by A. R. Shaw
Taking the glass away from her mouth, Dane said, “Why do you assume that? Do you somehow think girls need to girl talk after they’ve been assaulted? She’s not my job. She can handle herself. Why don’t you talk to her?”
“Ok…ay,” Matthew said nodding his head. “I just thought…I mean, you seemed concerned when you got up in there.” He pointed toward the door.
“Don’t mistake my thirst for caring, Matthew. Rebecca’s on her own. We all are,” Dane said and took a large gulp of her water, ignoring him as she looked at her reflection in the dark window over the sink.
He walked away after that, retreating back into the safe space of the living room. She noticed that much through the reflection in the kitchen window as she drank down the alcoholic liquid. The reconstituted alcohol having already seeped into her bloodstream, it began its blissful numbing affects, or so she hoped, before the triggers of the day had the torment of the past flooding in.
6
Ed
Ed’s black watch hung down on his wrist loosely, like a noose. He was attached to it or it to him nearly all the time and when it was not warming the same spot on his skin, it was nearby…never more than a few inches’ distance.
On the bus ride home along Highway 77, Ed stood, holding onto a chrome bar, having offered up his seat earlier to an elderly man, humped over as if he were a retired Atlas himself. The wrist watch buzzed against Ed’s skin. But that’s not what he’d noticed at first. Everyone on the bus had their heads down suddenly, also scanning their attachments. His notification came a millisecond later, it seemed.
There were murmurs then, but he wasn’t paying attention; he was squinting to read the alert notification on the tiny screen atop his wrist.
BRITISH COLUMBIA BOMBS ALBERTA’S OIL RESERVES
That’s all he read when a nearby passenger, wearing a thin red t-shirt stretched tightly over his bulging biceps, stood and yelled, “What in the actual fuck!”
It was a rhetorical question, Ed assumed when he quickly looked up at the man, as did all the other passengers. Ed looked from side to side, presuming no one else was going to answer what the actual fuck was, either. The angry man was quite a bit bigger than his own size, so if he lost it, there was nothing Ed could do to defend himself—or anyone else, for that matter.
Shaking his head back and forth, the very large passenger said, “I don’t know what the hell’s happening to this world. We’re all at each other’s throats. Now we’re bombing each other?”
Ed threw his attention back to his watch but under his breath Ed whispered, too quietly for the angry passenger to hear, “Sit down, bro.”
The large upset man did sit down, just as all their wrist devices buzzed again. This time the headline was: COORDINATED ATTACKS ON NORTH AMERICAN OIL RESERVES; ENVIRONMENTALISTS CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY
Ed widened his eyes and moved his position to the other side of the chrome bar, even though it was a wholly inadequate barrier as the angry man shot up like a rocket and launched into a cussing tirade like Ed had never heard before.
He was trying to decide if he should get off at the next stop and just walk the rest of the way home to avoid a melee or ride it out when suddenly that choice was taken away from him and everyone else on board the bus by the sound of an explosion.
Moments later, Ed’s black wristwatch, having had the band seared off, was freed of its host, the screen cracked, laid bare on the pavement of Highway 77, better known as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway in North Canton, Ohio.
7
Dane
It happened again. Dane knew it was only a matter of time. Men like Cal Weston had a piece missing somewhere in their brains. When something was denied to them, they only wanted it more and would stop at nothing to get it. If you fail at first, try and try again… That was generally a good thing in war, science, or engineering…but as a sexual predator, that was a very bad thing. Especially if the other human being wanted nothing whatsoever to do with that determination. Rebecca said ‘no,’ and she’d meant it. There was no playing around there. Dane could tell the difference. Some women played the game. It was a natural part of the give and take of romance, but not this time. And Cal was having a very hard time taking that no for an answer.
