Wyatt got up just fine every morning. It wasn’t alarms he had a thing with -- even if his phone faded in ‘stead of blaring, and tingled like wind-chimes from his night-stand. And there was the noon-time whistle back home, cutting through the day, and there was the tinny chirp the smoke detector kept making that first week when it needed fuller batteries, but he never felt cold or twitchy, with them, no matter how abrupt or loud. Some sounds keep you safe. Some just jolt you awake: take inventory, they say, and then go back to what you’re doing. It can’t hurt to check the horizon, just to make sure it’s still clear.
They can’t hurt.
Not alarms.
It was a little past three when he checked the time. Outside, from the hallway, a noise that kept repeating ‘til he was flexing socks against the rug, like someone knocking slapping banging at his door to get him up and out of bed. Even Ellis, who never barked, was darting out of view to the hallway, then scrambling back into his room -- he watched her whimpering shape leave a couple more times before he reached up to rub the blur out of his eyes.
“Okay. Okay, girl.” He was a good sleeper, alright? It took a minute for all the machinery to turn on. “I hear it, too.” Nothing had gone off in his apartment, which was a good sign -- could be a drill, though a poorly-timed one -- but weren’t the best drills poorly-timed? the smartest ones, anyway -- and he bent low to pick her up as he padded into the living room, where it felt just a few degrees warmer than winter. She was definitely shaking. He could feel it through her fur, pressing into his skin.
She shook for the vacuum cleaner, too. Wyatt told himself that, as he opened the window to his fire escape and all the cold outside came shoving in. It was just the noise that was getting to her -- but he remembered the panic that had started in the stable before it spread, and how comfortable the roof used to feel up where it peaked and sloped down. It stopped snowing two days ago; this was smoke, slipping into his apartment from next door.
All emergencies look safe from far away.
Ellis knew. He tried to keep her away from the window ledge, the side of his body that was still near the heater by the wall, but she wriggled when he tensed up, ‘cause animals always know. And he was cursing, all of a sudden, “Shit,” turning, patting his sweatpants for the keys that had no business being there -- (the counter, the silverware drawer) -- “Shit shit shit,” sneakers by the couch no socks no time to go back and find a coat. Alarms are just sirens that haven’t gotten bad yet. No sirens yet. Nothing thick in his throat. He grabbed the knob without testing it but it wasn’t hot, it was still contained, the light under his neighbor’s door just black air and bright orange, bright.
In case of fire use stairs. In case of. He went down two at a time, hand skirting the railing so he could start skipping more if he had to, Ellie hard to hold with the way she was moving her feet. “Shhhh,” he said. There were more people filtering down around him, school-taught orderly fashion abandoned in the face of something real. Building rules forgotten. Decency, courtesy -- he was just looking at his feet and trying to get them to move faster than the narrow steps would allow. His chin rubbed between Ellie’s ears with the effort.
So it took ten minutes to get outside, if you counted the time he wasted sat in bed. Others had been faster, were already there on the sidewalk when he cleared the stoop, and he took their lead to join them across the street. Look both ways. Wyatt was thinking about fire trucks. He was thinking about ambulances, and all the times they’d gone past him on his way to work. He didn’t feel January until he saw the fire from out here, casting colors on the brick. If Ellie was shaking, then he was shivering (let’s call it shivering) with the wind on his back. Iowa winters weren’t kind. Chicago was worse -- and he used his other arm to hold her closer, in an effort to share the warmth.
