Chapter 1

Introducing Ward Conrad and Cathy Ambrose...

Ward has the narrative

My parents, Lane and Rhoda Conrad, named me Ward Conrad. I considered myself to be a typical teenager, but that changed shortly after my seventeenth birthday.

School would be starting soon. Mom’s taste in school clothes and mine were considerably different. She gave me three hundred dollars in cash and told me I was old enough to buy my own school cloths and I shouldn’t spend it all in one place.

I decided to start my shopping spree at Brenner’s Department Store. The Men’s Department was on the second floor of the two-story building. I was in the dressing room trying on clothes, when I heard people screaming: ‘FIRE!’’

I quickly put my clothes back on and headed for the escalator. The carpet in front of the escalators was on fire, and a heavy cloud of dark smoke was rolling along the ceiling toward me. The flames were preventing people from getting to the escalators, so I checked and found I couldn’t get to the emergency exit stairway or to the elevator due to two more fires. I saw over a dozen people trying to get off the second floor. However, we were trapped and all of us were coughing our lungs out from the smoke.

I remembered seeing a fire extinguisher in the store’s Customer Service area, and headed there to grab it. I thought that I could knock the flames down enough so we could get on the down escalator, which was still running.

Grabbing the extinguisher, I headed for the escalator and shouted out for everyone to head for the escalator. As I approached the escalator, I noticed a rather large, imposing man leaning on crutches and coughing as badly as I was. He saw me and the fire extinguisher and he smiled.

Between coughs, he said, “I’m glad someone is using their head. Are you trained to use a fire extinguisher?”

“No, but it can’t be that hard.”

“My name is John Wolfe, and I was a fireman before my injury. I may be injured, but I know how to use an extinguisher. They aren’t hard to use, but most people don’t know the proper way to use one. If you will get us about ten of those roll around racks full of clothes, I’ll show you how to use an extinguisher.”

I felt disappointed about him wanting to take over my idea because I wanted to use the extinguisher, but I handed him the extinguisher.

I said, “Considering the situation, it is probably better to have someone who knows what they are doing use it, than to have me use it to just satisfy my curiosity.”

John pointed to a small group of about five people and said, “I need you to help my assistant get us at least ten racks of clothing.”

We went and gathered the racks of clothing he requested. While doing so, I tried to figure out why he wanted the clothes.

After we parked the racks of clothes near the down escalator, John told me, “This is a low-capacity CO2 fire extinguisher. The carpet is polyester, and the flames have melted the polyester. As I put out a small section of the flames, you need to throw clothes on top of the molten polyester. That will prevent the fumes from the vaporized polyester from mixing with the air and re-igniting.”

As he prepared to spray the first small section, he said to me and my helpers, “I am going to direct short bursts of the CO2 at the base of the flames in order to extinguish them. As each section of burning carpet is extinguished, I will step back and the young man helping me is to immediately throw clothes on the extinguished portion of the carpet. The rest of you are his helpers. You are to keep him supplied with armloads of clothes.”

My helpers formed a chain to move the clothes from the racks to me. John told the rest of the people to stay back until we finished.

John then sprayed a short burst of CO2 to extinguish a portion of the flames on the left side of the down escalator. He stepped back and I stepped in and immediately threw a layer of clothing on the extinguished section of carpet. I then stepped back and my helpers supplied me with another armful of clothes.

John continued spraying small sections of the burning carpet to the left, front, and right of the down escalator with CO2. My helpers kept handing me clothes, which I spread over the molten polyester.

We were lucky that only a small area of carpet in front of and to the sides of the down escalator was on fire. As he finished extinguishing the burning carpet on the right side of the down escalator, John ran out of CO2.

A group of coughing, gagging people had gathered near the escalator. When they saw John was out of CO2, they started toward the down escalator.

John screamed, “Get back!”

They did. Except for one woman who ignored him and ran across the clothes I had thrown on the molten carpet. As she stepped on the clothes, her sandals sank into the molten polyester. It flowed through a gap in the clothes, over the edge of her sandals, and onto her skin. She made it to the escalator, but collapsed and screamed all the way down to the ground floor. Her screams of pain stopped the other people from stepping on the clothes.

