought would matter. I yelled at the
people who were stuck to move the decorative boxes and hay nearby to look for
an opening. Everyone started franticly looking around, pulling on the bottom
boxes. 

“What are you doing?” I yelled at a chubby
yellow haired girl. “If you pull on that box and it moves, the whole thing
comes down.” She retracted her hands quickly and looked paralyzed with fear. 

“Girl, go wait under that table. We’ll help
you get out if we can find a way.” I pointed to where Jennika, Johnny, Isaiah,
and Michelle were crouched, staring at us through the growing smoke. The blond
nodded obediently and, with great difficulty, made it to the table. 

“David!” I heard Lucy yell at me. She was
around the corner of one of the big bales of hay. The second I scurried over I
felt a cool rush of outside air. I put my hands up against the door and saw
that it wasn’t sealed. It would be really easy to get open if we could move all
these dang decorations. I waved my arms for Isaiah and Johnny to come to me.
Isaiah instantly started crawling but I saw Johnny’s eyes get big as he turned
toward Jennika, who was shaking his arm to make sure he saw me. He was saying
something that looked like “I won’t leave you.” 

“Lucy, I want you to go back under the
table,” I blurted out. There wasn’t much time left before the flames were on
top of us.

“I’m not leaving.” She jutted her bottom
lip out, stubbornly.

“You’re more help over there, keeping those
morons calm, then you are helping us move these boxes. Just, please Lucy.” I
pleaded with her. Lucy looked back over at the girls that were still crammed
under the table, and the boys making their way over to us. She turned around to
face me again, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and kissed my lips. She
headed back to the table on her hands and knees. 

It wasn’t until then that I realized both
of her legs were bleeding from being stepped on and dragged across the rough
natural floor of the barn. She hadn’t mentioned her legs once, nor her totally
ruined prom dress.

I looked over where Evelyn and Rachel were
still sitting in the corner, looking petrified. Too bad looks couldn’t get them
out of this one. That fire wasn’t going to care about beautiful hair or
stunning faces. 

Johnny and Isaiah had almost made it to me
and Lucy was practically back to the table when we heard another clap. I looked
up and saw that an entire beam was coming down in one piece, this time bringing
with it a giant chunk of ceiling and the front wall of the barn. They ground to
a halt before reaching the floor, making the space even smaller. It was
collapsing in on itself without opening to the outside.

The noise was colossal. Black smoke from
the fire on the ground billowed into the air, making a mushroom cloud. The
whole room went instantly black, smothered in smoke. Isaiah, Johnny and I all
clung to the ground. I instantly regretted sending Lucy away from me.

“Take off your jackets and put them over
your mouths!” I bellowed into the darkness. I desperately turned around to the
spot where I had felt the fresh air before the room filled with smoke. 

“We need to move these boxes now,” I said
to whoever would listen, showing Isaiah and Johnny, who were right next to me,
what my plan was. 

“The doors can open. If we can just get one
corner out then we might be able to squeeze thru and open the door the whole
way.” 

Isaiah instantly started to climb the
boxes. We knew it was stupid to go higher, but we had no choice, we had to
start from the top. Otherwise the whole pile was going to collapse on us.
Isaiah was able to move the bales of hay easily, but had to come down after
what seemed like only a few seconds, coughing violently because the thick
smoke. 

I had no idea where people were anymore. My
mind kept fixing on Lucy, stuck under a table with a bunch of frantic people
somewhere off in the smoke. I had to force myself to stay here unblocking the
door, our only exit. Everything in me wanted to run over and drag Lucy from
under the table before a beam fell on it and crushed it. 

Johnny took a turn at the top of the hay
stack, jacket tight on his face. He climbed up to the top, about six feet. His
feet were almost level with my eyes and I could barely see him. I kept my hands
up to guard my face in case anything fell on me. As a few more
minutes-that-felt-like-seconds went by, things calmed down slightly. Nothing
new fell from the ceiling.

The air around me was thick but I could
almost see through it. I looked over at the table and saw that it wasn’t
crushed. However, it had moved from where it originally was. I couldn’t tell if
they had moved it or the blast had, either way they were safer for the moment.
Then I realized that every person under the table was lying on the ground,
hands over their mouths. A rush of relief at this piece of good sense washed
over me and acted as a stimulant to help me finish finding a way out of this. 

Johnny came down, coughing and red eyed. I
started to climb to see if I could move any boxes when I felt something
clinging to my side. Rachel and Evelyn, both white faced and gasping for air,
were scrambling to climb the hay bales. They were almost delirious, maybe
thinking escape was at the top of the pile. I put my arms protectively over
both of them and sat them down against the wall, away from where boxes might
fall. I gave them my jacket and held it up to their faces. 

“Keep this over your face.” 

“No! We’re helping!” Evelyn fiercely threw
the jacket aside. Rachel scrambled for it and hunched herself back up, burying
her face into it. Evelyn ignored her, standing up then climbing to the top of
the boxes. With surprising strength, she slid the box a little. She shifted
around to get a better stance and continued to disassemble the pile at top
speed. I didn’t have time to argue; I was desperate to get Lucy out of the
burning inferno. I climbed up next to Evelyn and helped her slide the next box
into Johnny and Isaiah’s waiting arms.

“This is going to work!” Evelyn and I both
grabbed the next box and moved it together. We had three boxes moved when we
heard fire trucks blaring in the distance.

“Oh thank God,” Evelyn said, quietly. If I
had time to think I would have been impressed.  She wasn’t trying to sound
haughty or religious, she was just saying something she meant. Right around the
same time the smoke became too much for the two of us (I was gagging because I
was coughing so much), so we switched with Johnny and Isaiah. A few other
people noticed what we were doing. They came over to help grab the boxes when
they were pushed over to us.

