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“Ohhhh geez,” Justin muttered openly, dragging his hand down his face as if in pain at the man’s puns that normally made them all crack up laughing.
“You’re a dork.”
“He’s anidiot… there’s a difference,” Andy grinned, hefting a massive wrench onto his shoulder. “I’ve got the ol’ nut buster for the plug, you guys got the spaghetti ready?”
They used all sorts of slang, but Andy had his own set of terms – and some of them were quite offensive and didn’t bear repeating.
“Hoses are ready…”
“’Broswiththe hose’ sounds so much better, doesn’t it?” Austin joked, elbowing Kyle as he chuckled.
People were streaming out of their houses around them, crowding the area quickly, as others were screaming and crying, asking questions, and coming up to them.
“Yo! Where’s Chase? I need a barrier…” Austin hollered openly, shrugging off some woman who was clinging to his arm as he was donning his tanks. Kyle had already slipped on his, just in case.
“Fire on the Delta, boys…” Chase suddenly appeared, yelling loudly for all of them. “We’ve got a fire on the west side, second story… the shed is on fire in the yard, too.”
Chase walked right past them, hollering at the crowd gathering.
“Get back! I’m going to need everyone to step back!”
“I’ve got the attack line for the shed,” Andy volunteered.
Austin and Kyle were hooking up the hoses, focused and working diligently as Justin got out of the truck. He would be running the gauges on the truck that would charge the lines for them.
Andy was already walking back in their direction.
“I’m knockin’…” Andy hollered, donning his gear, and moving toward the front door. He had a pike pole that was about five feet long, using it as he walked up to the entryway.
“We’re going in…” Austin nodded, slapping Kyle on the shoulder. “Let’s move.”
Andy moved the line away from the shed to the front door behind Austin. Kyle was not far behind the duo. There was no fire and very little smoke on the first floor… it was eerie seeing what a fire could do.
There were tendrils, wisps of smoke, crawling along the textured ceiling like some amorphous spiders looking for prey. The dark gray fingers of smoke were sometimes faint and other times thick, but clung fast above their heads. They could hear popping in the distance, even through their helmets that made their breath echo loudly through their respirators.
It was an intense sensation knowing that something so brutal and destructive was directly above them, eating its way through this person’s life they had built and their home… which got him to thinking about Reyna.
“Three with me,” Andy called out in the mic, alerting the others that they were going up as a team to search the second floor. Communication was everything, because if you got lost or disoriented, it could mean life or death.
Kyle was busy counting steps in case they lost their line of sight and mentally mapping the house in his mind… only to have the hose they were holding suddenly stretched taut.
“I’m out of line,” Kyle called out in the mic.
“We need more hose,” Austin chimed in openly. “Chase, hook up the other line.”
“I gotchu bro…” came a crackled voice, causing the three men to chuckle as Andy muttered something foul in his helmet loud enough for Kyle and Austin to hear it.
“I’m going to try to get some slack in the line,” Austin called out.
“Rimes, with me,” Andy replied, suddenly sounding serious. “I’ve got smoke on the right…”
“Losing visibility,” Kyle prompted, talking with the entire team.
“Copy that,” Austin called out. “We’ve got smoke rolling down the stairs, Marks.”
“Copy,” Chase replied on the coms. “Okay to proceed?”
“We’re good,” Andy called out, moving forward.