John had me throw a very thick layer of clothing over the carpet in front of and to the sides of the down escalator. When John said it was safe, everyone rushed to the escalator to get downstairs. John and I stood back so we wouldn’t be trampled in the stampede.

While still coughing, we looked at each other. John asked, “What’s your name, kid?”

I don’t consider myself a kid, but he meant it in a friendly way, so I wasn’t offended.

“Ward Conrad, Sir.”

“Well, Ward, the fire department should be here shortly. How are you holding up?”

“I’m okay except for the smoke irritating my throat and lungs. Shouldn’t we go downstairs now?”

“I suppose so, Ward, but if you are up to it, you could make a quick sweep through the second floor and direct anyone you find to the escalator. I’d do it, but my leg and hip make it very difficult for me to get around.”

“I suppose I could do that.”

“I’ll wait here to keep the fire from reigniting and to direct people to the escalator.”

The CO2 was gone, so I suppose he planned to smother any new flames with the clothes remaining on the racks. Therefore, I started a loop through the top floor.

I was over half way around the floor and had directed three women and two men toward John, when I saw someone lying on the floor. It was one of my classmates, Cathy Ambrose, and she was unconscious.

I was light-headed by that time, and barely able to stand. I couldn’t pick her up, so I grabbed her wrists and started dragging her toward the escalator, while looking around for anyone else that may need to be told to go to the down escalator.

I was almost there, when a fireman reached me. He picked up Cathy and headed for the escalator. A second fireman pulled my arm over his shoulder and helped me to the escalator. The last thing I remember was, me stepping on the escalator and seeing John smiling up at me from the ground floor.

It seemed as if I was waking up from a very deep sleep. I was almost, but not fully conscious. I drifted along in a pleasant haze hearing noises and voices, but not understanding what they meant. I gradually became aware of my surroundings and my very dry throat.

As my level of awareness increased, I realized I was in a bed in a dimly lit room that wasn’t my bedroom. I started to get out of bed, but something wasn’t right. I was very weak, had a sore throat, and there was an oxygen mask on my face. I later learned I also had an IV in my arm, electrical leads connected to sensors on my chest, and a catheter connecting me to a urine bag. Evidently, I hadn’t been as aware of my surroundings as I initially thought I was.

A nurse appeared beside my bed to keep me from doing what I wanted to do, which was get out of bed. As weak as I was, it was easy for her to press me back until I was lying flat on the bed.

She forcefully said, “Stay there!”

I think the nurse wanted to assess my awareness for she said, “Nod after each thing I tell you if you understand,”

In short, clear sentences, and watching my facial expressions, she said, “You are in the hospital. {Nod}

“You were brought here three days ago.” {Nod}

“Just relax, and stay in bed.” {Nod}

“I’ll be right back.” {Nod}”

Apparently, the nurse believed my nods indicated I was aware of what she had told me and that I would comply. Before she left my room, she raised the upper half of my bed.

Being a perpetually horny teenager, I noticed that she was rather attractive, but too old for me. She had to be in at least her mid-to-late twenties. About a minute later, the nurse came back into my room and removed my face mask. She was even more attractive coming than she had been when leaving.

She said, “Here’s a cup of water with ice chips for your throat and a straw to sip it with. I let the on-call doctor know you’re awake. It’s nighttime, so he will be down to see you as soon as he gets dressed.” I nodded to let her know I understood.

She handed me the cup and said, “Now, take several very small sips, and swallow them, so I know you won’t choke to death if I leave you alone.”

While I started sipping on the water and swallowing it, she moved a roll-around table to over my bed so I could put the cup on it. Then she said, “The paramedics sent everyone exposed to the smoke to your local hospital’s emergency room. The doctors tested everyone’s blood and found some very unusual chemicals. Only you and the young woman you rescued were in need of special treatment. The emergency room doctors sent the two of you here to the UCLA Westwood Medical Center. The concentration of chemicals in your and the young lady’s blood samples was over three times higher than the average of the other peoples’ blood samples.”

