“We couldn’t,” Kelton says. And I know he’s right. All we have are bad choices left to us now. Jacqui made her bad choice. Now we have to make ours. I look to the north. The hillside is steep. I have no strength to climb it . . . but I will. Somehow I will.
53) Jacqui
The heat teases my cheeks. It has the power to singe, to sear, to incinerate, but it holds back. Now it just teases. Tickles. It plays with me.
The slope changes. The road now heads downhill, and I keep my legs moving because I know that water is just at the base. The others were too short-sighted to see it; they were looking at the fire, but not through it. It blinded them. And now I’ll be the one to get the first sip. Hell, they’ll be lucky if I don’t swallow the whole reservoir by the time they make it there. If they make it there. I may be the only one, because I was the only one willing to challenge the fire.
I will not look behind me: All that’s there is dead forest and smoke. Now the heat pulses around me. Or it’s just my heartbeat, but it feels like the relentless churning of a living furnace. A god of fire that must be fed.
I trip on a branch and take a nasty fall. The branch is on fire. It has fallen from a tree that’s burning above. The tops of the trees around me are all burning, and through the smoke to my left and right, I see walls of flames surging forward, igniting bark on every trunk. The air is cooler down low, but only slightly. The smoke burns my lungs a little less. I pick myself up and run, but stay as crouched as I can so I’m halfway in the better air.
Now my entire body throbs. The heat is done playing, and although the flames still aren’t on me, that doesn’t matter. I can broil just as quickly as I can burn. So I move faster to beat the pain.
The wind whips in every direction, sparks helixing all around me, and that’s when I hear it—
. . . Jacqui . . . Jacqui . . .
It’s the gust at my back whispering my name, the burning breeze at my cheeks. The same wind I’ve always felt my entire life—the Call of the Void—but now it surges not just before me but all around me with self-satisfied omnipotence.
And for the first time, it actually scares me.
I’ve let the void taunt me and tempt me all my life. I will not let it take me. Finally, with all that is left in me, I will fight back against it!
The flames are now surging across the road, completely blocking my path. Every tree is ablaze—but just beyond the sheet of flames, I see something sparkling—twinkling—in the firelight.
The reservoir!
Salvation beyond a veil of hell.
They call that purgatory. I can accept purgatory if heaven is beyond it.
. . . Jacqui . . .
The pain is beyond imagining now, but still I run. I can’t keep my eyes open—so I clamp them shut, and when I do, I find myself staring directly into the void. I am barreling through white flame and absolute darkness, the nexus between life and death. The void is beginning to take my body, and I know exactly what comes next. It wants my soul.
But it won’t get that without a fight.
I don’t slow down. I don’t accept the pain. I crash through the burning void toward the waters of heaven.
54) Alyssa
The fire chases us uphill. Every time I look back, no matter how far we’ve climbed, the fire is no farther away. But it’s no closer to us either. It’s matching our pace—which means we can’t slow down, not for an instant, because if we do, it will overtake us.
There’s a wind now, but it’s not coming from behind us. It’s blowing against us from the top of the hill.
The fire’s pulling down air, I think. Sucking it in, to feed it.
I immediately get a vision of the beach. How the incoming waves create an undertow, drawing back the water from the shore. We are caught in that undertow now with a massive wave behind us surging forward, and the image is so powerful, and my mind so weakened, I get muddled. The popping sound of boiling sap and the throaty breath of flames blends together into a deep roar that sounds just as ominous as a storm-torn sea, and I think for a moment that I am there at the shore, running from an all-consuming tsunami. It’s only when I look at my brother climbing two paces ahead of me that I remember what we’re doing and where we are. But I wish it were water chasing us. Even saltwater. If I were at the shore now, I would drink it until it killed me. Like any other water-zombie.
When we began up the hill, the three of us were side by side, but Garrett, the last one to have water, has pulled a few yards ahead, and now Kelton has lagged behind.
