Joe started talking behind her. “Okay team, we have ten minutes exactly from now and then we are out of here.” Harper took a deep breath and turned to him. Joe pushed his sandy hair back from his face and tried to smile at her, but the exhaustion and stress from the last hour was too much, and he simply crossed into the small kitchen space and enveloped her in a hug.
“Thank you, Joe,” whispered Harper. He kissed the top of her head and held her a moment longer before letting go.
Joe dropped down, so he was at Tomas’ eye level. “How are you, little man? You look tired.” The boy nodded as Lukas appeared in the hallway. Lukas said something in rapid Slovak to Tomas, and the little boy nodded again. Harper raised an eyebrow, but Lukas didn’t elaborate in English.
There was no wall between the kitchen and the living room, only the kitchen bench, so Harper had a clear view of Sara sitting on an overstuffed green suede couch a few feet away. Joe moved to sit beside her, and Lukas sat down heavily on a chair opposite, resting his boots up on the coffee table. Tomas sat on the floor with his legs crossed, and Erik dropped next to him, his tail wagging softly.
“Come sit,” said Sara.
“I’m okay here,” replied Harper. “Isn’t this so surreal?” She laughed, but the sound was hollow. Sara pursed her lips and pushed her glasses up with one finger. She glanced at Lukas and Harper could tell she felt uneasy. But Harper was too exhausted to say anything further. She leaned on the yellow laminate counter and kept one eye on her phone. The screen was still black, a small battery symbol showed it was charging.
“Seven minutes,” said Joe.
Silence descended over the group. Harper watched the others curiously. Is small talk appropriate during a pandemic? She felt like laughing again and considered whether this is what it felt like to lose your mind.
Lukas shifted in his seat and re-crossed his ankles. Sara picked up her phone and put it back down again. The silence deepened and Harper noticed the faint ticking of a clock somewhere in the apartment. Finally, Harper asked them, “Does anyone want a drink? I could put the kettle on.”
Joe scrunched up his nose and Harper saw the beginnings of a smile on his face. She’d loved his smile from the moment she met him. The question of what would have happened between them if she hadn’t met Wolf a few nights later had hung over them all summer. Joe was kind, dependable. But Wolf took her breath away. He had an air of dominance, an infectious exuberance.
Think of something else.
“Five minutes,” said Joe, looking at his watch.
Harper checked her phone again, but it still did not have enough power. “Tomas, are you still hungry?”
“Yes,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
Harper began to open draws and cupboards. “Tomas might have trouble walking another two or three kilometers,” she said to the others.
She pulled open a drawer and saw that it contained sharp knives. Acting on instinct, she took one out of the drawer and slid it into the side of her backpack. No one saw her behind the counter. She found a small pantry and pulled out a packet of biscuits, which she opened and passed to Tomas.
“I will carry him,” said Lukas. “I have no pack. I am strong. We will manage.”
Harper looked at his broad arms under the red and black flannelette shirt he wore open over a black singlet. He looked like he could be a lumberjack, or a farmer. “What do you do, Lukas?”
He paused, his eyes focused intently on her. “I am a teacher,” he said. “I teach high school.”
“Oh,” replied Harper, suddenly distracted by her phone. “Hey, my phone has some power. I’m going to check my emails.” Harper opened a web browser and waited for it to load. It took a few moments, but then an unfamiliar red graphic filled her screen. “What the hell….”
“What happened?” asked Sara.
“There’s something on my phone. I can’t open my emails or anything else. None of the apps seem to be working.” She could hear the edge of panic in her voice.
“What does it look like?” asked Joe, moving closer.
“It’s a foreign language. It looks like Slovak.”
“Pass it to me,” said Lukas, also standing. Harper passed her phone to him over the yellow laminate counter. “It is an emergency message,” he said. “It gives details of the quarantine-processing center.”
Harper felt herself deflate. She leaned her head on her hands and stared at the chipped, scratched surface of the kitchen counter. “Sorry guys, this was a waste of time.” Lukas passed her back the phone which she slid into her pocket.