After I swallowed a few more sips of water, and then set the cup on the table, she said, “Stay in bed, while I go and call your parents to let them know that you are awake.” I didn’t feel up to talking, so I again nodded.

The nurse returned to check on me and eventually the doctor showed up. He checked me over and asked me numerous questions about how I was feeling.

Once he finished assessing me, he said, “If you start experiencing any unusual sensations or emotions, let the nurse know immediately.

“The smoke you inhaled contained the byproducts of the hallucinogenic drugs and other things that were burnt during the fire. Some of the other smoke inhalation patients have experienced some unusual reactions, emotions, and dreams. Your friend Miss Ambrose is just down the hall, and her experiences since waking up are unusual.”

I was glad to hear Cathy was okay. I assumed she was not affected by the smoke as badly as me; since she woke up sooner. The nurse came in after the doctor left to let me know my parents were on the way to see me and would be here shortly.

She had also told me that the doctor would be there shortly. For some reason, I started thinking about shortly for at the moment it seemed to be a strange word. John had said the fire department would be there shortly, which took more than five minutes. It took the doctor close to thirty minutes to shortly get to my room from his office upstairs. I wondered how shortly it would take for my parents to arrive. What type of clock is used to measure shortly? Was shortly a unit of time that I had never heard of? I also wondered what the doctor would think of my thoughts.

Mom and Dad got to my room around ten o’clock. Mom was her usual emotional self, while Dad displayed a more stoic demeanor. Once Mom knew I was okay, she started to give me hell.

“Ward, you are going to be the death of me if you keep ending up in the hospital from doing such dangerous things. You had your father and I worried sick. I just don’t know what I’m going to do with you if you ever do this to me again.”

That was unfair for I had only been in the hospital on one prior occasion, and that was due to appendicitis. Dad was standing behind and to the side of my mom. I saw Dad smile and just shrug his shoulders.

I looked at Mom and said, “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t know shopping was that dangerous. I’ll try to be more careful in the future.”

She opened her mouth to say more, but stopped. She smiled when she realized what she and I had said. When she started laughing, my dad and I joined her. Our laughs transitioned into chuckles.

When we finally stopped chuckling, Dad said, “Ward, we know that you were in a situation that was not of your making. That guy John told us you kept your head and handled yourself very well. We’re very proud of you, Son.”

We talked for another thirty minutes or so, and then the nurse came in and told my parents that they would have to leave. She said that I needed to get some sleep. After we said our goodbyes, they left.

Yeah, I know it’s a weird thing for a teenager to think about, but I got to thinking about hospital logic. I just woke up from a three-day coma and was wide-awake, and the nurse says that I needed to go to sleep. It may be nighttime, but I wasn’t sleepy.

As I lay there waiting to go to sleep, two oddities occurred to me.

The first oddity was, the doctors in the first hospital’s emergency room must have assumed my blood’s high concentration of chemicals was due to my working near the burning carpet in front of the escalator. They also seemed to not notice that the concentration of chemicals in my blood was evidently significantly higher than the level in John’s blood, but we worked standing side-by-side as we put out the flames. One good thing was, they didn’t ask me what drugs I had taken when I woke up.

The second oddity was, no one in the hospital seemed to realize Cathy was in the same area as some of the other women that inhaled smoke, and the concentration of chemicals in her blood was three times higher than that of the women who had been near her.

I lay there for a while thinking about the oddities and soon fell asleep. I guess the nurse knew what she was talking about. My dreams were weird. Disturbing to the point that I kept waking up and then dropping back to sleep.

Early the next morning, I learned that hospital logic also states that the patients, who need their sleep, have to wake up very early to get ready for their doctor’s visit. I guess the nurses, lab techs, and other staff members need to do many things before the doctors make their rounds, and we patients had to be awake to support their activities.

My doctor finally showed up around nine. If I remembered last night correctly, the nurse said I needed rest, so she woke me at six o’clock for him to visit me at nine. Did shortly come into play with that scheduling?

He looked me over, asked a number of questions, gave the nurse some instructions, and then disappeared. The nurse came by later and disconnected me from everything but the IV.

