by April Henry
“Look, man,” Wyatt said. “There’s too many of them for us to put out. We need to concentrate on getting the heck out of here.”
In silence, they hurried on. Slowly, slowly, the number of falling sparks dwindled, but the rolling smoke still stung their eyes and burned their throats. Sweat traced Natalia’s spine.
From behind them, Beatriz let out a shout. “You guys, we have to stop!” Her voice was panicked.
“What’s wrong?” Wyatt said.
“It’s Marco.”
When Natalia turned, Marco was bracing his hands on his knees. His breathing was fast and rough. The cords in his neck stood out like wires.
“He sounds like a zombie.” Zion backed away.
But zombies were brain-dead and Marco looked desperate.
“It’s an asthma attack,” Beatriz said. “And his inhaler ran out last night.”
CHAPTER 24
BLUE TO THE SKY
5:57 A.M.
SCARVES OF SMOKE AND the occasional spark were still drifting past them. They couldn’t afford to stop—but it was clear Marco couldn’t go on.
His eyes were panicked, his hands pressed against his chest. As he strained to breathe, he made horrible whistling, wheezing sounds. Every time he attempted to inhale, his shoulders rose and a hollow triangle appeared on each side of his neck. The muscles in his upper body were trying—and failing—to help inflate his lungs.
Two years ago, a girl in Natalia’s PE class had had an asthma attack while they were running laps. Natalia had experienced a visceral reaction to the idea of not being able to breathe. She knew the consuming panic of your body screaming for oxygen. Afterward, she had looked up how asthma worked.
Right now, Marco’s inflamed breathing tubes were starting to squeeze shut and fill with mucus. Not only was fresh air not getting in, but old air was trapped in his lungs.
She stood in front of him. “Marco. Look at me. I need you to stay calm.” She put her hands on his hunched shoulders. His shirt was soaked with sweat and he was breathing at least twice as fast as she was. “Try to relax your upper body. You need to slow your breathing down. The faster you breathe, the worse it’s going to get.”
Beatriz stepped closer. She had her fingers hooked in Blue’s collar. Both of them were watching Natalia as if she actually knew how to fix things.
“He just got diagnosed with asthma last year,” Beatriz said. “It started when he exercised—his chest would feel tight. Now other things sometimes set it off. But he doesn’t really believe he has actual serious asthma.”
Marco rolled his eyes at Beatriz, but she just shrugged.
“What? You don’t!”
Exercise could be a trigger. Marco had been hiking all night. Another trigger was allergies or irritants. Like smoke from a forest fire. Her own nose and throat felt chafed.
Untreated, asthma could kill. Marco needed to rest quietly in a room with clean air. He probably needed supplemental oxygen. But at the very minimum, he needed an inhaler, which would open up his airway to help him breathe more easily.
Natalia looked at the ring of faces surrounding them. “Does anyone else have an inhaler?”
But she already knew the answer. Marco’s had been the only inhaler when they pooled all their stuff on Wyatt’s blanket.
Marco cleared his throat and swallowed. “It hurts.” He put one hand on his chest. “Like something pulling inside.” His words were separated by gasps.
“Shh! Don’t talk.” Natalia put her finger to her lips. “Save your breath.”
But that was actually part of the problem. He was saving his breath. Or his body was. In order to pull fresh air into his lungs, he needed to be able to push the old air out.
Natalia combined logic with what she had learned in the hospital recovering from smoke inhalation. “Try to breathe in through your nose. It will moisten the air and filter out some of the smoke. And then breathe out through your mouth. Purse your lips like you’re going to whistle. Try to exhale twice as long as you inhale. That will help empty out your lungs.”
As Marco followed her instructions, he started to look a little less agitated.
But as she was watching his mouth, his lips begin to slowly lose color until they were pale violet. He still wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
In her head, Natalia ran through the contents of her first aid kit. Aspirin, Tylenol, Advil. Could the Benadryl help? Maybe a little, but it would also make him sleepy.