Luckily, his efforts were thwarted by the job. They’d dropped into Idaho’s Kootenai County forest, where a fire blazed out of control along the upper ridges of Coeur d’Alene Lake. Residents were being rescued from remote areas and evacuated over the state line into Spokane, Washington. All this time she and Rebecca were together cutting a line side by side with the others, wailing their Pulaski tools up over their heads and back down again. Digging fire line trenches was backbreaking work, even with the added adrenaline of a coming blaze.
During a quick water break, Rebecca washed some of the grit from her face with a stream from her water bottle and said, “Dane, what am I going to do about Cal? Should I file a complaint?” Her pale freckled skin seemed even more pallid with the stress and frustration she was clearly going through over Cal’s unwanted advances.
Dane glanced at her quickly. “Looking like a scared rabbit’s not going to help you. Has complaining ever worked for anyone in the past? Even once? Has a grievance ever stopped harassment or an attack…ever?”
“No, but that’s what they tell you to do. Do you really think he’s capable of attacking me?”
“I don’t know what he’s capable of. Filing a complaint seems to me nothing more than failed words on a paper. Like a promise, made to be broken. Means nothing. Especially when your goal is to make him stop his actions. That requires distance or deterrents.”
“I just want him to stop. I hate living like this, always looking over my shoulder.”
“Keep it up,” Tuck yelled to pull greater strength from their momentum. Rebecca picked up her axe again, and Dane swung hers up and plunged hard against the earth…this time with more strength than before. Lift, drag up, swing overhead and plunge down again a fraction harder than the last time. Sweat was dripping into her eyes now, having seeped past the bandana; on the next lift of the axe, her vision caught sparks too close, too nearby…everything slowed down then as what sounded like a freight train rushed nearer. Someone tugged her arm to pull her away, but her sight was fixed on Tuck’s silhouette against an inferno and tree lit like a Roman candle cascading down upon him.
“Run!”
It was Matthew’s deep, commanding voice she heard. He’d shoved her backward, away from the flames, but when she stood up, she instead ran to Tuck as the others retreated. A thrumming in her head pushed her on. When she reached where Tuck lay, the tree had him pinned facedown against the hard ground along the backs of his legs.
He was unconscious; she didn’t know and didn’t check to see if he was alive or dead—there was no time. The trunk lay across the backs of his knees, pressing them into the ground, and already his fire-resistant pants were ablaze against his calves. Dane leapt over the trunk and smothered out the flames as quickly as she could and then checked for clearance.
“What the hell are you doing?” Matthew yelled.
“Get out of here, Matt!” she said as she climbed back over the other side of the fallen tree. Matthew grabbed her again and yanked her away as another burning tree began its descent.
“Stop it. We can save him.”
“The wind has changed, you dumbass. He’s dead. We have to go.”
She jerked away from him, grabbed Tuck by the shoulders and pulled.
He barely moved.
“Dane, he’s gone.”
“I’m not going. You leave.” She turned her back to Matthew then, and grabbed hold of Tuck again, but this time, Matthew lunged forward, and at first, she thought he was going wrench her free of him but instead he used his axe to dig beside Tuck’s legs and as she pulled, Matthew worked beneath the log to free his limbs. A half-second later and between the two of them, they managed to free Tuck of his death trap.
With his dead weight between t
hem, they turned in haste to flee the inferno when another tree fell from a higher slope and began careening into their direction, blocking their escape.
“Come on,” Matthew yelled and instead they headed down the steep incline toward the water’s edge.
Matthew stopped suddenly and took Tuck’s weight in a fireman’s carry, so that Dane could clear the path as they carefully traversed their way down. Many of the spindly treetops were on fire and dropped along their path, suddenly pushing them this way or that. Once they finally came to the lake shore, Dane looked up from where they came. She often thought of fire as a thing of beauty but this time, it held a primal fear, shaking her to her soul.
“Now what?” she said, looking over the black lake. Such a dark contrast to the light of the flames.
“There’s a pier that way, a boat,” Matthew jutted out his chin. He was losing strength. Tuck was a large man and they’d come a long way already.
