Burn Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyrights

  Dedication

  Quote

  Part 1 – Oxygen

  1 Caleb – Ladder Company

  2 Mila – Exposure

  3 Caleb – Firefighter

  4 Mila – Radiant Extension

  5 Mila – Chimney Fire

  6 Caleb – Well Involved

  7 Mila – Breathing Apparatus

  8 Caleb – Charged Hose

  9 Mila – Fire Flow

  10 Caleb – Fire ground

  11 Mila – Indirect Attack

  12 Caleb – Hot Zone

  13 Mila – Backflow Preventer

  Part 2 - Heat

  14 Caleb – Cross Lay

  15 Mila – Voids

  16 Caleb – Ventilation

  17 Mila – Overhauling

  18 Mila – Accountability

  19 Mila – HAZMAT

  20 Mila – Oxidizer

  21 Mila – Pyrolysis

  22 Caleb – Staging

  Part 3 - Fuel

  23 Mila – Personal Accountability System

  24 Caleb – Vapor Suppression

  25 Caleb – Determinate

  26 Mila – Flash Point

  27 Caleb – Hazard

  28 Mila – Backdraft

  29 Caleb – Outrigger

  30 Mila – Company

  31 Caleb – Occupancy

  32 Mila – Shoulder Load

  Author Acknowledgements

  Meet the Author

  Thank you for purchasing Burn. To be notified of new releases join my mailing list on my website at: www.sheystahl.com

  Copyright © 2017 by Shey Stahl

  Printed in the United States of America

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of Shey Stahl.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, 911 calls, the situations the firefighters encounter, locales, or persons, dead or living, is coincidental. Certain phrases, quotes, and/or lines from the author’s previous works may appear in this book and are copyrighted by Shey Stahl. A select few scenes were previously written and published under another pen name the author used and no longer available for purchase. The scenes have been rewritten and edited for the publication of Burn.

  Copy Editing: Becky Johnson, Hot Tree Editing

  Proofreading & BETA Reading: Janet Johnson, Marisa Noonan & Lauren Zimmerman

  Cover Image: Copyright © FuriousFotog

  Cover Model: Nick Bennett and Madena Rose

  Cover Designer: Tracy Steeg

  Graphics by Tracy Steeg and Formatting by A Designs

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  Ladder Company

  A group of firefighters, officers, and engineers who staff a ladder truck.

  “Fuck,” I murmur to myself, dragging my palms over my face, frustrated sleep isn’t happening for me.

  Glancing at the clock on the wall, I notice it’s a little after three in the morning. It’s officially Christmas Eve.

  I hate it when I can’t sleep. Mostly because any rest I get is needed.

  Still, I lie awake at night. Hazard of the job?

  Maybe. I’m a firefighter, and we have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

  For close to an hour, I lie here listening to the sounds of the fourteen guys around me, some snoring, some talking in their sleep and one making a noise I don’t want to know the meaning of.

  Then there’s our probie, Finn. Little shit is on his cell phone, white screen lighting up the dark room. It’s like a goddamn spotlight on the ceiling and only pisses me off more than I usually am.

  Turning over, I tuck my hands under my chin and stare at him. “Turn that motherfucker off before I break it. I can’t sleep.” He’s not the reason for me not sleeping, but I blame him anyway. He turns to look at me and shakes his head but sure as hell, he turns off his phone. He knows his place.

  He’s a probationary firefighter. It’s our job to give him crap and test his abilities. If you can’t take being treated like a grunt for a year, there’s no way in hell I want you beside me in the fire.

  Why?

  It’s a proven theory if you can’t stand your ground in a firehouse, you can’t take the heat of a fire.

  Just as I’m beginning to fall asleep, a tone sounds through the fire house, a bell so loud you can be out to the world and still hear it.

  It’s followed with our truck assignments. “1346 hours, aide response cross of Denny Way and Olive. Ladder 1o, engine 25, aide 25 . . . MVA.”

  Here we go.

  I dread the motor vehicle accidents the most because you never know what you’re going to be met with when you show up on scene. If you’re called to a fire, you have a general idea of what you’re getting into. Car accidents are something else entirely. I might be picking up body parts off the freeway or trying to pry a dead three-year-old from his mother’s arms because she thought it’d be okay to hold him in the front seat because he was crying.

  Without hesitation, me and the other guys of ladder 10 and engine 25 move through the bunk room and into the apparatus bay. We have our gear on in under a minute and stepping onto the already rumbling truck.

  “Shit, I have to pee so bad,” I mumble, knowing I don’t have time.

  I hear a laugh next to me, and even though I know who it is, I turn to see Owen, my best friend, laughing, always in the same seat right next to me like he’s been for the last four years.

  Asshole’s only laughing because this happened to him last week when we were battling a fire up in SoDo. He spent an hour with that unbearable pain of having to pee until he stumbled into what looked to have been a bathroom, or used to be. Only problem is when he started to take a piss, he didn’t realize the wall was gone, and when the smoke cleared, Owen was showing about a half a dozen bystanders his junk.

  “At least I can hold it,” I tease. “Unlike you.”