“Well, at least we know that your dad’s information was good,” said Sara. “We’ve got Lukas with us—”
The sound of the alarm was loud and piercing. It was much closer than the previous alarms they’d heard. “That sounds like it’s coming from this building,” shouted Harper over the wail. She grabbed her backpack and ran to the front door, pulling it open. Smoke from the hallway began to pour into the apartment. “There’s a fire!” she called to the others. “We have to get out of here!”
Chapter Eleven
Harper stood at the door with her backpack slung over one shoulder and called urgently to Tomas. They boy was frozen, a stricken expression on his face. “Come on, Tomas! Quickly!”
The others grabbed their phones and bags. The smoke was getting thicker and the alarm continued to wail loudly. Harper coughed, drawing more smoke into her lungs. She bent over double, her screaming lungs seeking fresh air. Her eyes watered and visibility was deteriorating fast.
Joe took one look at Tomas and picked him up. The boy began to yell in terror and Erik barked like a mad thing. For a moment Harper was worried the dog was going to attack Joe, but he calmed and stared up at Tomas, never once taking his eyes off the boy. “I’ve got him,” Joe yelled to Harper.
“Quick,” she choked out. “Get him out of here.” Harper dropped to all fours and waited for the others. Through the haze, she saw Sara crawling toward her. Sara’s short blonde hair was hanging down over her face and her skin was red from the hot smoke and lack of oxygen.
“Keep going,” said Harper to her. “That way,” Harper pointed down the hall toward the front door.
Joe reached her next. He had the boy clutched to his chest with one arm and was making his way slowly on his knees and one hand. Harper reached for the boy as they neared. “I’ll take him,” she said, dissolving into a fit of coughing.
“It’s okay,” said Joe, “Tomas, climb up on my back buddy, and hold on tight.” Harper supported the boy as he swung himself onto Joe’s back. Joe gave Harper a reassuring smile and then coughed violently. “We’ll be okay, Harper. Follow behind me.”
Harper nodded. “Where’s Lukas?”
“I’m sure he’s coming,” replied Joe, as he disappeared through the smoke toward the front door. “Don’t wait for him! Get out of here.”
Harper heard a loud crack and felt a sudden uptick in the heat and intensity of the fire. She looked back into the apartment and realized smoke was now coming from inside. The fire must be spreading through the apartment.
“Lukas!” she called out. She searched the smoke for the man, fighting an intense pull outside. Get the fuck out.
Against all of her instincts, she turned and crawled into the smoke-filled apartment. She could see bright yellow flames from the hallway where they pushed the dead man moments earlier. Where was Lukas?
She kept her mouth low to the ground, greedily inhaling the air beneath the smoke. She thought she heard coughing and crawled toward the green suede couch where she’d seen him last. Finally, she found him. He was on all fours in the middle of the living room, coughing and disoriented in the smoke.
“Lukas, what are you doing? We have to get out now,” gasped out Harper.
“I was looking for a radio, I thought I had time. Then I could not find the front door.”
“Follow me,” she said, coughing up lungfuls of acrid smoke, and dropping lower to the ground. She lay on her stomac
h and army crawled toward the door, Lukas coughing behind her. She got to the doorway and stopped, fighting the overwhelming feeling of panic that was building in her chest.
Beyond the door, the inferno was burning. The entire hallway was filled with heat and flames. Lukas crawled next to her, his carefully clipped beard mere inches from her face. “Keep going,” he said.
“The fire is spreading too quickly. We need another way out.” She covered her mouth and nose with her arm and tried to filter some of the smoke and ash. “Go back, go back. There might be a window.”
Lukas began to shuffle back into the living room, toward the wall that faced the street. Harper could see the toes of his heavy black boots pressing into the gray, worn carpet, propelling him forward.
I’m going to die. I survived the apocalypse to die in a house fire.
But she knew fear. She knew the dark, terrible places a person could go to and survive. She wasn’t going to give up. So she kept inching forward, her eyes on the thick soles of his boots.
