“Never make it through that bush and mud, son. You’ll need something bigger. Stronger.”
Kyle stopped in place. “Uh, your tractor…?” He asked quizzically.
His father gave a genuine whoop of laughter. “You know, for a smart college educated type, you’re pretty funny sometimes.” The old man tossed Kyle some shiny keys.
“It’s a set Jake gave me a little while back, for his pickup. He said if ever Jess’ car couldn’t make it out of the mud, we were free to use his truck since he’s got that fancy motor-bike. Might wanna ask your sister to give you a ride over to his place though.”
Kyle was about to bound upstairs to his twin when he leaned over and gave his dad a hug. “You know, for an old country boot, you’re pretty lovable. I love you Dad.”
His father swatted his son’s hands away and flushed beet red. “An’ I you son; now quit fussin’ over me and get around to that truck.”
Somehow, someway, wrongs would be righted, hearts mended, and this would all be over in a few hours. Almost believing that he was in a dream, Kyle bore the silliest smile that he had in ages as he burst through the washroom door.
“JESUSFUCKINGCHRISTKYLE!!!” Jess shrieked and swore at him. Naked as the day she was born, she flung a damp towel at him in panic.
He apologized in a scattered huff. After a few frantic minutes, he’d explained the situation with dad, Jake, the truck, and the fire. His excited energy had caught up with her too, and she was immediately attempting to make a series of non-connected plans.
“Okay, okay, so we… get to Jake. With a… wait…?”
“I need you to focus. I will buy whatever breakfast you want on the way, and any sized Tim’s that you want, but I need to be at Jake’s place like half an hour ago. Are we good?”
A frenzy of energy, Kyle managed to pack a small stow with a canteen of water, sun-screen, swim-goggles, a change of clothes, and a first-aid kit in the time that it took his sister to get dressed. She paused for a second and typed something on her phone. A few minutes later she nodded a few times to herself and then looked up at her brother.
“Briggs’ dudes are busy trying to get folks out of the hills east of Fort Mac. Maybe he knows more?”
“Yeah, give him a call?” Kyle asked hopefully.
Calling up her paramour, Jess walked around the room in odd little circles in a dance-like fashion as she chatted idly with Briggs. Her face scrunched up a few times, indicating answers that she probably didn’t like. Kyle was tense as he tried desperately to hear what was being said. Their father escorted Cromwell outside for a personal tour of the farm grounds, where his barking would bother little more than birds, prairie dogs, and squirrels.
A few minutes later and Jess was off the phone with Briggs.
“So, okay, he sorta-kinda couldn’t really tell me a ton, which sucks ‘cause I’m his wife, but whatevs. We’ll deal later. Anyhow, what he did say was that a lot of the scrub that’s grown up in the past year is feeding the flames and everyone’s worried that the fire’s sweeping toward MacKay Energy. He said that Fire & Rescue doesn’t want another Shale Pump situation so they’re trying to get ahead of the winds.”
“Okay, we can work with that. We’ll just drive to MacKay and, I guess, hopefully bump into Jake?”
“I get you. However, you probably can’t get past Tower road. Area’s on lockdown because of the danger. Briggs says the whole area smells like barbeque and the sky’s dark and smoky.” Jess seemed rather excited about the prospect of visiting the area and seeing her Alpha at work.
“You think that he could get us past the barricade on Tower road?” Kyle’s muscles tensed nervously as he bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Jess tilted her head slightly and exhaled loudly. “I mean, I can ask him but I don’t think that he’ll let us through. He’d probably get in serious shit, or even fired, maybe. I’m sorry, but I don’t really know, to be honest.”
Undaunted and undiminished, Kyle spoke confidently. “You know what? It’s okay. He’s a solid guy and I’ll talk with him once we get there. I’m sure that I can reason with him.”
Jess mockingly sucked at her teeth. “Yeah, I mean, you’re smart and all, and good with words. But… do you really think that’s going to work?”
“Yes, because it has to!” He glanced at Jess as he made his way to the door.
