Burn Our Houses Down
A Novel
By:
Kelsey D. Garmendia
☣
Lulu
Raleigh, NC USA
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Kelsey D. Garmendia
Third Edition
All rights reserved, including the right of
reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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Designed by Kelsey D. Garmendia and Lulu.com
I would like to dedicate this novel to my best friend,
Brittany Maccarello and my loving husband, James Gegan
Jr.
Brit, without your constant support, I would have been
completely lost. Thank you for believing in me.
And Jimmy, Thank you for putting up with me during the
month of November.
Book One
In Flames
Day Zero
A twig snaps somewhere in the woods. I shoot up from my
sleeping bag and reach out in the darkness.
"Xavier!" I whisper. "Xavier, is that you?"
He grunts across from me in response. I can hear him shift
in his sleeping bag at my feet.
"Is that you?" I call out again.
"For Christ's sake, who else would it be?" he mutters. "Are
you gonna sleep at all tonight?" He moves in his sleeping bag and
becomes silent once more.
I fucking hate nature. I chose to avoid being in it for a
reason when I moved from Pine Bush, New York to Queens. But I
couldn't let down the opportunity to camp out in the mountains
with my best friend, could I? I've never been so masochistic.
I stare at the blob of light in the darkness which I can only
guess is Xavier's back and slowly let my eyes close again. This
was supposed to be the trip where I confessed about my loving
him. I was supposed to go to the mountains with him, be away
from everything back in my hometown and tell him that I haven't
stopped thinking about him since the funeral. Tell him that I didn't
want him to let go after he hugged me in front of my sister's
tombstone. But he let go because they loved each other. They loved
each other, and I loved him.
I guess I should've known better than to plan something
like this, but he's been my best friend even before my sister and
him started dating. I needed him now more than ever.
"Xavier? Are you awake?" I call out.
He rolls over in his sleeping bag, "I am now," he mutters. "What's up?"
"Just restless, I guess."
"Thinking about Cassie?"
Not exactly. "Yeah," I lie. "It's been hard adjusting. I miss
my twin, you know?"
I barely hear Xavier get up before he's wrapping his arms
around my shoulders. "Yeah, I understand," he whispers. "Believe
me, I do."
Before I can stop myself, I'm sobbing into my palms.
Xavier's hand runs gently across my shoulders, his touch sending
goosebumps up my spine. "I know how much it hurts, Hayley. But
we'll all get past it," he whispers into my ear. He takes a sharp
breath inward, and I feel his body shudder. "We will."
Day One
"Hey, get up already!" Xavier yells. He throws his pillow at my face which jerks me awake quicker then his voice. "Come on, I made breakfast," he says before exiting the tent.
I sit up, feeling the pains and aches march their way across my back. The sun burns my pasty skin as I exit the tent.
"Fish," he says. "Caught a couple this morning."
"Please remind me, Xavier. Why didn't you let me bring my air mattress?"
"Cause that's cheating."
"No, it's called being able to stand up straight," I respond cracking my back against a tree.
"False. It's camping cheating," he says. "It's in the camping rule book."
"Bullshit." We stare each other down until his mouths slips into a smile.
"All right, well it was in the Boy Scout's system."
I sit down on a stump across from Xavier and breathe in the smell of pine and burning wood. The birds barely sing in the forest here. I close my eyes and try to hear something, but there’s nothing other than silence. The lack of noise was one of the things I missed after I moved to Queens.
"Trying to listen to the trees?" Xavier whispers.
I open my eyes to see his blue gaze studying me. I laugh and feel heat rise to my cheeks. "Not to the trees, but—just listening."
"I miss this," he says. "The forest, campfires, my best
friend."
I can't stop myself from tensing when he says it. Being his best friend hurts me more than spending the rest of my life sleeping on our tent floor in that sleeping bag.
"Why did you leave?"
I look up at him. His eyebrows are angled downward, but not angrily. He really is wondering why I left after college? Why I went two hundred miles deeper into the pit of New York trying to find its heart? "I—" is all I manage to say. I push my bangs out of my face and mess up my hair trying to relieve the tension inside my skull.
"Cassie always would ask me that," Xavier continues. "And it killed me because I never had an answer."
Oh come on—throwing the Cassie card in there? That’s a low blow. I shake my head and shrug my shoulders. "I needed to be on my own for a while," I say; the bullshit that I could come up with sometimes to make someone believe I was ok.
"Liar," he mutters and pokes at the fish on the makeshift grill.
I bite my lower lip and watch the scales slowly peel off the fish's body.
Smoke Signals: 11:45A.M.
The rocks jut out unevenly in odd directions. "No way am I'm climbing that," I say.
"You're doing it," Xavier laughs. "Besides when we get to the top, I'll give you something."
