Backfire

by Vanessa Acton

  The smoke was still thick enough to knit a sweater with. Wind whipped against her face and rushed on, chasing the fire. But at least it was quiet now. And she didn’t see any flames near her. This rocky patch of ground didn’t look much different than it had before, actually.

  But beyond it, in every direction she looked, she saw charred trees.

  Then she looked up.

  And saw the helicopter.

  With the last of her strength, Brenna waved frantically at the sky. If her luck hadn’t completely run out yet, the pilot would spot the bright red fabric of her sweater.

  ***

  It turned out to be a rescue chopper, and there was just enough room for it to land in the clearing. Within minutes, Brenna was aboard, with her leg in a splint. “My friends,” she told the medical team. “They’re at Lake Topaz. Or at least I hope they are.”

  The helicopter headed west. Before today, Brenna would’ve thought the noise of the rotors was deafening. But now she knew what deafening noise actually sounded like—and smelled like and tasted like.

  Echoes of the fire still clung to her lungs. The medics had told her that she needed treatment for smoke inhalation, along with the broken leg and the burns on her back. She was just starting to feel the sting of those burns, which the medics said were surprisingly minor.

  As they flew closer to the lake, Brenna closed her eyes. Please be there. Please be alive.

  “I see two figures in the lake,” announced the pilot.

  Brenna opened her eyes and laughed. The laugh turned into a cough, but she didn’t mind.

  17

  Elijah

  The heat just ended—as if someone had flipped a switch. Elijah could suddenly breathe again. His lungs were still barbecued, but cooler air was entering them.

  He raised his head. Sweat trickled down his forehead, into his eyes. He blinked away the sting.

  “Marco?” he croaked.

  “Polo,” said his uncle.

  Elijah groaned. “Seriously, man. You’re embarrassing yourself. And sit up before you crush my spine.” Marco rolled off him, and Elijah raised himself a few inches. “Mrs. Lucas? You okay?”

  “So far, so good,” she said. Her voice was raspy but as calm as ever.

  Elijah looked over at Serafina. The dog raised her head, panting. “How about you, girl?” He stroked one of her ears, and she licked his hand. “Well, that’s a first,” he said with a shaky laugh. “So that’s all it takes for us to bond? If I’d known, I would’ve driven us into a wildfire sooner.”

  They stumbled out of the car, which wasn’t nearly as badly damaged as Elijah had expected. A few seconds ago, he’d been sure that the frame was melting like cake icing. Now, he could see that the tires and the windows were in bad shape, but the body of the vehicle was intact. Still, it clearly wasn’t drivable.

  Everything around them was burned. All the buildings along Rochester Avenue looked trashed. Even the brick foundation of the post office had scorch marks. Elijah wondered how much would be left of Hayden when the fire was finished with it.

  He didn’t let himself think about Marco’s house.

  Marco climbed into the back, dropped the seat, and started retrieving stuff from the trunk. Touching the outside of the trunk didn’t seem wise.

  Elijah was still on the phone with the 9-1-1 dispatcher. “Yes, ma’am, we’ll wait right here for an ambulance . . . We’re all a little wheezy, but otherwise I think we’re okay. Yeah, I agree we should all get checked out for smoke inhalation . . . ”

  He had Serafina’s leash wrapped around the hand that held the phone. With his other hand he gripped Mrs. Lucas’s arm.

  “I’m not about to keel over, you know,” she said.

  “Oh, I know,” he assured her. “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s me. I might pass out at any second.”

  While they waited for the ambulance, Marco called Mrs. Lucas’s daughter to let her know what had happened. When he handed the phone to Mrs. Lucas so she could talk to her daughter, Elijah thought, My mom. I should call my mom . . .

  He would talk to her later, once the ambulance showed up and he could end the call with the 9-1-1 dispatcher. For now, the family he needed most was right here.

  “Bless you,” Mrs. Lucas said to Marco as she returned his phone. Then she looked at Elijah. “And you, young man. I think you saved all our lives.”

  “We’ll call it a team effort,” said Elijah. Serafina breathed a puff of air into his hand. He figured that meant she approved.

  ***

  Ten minutes later, all of them were in an ambulance on their way to the hospital. Mrs. Lucas had bullied the paramedics into letting Serafina ride along. Marco brought Mrs. Lucas’s bags, and Elijah took his backpack and duffel. They left everything else locked in the damaged car, figuring they’d come back for it later.

