Page 95 of Lucky Night

He smells smoke.

Sixteen

There’s smoke in the room.

He pushes back onto his knees. She sits up. She smells it, too.

The door, she says.

He jumps up. She follows him to the foyer, where he looks through the peephole. Is it smoky out there? Hard to say. She picks up the wet towels left in a heap by Edvin. He helps her wedge them along the bottom of the door. Then they turn and survey the rest of the room.

The vents, they say at the same time.

There are three, high up on the walls. He ransacks his laptop bag and finds a paper clip, then climbs onto the chair and unscrews the cover of the one above the desk. She hands him a pillow, then another, then a third. He stuffs them in tight and screws the cover backon.

He tackles the vent above the bed while she gathers more pillows and blankets from the closet. The sofa cushions. A cashmere throw.

She moves quickly around the room, fixed in her purpose. She passes the thermostat near the bathroom, stops and switches it off.

The air looks clear. There’s no haze. Just the smell of it. The very faint smell ofit.

As he finishes screwing the cover onto the vent above the sofa, she disappears. He hears water running.

He goes to the bathroom door. She’s bending over the tub, filling it. Still naked. So is he. He hadn’t noticed in the rush of activity.

Are we supposed to save water?

I read it in a novel once. It can’t hurt.

He plugs the sink and turns on the taps.

Is the phone charging? she asks. We might lose power.

He goes back into the room and checks. It’s charging. He sits on the edge of the bed and googles: how to shelter in place during a fire.

Millions of results. Excellent.

The first one appears to be an emergency management pamphlet issued by Tufts University. He taps on the link. Scrolls.

Close all windows and doors. Done.

Turn off the A/C and air-handling systems. Jenny did that when she switched off the thermostat. Smart.

Move away from outside windows.

And that’sit.

What the hell? Surely there’s more they can do. But what did he expect? Tufts is such a mediocre school. He returns to his search results. What else…ah. Here we go. A FEMA site: Shelter-in-Place Guidelines for Ten Different Hazards. He taps on it and scrolls.

Hazard number one: Active Shooter.

Jesus Christ. FEMA makes a list of potential disasters, and Crazed Gunman is number one?

This fucking country.

Moving on. Chemical Hazard. No. Earthquake. Flood. Hurricane. Nope.

Fifth on the list? Nuclear detonation. Wow, that’s a little…whatever. He scrolls on. Pandemic. Thunderstorm. Tornado. Blizzard.

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