She said, “The IV is helping to flush the chemicals from your blood, so you will have to continue the IV until your blood work comes back clear of drugs. The doctor wants you to walk as much as you can, but don’t overdo it. Your legs will be weak for a day or so until you recover from just lying in bed.”

I was feeling energetic after lunch, so I took my IV stand for a short walk down the hall. I made it to the end of the hall, turned around, and started back. A short distance down the hall, I saw Cathy coming out of her room with her IV stand.

We said “Hi” to each other, and I said, “I would like to stay and talk with you, Cathy, but my legs are feeling weak.”

I headed back to my room, and she walked with me asking how I was doing. We must have been a sight, a skinny five foot eleven inch teenage male with hazel eyes and brown hair walking beside a curvaceous five foot six inch blue-eyed, blond teenage female, both pushing IV stands down the hall while dressed in hospital gowns. You know those gowns that sometimes flap open in back. I invited her in when we got to my room and I made it to my bed before I collapsed. Cathy pulled up a chair and sat down.

Getting a conversation going was a little difficult. At first, I attributed the difficulty to our hanging out with different cliques and not really knowing each other. That may have been part of it, but once we got started, we talked for a quite a while.

Cathy suddenly got teary-eyed with a serious look on her face. She said, “Thank you for saving my life, Ward.”

I gave her a shocked look and asked, “What! What do you mean?”

She gave me a funny look and said, “Well according to the newspapers and TV, you risked your life to carry me out of the building and away from the smoke and fire.”

I sat there dumbfounded shaking my head from side to side, while saying, “No! That isn’t right. That’s not what happened.”

Cathy asked, “What do you mean?”

“After John and I extinguished the flames in front of the down escalator, I made a sweep of the top floor to send people to the escalator. I found you passed out on the floor. There was no fire near you, and the smoke wasn’t thick where I found you. However, I decided to get you out before the remaining smoke harmed you any more than it already had.

“I didn’t carry you out, for it was all I could do to stay on my own feet. All I could do was, grab your wrists and drag you toward the escalator. A fireman got to me before I got to the escalator. He was the one who carried you out of the building. Another fireman helped me to the escalator, where I passed out.”

Cathy sat there with an odd look on her face thinking about what I said. She said, “If I understand you correctly, you would have had difficulty getting yourself out of the building, but instead of abandoning me, you stayed and did all you could do to save me from additional harm.”

“Yeah, I guess you could put it that way. However, I didn’t seriously think you would have died or actually been hurt further if I just left you there. I didn’t think about it, I just did what I thought was the right thing to do.”

After taking a couple more minutes to think about my two statements, she stood up and came to the side of my bed.

“Ward, as far as I am concerned, staying to help me when you didn’t think it was necessary, makes you my hero.”

With that, she leaned over and gave me a very long, loving kiss. She ended the kiss just as it was about to become a lustful kiss. When she finished, I was as red as a boiled lobster and at a total loss of words. Of course that assumes I was even capable of speech after that kiss. I think it scorched my lips, curled my toes, and left me as hard as an iron bar.

Until that kiss, I had not given much thought about Cathy as anything other than a cute classmate. That kiss and what she said about me, made me think about her in a completely different way. I was now very interested in getting to know her better.

I had noticed her at school, but looking at her now, I knew that she was far more than just cute. To me, she was better looking than most of the girls that my classmates thought were the hottest looking girls in school. When I thought about her appearance at school, I realized that her hairstyle, makeup, and clothing made her seem dowdy.

I later learned that Cathy deliberately made herself seem that way. She explained her reasons to me, but I didn’t understand her reasoning. It was something about camouflage to prevent jealousy problems with other girls.

I don’t think a male has been born who truly understands female logic.

Cathy had a number of close friends and seemed to be friendly with almost everyone, but she didn’t run with the popular group at school. I hadn’t given it much thought, but she was also in a couple of my advance placement classes. She had to be much smarter than she let on from the few things I had heard about her. I later learned that last year her GPA was higher than mine, and I’d had a three point five. My assessment of her finally solidified in my mind, and I decided that I wanted her as a friend, and hopefully as a girlfriend.