  Elijah sat next to Marco, holding his duffel bag between his knees. He unzipped it, took out the Manila envelope full of documents, and showed it to Marco. “I found this, by the way. Nice hiding place. Unless we get burgled. Thieves will go straight for the gaming stuff, man.”

  Marco stared blankly at the envelope. After a few seconds Elijah put it away again. He rubbed Serafina’s ears and tried to think of something else to say.

  “So, I figure we can go to the county fairgrounds,” he said. “I mean, after we get checked out. I doubt we’re in bad enough shape to score a room in the ER for the night. And there’s an evacuation center set up at the fairgrounds.”

  “My daughter can give you a ride there, once she gets into town,” offered Mrs. Lucas. “I’d ask you to stay with us at her place, but she barely has enough room to squeeze me in, let alone two strapping young men and a dog. She’d be happy to offer you a lift, though. And she could swing back to your car first so you can get the rest of your things.”

  “That would be great, Mrs. Lucas,” said Elijah.

  “Yeah,” echoed Marco in a quiet, vague voice. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  More silence.

  Marco cleared his throat. Then cleared it again. “Hey, man. Listen. I, uh . . . I’m glad you saved those documents.”

  “Anytime.” Elijah paused. “Well—I hope I never have to do it again. But you know what I mean.”

  “Sure, man. And, uh . . . You did a good job today. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Marco.”

  “Dude, don’t call me that. It’s weird.”

  “I know, right? So—does this mean I’m not grounded anymore?”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  Marco patted Elijah on the shoulder. Not gently, because Marco wasn’t that kind of guy.

  18

  Brenna

  On the way to the hospital, Nicole fell asleep. Brenna couldn’t blame her. This had been a completely exhausting morning.

  Keegan sat beside Brenna, wrapped in a blanket, still damp from the lake. He’d been unusually quiet since boarding the helicopter, but now he spoke up.

  “So, Brenna. I . . . I’m really sorry for the way I acted this weekend. The way I kept acting like I didn’t think you knew what you were talking about. I guess I just . . . I wanted to feel like I could be useful. Like I wasn’t just tagging along, being clueless. I knew you would’ve rather had Elijah there than me. I guess I wanted to prove that I could hold my own.”

  Brenna sighed. “You didn’t have to prove anything to me. And I really wish you hadn’t acted like I had to prove something to you.”

  “I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.” He looked as if he wanted to ask her something else but wasn’t sure how.

  “Well, I appreciate that. And I’m glad we all made it out without worse injuries.”

  She was glad he didn’t ask if they were still friends. She wasn’t sure how she’d answer that. But what mattered right now was that all three of them were okay. If Keegan hadn’t pulled Nicole away from Brenna and sprinted for the lake, they might not have made it. Or if Nicole hadn’t gotten that tree off Brenna�
��s leg—or if Keegan hadn’t packed a mini-shovel—or if Nicole hadn’t salvaged Brenna’s compass. In the end, none of them could’ve survived without the others.

  ***

  Nicole sat with Brenna at the hospital while they waited for their families to arrive.

  “My parents told me all of Hayden got evacuated,” said Nicole. Brenna nodded. Her mom had said the same thing when Brenna had called her. She’d been limited to a short call on an ancient hospital payphone, since her cell phone hadn’t emerged from Nicole’s backpack in working order. Nicole—back to her usual optimistic self—had suggested packing their phones in rice to dry them out. But Brenna suspected the heat had fried them even if the plunge in the lake hadn’t short-circuited them. Of course, the loss of a cell phone wouldn’t seem like much compared to the loss of her whole home. But it was hard to even wrap her mind around what that could mean.

  “We’ll have to stay with my aunt until we know if our place survived,” Nicole went on.

  “I don’t know where we’ll stay,” Brenna murmured, only half focused. “We don’t have any family close by. And all our friends live in Hayden.”

  “You’ll figure something out.”

  “Yeah. My mom didn’t seem too worried about that. She was mostly freaked out that she hadn’t heard from me all morning. And that I almost died in a wildfire.”

  “That does tend to freak parents out. Man, the next time we go camping, I swear I won’t complain at all.”

  Brenna smiled. “You actually want to go camping again after this?”