“When we’re . . . when we’re at . . . at the top,” Kelton wheezes between labored breaths and coughs, “we’ll . . . we’ll turn left . . . cut across to the . . . to the . . .” He can’t find the word. “. . . to the . . .”
“Reservoir,” I finish for him.
“C’mon!” Garrett yells. He’s even farther ahead now, frustrated that we’re not keeping up with him. “We’re almost there.”
But the top of the hill looks like miles and miles to me. I turn to see that Kelton has fallen even farther behind. He leans on a stump now, trying to catch his breath, embers from the fire falling around him like flaming confetti.
“Kelton!”
“Just a . . . just a . . .”
I make my way back to him, halving the distance between me and the fire.
“Just a . . . just a . . . sec.”
It’s so hot here, it feels as if my clothes will ignite. It feels like my dry skin will spontaneously combust.
“Little rest . . . ,” says Kelton. “Just a . . . just a . . .”
“No!” I yell. The mention of the word “rest” makes my knees want to fold. It sounds so, so good. The roar of the waves. Rest. Toes in the cool cool sand. “No!”
I grab Kelton and practically hurl him over the stump.
“I gotta . . . I gotta . . . ,” he mutters.
“You gotta MOVE!” I help him off the ground and start his momentum. He has not come this far, and seen the things he’s seen happen to his family, just to falter in these last moments and die.
And somehow, putting Kelton at the center of my effort helps me overcome my own desire to drop where I stand.
We continue upward, and I realize that this is my burst of energy. The last one I’ll have before there’s nothing left to give. I hope Kelton appreciates that I used it on him.
I can’t see Garrett anymore. He’s far above us, but I hear him calling my name, and I focus in on that . . . until Kelton’s legs give out on him again. He’s not just leaning and heaving to catch his breath this time. He’s on the ground, flat. He can’t even push himself up.
“S . . . safe room,” he says. “Get to . . . get to the safe room.”
He’s delirious, and there’s nothing I can do about that. The thirst has started to shut down his brain. There’s only one thing I can think to do. One thing that might get his lifeless legs moving again.
“I’m not letting you stay here!” I scream at him. “Which means if you don’t get your ass up that hill, I die, too. Is that what you want? You want me to die because of YOU?”
His rheumy eyes meet mine. An ember falls beside him, setting the dry grass on fire. He pushes himself up on all fours. He scrambles forward. It worked! Putting me at the forefront of his thoughts drew out what little energy he had left, just as when I had focused on helping him—and I realize that this is the true core of human nature: When we’ve lost the strength to save ourselves, we somehow find the strength to save each other.
We finally, finally reach the crest of the hill. I find it hard to believe I’m still alive. I don’t feel it. I feel like I died a hundred yards downhill, and now my spirit is trapped here, doomed to haunt this place, reliving the climb, and the thirst, and the flames for all eternity.
Garrett stands on a flat boulder, still out of breath, looking west. I join him. From this high vantage point, we can see the reservoir! It’s maybe only a quarter mile below us! Kelton was right! He was right!
. . . But the fire h
as snuck in, insidious, determined. It now rages at full force between us and the reservoir. How could the water be so close, and us still be unable to reach it?
“North!” I say. “Around it!” The words barely come out. My tongue is a piece of leather in my mouth, my vocal cords brittle paper. We can still head north and get past the fire. Climbing the hill was the hard part—downhill will be easier, won’t it? We can still loop around the fire and double back to the reservoir.
But then I look to Kelton. He’s lying facedown in the dust.
“No!”
I make my way to him. I roll him over. I can’t hear him breathing over the roar of the approaching flames. So I force his eyes open, as if seeing his eyes will mean that he sees mine.
“Kelton! Wake up!”
Finally, he begins mumbling, but it’s not words, it’s just guttural sounds, faint clicks and hisses. His eyes roll into his head, and I know that he’s just a few minutes away from dying. And I know that I can’t stop it. And I know that Garrett and I can’t carry him, no matter how hard we try.
