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Virginia Curtis always thought she would die young. In her youth, she figured a child would rather die before she sees her mother and father depart but perhaps that was her own untouched grief speaking. Now grown and desiring a family of her own, she would never want her child to understand that pain. Yet she wouldn't want to lose her child either. It was a tricky, wicked battle in her head.
Whatever was in the bottle took the fire at once, the wood frame of the doorway a heartbeat later. Tiny flames darted up the walls like swift red mice, skating over the curling wallpaper. The bottle bomb, a weapon of war.
"Oh my," Virginia couldn't even breathe. The phone receiver fell from her hand, clattering against the title and bobbing from the plastic blue coil. She couldn't hear Darry's panicked questions over the sound of the roaring flames. A rising heat puffed at her face, soft and sudden as a lover's breath, but in seconds it had grown too hot to bear.
"Shit!" Dallas cursed, leaping out of his seat. His hand immediately latched onto Virginia's wrist with a vice-like grip. Virginia winced at the pain but she scrambled off the countertop.
"The backroom!" she yelped, ripping her arm away from Dallas who stood in front of her.
He stared at the flames, his pallid face marked with fear as he unwittingly stepped backward. The tongues of red and orange roared and he immediately held his arm out to shield Virginia as she yanked at the brass doorknob.
"It's locked— I don't have the key!" Virginia cried out. A sharp, acrid scent filled her nose, dripping down the back of her throat like poison. Any hope of slipping past the front door was useless. It was lost to the inferno.
"Move," Dallas muttered and when she hesitated, half-hazed from the shock of what was happening, he demanded louder, "move!"
When she inched away, he tried kicking down the door. The wooden slab rustled slightly, again and again, and when Dallas stumbled back, Virginia threw herself at it. A sharp shooting pain surged down her shoulder but she rammed into the door twice before Dallas yanked her away.
"You're gonna hurt yourself," he said.
Virginia didn't relent. This was not how it was supposed to end. The heat of the flames rushed inside of her and for a moment, she thought she was on fire. But for some reason, she embraced it. A white-hot seething rage overtook her and she punched the door. A pulsing pain echoed in each of her knuckles. Dallas forcefully moved her behind him and he tried shoving his whole weight against it as well. He dug through his pockets, flipping out his switchblade to try jamming it into the lockset.
Virginia stumbled backward as the flames whirled and writhed, racing each other up the wall. The unrefrigerated cases of pop bottles splintered and burst, spilling cola all over the tiles. Heat waves shimmered in the air. She heard wood spit and wallpaper crackle. Huge orange gouts of fire unfurled their banners in that hellish wind. Glowing cinders rose on the smoke to float away into the smoky clouds like so many newborn fireflies.