Finally, we were able to climb over the
last few boxes and push on the door. It opened easily. 

A rush of cold, fresh air hit my face. I
realized how strong the smoke was and could feel an ache deep in my chest.

“David! David!” I heard Evelyn’s voice ring
with panic. She was shaking my arm. I turned around and saw a wall of people
stampeding towards the fire-free exit. I jumped to the side and pushed her
through the hole so she wouldn’t be crushed. Like an armadillo, I curled up
into a ball to protect myself.

People were actually stepping on me. They
were literally climbing over me to make sure they were okay. That was the
reason we hadn’t gotten out sooner. Everyone was so worried about themselves
that they had all run around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to
save their own skin. 

I felt fingernails dig into my upper arms
then a large male foot stepped directly onto the side of my face. I felt skin
peel away from my cheekbone. 

“Oh my gosh.” I heard Lucy whimper, I
snapped my head up and saw her nearby me, through a sea of legs. My body
flooded with a crazy mix of relief that she was close and incredible fear that
she was anywhere near the madhouse that the back door of the barn had become in
a few short seconds. She was most definitely not in armadillo pose, and she was
going to get wrecked.

“Lucy what are you doing here?” I tried to
crawl fully into the barn to get her, but that made it worse. Fighting against
the oncoming crowd made the blows feel stronger and more devastating.

Finally I made it to her. I tucked Lucy
underneath me. It was a good thing that she was so little. The overhead attacks
subsided after a few minutes. I chanced a peek and saw that the only people
left in the building were those who were helping others up, and guiding the
injured around fallen beams. 

“Come on.” I pulled Lucy up and I felt
instantly that my body was hurt. The muscles in my calves had been torn into by
women’s shoes and my back felt like it had been punched numerous times. My face
felt hard where it had been stepped on; I knew there had to be dried blood on
it.

Lucy and I made it through the door and
looked around automatically to see where everyone was. There were a few fire
trucks and dozens of ambulances. It looked like a battle scene from a movie.
There were people lying down on cots, having to share oxygen masks because
there weren’t enough to go around. Jennika and Johnny were both sitting on the
ground, gasping for air. Johnny was completely wrapped around Jennika, her head
in his chest.  I saw tears running down his face.

I felt the same way. I couldn’t believe
that we were out of there. I had been fully prepared to die. My only reason for
even trying was to make a way for Lucy to get out. 

Lucy looked torn up. Her legs were swollen.
The lace that had so elegantly circled around her neck a few hours ago was torn
almost completely off. It made me angry to know that some person who wasn’t
thinking clearly had done that to her. They could have seriously hurt her. 

I took a deep breath to calm down from the
rage that rushed me. The sudden movement of my lungs made me wince in pain. I
grabbed my chest and dropped to my knees. 

“Help!” Lucy cried. I felt the ground
rumble around me. Paramedics got hold of me and made me straighten my upper
body, even though they didn’t make me stand. I was kneeling on the ground,
coughing so hard I felt like my lungs were going to explode out of my chest.

“You need to keep your lungs open.” I heard
a woman’s voice say. “Put your arms over your head.” She spoke calmly, which
helped me listen. It was such a welcome change from the panic of the last hour.
I tried to straighten my body and then buckled in pain. I couldn’t help it; it
was a reaction my body was doing involuntarily. My chest felt tight, like it
weighed a hundred pounds. My throat burned like someone was pouring black smoke
down it and trapping it there. 

A paramedic put a hard plastic thing over
my nose and mouth, felt a rush of clean air, and I felt instant relief. I could
breathe better, but the pain was just as intense. Lucy looked like she wasn’t
having any problems breathing. I guess I hadn’t realized just how much time I’d
spent up on the boxes where the air was thicker. 

After a few minutes with the mask on I
realized that I couldn’t see Isaiah or Evelyn. I had noticed Rachel instantly;
she was sitting in the back of an ambulance, her arm in a sling. Someone must
have knocked her over while trying to escape. Michelle was with Johnny and
Jennika, I even saw the chubby girl I had reprimanded for trying to pull the
bottom box out. 

“Do you see Isaiah, or Evelyn? They were
right next to us,” I asked Lucy, feeling dread rising. 

“I can’t find them, I’ve been looking too.”
Lucy’s eyes reflected my worried tone. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t
go back into the barn to look for him. Besides, Isaiah was a smart guy. He
would know to come out; he wouldn’t go back for anyone, I didn’t think. The
night air was cold, even with the blazing fire in front of us. I wished I still
had my jacket. Lucy was shivering even though she didn’t seem to realize it. I
looked over at her, I mean really looked, I looked at her face, her body, her
everything and let it sink in that she was really safe, that we were safe and
by some miracle had gotten out of there alive. 

Firemen were still spilling out of the
doors, people in their arms, some gasping for air, others looking like they
were passed out. My heart sank when I saw a long figure I recognized in the
arms of a large paramedic. Isaiah was limp, the whole right side of his body
bleeding and black. Behind him was a fireman holding Evelyn who was jabbering
franticly and pointing to Isaiah. Her leg was bleeding, and looked like it was
pointing in an odd angle. She was too worried about whatever was going on with
Isaiah to notice, though. Must have been jacked up on adrenaline.

The EMTs and firemen were trying to calm
her down with force but she kept flailing her arms like she was trying to get
closer to Isaiah. Lucy gasped and grabbed onto my leg. That hurt, but I didn’t
acknowledge it. The group passed us at top speed, running to an ambulance. They
had been putting as many people as possible in the backs of ambulances, then
driving the worst off to hospitals. They didn’t bother to fill Isaiah’s
ambulance, but gently laid he and Evelyn in separate rolling cots.