Gary finished his cigarette and he dropped the smouldering stub and he crushed it underfoot and lifted his foot and the rush of air restarted it as he went back inside and that was how fifty people died.
Not all immediately at once, though. It went something like this.
***
The fire roamed the little patch of mouldy greenery outside the backdoor for some minutes as it figured itself out and came to terms with its life outside the old Mortimer Mansion. Inside was noise and light and reckless danger; outside was the cold night and the damp air that smelled like autumn mould year-round and the branches of the gigantic tree in the neighbour’s yard that overshadowed the entire block and somewhere in the distance an owl absolutely losing its shit.
The choice was obvious, particularly when the fire caught hold of a little bit of splintered wood off the deck that was covered in some sort of ancient long-since-illegal varnish that might as well have been pure gasoline. It ate it up in a blink and dove into the basement headfirst.
The basement was a dour wonderland of unfinished concrete floors, unpainted wooden walls, and uncoordinated and unsatisfying makeouts. But behind the walls was gloriously flammable insulation the likes of which hadn’t been manufactured in centuries, and so the fire let them be and roiled upwards invisibly, leaving only some wisps of transparent smoke and a lingering odour of burnt mouse feces.
Above was the kitchen, and as it scuttled its way beneath the sink the fire felt a great and clammy moisture above its head where Jules Mortimer was trying to wash the fucking dishes. They should’ve used paper plates, but hey, it’d be cool to use the old place’s dishes, right? Pretend posh. Well pretend posh was real dirty and the real estate guy was coming over in three days whoops rescheduled to day after tomorrow so guess who had to do the fucking dishes in the middle of a party whoop de fucking doo fuckity doo fuck? Him. Because he was the oldest Mortimer on the premises. Never mind that it had been Katie’s idea to have the party. Ugh. It had been Katie’s idea to try and start a paint-snorting competition too. Ugh.
The fire crawled all the way up his pant leg and into his boxers before he noticed, so intense was his snit. Then it gave him a Brazilian and he started yelping and kicking and running and on his way he kicked the sink so hard the tap broke.
No more water! Joy!
The living room was filled with bodies and yelling and music and yelling and vomiting and yelling so it was all equally inaudible until Jules ran in and somehow screamed over all of it. This distracted the partygoers, at first to point and laugh (didn’t work), then to shout and stand there (didn’t work), then to try to stomp out Jules’s pants (didn’t work), then to pour their drinks on him (worked, eventually).
By the time all was said and done laughing, people had finally started to ask themselves questions like ‘where did that come from?’ and it was too late because the kitchen fire had found the old paint tins under the sink.
It made a noise like FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMP
But much louder and hotter.
***
By now most of the party was aware something odd was happening. Either there was smoke drifting through the floorboards, the walls were warm to the touch, they’d just put out a brushfire in Jules Mortimer’s crotch, or an enormous gout of flame had just rocketed upwards through the ventilation system and set fire to the bed they’d been sleeping in. Also, everyone was yelling “FIRE.”
Several solutions were attempted and beset with difficulties. The mansion’s fire extinguishers were filled with dried spiderwebs and air; hugging the floor to avoid smoke was complex due to the intricate vomit-and-cotton-candy covering that laced much of the floorboards six hours into the party; and the fire exit was on fire.
Clearly, improvisation would be needed. Mercifully, liquid inspiration had been taken. Sadly, proclamation was outspoken: “THROW THE BOOZE ON IT.”
Which didn’t help much at all, particularly when it vaporized and filled the air with eye-bleeding alcohol fumes and covered the floor in glass shards as people tried to crawl on it. Still, it was all in good faith and most people were willing to concede it had been better than nothing.
***
So the evening went on in the spirit of competition, fire against festivities. The fire consumed the basement and its inhabitants joined the rest of their kind in the living room, where they contributed much confusion and panic. The partygoers tried to phone for help and the Tinco Valley fire department filed the deluge of reports as spam and said they’d have to verify things first. The fire feasted upon the discarded coats and purses and shoes in the front hall and their owners retreated up the stairs to the third floor to look for a fire escape.
