The Girl Who Would Be King(62)
There are like a thousand more things on the list. We’re going to be eating at midnight.
As I’m poring over about a hundred different kinds of cheese in a dairy case the burning hits my chest. I haven’t felt the burning since that night on the street, that 4th of July, just before my first kiss with Clark. I don’t know why I haven’t been sensing anything. Selfishly, I didn’t want to question it, but now, now that it’s here, it’s like being hit by a truck. I look up and that razor focus that tells me where to go and what to do yanks me toward the back of the store. I can smell the fire already.
Somewhere along the way I drop my basket and any ideas I harbor of being some great girlfriend that cooks dinner.
As if a fire wasn’t enough, I can feel something else is wrong. Something deeper and more dangerous. As I push toward the swinging produce doors I realize that the fire alarms aren’t going off and just as I think it, the power in the store cuts out entirely and dim emergency lights click on. Some people just look up from their shopping with a cocked eyebrow, more annoyance that concern as they wait for everything to revert to normal, but others panic instantly and run toward the front doors. Before I make it to the produce doors the fire pushes through them, claiming a whole section of refrigerated meats. People are running toward the front of the store now like a crazy, spooked herd of animals. Somewhere toward the front there’s a huge, unnatural clanging sound of metal slamming against something and so I pick an aisle with a view to the storefront and see that the metal security gates are, for some reason, closed, trapping everyone inside. Crap.
The fire surges into an aisle right in front of me, and because I have terrible luck, it’s the paper section and the fire eats the whole row like it’s made of kindling, burning a path straight to the front of the store, and dangerously close to the shoppers. Their screaming triples in volume to match the heat. I don’t blame them for screaming; it’s pretty damn scary in here.
Near the back but on the side of the store I see an emergency exit, which I’m surprised nobody has thought of and I move toward it. A young man in a business suit beats me to it and is trying the door. He pushes against it with everything his body has and nothing happens. I run the rest of the way. It feels like in slow motion, and I pull him away from the door, tearing his expensive jacket in the process. I think he is going to be angry with me, some stupid girl pulling him off of the door, but instead his face is filled only with fear, and tears, and the understanding that this is it. This is his moment. I lay a strong hand on his chest.
“It’s all going to be okay,” I say. He believes me so much for a moment that I think even I believe me. He steps back and now I hit the door with everything I have. Nothing. It doesn’t move an inch. There’s a dent in it where my fist has landed, but it’s no closer to opening. I consider punching a hole in the door and tearing into it until there’s enough room for people to crawl out, but the fire is advancing toward the door’s location quickly and I don’t think there’s time for this to be a feasible exit strategy. The guy that cuts the deli meats and cheeses is running past us toward the front and I stop him, a hand on his forearm
“What’s wrong with this door?” I ask. He looks around frantically.
“The delivery guys, they park their trucks there; it’s probably blocked,” he says, tearing his arm away and heading toward the crowd piling up against the glass at the front of the store.
“Of course they do,” I say to myself. Even if I could get a hole in this door, if there are trucks parked there that people have to crawl over or under…we’ll never get everyone out in time. I look at the boy and we duck as heavy smoke rolls above us. Our faces are slick with sweat and flushed red, the heat is getting to us both. I suddenly wonder what will happen to me if I burn to death. Will I even die? Will I just keep burning and not die? I’ve rescued people from fires before, but I’ve never been trapped in one. The thought of dying repeatedly while these people burn alongside me is horrifying and shocks me back to reality.
“C’mon,” I say to the boy. “Back to the front.” He follows me dutifully, maybe because he saw what I did to the door or maybe just because he doesn’t know what else to do. On the way I grab an armful of dishtowels and motion for the boy to do the same. I wrap one of the larger ones around my face, as much to hide myself as to cover my mouth from the smoke. I hear sirens in the distance, but they’re too far off to make a difference. We are all going to die in here – well, maybe not me – that’s still up for discussion, but everyone else if I can’t get them out in the next few minutes. The smoke is causing people to faint left and right. If they’re lucky, they get caught by a stranger, if they’re not, they hit the linoleum with a thud. While we’re making our way to the front of the store, the cookie and cereal aisle goes up in flames. People, at least forty, cluster at one side of the front of the store, behind a row of sodas and bottled waters. Half of them have fainted, the other half look ready to go at any moment. I touch the boy on his shoulder and point. He runs into a group and huddles up, passing out dishtowels and I give the ones I’m holding to the group on the other side. More than half of the store is engulfed in flames, and the wall of glass is moments away from becoming merely a wall of fire. I move as far away from the flames as I can risk. I reach a hand out to the glass or whatever the hell it is that is keeping us in, some kind of re-enforced ridiculousness better suited for a prison than a grocery store in Manhattan.