  Owen doesn’t say much, sits and smiles as the guys rouse him about it. There are just some things you can never live down with guys like us.

  Aluminum overhead doors lift clear of the bays while our engineer hits the lights and sirens and punches the gas rolling onto Pine St.

  Within three minutes from the time the dispatch was given, we’re on scene and most of us are shaking our heads at the situation before us.

  “At least this joker’s in one piece this time,” Jay, another firefighter on ladder 10 with us, notes. “I don’t think I can stomach another dismembered body this week.”

  I’m with Jay. At least he’s in one piece. Four days ago we went to a call where a man had been cut in half. Torso in the back seat, cell phone still in his hand and his legs in the front. All I’m going to say is if you see a flatbed hauler on the freeway stopping, my advice would be to put your cell phone down, and drive your goddamn car. Or here’s a useful recommendation too. Use your brakes.

  People dial 911 for ridiculous reasons. Ask any firefighter around, and he’ll nod with a grin remembering the ones he’d like to forget but can’t.

  You’d never believe some of the calls we get. Anywhere from sunburns to teenagers experiencing menstrual cramps for the first time. Hell
, even homosexuals with bleeding rectums. It was a bad day for that guy. But you know, two weeks before that he stuck a shower head up there, so we weren’t exactly surprised on that one. His name is Justin. Real nice guy but he’s bat-shit crazy if you ask me.

  But seriously, some of the craziest stories start with someone calling 911. I’m sure the bleeding rectum guy would probably agree with me on this one.

  Case in point. If you came upon the scenes we do, you’d understand.

  Just ask this guy trapped in his car suspended in wires sixty feet off the ground. I bet you a hundred bucks how his car got up there is a good story.

  I take that back. I don’t have a hundred bucks. I’m a firefighter. Our pay is shit.

  “How in the fuck did he manage this is what I want to know?” Captain Gibson asks, scratching the side of his head under his helmet.

  Looking up at the car, my eyes strain to make out if there are any passengers in the car with the driver.

  “It’s impressive,” I mumble, stepping to the side and then eyeing the guy-wire. I bet he wasn’t paying attention, hit them and launched his car up in the air. Surprisingly, I’ve seen this kind of thing before, just not as high up as this guy managed to get.

  “Holy shit.” Owen laughs, patting his pockets on his bunker gear searching for his cell phone. “This guy is my fuckin’ hero,” he says, just before taking a selfie with the car in the background.

  Our job as firefighters is to stabilize the scene and this guy so the paramedics can tend to him if needed, but I’m thinking he’s not feeling a thing when we get up there. Extended in the air by an aerial ladder and he smiles at us like he’s just been awarded a prize. He has. Biggest Dumb-ass prize and by the smell of him, a free ticket to jail for drunk driving.

  “Seattle fire department to the rescue.” Owen nods to the guy who’s staring at us with wide eyes. “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Asher.”

  “Well, Asher, I hope you’re not in a hurry, bud,” Owen says to him with a smile, tipping his head to the side and eyeing the car.

  “Nah, I got time,” he mumbles, slurring his words. It’s then I notice he’s just a kid. Probably not even twenty-one.

  When he opens his mouth, we know just how drunk he is. It’s so bad I feel I’m contact drunk, if that’s such a thing.

  “Yeah, you do.” Owen chuckles, giving a nod to the Captain below. “Get the PUD down here.”

  “Can I ask how exactly you did this?” I ask, still trying to understand how he got up here.

  “Over corrected in the corner?” His reply comes out in the form of a question.

  “So . . .” Owen’s voice is drawn out like he’s surprised by what he’s saying.

  The kid sighs, as if he can’t believe he has to explain how this happened. “I hit a fence . . . then I guess the wire? Next thing I knew I was up here.”

  Owen and I look at the street, both ways before saying, “What corner?”

  The guy shrugs. Just shrugs.

  Sure, we find entertainment in these calls, but this isn’t the sort of action we sign up for when we decide to become a firefighter. You don’t think as a kid, “Fuck, man, I can’t wait to go to a house, find a dead guy with a penis pump in hand, a box of porn and a fridge full of PBR.”

  True story, I swear.

  If you do . . . man, you’re in it for the wrong reasons, but more power to you.

  The guys I know, we want fire calls. We crave those voracious flames, the untamable monster of incinerators, the infernos we hardly ever see but dream of. We’re adrenaline seekers, and there’s nothing better than running into a fire to save lives. I guess in a sense it’s the idea that in those moments upon entering a fire, I’m more alive than ever, confronted by the possibility of death, surrounded and vulnerable to it.

  I love bashing in steel doors, smashing out windows, tearing holes in steep-pitched roofs with metal spears and iron hooks. I find comfort in ripping into ceilings and walls as I chase veins of fire hiding behind plaster.

  And it all hits me when I step outside, gasping for fresh air through puddles of sooty water and ladders stretching up a hundred teetering feet. It’s that sensation, the sights, sounds, smells, as horrifying as it sounds to others, it’s exhilarating and nothing like anything else I’ve experienced in life. Or will ever as far as I’m concerned.