And the fire’s humble roots just outside the back door raced up through the gutters and the eavestrough in a snake of embers, until it crept in through the attic window and found the bags and bags and bags of old dry leaves from the autumn of ’32 that Mortimer Senior (dead forty years, god rest his soul) had been keeping for a rainy day. Like finest tinder they were.
Things were beginning to get a little bit desperate. Many were the tears shed and the regrets spoken.
“I wish I’d eaten more than one bowl of chips, and that they hadn’t been nacho cheez flavoured,” mourned Dilbert Dabny.
“I wish I hadn’t broken up with you ten minutes earlier,” said Daphne Yubo to her ex-girlfriend.
“I wish I’d broken up with you two years ago,” said Daphne Yubo’s ex-girlfriend.
“I wish I didn’t have these horrible suspicions about that one cigarette I had out back an hour ago,” muttered Gary Vorbleck under his breath.
“I really really wish I hadn’t spent the past three hours doing dishes,” said Jules Mortimer. At least his arms were still nice and moist, even if they were a little wrinkly.
“I really really REALLY wish you hadn’t talked me into hosting this party,” said Katie Mortimer.
“Excuse me, sir, but you’re a fucking liar,” her brother retorted.
“Excuse and sir yourself,” she said, “but you’re a big ol’ bitch.”
“Language.”
“Motherfucker, do you SPEAK it?”
The fire dropped a beam next to them in a shower of sparks. Its contribution was misunderstood by its critics, who hastily relocated to the nor’west solar. Flames were already curdling up from the roof around its base, and the glass of the windows and skylight twinkled merrily in the heat haze.
There were many uglier places to die, most of which the fire had already set alight. Bright red tongues and orange hands and the odd blue-and-white licks made outrageous and suggestive statements to the night sky.
“Well,” said Jean Baltimore, “we’re doomed.”
“Yep,” agreed Sam Winmoore. “Wanna have sex?”
“Sure why not.”
“Oh good idea!” said Mavis Bacon. “Hey Claude? You want in on this?”
“Might as well.”
“People, people, people,” said Jules Mortimer. “Be REASONABLE. We’re all about to die; you can’t just have sex!”
“Yeah, not just on the floor,” said Katie Mortimer. “Have some standards. Why not use these enormous bedsheets Mortimer Senior (god rest his soul) always kept stashed in the solar’s closet here, for midday trysts with his eighteen mistresses?”
Everyone examined the bedsheets and was very impressed.
“High thread count,” remarked Daphne Yubo, whose father was a tailor.
“Nice patterning,” said Mavis Bacon, whose grandmother was a mural-maker.
“Could support a whole body with this,” said Boris Murt, who was an aspiring serial killer.
Everyone looked at him.
“What?”
“Say that again.”
“All I said was oh right. Huh. How ‘bout that.”
***
The bedsheets burned away from the windowframe where they’d been knotted just as Katie Mortimer’s feet touched grass, nearly dumping hot coals onto her head as she scuttled away to the streetside with the rest of the partygoers to check out the last of the fireworks.
They stood there, on the dimly smouldering edge of the lawn, watching the historic Mortimer Mansion disintegrate into base carbon, and they looked at one another in a sort of sobriety that had nothing to do with drunkenness and knew that from now on they would look at life very differently.
That was when the Tinco Valley firetruck – laden with fifty heroic volunteers, foaming at the mouth one and all – hopped the kerb, tipped crazily onto two wheels for a heartbreaking twenty feet, and skidded nobly into the mansion, taking out it and everything inside it in a cataclysmic eruption of heat and steam.
***
Most of the Mortimer Mansion partygoers evaded punishment in the days to come. The public eye was focused on finding a more economical way to budget the fire department; it had been the sixth truck that month.
Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer certainly weren’t complaining. That had been one HELL of an insurance payout.