On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 195, of 240 so far.

Fire Service

Harkness was always the first one in. He wasn’t the most senior, or perhaps even the most capable — though he was certainly in the top three — but his bravery and initiative were second to none. When you worked in the fire service, they were qualities to be admired.

He always kept his wits about him, followed his training until he was better served by his instincts, and above all, he knew everything there was to know about getting the job done.

Tonight’s call was a bad one. The street was long and low, an old warehouse district that had been partially converted into studio apartments, the interiors mismatched to the outer facades and built with a different number of floors inside. It was a common enough setup, but what made this row different was that the final segment of each building, on the canal side, was for businesses instead of residential use, and the second-storey unit at the far end was owned by a chemical supplies company. By the time Harkness’s tender got there, most of that end building was gone, and the fire was tearing at the neighbouring apartments.

There were two cranes and six tenders already in attendance, along with five ambulances and more police than Harkness could count. His captain told him that it would be a full respirator situation, and he didn’t disagree. The smoke coming up was altogether too white and opaque, and there was a nasty smell in the air of disinfectants or worse.

Six minutes later, Harkness was halfway up the lower stairwell of the nearest residential lobby, breathing bottled oxygen and sweating into every part of his gear. The air was thick and he could feel it on his few exposed areas of skin, and the landing of the next floor up was shimmering. He was pulling a hose behind him, and he already knew that his task in this area was purely containment. There would be no more survivors further up.

He felt a cough coming on and suppressed it, knowing it was psychosomatic. His airways were clear, there was no smoke in his lungs, and his equipment was all functioning perfectly. Only his mind was telling him otherwise, not his body. It was an occupational hazard, and a very familiar one.

Harkness reached the landing and assessed the situation rapidly.

The structure’s age was its best asset at this point; lots of brick, and plenty of steel driven through it all too. The floors would hold for a while, and the stairway was in no immediate danger as long as they could extinguish the bulk of the blaze in the next twenty minutes or so. He decided that going higher was unnecessary, and instead called a warning on his headset radio, received an affirmative response, and then used a pointed tool to quickly break all the panes of the double-glazed landing window. The window had already been propped slightly open due to the warmth of the day, but there was still a rush as the pressure equalised, then the temperature dropped by a fraction.

He got to work with the hose, knowing that his teammates below would be readying the big gun on the crane to come right in through the window frame in a couple of minutes. Harkness would be leaving when that happened, switching over to rescue, but for now he was in the heart of it all, doing some token containment while everyone followed procedure. And then his mood changed.

Harkness felt his blood run cold despite the inferno raging up above him. He knew the sensation well, and it wasn’t just the expected psychological urge to escape. He kept his gloved hand clasped around the valve release, maintaining the direction of the water jet, but he also slowly raised his head.

The void of the stairway was above him, hazy with smoke and heat, but he could still see up through the central area towards the top floor, several storeys distant. The internal ceiling had burned away and the attic spaces were visible beyond. Harkness could even dimly see jets of water coming over the roof and into the building from outside, and he knew from the quantity of water vapour that they were slowly winning the battle against the fire.

He also saw the eyes up there.

Suspended in the smoke, pinpoints of red surrounded by a vortex of the flame that still licked at the boundaries of the upper two floors, and far too large to be human. They were fixed upon him, and he felt the weight of their regard from somewhere at the top of his spine, or perhaps the base of his skull. A sense of being pinned in place by the focus of an entirely different form of life.

Harkness didn’t look away, but he did move his supporting hand from the hose, reaching for the switch on his belt-mounted radio unit, which the headset fed into. He toggled the switch’s position.

“Think I’ve found the ignition source,” he said, in an even voice. “Building two, roof space, directly over me. Class five, maybe six, flame elemental.”

He heard two clicks in his earpiece; an acknowledgement. Now, he was expected to make an equipment provisioning request. Harkness sighed within his mask’s faceplate.

“Send ABC powder tanks for class B fire,” he said at last, “and tell the priest to put on his heat suit.”

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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