  “I mean, anything’s got to be easier and more fun than facing a wall of flames. Right?”

  “Probably,” Brenna agreed.

  19

  Elijah

  The county fairgrounds had become a massive campsite. Tents, trailers, and cars clustered together, filling all the available space. No matter where Elijah stood, there wasn’t enough open space for him to stretch out both arms. He wove his way through the pop-up city, holding Serafina’s leash with one hand and his phone with the other. It was almost sunset. Instead of an angry, glowing orange, the light was a soft, natural gold. But Elijah could still smell smoke. He’d probably be smelling it for days.

  “How far from the main entrance are you?” he said into his phone.

  Brenna, who’d hijacked her mom’s phone to call him, answered, “About eight rows back, and five rows from the far south end.”

  “GPS coordinates, please?”

  “Oh, shut up!” She laughed. “I’m standing in front of my mom’s RV.”

  Elijah sidestepped a group of little kids playing tag. He zigzagged between tents, around vehicles. People were crying, laughing, gossiping, passing food around. Serafina trotted beside him—unfazed by everything, as usual.

  Was that Brenna’s mom’s RV, about a hundred feet ahead? Why did all recreational vehicles look so much alike?

  “Are you wearing a blue bandanna?” Elijah asked through the phone.

  “Yep. And I’ve got a glorious white cast on my leg. The crutches might be another giveaway.”

  “I think I see you. I’m waving . . . ”

  “I see you!” Brenna shouted into the phone. Elijah saw her arm shoot into the air. He jogged toward her, Serafina trotting at his heels.

  Seconds later, Brenna dropped her crutches so she could wrap her arms around him. Elijah picked them up for her after a moment. “Since when does Serafina like you?” Brenna demanded, nodding at the dog.

  “Since I saved her from a wildfire, obviously. Are you okay?”

  “Overall, I’m amazingly okay.” She tucked her crutch under her armpit again. “I mean, there’s the broken leg, obviously. And a little shortness of breath, still, from the smoke inhalation, but the doctor gave me meds for that. Oh, and my back and legs are covered in first-degree burns, but those should heal in a week or two if I use the ointment they gave me . . . ”

  Elijah shook his head. “You have a really low bar for ‘okay.’”

  Brenna laughed and shrugged. “Well, it could’ve been so much worse.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Elijah, remembering the unbearable heat of the car.

  “And what about you—are you okay?”

  “Clean bill of health. Marco’s car is trashed, but it already had one foot in the grave anyway. We managed to salvage all the stuff we had in the trunk. Just wish I knew if our house made it.”

  He knew the odds weren’t good. But then again, what were the odds that he and Brenna—and Keegan and Nicole and Mrs. Lucas and even Serafina—would have survived a fire this deadly?

  Brenna nodded and glanced toward the RV. “I don’t think my mom has even processed that we might lose everything. She’s too relieved that I’m in one piece—mostly, at least. But I heard that the fire’s almost fifty percent contained now. It should be fully under control in the next couple days. By then we’ll know how badly our neighborhoods are damaged.”

  Using her crutches, Brenna hopped around to the back of her mom’s RV and perched on the back bumper. Elijah joined her, leaning against the back of the vehicle. Serafina flopped on the grass.

  “I can’t stop thinking about how much it took for Marco to build that house,” said Elijah quietly. “All those years of working and saving. And all the effort and money and time to get it built. I know this kind of thing happens every day. You hear about it happening to other people—on the news and stuff. And those people always say, ‘We can rebuild.’ But—what if we can’t? Rebuilding costs a lot of money. What if we can’t manage it?”

  “You’ll find a way.”

  “See, people always say that too. But what if they only say it because there’s nothing else to say? What if they’re just fooling themselves?”

  “Elijah, we all just survived a raging forest fire. If we can do that, we can do anything. Especially if we all support each other.” Brenna looked down at the cast on her leg. “So no, I can’t guarantee that everything’s going to be okay. I’m not sure of it. But I can still believe it.”

  Elijah smiled. “Yeah. I mean, if I can get this dog on my side, anything’s possible.”

  He looked at the sunset and took a deep, steadying breath. This time the smoke didn’t bother him quite so much.

  About the Author

  Vanessa Acton is a writer and editor based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She enjoys stalking dead people (also known as historical research), drinking too much tea, and taking long walks during her home state’s annual three-week thaw.