Chapter 2:
Inside the abandoned power station Frankie Casselman crawled along the outside wall reaching out to feel if he could find anybody in the darkness. He had almost no visibility, as the light on his helmet barely illuminated a few feet ahead of him. Behind him Kayla Lee kept on hand on his ankle as she reached out with a halogen bar trying to make contact with anybody who may be there yet hoping that everyone was already out by now.
“Fire Department” She would shout, “Call out if you can hear me.” and Frankie would follow suit.
“Fire Department” he’d yell, “Is anybody here?”
They’re calls remained unanswered as they continued along the C side of the building slowly moving away from the source of the fire. As they cleared each room, they’d mark the door and continue on to the next office. The heat had been intense and the longer they searched the more they worried that if they found anyone it would be less of a rescue and more of a body recovery.
The structure around the creaked and moaned as the fire raged behind them. They passed through a concrete fire wall that had yet to be breached, and shut the door behind them, knowing there was a way out ahead. This area was less smokey and but still dark, they were able to see more and began to separate a little in order to search faster. Frankie entered a bathroom near the corner of the building leaving Kayla at the door while he searched, they used a rope to stay connected so as not to lose each other.
The sound of the building creaking began to get louder. Kayla tugged twice on the rope signaling to Frankie.
“It’s not gonna hold much longer we need to get out.” She yelled over the sounds of chaos around her. Frankie nodded and began to make his way back out. The sound of sirens began to echo from far off.
“Shit!” Frankie exclaimed, he grabbed his partner and began to run towards the exit.
“We gotta evac now!”
They ran for the door to the emergency corridor; from there he thought a secondary exit shouldn’t be far. The building’s moaning became louder, Kayla shoved Frankie into a small office just as the building began to crumble around them. He tumbled, his radio and helmet flying off as he went down striking his head, then everything went black.
The dust was thick, and it was quiet, when he came to some time later he could hear Kayla’s P.A.S.S device screaming letting him know she had not moved for at least a minute. He made his way towards the sound just inside the door, he found her underneath some ceiling tiles and a lighting fixture that had struck her as she drove them both in here. The door they’d come in was blocked with debris.
Frankie cleared the debris from over Kayla and began to check her for injuries, satisfied she wasn’t badly hurt he tried to rouse her.
“Hey, Lee can you hear me?” he said while tapping her shoulder, she replied with a groan of pain and began to move.
“I feel like I got hit by a truck.” she started to lift herself up slowly and looked behind her where they had been running, “wasn’t that our way out?”
Frankie nodded and tried to think where they might be in the building, he knew they were near an outside wall, but that was probably a foot thick concrete, the wall behind them could be supporting debris, and if compromised it might make their situation worse. If they were near the Emergency corridor, they could try and breach that wall, it would only be about 6 inches thick, but there was no guarantee it wasn’t steel reinforced concrete as well, and they had no tools to get through that.
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When he left the Marine core, Frankie found himself with a lot of free time on his hands. He had saved for four years while he served his country and he bought a small place on the river, and Wayne moved in with him. Wayne had been working for the fire department for three years by then and was preparing for his engineer's test, Frankie of course was constantly forced to help him study. Occasionally they would get help from Scott Mellon, he had just passed the engineers exam and knew every truck pretty much back and forward. Scott had been dating a young bartender whose name Frankie couldn’t remember but it was through her that they had found Kayla, and soon she was around more than Scott was.
That was the start of the friendship between them, a bond that transferred over to the fire station when Kayla and eventually Frankie joined. It was this bond that made them such a good team, they weren’t just co-workers, they were a family. Frankie knew that no matter what Wayne and Scott were coming for them they just needed to figure out which way they were coming.
He picked up his kelly tool and made his way to the wall he suspected was shared with the emergency corridor. He used the tool and began tapping the wall to estimate the type of construction. It was definitely concrete, if he had a sledgehammer and maybe a couple of hours, he could probably knock a hole in it big enough to crawl out of, he didn’t have either of those things, and the effort would only use up the limited air supply quicker.
He sat down and began tapping the kelly bar on the wall in a repeating pattern, Tap-tap-tap, tap,tap,tap, tap-tap-tap. He would pause for a second or two then do it again. Kayla moved over to where he was, thinking he had given up.
“We’re gonna get outta here, you can't give up.” she said, shaking him. He grinned his blue eyes gleaming in the low light, “Who’s giving up, I’m telling Wayne where to make the hole.”
She looked from him to the wall and back to him for a moment, “You mean that’s the wall,” he cut her off. “Yep, to the emergency corridor, it’s reinforced and when I did the preplan it was determined to be the best point to perform rescue operation on the back side of the building.”
Kayla began searching the room for something solid, she found a three-hole punch and began tapping the wall in the same pattern as Frankie. Inside the building it was silent except for their tapping and the sound of their airpacks. They tapped for several minutes hearing nothing suddenly they began to hear a loud scraping sound, and they cleared away from the wall, ten minutes later and there was a hole barely big enough for someone’s head to fit through they could see lights shining from the other side. Two air tanks were slid through the hole, allowing them to replace they’re limited air supply followed by a second Kelly bar and a sledgehammer.
Kayla changed her air tank and then grabbed the sledge. “Typical, a modern woman’s always gotta rescue herself” she joked, and she began breaking the concrete around the hole to make it bigger. Frankie joined suit with the Kelly bar, and with both crews working from either side they began widening the hole.
For fifteen minutes they chipped away concrete and cut steel until the hole was big enough for them to squeeze through, and together the crew of Station 21 made their way out of the building, just like Wayne had planned. As they emerged from the building Frankie and Kayle happily removed their masks and got a breath for fresh air.
Wayne pulled off his mask and helmet, “You two get in the command truck I’m taking you to get checked out.” he said motioning to Frankie and Kayla. Frankie went to protest, but a quick look from the captain said that it would not even be considered.
On the opposite side of the building, Lt. Mellon had successfully led the operation to control the remains of the fire. He was in the process of releasing the mutual aid stations and setting up crews for overhaul. He saw the crew coming from the back side of the building.
“Captain,” he called out, “while you guys goofing off, we were out here working ya know.” Wayne looked at him grinned, and laughed, “Well damn Scott looks like you’re after my job, guess you can handle the rest from here, I’m taking these two to get checked.”
Scott gave him a sly grin as Wayne jumped into the command truck with Frankie and Kayla. He breathed a sigh of relief as they drove off then turned back to the task at hand. He had to get this scene wrapped up if he wanted any sleep tonight.