Xavier turns and begins climbing the wall of boulders. His muscles pull on the wrinkles in his shirt. "Come on, I'll help you on the first one," he says reaching out a hand.
I take a hold of it and push off the ground. I scrape my knees, but manage to claw my way onto the boulder.
"Congratulations, you just scrambled your first rock," Xavier says.
"Very funny," I mutter.
As the rocks get steeper and more difficult to climb, I can feel my legs begin to ache. "Xavier, I don't know how much longer I can take this nature crap," I call out.
His head pokes around a gray boulder and he smiles. "It's good for you," he says. "Trust me."
I continue climbing, mostly cursing under my breath the entire way. I don't look up to see where Xavier is anymore. My knees leave a small amount of blood on the rocks as I make my way up.
I don't want to climb this mountain. I honestly would rather burn my retinas out with a magnifying glass and the sun right now.
"Need some water," Xavier asks holding out the canteen.
"Uh—yeah," I say. "Yeah, that would be great." I toss back the canteen and drink nearly half of it by the time Xavier takes it away.
"Don't drink so fast," he laughs. "You'll get sick."
I smile slightly
and rub the back of my neck with my hand. "Can we just sit for a while and talk?" I ask.
He nods his head and swings his backpack off his shoulders. "Rock scrambling a little too much for you?"
"Nature is a little too much for me," I laugh.
My words start stumbling before they're past my lips. How do you explain to your best friend—your dead sister’s ex-boyfriend—that you love him? That when he chose to date Cassie and skip past you, it tore your insides from your gut? Enough so, that you moved to the one place where it would be the hardest to find you? The hardest to search for you in a city that millions of people file through each day?
“I know you’ve wanted answers, for a long time. I don’t have any easy way to say this, but I lo—”
“Do you see that?” Xavier asks standing slowly.
“See what?” I look out into the ocean of trees and see nothing but green. “See what?” I ask again.
“Here, stand up,” Xavier says pulling me to my feet. “Look over that way, there’s smoke.”
A dark thick cloud floats heavily on the tree tops off to our right. It mushrooms out, like those photographs and movies you see from nuclear bomb test sites.
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
Xavier claws through his backpack and pulls out a handheld radio.
“Do you think that’ll even work up here?” I ask. “The thing looks ancient.”
“I bought it a while ago, but it’s the best radio I own,” he says. He clicks it on and after a few minutes of static, a recorded message begins playing.
“Wildfire in Ulster County has spread throughout the mountains. We urge all people in the vicinity to vacate the area as quickly and safely as possible. We are setting up an evacuation route along Route 299 to I87. Counties affected are as follows: Orange, Ulster—” Xavier clicks off the radio and shoves it into his backpack.
“Come on,” he says pulling me to my feet. “We need to get moving.”
“How are we gonna get down? There’s no way we could climb. We’d fall.”
“I know. We gotta hike the rest of the way up and follow the trail back down the other side of the mountain.”
“Great,” I say.
Falling: 12:57P.M.
I claw my way up the rocks, my fingernails pulling uncomfortably from their nail beds. My heart pounds against my ribcage. I see Xavier’s feet disappear over the top of the rock mass.
“Hayley, grab my hand,” he calls over the ledge. With his help, I steady my legs on the top of the ‘Gunks. “Oh my god,” he whispers.
I look over the treetops and follow the mushroom-shaped cloud across miles of the forest. I look over to where the small town of New Paltz lays. I can see an eighteen-wheeler on its side blocking the only route that the radio said was safe. Tiny specs move slowly along the winding country roads surrounding the Wallkill River.
“Jesus Christ,” I whisper. My breathing quickens. “I used to write down by that bridge. I walked along that river. What the hell is going on, Xavier!”
“I-I-I don’t know,” he says. “Let’s go. We gotta get out of these mountains. We’re not safe here.”
I nod my head and run towards the trail. The ground is bone dry; the drought that hit this summer took its toll on everything. I move quickly through the branches and down deeper into the rich green sea of trees. I hear a tree crunch and crumble somewhere in the woods and lose my footing.
I scratch at the ground reaching for anything to hold on to. I can feel a scream trying to escape my lungs but I can’t force it past the dust gathering in my throat. I strangle a tree root and stop myself.
“Xavier!” I cough out.
“Hayley!” I hear his feet sliding on the dirt.
I look over my shoulder and can only see the dark green of the pine trees—no ground in sight. “Get me up! Get me up, get me up, get me up!” I scream gripping the tree root tighter.
“Let go of the root, Hayley!” Xavier yells. I look up and can see the fear migrating from his eyes to the taught muscles in his neck.
I close my eyes and let go.
Saved: 1:00P.M.
The scream doesn’t seep from my vocal cords. I feel Xavier’s hands grip my wrists tightly. He grunts as he pulls me over the cliff’s edge. We both lay on our backs breathing heavy.