Twenty Seven
Jess and Kyle walked out of their childhood home and squarely into nostalgia. Burnt wood and the smell of wet leaves were draped upon the air. The scent of fire had already swept across the wooded hills and grassy expanses of the prairies. Those same haunting aromas had filled the air on the day Tyler had died.
The Omega was glued to the window the entire ride over to Jake’s apartment. Dark, billowing clouds seemed to be lifting from the rocky earth to the west. It was smoke from the fires that had already begun to consume the prairies. Things moved quickly, both Daniels children remembered. It could be weeks, or even months before the blaze was fully subdued.
The sky was a play of vivid oranges and magentas bleeding into one another. It meant rain, which meant uncertainty. Everyone in Shale River nervously recalled the days last summer when dry storms of heat lightning, sparked by the dense smoke in the air, prevented an entire fleet of water bombers from drenching the countryside. Even being grounded for just a few days could add weeks to the work that was required on the ground.
They pulled into the parking lot of Jake’s apartment. It was big, rough and built in the eighties – just like Jake was. Freshly slick from the rain, his pickup was neatly parked in the far lot that edged onto a pasture of horses. Kyle briefly recalled getting drunk with Jake and Tyler a few years back and giggling as the trio fed the horses a few sleeves of Pringles followed by some wine coolers. The memory faded as fast as it had appeared, but steeled the Omega about what needed to be done.
“Okay, I guess this is me. Thanks for…”
“Uh, no, genius. I’m going too!” His sister stunned him with her insistence as she hopped out of her car and slammed the door with more force than was probably necessary.
“Jess, no way. This is going to be too dangerous for you to come along.”
“Now there’s that fantastic gender equality talk that Daniels men love so much!” she mocked as she began to walk toward Jake’s pickup.
“No, I didn’t mean… it’s dangerous. There’s probably smoke, or fire. And, I mean, your pups, right?” He tried to reason with his sister.
“We go as a team or we don’t go at all.” She didn’t budge.
“Now there’s mom’s fantastic stubbornness that we both seem to have. Fine. Welcome aboard?”
Unlocking the truck, they swung open the heavy doors and landed inside. It would’ve been accurate to say that it smelled faintly of smoke, but then again, everything seemed to. Some of Jake’s emergency radio equipment was plugged into the dash.
“Oh, okay.” Jess surveyed the equipment. “Any idea how to use this? Maybe he’s like…able to… radio in to us, or something?”
“No idea. I mean, we could listen in, but it’d probably just get in the way of actual relief efforts if we started speaking into the mic.”
Jess nodded and checked her phone. “Maybe I can find something online?” She tried typing in the machine’s name and numbers on the front of the small black plastic box as she Googled around for its instructions.
“Okay, sounds good.” Kyle appreciated it, but knew that it wouldn’t be necessary. He couldn’t explain it. It made absolutely no sense, but his convictions held firm that they’d get to the ridge outside of MacKay Energy and find Jake safe and sound. He was giddy with the possibility of being reunited with his love and fixing everything that had so badly gone off the rails.
With Jess buried in her phone and Kyle at the wheel, the truck sped off down the road. A few minutes later, they left Shale River and hummed toward Fort Mac. Kyle was unsure, but the dark skies hanging ominously to their west seemed to
have grown. He put it out of his mind and focused on the road. He was pleased that more cars seemed to be heading in the opposite direction – out of Fort Mac – than they were going.
Things were looking up until they hit the main strip in Fort Mac. Franklin Avenue was choked with a sea of red tail-lights. Some last minute shoppers tried to get the equipment that they and their families would need to weather the storm should the power and water be lost, while others merely wanted to escape the area entirely. Moving glacially slow, massive tractors were towing trailers full of livestock out of the region in an attempt to protect the livelihood of entire farms. The traffic was slow enough that some got out to walk alongside the trailers, to soothe and comfort their beasts. A few emergency vehicles were given a wide berth but still had to drive on the sidewalks or over the small gardens and green areas separating the roads. In sum, it was perfect storm of human error and entirely understandable uncertainty. The dark, smoky clouds not too far off in the distance almost seemed to gloat.
