Work Text:
In a Flash
By GCS
Emergency! Belongs to Universal and Mark VII
He went to flip on the lights; that's when he saw a shadow dart across the room. All of a sudden the back of his head exploded in pain, the room swirled in a somber dance and he fell hard against the linoleum floor. Icy cold terror paralyzed his thoughts as consciousness slipped from his grip.
The last thing he heard was the thump of his head when it hit the floor.
He didn't know if it was the smell that permeated the room or something else that assaulted his senses, bringing him back to awareness, but one thing for sure that odor was gasoline and the kitchen reeked of it.
He lay on his side with his arms wrenched to his back and his wrists bound with tape. His ankles secured in a similar manner. He tried pulling his hands apart causing pain to shoot through his shoulder joints and across his back. Throbbing pulses thundered through his head with every exhausting attempt to free himself.
Johnny turned and pulled the last rolled sleeping bag from the sidewalk where he'd placed it to get Roy's duffle from the back. He pushed it into the well packed Rover and carefully closed the hatch. It was late and he didn't want to wake the neighbors. The fishing had been good today and neither man wanted to leave, but since they were due on shift in the morning and Joanne was expecting them home, they had reluctantly returned as late as possible.
Roy was already inside making them a snack. Johnny hurried up the walk and into the house. He slipped across the dark living room. The only sound he made was a soft grunt when he stubbed his toe on the coffee table. Then he half hopped half limped into the kitchen trying to be quiet so as not to wake Roy's family. The bright kitchen light temporarily blinded him and he ducked his head and blinked. When he looked up he gasped in horror at the surreal scene before him. It was as if time had frozen like a freeze frame in one of those thriller movies where the character thinks 'this can't be happening…this is not my life.'
A burly man in fatigues had his booted foot pressed firmly on Roy's head and a Bic lighter in his outstretched hand; a flame dancing gaily out of the end. Jo and the kids sat bound and gagged to kitchen chairs; an open red gas can nearby. Johnny could see the pressure the man exerted by the creases in Roy's forehead, the red tinge to his face and the painful way he has his eyes squeezed shut. He instinctively raised his hands in a halting movement. Don't."
"Shut-up!" The man waved the dancing flame at Johnny.
Johnny could smell the strong odor of spilled gasoline. "Okay, just don't do anything stupid." 'Oh that's great Gage…just great. Tell a guy with a flame in a room full of gasoline not to do anything stupid.' He shifted uneasily on his sore foot. His worried brown eyes met Joanne's frightened gaze and in her eyes she saw pleading. Instantly he knew she was asking him to get Chris and Jennifer to safety. "Hey listen…uh..why..why don't you just let the kids go? I'm here…you could let them and their mom go." His right hand swept the air in the direction of the terrified children. Jenny whimpered in her throat her small body shaking with sobs, and Chris had silent tears running down his cheeks and dripping off the tape.
"No way man. Can't do that…she'll talk." He waved the Bic again and let the flame go out. The tip of the lighter had grown hot. Johnny wanted to step forward while the flame was out, but the goon still had his foot planted on Roy's head; dirt from his boot sprinkled down on Roy's face. Seeing Johnny's hesitative flinch forward he pushed down hard again and flicked the Bic back to life.
It took everything he had in him not to lunge at the man who had his best friend's family bound, gagged and clearly intending to kill them all tonight; Johnny stepped back and bumped against the wall. Again he raised his hands in surrender. "What about the kids. They're just babies. Let 'em go." Johnny was almost pleading now.
"Aren't you listening? I said NO!" He was clearly agitated. Joanne let out an anguished scream behind the tape which caused Roy's eyes to open and dart around the room in search of his family. His body bucked beneath the pressure of the man's boot on his head. "Hold still Roy!"
Roy stopped moving and looked up at the man squinting, trying to make out his features. He knew this man; recognized his voice. He closed his eyes and schooled his face into a masquerade of indifference refusing to let Alan know he recognized him. They had been friends until Alan's dishonorable discharge from the Army. He'd cracked under the pressure of the fight, and Roy had been the medic that had to report his loss of reality.
There was a sudden knock at the front door; Alan jerked at the noise and dropped the lighter.
The next door neighbor had gotten up in the night for a drink of water and noticed that Johnny had left the lights on his Rover on. He had knocked lightly on the door to let them know.
Johnny lunged for Alan hoping that whoever was at the door would hear him. "HELP!"
He slammed into the man knocking them both to the floor while the flame from the lighter traced a trail of fire across the floor towards Joanne and the kids.
Not able to free himself Roy rolled across the linoleum towards his family. If he couldn't free them maybe he could put himself between them and the fire until Johnny could get them out.
Fear and rage caused unrestrained adrenalin to race through Johnny's veins; his fists pounded again and again and again until Alan lay unconscious in a heap against the cabinets. Johnny turned around in time to see Roy's shirt catch. He scrambled across the floor reaching for his friend. Roy rolled again to snuff the flames while nodding his head begging in his eyes for Johnny to get his family.
Johnny jerked Roy's hands apart and then moved quickly over to Joanne and the kids.
Roy pulled the tape from his ankles. Fire skirted around him and crept closer to the kids.
Johnny's pant leg ignited as he lifted a screaming Jennifer into Joanne's arms. She hesitated looking in horror at his burning pant leg. He gave her an urgent push. "GO!" Snapping back to the realization that she had to get Jenny out, Joanne ran from the kitchen and out the front door. Sirens screamed into the neighborhood, red and blue strobes illuminating the night sky.
The neighbor ran past Joanne and into the burning kitchen. Flames laced up the cabinets and spread quickly up the sliding glass door drapes licking at the ceiling. Johnny thrust Chris into his arms and he turned, rushing back out the front door.
Slapping the flames on his leg, he then turned to Roy and hooking his hands under Roy's arms Johnny dragged him out of the kitchen and made sure none of their clothes were still burning.
Fire spread quickly and black smoke began streaming into the living room.
Realizing that Roy still had tape across his mouth, Johnny pulled it away so his friend could breathe more easily. "Roy?" Harsh coughs racked Roy's body; tears spilled from his grateful eyes. "Stay here. I'll be right back." Roy grabbed Johnny's arm. He knew what Johnny planned to do. "It's okay. I'm coming back." Johnny rose and disappeared into the smoke filled room.
Roy felt hands grabbing him beneath the arms and lifting him to his feet. "Johnny!"
Once outside his eyes swept the crowd for his family. His eyes met Joanne's. She and the kids looked a little disheveled and upset, but they were all there together huddled on one of the yellow blankets he knew so well. He stumbled over to them and dropped to his knees wrapping his arms around his family thankful that they had all gotten out.
Johnny came stumbling out the front door seconds later with a fatigued-clad unconscious man slung over his shoulders. He immediately sunk to his knees in the grass. A fireman he didn't know lifted the man from him. A policeman slapped cuffs on his wrists.
Strong hands helped Johnny across the lawn and lowered him to a yellow blanket. Overcome by a strangling cough, Johnny didn't protest when someone slipped an oxygen mask over his face.
"Thank you."
Johnny looked up into familiar blue eyes. He pulled the oxygen mask away and a crooked grin spread across his face, "Next time you unload. I'll fix the sandwiches."
In that moment all things in Johnny's world were right. Roy and his family were safe and no one had lost their life tonight.