“Alyssa . . . ?”
I turn to Garrett, who has taken a few steps down the other side of the hill. North. The direction we have to go if we want to live. But when I join him there, I see what he sees, and it makes everything as clear as the water we can’t get to.
There isn’t a slope on that side of the hill.
There’s a cliff.
A sheer drop—at least fifty feet. There’s no way down but the way we came. Which means we’re cornered.
Garrett looks at me with such despair, it nearly overwhelms me. I see him begin to sway and waver. His shoulders go a little limp. Whatever energy he had left has been stolen from him by this revelation. I quickly grab him and pull him back from the ledge before he can swoon off the cliff, and I hold him tight.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him.
“No it’s not,” he says weakly. “You know it’s not.”
I do know. But I won’t confess it. Not to him. Instead, I lead him back to the flat boulder. It looks like an altar. A place where our hope was sacrificed. Garrett turns away from me, brings his knees to his chest, pulling himself into a ball. He looks toward the reservoir and the water we almost reached. That’s the image he wants to hold in his mind now. Not his life, not our family. The memory of water.
The sound of the approaching fire is deafening now. The sky above us darkens with smoke, like night falling early.
Suddenly I know what I have to do.
I’ve heard that the worst way to die is by fire. I will not go that way if I don’t have to. And I will not let my brother be burned alive.
So I pull out the gun that has been shoved uncomfortably in my waist ever since Kelton gave it to me. I almost wanted to leave it in the truck. I almost chucked it when we started up the hill, because it was so cumbersome. But something told me not to. Never in my life have I been so horrified, and yet so happy to be holding a loaded gun. I hide it so Garrett doesn’t see, and he lets me put my other arm around him. He leans in to me. He sobs, but no tears come out.
“I want to go home,” Garrett says. “I want it to be last week.”
“So do I,” I tell him. Was it only just a week ago?
Downhill, a burning tree falls with an explosion of embers that sail skyward, over our heads. Seeds to spread the fire elsewhere. I bring the gun to Garrett’s head, but not close enough to touch, because I don’t want him to know.
“I love you, Garrett,” I tell him, and he echoes it back. It’s the thing brothers and sisters never say to each other until they find themselves in a moment where nothing else can possibly be said. Then I grip the trigger, feeling the gun’s weight. But I hesitate . . . and hesitate some more . . . and then Garrett says, in the faintest of whispers:
“Do it, Alyssa.”
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t want to see the gun or me. So I press the muzzle against that space between his ear and his eye, where the hair is short and soft.
“Do it. Please . . .”
I will be strong, if not for me, then for Garrett. I will save him from the flames. And then I will save Kelton. And then I will save myself.
* * *
SNAPSHOT: LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT BOMBARDIER 415
The water bomber glides just meters above the lake. Like a pelican, it swoops down gently, slicing the tips of little wakes until its open bill is fully submerged, scooping nearly a thousand gallons—all within seconds. The pilot and his seabird have made this trip countless times in these last couple of days. He was given direct orders by his tactical supervisor to fill up at the San Gabriel Reservoir and make water drops on the fires between here and Lake Arrowhead, twenty miles east. The blazes that block the path to Big Bear Lake have already claimed countless lives. He can’t do anything about that, but at least with the fires threatening the road to Arrowhead, he can make a difference.
The pilot pitches the nose of the seabird up from the reservoir basin and together they soar. He gapes at the fires surrounding the reservoir, surprised they’ve grown this far. Sometimes when a brushfire grows out of control, fire authorities set a backfire—a controlled burn—that hedges the amount of destruction a wildfire may cause. But this fire doesn’t seem to be one of those, he notes, getting closer. This is the real thing. But he’s only here for the water. They’ll set another battalion to work here. Right now it’s a lower priority. His drop point is much farther east.
Putting out these fires is beginning to feel like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Or at least that’s how he tries to see it—it’s easier that way.