“I’ll go,” she said, taking off her gear quickly.
“No, Dane. We stay together. We can float him. Come back for our gear later.”
Helping him lower Tuck to the ground, Dane immediately shoved her fingers into his neck under his jawline to check him for a pulse. “He’s alive.”
“Is he breathing?” Matthew said in doubt and checked to see for himself if he was taking in air. “He’s a stubborn old bastard.”
Already the flames inched down the spindly trees, their tops ablaze on fire at random and sliding their way as gravity beckoned them. They had to get out of there now.
“We’ve gotta move,” Matthew said, shedding his gear and clothes quickly.
Acting fast, Dane quickly flung off her heavy boots, unlatched her belt and let the heavy pants slide off her narrow hips easily as she unhooked her fire-retardant jacket. Standing in only her tank top and panties, she quickly stripped the boots off Tuck’s feet, and then she and Matthew dragged him into the cool lake water. They each held Tuck under an arm to keep his head above water and buddy-swam with him toward the boat dock thirty yards to the right of the shoreline.
Neither spoke as they swam—it was too hard to as it was—but if they had, Dane would have remarked how it seemed they were swimming in an oasis of hell itself. With blazing fires all around them in a bowl, there seemed no escape.
Matthew must have noticed her attention on the flames because he yelled, “The pier, Dane. Keep your eyes on the pier.”
He was mistaking her for a girl that would freak out when faced with her own death. But she wasn’t afraid; she found the flames fascinating as hell. Dangerous but fascinating.
8
Kitty
Kitty Aldama and her partner Eleanor were the first to arrive on scene over thirty minutes after the explosion occurred. It wasn’t their fault for the late arrival; they’d already attended to the five other vehicles behind the bus. They weaved their way through the wreckage and triaged those they’d come across. Most of the victims were fatalities.
There were moans and Kitty stopped suddenly to detect the direction when her boot crunched on something like glass against the hot asphalt. She looked down and saw the partial watch beneath the lugged tread, then pivoted on her heel to avoid stepping there as she gazed through the smoky horizon.
“Over here!” Eleanor yelled from the right, where a city bus lay on its side. Bodies were everywhere. Charred parts of bodies where everywhere, too. The humidity and heat didn’t help the unmistakable aroma of cooking flesh, either.
Kitty ran with her medical case over to Eleanor, who was bent over a man who’d been thrown from the bus. He moaned and trembled in pain. Right away, Kitty could tell he was holding in the screams.
Eleanor took out blunt scissors from her case and at the hem end of his thin red t-shirt, she cut a notch and ripped the material the rest of the way open to the neck as Kitty opened her med kit and began pulling out thick gauze and compression bandages, handing Eleanor the things she needed.
In the meantime, Kitty looked into the patient’s eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Ed,” he said, stammering.
“Hi Ed. No, no. Look at me; don’t look down.”
“There’s a lot of blood,” Ed said.
“I know. It’s not that bad. Eleanor and I will take care of you. Don’t look at the blood. Tell me…what do you do for a living?”
“I…I can’t. I um, I work at the plastics factory across from the airport. What happened? Was it an accident? Where’s the blood coming from?” Ed yelled and tried to lift his head so he could see down his chest.
Kitty pushed his shoulders back down on the hot asphalt. “We’re not sure yet, but you’re going to be fine. It looks like you were thrown from the bus. You have a shrapnel wound to your side. Eleanor is putting pressure on the wound until we get someone over here to transport you to the hospital. No, don’t try to look; just relax as much as you can and stay calm, Ed,” she said in a soothing but louder voice, trying in vain to keep her own emotions in check.
Eleanor shot her a look of doubt as she radioed their location, and Kitty didn’t want Ed to overhear her words.
“I think I…might pass out,” Ed said.