“Don’t run ahead of me ever again,” he says in between breaths.
I nod my head.
“Now, let’s go,” he says pushing himself up and then, pulling me to my feet. “I’ll take the lead this time.”
I nod and follow him. The smell of smoke begins to fill my nostrils. I wonder how close that fire is to us. Sweat rolls down from my shoulders to my lower back. My legs ache and are covered in dried blood from my fall.
“Do you think anyone is going to be able to put that out?” I whisper as we continue our way down the mountain.
“I don’t know,” he responds. I hear trees crumbling and falling somewhere in the thick green.
“There wasn’t any sign of fire at all this morning,” I continue. “It’s spreading so fast. I just don’t get it.” I can’t tell if I’m talking to him or talking to myself anymore.
The sky was crystal clear this morning, and I would have seen the smoke then. Something was off about this. “There weren’t any warnings on the radio this morning when you checked, right?” I ask.
“No,” he responds. I can tell he’s probably combing through his own thoughts as well. A fire that big wouldn’t spread that fast—unless no one was tending to it.
I recall the smoke I had seen. It stretched for miles. I could see the tips of flames making the air dance and warp from their heat. That fire had to have been set and something must have happened to the fire department. How else could it spread so quickly?
But that’s a ridiculous thought. These are the ‘Gunks—the Mohonk Preserve is here. No one in their right minds would try to burn this place. It was what made this area the way it was. It’s what drew me to New Paltz—well, that and Xavier.
“Water?” Xavier asks holding out his Army Surplus canteen. I take it and nod at the same time. My mouth feels like sandpaper. I drink the water in careful strategic sips. It’s ice cold against the dryness of my tongue. I hand the canteen back over and Xavier takes a long swig of it.
I follow the canteen down his arms seeing his veins pulse rapidly with his heartbeat. Blood seeps from cuts and scrapes along the entirety of his skin. They’re probably from running through the tree branches.
My hands start to shake, my heart pings inside my chest; the aftereffects of almost falling from the cliff I guess. I should be used to the idea of Xavier saving my life—this isn’t the first time he has. Granted, I wasn’t holding on to a tree root for dear life the last time. I can feel my breaths coming quicker now.
My chest is starting to hurt. I grab hold of a rock jutting out on my right and claw at my sternum. I look at Xavier and feel my heart beat even harder.
“Xavier,” I say. He looks in my direction and raises an eyebrow. “I think—I’m—!”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Xavier says putting away his container. “Jesus, your heart is practically purring in your chest. Are you ok?”
“I don’t know,” I respond. “Is this what a heart attack feels like?”
“More like your adrenaline winding down,” he answers. “Come on, I’ll help you the rest of the way down.” Xavier throws my limp arm over his shoulders and pulls me down the trail. By the time we reach the bottom, the smoke has filtered its way through the trees.
“It looks like it’s nighttime,” I whisper looking over my shoulder.
We reach Route 299 and walk alongside the sunflowers that line the road. Ahead of us, the twisted metal from the car wreck we spotted on the mountain top sends heat waves billowing towards us.
I feel sick to my stomach.
The Scream
The crash is much worse than it seemed from the top of the ‘Gunks. We inch closer to
it but the heat is just too much.
“Do you think anyone was in there?” I whisper to Xavier.
His grip tightens on my wrist. “Don’t think about that,” he responds. I swallow roughly.
My mind flashes in an instant back to the night my sister died. It was pitch black out on Drexel—it always was. With nothing but horse farms and cornstalks for miles, there was no need for streetlights. I didn’t wake up until I saw an orange-red tint bleed into my vision. I opened my eyes to a light in my face. I was upside down. Everything in my vision seemed blended together, like that painting The Scream, but so real it made my chest hurt.
I looked around trying to understand what the man with the light was saying but all I could make out was a gurgling noise. I looked to my left and saw my sister. I reached out to her and finally my vision focused. Her body was limp and halfway out the windshield, a pool of deep red surrounded her head. Then, nothing.
After that was just blackness until I woke up in the hospital room three weeks later. My parents were sitting at my bedside when I finally came to. All my mother could do was cry when I asked about Cassie.
“Hayley?” Xavier asks. His voice is tense.
“What?” I respond. I try to keep my voice steady, but it comes out as a whimper.
“Are you still with me?” he asks turning my head towards him.
“I must have hit my head on my fall or something.” I didn’t have the strength to come up with a better lie.
“We’ll rest once we get into town,” he says, strengthening his grip on my wrist. We walk around the accident as far away from the heat as possible. The twisted metal reminds me of that damn painting. I close my eyes and see nothing but blood. “Hey, come on. Everything’s going to be all right,” Xavier whispers squeezing my wrist.
I nod, but don’t really agree with him.
Burn Our Houses Down [Book One] Page 1