Then she thought of Zion’s EpiPen, meant to reverse anaphylactic shock. In anaphylactic shock, two things happened. Blood pressure dropped as small blood vessels started to leak blood into the tissues. That wasn’t Marco’s problem. But anaphylactic shock also caused airways to narrow, which was exactly what was happening to Marco. Epinephrine—another word for adrenaline, the medicine in an EpiPen—narrowed blood vessels and opened airways, preparing the body for fight or flight.
Should she take Darryl aside, ask him privately? But there wasn’t time. Plus, it would be harder for him to say no in front of everyone.
“Darryl, I need to use one of Zion’s EpiPens. That’s the only thing we have that could help Marco.”
“What? No.” Darryl took a half step back. “We need to keep them for Zion.”
Blue, sensing the tension, let out a sharp bark.
“Come on, man,” AJ urged. “Just look at him.”
Every time Marco inhaled, the notch above his collarbone sucked in a half inch.
“And you have a two-pack,” Natalia pointed out. “Let me just use one. Please.”
“There’s two in there because the doctor said sometimes it takes two.” Darryl protectively put his hand over his pocket.
“Look.” Wyatt kept his voice low. “Marco could die if we don’t do something right now. It won’t be that long until we get back to civilization where you can get a new EpiPen. But Marco might not make it, not unless we do something now.”
Darryl sighed, reached into his pocket, pulled out the box, and handed it to Natalia.
Inside were two tubes. She pulled one out and flipped back the cap, remembering the instructions they had learned in first aid class, working with a dummy injector. “Blue to the sky, orange to the thigh.” The fake injector had lacked a needle, but the instructor had said the real one was strong enough to pierce even denim. Just to be sure, she raised the injector high and swung it down hard, popping it against Marco’s outer thigh.
He didn’t make a sound, but his eyes widened.
“One one-thousand, two one-thousand,” she counted out loud. When she reached ten, she pulled the injector away. The needle automatically retracted. Starting a new count, she began to rub the spot, encouraging the medication to spread. Again, she stopped when she reached ten.
Was Marco breathing any easier? He had managed to calm himself, so his breathing was slower, but it still seemed to be requiring all his effort. Wasn’t the medication supposed to work nearly instantaneously?
As she was sliding the used EpiPen back in the box next to its twin, she noticed the words on the packaging. “EpiPen Junior.” What did that mean? For the thousandth time since they lost cell service, Natalia wished she could google something. Even without Google, it didn’t seem good. The junior version of the EpiPen must be a smaller dose calibrated for a smaller person.
But Marco was a grown man, easily twice as heavy as Zion. Natalia muttered a swear word.
“What’s the matter?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t think it’s enough. This says EpiPen Junior. That means it’s for someone Zion’s size. For an adult dose, I think I need to use both.”
As if to underline her point, Marco made his loudest wheeze yet as he struggled to breathe.
Darryl shook his head. “If you use both, then we won’t have anything at all.”
“Come on, Grandpa!” Zion pushed his way in between them. “Marco is going to die if she doesn’t!”
Looking at Marco struggling so hard to breathe, Natalia was afraid Zion was
right.
“No, he isn’t.” Anger as well as uncertainty colored Darryl’s voice. “And we have to save one for you. Just in case.”
But Zion took the decision out of Darryl’s hands. Grabbing the remaining injector from the open box, he pulled off the cap and in one swift motion plunged the needle into Marco’s thigh.
CHAPTER 25
PURE TERROR
6:18 A.M.
ONLY A FEW MOMENTS after the second EpiPen injection, color started to return to Marco’s cheeks. His lips went from violet to pink to red, and his shoulders dropped back into place.
Taking a full breath, he let it out with a sigh of relief. It was echoed by everyone around him. Even Blue relaxed. He sat back on his haunches, his tongue unfurling like a pink streamer. Susan rubbed his ears.
“Thank you, man,” Marco told Zion in a still-raspy voice. “I think you just saved my life.” He held up his hand for a high five. Grinning proudly, Zion jumped up to slap it.