“No! Ed, look at me. Look at me,” Kitty said, holding onto the sides of Ed’s pale face with her bloodstained gloved hands. He hadn’t shaven that day and she felt his rough whiskers through the thin latex along her palm.
His eyes met hers for a short moment in time, lingered there a second with a confused expression, and then they moved above her hairline and then beyond her all together.
It was too late. Moments later, when there was no pulse left in Ed, after they’d shocked his heart and gave up on lifesaving methods, Kitty stood over the dead man lying in his own blood with a long chrome pole wedged up underneath his ribcage.
“Come on,” Eleanor said in a defeated tone, nudging Kitty by the back of the elbow.
Kitty and Eleanor discarded their soiled gloves and moved on to the next victim of the explosion and then on to the next after that. And after that, so many more she’d lost count. A few of them lived but most of them died. The attack was the worst she’d seen yet and later that night Kitty wept in exhaustion when she finally made it to bed, hoping sleep would come and the dead stayed at bay.
9
Dane
“Okay, I’ll hold him. You up first,” Matthew huffed, out of breath.
Dane helped Matthew get a better grip on Tuck before she let him go and then hoisted herself up and onto the boat dock, dripping and out of breath.
“Okay,” she said and knelt down to get a good grasp of the wet, unconscious man as she and Matthew heaved his weight up onto the deck.
After Matthew pulled himself up as well, he said, “I can’t believe he’s actually alive.”
“Won’t be for long if we don’t get out in the middle of the lake—look,” Dane said, pointing.
“Dammit,” Matthew said, seeing how the flames already engulfed a nearby old two-story log cabin up a short hill and rushed up the nearby pines, which were falling down with the force of gravity, shooting up sparks and spreading as if fire itself were reaching its gnarly hand for them. They were in the center of an inferno and one sudden wind change from death. It was only a matter of time before one of the larger timbers would hit the pier. They needed to get in the boat and head farther away from the shoreline.
With their eyes burning from the smoke, Matthew dragged Tuck as Dane rushed around to the side of the boat, unanchored the ropes from the cleats and quickly pulled the cover away, yanking the snaps free.
“Pull the boat to the side—hurry,” Matthew said.
He didn’t need to tell her; she heard for herself the fire approaching with an audible roar from the dry wind increasing. Dane hauled the edge of the boat toward the dockside and Matthew stepped in and towed Tuck over the edge, laying him down on the deck as Dane stepped inside as well.
“Of course, there’re no keys,” Matthew said as he rummaged through the various cupboards
for an oar or two.
Dane lifted the backseat cushion and within the dark cavern beneath she found two oars, though for the size of the boat, she wished they were keys instead.
“Here,” she said, tossing him one of the paddles, and they used the splayed tip on each side to push the boat away from the slip. Once out from the boat’s parking spot, Matthew said, “Look.” When she did, she saw the approaching embers from the flames already taking the canvas awning and the beginning of the pier when another tree whooshed to the ground nearby. Then Dane looked back at where they’d started from, finding it burned over already. They would have died, burned alive, or been forced to swim out into the water and drowned at the very least had they stayed there waiting for rescue. Sometimes life gives you little outs and you’re lucky if you recognize them as the gifts they are and damned if you don’t.
Matthew plunged his oar into the shallow water and pushed with all his weight to turn the boat out into the open lake. Once the momentum turned, Dane pushed them farther away from the dock and then they both rowed, each standing on opposite sides of the boat. Yet they still felt the heat of the flames from the carrying wind and when they both looked back again, it was as if the fire greedily reached again for them in a vain effort to quench its thirst. The dry wind kept up a constant gust, injecting fuel to the menace.
Without a word, they looked to one another and continued rowing, as if they had witnessed something phenomenal no one would ever believe had they explained. It was best left unsaid.
Fifty yards farther into the middle of the lake they finally stopped. More than a few boats were in the water, with a few survivors among them. Either they were residents who did not evacuate when ordered or they were, like themselves, fugitives from the flames.