They finally reached the far wall and lay face-to-face below the window. Lukas started to say something but coughed before he could get the words out. His face was red and his eyes wide with fright as he struggled to draw a breath.
Harper knew they had to get out now, or they’d suffocate in the smoke. Drawing on her last reserves, she stood up in the thick, hot smoke and smashed her elbow into the pane of glass with all of her might. She felt the glass crack, but it remained intact in the window frame. She drew back her arm, feeling dizzy and disoriented from the smoke and holding her breath, and smashed her elbow into the glass once more.
The cool air from outside wrapped itself around her and there was an immediate upsurge in the intensity of the flames behind her. Over the roar and crackle of the fire, she heard someone yelling at her to duck. She dropped immediately, grateful to be on the ground again within the thin sliver of air between the ground and the choking smoke above. Shards of glass rained down on her, before strong, familiar arms pulled her up and through the window frame.
It was Joe.
He dropped her on the ground and bent through the window once more, pulling Lukas under his arms and dragging him on to the grass lawn. Joe returned for her, hauling her to her feet and to the road, before running back to get Lukas.
The two men stumbled toward her, the apartment block a blazing firestorm behind them. Joe released Lukas next to Harper and then dropped beside them. Sara carried the little boy, the dog trotting at her heels. They watched the fire take over the apartment block in silence. The fire surged upwards, angrily snaking through the air, before jumping to an adjacent tree. The roar consuming the apartment block grew ever louder.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” yelled Joe. “The fire is moving quickly.” He passed Harper a bottle of water and, limb-by-limb, she brought consciousness back to her body. Her throat was raw and parched. Her eyes burned. She could smell smoke and feel the thick layer of ash and grit that covered the surface of her skin.
She took a sip of water and held the liquid in her mouth, swishing it slowly around her teeth before swallowing it; a soothing balm for her painful throat. Then she passed the bottle to Lukas, who took a long gulp. Joe took Harper’s hands and helped her to her feet. He kept hold of her hand as they hurried further down the road away from the fire. Lukas fell in step with them. His face was streaked with black but he grinned at her, showing his white teeth. “Thank you,” he said. “I would have died in there if you had not come back for me.”
“Why were you looking for a radio?” she asked him, her voice raspy, each word difficult.
“If the internet service providers are only showing the emergency message, I thought it might help us to get some news about what is going on.” He shrugged. “It was stupid. I was not thinking.”
“Tomas and I spotted some other fires burning in the city,” said Sara from the other side of Joe. She had the boy on her back. “Why do you suppose all these fires are starting?”
“It could be from something as simple as people dying while cooking dinner. Imagine that, you’re baking something in the oven and the sickness hits. You’re not thinking about turning it off,” said Joe. “Or it could be electrical faults. We’ll never know. There’s been the smell of smoke in the air for a while now.”
“The whole city will be on fire soon,” commented Sara. “And there’s no one left to put it out. We really need to get out of here.”
Harper drew a deep breath. The smell of smoke was strong, the haze swirling around them, reducing the visibility: Sara was right. “We lost our rucksacks with everything in them,” Harper said after a few beats. “I only saved my small backpack.”
“We’ll be at the processing center in an hour or two, we won’t need our bags,” said Joe. His eyes fell on her face and she felt the corners of her mouth curling. His words were sweet relief that washed over her, giving her hope that they may actually get out alive.
Harper looked ahead. There were hundreds of cars as far as she could see. But then she spotted something lying on its side about forty feet away. She tightened her grip on Joe’s hand and he looked at her inquisitively. “What about a vespa?” she asked.
They walked over to the overturned scooter. A young man’s body, his head covered by a helmet, lay sprawled on the road. Joe was by her side and together they hauled the scooter upright. The key was still in the ignition and Joe turned it on. The engine hesitated and then purred to life. “It works. This could help us clear the city quickly. Great idea, Harper. Now we just need to find two more.”