“Hey, Marco, maybe you should pull your bandanna down over your nose and mouth,” AJ suggested. “It might screen out some of the smoke.”
As he did, Wyatt said, “Someone besides Marco should carry my pack. We don’t want his lungs working any harder than they have to.”
Beatriz, Darryl, and Zion were the only ones without injuries or existing packs. “I’ll do it.” Beatriz slipped the straps over her shoulders, letting out a muffled groan as she hoisted it into place. She was so petite that Wyatt’s pack looked oversized in comparison.
“Thanks, B,” Marco said from behind his bandanna.
“Now you look like a bank robber,” Zion crowed.
“Better that than a zombie.” Marco’s laugh turned into a cough. Natalia braced herself for the cycle to start again, but he just cleared his throat, pulled the cloth away from his face, and spit.
They started off again. The trail emerged from the trees and then cut down a seemingly endless steep, rocky slope dotted with small plants. At least the trail was mostly clear. Her stomach grumbled loud enough that at one point Wyatt looked over with a half smile. The few handfuls of food she had eaten in the middle of the night felt like they had been consumed in another decade, another life. Now she was left with a growling stomach and a headache that felt like her brain had been replaced with a stone.
Natalia let herself imagine she was back at the Dairy Barn, visualizing it as clearly as if she were really standing in front of the counter, a cold metal scoop in her right hand. What would she have? Double Chocolate Cookie Dough? Or Oh Nuts topped with hot fudge and even more nuts? A banana split? She could practically smell the sweet perfume of the banana, taste the rich ice cream melting on her tongue. The fantasy lasted to the end of the scree slope. The trail flattened out, and there were plants and bushes on either side of the trail again. Susan was in the lead, occasionally waving her single trekking pole to break the spiderwebs that stretched across.
Wyatt’s voice interrupted her musings. “How are you holding up?”
“Same as everyone else. Hungry, tired, sore. At least I haven’t hurt myself except for that blister.” As Natalia spoke, she caught her toe and stumbled. “I guess I should be careful or I’ll jinx myself.”
“What about other than physically? It can’t be easy, being around fire again.”
“It turns out it’s hard to maintain a state of pure terror for hours and hours.” Now the scarves of smoke eddying past them or the occasional spark flying overhead had become the new normal. “Plus my counselor taught me that if you pay attention to physical sensations it’s hard to get stuck in your own head. Because inside your head is almost always worse than reality.”
“So that’s how you knew what to do when AJ was freaking out?”
“Yup. Dr. Paris taught me a few tricks.” She smiled at him. “But without you, we wouldn’t be anyplace. You’re the only one of us with a map, and maybe the only one who really knows how to read it.”
Wyatt nodded. “When this fire started, we were just a group of strangers. But now we’re pulling together. It’s not just me or you, not anymore. It’s all of us.”
Natalia was opening her mouth to answer when from behind them came a shout.
“Something’s wrong with Grandpa!”
CHAPTER 26
NOT NEARLY ENOUGH
6:52 A.M.
NATALIA WHIRLED AROUND. SEEMINGLY oblivious to Zion’s shout, Darryl kept walking unsteadily forward, his eyes at half-mast.
He almost looked like he was drunk, but that was impossible. Wasn’t it?
What now? Everyone was looking at Natalia as if she could keep working magic. But what if she was fresh out of tricks?
She hurried back to Darryl. Only when she was standing nearly nose to nose with him did he stop shuffling forward.
“Out of my way!” he said irritably. “We need to keep moving.”
His words sounded slurred. Had he had a stroke? But when she examined his face, it looked symmetrical, without an eye or a corner of the mouth drooping.
“This will only take a second. Can you hold out your arms for me?” She demonstrated holding her arms straight in front of her. Zion looked terrified. In an effort to lighten the atmosphere, Natalia added, “Like a zombie?”
“Why?” Darryl sounded annoyed but still complied. He held both arms out at shoulder level, and neither one drifted down.
“And smile for me?”