  WALKING BACK TO the truck, I glance down at my phone to check any missed calls. Mom said she’d send me a text with what time to come over tomorrow for Christmas dinner but had yet to say when.

  “She call you again?” Owen asks, walking beside me, the lights of the police car with the kid in the back for driving under the influence and being only sixteen, flashing like strobe lights.

  He doesn’t have to say her name. I know the she he’s referring to. My ex-girlfriend.

  I don’t want to be talking about my ex-girlfriend, but unfortunately, she’s the topic of conversation more often than not in the firehouse since we broke up.

  You can’t keep your private life private when you spend twenty-four hours on duty with the same group of guys. There’s downtime, and when there’s downtime, they have an unprecedented way of getting information out of anyone.

  Here’s some advice for you. Take it or leave it. Really doesn’t fucking matter to me, but don’t say I didn’t warn you on this one. If you’re dating a girl and she tells you she works nights at a job you can never stop by and visit her at, chances are she’s doing something you’re not going to agree with.

  In my case, she told me she was a bartender for a private catering company.

  Read between the lines. She’s a fucking stripper.

  How’d I find out?

  So I’m at a bachelor party for one of the guys at the station, and you can imagine my surprise when said girlfriend is hired to give the groom a lap dance.

  I can list off all kinds of reasons why I had a huge problem with this, most of them having to do with finding out she’s given lap dances to just about every one of the guys at the station and fucked a few of them too.

  In my defense, her story was believable, but when I think about it now, I suppose I should have known by her name. Gemma Rae.

  Tucking my phone in my pocket, I stare off into the rising sun over the city as I say, “She calls constantly spouting off shit about how sorry she is and wants me back.”

  Owen chuckles, replacing the SCBA tanks on the truck and then closing the storage compartment door. “It’s been like three months. Maybe you should call her for a booty call at least.”

  Again with the knowing too much information about me. Owen, mostly because he lives with me too, knows I haven’t been laid since Gemma and I broke up. And believe me, I’ve thought of calling her just for sex, but Gemma’s not the type. She’s clingy, which is entertaining considering what she does for a living. You wouldn’t think she’d want to be attached to anyone. She claims she’s different when she’s at the club. She’s just doing a job. Bullshit. All of it.

  As we’re climbing back on the truck, Owen notices Finn, the probie, staring at his phone again. “Dude, what’s with you and your phone lately?”

  Jay’s the next to get on the truck and plops next to Finn. “He’s stalking this chick he met the other night.” And then he gives a nod to the phone. “I’m telling ya, kid. She’s a fuckin’ stripper.”

  And then suddenly all eyes are on me. Like I’m the know it all when it comes to strippers. Fuckers.

  I take the phone from Finn’s hand and examine a few photos.

  Chick’s hot, I’ll give him that much, but when I see her legs wrapped around a pole on just about every picture, it’s a sign. A giant, neon blinking sign. If Gemma had Instagram when we were together, which I’m sure she does—I never bothered to look—it probably looked like this chick’s.

  Lesson learned here? Stalk your hookups on social media. Especially Instagram.

  Finn’s onto something here, but I have to deliver the bad news. “Yup. Stripper.” I
hand the phone back to him.

  Finn looks dejected, his smile fading. “Fuck, that sucks.” And then he stares at me for a moment before asking, “Why are all the hot one’s strippers?”

  I shrug and stare at the city passing us by. “Fuck if I know.”

  Once we’re back at the station, my ex, the stripper, calls again. I’m not sure why, but I answer it this time.

  “What do you want?”

  “You,” she purrs, yes, fucking purrs. She always does shit like this. “But I’ll settle on just meeting for dinner tonight.”

  I laugh and lean into the side of the truck. Owen and Jay are watching me, smiling. I roll my eyes, shaking my head. “I’m not having dinner with you. I can’t even stand to be in the same room with you.”

  “Caleb,” she sighs, mostly because she’s heard this before. I’m a big grudge holder. Lie to me and I’ll never forget it. Break my heart and I’ll destroy yours. It’s just how I am. “I’m trying to be nice here and I miss you.”

  “You miss my dick, honey, not me. And you ain’t gettin’ it either tonight or any other night for that matter.” And then I hang up because I’m a jerk and fucking feel like hanging up on her.

  I dated Gemma for a fucking year. Or I should say I fucked her for a year. I think I took her on like two dates in that time frame. You’d think somewhere along that year of “fucking” I would have figured it out since I’m a fairly intuitive kind of guy, but apparently not. My bad.

  So now I’m living a new philosophy. Don’t ever believe anything women tell you. At least that’s my general assessment of women. It’s been three months since we broke up and you know, my thoughts still haven’t changed. Doubt they ever will again. They say once you’ve been burned, you’ll always remember that sting. It’s true. I should know. I have the scars to prove it.

  We’d no sooner got back to the station, topped off the tanker, refueled the trucks, charged batteries for the radio and another call came in.

  Looks like the last couple of hours on shift are going to be busy ones.

  “IS THAT cocaine?”