Every time he makes a trip to refill from the reservoir, he has to fly past an overcrowded evacuation center. Each time he sees all of those people there, fenced in and helpless, he’s had half a mind to just drop the entire payload of water on them. But that’s an inefficient use of resources. He can save more lives by dousing fires. So he’s been choosing to fly a little higher above that evac center. High enough that the people look like ants. It’s an attempt to set a backfire to his own empathy—whatever it takes to prevent his conscience from burning him alive.
But now, as he leaves the reservoir, he sees something odd. It looks like there’s someone running through the fire!
The plane had just done a steep climb from the reservoir basin—maybe it’s just his imagination or a head rush from the climb. But just to be sure, the pilot banks left, doubling back to get a better look.
And sure enough, someone is sprinting through the flames.
A girl.
What is she doing out here? What possessed her to challenge a forest fire?
Then his eyes are drawn to the top of a bluff, where he sees others. They’re trapped against the edge of a cliff, the fire burning toward them.
He weighs his options. He reaches deep. This is not his drop zone. His orders are very specific. Yet even though he’s already begun his ascent, he realizes he can’t just let this go. He’s flown too low to jettison his humanity.
* * *
55) Alyssa
My finger is firmly curled on the trigger, when the deafening wail of the flames gives way to a scream. No, not a scream. Something else.
I know that sound.
It grows into an earsplitting mechanical resonance that changes pitch as a shadow passes overhead.
Then suddenly the billowing smoke is shredded by something cold and wet.
It falls upon us in a single massive deluge that only lasts for a couple of seconds, but it’s enough to drench us, to soak the ground, and to wound the fire.
I hurl the gun to the ground. Instantly it has become my enemy. I lick my hands, I lick my arms, I bunch my hair, pull it around and suck on it.
Water!
It tastes of ash, but I don’t care. I swallow. My throat screams in pain, but I swallow again and again.
Garrett is on his knees licking the boulder, catching tiny rivulets that course down its side—and then I see that there are dips
and indentations on the surface of the flat stone. Spots where the water has pooled!
I push my face into one of the shallow basins so hard, I nearly break my nose. I draw the water in. Then I realize there’s something I’ve forgotten. Someone. I tear myself away to look at Kelton. He hasn’t moved. His sneakers are still smoking—the flames had been that close to him—but now the fire has retreated about a dozen feet. White steam now belches forth, blending with the black smoke as the fire licks its wounds.
I dip my hands into one of the indentations in the rock, scooping up water, but I barely get any; the pool is not deep enough. Still, I try to carry what I have to Kelton, but it dribbles through my fingers and is gone by the time I reach him. I can’t bring it to him this way. I must find another way.
When the answer comes, I almost laugh at myself at how simple it is—and yet a week ago, I would never have considered such a thing. The box I lived in was simply too small to think that far out if it.
I go back to the boulder and once again push my face down into the largest pool, sucking in a mouthful of water. But as much as my body wants me to swallow, I don’t. I hold it. And I hurry to Kelton.
I get down on my knees, leaning over him. I pull his mouth open with one hand, and press my lips against his. Then I force the water out, into his mouth, giving him a different kind of resuscitation. I pull my mouth away, push his jaw closed, and wait.
Nothing.
And nothing.
And then a gargle and a cough! Water shoots up out of his mouth like a fountain, but I put my hand over his mouth, and force it closed. Let him gag! Let him choke! But let him swallow!
He writhes weakly, gagging on the water, forcing it out of his lungs, and with nowhere else to go, it pools in his throat again—and I see his Adam’s apple go up and go down. He’s swallowed.
I run back to the boulder, draw in all the rest of the water that’s pooled there, and go back to Kelton again. His eyes are slightly open—he’s faintly aware. Once more I press my mouth to his and force the water out. This time he brings his hand up, gently holding my shoulder. I feel him actively sucking the water from me, and I let him, until I can feel him swallow, then I let him go and lean back to catch my breath.
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