Harper breathed in to call out to the others, but she couldn’t get the words out, dissolving into heaving coughs.
Joe looked at her with concern. “You okay?”
“Yes, I’ll be fine,” she gasped out.
“We’ll get through this,” he whispered, stepping closer to her.
Their bodies were so close that she could feel the surge of energy that always seemed to exist between them. She frowned, stepping back. She didn’t need her life getting any more complicated right now. And the stabbing pain in her chest whenever she thought of Wolf was too intense to be close to Joe right now. He opened his mouth as though to say something to her, then changed his mind and called to the others, “We’ll see if we can find another couple of scooters. Hold on.”
He kept hold of her hand and they walked farther up the road. “Hey, there’s one. Can you ride it back to the others?” It was a pale pink vespa with a white leather seat. The kickstand was up and the owner was lying a few feet away. Her helmet had fallen off and rolled a few feet away as she fell. Joe retrieved it from beside the worn tire of an old sedan and offered it to Harper.
She shook her head and made a face. The thought of wearing a dead girl’s helmet turned her stomach. “No thanks.” She lifted her leg and straddled the scooter, rocked backwards and then forwards off the stand, before starting the engine.
“I’ll follow you soon,” he said, jogging down the road. Harper rode carefully between the cars until she reached the others. They stood as she approached.
“Nice,” said Lukas. “We will be pretty quick on these.”
“What about Erik?” asked Tomas, looking at his dog. The beagle heard his name and barked once, wagging his tail steadily.
Harper sat on the scooter and thought for a moment. “If you ride with me, do you think he’d sit at my feet? We’d have to go very slowly, but I think it could work.”
Tomas looked doubtfully at Erik. “It might work,” he said.
“Let’s try it. Don’t worry, we won’t leave him behind.” The boy breathed a visible sigh of relief at her words.
“Hey, here comes Joe,” said Sara. They heard the hum of an engine as Joe zipped between cars on his way back to them. He stopped at the first scooter and waved.
“I’ll take that one,” said Lukas. He bowed his head and then jogged toward Joe.
Joe waved as he passed Lukas and pulled up next to Sara. He’d found a
n older model silver scooter with a brown leather seat. Harper swung her backpack onto her front and Sara helped Tomas up behind her. Then Sara climbed up behind Joe on the cracked, brown seat. “Go slow,” she said. “Harper’s going to have Erik between her feet.”
“Will you be able to ride?” asked Joe.
Harper gave a thumbs up and then looked down at the tiny hands that gripped her waist. Her heart lurched. “Come on, Erik,” she said to the dog.
He looked doubtfully at the scooter and up at Tomas. Harper heard the boy speaking Slovak and the dog hung his head. Tomas spoke again more forcefully, and the dog put his paws on the footrest. Harper patted his head encouragingly and he sat down between her feet. Harper had to spread her legs wide and rest them on the outer edge of the scooter, but it was manageable.
“Are you okay, Tomas?” she asked over her shoulder.
A small voice said, “Yes. I’m ready.” She squeezed his hand and then started the engine.
They rode through the graveyard of cars and bodies, the only sound the thrum of the three scooter engines and the distant, intermittent wailing of sirens. The air grew clearer the farther they got from the burning apartment block and the city which was gradually succumbing to the flames.
Chapter Twelve
They had been riding for about fifteen minutes, scooting carefully around vehicles and bodies, when the others stopped ahead of her. Harper could see Joe, his lean, broad-shouldered silhouette back-lit by a street lamp. The baseball bat protruded from the top of his backpack. Sara had jumped off the old silver scooter and was leaning against it. Lukas had pulled up next to them and was smoking a cigarette. Behind them, a grassy green slope rose gently between the road and the suburban homes beyond.
Harper stopped a few feet away from them. She could smell the smoke from the fire intermingled with Lukas’ pungent cigarette. She looked over her shoulder and saw the red glow of the burning city. The fire behind them was catching up. She looked back at Joe. “Why d’you guys stop?”
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