“Well, fuck me…” Kyle leaned back in the seat and punched the wheel so hard that the truck blurted out an angry honk.
An equally frustrated Jess looked up from her phone. She made a sour face. “Okay, so I have no idea how to use this thing.” She motioned to the emergency band radio on the dashboard. “…and what is this shit?” She looked around incredulously at the morass of cars, trucks, and tractors. It was such a surreal experience and only made them painfully aware of how long it’d take to actually get across the city.
“I say that we just turn it on and don’t touch it.” Jess poked at the radio. “I mean, it was probably on the last frequency that he was listening to, right?”
“Yeah, I guess that you’re right.” Kyle exhaled glumly as he tried not to let the situation get to him.
Carefully holding her phone beside the radio, Jess watched along on a YouTube tutorial about unboxing and setting up a similar model. About a minute or so later, she flicked a few of the buttons. Others crackled green and a slight hiss filled the cab.
Kyle smiled at his sister and waited. Jess adjusted the volume and a slow crawl of electronic voice and numbers emerged from the static. It was pretty hard to follow but seemed to be an emergency band dedicated to marshalling several hundred Fire & Rescue operatives and their crews across the wilderness.
“I…okay, I don’t… it’s all Greek to me. Sounds sorta like military lingo? I dunno.” Jess frowned as a stream of numbers, “affirmatives,” “negatives,” and what could’ve been GPS coordinates were spoken in a dry electronic twang between two or more people. It was hard to tell due to the static.
Another five or so minutes crept past while the Daniels twins listened to the emergency band radio. Kyle was mad, but also anxious for any reports of injuries or deaths. It seemed that none were encountered thus far. He strummed his fingers rapidly along the wheel in a mockery of any known song. When his sister glanced over at him, he stopped sheepishly.
“Hey, we’ll get to him and you guys will be just fine. Honest.” She smiled and rubbed his arm. He marvelled at her ability to calmly and serenely approach even high-stress situations such as these.
“Maybe.” He placed his forehead on the wheel. Another ten minutes of stop and go traffic, and finally the radio began to make some sense.
“…a …ck ….edd …reports that fire is south-southwest …moving to McKay Energy Valley, do …copy, over?”
Kyle shot up in his seat. “That’s where Jake’s going to be. The Firedogs know the area the best and can get there the fastest. We’ve got to get there to… to… well, I don’t know. We just need to be there.” The Omega’s mind reeled with macabre thoughts of another Alpha sacrificing himself in order to stop the fire.
“Okay.” Jess also sat up. “We can do this. We’re going to do this.” She was trying to psych herself up and actually began bouncing in the seat. His sister managed to bounce for another five minutes but then slumped back in her seat. The stop and go, bumper-to-bumper traffic was brutal and sapped them of their spirit.
Every time Jess spied a fellow motorist stopping to take a selfie with the dark plume of smoke rising from the woods behind them, she lost it. She scrambled to write down their license plates on her phone under the pretence of reporting them to Briggs once this was all over. It made Kyle chuckle. He was glad that she’d tagged along. It gave them time to chat, and kept his mind from wandering to dark places. The two of them flipped through all of Jake’s radio stations and were surprised to find some classical music mixed in with his “Boots ‘n Hearts” and “No Shoes Radio” type favourites.
Perhaps forty minutes after they’d originally arrived, the pickup had angled through the worst of it. Turning onto Eagle Ridge, Kyle made his way to a Tim’s. The parking lot was packed, but most folks were attempting to go in the opposite direction that they were.
“Oooh, good. I so gotta pee.” Jess perked up and began searching around for a space that would accommodate the massive truck. “You want anything to eat? And a double-double, right?” She was practically out the door before the truck came to a full stop.
“How about you surprise me.” He smiled as he handed her a balled-up twenty. “And get yourself something too, okay? You’ve been amazing today.”
“Aww, you know I’m there no matter what.” His sister grinned as she played with her hair. Barely a few steps from the cab and she heard a familiar ch-chunk sound that caused her to stop in her tracks.