It was more a grimace, a baring of the teeth, but it, too, was even. So it probably wasn’t a stroke. But something was definitely wrong. Darryl looked paler, and beads of sweat dotted his forehead.
Blue whined and nosed him again. All this morning, Blue had been bothering only Darryl. No one else. While he had responded to Susan’s attentions, for the last few hours he had ignored her.
Because of their keen sense of smell, dogs could detect things far earlier than humans could. Maybe Blue hadn’t been sniffing for food. Hadn’t Natalia read about dogs who could smell health problems like cancer or an oncoming seizure?
“Darryl?”
His eyes closed completely as his head nodded forward. He looked like he was going to sleep. Standing up.
Repeating his name, she shook his shoulders until his rheumy eyes slowly, reluctantly opened. “Darryl, are you on any medication?” As old as he was, the answer had to be yes.
He roused himself with obvious effort. “I’ve got a whole medicine cabinet full.”
“For what?”
He made a scoffing noise. “Cholesterol. Blood pressure. Enlarged prostate.” And then came the words she had already begun to suspect. “And diabetes. Type two.”
Usually with a type 2 diabetic you worried about high blood sugar. Because they were less responsive to insulin, glucose from their food could build up in their bloodstream, reaching dangerously high levels.
But just like a diabetic’s blood sugar could overreact and skyrocket, it was also easy for it to plummet. And in the last twelve hours, Darryl hadn’t eaten more than a couple of mouthfuls of food.
Missing meals, hiking for hours—it was only logical he had low blood sugar. By this point, all of them were probably a little hypoglycemic. But because Darryl’s body did a bad job of regulating the level of sugar in his blood, he was being affected much worse than any of them. That change in his blood sugar must be what Blue had been smelling.
If he was in a full-on crisis, Darryl’s breath should smell sweet even to a human nose. But when Natalia leaned forward and sniffed, all she smelled was sweat.
He swore and took a step back. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer. She remembered the first aid instructor’s words: “Blood sugar’s like building a campfire. You start with kindling, small stuff that burns fast and hot, but then you need the big logs. Simple sugar is the kindling. For the big logs, you need something more complex, like trail mix.”
“Does anyone have any juice or pop?” Natalia asked the group. “Hard candy? Even a cough drop? We need to get some sugar
into Darryl as fast as possible.”
But when she looked around, everyone was shaking their heads. Zion’s eyes were wide and his hands were pressed against his mouth.
“Wait a minute!” AJ said excitedly. “Susan—didn’t you have some sugar with your coffee supplies?”
At first Susan looked confused, but then her expression cleared. “Yes!” She set down her pack and fished out a plastic bag. Inside it were two sandwich bags. One was filled with coffee grounds. The other held about a quarter cup of white sugar.
Natalia tore a hole in one corner of the bag so it would act like a spout and funneled the sugar into her water bottle. Then she remembered. This was creek water, not pure water.
“Would the LifeStraw take out the sugar?” she asked Wyatt.
He bit his lip as he thought. “Yeah. I think it would. But it’s better to risk him getting giardia than a diabetic coma.”
She shook her water bottle hard and then handed it to Darryl. “Drink this. It’ll bring your blood sugar back up.”
As he tilted his head back, she wondered how long the sugar would fuel him. A few minutes? Even as long as an hour? However long it was, she was afraid it wouldn’t be enough.
“I hate to say it, but don’t we need to get going?” Beatriz asked. “The smoke is getting thicker.” Now that they were at the bottom of the long, steep slope, they could no longer see the flames, just smoke.
Darryl handed the empty bottle back to her. “Just let me lie down for a little while.”
“I’m afraid we can’t,” Natalia said.
Beatriz was right. The smoke was thicker.
In a panicked voice, AJ called out, “Wait a minute—where did Susan go?”
“Not again,” Ryan groaned.
“There she is!” Zion pointed.
Susan pushed her way through the bushes on one side of the trail. Her hat was no longer on her head. Instead, she was holding it with red-stained hands. And inside the hat were …