She made eye contact with her brother just as he wheeled out of the parking lot, hit Tower Road, and was gone.
A few seconds later, his phone began to buzz. He picked up and put it on speaker as he continued to drive toward the dark smudge of smoke in the distance.
“What the fucking-fuck Kyle!?! Get the fuck back here!”
“I can’t do that Jess. It’s too dangerous and I love you too much to bring you any further,” he shouted over the engine.
“You… fucker… urgh…” She positively fumed through the phone.
“I’ll be fine. And I love you too, Jess.”
Silence.
“Jess?” he asked as he frowned. He didn’t think that she’d hung up.
“What?” Her voice was flat and icy.
“I realize that this is bad timing.” He struggled not to smile as he spoke, “but could you call Briggs to let me through?”
“…I already texted him about an hour ago. He said he’d have to stop us even if we got up there.”
“Okay, I’ll uh, have a chat with him. Again, I love you.”
“Yeah. Love you too.” She hung up suddenly. It would take a lot to make it up to her, but he hoped that in time she’d see that he couldn’t endanger her or her pups in his scheme to reunite with Jake.
A few more minutes along Tower Road and it became remarkably clear. A few emergency vehicles here and there heading into the wood, but otherwise it was open pavement.
As the plume of black, billowing smoke rose higher and larger, he pulled over to a gravelly shoulder of the road. He swiped through his phone and dialled.
“Sheriff Briggs.” The Alpha was gruff and commanding.
“Hi Briggs.” Kyle’s voice had a notable edge to it.
“Hey Kyle, just got a call from your sister. She’s a whole mess of pissed off.”
“Yeah, I figured that she’d be.” Kyle fought to stay on task – the Alpha was intimidating over the phone even when he wasn’t trying to be.
“Let me cut to the chase. I can’t let anyone past the barricade. Not her, not you, not anyone. I hope you get me.”
“That’s your call, Briggs.” He rubbed his sweaty palms along his jeans. “Look, my sister’s in love with you and you’re clearly a great guy. And I know that you’re going to make a kick-ass dad one day. But I need to get to MacKay Energy Valley.”
“Alright…” The Sheriff listened intently, unsure of what the Omega was playing at.
“So, I’m going to let you know that you should probably get the fuck
out of my way when I drive straight through the barricade. I am not stopping. I am not slowing down. The man I love is walking into that Godforsaken bonfire and I intend to pull him out. Alive.”
“Shit. Jake…he’s…?”
“Yep. I like you, Briggs. You’re a straight shooter. I don’t want to hurt you or your men, and you can arrest me once Jake’s safe if you need to. All I’m asking you is to pull the barricade down. If you don’t, I’ll pull it down for you.”
Kyle hung up. He dropped the phone onto his lap as the three hundred steel horses carrying the pickup truck roared off into the hellish darkness in front of him.
Twenty Eight
Kyle found himself driving along the lonely road out to the MacKay Energy Valley. Normally it would’ve been a breathtaking view of sloping ridges and vistas crowded with soaring white spruce, wild grasses, and crouching jack pines. Now, all of that was enveloped in a thick, choking smoke that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The faint scent of smoke, ash, and burning pine tar seemed to permeate the truck. Visibility began to creep claustrophobically inward, and the Omega found himself slowing the once proud roar of the truck to a crawl.
Scanning around he saw the occasional fluorescent marker at the side of the road. They’d been Sharpied here or there with some kind of scrawl. Best leave it alone, he thought. A few moments later and he saw burn marks upon the road where some flares had been set off. One Fire & Rescue truck was parked beside another, but neither was occupied. A small generator was in the back of one, whereas the other appeared to have several large plastic yellow kegs of water. His pulse began to race as he realized that all of this was remarkably similar to quite a few horror movies that he’d seen lately.
“Fuuuck… last thing that I need are some walkers right about now,” he muttered sarcastically, to keep his spirits up. It unfortunately had the opposite effect. Scanning the shoulder of the road to be sure that he was safe from both flame and the recently deceased, he pulled over and grabbed his phone.
His Prairie Omega Box Set Page 20
